As I begin to write this at our home base in San Diego, it is 58 degrees, breezy with on-and-off sprinkles.  NOAA weather tells me that in our nearby Anza-Borrego Desert community of Borrego Springs, it is 64 degrees with isolated showers and wind speed of 29 mph, with gusts up to 60 mph.  A fast-moving low pressure system is moving through the area.  Last month we camped in the desert near Ghost Mountain, where poet, author, and artist Marshal South and his family set up a home they called Yaquitepec for over 15 years pursuing a primitive and natural lifestyle.  While we were there we experienced firsthand how quickly showers and wind can sweep through the area.

Marshal South wrote in his article, “Desert Diary 2 – February at Yaquitepec”, in the March 1940 issue of Desert Magazine:

                              There is nothing “regular” about the desert.  Uncertainty is its keynote and its eternal fascination…  Against a backdrop of silver showers that screened the footslopes of the Laguna range the desert flashed up in dazzling brilliance.  And over all, like a jeweled scimitar, its hilt in the desert and its point upon the summit of Granite Mountain, a mighty rainbow arched the sky.  It will be will be a warm and brilliant day today.  Tomorrow there may be snow.  Quien sabe!  This is the desert.

(All 102 articles and poems written by Marshal South for Desert Magazine from 1939 to 1948 can be read in Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles: An Experiment in Primitive Living, 2005, Edited and with a Foreword by Diana Lindsay and Introduction by Rider and Lucile South, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA.)

We are preparing for our return to the desert and look upon today’s rain as a blessing and a promise of more desert flowers to come.  Marshal South wrote in his article, “Desert Refuge 56″, of the March 1946 issue of Desert Magazine:

                   But storms bring with them their ultimate reward.  For beneath every bush and in the lee of every sheltering stone, new green life is pushing up through the desert soil.  The steady drip of the rains has wakened seeds from slumber.

Wild Heliotrope (above)

Below is a field of Desert Sunflowers and Desert Sand-Verbena of Henderson Canyon near Borrego Springs.

As I finish writing this the sky is now very blue and the trees are bending in the wind.  NOAA tells me that the wind is kicking up dust in Tucson, Arizona.  We look forward to returning to the fascinating and colorful desert.

In the meantime, take a look at Wildflowers Of The Southwest, presented by NPR.

It might be snowing where you are, but it’s spring wildflowers in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.  That’s how I started a similar post almost exactly one year ago when Larry and I rendezvoused with Rich Charpentier and Sadira for a celebration of the beginning of the wildflower season and the turning point in Rich’s fortune.  Two years ago Rich visited this area in Borrego Springs and immediately felt happy.  From here he went on to find his happy home base in Prescott, Arizona and establish his very successful career, R.L. Charpentier Photography, and gallery.

Last Saturday we received a report from the Anza-Borrego Foundation and Institute that the desert is blooming.  We were not disappointed, even our campsite was surrounded with wildflowers.

The blooms are just beginning and should be prolific this year due to our recent rain.

Since dogs are not allowed on the trails, we took turns going with Rich on day hikes.  Larry and Rich hiked up Palm Canyon with its many displays of the Brittlebush (big grayish-green dome-shaped bush covered with bright yellow flowers on thin stalks) and the Pink Sand Verbena.  Then on the same day, I joined Rich in his Titan on a drive to Ghost Mountain where we hiked one mile to see the pictographs in Smuggler Canyon.

Along the way Rich discovered a lizard on a rock.  And the lizard contemplated its options.

Rich came well equipped with two cameras, an assortment of lens, tripod and waterproof bag.  Rich is gaining quite a reputation for his spectacular HDR images.

We found the pictographs and my images will appear in my next post, along with more about Marshal South’s and his son’s visit here when they lived at nearby Yaquitepec.

The brief report comes to you from the field, as it did one year ago, complements of Rich’s WI-FI connection.

More desert trails and mysteries will continue after my next post, Desert blooms 2009.

Punxsutawney Phil (1) may have seen his shadow, but here in San Diego we see harbingers of spring.  Even before we departed for the Ghost Mountain area in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, our lemon tree in our front yard was laden with lemons, which we shared with writer and photographer, Bert Gildart, who was out in Anza-Borrego photographing nesting hummingbirds.

Just before leaving for the desert we spotted a mother hummingbird sitting in her nest in our lemon tree.

