This is the best of travel groups in my opinion because they do it together---and cheaply--have a 20 yr history--a very satisfying culture that respects privacy and freedom--yet knows how to act cooperatively. They're friendly and fun to be with.
They asked me to compose a poem about the experience here. (Peg Leg Smith--an old prospector who based here in the desert and claimed to have found a fabulous gold mine) Here's the poem I wrote and performed: The gold boa is for effect.
Finding
Peg Leg’s Gold
There’s
gold, there’s gold, there’s gold here ’bouts.
Peg
Leg Smith was right!
There's
lots and lots of gold around
And
most of it's in sight.
A
golden sun up from that hill,
Broadcast
on every channel,
Beaming
golden kilowatts
On
every solar panel.
Here’s
golden agers by the dozen
Sharing
this holiday,
Eating
golden turkey in
Our
golden hide-a-way.
We’re
making golden memories-
What
more could one desire?
Than
sharing golden moments
Around
a golden fire.
Some
say gold is where you find it-
Where
miners dig and take it.
I
say gold of the precious kind
Is
where good people make it.
About 75 of us collaborated on Thanksgiving dinner.
Went hiking in the nearby canyons
marveled at the metal sculptures scattered across the landscape around Borrego Springs.
These are new ones since I was last here.
Love the detail on this one. I estimate there are a total of 100 of them. All depict the various animals and people who visited or lived in this area.
And speaking of living in the area----some miles away are the remnants of an incredibly bold mountain top experiment. Read about it here and here.
It's about 20 miles away from Borrego Springs and a challenging climb up a mountain.
Here's what's left.
Water was stored here.
Looking down from their mountaintop home. For 17 years they lived here.
RANDY PHILOSOPHIZES: It's a weird, wild and wonderful world out there. GO SEE IT.
There are warm, wise, wandering folks to share the experience with. CONNECT UP.
Randy,
ReplyDeleteA true pleasure here sir, a true pleasure.
Have just spent several serene hours ensconced in the glorious confines of your blog.
Prescient, persistent and peripatetic you are old salt. An inspiration toward mobile perspiration.
My simple and banal question involves family - yours to be precise. Do you have any children of your own and do you miss them? I say this as a new father who longs for the open road but has other and perhaps stronger genetic longings as well.
your thoughts, as always, are appreciated here.
fondest regards from the East,
A
Hi Mr A: And thanks for the kind words---alliteratively arched across the atmosphere.
ReplyDeleteRe Kids: Somehow am bereft of that yearning---find it curious and puzzling--but true.
Re Yours--when they arrive: I'm guessing they will love and profit from whatever traveling you do. My mother wheeled us 4 kids across the nation on a marvelous odyssey when I was 6.