This past weekend, husband, dog and I took a road trip to Joshua Tree that ended in a last-minute side trip to see ol’ Grandpa in Gonzales.
Lula is in full influencer mode. 
A touch cozy. 
Post-drive drink fixing’. 
Everything but the husband and the bathroom!
When booking this trip I was apparently feeling frugal, and went for savings over ambience. This was not an issue until I saw the sign in the water tank/bathroom stating that all toilet paper should be placed in a petite white plastic trash can next to the toilet, and not flushed. I have limits, or I had limits, until I ate a pizza that didn’t want to abide by these limits.
But of course it was all fine, and the nighttime sky and a few Negronis made it easy to forget about the secrets hidden in that little plastic trash can. We did a quick drive-by of Joshua Tree National Park, but Lula’s companionship on this trip meant that we sacrificed a bit of time exploring the park.
Cholla Cactus Garden 
Cactius! 
Cacti!
Saturday we left Joshua Tree and spent our last night on this trip at a hotel in Monterey (with a toilet that flushes toilet paper, I might add). A huge shout-out to Bob FM, which gave us two gifts en route from Joshua Tree to Monterey: a recommendation for brisket breakfast burritos from Down Home Grill in Victorville, and an introduction to Whitesnake’s 1984 hit “Slide It In.” Such cryptic lyrics. Monterey was brisk and hopping. We lucked out that night with a table at Dust Bowl Brewing, a bounty of tacos, and a very tired dog.
The trip culminated in an afternoon at grandpa’s house in Gonzales before heading home Sunday. We lived next door to my grandma and grandpa until I was about 10. He just turned 96, and I’ve been trying to visit him as often as I can over the past couple of years. Grandpa’s got stories. He was in WWII, and most of them are about that, although he shared a gem about his time as the local school bus driver and how a kid’s 4-H lamb got on the bus and refused to get off. I sometimes record his stories while he talks, and I used to try and play them for students when I was still in the classroom. Grandpa, however, has a very vibrant vocabulary, and I could never quite get away with sharing those recordings in class.
This time he shared an oldie but a goodie, which began with “Now, I know I shouldn’t tell you this, but…” and culminated with “Can you can believe it, the whole train had crabs!” He signed up with the Navy in 1942, when he was 17 years old. As he tells the story, his dad drove him to the recruiting office and dropped him off. He and everyone else ran around naked and took all kinds of tests before being shipped off to Farragut, Idaho by train for bootcamp just a couple of days later. He said that after seven days on the train, somehow, every single person ended up with crabs. They got off the train in Idaho, were given a razor and told to get naked again and shave everything (he was sure to emphasize that part), and then given some kind of blue ointment. He chuckled about that for most of the visit. He still lives alone and has family visiting him every day, but a sweet neighbor does much of his housekeeping and grocery shopping. He made sure to inform me that there was no hanky-panky going on between him and her, and that’s how he stays crab-free today.
