Browsing, back tracking, and missed sunset......

Our Location: Saddle Mountain BLM, Tonopah, Arizona


A cooler night for sleeping last night, even with the vents closed. I woke up around 3 am and just couldn’t get back to sleep for some reason. I tossed and turned, finally giving up on sleep and played a few games on my iPad. On the bad news front, I didn’t get any more sleep, on the good news front I’m up around 4 million points on my crazy quilt card score. 

I could live with this out my back door

I started opening blinds around 7:30 am, and turning on the water for hot chocolate, as well as the heater. The Igloo was cold this morning. Left it on for a while and it took the chill away pretty quickly. Riley stirred around 8:30 am and was up and moving before 9 am. She’s feeling better but still under the weather. She wanted to get out of the house and so we opted for a day of ‘browsing’. 

 

I like the way they finish off the on/off ramps to the interstate.

In the Dogsled by 9:30 am we let the Big Dog run free along I-10 East into Phoenix, well actually the west side of Phoenix. We stopped into Camping World in Avondale, and didn’t find anything we liked there so we back tracked to Goodyear, checked out a couple of places there but didn’t see anything to strike our fancy.  We are looking to replace our love seat with either individual recliners or a theatre seating type recliner with a storage/beverage holder in between the seats. We don’t want any that have to be plugged in for any reason. We of course are limited in space and so we’re just in the looking stage at this point. We don’t want leather as it’s too cold or too hot, we have to be able to get it in the door, which is also a big challenge. If the back comes off that’s very helpful. We want something that is firm and not too plush, I find it too hard on the back if I sink into it. So as you can see we have a long list of wants and we’ll just keep looking until the wants and needs match. We struck out of course but did see some interesting pieces that we will definitely think about.

 

That's eastbound I-10.

 We finally climbed back into the Dogsled and turned his nose homeward along I-10 West, toward Los Angeles. Of course we weren’t going that far but I loved the sign anyway. We veered off the interstate to stop at Buckeye’s Wally World for a few groceries and some water. We managed to chase down a few items that we wanted along with the groceries and before we knew it we were loading up the Dogsled looking forward to getting home. 

 

Interesting finish on the sound barrier isn't it?

Actually Riley was loading the Dogsled, I was taking pictures of the car that parked behind us. Have you ever noticed that people will park near you even if the whole rest of the lot is empty? And not just ‘near’ they will park RIGHT beside, behind or in front. Not even leave ONE empty space when there are 10 more empties all around. I have no idea why people do that. I’m a far parker, as my girls say. I never park close to the door, I always park far away. I like my vehicles to be as ding free as possible and so I never invite dings by getting close to the store. Anyway, I digress, as we walked to the Dogsled I noticed this guy right up behind us. I realized after wards that he was looking for some shade for his car. I had to actually look at the chrome to figure out what kind of car it was. An old Studebaker. Not sure of the year but it’s in original condition with some paint missing, the soft top needs some work and the car is a definitely a driver, not a show room piece. How neat is that? However he parked right behind us, with only enough leg room between his bumper and my bumper to squeeze through. He could have parked  a dozen spots over and had the same amount shade. People are strange aren’t we?

 

Black Bear Restaurant, but the strangest black bear's I've ever seen.

On my solo journey the other day I noticed that Lower Buckeye Road came right out of Watson Road, and I also noticed that Broadway also came right out of Watson Road. Both of those roads also run into Salome Hwy, not far from Saddle Mountain. What a nice simple way home, back roads, hardly any traffic, and it’ll bring us out pretty close to where we want to be. Simple right? Wrong. Neither road actually goes straight through to Salome Hwy but dead ends before Salome Hwy, and Lower Buckeye actually dead ends in at least 2 places. I know you’ve figured out we didn’t have the GPS turned on, and truly we weren’t worried as I knew the general direction we needed to go. I can tell you that we viewed some country on our way home. Some of it twice as we had to back track from dead ends that weren’t signed. It was an interesting ride home. We did however enjoy it a great deal. We even managed to be home shortly after 2 pm. 

 

Pretty good shape, this old Studebaker.

As Riley put away the groceries I started the Weber to BBQ lunch. No salad today, but we did have two veggie side dishes so I was happy with that. We did spaghetti squash with butter/Italian/Parmesan cheese, as well as fresh green beans and mushrooms with orange zest. I then tossed a big loin chop on the grill when the sides were about finished. Just before taking it off I brushed it with Dijon Mustard and let it glaze a bit before turning it over and doing the other side. I didn’t go too heavy on the Dijon as I was worried it would be too strong. I covered the entire chop with a thin layer and it was excellent. We’ll do that again. That was lunch!

 

It looks original with an every day tag.

After that we stacked the dishes and grabbed our walking sticks, heading off to see how some guy managed to get his motor home part way up on the mountains way in the back. It was much further than we thought and I kept waiting for Riley to say she’s had enough but she didn’t. We were gone about an hour and forty five minutes, the roads we were walking were pretty rugged and I gave her my walking stick to help her steady herself better. We cut across country for a bit and that was tough for her but she’s a trooper she kept slogging away and finally we made it back to the road in a spot much closer to home. She was pretty happy to see the Igloo. I must admit I was pretty happy my self.

 

See the paint chips on the front fender?

No sunset pics tonight as we didn’t get home until after the sunset, it wasn’t dark but if we’d have been another 20 minutes we would have been strolling home in the dark. We don’t normally go that long or that late
and I’ll be more aware of the time next time. However it was a great walk and we both enjoyed it. 

 

Some pretty flowers where Lower Buckeye Road dead ended at a school.

So there you have it, our day’s adventure. As you can tell Riley is feeling a bit better and I think the walk and the fresh air may have helped her a great deal more than resting too much. We’ll know tomorrow for sure.

 

Pretty nice green space between the street and the sound barrier on Lower Buckeye Road where it dead ends at a school.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed your visit. Feel free to leave a comment.

 

Broadway, who wouldn't want to drive on this one? See the Helicopter?

Until next time…take care, be safe,


Deb