Yesterday, I took these photos of our two baby hummingbirds:

 Marshal South also recorded harbingers of spring and wrote in his Desert Diary 3, April 1940 issue of Desert Magazine, “March at Yaquitepec”:

    Our personal Herald of spring has already made his call at Yaquitepec. No, not the traditional lion who is supposed to usher in the month of gales. Our March announcer is a Western Robin. He comes every year. We like to think that it is the same bird – and probably it is, for we have never seen more than the one each year. Oddly he seems out of place here in the desert among the frowning rocks and the cholla. But he has all the friendliness of the robin family.(2)

Marshal South and family created a home on Ghost Mountain and lived out an experiment in primitive living for about 17 years.  Poet, author, and artist Marshal South named his house and home Yaquitepec which comes from “Yaqui“, the freedom-loving Indians of Sonora, Mexico, and “tepec“, the classical Nahuatl (Aztec) word, meaning “on a hill; on a mountain”.  Yaqui sacred tradition centers around nature as a living university where spirits are acknowledged with love and respect as the living beings that they are.

All 102 articles and poems written by Marshal South for Desert Magazine from 1939 to 1948 can be read in Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles: An Experiment in Primitive Living, 2005, Edited and with a Foreword by Diana Lindsay and Introduction by Rider and Lucile South, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA.  In the Forward, Diana Lindsay wrote:

  South wrote with a lyric quality, painting word pictures as only a poet or artist could. He wrote with passion about the desert – its silence, beauty, and natural history; its healthful qualities; its early inhabitants and their lifestyle.(2)

 Diana Lindsay has been a desert naturalist for over 25 years. The Anza-Borrego Desert became the subject of her master’s thesis from San Diego State University, which was subsequently published as Our Historic Desert by Copley Books in 1973. Diana has also written and edited several additional books including: Anza-Borrego A to Z: People, Places, and Things; Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles; and The Anza-Borrego Desert Region (which comes with a separate folded map). I have and treasure all four books and find them to be very informative and useful. Diana has served over 18 years on the board of the Anza-Borrego Foundation and Institute and owns Sunbelt Publications. Diana has given me permission to insert brief quotations from her book, Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles, in my ongoing articles here, which will help me to illustrate how one can fall in love with the desert, its beauty and natural history. For example, in Marshal South’s own words (after the title page of the above book):

  The Desert!  Either you will love it or you will hate it.  If you hate it you will fly from it and never wish to see its face again.  If you love it, it will hold you and draw you as will no other land on earth.(2)

  Diana wishes you to know that there is a new website currently under construction, which will be hopefully open in a few weeks: www.marshalsouth.com where she will be offering published and unpublished works by Marshal and Tanya South in addition to many unpublished photos of the family and Marshal’s artwork. Diana will also have a blog to carry on conversations about the Souths.

Meanwhile, back at our homestead in San Diego, more harbingers of spring are appearing such as the Cattleya:

 Just before our last trip to the desert, we planted a bare root Saturn Peach.  The peach is native to China.

 This week it bloomed:

 We toast to our 38th Anniversary… and to the harbingers of spring:

 Some of the symbolic images on the table include two (Chinese lucky number) whole fish (abundance, prosperity, long life), two flying seagulls and the red dragon.

Notes:

1. Punxsutawny Phil is a groundhog resident of Punxsutawny, Pennsylvania.

2. Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles: An Experiment in Primitive Living, 2005, Edited and with a Foreword by Diana Lindsay and Introduction by Rider and Lucile South, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA.

Marshal South’s frieze in the former Julian Library also depicts a time when the Kumeyaay Indians lived in an oasis just south of Ghost Mountain.  It is supplied with water draining down from the nearby Laguna and Sawtooth Mountains. Plants are plentiful in this mesquite-shaded area, including edible plants such as Agave and Yucca.

The outbreak of the war with Mexico in 1846 and the California Gold Rush (1848-1852) brought increased traffic, including emigrant caravans through this area.

The name for this area is Vallecito, Spanish for “little valley”, and has been credited to Lt. Pedro Fages, who came searching for deserters from the San Diego Presidio in 1772. (1)  The first road for wheeled vehicles was built here by the Mormon Battalion on their way to San Diego in 1847. (2)  In the early 1850′s a stage station was constructed using sod from the nearby salt-grass cienega (3), which was used by the Jackass Mail, 1857-1859, and followed by the Butterfield Overland Stage.  Stagecoach attacks and holdups were not uncommon in the area.

