A Very Good Desert Day

Early this morning I lit a fire under the cowboy, we grabbed Ms. Emmi and took off for a long walk, 2 1/2 miles in the desert.  It felt great to be back to walking without flannel lined jeans, wool sweaters, wool socks, muck boots, etc.!!!   Sand and sunshine is a whole lot better than a cold wind and snow!This Escapees park borders BLM land and out the back gate are miles and miles of trails such as the one in this photo.  There are signs directing you to points of interest such as “the lonely saguaro” or “inspiration point.” 

Back home, Michael unloaded the ATV’s, I fixed some snacks and we were off again—on the same trails but this time with wheels. 

Lonn, here is your Dad trying to figure out that new GPS!!  We managed to make the darn thing track our route with waypoints but now I need to figure out how do get that map onto my computer like John does!

We rode 15 miles, up the hills, down through the dry washes, and back up the hills.  I’ve got to figure out a secure way to take my bigger camera, the little Canon just doesn’t cut it!

Vulture Peak in the distance.

Back home I decided a trip to the grocery store was in order—the Safeway in Wickenburg was a zoo!  By the time I got home it was time to turn around and leave for happy hour at Mike and Pat’s.  It was a great group—Jerry and Caryl picked up pizzas for all of us and guess who joined us—Al and Kelly—it was so good to see them again!!  We spent an enjoyable time chatting and laughing—the pizza was delicious.   Happy hour over we all spread out to our respective homes and pets.  I’m sure Al and Kelly all the way over in Congress heard Emmi screeching—she is very vocal, this ear splitting, high pitched squeal—letting us know being home alone is just not right!!

Rollie and Gina—were your ears burning tonight??

We’ve Again Moved

Can anybody guess where we are tonight???  After striking out with our real estate search in Kingman we decided last night to head on down the road today.  Our dear friends Mike and Pat have two lots in the Escapees North Ranch Park in Congress, AZ—they have a home on one of their lots but the other lot they reserve for their friends’ use.  Let me tell you, we are glad Mike and Pat are our friends—what a wonderful spot!  The lot sits in the corner of one of the streets making backing in a breeze—our long trailer sits on one side of this big lot and the motorhome sits on the other.  A perfect fit!!

We only had about 100 miles to drive today so we didn’t get in a hurry arriving just before 2pm.  Mike and Pat got us situated on the lot and we agreed to meet at their house for happy hour at 4pm.  Pat also called Jerry and Caryl asking them to join us.  We met Jerry and Caryl when we were participating in the cowboy action shooting sport—they owned a home in Lewistown, MT and a lot here in North Ranch.  They eventually decided to spend all their time here in the Congress, AZ area buying a home on some acreage and selling their Lewistown, MT place.  It was so good to see both couples—it feels as if we haven’t been to the desert in a long time! 

We’ve unloaded the ATV’s for the first time since leaving Montana and rode one down to Mike and Pat’s for happy hour.  Ms. Emmi stayed home alone and geez was she not happy when we got back!! 

Last night we talked and talked about the piece of property we both liked but came to the conclusion it just wasn’t the right one—the access issues bothered both of us.  We received a call from the woman who owned the other property we both REALLY liked—her price was laughable!!  They bought that 40 acres at the absolute height of Arizona land prices paying top dollar and expect to get that amount plus some now.  Michael and I can’t imagine land prices ever getting back to that level—maybe we are wrong but at this point in time, we aren’t willing to spend that kind money for bare ground!!

No photos today—I promise to do better tomorrow!!!  

More Driving

After Michael did some more research on the internet, we loaded up the jeep and off we went.  We had found a piece of property, a little far outside of Kingman for me but I was willing to go look.  The young man who owned the property (he had inherited it) knew little about it and we had a three way conversation with him and a realtor friend of his here in Kingman.  We had a subdivision map with parcel numbers and Michael asked about the dotted lines shown on the map going across the upper edge of the property.  Michael asked if it was a power line.  The realtor assured us the dotted lines did not show on his map so it was probably an abandoned power line.  Yea, right, and if you believe that one, I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you!  We get out to the property and there is one of those BIG, HUGE power transmission lines on the upper edge of the property.  Guess we don’t want that one!

Next up was a parcel not far from this RV park—two ten acre pieces—beautiful property with gorgeous views but the road left a LOT to be desired!!  Here are some photos of this piece:

We went back out late this afternoon and walked the property finding the survey pins.  While the property is gorgeous, we both are having doubts about that road. 

While out trying to find the first piece this morning (the one with the power line) we ran across some signs and took a drive—an even more beautiful parcel if that’s possible and the road into this one was good.  We are waiting for the realtor to call us back—no price on the signs. 

And that’s what we did today. 

We Drive and We Drive

We enjoyed a very easy morning, sleeping in later than normal, drinking coffee, surfing the internet.  It’s a good thing this park has good wi-fi, our aircard isn’t working so well even with the booster! 

After breakfast and packing a lunch we were off.  The cowboy and I love to look at property in areas we like—Pahrump, NV was not one of them—Kingman, AZ is one area we like.  Mountains, trees and yes it is a little cooler than other parts of Arizona but I can live with 60 degrees and sunshine in January!  Miles and miles of ATV trails.  The historic downtown is really cool—a great visitors center and museum.  There are lots of restaurants—we had some really good burgers at Mr. D’s today and I resisted having a milkshake!  There are FOUR grocery stores, Home Depot, Wal Mart, Petsmart, etc.  There is even a quilt shop which I used the “despicable app” to find —I wasn’t impressed but it will do in a pinch!

Back at the RV park we discovered the water was shut off—seems they were repairing a leak—it wasn’t long before it was back on and we were in business. 

