After torrential rains and floods of December 1996, my client Lisa’s terraced back yard in the Oakland hills collapsed on New Years Day. Bitter cold, freezing birdbaths, cold and rain, cold and rain, too cold to work much! Just want to be out there where I can hear the wind and nothing but soft as perfect summer air.
3/13 /97 I drove the van Betsy to Arizona with companions C.Cooper, her snoring Pug Dudley, to see if we could paint and find land to buy in the wild remote desert. It has always been my dream to have a little shack in the vast outdoors, and C wants to buy a little house in the Bisbee or Patagonia area. I lived in some funky little dives in Tucson for 3 years before moving to Oakland in 1975. 
First night out, Red Rock Canyon, site 38.
In Coalinga we paid $17 for 11.7 gallons of gas, odometer reading (1? 2? 3?) 82500. I find myself compulsively journaling (theoretically supported by J. Cameron’s The Artist’s Way), but it rarely leads to drawing. I find myself shy about being seen drawing, as if the teacher is going to come embarrass me. Fear of process, mistakes. Spoiled by my own innate skill. Oddly, I do really well in classes, doing brilliant work in no time flat, but on my own I am confused, distracted, unable to gather what I need and proceed. The challenge is to get started, when I am in suspended animation and unstoppable. 3/14 BLM cow pasture–Old Woman Springs Road; Joshua Tree too crowded.. woke this morning at 4:30 to the COMET! Hale-Bopp. Beautiful, not as bright as Hyakutake, but two tails clearly visible, the main comet and a lesser blue tail. Painting . . . at Organ Pipe, we camped just outside the gate, and a Mexican guy came an tapped on the door in the morning and asked for a ride. I gave him water. The view of the border, strung with security lights and razor wire. Mars, a beautiful shocking Orange in the sky. $90 in books and maps at the visitors center. 3/18 Trailriders Inn, Tombstone. It was beastly cold and threatening to rain. Gross airless room, and delicious dinner. I ended up sleeping in the van. Wish I could leave this place, cook my own food, and watch the shadows creep across a canyon. Walking before sunrise, saw a Coyote running down the road. Filtered the “free” coffee through some Berkeley Blend, went for another walk with Cameras. Stations of the Cross, I cried for my mother, 2 years gone. Five hours later, why are we here? Can I draw the Pepsi machine and privet hedge? 3/19 Whetstone Mountains. Trouble with the van, Everywhere the VW is a conversation starter, at Bugs and Bunnies I called ahead, and 6 guys came out to see us drive up in the 1957 Crayola-box-colored van. $179 for a go-over- turns out the guy at the shop loosened my accelerator cable so I can’t get enough gas to get uphill, and fouled the plugs. I keep stopping for help, but this defect never detected (although C. mentions it, I don’t hear). 3/20, 4 PM–Santa Ritas, snoring pug, stale cigaret smoke, aching back from stressing over the van. Housing prices to match California. C went into Fry’s to get allergy meds, cigarets, and vodka. Parking, shopping, traffic lights, the heat is terrible. I would rather be home. Stuck on a dangerous shoulder with an over heating engine. San Pedro River, giant, lush Saguaros, Pyrrhuloxia, Phainopepla, Pipevine Swallowtail, each disaster is less of a problem than I fear. Cloud Nine motel in Globe with pool and Jacuzzi- C made them move us to a better room since the pool is empty. Brown enamel coffee pot in a funky junk store, $10, green tin speckle ware bowl $3. Cool retaining wall of giant tires. So overamped from panic, is this an art-aversion exercise? Called Steve from Globe, hoping for rescue. Put in a new coil, just freaking out when a guy walked up and asked if I needed help. C. busy with postcards, star stickers, glitter glue, drawing from photographs in the newspaper. 3/22 Saturday! Outside Oracle C. cooked delicious steaks in ginger, garlic, and butter over the camp stove. Salt River Canyon, all seems well with the bus, I drive with the hatch held open with bungees. Treacherous mountain driving, exquisitely beautiful. VW shop closed until Monday, I bought a petrified wood ring, we split a beer, heading north to Navajo lands. The moon is full, I really believe we will make it to Utah. 3/23 Locals stop to help, we follow them back to their shack, they can’t figure out where the radiator is! Air cooled. They are baffled. At Window Rock, Navajo Nation Inn, I can’t sleep indoors, back to the van, record store is closed, everyone is out of town for the Powwow. C. says I am a fine draftsman, a useful and delightful personal skill. She is traveling on to Utah, we are waiting for Steve to appear with the Honda, he and I will take Betsy home. I have run out of time and the will to continue. Eclipse tonight, and Hale Bopp. C. is in the hotel, drinking vodka, smoking, watching the Academy Awards (the English Patient). Motel, 4 nights, w tax $290.
3/25 Monday? I bought plaid fleece to make curtains for the VW. Steve finally arrives after a hellish couple of days cleaning C.’s car of impacted cigaret butts and dog hair–enough so he can breathe and drive at the same time. The key to the Honda was not on the ring she left, and with miscommunication with her room mates, the area code we gave him from the pad in the hotel room being wrong–etc, etc. He still somehow made it here. One of the tires so bad, and no spare! We had almost driven that car on this trip! 3/26 Tuesday we head out for Sanders, meet C. at Cholla Lake, Wednesday, Burro Creek. C has decided to go home, too, trailing us. She calls from Bakersfield and asks us to come. Steve puts the old voltage regulator back on, and the van starts right up, we sneak past Bakersfield, holding our breath.. In Seligman we stop at an antique store, Ross offers me $250 or two Tonkas for my Smith-Miller semi-truck toy. Alas, I don’t have it with me. We head north, Bullhead, Baker, Lava Beds, Mojave, Tulare, Forestiere Underground Gardens! Merced, and back to Oakland 8 PM Saturday.
Mendocino National Forest In late April 1997 Steve and I took a palate-cleansing trip up to Mendocino National Forest, to a little campground abandoned except for hunting season. 
There were trout, and this time, we ate them. 
August, Lower Nye Camp, Mendocino National Forest.
Then a trip to Palmdale, Wrightwood Fire, a visit to Fox Field, then Nevada via 395, Hot Springs, abandoned houses.
Travels With Stevie 