“american upbeat” roadblocks

Highway 64 in New Mexico, just another long and winding road. I was looking forward to moving again, for a week I’d been camped out a little east of Taos. I was tired, but looking ahead to the next leg of this journey. On the other side of the fence was George, who had been driving for days, and feeling a little beat up. We spent the morning hiking down into the gorge with a few guys from my workshop. What a workout, I don’t know how deep, but strait down a treacherous trail. The idea was to give George a little time to stretch out after days in the car. Not everyone made it to the bottom, they were the lucky ones, those who only had a half a hike out. It was a celebration crawling out of that hole. We got back to my camp, George had checked out of his room, and we were packing me up, and going over our route. We figured we could make it to Cortez by nightfall, check in somewhere, then the next morning, head south to Chinle. We got under the hood of the Delta Force, I already had gone through this drill with my truck, we were soon to be off. We get out of town, and had been driving an hour or so, George leading the way, when in the distance, we don,t know what we see. As we get closer, it looks like a bunch of men hanging out in the middle of the highway. A little closer we see what looks to be two guys from every Agency you could think of. There was almost no traffic on this road, hard to figure out what they were up to. On guard we had Locals, we had State, we had Federal. Later I would learn from my trip to Russia, that in situations like this, TURN. George was first. We both had rolled our windows down, our cars were smelling sorta fresh, but we had some concerns over what went down with the Ranger while I was breaking camp. Our plans were to be off alone back packing, and we were well provisioned. We had been taking a few minutes to relax before rolling out. We Were side by side, sitting at the camp site table, when from behind us, the Ranger pops out from the bush. Remember, I said we were relaxing, and we had all of our relaxation aids spread out on the table. We felt like idiots, not sitting face to face, we knew better. The Ranger had popped out about 15 yards away. George, in an instant, spread the map out across the table, called the Ranger over, and started asking about directions. Now this guy knew there was something up, under the map, but he didn’t know what. He had come from behind, and our backs had blocked his view. He played along, spending 15 or 20 minutes over the map, then out of nowhere George says, OK, I got it. He grabs the map up off the table, and I don’t know who eyes got bigger, mine or the Rangers. There was nothing there. I was confused, I couldn’t figure it out. This Ranger knew he had something here, and was content to wait us out. He was left just scratching his head. We spent another half hour or so speaking with this guy, him asking friendly questions of us, about us. He had known about this workshop, as his neighbor John, was one of the instructors. It seemed as we crossed this bridge, he loosened up. George and I got into our cars and drove off, the Ranger waving good bye. Now we didn’t know whether he had called ahead. And if all this was a result of that call. Sure seemed like a lot of manpower, all just to throw a curve to a couple of guys, out to spend a few weeks off to themselves. They spent a couple minutes with George then waved him on. When it was my turn, I was told to pull off to the side. All my paper was in sorta good order. My license and registration was still New Mexico Land of Enchantment, Land of Misfits, Outlaws, and Under Achievers. I felt I was safe. I had been back living in California, but believed New Mexico DMV, a little easier to deal with. What I didn’t’ have with me was proof of insurance. I was amazed the amount of concern this caused among all of the Agencies assembled out here in this desert. I know I sat in my truck, pulled off to the side of the road, well over an hour. I watched these guys move from huddle to huddle, every now and then coming over to chit chat a little with me. Not that they had anything else to do, I don’t think a half dozen cars were passed through as I baked in that dry desert heat. All of the sudden there was clarity among the forces, Out of the blue I’m given a ticket for no proof of insurance, I sign it and I drive away. We were, George and I, never able to figure out what they were up to, however relieved it was not about disrupting our plans. About 30 miles up the road I catch back up with George. He had pulled over, dispersed some of our provisions by now, and was about to head back, and check up on me. A town was just up the way a little, we figured we get some food, and re adjust, as we now were way behind, not able to reach Cortez at a decent hour. Not yet a half a day into this, and we already have adventure. We decided to head for a camp site a little above Pagosa Springs. We figure we’d get there a little before dusk, giving us a bit of time for a short hike, after making camp. As we get to the campground we pass some “fire wood”for five bucks a bundle. This is great, this will save some time, so we stop, we pick up a couple. We’re able to drive right up to the site, set up, unload, and were off in these high mountains, hiking a short loop trail, a little easier a hike, than our hike down into the Rio Grande Gorge. The afternoon mountain storms had moved through earlier, but lightning still flashed across the peaks off in the distance. What was fascinating, were the lightning strikes on these trees. In this dense highland forest, you saw it had burned hot at the point where it was zapped, but didn’t spread to anything around it. We learned a little more about this as we started to build our campfire with the wood we bought driving in. George and I, we settle down, we eat a bit, we talk and laugh about the adventures of the day, the whole time I’m screwing with this fire. I have to say our consciousness was elevated, but certainly not to the point of interfering with my fire making abilities. At least five hours, I tried to make that fire burn. George was having a good laugh, sitting back, sipping his Crown, watching all the smoke I was making. I know how to get things burning, but this was a whole nother beast. I got so pissed off, listening to George cackle, after a while, I told him just to show me how. For another 3 hours he made the smoke. In defeat, accepting we’ll have no fire, we call it a night. In the morning there’s a lot of action in the campground, a Ranger is running all around, looking real busy. George is still racked out, so me, being a little noisy, a little bored, go over to her, to find out what was up. Well she told me the Ranger Station was called, because a child in camp had woken up before his mother and father and wandered off. He found some wild mushrooms, ate them, his parents finding traces of them around his mouth. By this time George had wandered up, and she was saying this was a pretty common call. She told us she had to find out what type of mushroom it was, and if needed, to take appropriate action. She told us no action was necessary here, that this kid was going to have just a wonderful day. George and I thought to ourselves, a little like our night before, hope he’s not needing to build a fire. So we were curious, we asked her about the fire wood we bought and tried to burn the night before. She said there was so much on the forest floor to burn,why would anyone need to buy wood, besides, everybody knows that wood their selling don’t burn!