We are enjoying our views and the quiet...

 

Our Location: Empire Ranch, Sonoita, Arizona

A very quiet night last night, no wind, no frogs, no howls, no dogs, just quiet. It was deafening. I will admit, I slept in this morning and didn't see the sun rise, exactly. I was awake but still in bed. I know, I'm such a sluggard. 

The views are vast and far reaching here at Empire Ranch.

Cactus growing on the side of the roadway going toward the ranch house.

A single bud on that cactus.

After breakfast we opted to head out for a walk. We walked up to the main ranch road and strolled along for a fair distance keeping in mind that while it was all down hill going this way, it wouldn't be the same coming home. We made it though, and managed to accomplish more than our 6000 steps in the process. 

The colours are so appealing to me...

Those banks are high and cut away by the rushing waters that cross this ranch after a rain.

That is cement to hold the road crossing in place. It stops erosion and undercutting of the roadway.

The sun is shining, the wind is rustling the grass and it is such a haunting sound in the quiet of day. I can understand how day after day after day of this sound could be a problem for some people. It's very lonely and desolate, leaving a yearning for company. An emptiness of any hope or warmth. Of course it's not that way for everyone. Some people find it comforting, like an old friend come to visit. The familiar hum of a favourite tune might possibly be heard if you listen hard enough.  The gentle caress of loving arms and lips might be felt by others. The wind is a mistress totally unique to each person she touches. 

I don't think I would ever tire of this view. It changes constantly.

The road way leading to the ranch house, it winds on for some time yet.

It's very hilly here, lots of valleys and knolls, nothing is level.

The views out the windows are wonderful and remind me why I so enjoy looking at them. They change with shadow and light, they grow and diminish, they almost breathe a sigh at the end of the day. They offer beauty and life, they offer excitement and sanctuary. They call to an inner spirit, freedom and adventure. Of course they also offer brutal realities, death, hunger, darkness, sickness and fear. Centuries they have stood and witnessed our rise and fall, our victories and defeats and they have stood and watched, silent in their observations. They of course are the mountains, they call to me, much like the sea calls to a sailor or the skies to a pilot. I wonder why?

You can see the edge of the ditch/waterway that runs through the grass.

The trees are not tall but offer some shade, but do not touch, they are thorny.

With only my phone, I can't be sure but I think those may be pronghorn antelope mixed in with the cattle.

Not my usual post but one that seemed to flow from fingers today.  I have those days when writing seems to be necessary and other days when it seems a chore. I'm sure all of you fellow bloggers know what I mean when I say that. 

You can see the cattle off to the left.

And now the antelope are wandering away from the direction my feet are taking me.

Yep, that's us down there over that rise.

Today was a chore day for me. I did all the inside of the windows and screens, changed batteries, did some weather stripping, and a few other little chores, including taking, editing photos, writing this blog and just enjoying the day. 

They were so dark this morning they were almost black and now, the sun makes them much less foreboding.

A great place for a stroll, you can see the wind making the grass dance!!

Very sharp and pointy, careful not to touch.

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

It's really not flat out there.

 

Until next time.....

 

Take care, be safe, 

Deb

Parked by the water.....

Our Location:  Bosque Redondo Lake, Fort Sumner, NM

We spent a quiet night at the Walmart in Soccoro although Riley didn’t like the light right above her vent and claimed it kept waking her up through the night. I didn’t have that issue. It was warmer than we’ve had it for a number of mornings and so I enjoyed a short walk to the local Valero Gas Bar to see if they had some juice for the Big Dog. Sure enough they did and at $2.79 per gallon the Dogsled had about a 20 gallon swallow.

 

Much of US 60 is like this, long, rolling hills, but straight, straight, straight.

Last night after posting my blog I chatted with a couple, Tim & Sue from Belleville, Ontario. Farmers back home they are enjoying a short holiday before they start working in the spring. We chatted for about a half hour before parting and wishing each other well in our journeys. Another Canadian vehicle belonged to a fellow from Alberta. We chatted for a few minutes this morning but not long. This gent is in a wheel chair and stays in this small camper van, it’s his second year at least of doing this. Now that is brave. 

