Dramatic Skies

It rained yesterday from about 1:30 p.m. on and as the night came on so did the heavier rain and winds. The wind knocked both our satellite dishes off kilter so I was abruptly knocked off the chat rooms that I was participating in. Click here to read Gordon's satellite woes. At one point the rain didn't sound like it was coming straight down but sideways. It all seemed to end somewhere about 1:30 a.m. Kind of like the 24 hour flu! There was water puddles all over the place and lots of sand that drifted across roads.

I was up about 7:30 a.m. and we had some sun which was very pretty with the very dark skies but the sun was short-lived. This morning the skies kept getting darker and we thought we were in for another storm. The wind was forecast to be 40-50 mph but I don't think it got anywhere near that and all we had were a few sprinkles this afternoon.

Can you find the bunny rabbit? He's there!

My younger sister called early this afternoon and told me that her mother-in-law has had a massive stroke and is paralyzed on her left side. They aren't expecting her to recover from this one. She's recovered from numerous things over the last six years though. She is now 90 years old and her quality of life has greatly diminished over the last few years. To top off my sister's day yesterday she was hit by the snow plow that was plowing the hospital parking lot. Luckily she is okay. It wasn't a good day for her. I know that all of you reading this will pray for my sister and her family over the next few days.

We hung around the RV most of the day and mid afternoon Gordon saw sunrays so out we went in the truck to the end of Bopp Road for photos.


We took the Old Ajo Highway for a ways but there must have been flash flooding there last night and there was a lot of sand and muck on the road. We crossed this gully but the next one we decided not to take any chances.


When we came back we went for a long walk in the desert and took lots and lots of photos. It was nearing sunset as we were coming back so we had lots of golden light and shadows.




I just love walking in the desert. I think the paths remind me of when I grew up on the farm. I was always walking in the paths in the cow pasture.

The Desert Just Before The Rain

I thought it was going to rain all day today but only started about 1:30 p.m. I did my usual walk this morning and picked up my first mail here on my way back, a Christmas card from my sister, Betty and her husband, Garth.

This morning and into early afternoon I worked on making a few bracelets shown below. I took apart a few of the ones I already had to reuse the beads as they were either a little too big or I didn't like the color combinations. Reuse, recycle!

After lunch I decided I needed some photos for my blog and it hadn't started to rain yet so Gordon went with me and we did about 1/2 walk in the desert so here are some photos. On the way back we felt a drop or two of rain but it didn't start raining a lot until we were back.

See the mountain peeking over the desert flora in the background. It looks like a pyramid.

These mountains are barely visible in the clouds.

Here are our lawnchairs. Photo taken from just outside the front door of our RV.

This is a different cactus. We've seen it before and I always call it Rope Cactus but I don't know if that's the real name.
Another pretty cholla in the foreground with the mountains barely visible in the background.

A couple more cholla trees.

On the way back I noticed Doc (the owner) was in the office so went to pay him for the month. We are officially here now until December 27th. Who knows where we'll be after that!

A Shopping Day

Here's last night's sunset. It was very brief.

I awoke to sounds of rain on the roof. What's going on here? We're in the desert. It's not supposed to rain! But rain its done, on and off all day today and probably tomorrow. Hope that makes some of the desert flowers come out. Apparently that happens some times.

It's hard to believe that it's raining here in the desert when parts of North Carolina are in drought and running out of water! Really weird!

Sure lucky we went to the Desert Museum yesterday. Originally I was going grocery shopping yesterday and then we would go to the Desert Museum today. The beautiful weather yesterday would have been wasted on shopping!

On my way out I took this photo of the water on the pavement near the office.

Today I left around 10:00 a.m. and went to a local mall that had a Michaels, Office Max, Ross, Marshalls, a Linens place etc. I was disappointed in Michaels prices. We can get most of their beading things in Ontario at the dollar store and they wanted $3 and $4 for it so I only bought some elastic for my bracelets. I'll be able to get all the beads I'll ever need at Quartzsite. I went in to each of the above mentioned stores but only bought some clips to keep our comforter in our duvet cover. It keeps getting bunched up. Not sure how they're going to work.

I bought some groceries at Food City where I can get water for 15 cents per gallon. Ontario - wise up! If I can get water here for 15 cents how come it costs me 99 cents in Ontario?

Then off to Walmart to do most of the rest of my shopping. I didn't have that much to get.

On my return to the RV, I took a few photos of our view out the back window. You can hardly see the mountains today.




Not a very interesting day today I'm afraid!

Another Day at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

This morning it was off to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum again. We didn't go for opening this time instead we arrived at about 9:45 a.m. in time to get to the Raptor Free Flight. We got there with about 1/2 hour to spare so waited in order that we get a good spot for photographing the birds. They only had three birds this morning.

the Chihuahuan Raven
the Horned Owl

and the Ferruginous Hawk


Just as I was getting out of the truck in the parking lot this morning there was a cactus wren building a nest.

I took this pretty landscape in the park.

We also saw the Bighorn Sheep

Here's a photo of some palm trees. There aren't a lot of palm trees here in this part of Arizona but there are some. I love palm trees!

This photo of the palm tree I took looking up as the sky was so pretty.

Here's another species of cactus. I don't know the name of it yet but will try to find out. By the way the one yesterday that looked like it was decorated for Christmas is a Fishhook Barrell Cactus.

We had lunch again at the Ironwood Grill. Gordon had his usual bunless burger but I had dorado fish on a greens salad with raspberry vinagrette dressing. It was yummy!

After lunch we went back for the second Raptor Free Flight at 1:30 p.m. This afternoon's raptor of choice was the Harris' Hawk. At one point there were five of them.


We hadn't seen this tree since last year when we were in California. It's a Joshua Tree. Joshua Tree National Park in California was one of our favorites.

We also had a lesson on the agave which is a succulent, not a cactus. Tequila is made from the agave as is rope, syrup, brushes for cleaning and all sorts of other stuff. The stalk is also used for fences and for roofs of some of their shelters.

We walked the javelina and coyote trail but it was just at noon and none of them were out. Remember mad dogs and Englishmen are the only ones that go out in the noon day sun. Well I'm an Englishwoman (born in Canada though, my Father came from England).

We left the park right after the Raptor Free Flight and were home by about 2:15 p.m., tired but happy to have spent another day at this beautiful place!

Yeah! I finally got my profile photo changed!

From Sunset to Sunset

After a mostly cloudy day yesterday we had a really beautiful sunset. Unfortunately we didn't go out to take photos so I took this one standing on the step of the RV. It was a lovely red sky.

Today was moving day. We moved from the front of the park to the back of the park so our picture window is backing on the desert. Here's our view and a look at our new site.

We were moved and setup by noon so after lunch I took a walk in the desert and took a few more photos of desert stuff. It was cloudy when I started out so I wore way too many clothes as the sun came out about 10 minutes into my walk and stayed out for most of the afternoon. Bonus! It turned into a really nice day with a high of 75F (24C).

This cactus looks like it's decorated for Christmas!


Here's a shot of our RV from the desert.

Then I sat in my lawn chair which I've positioned behind the rig in the desert and listened to the birds and looked at the mountains. A bird landed on our aerial and sat there for a while serenading me.

Here's my view from my lawn chair. And yes, those are my feet at the bottom of the photos. I did say it was taken from my lawn chair!


It's not the red rocks of Palo Duro Canyon, but it ain't bad!

I waited to post tonight to see what sunset was going to be like. The actual sunset was interesting but the skies to the north and northeast were red! It seems sunsets here every night are different and pretty much always interesting.