A cold, ugly travel day...

Our Location: Deming, NM

 

(yesterday's post)

We left Las Cienegas under mostly blue skies with the sun beaming down on us around 8:30 AM. We turned left on to AZ 83 then hung another left onto AZ 82. We passed through the little town of Sonoita and on to the small wide spot called Whetstone. Another left on US 90 had us heading north to I-10 at Benson. We remained on 1-10 East for the rest of our day’s journey. 

 

At the Chevron Gas Station on the corner of US90 /AZ 82.

 

We had plans to stop at the Gage Rest Area just west of Deming for the night but the farther we travelled the less nice the weather. We had dark skies which turned to rain, which turned to wet flurries and finally on the road sides we could see snow. We did pull into the rest area and checked out the camping for future use. Other than the interstate there is also a train track on the opposite side of the interstate. However I think some ear plugs would remedy that issue. Due to the cold, snowy day we opted to move further along and ended up in Deming.

 

If you have travelled this road you know those rocks are at the rest area.

We filled up with fuel at $2.79 per gallon and managed to find a spot to park for the night. A bit noisy but we made do. The Walmart in Deming is very crowded and we opted to by pass that parking area. 

 

I love this rest area, it's so picturesque.

 

The temperatures over the day dropped to 35F /  1.6 C as we were motoring along and I was happy to get tucked up behind a building and out of the wind for the night. The wind was unsteady during the coming from the East or South as it swirled through the mountains on our drive. We had no wind to speak of  through the night and the morning dawned with blue skies and temperatures dipped low enough to put a heavy frost on the window of the Dogsled. 

 

 

Today is another travel day, we are moving a couple hundred more miles on down the road. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you had a wonderful day. 

This was the kind of grey day we had, then it started to rain, then wet flurries ....

 

Until next time…. take care, be safe,
 

Yes that is snow there on the road sides.

 

 

Deb

Our last day here in Cienequita Campground....

Our Location: Las Cienegas Grasslands, Arizona


Our last day here has been coldish, with the wind picking up again throughout the day. The temperatures reached about 60 F/ 15.5 C but with the wind seemed much cooler. 

This puddle has been here since we arrived 10 days ago, it wasn't as big as this at first but the rains have increased it and the wind over the last few days has decreased it again.

We puttered around for part of the day doing the pre travel things and both took our walks this morning. I managed to put in a bit over 5 miles in 2 hours and made it home around noon. Riley put in about 3 miles in approx an hour and a half. The wind definitely made the coming home not fun, as it was cold. We both took gloves so that helped. 

I followed this road today for a little less than 2 miles before it dead ended.

A chat with my dad this afternoon to say hello and so forth. Rain up there on the Island and then it turned to snow. Hopefully it keeps melting and is gone before we get there. We shall see how things go.
 

I believe these may be Mesquite Trees, but I'm not sure. I can imagine the cows hiding in there at round up time.

 Today’s photos were taken on my walk. I enjoyed the stroll and managed to see some far off riders but didn’t chat with any of them.

They are very far away but following the same roadway I am. I turned around just about where they are now.

 Tomorrow we move on into New Mexico, and our clocks will move ONE HOUR due to a time zone change and I believe another ONE HOUR due to DST. We aren’t planning on getting in too big a hurry but we’re looking forward to having the wheels turning and the Dogsled out front of the Igloo again. 

This area is not flat either, lots of dips and valleys run through the grasslands.

Our eastward trek starts in a more earnest fashion tomorrow with us putting in a large number of miles in the next 10 days. We will of course have a couple nights in most locations until we reach our friends in Natural Falls State Park in Colcord, OK.  There we will remain for a week. We are looking forward to spending some time with these friends we haven’t seen for a couple of years. 

I bet this tree is beautiful when it's green.

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

My last stroll in the Las Cienegas Grasslands this year. It's been fun.

Until next time.. take care, be safe,

Deb

Blue skies, warmer temperatures, nice walk.....

Our Location: Las Cienegas Grasslands, Arizona

Cold morning here but the day warmed up nicely. Very little wind made the day much more enjoyable than many recent days. A clear blue sky with the sun shining brightly greeted us as we opened the door to step outside. Truly a very wonderful day here at the Empire Ranch near Sonoita, Arizona. 

