Desert Oracle Radio, the voice of the desert.

Night has fallen on the desert.

This past Saturday, yesterday, yesterday, and my timeline, May 17, I had to drive down the hill for a medical

appointment, very exciting, because it was either come on a Saturday or how about the end of June.

And this was something I wanted to get done and over with.

Down the hill is what mountain people often say when they are headed to the flatlands of civilization or something like it.

Land of the Costco, the Steakhouse, the card dealership service center,

the Trader Joe's, and the many medical services,

from dentist to the nuclear imaging center to the Botox Clinic that runs out of the eye doctor's office.

We say it in the high desert, down the hill, I mean, because we are at an elevated altitude of about

4,000 feet where I'm at, but I've heard the phrase down the hill to mean the same thing

over in Pinyon Hills and Feelin and Asperia, referring to going down Cajon past of Rancho

Cucamonga, the Inland Empire, etc.

And I've heard it in the Sierra Mountain Towns on the west side,

referring to the Central Valley cities,

where you go down to the Costco and the smart and final.

Once I heard a girl in Flagstaff say it about Phoenix, although she was from

El Dorado Springs, where they say it about Denver. Everything looked good enough, fine and good,

going through Morongo Valley, but as soon as I hit the grade,

something was just off. The vibe was wrong, you know?

People who were driving relatively normally a few minutes earlier were suddenly behaving in strange erratic ways.

And then there was a mad dash ahead of me as everyone started changing lanes and weaving in and out of traffic,

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