Merry Christmas from Morongo

My aunt lives IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. It is stark, spare, and beautiful. We got lost for a full half hour on the way to her house from the main highway. We would have figured out we were lost much sooner, but Mom was driving approximately 3 miles an hour to accommodate my brother who has three holes in his abdomen from having his gall bladder ripped out a week ago. After creeping through the sage brush, palo verde trees, and cholla, passing the same shack/meth labs over and over, with my husband having to pee, my brother herniating fatty tissue, and my mother persisting up the same dirt road, certain that every new crossroad would be the correct one, we finally called and got new directions. The rest of the day was great. My aunt got us hooked on Raspberry Chipotle sauce, my uncle, an electrician by trade and Bob Vila clone by default, taught the boys how to grout and caulk.

I love my aunt and uncle. When they come to the end of their lives, they will not have to wish they had tried x, y, or z. If it sounds interesting, they try it. They have lived in Nevada twice, West Virginia, one of the Carolinas, and five different parts of California, just in the last few years. My aunt was raised Seventh-day Adventist, became Quaker, and is now Buddhist. There is something to leaving no stone unturned.