GOOD MORNING MR. SUN

WEDNESDAY DEC. 12/07
I was careful about opening my eyes early this morning in case I came down with another case of clouditus. I carefully peered out the window & looked up at the sky. STARS!! And lots of them:)) Stars meant no clouds & no clouds meant, no rain!! Wow, the rainy season was over & we were in for sunny days again:))
Needless to say I spent part of my morning stretched out in the anti-gravity chair soaking up vast amounts of warming sunshine. The psychological advantage of a sunny day over a rainy day is absolutely a wondrous thing .

Thought we would take a little drive around this morning so headed east for a bit & headed north through a little place called Hickiwan, which our RV park, Hickiwan trails is named after. I may not have mentioned it before but our RV park is located on the western edge of the large Tohona Indian Reservation. The landscape itself is beautiful but some of the small towns & places along the road in the reservation here are, well..........not good!! We then ventured south down a road to-wards Mexico that actually hooked around behind those moody mountains that I have been putting in the web album the past couple of days. The road seemed endless so after going maybe 20 or 30 miles we turned around. No traffic except border patrol vehicles. We saw a couple of spots alongside the road that looked like religious places so I stopped & took a few pictures but we thought it best to keep moving. This is a very popular area for Mexicans heading through the desert so we kept a close eye on the roadside ahead. We had seen 2 border patrol vehicles earlier with their roof lights flashing not far from where we had turned down this road. One border patrol vehicle slowed down & eyeballed us pretty good but kept going. A few minutes later we noticed an ATV ahead on the left side with a patrol officer beside it & another one a few feet away with another officer. And then we noticed the Mexicans. There was about 10 of them sitting on the ground with their hands behind their backs. I noticed they all seemed to be dressed in dark colors & some of them had cowboy hats on. They had obviously just been rounded up by the border patrol & were awaiting for some sort of patrol vehicle to come & pick them up. They had probably spent the night or past couple of nights in the cold desert. It is so hard to understand how these people survive their flight from Mexico. This is a rough & harsh land with high mountains, canyons, gulleys, & large open stretches with little or no cover & it stretches for hundreds & hundreds of miles. How these people get through this land on foot is totally unbelievable. Alongside the roadsides are many small shrines to the people who have died along the way. Last year while we were here we found some toothbrushes, a ball cap, scarf, a leather bag, etc. in the desert not far from the campground that we surmise had been dropped or left by Mexicans passing through in the night. These people who are in search of a better life are not a threat. They don't bother anyone because they do not want to draw attention to themselves. If they do wander into a campground it's because they are looking for water. It's the drug dealers that are dangerous!!

We spent an uneventful afternoon just lazing around planning where we are headed next. We will leave Hickiwan Trails Saturday morning & head over to Yuma because we have an appointment Monday morning to get our awning fixed. It's been tied up since being pulled out of it's canister about 5 weeks ago on I-70 in a big Kansas wind storm. Wednesday we head into California for a place called Slab City near Niland. Yup, that's what it is called alright....Slab City......http://vagabonders-supreme.net/SlabCity.htm We have an appointment there Wednesday morning to get a couple of solar panels installed so that we can spend more time "free" camping in the desert.

To-morrow morning we're heading back into the Organ Pipe National Monument Park to do a longer car drive along the north side of the Mexican border. We hear it's another spectacular scenic road. This American southwest is just so beautiful & the mountains have a magic allure to them that is hard to explain unless you have actually seen them. We feel like we belong here......................... NO PHOTOS UPLOADED TO THE WEB ALBUM TO-DAY