Beautiful Day in the Desert

Today was my brother-in-law, Garth's birthday. Happy Birthday Garth!

I got back to my walking this morning. We are very close to the .5 mile Buckhorn Trail now so that's where I started out this morning, then did a little walk around the park. I'm back to doing my 30 minutes again. Can't wait till I can start my short burst runs again.

Today turned out to be a beautiful day around 70F (21C). I sat outside for a while watching the birds as Gordon had put out some bird seed for them. Here's a little cactus wren that was sitting outside with me.

I needed a few grocery items so I went out to the closest Basha's to pick them up then came back and sat outside again reading my book.

Not a very interesting day but it sure was nice!

Mesa Fleamarket and Just Hangin' Out

I woke up this morning feeling less than wonderful, I think, from allergies. I don't know why some days are worse than others. My eyes were all blurry even with my eye drops that I use for allergies and I felt kind of weak. No walk this morning as the plan was to go to the Mesa Fleamarket.

Gordon was out taking photos at sunrise and had gone as far as Weaver's Needle which is north on the Apache Trail toward Torilla Flat. By the time he got home, downloaded photos and put up his Photo of the Day on his pbase site, had breakfast and dressed, we arrived at the Fleamarket around 10:30 a.m.

I took the photo on the right above of the view beyond our 'yard' and the pretty clouds just before we left for the Fleamarket. Here's a better photo of our new site that I took this morning in the sunlight also before we left. It always looks better in the sun!

Our first purchase were three new Arizona baseball caps for Gordon. He's turned into a capaholic! When he took those to the truck I went my own way but didn't find much to buy, not being in the mood. I did buy a couple of more pairs of sunglasses as I liked the ones I bought the last time. Other than that, I walked around for a couple of hours, looked at some jewelry and was back at the truck around 12:30 p.m. Oh, the other thing I bought was a giant cookie as I was hungry and their fast food didn't appeal to me for the prices they wanted. The cookie wasn't the best thing in the world for me but it sure was good!

We arrived home and I lay down to read and dozed on and off all afternoon. Too bad as it was a nice day.

There was a fairly nice sunset so I took a couple of photos from the living room window and that was about the extent of the day.

I decided to have some 'medicinal' brandy to see if that would cure what ails me. My grandmother (on my mother's side) always swore by it!

I was reading another fulltime RVers blog, Karon. She's very philosophical and writes an interesting blog however it was the photo of her dog, KD under her blanket that made me think of my dog. Here's a similar photo that Gordon took of him when he was alive that we affectionately call "Quilthead".

I still miss my poor little puppy.

We Move....But Not Far

I awoke to a cloudy day. We did have some rain overnight. Gordon was over at the entrance booth at 6:00 a.m. to see if we could get another site here. At that point there was only one RV in overflow and their log said that 15 people were to be leaving today so it was looking good for us to get another site. We had to come back at 9:00 a.m. I went for my walk, had breakfast and such then we drove around the campground to see who was leaving. Ah, site 74 is empty. That one was on our list of preferred sites so away to the entrance booth we went for 9:00 a.m. Now there were 3 RVs in overflow but we had no problem booking site 74.

This is a dead barrel cactus.


Here's our new site.

After packing up, going to the dump station, getting back to our new site and getting set up it was 11:50 a.m. So, we're here for another two weeks! We did have some sunny breaks this morning but when we were setting up it started to get cloudy and about an hour after we were set up it started to rain lightly. Since the campground showers aren't right beside us anymore and it was raining, we drove down to the shower house. Hopefully we won't have to do that often.

We weren't set up for very long when Mr. & Mrs. Gila Woodpecker arrived at our hummingbird feeder. Here's Mr. Woodpecker. They are so funny! The hummingbird feeder is right outside our dining room window in the palo verde tree.

I made some bracelets this afternoon. I had purchased some wooden beads at Michaels last week so concentrated on using them.

Around 4:00 p.m. the sun was coming out and the rain had stopped so the sky was interesting. I went out and took some photos, lots of the Superstition Mountains with the sun shining on them and lots of pretty little birds sitting in the ocotillo. The ocotillo are very pretty now all green with their little red flowers on top.

The mountain looked so pretty today with the sun shining on it.

This little cactus wren was cute all puffed up and sitting at the top of an ocotillo.


Nature's group of three barrel cactus.


Gordon took off to climb the Merkle Hills to get some photos of the pretty skies but I stayed
behind as from our new location I can see the sunset from my recliner!

More Shopping and Preparing to Move

Today's walk was under only partly sunny skies although some sun did come out later in the morning. I walked around the park, then did the .5 mile Buckhorn Trail.

This cute little bird posed for me on top of a teddy-bear cholla.

The skies were cloudy this morning.


I just hung around for the rest of the morning, surfing the internet and reading. After lunch I decided to go to another Kohl's to see if I could find a new bath mat. The rubber is wearing off the back of the one we have and every time I wash it, it gets worse! So off I went to the one at Signal Butte and Baseline. The bath mats have been on sale so they were all picked over and they didn't have the color I wanted. I also went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and couldn't find anything I liked there either. I've already looked at Walmart but looked again, no luck. I stopped at Walmart to pick up a few things I couldn't get at the one on McKellips yesterday. Still couldn't get my cereal. On the way back to Usery Mountain, I stopped at Safeway. They didn't have my cereal either, so stopped at Walmart on Apache Trail. They had lots of it so I bought two boxes. Hopefully that will last for a while.

