Hopefully I’ve learned how to make my pictures smaller now, thanks to the patients of Laura and Joel and their tech support. 🙂

I asked around and found out where the free wifi is here in Berrago Springs….which is all around Christmas Circle, in the middle of town! It’s a ’roundabout’ with a park in the center, and parking spaces all around. Seems to be working fine….

Jan 10
Visiting the snake. Mind you, it’s a large snake made out of rocks in the hills, so it’s ok!
My neighbor, Sweet Virginia tells me ‘if you want to see the snake, let me know and we can hike up there together…I know the way.’ Friday afternoon I ask her, ‘what about tomorrow morning?’
She’s on for that! About 8:30 the three of us show up at her campsite. Shiloh has no limp now, and I’ve quit wrapping is leg.
Virginia puts on her hat and her hiking shoes, brings her dog Chip along, and off we go. We come to an area that is a bit difficult to go up, and I wonder how it will be going down. Worse? She tells me we will go down a different way. Yay!

The dogs are all over the place, but we humans walk slowly. Virginia shows me where coyotes make their dens in the rocks.

We finally make it to the snake! The guys who ‘built’ it did a very good job and it’s remained here for 4 years. It’s a diamond back rattler and eve has rattles.

( I planned to put pictures in here but due to not being very good at this new method yet, I will have to make a separate post with pictures. I hope.)

From our perch up in the hills, I look down at the desert below us….wow, what an expanse!

This is also the day that a new little friend comes to visit….a hummingbird. He flies right into WS while I’m outside. I follow him in, and he seems to be trying to leave through the window. I put my hand near him and he lights on my finger! I move very slowly towards the door, afraid he will fly off but he has no intention of doing that….even after I get him outside. I take pictures and it doesn’t bother him at all. Finally he flies off my finger, and right back into WS! We end up spending a good 5 minutes together, and i get him outside again, where he finally zips away. Wow. I’ve never had that happen before!

January 12
We move to Anza Borrego Desert State Park for my FHUF…my full hook up fix. It’s a very nice park, only 2 miles from town,and $35 a night…$33 with senior discount. That’s the most I’ve paid anywhere for awhile now, but I do like to support the State Park system sometimes.

The night is clear, no moon early on, and the evening is warm enough to sit outside….and the STARS…the STARS…they make me gasp! They are thick in the sky. The sky is literally FULL of them. I get freaked out thinking about the distance…the amount of space out there and how infinitesimally small I am, and the earth is, and our solar system and galaxy…even though it’s really HUGE…and does it go on forever…this universe? And what IS forever? And is this one of many universes? Or many billion universes?

The mind boggles….and boggles and boggles. I pray. I drink wine. I sleep.