Thursday December 21 – Today’s temperature: 42/56, windy and chilly. Today is the Winter Solstice, which I celebrate by walking around collecting rocks, many beautiful white quartz streaked with colors. Some of these will be added to our campfire ring and a chosen few will go home with me.
I do some editing today, clean out a storage space- simplifying and organizing being essential in tiny homes, and look into essential oils good for maintaining healthy skin. Later we all go to Bill and Sally’s 5th wheel for tasty burritos for dinner. Fun to share meals with family.
Friday December 22 – Today’s temperature: 28/58 and clear. Today we make a trip to Quartzsite for gas and propane, stopping at the market and Dollar General to get little gifts for everyone. Bill barbecues great burgers at his place, then Rollie and I do music there, as the 5th wheel is considerably roomier than either Rollie’s camper or ours. My fingers are still sore, but the blister is going away, and I can play more bluegrass songs with Rollie on either mandolin or fiddle.
Bill has made a “Christmas tree” out of tire irons or something and a lighted rope, and I add a few inexpensive ornaments from Dollar General. It looks a bit odd in the daytime, but is beautiful at night!
Saturday December 23 – Today’s temperature: 30/61, pretty sunrise color, but overcast all day.
Colors at sunrise – La Paz Valley, Arizona
Today is our anniversary; too chilly for an outing, but it is good just to spend the day together.
Reorganize another storage area so as to find the ornaments and get them hung up along our back window. These are some of my old-time favorites; glad they are still with me. My daughter Merri calls and we have an interesting conversation about how the health of one generation can strengthen or weaken later generations, and not always in the way one might think. Then I go on a walkabout with Bill, Sally, and Rollie with the metal detector, finding a couple old coins, but mostly junk. After that, Rollie and I do music at our place, as it is too windy to play outside. Crowded, but better than not playing at all.
I begin reading “Eight Girls Taking Pictures,” staying up later than intended.
Sunday December 24 – Today’s temperature: 31/67 and mostly sunny. We knew it would be warmer today, so have planned an outing to Crystal Hill. The turnoff to Crystal Hill is just four or five miles south on 95, and the rather rough road crosses BLM land before entering the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. At the collection area, which is designated by a map at the Crystal Hill boundary, we discover a mostly vacant campground with some really nice sites along a wide wash at the base of Crystal Hill.
Clifford and I hike to the top of the hill – good to stretch our hiking muscles at bit.
Although crystals can be found here, it is beautiful quartz pieces that are found in abundance and we each keep a small collection, a limit of 10 per person, per the collection rules.
Back at camp, we have tasty egg and cheese sandwiches for lunch, sitting outside. Today, with good solar and a bit of luck with the hotspot, I am able to get on the internet and do some agent research for Ang for “By Wing, By, Wild, By Wisdom,” the first book of the Dragons of Va’ha’den series. Looking for agents is new to me and there is a lot to learn, but we hope to find an agent to pick up her series.
Later, we have a delicious chicken dinner, again thanks to Bill’s great cooking (and my contributions of quinoa and rice) around a campfire. Then we open the gifts placed around the little Christmas tree. Bill and Sally are very generous and our little gifts add to the enjoyment of all. As soon as it gets too chilly to sit outside, we all go to the 5th wheel where Rollie and I play music, a nice long session until my fingers get too sore.
I finish out the day with sending Christmas greetings to all of my kids, grateful for the cell phone which allows me to text or message all of them. What a great day!
Monday December 25: Today’s temperature: 36/64. Colorful sunrise this Christmas morning, but my cell died after one pic; luckily I got a few shots with the camera before the sunrise faded.
Regarding the photo, “smoke trees grow in the wash at crystal hill”: if you enlarge this photo, there seems to be some type of ufo in the upper right corner/sky. …also, the sunrise photos are very striking, both color wise and compositionally.
Hello Daryl,
Now I see your comment. Glad you like the sunrise photos. So many sunrises and sunsets are spoiled by the jet trails. It is hard to post any of them, but I try to find some that look “natural,” whatever that is nowadays. The UFO – I saw it and enlarged it before I posted the photo: it is a bird, but hard to tell unless it is blown up. Thanks for noticing! I always enjoy your comments. Carol