There is a story of one stage holdup that resulted in a double-murder.  It is said that the leader of the gang of thieves, while riding a white horse, shot his companion to avoid dividing up the loot.  It is also said that sometimes the ghost of the white horse can be seen galloping by at midnight.  In the mid 1920′s Marshal South and his wife Tanya began taking camping trips to the desert.  They often stayed at Vallecito until Tanya reportedly saw the ghost of the white horse (4).

Vallecito Stage Station was reconstructed in 1934 and one time Marshal took his son, Rider, on a hike from their home, Yaquitepec, down Ghost Mountain to the Vallecito Stage Station. (5)

From Vallecito, Marshal could see the ridge on Ghost Mountain where his Yaquitepec is located, dotted with plants…

and depicted in his frieze in the Julian Library.

Marshal South’s last visit to Vallecito Stage Station was in 1948, the year he died of heart failure.  His picture at Vallecito can be seen here. (6)

After a full afternoon of following the trails and mysteries of the Marshal South story, Bert Gildart and I returned from Julian, the final resting spot and “last known address” of Marshal South and the location of his frieze just as rain clouds were pouring over the mountains.

It will take more than a candle to fully illuminate some of these mysteries.

Thank you, Bert for brightening our day and for getting excited about Marshal South’s story and our (Bill and Larry’s) story, as evidenced in your superb post, “Ghost Mountain or Brokeback Mountain? Maybe There Is No Choice“.

Notes (1.) page 350, (2.) page 351, (3.) page 352, Anza-Borrego A to Z: People, Places, and Things, Diana Lindsay, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, California, 2001

Notes (4.) page 19, (5.) page 51, (6.) page 36, Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles – An Experiment in Primitive Living, Edited with a forward by Diana Lindsay, Introduced by Rider and Lucile South, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, California, 2005, ISBN: 0-932653-66-9

Marshal South’s frieze in the former Julian Library is a mural on all four walls with myriad images and symbols depicting a variety of peoples, cultures and places, apropos for a library setting, and beckoning its viewers to further explore, read and learn.  A number of images show how the Native American Indians lived, including activities such as hunting, gathering, fire tending, and pottery making.  These are also activities that Marshal and his family did at Yaquitepec on Ghost Mountain during their experiment in primitive living for over 15 years.

My previous article showed Marshal’s depiction of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo‘s arrival in 1542 in what is now called San Diego.  Twenty years earlier, Cabrillo was assisting conquistador Hernan Cortes in destroying the ancient Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, which was rebuilt and became Mexico City, the capital of Mexico.  Marshal painted an Aztec temple in his frieze and also an image of an eagle holding a snake on a cactus, which is also the coat of arms of Mexico.

The coat of arms of Mexico appears to be based on the Aztec image on the first page of the Aztec Codex Mendoza, depicting the founding of Tenochtitlan.  Note that the Aztec image of the eagle does not contain a snake.  Wikipedia’s article, Coat of arms of Mexico, suggests that the element of the snake was added to conform with European heraldic tradition, and would represent the struggle between good and evil, and could be used by the missionaries in the conversion of native peoples.  Also note that Marshal South used the image of the cactus, eagle, and sun (but no snake) as a symbol of his House of the Sun philosophy (and his booklet of the same name) and his son Rider had this symbol placed on Marshal’s grave site marker.

History is replete with civilizations rising and falling.  In the image below, Marshal juxtapositions a pyramid next to a flaming city under attack.

Marshal’s son Rider mentioned at the end of John McDonald’s movie, The Ghost Mountain Experiment, “My father had mentioned in many of the articles, that the life out there was a great experiment… well it was… and like all experiments, there’s a beginning… and an end.”(1)

But questions and mysteries remain. Even though Marshal South was a noted author, writer, poet, artist and proponent for the creation of what became known as the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, why was he considered a useless oddball by some in the small town of Julian? Why was the curator of the Julian Museum told by the board that there is no file on Marshal South and there never will be, even though many visitors were asking for more information about Marshal? (1)

Was it because when he and his family came into town they looked different, wore different clothes, and had longer hair?  Was it because word had spread that Marshal and the kids ran around naked up on the mountain?  Was it because they thought the kids were not being educated in school and not going to church?