 

We climbed, and climbed and then we climbed some more.

We were on the road after fueling up shortly after 9 am and heading north, against my better sense but followed the GPS directions.  Phoebe (our RV GPS) wanted to take us to Albuquerque and along I-40. I didn’t want to do that, and instead turned off on US 60 East toward Mountainair, Willard, etc.This was not the route I originally wanted to take but it was the route we took. 

 

Very scenic is some places.

We cruised along on an nearly empty road for a couple of hours, and I mean nearly empty. In all of that time except in the small towns I don’t think we met or were passed by more than 20 vehicles. I mean it was just empty, long, straight and in some places a bit hilly but on the plateau just flat and straight. We could see for  miles. We spent some time on the plateau driving along at about 6200 feet in elevation. We eventually dropped down to just around the 4000 foot mark which is where we are tonight. A truck pulled out to pass us and as he pulled alongside his front wheels started shaking some thing terrible. I was worried the wheel would come off. He was into the grass on the wrong side of the road before he slowed down enough for the shaking to stop. He pulled back in behind us and continued driving, he didn't stop to check on anything but just kept behind us. . He finally went around us at Willard when I slowed down for the town limits and he didn't have to speed up. I was shocked to say the least. 

 

Down in those trees are train tracks, we must have seen at least a dozen trains today.

We didn’t pass through the town of Lincoln which had been my original plan but still managed to see some interesting sights along our travels. Phoebe managed to get us turned around a number of times but we finally got it figured out. We eventually had two gps going to ensure we found our way.

 

A dry lake?

We found our way to Fort Sumner, which is famous for the grave site of William H. Boney, better known as Billy the Kid. I didn’t know that he was buried here but tomorrow we will do a bit of sight seeing around the town and check things out. It looks like an interesting little place. 

 

This is at 6200 feet, and the road just hazes out in the distance. It's perfectly straight.

We passed through the little village of Fort Sumner and a couple of miles down the road hung a left on Realwind Drive heading to Bosque Redondo Lake. We arrived here to find no one else camping but a number of locals fishing. In fact as we were getting set up a nice lady came by with a freshly strung catfish and offered it to us. Since we aren’t fish people we thanked her but declined. I'm not sure it's a lake so much as a big pond, or at least this part. I'll let you know more tomorrow when we've been out walking. 

We noticed numerous small herds of Pronghorns along the way today.

Set up and called dad while lunch was cooking. They were getting more snow as we chatted. He has 6 weeks to get it melted before Riley and I arrive back at our summer spot. Hopefully he gets it done!!! 

 

Easy driving along US 60 and if you look you can see Fort Sumner off in the distance.

After that we just simply rested. The last few days have been a bit stressful and so we are going to just enjoy the next 3 nights as we are planning on staying here until Thursday before heading on. It’s not quiet, as there are birds, insects, and living sounds all around us. The folks that come by are very quiet and they fish for an hour or so before quietly slipping away. It isn’t the spiffiest of spots but it suits us fine, at least so far. We shall see how we like it after a night here. 

 

A bit blurry but we were almost past before we took note of it.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you had a wonderful day. I will catch up on my reading and commenting in the next couple of days, I just haven’t had the time the last couple of days. 

The view out our window. That green building is a bathroom.

Until next time… take care, be safe,

Deb

Busy day....

Our Location: Las Cienegas Grasslands, Sonoita, Arizona

 

Rain, rain, rain and yet more rain last night and today. We however had things to do today and so between rain drops packed up the Dogsled and headed off to Sierra Vista to do our chores. 

 

These Pronghorns numbering about a half dozen grazed lazily by the roadside.

 

A bit curious but they weren't too worried about us.

