The Donkey History Museum: something to bray about

 I don’t know about you, but my spouse has occasionally warned me, “Don’t make an ass of yourself.”

Now, visiting Mesquite, Nevada—and its quartet of casinos tempting Arizona, Utah and Nevada I-15 travelers to detour for a bit of gambling—might pay off or deplete that RVing gas and groceries budget.

Hence the risk, amigos. Dreams of fortune versus, in my case, the wrath of my wife, she of Norwegian ancestry and the dormant genes of the Valkyrie: DNA and ancestry best left to rest in Valhalla—trust me.

So, on an overnight stay in this Virgin River Valley town of 20,000 on the northeastern fringe of the Mojave Desert, I found the perfect—and an educational—compromise: the Donkey History Museum.

*to read more of this article and see more photos, click here:

Swansea Ghost Town: A rough road to faded desert dreams

Having set up camp alongside the Colorado River near Parker, Arizona, my adventurous wife, Barbara, decided to take our trusty “toad” compact car to see a real ghost town.

It was a pleasant and warm day, barely a cloud in the sky. But we did not take our 2019 Ford Fiesta to the Tombstone “ghost town,” where the Shootout at the O.K. Corral made Wyatt Earp famous in 1881, and where tourists today can see a tamer, bloodless reenactment of the same while sipping on a cold craft brew.

No, not Tombstone. We also passed on a slew of other deserted Old West settlements in Arizona. We chose the remote La Paz County ghost town mining community of Swansea, AZ, our surrender to serendipity becoming a bumpy, dusty, and rough 65-mile round trip odyssey.

*To read the rest of this article of mine, and see more photos click here

First visit to Red Butte Garden: a long glimpse at earthly paradise

 It was my first ever visit to Red Butte Garden, more than 100 acres of botanical and hiking bliss along the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains that provide the eastern boundaries of Salt Lake City.

I know. First visit for me, courtesy of my son, Rob, to a glimpse -- and long one -- of earthly paradise.

Yes, I repeat with chagrin, my first visit, and I've been in Utah since 1982, when my journalistic career brought me first to the Salt Lake City Bureau of the Associated Press, and later The Salt Lake Tribune.

Now 71, and retired, I finally made it.

Thanks, son.

Heat wave escape: In Utah, just a drive into the snow-capped Wasatch Mountains

The Wasatch Front is in the throes of a heat wave, as is much of the Great Basin and Intermountain West.

Escape is nearby, up into the 11,000-foot Wasatch Mountains, those snow-packed 11,000-foot offshoots of the Rockies.

Thank God.

So, my wife Barbara and I drove up Parleys Canyon, along a couple scenic switchbacks, and basked in cooler temperatures, the scent of mountain wildflowers, pine trees, and aspen.

It was a nice few hours together in the snowcapped Wasatch Range.

Let's call the experience “ Babsendipity,” since it was Barb at the wheel.

beauty, steps, breaths, and ancient prayers -- perspective, and peace

Here, I've learned, is what to do if you wake up in a funk today.

I recently did, and decided to follow my parish priest’s (Fr. Paul Truebenbach’s) recent prescriptions for depression: prayer, exercise, focus on needs of others.

So, there I was, in the early morning trek through the icons of nature, the words of the Trisagion and Creed on my lips, as I hiked through and around forest trails, flowers, wildlife, and streams around the Wheeler Farm Historic Site.

For me, the beauty, steps, breaths, and ancient prayers culminated in perspective, and peace.