The cute, the smokey, the Christmassy and the beautiful

Our FIRST burro!  We saw this cute little guy on Monday - he was just standing there, looking down the road.  It seemed like he was waiting for his burro buddies, I remember last year they always travelled in families or groups.  He ignored us until I whistled, then he turned his head our way, but still didn't move.

Katie and I drove passed him on our way to the Christian Service Center.  We were going there to register so I can receive mail at the center.  We spoke to the ladies for a while, found out all about their services, then walked over to the post office to make sure our new phone hadn't arrived yet.  Unfortunately they will be closed from Wednesday through Sunday for the Christmas holiday and the phone wasn't there.  (This isn't a USPS, it's a "service" they perform for local folks.)

On our way back to the site, he was still standing there, so patiently looking down the road.  Hadn't moved a foot.  I'm still seeing lots of hoof prints going past The Palms - these guys, so far, are moving through this campground when it's dark.  As the days get longer, we'll see them more and more.  :)  Isn't he a beauty?

We drove to the little town of Winterhaven yesterday (Wednesday) to pick up my new phone, and on the way back this is what we saw (note the really rough road - about 1/3 of the way we drove between 5 and 15 mph.  I could feel all the screws in The Palms slowly working their way loose with all the rattling going on):

I wondered if the fire was near our campground and whether or not we'd be able to get back to our site.  It turns out, I think it's pretty close, but heard it's a controlled fire.  This is what we saw from our site when we got back around 5:30:

Later:

It looked like the fires were being spread along a line, and some were dying out, others were growing.  This is what I saw this morning:

This was just a bit ago:

Katie and I went out for a walk, and it was raining large ashes on us.  These long black ash pieces are all over the place:

 This is a dust devil of ashes that flew across the ground in front of us:

The last few nights we've had a parade of light drive through the campground.  Honking horns, yelling Merry Christmas, with Santa in the last one.  There were six vehicles, I think,  and they were really cute and Christmassy:

A different setting on the camera would have helped, but you get the idea.

This is my neighbor's site all lit up at night:

Second only to full moons, I love these little sliver moons - this was last night's:

Here is one of our sunsets since we've been here at Imperial Dam LTVA - I wonder what the sunset will look like tonight with all the smoke in the sky?  When I go outside I can taste the smoke, so we're staying in as much as possible.  But I remember some gorgeous sunsets in the past when we were near a fire.

Katie and I wish all of our readers a Very Merry Christmas.  Peace, Health and Happiness.