The mountains out our window have a lot more snow now.

 

After a light breakfast we both pulled on hoodies, grabbed our walking sticks and headed off the 2 1/4 mile walk to the Ranch House Headquarters. Today we thought we’d look around and see what life was like back in the day. The breeze was very slight with a bit of a coolish hint to it but it didn’t last long and soon just died away. 

 

Today they started coming, most with horse trailers but many not. They turn left at the T in the road and head off to Oak Tree Canyon to the horse base camp.

 We were stopped by and chatted with a couple of fellows a few sites down from us. I chatted with them other day as well but today we chatted about travels past and future. One couple is headed to Alaska, the other to Winnipeg, Manitoba some time over the summer. We chatted about a few things but soon were saying our goodbyes and safe travels. Riley and I continued on our way, trekking toward the Headquarters building. 

This is the main entrance but it was an addition added to the first ranch house.

  We arrived to find both Nick and Jeannie busy doing tours. I didn’t realize they gave tours on a regular basis or I would have been there for one but oh well, we just toured the Ranch House on our own. We didn’t get a chance to see the video either but we will be back and we will do both the video and the guided tour another year. So today I will leave you with only photos of our visit. We did spend about 20 minutes wandering around and reading the various placards depicting life on the ranch in it’s ‘living and working’ days. 

 

On the side of the building. I hope you can read it.

 

From there we headed off back home, once again our feet taking us at a nice pace while we discussed our future travel plans. Very few cattle today that we could see, but we did manage to see a few way off in the distance. They are usually all along the roadway. The cattle have not come near the rig at any time, which I find amazing. Cows are naturally nosey and usually want to smell and lick everything, but  not these ones. We also had a quick chat with Cheryl (our neighbour) as she was on her way back from collecting some water at the Ranch Headquarters. We were home less than two hours after leaving. A very nice bit of exercise. So about 4.5 miles today. Nice easy walking pace and good company along the way. 

 

One of the original fireplaces. I think every room had one or at least most rooms.

 

We are scheduled to be in Natural Falls Park, near Tulsa, Ok on March 26 and we aren’t in any hurry to get there travel wise, but we are looking forward to meeting up with our friends. We’ve decided we’ll leave here on Saturday taking our time and traveling the distance over 10 days. We don’t intend to hurry but will spend probably a couple nights at most of our stops along the way.  

 

The adobe walls are thick in the older part of the house.

 

I do have a couple of questions for those of you that have travelled or do travel I-44 out of Tulsa toward St. Louis. Is Interstate 44 a toll road? Partial toll? Or did I not zoom in enough to see that it’s a road beside the interstate that is a toll road? I’m also interested in US 412 of which there are two, one is a toll and one is not. Apparently the newer one is toll and OLD US 412 isn’t.  Anyone out there know where to pick that one up? I’ve looked numerous times and haven’t been able to find OLD US 412, only the toll road.  If not I think we’ll continue along I-40 and take one of the roads north to the park. 

 

They painted over the fireplace. An interesting shade of blue, don't you think?

 

Back home we puttered around, had some lunch and spent some time reading and looking at the snow capped mountains. Very pretty. Our time is winding down here and tomorrow I’ll do all those pesky little things we do pre travel days. We never did unpack our patio stuff as the weather wasn’t really nice enough, so we don’t have a lot of packing up to do tomorrow. 

 

A very pretty fireplace, this is in the new addition, along with a dining room and master bedroom with bath.

Thanks for stopping, I hope you enjoyed your day.

This is the fireplace directly behind the one in the photo above, this one is in the master bedroom.

 

Until next time.. take care, be safe, 

 

Not a cowboy bed, but someone slept here. Good night from Empire Ranch Headquarters.

 

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

 

 

  

Cold, rainy day...

Our Location: Las Cienegas Grasslands, Sonoita, Arizona

A gray, miserable, rainy day interspersed with blue sky and sun for 5 minutes at a time. The blue sky promised but the clouds and rain just over powered it again and again and again. Rain all night, for over half of the day and still now as I write this post shortly after 7 pm. Tomorrow should be only a cloudy day, we shall wait and see. 

