A Friend For A Reason

One of my least favorite sayings in the English language is “Everything happens for a reason…” which to my way of thinking is an expression of privilege at its most thoughtless. If you avoid a fatal car wreck because your yoga class was canceled that was blind luck in my rather austere world view, but if everything happens for a reason you’ve got some explaining to do, to a mother watching her child starve in Gaza or South Sudan or in far distant Burma. No reason I can think of justifies such misery helped along by abolishing USAid. Nevertheless on a more cheerful note there is a reason why we are stuck in Uruguay and the reason is not one more disaster falling unbidden upon Team Lost.

We are back at one of our preferred camp spots overlooking the River Plate, a wild and windy place as yet another cold front blows up the estuary off the South Atlantic Ocean.

We wandered around a bit checking out the town campsite closed for the season.

It seemed rather depressing so we took off to spend a night on the cliff tops. 

Rusty was heading to the beach when he spotted a big white dog running on the sand. He turned around, the prudent older dog. 

I didn’t see the dog until after I had spotted the solitary person on the empty winter beach, but Rusty, supposedly developing glaucoma was well ahead of me and I had my glasses on. We returned to our cliff top estate. 

The awful weather has impaired our solar panels from doing their job but a 90 minute drive and some mild solar assistance ( up to 15 amps under bright grey skies) we got the batteries up to 65 percent (300 lithium amps) to see us through the night. Layne got busy looking for flights, I walked the pest. 

Layne got a call from a friend in California, a friend from a group of defense lawyers from forty years ago. She has a remarkable ability to stay in touch, with old friends or new friends met on the road in South America. The call intimated one of their number in Santa Cruz is going through a rough patch. It’s part of the aging process, spouses losing mobility and needing nursing, the body slowing down needing more time, fears ballooning irrationally perhaps but causing real anxiety. Layne had been voted  the best friend to help and she answered the call. 

It’s a matter of finding tickets and figuring out a route and spending two weeks in California. It’s the right thing to do of course but Rusty and I have another stationary period to deal with. 

Except my plan this time is to drive around Uruguay while Layne is gone. I’m thinking about seeking out free camps and visiting campgrounds to use the facilities suffered a few days off the grid. I can’t stand the thought of two more weeks sitting still in a campground. School pickup :

Highway 1 to Montevideo. 

More rain promised all week. 

“Put your cap on” police check ahead. 

Not really, as the substation is abandoned. Cops don’t seem interested in us, even the ones at mobile check points. 

Layne is looking to get a flight Monday from Buenos Aires as flights are cheaper than from Montevideo so she’ll incorporate a ferry ride across the River Plate then take an Uber to the airport. I’ll be driving Rusty up the coast.

He takes things as they come. But I’ll tell you he is coming indoors a lot more than usual this week. The weather is too much even for him and he loves being outside. So much for Spring. 

I keep telling myself at least I’ll be driving, looking for places to park and so forth. I am ready to go north but here we are.  

The heater is working nicely and it’s such a luxury to sit in warmth. The engine is still leaking coolant but not badly and so far it’s not getting worse so we can drive which is a very good thing. It’s been a hard year since we decided to drive to the Guyanas and I’m ready for it to be over and put all these modifications and repairs  and flights behind us. But of course everything happens for a reason. Doesn’t it?