Walking the dog....Sydney the goat

Each and every day, Sydney and I go for a nice long walk / hike to get our exercise. Although we went many directions and saw many interesting things our favorite is a walk down the dry run that intersected the middle of the Thousand Trails park. It is like a dry creek bed with a sandy bottom and stones here and there along the way. The sides are mountainous with interesting formations and caves.

Sydney quickly adapted from forest terrain to mountain climbing and cave exploration. He has also taken up rabbitt chasing. The rabbitts out here come in many sizes, but they all have two things in common.... they're fast and smart. There were a few days that I just sat and waited for him to return with his tongue hanging so low I thought he was going to trip over it.

More Sights in Arizona

We have been to sooooo many places and seen so much it is impossible to share it all, but I thought I would choose a few of my pictures to show you. My alterior motive is you will have to sit through a complete slide show when we return.

Chaple in Sedona. The first is a picture of the interior of a chapel that sits up on the side of a mountain outside Sedona. It is very majestic and blends right in with the surroundings. It reminded me of the work of Frank Lyold Wright....who incedently did the first design. But since it took many years and the site was changed, the original design was slightly altered by a local architect.

Hot Air Balloons. Almost every morning when we were parked on BLM land, this balloon would peek its head over the ridge, disappear and return to fly up and away. John kept finding little plactic toy soldiers attached to plastic parachutes in the desert when he walked Holly. We made the assumption, right or wrong, that they were dropped from the balloon to either test the wind current or amuse children along on the ride.

Fossill Creek Canyon. We rode with our friends Millie and Ray through the mountains of Fossill Creek and were treated to some beautiful scenery. This area use to be the home of a hydo-electric plant. At some point in time, the water level got so low that the water was heated so high that it was killing the fish and other wildlife. The plant was closed and removed. A considerable effort was made to restore the area and the natural critters who inhabited the region. The road descending down into the canyon was narrow and breathtakingly beautiful. We found the local swimming hole complete with a rope swing.

 

Something new

Wendy and John...... you are not going to believe this. We have been geocaching. We are up to 6 finds so far.... considering there are over a million out there, we have a long way to go.

For those of you who thing I am speaking a foreign language, geocaching is like treasure hunting. You go to a website.... geocaching.com.... look up the caches (treasures hidden) in the area you are in and you obtain the GPS coodinates of the cache and you go look for it. Sometimes the Name of the cache gives you clues to finding it. When and if you find it, you sign a log that is in the cache. Depending on the type of cache it is, you may take a trinket from the cache and replace it with one of yours or you may even find a bug (a numbered item that is tracked), that needs transported somewhere else.

We have found some very simple ones to start but are working our way up to the harder ones. Here are some pictures that I took of Millie finding a "micro" cache. This one was cleaverly hidden in a stick and held there with a magnet. The name of this one was Woodpecker's Move. Millie said the stick she decided to pick up was a different color than the others lying around the bush.... that's what you look for... something that looks like it doesn't belong.

We are having fun with it.

We found one that was called Tar's Reward. Tar was the dog who garded the property. When we arrived at the site there was a mailbox on the fence with TAR on the outside. We thought it was the cache. When we opened it, it was full of dog biscuits for the dog. So we gave him one and he then went to the end of the fence. We followed and there was the cache under some rocks. So you reward the dog and the dog rewards you. Very cleaver and fun for everyone.

The GRAND Grand Canyon

Yesterday John and I took a day trip to the Grand Canyon with our friends from Massachusetes, Ray and Millie Surrette, pictured here. It was about a 2 hour ride one way. We went through the Navajo Indian reservation along the way and stoped at the oldest continuing Native American Trading post in North America located in Cameron. Everything in the store was made by Native Americans. Beautiful pottery, beadwork, leather and much more. The housing we passed was another story all togeather....  very poor.

