This log is current to December 31, 2005

October 27, 2005 in Yuma, Arizona
“Boondockers.” That’s what the call the many people in the area at Arizona’s junction with Mexico and California who make camp on public land, sometimes for the winter. This photo is NOT of us!

Semi-permanent for the first time in six years, we will remain in Yuma most of the winter, researching and writing our biography on Senator Al Simpson. A huge undertaking, the initial draft will likely be in excess of 400,000 words. Right now we’re at 37,500.

November 1, 2005
Up to 49,000 words in draft form. It’s a huge undertaking. At least Adelphia has improved the speed of Internet access a bit, and Mack Camera in New York has replaced our broken camera with an 8mp Minolta digital. Ah, progress.

November 20, 2005 in Yuma
With the book draft now at 110,000 words (and no end in sight), we’re taking a little time out now and then to check out local activities.

The Yuma hot air balloon event proved as spectacular at the one last summer in Cody, Wyoming. This is one mode of transportation we have not used -- yet. (see Statistics).

November 26, 2005 in Yuma
Anyone want to buy our Gypsywagon? We have a new one. Meanwhile, the book project is up to 127,000 words.

December 13, 2005 in Yuma
As Don heads off to Montana to spend a few days with his widowed mother on her birthday, the Expedition passes it’s sixth anniversary since leaving Washington, DC.

During our world travels, we have met many fascinating people, and we have never been soundly duped -- until this guy.

Andy Mathis of Deale, Maryland told us and everyone else around that he had circumnavigated the world in a small sailboat, that he had crossed the Pacific Ocean nonstop to get his wife into cancer treatment in Australia, that he hit a reef and saved his boat through amazing seamanship and later cut down trees to handmake planks to repair his high-quality vessel.

He said his wife had died at sea just shy of making it around the world, and that on a later trip he suffered a heart attack while single-handing in a hurricane off the Mexican coast. He said he lost his boat at sea, a disaster in which he also lost all documents proving his exploits.
He said that as a Marine in Vietnam, he shot an American officer who had “gone bad,” and that an enemy soldier had bitten off his thumb in hand to hand combat
.
Andy “Bruce” Mathis tells many more stories, such as being a dragster driver and later a member of a famous Indy racecar team.

Chalk one up for our gullibility. The guy did none of those things, he just make them up. We knew for some time that most of these things were imagined, but we recently discovered that his wife is not as dead as he said, nor was she ever a sailor. Andy had never owned a sailboat before, and had very little sailing experience, while his exwife is alive and well in Washington state. He apparently faked her death to induce sympathy and various forms of assistance from those he met. The night we stumbled into him seven years ago, he cried as he spoke of her loss, holding her photo in trembling fingers. And yet none of it was true. (UPDATE: October 13, 2006: Andy Mathis was found dead aboard his boat off the USA Pacific coast, the apparent victim of a heart attack).

Older but wiser, we continue into our seventh year of exploration. The book draft has now surpassed 400 pages.

Our original Gypsy Wagon has been sold (pictured here in Mexico in 2000, and now lives in San Luis, Arizona, on the Mexican border.)

The new Gypsy Wagon (for U.S. use) is a vehicle displaying this license plate. If you see us, please buy us lunch.

December 20, 2006. Becky has returned from visiting friends in California, and Don from his mother’s 86th birthday in Montana. Photos to come.

December 24, 2005 having Christmas in Salt Lake City, Utah
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to our friends around the world.

(Photo: Becky presenting gifts five years ago in a remote Hill Tribe village in rural Thailand. It was their first ever Christmas).

As the year ends, we are continuing to work on the Simpson biography (now at 170,000 words, with no end in sight), and are beginning to plan new foreign travels.

The Expedition traveled to Salt Lake City and back to the Arizona/California/Mexico border, and we are hunkered down again, writing on the Simpson biography. We’ll head to Mexico New Years Eve.

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