Change of plans...

Our Location: Palm Canyon BLM, KOFA NWR, Arizona

 

 

A change of plans today had us lazing around again. Although I will admit I did go up on the roof and clean the solar panels. They actually weren't nearly as bad as I expected. Once that was accomplished it was pretty much a research day for me. A chat with Dad and making contact with my buddy from Kansas has me rethinking my generator choice so I'll be doing some more thinking before I purchase one. 

 

 

The barrel cactus here aren't as bright red in colour as they are on Ogilby Road near Yuma. 

 

 

 This dying Saguaro is easily seen from our window. 

 As you can see it's still a greenish hint in places but this one is definitely not going to recover.

 

Nephew Jason and his lovely wife Leah leave tomorrow for the second annual trip to British Columbia where they will be enjoying the wonders of the providence, including a great deal of snow mobile riding. Safe travels and have fun!! 

 

 

 Lots of pointy things to watch out for in the desert.

 The little one is tucked in and I didn't see it at first.

 

 

 

 

Today's photos were taken yesterday on a short walk. I thought if I got outside and walked around that I might see something inspiring toward the mountains but alas, nothing, zip, nada. I wonder why that is? 

 Yep, that's a sharp pointy thing too. 

The end of a dead limb on a stump in the wash.

 

 As I sit writing this post folks are coming and going. It seems we now have two new neighbours that have pulled into the space near us, much closer than we like and much closer than good RV'ers should even think about . We can hear them talking, their dog barking and pretty much every noise they make. I wonder why folks do that? Of course it's a rhetorical question, we all know why. They have no manners, no regard for others and they don't give a rat's behind about anyone but themselves. End of rant. 

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you've all had a wonderful day. 

Until next time.. take care, be safe, 

Deb

 

A picture kind of day....

Our Location: Near American Girl Mine Road, BLM, CA

A very pleasant night last night, followed by a nice morning. The sun popped over the horizon while I was chatting with my sister Jan back home in Ontario. We spent an hour or so just catching up and chatting about her Christmas plans. 

It's starting to get bright over to the east.

You can see it's getting brighter....

Almost like liquid gold in the sky...

The sun makes its first rays known.

A quick clean up and a chat with Riley before I headed out the door for a walk. Today's walk was different than my normal idea of a walk. After starting out I decided I would turn on the date and time on the camera to show you folks how deceiving distances are in the desert. 

This is to the east of the Igloo and about where I started walking toward the mountains. The time is shortly after 9 AM.

I still haven't decided to turn on the date, time on the camera yet but my path is pretty much a straight line from the above picture.

I turned on the time but it was an hour later than the actual time here and I didn't realize it. However it is still a good reference to watch. 

 

As you can see, it's about 10 minutes between shots.

They are still very far away, this one was only about 5 minutes interval, for those that have been here, I have now reached the power lines and the road running under them.

They look close but they truly aren't.

I turned around at the brown post and headed home, I would have at least another 1/2 hour to just about REACH any trails going into the mountains. Not to actually get into the mountains. 

It is a long way from our home to the area I would love to hike and I have to cover a lot of ground before I even get there. Of course getting there is only half the feat, I also have to get home and I can't call Riley to come pick me up, she doesn't drive so she couldn't even come a little way up the road from the Igloo. Just for a little perspective I walked a total of 3.62 miles, which means that 1.8 miles I turned around and I was still a good distance from the bottom edges. Deceptive, isn't it? 

If witnessed at night, I'll bet it would give you a thrill. 

I chatted with my buddy Ron today. Him and his lovely wife Sharon are the friends we had hoped would be making the winter trek with us but due to health issues they couldn't make it. Always enjoy chatting with Ron, he's a character!! 

Who told you the desert was sandy? Or flat?

I put a little more of our 'yard' stuff out today. BBQ, mat, chairs and even managed to air the awning as it always seems to have water laying in those folds. I think we'll be letting the awning air out often here in the desert. I also managed to sit outside in the sun and read for a few hours today, some of that time of course was cooking lunch. An easy one today, sausage on a bun and a salad. Some pretty good stuff. 

I think, but I'm not sure that those far distant mountains may be in Mexico. 

 The rest of the afternoon was spent just reading and relaxing. An extraordinaire sunset tonight, and so more photos on this photo kind of day. 

These photos are as they came off the camera, nothing was enhanced or modified in any way. Some amazing skies George, the kind you always get while cooking on the Weber. You and Suzie would enjoy tonight's sky. 

 

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed the photos today. 

Until next time... take care, be safe, 

Deb

Quiet days.....

Our Location: Roosevelt State Park, Morton, MS

Some rain, some wind which resulted in a bit of debris littering and bouncing off the roof top. Under some pine trees and the cones are loud when they come knocking. We slept well though even with the drumming on the roof from time to time.

 

An icicle hanging off the slide.

