Mobilia, my '76 Westy, at her campsite on Thomas Mtn. This peak is part of the Santa Rosa Mountains in Riverside County just west, and well above, the Palm Springs area. The elevation here is almost exactly 6000' feet, in the summer it is warm days and almost perfect sleeping temperatures at night. Snow in the winter. Visit Mobilia's web site This boulder strewn clearing in the forest is where I like to some personal clearing rituals when I come to this place. I take a daily bath on top of the rock in the center of the picture. I heat water in a billy can and wash first using a cloth and then pouring the remaining over my body. Just beyond the trees, the mountain side drops rapidly to the valley 2000' below.
No, this is not a PhotoShop trick. As a centering and calming discipline I like to take rocks and balance them on their ends. It takes practice, but when you find the balance point it is a Zen like moment, like catching a wave when surfing or something. With practice I have balanced up to four rocks on top of each other, but I was still too much in the city to achieve that this weekend. I am not bragging, I have seen people who can do up to nine levels, it takes a lot of inner calming. The rock on the left while having the sharpest point also stayed upright the longes, 72 hours before the wind blew it over, the others maybe 8-10 hours.
When camping I like to get up just before dawn and take a hike. One morning I walked to the west side of Thomas Mountain and gazed towards San Diego some 100 miles away.

In the valley below is the small town of Anza where the Spanish explorer De Anza finally climbed his way out of the desert (out of the picture to the left) as he wandered from Sante Fe to Monterey. He was the first Europeon to make the cross country trip and had a rough time of it without maps and guides.

As I sat here I meditated on how far we can travel overland within a few hours. 100 years ago the trip to San Diego would take days by horse and before the Spanish brought the horse back to new world the trip probably would have been weeks. But these days even though the drive home would take about 2 hours I can still sit on this mountain and call home on my cell phone (which I did).

What will the future bring? Will I be able to use a Star Trek type of transporter and travel the earth to where ever I want to go? Will there be traffic jams in the transporter frequency?		 Another view of Mobilia at the campsite. The forest here is mostly evergreen with some scrub oak and manzinita. Over this weekend while hiking I cam across two deer and a bobcat. The cat seemed embarassed to have been surprised by flatlander and took off running. The deer, while wary, browsed their way out of view as I stood there motionless. I also heard but did not see wild turkey and by tracks I found in the morning it was obvious that a ratcoon had cased the camp. Bear and Mountain Lion are known to hunt her as well, but I have never seen them in the wild.

You need to be totally self-contained to camp here. There is no spring or stream water except when it rains. The nearest store is 15 miles away, 9 of the miles on a washboard dirt road. However, the road is passable to all but the lowest slung autos and is well maintained by the Forest Service.
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