On the way back into the park there was one trailer in overflow and a sign saying that the park was full so Gordon and I drove around and there are about 16 spots where people are scheduled to leave tomorrow. However if they haven't been here for two weeks, they can renew. There was still only one RV in overflow so hopefully we'll be able to stay here. I called the park in Gold Canyon and they don't have any sites for Passport America and I don't really want to pay $230 for a site for a week so hopefully we'll luck out and be able to stay here.

Gordon also climbed to the top of one of the Merkle Hills to get photos of the sunrays at sunset tonight. I took this from the desert floor. Not a great photo, oh well!


I spent the evening being hostess/gatekeeper on the rv-dreams chatroom. Howard (rv-dreams co-0wener) had a scheduled chat on Internet on the Road which was very well attended. In my "job" as hostess, I direct people to the scheduled chat room. This is the fourth scheduled chat that Howard has done and probably will be doing more in the near future.

Laundry and A Trail Walk

Another walk to start my day. There's another trail within the park that starts out near where the camp hosts are parked and eventually puts you into a wash which comes around by where our 5er AKA fifth wheel is parked so I walked around the park first then did the trail and cut across the desert to get back to our RV.

This morning's clouds

Walking in the wash

There was no getting out of it, today was laundry day so I was packed up and on my way by about 10:30 a.m. and back around 12:30 a.m. One dryer I had didn't dry as well as the others so I hung the stuff outside for a while when I got back. Another mundane task overwith. It's been two weeks since I did laundry so couldn't put it off much longer. Luckily we have lots of underwear and socks.

After putting it all away and getting the bed remade, I sat outside for about 1/2 hour as it was a beautiful day, then decided I wanted a nap so came inside and succumbed to a nice sleep with the window open just a crack.

When I woke up I asked Gordon if he wanted to walk the other end of the Blevins trail that we started on Sunday so away we went. We met a bunch of guys on mountain bikes trying to bike up a rocky hill, only one of them made it on the bike without putting his foot down. Here's a photo of a couple of them in the parking lot on the way back with their bikes loaded. We also walked for a very short distance on the Moon Rock Trail before returning to the truck on the Blevins Trail.



The Blevins Trail

Picnic ramada
Me in another wash off the Blevins Trail

Looks like we're in for some weather over the next few days. We're supposed to have some rain on Thursday when we have to move. Not our favorite thing to do in the rain but here we have no choice. We have to either move sites or move out and we need to dump the tanks after two weeks. The thought right now is that we'll stay for another two weeks if we can. We have to stay at least one week for my dental appointment and Gordon is having fun here and I enjoy it too so why not? We don't have to be anywhere at any particular time and have a good two months before we have to start heading back to the land of ice and snow!

Here's a photo from tonight's sunset.

Not a Very Interesting Monday

I didn't realize this was a long weekend for some nor did I know Martin Luther King Day was a holiday. No wonder the campground was full this weekend.

I started out my day with my walk. I didn't stay out as long as I knew I had to go for groceries and would be walking a lot then. After breakfast, I got ready and first went to Sprouts where I got some supplies, then I stopped at Kohl's where I finally found a new rug for the front door (inside). I think it's quite pretty. They had lots of good sales on. I was also looking for a bathmat and toilet seat cover but couldn't find what I wanted there. Maybe I'll try another Kohl's.


My final stop was Walmart on McKellips where I picked up the groceries I needed. There were a few things they didn't have so I'll have to make a trip to the one on Apache Trail. It was a busy store today but checking out didn't take as long as usual. I really hate standing in line to give a store my money! The lady forgot to put through my water refills so she marked it on the bill and said I didn't have to pay for it as it was her mistake even though I offered to pay her cash. That was nice of her.

When I got back I read, had a nice hot shower and that about covered my afternoon.

I also learned how to put my photos side by side but unfortunately I didn't learn how to resize them once they were side by side so that will have to be a lesson for another day as when I posted them they were too large and you could only see half of the right hand photo.

Just before sunset we drove to the Staging Area where the trails start and walked for a while on the No-So trail. Here are some photos I took along the trail.

Just Another Sunday

Boy was that sun bright this morning. I wasn't wearing my ballcap as it was sort of windy and I sure notice the difference when I don't have it on. I actually got off my behind and went for my morning walk. Since I hurt my foot I've gotten out of the habit. Here's a HiLo trailer that's hi instead of lo.

My morning walk in the desert - didn't tangle with a cholla today.

Siamese twins ha ha

I spent some time this morning working on my blog. Note I've added a photo that I took while in Tucson to my header behind nightly news. I also worked a bit on centering some wording in the sidebar using html code.

For Gordon's update, click here.

I spent some time outside today sitting in my chair and reading, then came in, read and had a nap. Gordon and I went for a sunset walk and that's my day in a nutshell.

Moon photos from our walk this evening,


The campground was full this weekend but lots of people leaving today.