Desert Diva

Your Language Arts Grade: 100%

Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know “no” from “know.” Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).

Are You Gooder at Grammar?

It seems that “cold” is a relative term depending upon where you live. When I lived in Indianapolis, “cold” was when it was twenty degrees below zero. It didn’t happen often, but when it did it was miserable.

Last night there was a “weather warning” for snow - one or two inches. There was actually a weather warning in the corner of the television. There was no snow in my little area, but the temperature did get to twenty-seven degrees. I actually remember school being closed due to snow when I first moved to the southwest. There was only a “skiff” of snow on the ground, but since there was no way to remove it school was closed.

Actually, that made me quite happy to build a fire in my kiva-style fireplace (juniper and pinon wood) and have a glass or two of Estancia pinot noir. The pinot isn’t the greatest, but it’s drinkable. Hey, what do you do when you live in a smaller community? Cali snuggled up at my feet, and I fell asleep on the sofa watching television. Not a bad way to spend an evening…

I strolled over to Fleur-de-Lisa’s blog and found that she had taken a “Dr. Phil” test. I thought I’d “take a turn.” Gee, I even scored one point higher than Oprah! Here’s the results…

You scored 39!

Others see you as sensible, cautious, careful & practical. They see you as clever, gifted, or talented, but modest. Not a person who makes friends too quickly or easily, but someone who’s extremely loyal to friends you do make and who expect the same loyalty in return. Those who really get to know you realize it takes a lot to shake your trust in your friends, but equally that it takes you a long time to get over if that trust is ever broken.Oprah got a 38.

You scored higher than 99% on Personality

Link: The Dr. Phil Test

I celebrated Thanksgiving this year is a very different way - I joined almost 100 single RV’ers of varying ages in Anza-Borrego State Park in the middle of the desert. It appears that this group has met at the same area for ten years to celebrate Thanksgiving. The park is very stark and barren - I’m sure that the beauty happens in the spring when the various cacti bloom. Borrego Springs itself is a “don’t blink” town. There is one “OK” grocery, a couple of liquor stores, a couple of gas stations ($2.89/gallon), etc…

The area where we gathered is called Peg Leg Smith Monument. It seems Peg Leg never found his gold, and it was too hot (even in November) for me to do any serious searching. The big draw for this area is dirt bike/dune buggy riding. The dust is stirred up so much that it hovers like a cloud over the campgrounds in late afternoon.

A nice side trip was to Julian where there are several bakeries featuring fresh apple pies. There were the assorted shops to pass the time, and the weather was somewhat cooler being at a higher elevation. I had lunch and got a piece of apple crumb pie “to go.”

The day after Thanksgiving I was feeling antsy, so I drove to Indio for the day. No, I didn’t hit the sales at the department stores. Instead, I visited three thrift stores and my “big buy” was a pair of brand new custom made bowling shoes. They were blue and red with designs drawn on them with a “leopard skinlike” collar. I don’t really go bowling, but for the price they were too funky to pass up!

All in all, it was a nice way to spend Thanksgiving but a long drive for me.

The Samalayuca Sand Dunes are about 50 kilometers south of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The dunes are home to various marine fossils, petroglyphs, and pottery. To date there are 210 plant species, 250 species of fauna, and 54 species of birds, some of which are rare and native to Samalayuca.

Thousands of years ago during the Pleistocene glaciations, lakes made up a large part of the “basin and range” region and deposited sediments between the mountains. When the continental glaciers stopped retreating about 12,000 years ago (end of the Pleistocene era) and the climate became warmer, most of these lakes disappeared, though they did leave hundreds of depressions or closed basins where the small amounts of rainfall do not drain to the sea. The resulting sand (in time) formed the dunes. The Samalayuca Sand Dunes are literally an example of the “sands of time.”