I had planned on enjoying a peaceful and relaxing New Year's Eve today, in other words doing the same thing I do every day. But unfortunately that was not to be.

Late last night while sitting in my easy chair enjoying a movie on the Internet I heard a faint sound which caused me to stop the movie, sit up straight, and listen intently to the silence around me to determine if I had heard what I thought I heard. It only took about 10 seconds to get the answer to that question and it was an answer that hit me like a punch to the gut forcing the words out of my mouth, oh no! I have a mouse!

Yes the patter of little feet were unmistakable, once you've heard them you never forget, especially in an RV where sounds inside the wall are amplified to the point that even to my deafened ears it sounds like a family of badgers living with me.

It's been a while since I've had a mouse and I definitely wasn't looking forward to it happening again. The mouse himself doesn't bother me, he could jump up in my lap and start eating my popcorn and as long as he didn't eat too much I wouldn't care. But the mess they leave behind is what puts them at the top of my kill on sight list.

Due to my previous run-ins with mice I always keep some traps available so I put down a couple of traps last night baited with peanut butter and in the morning found his furry little carcass decorating a trap under the sink. The other trap wasn't sprung so I'm hoping I only had one of the little beggars. But since mice don't tend to live alone like boondocker's do I figured there were at least 50 more outside waiting for their turn to come in so I took the cowards way out, packed up the Arctic Fox and beat feet.

I didn't go far just to the Hi Jolly boondocking area a couple miles north of Q. There's probably mice here also but I'm counting on it taking them a while to find me. And there's a lot more people around me now to infest than there was at Dome Rock. My nearest neighbor at Dome Rock was probably 1/4 mile away, and here I've got three neighbors that are only a couple of hundred feet away and even though that's not my favorite way to live I figure it gives the mice more targets of opportunity.

And on the good side I was getting a little tired of Dome Rock, it's a little far from everything and since I had no neighbors the Arctic Fox looked very lonely and vulnerable when I was away from home doing other things. And the best part is this puts me closer to the Walmart in Parker where I'm going to have to go in the next few days.

So even though I'd rather have been doing something other than packing up and moving today life's too short to let things like that bother me and I always try to be happy wherever I am.... at least until the mice show up.

                                   theboondork

Since it's been about a week since the government sort of, kind of, shut down I decided to drive over to La Posa South and see what impact living without the government was causing the folks at one of the largest LTVAs [Long Term Visitor Areas ] in Quartzsite.

La Posa South is the only LTVA in Quartzsite that has a dumpsite and water fill for all the folks that stay at any of the other LTVAs. And I'm not sure but I think La Posa South is the only LTVA with dumpsters. And because of that I assumed the LTVA people would be the most dependent on the government and figured a week without any government assistance would be plenty of time for chaos to takeover and I would be able to get some pictures of the looting, rioting and all the burning RVs. But What I found shocked even me.

Driving in the gate there was an ominous silence, I expected the sounds of gunfire but apparently the shooting was done, the street gangs had taken over and were now in total control of the once peaceful La Posa South.

At great risk of life and limb I drove deep into La Posa South and covertly snapped a few pictures to let my readers see the chaos, and dare I say, the devastation that happens when the federal government packs up, leaves, and the unprotected citizens particularly the senior citizens have to fend for themselves. These few pictures taken in secret through my heavily tinted truck windows were all I managed to smuggle out of La Posa South.

                              theboondork

It's getting cold in Quartzsite, and it looks like it's going to be that way for almost a week. Mid-50s in the daytime and 30s and 40s at night is not good. I checked the weather forecast for Yuma which is south of me and right on the Mexican border and it was going to be only a couple degrees warmer which is not enough to make a difference. It's normal to have to deal with some cold weather in the desert every once in a while, but usually not for this long.

I looked up "The Big Show" on the Internet and found out that it starts on January 19th, I thought it started earlier than that, so it looks like I have more days of peace and quiet in Quartzsite than I realized.

I kind of like the Dome Rock area where I'm boondocked now. It's a pretty area because it's not just a flat plain like a lot of the other areas. And at the moment I can only see six or eight RVs in any direction I look but that will certainly change the closer it gets to The Big Show.

The downside is some parts of Dome rock are fairly close to Interstate 10 and as anyone that has camped close to an interstate can tell you, they're amazingly noisy. But noise doesn't bother me and when the Arctic Fox is closed up I can barely hear it anyway. The other problem is it's a longer drive from here to the Walmart in Parker than it would be if I was staying on the north side of the interstate out on Plomosa road or somewhere like that. It's not a huge difference but it means I have to drive through the traffic in Quartzsite which at times can be annoying.

                                   theboondork