VACATION- Last night with Roger and Lila - heading East and North tomorrow

Well, we have been hiding out on some BLM (Bureau of Land Management) areas in Arizona... with Buddies Roger & Lila, and Bob & Pam.   It's been a quiet location in the desert, with lots of beading, food, fun and friendship!

Steve started out the day with a long walk with Roger in the desert.  I took the dogs on a short loop around and came back to get started on some sockcranking and spinning.  We kinda spent a lazy day just looking at maps, reading magazines and taking naps.  Some vacation, huh?

But yes, we must move on in the morning.  We need to head north and east, towards Wisconsin.  As much as we do not want to, we need to get our butts in gear.   We are thinking of heading up towards the Grand Canyon next....  then finding a place over near Flagstaff so we can day trip over to Sedona.  We are going to avoid the treacherous route between Prescott and Sedona where we are warned about 15 mph hairpin turns, and no vehicles over 40ft recommended... complete with dented guardrails and even missing ones.  No thanks, we will day trip it in the Tracker instead.

So, to celebrate one last night before saying goodbye to our desert boondocking friends, we went out with all three of us couples, for dinner for our last night here.  We went to a place just north of Congress AZ called Nichols West.

 We walked in and got a table for 6 right away.

Imagine our surprise when we realize the tablecloths are really sheets of BROWN PAPER!   Yes, like brown packaging paper used to wrap parcels???? Hmmmmmmm    Guess tablecloths, linens or disposable placemats are in short supply? It sure was different!   LOL   For the menu prices, we should have had at least real cloth tablecloths if not cloth napkins?

We ordered our food, which was good and served hot... especially mine which was SO hot and steaming that I couldn't even eat till until almost everyone else was done!   Can't complain about it being served cold now, can I?   They were pretty busy as we left, and we had to wait a bit while someone unsnarled our bills.

We headed out and on the way home,  stopped by a Trading Post (which was closed) and looked around the lot a bit. Hey brother Umpee, here is a sign I looked at for you.  But I didn't buy it.  You can come here yourself and buy it if you want it!  LOL

I snapped a few pics to catch the local flavor of the place!  haha

For some reason, we just HAD to pose with the Big Rooster! 

It just seemed like the "touristy thing" to do?

We meandered back to the boondocking site and dropped off Roger and Lila at their rig, and managed to snap a few shots of the desert sunset with pretty pinks and blues.  What a lovely ending to a great day!

 

And the lights of the sunset are reflected in our rig out in the Arizona Desert. 

We sure hate to say good bye to Roger and Lila... instead we will just say "See you Soon!"

So tomorrow morning we hit the road, and see what our next adventure will be?

VACATION - Hanging out in the Arizona desert and Beading

(this post is about Wednesday and Thursday- March 23 and 24)

Oh I had to make one correction on yesterday's post about Rogers cool hauling device for his powered parachute.   The wheels underneath also allow it to be used as a trailer to tow the machine around behind his pickup truck.

What a cool invention he made of towing it and a pickup truck behind their bus!

Now, Donna asked about how it works....    A powered parachute has a motor that moves the big propeller...  it drives forward like a gocart with the parachute laid out behind it.  Once it reaches the right speed, it takes off up in the air and flies around!   Roger has a license that allows him to fly in the air safely, goes through safety checks and he uses a radio and also a SPOT locator device if he ever has to be found somewhere in the event of an equipment failure.  

Roger loves taking photos from the air and has some wonderful shots of various parts of the country, all taken from his high up perch in his powered parachute.  Here is a shot from way up high... of The Slabs (the last place we were camping over in S. California) 

We are sitting out in the desert this morning, again with sunshine and blue skies.  Bet you readers are bored silly reading that in my blogs, huh?  But hey, it's true and we are sure appreciating it.  After seeing all the snow that fell in Wisconsin again, we are appreciating this desert terrain and temps even more!  Jameson left me an excited voice mail message all about watching the snowplow in the parking lot.  How cute!


Here we are ... boondocking wayyyyyy back in the desert on BLM land (Bureau of Land Management)
See the tiny white RV's back in the desert?  One of them is us, and one is Roger and Lila's bus. Everywhere we look, we see mountains in the backdrop, and blue skies from horizon to horizon!