The blue sky and the sun appeared giving us hope.

But within minutes the skies returned to this.

The ground mostly absorbs the water quickly.

More teasing.

I talked to sister Jan for a while today. She and Rick are feeling much better and they think spring may be coming but who knows. 

 

I couldn't get all the photos to load for some reason but you at least get an idea of the kind of day we had. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you had a good day. 

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

Deb

 

Another windy day....

Our Location: Las Cienegas Grasslands, Arizona

A decent morning today, but the wind picked up once more. The light rain I heard as I drifted off to sleep around 1:30 am didn’t really amount to anything. Warm although not hot, the wind makes it difficult to walk here. I’ve found I need a hat when it’s windy. 

 

I walked past here.

 

A few chores this morning had me heading out for my walk around 10:30 or so. I met Riley coming back from her stroll and we exchanged a few words before we separated. 

 

Pronghorns, some behind the hilltop as well.

 

I spent my walking time of just under two hours doing about 5 miles. I walked past the Empire Ranch Headquarters toward AZ 83 for a bit before turning around and coming home. I sighted the Pronghorns again on my walk, 8 or 9 of them I think. They were curious and watched me for a while but didn’t seem worried until suddenly their heads all came up and looked back toward the Ranch House. They stood frozen for a few seconds before they took off running, crossing the road in front of me and heading off into the bigger fields. Three motorcycles went past which I’m sure was the thing that scared them. I didn’t see them any more, the Pronghorns nor the motor cycles. 

They took off running.

 

Back home we puttered around doing a few little things before settling in to read for the afternoon. The wind picked up making it once again an inside day due bits of dust flying around. A chat with my dad to assure him we are not in the tornado warning area, and that we are expecting an occasional thunderstorm or two tonight and tomorrow but with only partially cloudy skies today and tomorrow I don’t know if we’ll have much rain. 

 

They weren't running flat out, but they were moving along.

 

Tonight I chatted with daughter Courtney in Toronto. No new snow, lots of rain over the weekend and now Toronto has lots of ice from the melted snow that froze over the last day or so. Courtney is off on March break. Also chatted with my friend Linda in Lively. They have a lot of snow and have had more over the weekend and today. Hubby Randy is off somewhere ice fishing for a few days, comes back tomorrow. Linda and I chatted for an hour or so before feeling caught up enough to say our good nights. 

 

He's the last one, just getting ready to cross the road.

 

So there you have it, another very quiet day here in Las Cienegas. Winter storm warnings for elevations over 6500 feet where snow can be expected, a lot of snow. We are fortunate being around 4500 feet with no snow in the offing. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit. All of today’s photos were from my walk and taken with my phone.
 

The clouds are moving in as I walk.

 

Until next time.. take care, be safe, 

The shadow between two patches of sunshine.

 

Deb

More wind today....

Our Location: Las Cienegas Grasslands, Sonoita, Arizona

 

(yesterday's post)

I seem to be falling behind in my posting at night. I'm not sure why but I'll have to stop being so lazy. It was a quiet sort of day here with the wind once again picking up bits of dust and making outside enjoyment difficult. It is impossible to get out of the wind and while the wind is warmish, chewing dust is not enjoyable. I know we all eat a peck of dirt in our life time (or so the saying goes) but I think I've had my quota for the week.

 

These stumps are huge.

A different stump but you can gauge the size with Riley as a reference.

We managed to accomplish a few little inside piddly things but spent the majority of the day reading and looking out the window. I think a couple more days here will see us deciding to move on. We have some more errands and chores to do first but with the almost constant wind we are finding ourselves house bound on many days. 

Not sure why this one was burnt and not the others.

This path is along Empire Gulch. I'd like to walk there but with the wind and the trees, I'll pass.

As promised, today's photos are more from the other day when I only posted sunset photos. I hope you enjoy them. 

I wonder Doug Laning if this is the area you park in while here?

 

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

Mostly black cows, I think Black Angus, but that is a guess. A few regular looking "Ontario" like cows too though.

 Until next time.. take care, be safe, 

 

I love the iron work here!!

 

Deb