The last two days have been errand days, groceries, fuel, laundry, propane, etc. We didn’t do much else because of the cold and damp weather. We even did something we don’t normally do, we grabbed some KFC for lunch on one of errand days. A good, once in a while, type of meal for us but we did enjoy it. 

The Wash House in Morton, MS.

The laundry we found was in the small town of Morton, extremely clean, very friendly and reasonably priced. We made note for when we pass through this way again. We also found a place to fill our propane tanks. Neill Propane on Hwy 80, two tanks, one big, one little for a total of $37.50. Both tanks were completely empty.

Some bright colours here in the park.

We found the Walmart in Forest for a little shopping and I think next time we’re passing through this area we will make that Walmart a night’s stop. Very close to I-20, lots of room for overnight parking and a number of big rigs parked there, I’m sure there is room for a 5’er or two. 

Big pine cones here.

The overnight cold here reached down to around the 20F/ -6.6C and the day time high has hovered in the mid 40’s/ 6.6C. It looks as if the cold front has finally passed and it will begin warming up now. Although tomorrow looks like rain after that it looks to be very nice all along the rest of our route. 

The same pine cone as above.

 A chat with my buddy Ron today has us hoping to have company for most of our winter travels. Of course Doctors appointments will be the determining factor. We will have to wait and see.  

 

The Igloo is way back in those trees, a little thinned out but still under a total canopy.

So some quiet days, a couple of photos and that is tonight’s post. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit.
 

Lots of fallen leaves here at Roosevelt SP.

Until next time…. take care, be safe,


Deb

Hail, thunder, rain, and lightning...a flat tire too....

Our Location:  Hereford Aquatic Center, Hereford, Texas

No blog yesterday so I’ll do one big one tonight. Friday was a sort of quiet day, we did a fuel run (forgot to take the camera so no photos of that), a few groceries and found a First National Bank with an international ATM. Back home we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon just puttering around and doing a few little things. 

 

It was dark over there, the water was a dark green colour.

 

Well that is until I noticed one of the trailer tires looked a bit slack. Sure enough down to 40 pounds. Looking around I noticed a nail head sticking out of the tread. I was not impressed. Alison offered to remove the tire for me (she had also taken a nail out of one of her tires here the day we arrived) for me on Saturday (the next morning). 

 

A bright spot among the darkness.

Looking at the sky and checking the weather we were in the path of a severe line of thunderstorms moving at about 50 miles an hour through the area. We found a place here we could take refuge if necessary, pulled in the big slide and hooked up the truck due to the extreme winds that we were expecting. Soon the hail came, started off small, like the eraser on the end of a pencil, ending up about the size of a marble. It went on and on and on and on and on. Eventually it turned to rain and eventually stopped but for a couple of hours it was an ugly night here. A fair bit of lightning and some thunder but not the big winds they were expecting.

 

It was very dark to the north of us and we thought at first it miss us.

 

A few small dents on the truck but nothing major, and I haven’t yet climbed up the ladder to look at the panels on the roof. I will when we park in Natural Falls State Park. Still this morning there was a great deal of water laying around everywhere but I didn’t see any damage. Lark (a lady from Wisconsin and a friend of Alison’s) had both of her vent covers broken by the hail but other than that we couldn’t really find any thing except a couple of small dents on the vehicles. I think we were fortunate. At one point the hail covered the grass and the pavement, like snow. 

But then this rolled right over us.

This morning dawned with bright blue skies and warmer temperatures. After coffee, Lark left, heading toward Oklahoma City for the  night before heading on home. Alison came by to take the tire off and lucky thing she did because only two of the bolts were what one would consider is tight, the rest were snug but not as tight as they should have been. With the tire off, we headed to Walmart to get it patched. They assured me it was patched and plugged but I’m not so certain.
 

It was clear then to the north.

 

Back home Alison and I put the tire back on and went around to check all of the wheels, just the one with the nail was questionable, the others were all fine, very tight. So I’m not sure why that would be but I’m going to keep an eye on it for certain. 

After things settled down, it started to clear up.

 

After that I helped Alison with a couple little things, we chatted for a couple of hours discussing many things. Finally we parted ways and I came home to have some lunch, Riley and I spent the rest of the day doing a few puttering things. 

Blurry but you get the idea.

 

I chatted with my buddy Ron, we’ll be meeting up with him and his lovely wife Sharon on Tuesday. We are looking forward to that, it’s been a couple of years since we’ve seen them. 

Still raining but you can see the hail stones washed into piles. That isn't white stones, it's hail.

 

So the day is winding down and tomorrow we are off to Elk City, OK. One step closer to our week long destination. Hopefully we get no more bad weather. So that’s it, our last couple of days. 

 

The water has heaped the hail in piles.

 

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit.  

 

That's water running down the sidewalk into the pond. A accumulating in puddles in the parking lot. I didn't do any enhancing of any kind to this photo. This is how it came from the camera. If you look at the first photo in this post you can see how dry the parking lot is before the storm.

 

Until next time… take care, be safe, 

 

Deb