The terrain here is a bit greener than in the southern Arizona and California areas we were at. 

The road into this place has some washes that can be full of slimy clay mud if there is a rain up in the mountains. If that happens, you just wait till things dry up in a day or two or three before trying to drive your RV back out again.  So far, no rains so we are high and dry. 

Roger put out the awning so we women could do our beading thing in the shade....

Steve and Roger got up to take an early morning hike this morning...   so I decided to stay in my jammies and work on the blog instead.  It's a cool 45 this morning, but will be up to high 70's later today.  Ahhhhh

We  women are going to a beading gathering at the nearby Escapees park, North Ranch this afternoon.  I am bringing along my hair clip projects.  I have been showing Lila how to make them....  

And Roger got busy making her a wooden jig device to help hold the stretchy cords of beads in place while you stitch it to the hair combs. 

 Our guys will hang out at the campers in the desert and solve all of the world's problems... they are sure good at doing that.  So we women can bead, craft, knit, spin or whatever.  They will come up with projects, ideas, solutions and plans.  In no particular order!

(Bob, Steve and Roger) 

 And of course, the dogs are having a blast, with new desert to sniff, no leashes or ropes, and just relaxing on the couch when I work on the blog posts!!!!  What a life!

And so it goes... another sunny day in the desert.  We will be moving on soon towards the east again, not sure when, where, what day or who we will meet up with next.  We just know all too soon, this vacation will end and we will be back in the snowy muck of Wisconsin.   ARGGGHHHH!!!!

VACATION - Found Old Fort Rucker Ranch

(This is my second post for today, so I am catching up now!) 

We spent a pleasant morning with fellow RV bloggers, Rene and Jim of http://www.liveworkdream.com  we had coffee and banana nut muffins for a treat.  The dogs did their tricks to entertain them and we are sure to see them again in the next few days!

Now that we are settled in our boondocking spot for a few days, we are planning on taking the Tracker and the dogs for a few little exploration trips.

One place we wanted to see was Old Fort Rucker Ranch... our RV friends Al and Kelly recommended a book a while back called "A Cowman's Wife" by Mary Kidder Rak. ISBN-10: 1432571958
She wrote the book while they lived on a ranch up high in the Arizona desert.

Book Summary of A Cowman's Wife

Women in the American West were not only mothers, teachers, and nurses, but also cowgirls, outlaws, and ranchers. Mary Rak's career as a ranchwoman began in 1919, when she and her husband Charles Lukeman Rak purchased a spread fifty miles north of Douglas, Arizona.

In A Cowman's Wife, Rak details the seasonal round of ranch chores; the devastating effects of drought; the difficulty of finding hired hands; and the exigencies of marketing the cattle, especially during the Depression.

The new introduction to this rangeland classic was written by the late Sandra L. Myres. Her research into the lives and writings of ranchwomen provides an excellent background for understanding Mary Rak and her work.

So with Al's guidance as to where to find the ranch, off we went!  And ... we found it!   It is very difficult to find, there are no signs.  It recently is undergoing a historical renovation, and is not yet really open to the public.  So unless you read the book and know the area, you would not have a clue as to what lays beyond the gate at the side of the road. 

Here is a Google Earth shot of the old fort grounds. 

First... this location was an army fort.  The Canyon here has a direct path down into Mexico. 

Then it was no longer a fort, it became a cattle ranch.  It passed through 2 owners before Charlie and Mary Rak bought it in 1919.  They raised cattle on the 22,000 acres. 

We walked around, poking our heads in the buildings and barn.  It was like watching the book come alive in my head!  I could feel and see what Mary saw on her ranch as she wrote her book.  Walking through the buildings and the home, I recalled stories among the chapters, and relayed some of them to Steve as we wandered around the place. 