In John McDonald’s movie, The Ghost Mountain Experiment,  Julian residents can be heard saying: “I don’t remember anyone even speaking to him… he was just sort of an outcast in town”; “No one had to tell me that Marshal was in town… I could smell him coming (laughs)“; “He must have been something to see, walking into town… a loin cloth, a head band… I’m sure a lot of these people were shocked… and of course the people are gonna talk… I mean, my word… what else… they were little churchgoin’ people… I mean, here comes this man!” (1)

On a more positive note, one resident can be heard saying: “…when Rider was 12, the county became involved in their lives.  The Board of Education or school system decided he needed to be tested… and they put him through an academic test… and he tested out sophomore college level.” (1)

The children were home-schooled by their parents while living on Ghost Mountain.

Note 1: The Ghost Mountain Experiment,  Directed and produced by John McDonald, 76 min., 2008, and previewed here.

Note 2: For further reading: Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles – An Experiment in Primitive Living, Edited and with a forward by Diana Lindsay, Introduced by Rider and Lucile South, Sunbelt Publications, Inc., 2005, ISBN: 0-932653-66-9.

Modern-day Peg-legger, writer and photographer Bert Gildart arrived at our campsite below Ghost Mountain bright and early with enthusiastic, positive energy and sensitive curiosity.  He took notes as we showed him our space-saving solutions inside our trailer and then we sat around the picnic table under the mesquite tree and chatted for the next two hours on a variety of topics, issues and concerns.

I pointed to one of the ridges on nearby Ghost Mountain and said that is Yaquitepec, where Marshal South and family had their experiment in primitive living as detailed in Diana Lindsay’s, Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles and brought to life in the recently released full-length documentary, John McDonalds’s The Ghost Mountain Experiment.  Last week Bert hiked up to Yaquitepec, and now he was interested in retracing Marshal’s monthly trip into Julian, 14 miles away up Banner Grade, where he mailed in his monthly articles to Desert Magazine, picked up mail and supplies, painted a frieze in the Julian Library, and where he was buried.  So I grabbed my camera and day pack and Bert drove up to Julian for the first time (going from an elevation of 1500′ to 4000′ and from a temperature of near 70 degrees to near 50).  Upon arrival, Bert shared a sandwich that Janie had made and then I took him up the Casket Walk of the Julian Cemetery and showed him Marshal South’s gravestone marker (with its symbols of the cactus, eagle and sun) that his eldest son Rider had placed in 2005, after the site had been determined by David Lewis of Julian based on information in a letter written by former Julian librarian, Myrtle Botts, who befriended Marshal.

(In 2008, 4th generation Julian resident, David Lewis wrote, Last Known Address – The History of the Julian Cemetery, published by Headstone Publishing, Julian, Ca., which also tells interesting stories of the early families of Julian, and curiously leaves out any mention of Marshal South’s interactions with Julian and of his burial location in the Julian Cemetery.)

As the cold wind picked up and the rain clouds rolled over, I took Bert down the hill to the center of town for an opportunity to photograph the frieze that Marshal painted in the Julian Library in the fall of 1946 in exchange for Marshal being able to live there in the library with the permission of librarian Myrtle Botts. (Marshal’s spending more time in Julian was one of the factors leading to his wife, Tanya, taking the kids off Ghost Mountain and seeking a divorce.) This former library is now the home of Julian Realty and is next to the Town Hall.

I suggested that Bert go in first and, if getting permission, do a photo shoot. After a few minutes, I started to see flashes from his camera so I knew he had succeeded.

After 20 minutes or so he came out and took me back in and introduced me to the one lady there and, after getting her permission, I quickly took photos of the frieze on the upper portion of all four walls, which must have been just above former stacks of library books. Using historical, spiritual and religious symbology, the frieze depicts the story of people from the cradle of civilization (Egyptian pyramid) to the horrors of World War II (planes flying over a city in flames as bombs and rockets fly).  Much of history is subjective and I’m sure much of what I saw can be interpreted in many ways.  For example, the frieze image below suggests to me the beginnings of the town Julian, which was at first a tent city when quartz gold was discovered in 1870 by Confederate Drury Bailey, from Georgia. He homesteaded 160 acres of land, laid out a town, and named it after his cousin Mike Julian.

