That's it, that's the only thing I felt like taking a picture of. The rest of the time I was sitting in the camper sweating like a hog. It's in the low 90s today. I hope that improves or I may have to go across the street and hook up to an electric site.

I made it to the Pima County Fairgrounds at about 1:30 this afternoon. And received some bad news just as soon as I got here, which is there is not going to be a horse show in early April. And yes I checked the Internet again and it's still there. I don't know why they have to cancel an outdoor horse show that doesn't even have any paying customers, the only people here are the riders, so how much trouble could it be... I'm disappointed, to say the least.

There is going to be an RV show, so that's one small bit of consolation. It seems to me like standing around inside an RV talking to a salesman gives folks more exposure to the Bat flu than riding a horse outdoors. But what do I know?

This seems like a good time to reiterate what I call boondocking. Since boondocking has a lot of different meanings to different people. Just to keep my life simple, I wanted to come up with the simplest rules that I could possibly apply to what constitutes boondocking, to me. And, to me, is the operative word here.

So any time I don't have hookups, I call that boondocking, it doesn't matter if I'm in a parking lot, my family's house, or paying for a place to stay, if I don't have hookups I call it boondocking. Right now is a good example, I'm paying to stay here but I'm in the boondocking area, which has no hookups, so as far as I'm concerned I'm boondocking.

Without the horse show, I'm not sure exactly why I'm staying here, but I'm here, so I'll think of something. If nothing else I will consider this the beginning of my trip back to Denver and spend the next two months enjoying my slow journey back to my summer home.

                                                theboondork

A spectacular sunrise that you don't get around here very often. I've decided that since I'm leaving this area and heading east, slowly making my way back home, I would post a few left over pictures of my Western travels in no particular order.

I got up this morning around 7 o'clock and as I started getting the camper ready to go I noticed it was getting a little breezy. And by the time I was ready to leave it was kind of windy, and I figured I'd better check this out and see how long it was going to last, and sure enough, according to the weather forecast, it was going to be like this all day.

It doesn't take much to make me cancel a travel day, and the wind is often the culprit. Yesterday I moved six or eight miles closer to the interstate, so now I'm only a couple of minutes from jumping on and being on my way. But the wind is often the reason that I call it all off.

For me, there's no reason that I have to leave on a particular day. I don't have an appointment I have to be at, I don't have a certain place I have to be at a particular time, and my current camping spot hasn't expired, so I don't have to pony up or get out of town. The only reason I have to leave is.... I want to.

This makes life a whole lot easier for me. Without the pressure of having to leave at a certain time, my problems have been cut in half. To me, just about the most essential thing in my life, is having a place to live. And it might be for one night or two months, but the fact that it's there is of great importance to me.

It's hard to explain the value of being able to pick up and move for any, or even no, reason at all. I don't normally live that way, and I don't have to. The very fact that I can, up to and including the very last second, decide to stay or go is what gives me most of my freedom. And it's hard to explain why that's so, I think you have to experience it to understand.

                                                     theboondork

A real cowgirl, competing in a roping event near Wickenburg Arizona.

The view from my kitchen window at Vulture Peak.

Motocross rider landing sideways, and otherwise all crossed up, able to land softly as if nothing happened.

An RC stunt plane falls from the sky in an apparent death spiral, and at the last second, powers up and flies away.

A pair of Sand-hill Cranes feeding in the early morning light.

What always looks like miniature bananas to me at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum.

I finally found a reason to stop laying around Quartzsite and go somewhere else. The somewhere else is Tucson Arizona, and the reason is there's a three-day Hunter Jumper horse contest in early April. This will be an outdoor event, and as far as I know, other than family, there are no spectators, so it seems unlikely that it would be canceled for any Bat flu reasons.

Towing the Arctic Fox makes it about a 4-hour drive from here to there, so I figure I can make it in two or three days. Being in Tucson at that time of the Spring means that I will start my slow journey back to Colorado more than likely going through New Mexico. And since the last time I checked New Mexico state parks are open for foreigners like myself, I'll be able to spend time at some of my favorite New Mexico state parks.

Even though I had no intention of doing so I have ended up in Quartzsite where I was last March about this time, now I'm going to Tucson, to the Pima County Fairgrounds, and I'll be there in April just like I was last year at this time. It's kind of weird how that worked out.

The difference is last March I was in Quartzsite, because I didn't know if there was anyplace else I could go because of the pandemic, and I figured it would be physically impossible for the government to close all of the boondocking areas in Quartzsite. But then I heard that the state and federal governments might close the entire town of Quartzsite for lack of medical facilities to treat Covid patients, so I started calling around to find a place I could go and ended up at the Pima County Fairgrounds for all of April and part of May.

Those were some tough times, and I don't have many good memories of it at all. Hopefully this trip I will rebuild some of the good memories that I had before this terrible pandemic changed the world.

                                        theboondork