I snapped about 100 photos... but Al has so many good ones in his picassa folder:

https://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/INSEARCHOFOLDFORTRUCKER#

and three blogs on their explorations at the ranch:

http://thebayfieldbunch.com/2009/03/in-search-of-old-fort-rucker.html#uds-search-results

http://thebayfieldbunch.com/2011/01/return-to-old-fort-rucker-memories-of.html

http://thebayfieldbunch.com/2011/01/another-fine-day-in-chiricahuas-rucker.html

 These are the Swiss Helm Mountains that Mary would look out on, and they would drive the rugged 80 miles or so up to Wilcox or the 50 miles south to Douglas for supplies for the ranch.  It was early 1920's and she told about tales with battered old vehicles and the hard life of ranching.  But her book also told of the wonderful views, rewarding events and people who passed on through their lives at the ranch.

When we were done exploring to our heart's content, we went back to the Tracker and got the dogs some water.  We laid out our Honeymoon Mexican Blanket and had a picnic lunch at the gate.

ACK ~  don't look at those chicken skin white legs of mine!   

I am slathered with sunscreen so we don't ruin a single day of vacation suffering from sunburns! 

On the way back to the motorhome, Ducky got a SPECIAL TREAT!   In a past blog I told about how she feels that she must hollar at cows and put them in their place.  Well.... this area  of the desert is full of free range cattle and these just happened to be on the road in front of us!   As we drove up slowly......

.... she gave them the big "WHAT FOR"  and barked and barked at them!  As we drove by, the cows starting galloping alongside the Tracker to see why a goofball dog inside was barking at them!   Duke just smiled his doggy smile and said: "Boy oh boy are you gonna get it now!"

And so it goes, another day in our Arizona desert! 

no miles traveled in the motorhome

86 miles traveled in the Tracker 

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VACATION - ONE WEEK! Can you believe it, and we are in Arizona

(This post is about Wednesday, though it didn't get posted till Thursday) 

It is almost unthinkable to realize that we have only been gone ONE WEEK~  
-We have visited with Sam and Donna in St. Louis
-We met up with Doug and Ann in Oklahoma City
-We toured through the panhandle area of TX,
-We snuck through the high wind storm and found a safe place in New Mexico
-We walked down 80 stories deep under the earth at Carlsbad Caverns
-We played in the sand of White Sands Nat. Monument....
-and now we are on way into Arizona!

We woke up at the Kmart in Deming, NM with about 10 other motorhomes and fivers parked around us.  We went and did a little shopping at the Kmart as a thankyou for letting us stay there.  Before we left Deming, we decided we needed to fuel up.....  OUCH!  Most places were 3.99 a gallon for diesel.  We managed to get fueled up at a Shell station for only $3.79 a gal diesel.

$232.00
61 gallons at $3.799  a gallon

We hit the interstate to get across into Arizona, but left it as soon as possible.  We really dislike the busy traffic and semi-trucks blasting past us, and the dumb drivers in the merging lane who have cell phones plastered to their heads.. .which blocks their view as they merge into the traffic.. and often almost run into us! 

The scenery is getting more *desert-like* and we are enjoying the changes and textures of the landscapes.  This is so foreign and unreal to us, as we are used to hills and trees and either green leaves or white snow.  We never see they sky like in Wisconsin... going from one horizon to the other as the sun rises and sets....  without anything blocking it's way!

We never knew pecans grew in the desert!  Something else we learned today! 

So we pulled off at Wilcox and headed south....  Our good RV blogger friends Al and Kelly directed us to a good place to boondock and let the dogs out to roam and sniff and stretch their legs.  

http://thebayfieldbunch.com/2011/03/ivan-john-judyjean-skippluslemon-gate.html

It has been a busy week, so we really enjoyed setting up and relaxing in the desert.  We are between the Swiss Helm mountains and  the Chiricahua Mountains.   We stopped in a tiny Tourist Information station and got a whole bunch of brochures and booklets to pour over.  

We did manage to find a little bit of this Arizona dust while driving through the desert....

Tracker:  "Cough-cough-choke-choke-gasp!"

We whipped up a good dinner of Wisconsin Bratwurst and relaxed as we looked at our view....

And here is our VIEW!!!!  These are the Chiricahua Mountains..... 

Here is an Arizona sunset, splattered across the side of our rig.....

It was quiet and no lights and no sounds... just us.  We went to bed early... we sure needed it!  

191 miles traveled today

2,072 total miles traveled so far

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