End of Month Expenses and Trail Climbing

January Expenses

January expenses weren't too bad, higher than I would like but then we're in Arizona, not Texas! Since we're staying at a campground that doesn't have a weekly or monthly rate that category is high for this month. I also updated some items in the RV - new rug for the front door, the bathroom rug and toilet seat cover and some new towels. We also bought some things for the RV at the Mesa Fleamarket. Enough said on expenses. They're a fact of life no matter where you live or what you live in.

This morning was even colder than yesterday but only by 1 degree. I did my usual walk and got in a run as well.

Gordon left before sunrise to take the truck in for service. This was an expensive one so February's expenses won't be pretty! It also looks as if we're going to need front brakes. The dealership quoted $500 so we're hoping we can get a better price than that.

While he was out I washed the dishes and wiped down all the wood with an oiled duster rag. It didn't take long, just a tedious job. Things dry out quickly here in the desert, ask my skin, hair and nails!

This afternoon I started reading "Kill Me" by Stephen White. It's one of the books I bought the other day at the Half Price Bookstore. So far, it's really good!




Around 5:00 p.m. we started out to do some walking on a trail. We started out on Pass Mountain Trail that starts from the Horse Staging Area. It was too rocky. I had to watch every step.

So we went to the Wind Cave Trail and walked quite a ways on it until it started to get too rocky for me. Wind Cave Trail goes up Pass Mountain to Wind Cave. You can just about see Wind Cave in the photo above where the shadows are on the mountain.

We then drove over to Bulldog Cliffs (right) to take photos of them in the setting sun. Above is a grouping of barrel cactus that we saw on the Wind Cave Trail.

View from Wind Cave Trail


Wind Cave Trail path

This is where I stopped!

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More Rain in the Desert

I woke up this morning to rain on the roof again so I wasn't in a hurry to get up. When I did finally manage to get myself out of bed at about 8:30 a.m. the rain had stopped for a bit so I went for my walk. I wasn't back inside long when down it came again. It rained quite heavily on and off and in the afternoon the wind came up. It wasn't really windy but you could tell the wind was blowing from watching the branches of the Palo Verde tree beside the living room window.

I read, played with Yahoo Messenger on the computer and tried to figure out how to add people so that I can talk to them on Messenger. A few people were showing as being available but either they don't know what to do when I send a message, the program isn't working or they didn't want to talk to me! Rain continued on and off all afternoon.


Bulldog Cliffs

Just before dark we took a drive to see if we could see if there was any flash flooding. It was still raining. We saw a lot of water along the roads but no flooding. I took some photos of the Bulldog Cliffs in the rain and fog.

Water along the road

A wet desert