Apparently John Wayne liked cheese

At the Roadrunner Club pool, a big blonde woman sat on the steps in the shallow end, in water up to her chest. Her large, sun-burnished bosom bulged from a black one-piece. I dove in at the deep end, then pulled myself back out and sat on the edge with my legs in the water.

Across the pool the woman said, “You look too young to live here.”

I answered “Unfortunately,” which immediately afterwards struck me as odd. I don’t often wish to be older than I am. I told her that I was visiting friends, then I said she looked too young too, partly because she did, partly because it seemed the polite thing to say.

Her parents live at the Roadrunner, she told me, and she had come out from San Clemente to look after her mother, who had fallen at the pool. She, the mother, had been scanning the pool chairs for her husband and not watching where she was going, when she inadvertently stepped into one of the small side wells of the jacuzzi; she broke her upper arm and dislocated her shoulder. I winced but the daughter laughed and shook her head. “And just two weeks ago my father had to be air-lifted to Brawley after being bitten by a rattlesnake.” She laughed again.

She told me that when not having accidents her parents enjoy hiking and birdwatching. “They put out bits of raw chicken on their deck for the roadrunners here,” she said. “Have you seen them?” I have seen them, skulking among the landscaped cactuses, then dashing away when spotted; they’re large birds, something like a lanky crow in size. I’ve never seen one fly though I think they can. “If my father forgets to put out the meat,” the woman said, “the birds come to the sliding door and tap on the glass with their beaks.” I thought, I’d like to see that, an impatient roadrunner.

The weather had moderated ten degrees or so, and in the evening Larry and I went for our first and only hike, in the hills west of town. Picking my way down a slope of loose rock and cholla and agave and barrel cacti, I felt an overwhelming sense of at-homeness. The Borrego Valley makes me feel right with the world....

Back at the house, Sinda had made John Wayne’s Favorite Casserole for dinner. She got the recipe off the internet: lots of cheese, eggs and butter, highlighted with bits of green chilies. "You know, Capper," Larry said, "The Searchers is a very important movie for Sinda." We ate on tv trays in the living room, watching hiking video Larry had shot when I visited in January. More than once his commentary in real time would be followed almost immediately by identical remarks on the recording. “Spectacular!”

At the end of the evening I had to say good-bye, which I did with affection and great reluctance. The longer I stay in Borrego, and the more time I spend with Larry and Sinda, the more I want to stay.

In the morning I packed up and headed east towards and into the Cuyamaca Mountains. The climb was slow and steep and the temperature gauge rose to a worrisome but not dangerous level. Late in the morning I hiked three miles, first along a trickle of a creek, where fire had damaged but not quite killed oak and holly trees, and then up through brushy scrub to Oakzanita Peak. Along the creek birds flew between the half dead trees, picking off flies. I spotted a pair of acorn woodpeckers, birds whose head coloring always makes me think of clowns. Lizards scattered on the dusty trail, frantic to escape me though they really had little to fear.

On top, the rocky knob offered a long hazy view of hills and mountains in all directions. Three vultures and a red-tailed hawk soared overhead in big circles. When I set off on the return hike the vultures banked low to have a closer look at me, and I looked up and said, “fuck off.”

Back in the van, I headed down into San Diego for a strange afternoon of remembering places and episodes long lost and forgotten.