I’ve added some new material to the “Desert daze” archives and more clearly labeled the articles and magazine in which they were published.

  I’ve added a profile I wrote for Psychic magazine of Paul Crockett, the prospector who encountered members of Charlie Manson’s family in early 1969 staying at the Barker Ranch in the mountains above Death Valley. Crockett developed a close relationship with several dissatisfied members of the family. That summer, two of them, Brooks Poston and Paul Watkins, worked with Crockett, high-grading and hauling gold ore down to the ranch from mines in Goler Canyon in the Panamint Mountains, while Crockett helped them break from Manson and the family. It’s a story about the power of agreement, the working title of a more in-depth story based on a series of interviews with Crockett, Poston and Watkins in the early 1970s.

I’ve also added a slide-show of Death Valley, Spring 2010, with special attention to the wildflowers.