But prior to this, Native American Indians, the Kumeyaay, lived here, and their ancestors, the San Dieguito Paleo Indians, can be dated back 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.  Marshal shows them hunting and gathering…

And tending fires.

In 1542 Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the first documented European to sail the Western shore of North America, sailed under the Spanish flag into what is now called San Diego Bay and named it San Miguel.  His burial place is still a mystery.

More trails and mysteries will be explored in my next article, “Desert trails and mysteries, 2″.

Meanwhile, here is music (and history) to listen to while contemplating the first California Gold Rush.

There was a wind advisory for Interstate 8 East travelers so we did a short hop over the mountains via Banner Grade and safely landed and set up camp under the brilliant evening “star” Venus.  Our landing day weather was clear with temperatures in the seventy’s.  It was an auspicious beginning.

Below Ghost Mountain in the Anza-Borrego Desert, we raised our Earth Flag and set out a pair of Chinese bamboo flutes.  According to Feng Shui, bamboo flutes are generally hung by red cord with tassels and represent qualities of power, safety, peace and endurance.

We celebrated the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Earth Ox, with decorations inside the trailer…

and hung Oriental lanterns from the nearby Mesquite tree.

Larry made deep-fried Chinese pork-shrimp dumplings, shaped like gold ingots for prosperity and served with plum sauce for a sweet new year.

After dinner, I enjoyed the ambiance of the Mesquite trees embracing our camping space while I continued further explorations of night photography.

I also continued to contemplate the mysteries surrounding Ghost Mountain, Yaquitepec, Marshal South and his trips to nearby Julian, and why some in Julian still refer to him as a “useless oddball”.  Last week writer, photographer Bert Gildart again hiked up Ghost Mountain to Yaquitepec and wrote why he is still fascinated with the Marshal South story in his post, “Nonconformist Marshall South and the Stubborn Fishhook Cactus“.  A few days later I joined him on a trip up Banner Grade to Julian where I showed him the gravesite of Marshal South and we went on to photograph the frieze that Marshal painted in the former Julian Library.  In my next article, “Desert trails and mysteries”, follow along as Bert and I visit Marshal’s gravesite and the library while we grapple with the mysteries surrounding the Souths’ and Julian.

We are preparing to revisit the area near Ghost Mountain where we enjoy the quietude of non-hook-up camping while savoring the yipping of  coyotes under the starry Anza-Borrego desert night skies.  As you may recall, this is the area where I saw strange lights in the sky last fall that I investigated with the help our our vertical thrusters. This is also the area where I spotted a possible UFO while on a hike up Ghost Mountain last spring with Rich and Sadira.

Although the above “UFO” is actually a lenticular cloud formation, what lies below the sky on this mountain is just as fascinating.  It is Yaquitepec, the home site of the Marshal South family experiment in primitive living from 1930 to 1947.

One year ago, writer and photographer,  Bert Gildart, and his wife, Janie, also hiked up here, explored the ruins of Yaquitepec, and he recounted Marshal South’s story, and reflected on the “Lessons From Yaquitepec“.  I also contemplated the story while sitting on Marshal South’s melting adobe walls…

and peering eastward out of the door that he and his family passed through for over 15 years.

In 1946 Marshal South’s wife, Tanya, took their three children and left the mountain and Marshal.  In 1948 Marshal died of heart failure in nearby Julian, CA, where he had obtained supplies to build Yaquitepec, collected his mail, and mailed in his 102 monthly articles to Desert Magazine (which were praised by Wally Byam and documented in the article, “Marshal South & Wally Byam – Parallel Roads, Different Destinations”, pages 36 to 39, in the Fall 2008 issue of Airstream Life).  Marshal had also painted a frieze on the walls of the Julian Library and befriended, the librarian, Myrtle Botts (who was at Marshal’s side when he died). The exact location of Marshal South’s unmarked grave on the hill in the Julian Cemetery had been lost for years.  David Lewis, a 4th generation Julian resident, civil engineering designer, and historian of the Julian Cemetery, determined the site of Marshal’s grave, based on information in a letter written by Myrtle Botts. (1)  (Last year David Lewis wrote, Last Known Address – The History of the Julian Cemetery, published by Headstone Publishing, and he curiously left out any mention of Marshal South in his book).

In 2005, Marshal’s son, Rider, placed a headstone on his father’s grave.

