Maad had this kooky kool idea, as he often does.

I had a bunch of trips to NE Mesa with the rental house turning over, and vowed to hit Hawes looking for it! Its weird to need an incentive to ride Hawes, but more it was an incentive to not let shitty-rental-house-fixathon get me down.     Psychedelic sunsets would be my reward for fiscal responsibility. I launched at 6:30 on Tuesday after 5.5 hours of chores, and probed Twisted Sister out and back through sundown to scope the right launch point for the Treasure Map.

I deconstructed the poem for clues, sentence-diagramming and interpretive poetry, knew every roll in the trail, and almost as many in Maad’s deviant plotting.    I was so confident I would find it, the hour i spent poking up and past and back over it in the dark seemed like foreplay. I was 99% to it in 10 minutes, so apache am i. But I still rolled home   empty-handed, hauling the fifth of El Jimedor I intended to offer the gods. What was the phrase…99% doesn’t get a space shuttle to the moon?

James joined me on Friday, under strict instructions to keep his thing-sayer from saying things. I had a plan, some serious Blofeld shiz, ready to Brothers Bloom him back on his azz.   Unbeknownst, I brought the only beers on a beer ride. I could search to my content, and horde all the beer, til he caved under the pressure of information for barley.

My brilliant plan failed.

The instant we set off on foot, he countered with a woeful ‘I’m thirsty‘.   My paternal instinct and temperament towards bons temps rouler took over. DAMMIT! I’m such a stoopid friendly drunk!

So I searched more, I scoped, and referenced, and triangulated through the desert.   No-handed, calculations in one fist and a brewski in the other, i picked up and down the rocky hillside. James trailed me round, asking for more beer, and sighing like a woman. Telling him that struck a nerve, and my new plan turned to loosening his tongue with pints and nagging.

I found it.

When i was struck by certainty, i reached out for it like Indiana Jones.   I will claim .49% of the last 1%, the rest I was given in hot\cold clues. James needed to spill his secret, I preyed on that weakness, and thirst, and riding in 98 degrees (not an April Fools joke). Sun Tzu advised choosing your battleground, or deception, or being feared safer than being loved. I don’t remember, Tequila Tree warms all hearts in hazy glow.

a humble offering