Sonoran Desert Hideaway for the new year

I celebrate the new year with both the solstice, the time when the days reach their shortest period and then begin the climb back to more and more light, and with the calendar which ends Dec 31 and begins in a new document on January 1st. I celebrated both in my little hideaway in the quiet of the Sonoran Desert. This year I got to celebrate the new year by hanging the 2012 calendar I made with photos of Ecuador and Yellowstone.

I fell in love with the Sonoran Desert 19 years ago. I try, usually successfully, to return to my special spot for a couple of weeks each year. This year Chris joined me for the calendar turning. He was quiet and didn't express concern as I drove him out of the tiny town of Ajo, onto dirt roads, turning off on a less graded and smaller dirt road, and finally a couple of tracks. He called home later and told them he had been blindfolded, kidnapped to a remote location and he hadn't the slightest idea where he was. Later he admitted he had looked at aerial views of the region ahead of time. Not quite fair.

For the next few days he got to enjoy the quiet, the lack of light pollution, the lack of neighbors and traffic. The incredible night skies led to some experimentation with night photography. We still have some work to perfect this technique, but here is a joint project showing night sky and my motorhome. The picture works best in large format so click on it to see the stars better.

This is Chris's view of the desert from near our spot

Here is the motorhome, far from neighbors, traffic, noise and lights.

Breakfast on New Year's Day.

This "slim jim" is Chris's view of sunrise.


One more night view. The camera was set on a tripod for a long exposure. We used a flashlight to "paint" light on the motorhome in the photo at the top of the page. The sliver of a moon was still below the horizon line. Next time we will go for an even longer exposure, toward the north, to get the movement of the stars.