Our Location:
Saddle Mountain BLM, Tonopah, Arizona
A warm night followed by a wonderful day with a good breeze. Truly what we've been looking for. Last night's temperature got down to about 60F/15C with a slight coolish breeze. A very nice night for sleeping.
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| Saguaro and an Ocotillo. No flowers on the Ocotillo yet. |
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| I love that little band of sunlight. |
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| The desert is not all sand and dirt. |
Today was going to be a hiking day but well Murphy had other things in mind for us today. We emptied one of our propane tanks at Empire Ranch and have only been using the other tank for about a week. We planned on getting the first one filled on our next outing to Buckeye, which should have been tomorrow. While cooking breakfast, the tank went dry. Now how is that possible? I have no idea, there is no leak, no smell of propane, etc. So I wonder if by some fluke we used part of it and forgot we'd switched or if maybe it hadn't been full when we picked up the exchange back in our summer spot. I truly have no idea but I'm not too worried about it. We simply put one of the smaller tanks on and headed off to Buckeye for fill ups for 2 big tanks, and 1 little tank as well as few other errands.
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| An Ocotillo, also known as the Devil's Walking Stick. It's very thorny. |
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| Now isn't this an interesting look Saguaro? |
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| So many arms. It is very near a very large group of power lines. |
All of our propane tanks are exchange tanks but the fella at Tractor Supply Company refused to fill the small tank because it was outdated. So we will simply exchange it somewhere. He filled the others, no problem. Two 30lb tanks that were completely flat are now full for the price of about $65.00 USD. ( I don't have the exact number as the receipt isn't handy. To exchange 1 tank is $50 in our summer spot. Enough said.
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| Can you see the next in the Saguaro arms? |
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| It's a big nest. |
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| Not an easy walk to take the above two photos. |
The title of blog is in reference to the Big Dog. Yesterday on our drive here after we crossed a rather rough cattle guard the check engine light came on, but no messages came up, the truck never missed a beat and ran just normally. I had planned on taking it to a Chevy dealership to have it checked out tomorrow. Some one mentioned that Auto Zone will put their diagnostic tool on it and give you a print out of the error code free of charge. So we stopped at Auto Zone. The code is in regards to the Nox sensor which was replaced less than a year ago, saying it should be replaced. We decided to come home and find the nearest dealership and a camera store and take both to the respective repair places on Thursday. We did a bit of stopping and going, in and out of the truck and after our last errand when I started the truck the check engine light was off. Since I filled the tank during our errands today I wonder if it had something to do with the cap. I guess time will tell.
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| Twins!!! |
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| I love the colours, but they aren't as bright red as usual. |
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| The blooms are finished after the recent rains before we arrived. |
I bought an inexpensive Kodak camera to use while my Nikon is on the fritz but I truly don't like it and think I might return it. However, again time will tell. So I'll use both the camera and my phone for the next week and see if it grows on me.
I was leaving these empty spaces for sunset photos but my new camera needs some tweaking. Whenever I try to move photos after they are uploaded I lose them and need to upload them again, so for my sanity I will just leave the spaces empty.
A quick call to Don & Joan this morning to see how everyone is doing. Joan is doing well, Don is a bit under the weather but I'm sure he'll be his usual argumentative self before too long. Joan reports good weather there and possibly for the next week as well. Hopefully it lasts a long time, winters are tough on the big rock in the middle of Lake Huron.
I went for a short walk after we got back from the errands. I remembered a very interesting saguaro from past stays here and set off to find it. Find it I did. It hasn't changed a lot but it's still just as interesting.
The wind has picked up a bit here and the day is nice. Views are wonderful and the heat is soothing. We truly enjoy this little spot and look forward to spending some time here. So if you get tired looking at sunrises, sunsets, saguaros, mountains and such, then I suggest you not visit for a while. As our stay here usually includes these things in abundance.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit.
Until next time...
Take care, be safe,
Deb
