I am grateful for the few PM's I have received recently asking if I am ok. I am fine and just sort of embarrassed that I have become incommunicado over the past few months. I just have lost the habit of going online for any length of time. I just check the news, write a few quick emails to family and firends and plan trips via Google Maps.
Am currently in Leeds UT exploring all the back roads I can find, doing lots of photography and just relaxing. They allow you to wash your RV in the park here so I have washed all of Quartzsite off the trailer and the truck too, although you just don't get too dirty in the desert...dusty yes, but not dirty, per se.
I am leaving tomorrow but not going too far. Going to stop at Parawon and camp outside of town in a campground I found up there. Then I will explore and photograph Cedar Breaks National Monument. My forever friend who grew up and currently lives in Ogden says it is her favorite of all the parks although it is smaller in scale so I am gonna check it out. Then I will head up to visit her for a day or two. We plan to go up to Snow Basin, plant ourselves at a window table in a restaurant and talk till we can't talk anymore...which I doubt could ever happen.
I have concluded that I will never spend a winter in Quartzsite again, it just wasn't my "cup of tea". I realize this may offend some folks but I found it interesting that I did not "fall in love" with the desert. In all my life of wilderness exploration I have loved every place I have ever gone, each place having it's own wonderful beauty, and although the desert most certainly has it's wonders I felt almost trapped and imprisoned as there wasn't anything different for 150 miles in any direction, my need to explore waned after a while since there was "nothing new under the sun" no matter how far I drove hoping to find a new vista or a new experience. Washington is like a mini Alaska, with inland waters, glaciers, alpine lakes and mountain peaks, endless forests dozens and dozens of rivers and even has what Alaska doesn't and that is the dry, Ponderosa pined, basalt cliffed country of the Columbia River Basin. So, I guess I was homesick for the sound of a river and the meadows of the mountains. BUT!! I sure enjoyed the good weather of the desert while those at home were snowed on over and over and over again...which is most unusual for Western Washington.
I still haven't decided where I am actually headed to. I miss my son so much but I doubt he misses me too much so I will visit him in Seattle but not stay anywhere in Washington since I know it like the back of my hand I want to explore a new area. I know Oregon pretty well too . So, I may explore Idaho from top to bottom and side to side. Then when I miss my son too much I may just fly over and visit for a day to two which is cheaper than driving.
Oh, for heavens sake, I am just rambling on and on here...sorry bout that.
Here are some photos of a few local explorations.
This is one of my favorite photos looking over to Zion from an old road I stumbled onto
Neat Rock formations
Little troll man holding an old-fashioned lantern....can you see him?
Little people with baseball caps looking off across the valley...can you see em?
Michelin Man Mummy Monster holding a skull in his lap....gross, I know, but can you see him?
Martini glass....can you see it?
Someones private home
Old silver mine entrance at "Silver Reef" old ghost town long ago deserted
Graves from the "Silver Reef" cemetary
..I didn't make a hundred 
but this is not too far down on my list of places to see. 
