Nothing To Complain About

I’ve been running out of things to complain about lately.  And that bodes ill for the blog.  So I’ve been cogitating on ways to stir up a little trouble, but repeatedly it all comes to naught.  For instance, the moment I moved down here on the Arkansas River I saw this sign tacked to a bristle-come pine:







Mining claim?  Should I expect dredgers at dawn, peeling away all this bankside beauty and running the revealed gravel through giant noisome mechanical shakers?  I was beginning to take a real dislike to John Hart, though I’d never met the man.  Then later in the day I was having coffee out under the endangered pine when a guy walked right through my campsite and behind my chair to peer up at that notice. 

“You know what it means?”
“Panning claim.  This guy Hart has a lock on panning here.  You him?”
“Ah, no.  Panning, huh?  So no giant dredgers, then?”
“He can use a hand dredger.  But he’s supposed to put it back like it was.”  And with that he was off and up the trail.
I called after him.  “Where you headed?”
“To find the end of this claim.”

Ah, there’s a man with something to complain about.  Dreams of Avarice.  But they’re his, not mine.
I have no idea what a “hand dredger” looks like.  Mr. Internet would know, but out here at the edge of cyberspace it’s like I’ve been lobotomized.

Let’s see.  I could complain about the new campsite, but it’s darn pleasant here.  Not only right on the water, but a far sight from my nearest neighbor.

Too bad I lost all the pictures from July.  Just think of a roaring river just below a bluff.  That's it.


It rained a bit yesterday, redeemed later by a sky full of stars, and almost a full moon.  Bright enough to walk around by, which I did, but not to wander into the bushes.  So I peed in the middle of the road.  Then I took a picture.  No, it didn't survive.

And then there was dawn.

I dunno.  I just can’t find anything to complain about.  Except…well, there is always the Ultimate Complaint, the complaint that Satan had with Heaven.

“This place is just too damn perfect!” 

Maybe I can do something about that.  O yeah, I could lose all the pictures in a hard drive crash.