Category: Uncategorized

I’ve been traveling through the deserts of the Southwest, testing out my van/house. Stayed at Giant Rock, but saw no extra-terrestrials. I did hear the Marine conducting live fire exercises at the nearby 29 Palms Marine Corps Base. The sound of artillery travels far in the desert. Xena the cat loved climbing all over the huge pile of boulders…on her leash, of course.

Traveled just a few miles further east to Heart of the Mojave preserve. So nice and quiet. Vistas, but no people, for miles. Not so good for cats, though, little to see and nothing to climb on.

Further south, I found the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Preserve, near the (unfortunately but appropriately named) town of Ajo, Arizona, and spent another peaceful night far from civilization.

In New Mexico, atop the the towering Rocky Mountains, they have mountain meadows modeled after the opening sequence of “The Sound of Music.” Acres and acres of yellow and blue flowers growing all by themselves. Lovely temps…mid-40s at night, mid-70s during the day. Not another soul for miles around.

The City of Santa Fe (Spanish for Holy Faith, but no mention of which one) is nestled in the north of New Mexico. A river runs through it! Many tourists. There is even a state capitol there! Spread the word, it’s a nice place to visit.

My survey of New Mexico yielded an exciting geological feature I call the Taos Gorge (because Taos, NM, is nearby) or sometimes the Rio Grande Gorge (because the Rio Grande rushes through its depths). It is maybe a third-scale or half-scale mini Grand Canyon. Even better, there are free camp sites along the rim of the gorge. Private, serene, cool in the summer and, I suspect, bitterly cold in the winter. I’ll refrain from giving specific locations so you will not rush to the place and take all the good sites.

One wonders what made this highway sign necessary.

Manzanar is the internment camp in bleak, desolate Owens Valley, California, that housed Americans of Japanese ancestry during War World II. The site is now a National Historic Site, but there’s not much left to see. Survivors received $20,000 from the Federal Government in reparations. The curious can read more about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzanar

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

I discovered an enormous swath of the Earth covered with sand as white as snow. I call it “White Sands” and it is right off US70 in New Mexico.

As you can observe from the attached photo record of the expedition, “White Sands” reminds one of Tatooine, childhood home of Luke Skywalker.