Chapter 6

In days of yore the lodge belonged to the woman, she provided the cover and set up the lodge. Collecting poles was a man’s job ... Collecting poles can be dangerous.

It’s HER lodge ... piss her off and your goods might be out the door. Divorce ... Indian style.

We’re ‘enlightened’. I did the set ... she helped but I did the heavy lifting. She found out I wasn’t bragging ... I DID know what I was doing. She knew too ... but she paid attention. I didn’t put a foot wrong. She was fairly amazed. I impressed her.

Our camp was on the west side of the valley, on a nice grass covered flat that overlooked the rest of the camp. Wasn’t much higher ... just up.

On the prairie the rule is door to the east. The wind is out of the west and the west side of the lodge is the strong side. The lodge is a tilted cone ... longer front to back than it is wide from side to side. The lodge has a more vertical back with the angle of the door poles digging in to brace the back. The tie rope is directly under the tip of the cone and pegged to the ground ... hard tied.

This is a mountain valley. The wind comes every whichaway but down slope at night, upslope in the morning, and wherever during the day.

Now ... in the valley the lodge erector can put up her tipi however ... but ... the back of the lodge is WEST ... no matter what the real direction is. Our door was sorta northeast ... sorta ... more east than north.

My lodge is painted ... the colors were revealed to me in a peyote inspired vision. Blue top with the four seasons represented by four circles on the smoke flaps. A red stripe below the blue sky and red stripes on both sides of the door. There’s a black outlined 3 foot yellow sun with black outlined yellow rays centered on the back below the sky ... a few inches off the bottom is a black stripe with black mountains starting small on both sides of the door and graduating to tall on the very back. All the colors don’t touch ... there’s an inch and a half plain canvas between them. Looks great in the sun.

My main contribution to reality? I had a ground cloth over the entire floor. A green artifical turf with the placement of the poles cut in to the edge of the turf. The turf smoothes out the ground.

Once I had the lodge and liner set to suit her ... and I was pretty damn careful to make sure she agreed with what I was doing ... she run me off. She took over. She moved the contents of the van inside and arranged it.

When I got back from traipasing the camp, she was done. She had her bed roll set up on the south side with her head to the west. She set my bed roll on the north side, my head to the west.