 

We haven't been able to see the mountain tops around us for two days now, they have been covered in clouds and fogs and although some times we fancy we can see the outlines we really haven't. Today's pictures will show what we finally managed to see on all the mountain tops around us except the one out our windows, we still haven't been able to see it. Tomorrow hopefully we will be get a view and a few photos. 

 

This fella just kind of posed for us.

 

The prongs aren't big on these two so these aren't the same ones we seen at our first sighting.

 

We had to float the Dogsled past the big water puddle I showed you days ago when we moved from one to spot to another. The 'then' little water puddle is now a lake with docks, water skiers and jet skis. No, not really but it is big. We then proceeded to follow BLM 6900 out past the Ranch House headquarters toward AZ 83 where there was no water in any of the dips. On our way we once again noted the herd of Pronghorns grazing by the roadside. We managed to get a few good photos. 

 

They finally decided to stop the photo session and causally walked across the road way.

 

These guys moved at a trot to keep up with the first guy.

 

From AZ 83 we turned left onto AZ 82, past Quail Ridge Campground and a right on to US 90 S toward Huachuca City and Sierra Vista. Our first stop was Walmart to dump our garbage. From there we headed out to Best Buy to return the computer charge cord that was too big. It seems I'll have to order one from on line as my laptop is too old for them to carry a cord in stock. No problem. 

 

Hey guys, wait for me, don't leave me behind.

 

They seem to realize the rest of the herd has crossed the road and don't want to be left.

 

 

From there we headed off to Sierra Wash & Dry laundry on Wilcox Ave. We had to do some laundry or the neighbours would start talking. The first inside impression isn't the greatest but the machines were clean and the attendant was helpful and often out and about checking, cleaning, sweeping, etc. You can't judge a book by it's cover I guess. A few hours there had us having washed, dried and folded two baskets and two duffels of laundry. 

  

Snow up there on those peaks.

From the laundry we headed off to Walmart again, but this time to shop. We spent a good hour there shopping. We like Walmart Colby Cheese and they didn't have the two pound bricks just the smaller one pound bricks. I tracked down a fellow to ask him if they had any in the back and long story short, the hand held scanner was wrong, there wasn't 8 on shelf and none could be found in the back either, so guess what he did? He discounted the smaller bricks and gave me a savings of $1.20 on top of the discount to be the same price as a 2 lb brick because they had none at all. How sweet is that? 

 

You can see the clouds still shrouding the mountain tops.

 

From Walmart we had a couple of other things to do. I decided to skip the oil change as I'm still a thousand miles from my next one but I did check into having the tires re-torqued since I had them rotated in Buckeye. However the fella assured me that if they were put on with an impact wrench it wasn't needed. So I didn't do that either. However we still needed to top off the Big Dog's water bowl and so pulled into a Circle K for 10 gallons of fuel at $2.80 per gallon. I'm happy with that and now when we head out in the next few days we'll have a full tank of fuel to start the day. 

 

Just amazing to see these views in Sierra Vista.

 

From the fuel up we stopped to fill our water jugs in Huachuca City at the car wash which also has a water dispensing machine. One more stop before we headed home was to head out US 90 past AZ 82 until we found the propane fill up station (sorry can't recall the name) and for $17.50  we filled up our 7 gallon tank. Yeah us, all the things necessary had been stroked off the chore list. 

So stark and beautiful.

 

We had been gone most of the day, not arriving back home until around 3:30 pm which made it a full day as we left home right around 9 am. So take an hour for off driving, and the rest of the time was spent doing errands. We put away the groceries, grabbed some lunch and fell into our chairs. It's been a long day. 

 

So pretty to look at but brrrr wouldn't want to be any closer.

 

It appears the sun will be out tomorrow as it was when we arrived back home and I think we have a plan or two but I'll leave that for tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you had a wonderful day!! 

 

It is just so pretty. The shadows cast by the clouds and the bright patches of sunlight topped off with snow.

 

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

 

 

We are once again back on Las Cienegas BLM heading for the Cienequita camping area.

 

 

Deb