Marshal’s grave marker bears the sacred symbol of the House of the Sun – “that of a sun, an eagle and a cactus – carrying thus, in symbology, the truth of the upward passage of men’s souls from the thorny bitterness of earth to the higher realms of light.”(2)

Marshal wrote:

Let my House be a house of Love and Understanding.  Let the pillars thereof be the mountains and the trees and its pavement be the wide earth.  Let its roof be the arch of the sky, and its music the songs of the birds and of the wind and of the harps of the rain.  Let its lights be the lights of the sun and the moon, and of the glow of the everlasting stars.  Let Fellowship and Peace and Brotherhood dwell therein.  Of man and of every creature.  And I, the Spirit, shall dwell in that House, and walk beneath its arches, and bless it, from Everlasting to Everlasting. (3)

Note 1: Page 38,  “Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles – An Experiment in Primitive Living“, edited and with a forward by Diana Lindsay and with an introduction by Rider and Lucile South, 2005, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, California, ISBN: 0-932653-66-9.

Notes 2 & 3: The quotes in the above two paragraphs are provided with the kind permission of Diana Lindsay and Sunbelt Publications from pages 28, 29 and 30, “Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles – An Experiment in Primitive Living“, edited and with a forward by Diana Lindsay and with an introduction by Rider and Lucile South, 2005, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, California, ISBN: 0-932653-66-9.

Note 4:  The newly released DVD of John McDonald‘s full length and uncensored documentary, The Ghost Mountain Experiment, is now available and previewed here.

My timing was off so we arrived below Ghost Mountain just as the sun was setting, but my spirits were rising along with the anticipated full moon during the second week of November. We’re now on Pacific Standard Time and the shortening of the days is not helpful, except for my skin. (See my August 24th post on Sun Safety.)

Ghost Mountain is located in what is now called Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, in the eastern side of San Diego County. It was the home of poet, author, and artist Marshal South and family from 1930 to 1947. On this dry and sun scorched flat just below the top of the mountain, Marshal built his adobe home, which he called “Yaquitepec“, which means “hill of the Yaqui” after the fiercely freedom-loving Native American Indians of Sonora, Mexico. Due to his successful article, “Desert Refuge” in the March 11, 1939 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, he received a contract with Desert Magazine to write monthly articles on his experiment in pursuing a primitive and natural life style, along with his reflections on family life. (He and his wife raised three children and home-schooled them.)

Wally Byam, designer of the Airstream travel trailer, wrote a letter to Desert Magazine, in the March 1941 issue, praising Marshal South for setting the example of escaping the treadmill side of life, along with being “slaves to businesses, jobs, possessions and conventions” and for living his dream of going back to nature and depending on minimal stuff. Read more about this and see photos of Yaquitepec along with Marshal South and family in the article, “Marshal South & Wally Byam – Parallel Roads, Different Destinations”, pages 36 to 39, in the Fall 2008 issue of Airstream Life.

Additional information, along with the complete collection of his writings from Desert Magazine, is contained in the book, Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles – An Experiment in Primitive Living, edited by Diana Lindsay, Sunbelt Publications, 2005. The newly released DVD of John McDonald‘s full length and uncensored documentary, The Ghost Mountain Experiment, is now available and previewed here.

Just as I had hoped, the Beaver Moon, also known as the Frost Moon or Snow Moon, rose shortly after setting up camp and bathed the trailer and landscape with beautiful, reflected sunlight which was thirstily absorbed by my Nikon D40 camera set on Auto (Flash off) Mode, as previously illustrated and described in my Cuyamaca spirits rising article.

Rich Luhr pointed out the fun of experimenting with nighttime star photography in his article on his visit to Navajo National Monument, Az, earlier this fall.

The above is really sunlight bounced off of the moon as evidenced by the candle light inside the trailer and the stars above.

It really was nighttime as Larry deep fried potatoes and cauliflower while I cooked steak on the hibachi.

We enjoyed the after dinner glow (Pug is wearing a red lighted collar for safety from REI) as we listened to the crackling fire and coyotes yelping in the distance…

And look forward to celebrating Thanksgiving with family and friends.

If you are in the area, instead of shopping at the mall for more stuff after Thanksgiving, you could take advantage of a special event this weekend in Anza-Borrego, the screening of John McDonald’s The Ghost Mountain Experiment, 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 29, at the Borrego Springs Performing Arts Center.

Happy Thanksgiving!