On my last post to this blog I forgot the most important news. Brad Pitt has joined me on my trip. I first noticed Brad had joined me one night while I was camping in Big Bend National Park. You see I was sleeping and he ran over my head. Yes, he ran over my head. I thought maybe I had imagined it but Brad ran over my head again the next night and I could hear scrabbling directly below me in the car. When I got up the next day, I found a roll of toilet paper had been chewed. I didn’t chew it so it must have been Brad.
I left Big Bend and proceeded up to Fort Davis and then Guadalupe Mountain National Park. I left the doors of my car open during several nights but Brad persisted on accompanying me. Well, I have to admit it wasn’t the real Brad Pitt but I named my guest Brad Pitt because he stared in “Thelma and Louise” as the sexy hitch hiker and I definitely had a hitch hiker. My guest was traveling with me but didn’t have the good graces to chip in gas money or offer to help drive.
At Guadalupe, I found out Brad was still with me because I found a granola bar had been nibbled. I also found a water jug had leaked and things were sopping wet. So I emptied my car. Wet things were hung over the picnic table and rocks. It looked like a camp of a bag lady. The water did not seem to have gotten into the second level of my trunk so I didn’t empty that level. Big mistake as we shall see. I talked to a Park Ranger and he showed some concern for my car wiring and suggested setting a trap and to use sticky peanut butter as the lure. So that afternoon I drove 110 miles roundtrip to the city of Carlsbad in order to find a trap. I set two traps and left the car door open again that night. The traps were not touched. Was Brad still with me?
After two night in Guadalupe I drove to Tucson to an Air BnB. I parked my car in the garage as instructed because the garage keypad was my access to my area. The hostess had left me a message about how we could communicate if I needed anything. I was instructed to write a note and pass it under the door dividing our sections of the house. I fessed up in a note that Brad was probably in my car. She passed a note asking me to park outside, so I moved my car out of the garage.
I took my car to the Toyota dealer to get my oil changed and discussed my mouse situation. But before I went I had to empty my car of all of my stuff. I emptied it all into the garage but again did not bother removing the second layer stuff. The dealership checked everywhere in the car and finally removed the second layer storage container and lo and behold, down with the spare tire and next to the 12 volt battery was a toilet paper nest that Brad had made. He must have been all cozy down there. The problem was that Brad was not in his nest or anywhere else in the car for that matter. They had to check all the wiring to make sure it hadn’t been chewed. When I got to the Air BnB, I removed everything and I mean everything from the car. I took out the stuff in the second layer, I took out the maps, I took out my tissue box, everything this time. And then I continued to park the car outside the garage. But the next day the hostess told me she had found a mouse in her garage. Was it Brad, had he been in my stuff hiding? Why had I not checked the second layer or third layer of my trunk? For some reason I got it into my head that Brad was nesting somewhere under the front seat or up in the heating duct which comes out under the front seat.
So either Brad decided to decamp at Guadalupe or he might have stayed hiding for 10 days in Tucson. I packed the car again two days ago and left this morning for Tubac. I have no way of knowing yet whether Brad has indeed left me, but all I can say is, if he has left me, then he was a lousy companion and I got no thanks from him for carting him all around this country.
I have not discussed what kind of creature Brad was or is because I don’t want to think about what was running over my head. I like to think it was one of many species of small desert mice but then again there is a small something called a desert rat. I won’t think about it now.
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