Vitamin K

Today was the perfect day to go outside and get a fake tan of dust: we had high winds, and along with it, the ubiquitous fog of dust.

I wish I could capture it in a picture, but it really doesn't come out too well. The pictures that I thought would show the true nature of the dust come out looking like I took them in a cloud. The ones that show a gradient of visibility, fading into nothing after about 200 feet, end up looking like regular fog. Then, of course, there's no way to take a panoramic picture without some fancy Photoshop work, so here I am describing it to you. The high winds didn't help the communications links we were installing, though everything held up remarkably well.

I remember reading some literature in high school about the Dust Bowl era, and how the dust was affectionately called "Vitamin K" in one of the stories (it seemed to "season everything" including food). Those stories had at least a small feel of desperation and of resignation, they were set in hard times, and of course, the people in the story didn't give up despite their circumstances - that sounds just like this place! I remember dust in much happier times actually, namely trips to Joshua Tree National Monument, living in Cottonwood, AZ for a year, running in the hills of Daegu, ROK (South Korea), and even just the hills behind my high school in Claremont, CA.

In the time since I was in my hooch this morning, a thin layer of dust crept in and now coats everything, including the keys on the keyboard; in the time since I started typing this, it's begun to pour rain outside. Dust + rain = sludge ... ugh. Well, things could always be worse, so I better send this before the power goes out!