See the size of our site—nice! 

Before we left Montana Google+ starting backing up ALL my photos on this laptop—that’s a LOT of photos and every morning I would get this little message—“946 (or some number) photos left to backup”—if I inadvertently started this nightmare, I don’t know how I did it.  After reading the blog, Technomadia’s most recent post, I decided to check the usage on our aircard and was surprised to see how much we had used since leaving home.  I was puzzled and wondered if the Google+ auto backup feature was doing it—every time I loaded photos to Picasa, Google+ would auto-backup those photos.  I looked everywhere on Google for instructions on how to disable this and came up empty handed—seems it is common for Google+ to auto backup photos on androids and iPhones but not computers. 

So, I checked with my computer expert, Rick—he also had never heard of Google+ doing backup on computers, just phones but he sent me a few things to check—none of those suggestions worked and he offered to do some more checking for me.  So tonight I turned on the computer after being gone all day and there was this screen telling me Google+ was going to do a back-up and I saw RED!!!  So, I did another Google search—I had all ready done one a couple days ago but found only the phone disable instructions—and up popped this forum of irate people cursing Google+ for installing software on their computers without their knowledge.

Yep, software—and whether or not Google+ is doing it without the knowledge of computer owners, I have no idea—I could have inadvertently clicked somewhere telling Google+ it was OK to do so BUT, you can bet I went straight to my Control Panel and deleted that there software!  Done! 

And that’s it for our day in sunny Arizona!

We Move

We traveled a mere 162 miles today breezing through sin city, waving as we drove by.  Much to the cowboy’s dismay (he doesn’t like tall bridges) we crossed the new bridge which spans the Colorado River and bypasses Hoover Dam.  At 840 feet over the Colorado River—it’s one tall bridge, the second tallest in the US (the Royal Gorge bridge is taller) and cost $240 million to build.  The concrete side barriers are so tall you cannot see over them to the river below even sitting up as high as we do in the motorhome—so it wasn’t so bad (at least I didn’t think so). 

Out the driver side window you can see the river just over the top of the concrete barrier.

A scenic pit stop just after we crossed the bridge.

After getting set up at Blake Ranch RV Park and having lunch we took off in the jeep for a tour.  These guys decided to cross the road in front of us.  I never knew it was so beautiful around Kingman—mountains covered in cedars and pines surround you.  As Al says, we bumped, scraped, rocked and rolled up this little narrow mountain road—we had a blast and the scenery was spectacular!!

This is one of those rare RV parks—they state, “big rig friendly.”  They are most definitely big rig friendly, we did not have to unhook the trailer and I think we could have parked the jeep behind the trailer—a very long and wide site plus their interior roads are nice and wide.  It is a little closer to the freeway than we like to be but it will be OK for a few days.  And John, they take horses!

LED Lights and A Visit

The cowboy spent the morning being a contortionist—installing our new LED lights.  In 2010 while in the Quartzsite area, we checked out the LED lights being offered—our motorhome has mostly fluorescent tubes and in 2010, the price was $40/tube—we bought one!  To replace all the light bulbs in our motorhome at those prices would have cost us about $800!!  Now the LED lights are less expensive, still not cheap, but less expensive—Michael ordered 6 tubes for just a little less than $17 each and today he installed those.  Here he is installing the one under the bathroom cabinet--

Sunday lunch was delicious—I had marinated a pork tenderloin overnight and cooked it on the grill.  We also had Pioneer Woman crash hot potatoes, carrots and green beans—very, very good!

After lunch we took a drive—found what looks like a dry lake bed which went on for miles and miles—there were some guys out there flying a remote control helicopter.

Michael’s buddy Sarge told us to go and visit a friend of his—they used to work for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks together—so we did today.  We knocked on the door, a very pleasant lady opened the door, Michael said, “a guy named Sarge sent us” and she shut the door in our face!!

But, she opened it up right quick laughing—we spent about a hour visiting with Bruce and Diane—they live in Butte, MT when it is not cold and Diane has a daughter living in Las Vegas.  Very nice people, we wished we had gone to visit them earlier rather than the day before we were leaving!

Back home Michael began putting stuff away—the grill, etc. and I walked Ms. Emmi—it may be warm here during the day but when the sun goes behind that mountain, it gets cool!  Of course, not as cool as back home in Montana—that’s for sure!

More Scotty’s Castle

As there wasn’t a whole lot going on around here today I will tell you some more about Scotty.  Scotty became a legend, riding with Buffalo Bill, then touting his non-existent gold mine and finally bragging about the castle he was building in Death Valley.  All this notoriety brought total strangers to the Death Valley Ranch (its real name) where they were entertained by the Johnsons’ and Scotty.  The truth was, Scotty didn’t even live at the “castle.”  Albert Johnson built Scotty a little cabin on another ranch about 4 miles away where he could partake in the pass times he enjoyed and the Johnsons’ didn’t allow—drinking, card playing, etc.

To entertain his guests Albert Johnson built a music room--

This little instrument could be used to play the chimes in the clock tower-

The Johnsons’ began to have so many guests, another music room was built as an addition to the house and Albert purchased a $25,000 Welte organ—the organ could be played by an organist or by using paper music rolls.  Our guide let us hear two songs from the organ—totally delightful!!

Can you tell we enjoyed our tour immensely???

We are leaving here on Monday and Michael wanted to fill the motorhome with both diesel and propane so we went for a little drive this morning.  Back home I did a load of laundry in my little Splendide washer/dryer—it dries now, I am so thrilled!!  Ms. Emmi got to take us for several walks and tonight the cowboy took me out to dinner.  Pretty good day I would say!  Oh, and the cowboy changed out our propane regulator.