The Grand Canyon certainly lives up to it's name.... it is GRAND. We drove along the South rim, from east to west. The canyon is 266 miles long and averages 10 miles across on a straight line from rim to rim (as the crow flies). It leaves you speachless and the pictures don't do it justice but I took quite a few anyway. Here are some, I'd like to share.

We had a picnic lunch sitting at one of the overlooks along the rim. Believe it or not that is only water in John's cup.......  maybe it was the altitude that affected him

There was snow all along the rim but down at the bottom there wasn't any. The temperature was in the mid 60's. The contrast of the snow and the different colored rocks was just spectacular.

One of the other things we all commented on was the fact that we saw more people from foreign countries than from America at the canyon. I don't know if it was the time of year or the economy that is the reason.             

It was a long day..... we started our journey just before 9 AM and returned to our RVs just after 9PM. The dogs greeted us enthusiastically, as their eyeballs were turning yellow. They practically bolted passed us to go out.  They were rewarded with extra treats and hugs.    

Timeout

As part of our membership with Thousand Trails, we are permitted free camping for 3 week periods at any of the TT campgrounds. However, in order to prevent someone from just "moving in" and living at a campground there is a stipulation. After 3 weeks in a campground you have to leave for 1 week before you can return to the same campground. You may move directly to another TT campground if you want, but if you want to stay in the same place you must spend 1 week out of the campground.... hense the common term amoung RVer's "Timeout".
Since we deceided to spend several months in the Cottonwood area, we have been spending our "Timeout" week on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land within 1 mile of the TT campground. If you remember, I explained the BLM regulations to you in the Quartzsite blog in January. As TT members we can continue to avail ourselves of the recreational facilities and activities even during the "timeout" by obtaining "Day Passes" to the campground.... these passes cost nothing.
Lifestyle on the BLM land is slightly different than in the campground. There are very little rules...  you can have a fire, no quiet time, dogs don't need to be leashed...

Here is a picture of John and Holly living the BLM lifestyle.

The Arizona desert

As we have been here in Arizona we have watched the desert slowly come to life. It has been geting greener every day. The plant life is very different so I am going to share some pictures that I have taken. Most of these are at least 4 foot high except for the Seguero... the picture with John trying to look like the cactus. That one had to be at least 20 feet tall.

The flat one is called a prickly pear cac tus and the animals and people actually eat it. I had some prickly pear jelly... and it wasn't half bad.

Before we leave Arizona, I am going to purchase a book of all the cactus and I want to have a small cactus dish garden to take with me on my travels.

Although this looks like a bush it is actually a cactus. It is about 6 feet tall and has a very small leaf on it.

These are the most recent pictures where they are starting to bloom.... yes cactus get flowers on them.

The Birds

As I do at home in Pa, I hang bird feeders when possible, where ever we park. Here at Verde Valley I have had a few visitors and I thought I'd show you. The first one is a Gila Woodpecker. This is a picture of the SHE-Gila, as I named them. The HE-Gila has a red cap on his head. They are cactus dwellers and have a very shrill call.

Next are the goldfinches. I have identified many varieties... more then in PA.

 I also hang a hummer feeder on my dinning area window. One rainy day, I actually had 2 male Anna Hummers share the feeder. If you watch hummers you know what a rare site that can be. This species has a brilliant red/purple head, green back and brown wings.

I also have the usual assortment of Puple Finches, Morning Doves, Cardinals and the western variety of Blue Jay called a Sage Jay.

The Hummers are my favorite though. My friend Millie had one fly right in her RV. They aren't afraid of anything and they dive bomb John when he gets too close to the feeder.

The only problem with feeding the birds are the skunks who come at night to clean up any seed that has fallen on the ground..... so I take the feeders in at night. We still occasionally get visited by the skunks but they are so use to people that they rarely spray.... they just walk away.... except for one time. I was watching Millie's ceramic peligan (outside ornament) and the skunks came and crawled over the poor bird. I told her when she returned that I wasn't a very good sitter because her bird was defiled by a skunk while she was gone.