Celebrating 68 years while boondocking in the Sonoran Desert

Birthdays are important to me, especially my own, so I invited everyone I know—and a few I don’t—to a party in the desert for celebrating 68 years.  One person showed up and that was good enough for me.  We stayed SO busy that I am now weeks behind writing while also learning about video.  More on that coming.  Please, go subscribe!

After enjoying a week of solitude and shooting the moon, I needed a town fix.  LOL!  Actually I needed to stock up for an extended desert stay with company coming for my birthday.

I returned to yet another new #campBatesWell3 driving further into the desert and joined Paul at his lovely large site.  We caught up on the winter’s travels that may have been missed on Facebook.

I spent the evening watching videos about making videos, and getting ideas.  This is a new challenge with a constant learning curve.  It will be a lot of work and I need a plan, starting with a specific niche.  I am a naturalist and like to understand nature and share the stories.  This might be like writing ranger programs.  It’s definitely a work in progress.

Paul left the next morning and I wandered around the area to find “my” choice site.  Didn’t have far to go and settled into my newest yard on the toes of a boulder strewn volcanic mountain surrounded by dense and diverse Sonoran Desert.

While exploring I am always looking down to avoid walking on plants or tripping on something, but also I’m looking at rocks.  I find many that look like red jasper or rhyolite with composite like patches of something silvery.  Not exactly sure what it is except pretty.

I acquaint myself with the nearby landscape, acknowledging the plants by name.  So dry I can feel their cry and see deep accordion pleats in the thirsty Saguaro cactus.

The deserquies (my personal word for desert quiet) is palpable.  Until dusk when I heard an owl give a hoot.

Sunset laid a glow across the land living up to the golden hour.  Not spectacular, yet soothing.

Long time high school friend Sandee arrived to camp in her minivan on Thursday, my birthday was Saturday.  I shouldn’t say she was the only one to party with me celebrating 68 years.  I celebrated the entire month of March and had the perfect amount of visitors to my various desert camps.

She brought me a nice lavender sweatshirt that reads “Happy Vibes Only”, oranges off her yard tree, milk, toilet paper, and the biggest super-duper Chocolate-chocolate cake.

We went for a short walk and I introduced her to some desert plants and even played the Organ Pipe Cactus.  Then we sat outside in the shade of the camper all afternoon catching up.

After a dinner of cheater chicken-mole with tortillas and fried green tomato on the side we watched the after glow of sunset and stayed out for stars and a few scatter bombs courtesy of the military.

The next day reached 90+° so we spent the afternoon sitting in the shade once again chatting away.  Now if you know me, you’ll know that’s mostly me chatting because I am a blabber mouth.  Just ask anybody who’s met me.  Not sure where the day went but we ate a lot of cake.  And even had a small campfire just before a matching magnificent sunset.  You know, life just doesn’t get much better.

Finally, my birthday arrived with a beautiful sunrise and it was once again a 90+° day, unheard of for this mid-west born in a snowstorm gal.

Once again sat outside in the shade watching the desert world around us.  Had to laugh when seeing a ground squirrel climb the swaying branch of an Ocotillo then chew off a flower cluster and climb back down to retrieve that succulent meal.  I couldn’t even blow the candles out.

Spent a large portion of the day replying to birthday wishes on Facebook and the blog.  Thank you to everybody including anyone I missed.  Ended my special day with an evening serenade by an owl and coyotes.

Hope I haven’t set a precedence for my new year by getting up in time to shoot sunrise two days in a row.

Though only in the high 80s we still didn’t get far from the shade.

Watched a beautiful yellow and black bird on the Ocotillo and later identified as a Scott’s Oriole.  Birder friends told me they are just passing through.

Sandee took videos of me doing a nature walk around camp.  I had on a moo-moo style dress that blew in the wind and sunburned my arms above the farmer’s tan line.  I won’t be using any of these videos on YouTube but it was good practice for me.  Something I need lots of.

And of course we ate more cake.  At this rate I’ll not be able to wear anything but a moo-moo.

Sandee left Monday morning under cloudy skies and a strong southwest wind to blow her home.  We talked, laughed, and maybe even cried a little while celebrating 68 years of my life.  Then I contemplated how much longer I could stay at this camp with enough food—including cake—water, and propane.  By afternoon the camper was rocking and I wondered if the wind can tip this whole unit over.  Nawww…   The clouds increased and rain fell, or should I say blew sideways.  Was just enough moisture to tease the air with petrichor.  I didn’t even try to open the door into 24mph gusts.  It’s days like this when I get more done on the computer like write, edit or label photographs.

But then the clouds broke apart and late afternoon sun lit up the earth and sky.  I knew there would be a rainbow nearby.  Sure enough.  So I braved my way outside during a brief lull in the wind with hopes of capturing the Vultures soaring in front of the rainbow.

Oh what a show!  Anticrepuscular rays broke the rainbow pattern into pieces of magical light.

The rainbows came and went teasing me in and out for over an hour.  The camper steps up and down at least gave me some exercise after a long day of sitting at the computer.

Ultimately, the late light revealed a double rainbow.  With more rain predicted for the next day I looked forward to another day in the desert, still celebrating 68 years of life.

A light southern wind pushed puffy clouds across the sky all day.  I sauntered a bit around the base of my neighboring mini mountain, or Sky Island, sort of following a trail probably made my animals and enhanced by humans.

Though only 67°, the recent heat has awakened a lot of life in the desert so I am even more aware of my surroundings as I don’t want to startle a snake.  Having said that, I have never seen a rattlesnake while walking in the desert.  Maybe that’s because I’m noisy and slow giving them plenty of time to slip away.

Spent the next two days working on video.  For me that begins with at least some notes or an outline of an idea.  Really is like creating a Ranger program.  I have document files for ideas.  I needed a theme: Exploring the diversity of plants and animals in the Sonoran Desert.  I like to connect the dots with how the natural world works together in order to survive.  (We should learn from life on the planet other than our own.)  Hopefully the finished video is educational and entertaining.  (Please let me know.)

Next I spent several hours taking short videos of not much more than 30 seconds each.  Often stopping and restarting as I caught myself beginning every one with “So…”  A bad and annoying habit to break.  Or I’d just forget what I wanted to talk about.  Oops, senior moment.  I’m used to public speaking and still photography, but I suddenly found myself having to walk and talk at the same time while trying to hold steady taking video.  So there were retakes on the spot and some later after seeing them on the computer.  Now that’s a whole different part of the process when I transfer files to the laptop.

At one point I set the phone in a clamp on the tripod.  Now I know I’ll need a better clamp, but it worked.  I wanted to video an introduction to who I am.  There were several takes.  I might need one of those old fashioned movie boards, “Take 35”.  It’s not done or published yet but I’ll let you know when it is.

Finally, I spent lots of time relearning Movie Maker to put the shorts and stills with some text together into a finished 11 minute video.  I like it.  They get better every time.  I can see a series of camp landscape videos at some point, along with a long list of other ideas.  Alas, there wasn’t adequate signal in #campBatesWell3 to upload the 1.6GB mp4 video file.

                                                                   Could this speedy jet have knocked down a Saguaro?

I am way too gullible to spend time online for April Fool’s Day.  So, instead I spent my last day at this camp just soaking in this amazing Sonoran Desert landscape.  Think I’m settling into this retirement thing.  Next stop, Ajo to take care of chores as I continue celebrating 68 years.  And I uploaded the video.  Hope you watch it, like, share, comment, and especially SUBSCRIBE to the Geogypsytraveler channel.