SEDONA BALLOON PHOTO WRAP-UP

ARIZONA SUNRISES & SUNSETS SELDOM NEED ENHANCEMENT, THEY JUST ARE WHAT THEY ARE

(Thursday’s post – internet connection problem)

I like my big sticks & bricks bed because I don’t need a ladder to get into it & I don’t have to wear a bungee cord around my ankle in case I fall out of it.

  

 

THE BOYS ARE STILL DEFLATING THE BALLOON

Saw a series of bright flares in the night sky to the west last night when I was out with Pheebs.  Carefully scanned the stars in that area & sure enough two of them were moving.  Watched for a few minutes as they sometimes converged & separated.  The fact they had a consistent blinking to them told me they were probably aircraft from Luke Air Force Base about an hour’s drive south of Congress.  Two young fellas with a couple F-16 fighter jets strapped on practicing night maneuvers & dog fighting high above the darkened Arizona landscape.  Oh how I have often wished I would have had the smarts & self discipline to have pursued an exciting career like that.

 

A SQUARE CART ON WHEELS IS WHEELED OUT TO PUT THAT BIG HUGE BALLOON IN AS THE ROLLING UP PROCESS BEGINS

AS THE BALLOON IS BEING ROLLED UP DISASSEMBLY OF THE BASKET IS UNDERWAY

  

 

 

FINALLY THE BALLOON IS ALL BAGGED & CRATED

So which pair of PJ’s did I decide to go with first?  Figure I will wear out my Jammie Bears first & keep my Camo Jams as back-up.  Always good for a feller to have a back-up set of Jams:))

A LOOK INTO THE BASKET

 

THE PROPANE BURNER IS REMOVED FROM THE BASKET

Lots of dust on both the Jeep & Winnie the Bago from our Sedona romp but I’m not going to wash the rig because I just end up with a bunch of difficult to remove hard white water spots in tough to reach places.  A 70% chance of rain Saturday so I’ll let Mother Nature’s soft rains do the job for me.  I did surprise myself today by washing the Jeep though.

BALLOON PASSENGERS WATCHING THE PROCEDURE & SOON SOME WOULD BE HELPING

And a very belated but very Happy 90th Birthday to our good friend & fellow Jeep shotgun rider Carol formally of Arizona’s ‘Paws & Hooves’ & now a happy resident of California’s Placerville.  When are we going Jeeping again Carol?? 

LOOKS LIKE THIS CREW MEMBER IS STRUGGLING UNDER THE WEIGHT OF THAT LARGE BACK PACK

 

WHEELED BALLOON CRATE IS TIPPED BACK, TRAILER IS BACKED IN UNDER IT, CART IS TIPPED UP & WHEELED INTO THE TRAILER

NEXT TO BE LOADED UP IS THE BASKET & THIS IS WHERE THE PASSENGER HELP COMES IN

Tanks dumped, oil levels checked, etc & that was about it for me this morning.  Too windy to paint the shed doors so the afternoon just morphed into something along the lines of quiet relaxation.  Nothing too exciting to write about & my cameras remained hanging on the wall enjoying a welcome break.

A FEW MALE BALLOON PASSENGERS ON THE END READY TO TIP BACK THE BASKET

 

‘OOOOOOPH’

SUCCESS:))

Deciding on an RV lifestyle is a major decision for anyone.  It can be & often is life changing.  Some decisions can begin with a spur of the moment thought while others are years in the dreaming & planning stages.  Some folks just hunker down & go for it while others can be unsure & indecisive for a long time.  Like I said, it is a life changing decision in more ways than one.  Kelly & I started out as week-enders like most folks.  That progressed to a couple week long trips & of course we were hooked.  Then came the hard part, deciding on what we wanted to do.  RVing for sure but what kind of RVing?  Snow Birds?  Full Timers?  Decisions, decisions, decisions.  We waffled back & forth on the Full Time idea for about 3 years before finally understanding the fact it would probably be better ‘for us’ to stay with the Snow Bird lifestyle.  Once we accepted that understanding our lives became easier & we no longer spent time on trying to figure out how we could travel Full Time.  Steve over at  HOUNDS & RV'S has been wrestling with these very decisions for quite some time now & may have finally come to a final decision.  Might want to click the blue link & see what he has decided & what he had to do to reach the decision he has reached.  I did leave in part the following comment on Steve’s post……“The RVing bug bit us good back in 04 & I was pushing for going full time by 2008.  We even kinda put our house up for sale for a month at one point & had 4 different couples come through.  However, Kelly was a little more cautious than I.  The financial melt down in 08 rocked us back on our heals & eventually we both agreed it was best that we just continue as Snow Birds. In the end we just didn't feel comfortable selling everything we owned to hit the road & travel full time.   We have no idea if the full time life would have worked well or not but we do know the Snow Bird lifestyle has & that has been the right decision ‘for us’. With the addition of our little house in Congress Az. we do truly have the best of both worlds……….

OF COURSE PHEEBS IS RIGHT IN THERE CHEERING THE CREW  ALONG

  

THE BALLOON CREW WITH THEIR BALLOON & LOAD OF PASSENGERS HEAD FOR SEDONA

BYE GUYS & THANKS FOR THE PHOTO OP:))  RED ROCK BALLOONS

THEY SOON DISAPPEARED IN A GREAT CLOUD OF DUST………..

I was surprised today when I realized there were only 8 days left in the month of February.  Guess there’s some truth in that saying, ‘time fly’s when your having fun’.  And any time not spent in a cold bitter snow infested northern winter has to be constituted as some kinda fun.  Of course we all have our own personal takes on what fun is don’t we.   What really hit home is how fast our winter is slipping by.  In just a month from now we will be bearing down on some homeward plans.  Just when & which route we will take this year is something we will begin talking about next month at this time.

GROANER’S CORNER:(( A photographer for a national magazine was assigned to take pictures of a great forest fire. He was advised that a small plane would be waiting to fly him over the fire.
The photographer arrived at the airstrip just an hour
before sundown. Sure enough, a small Cessna airplane was waiting. He jumped in with his equipment and shouted, "Let's go!"
The tense man sitting in the pilot's seat swung the plane into the wind and soon they were in the air,
though flying erratically. "Fly over the north side of the fire," said the photographer, "and make several low-level passes."
"Why?" asked the nervous pilot.
"Because I'm going to take pictures!" yelled the photographer. "I'm a photographer, and photographers take pictures."
The pilot replied, "You mean you're not the flight instructor?"

WE ARE BACK TO OUR CONGRESS HOME BASE AGAIN FOR SOME R & R:))

PHEEBS WAS ANXIOUS TO GET ON THE ROAD THIS MORNING

I had a long last look across Arizona’s darkened Verde Valley early this morning.  Jerome’s twinkling diamond studded treasure chest sparkled against the blackness of Mingus Mountain.  Thanks for that Jerome & next time we’re here we are planning to come over to see you again.  It’s been awhile…………………

Well I sure got spoiled this morning.  I drove a brand spanking new Honda CRV & it floated over the bumpy roads like a Cadillac.  Make me wonder now if maybe our Jeep could use some new shocks.  No I didn’t have the Honda out for a test drive, I was actually moving it from one campsite to another campsite for someone.  Annie decided a couple days ago she would still like the site we were vacating so we were able to help her with that move this morning.  Her own Honda was in for servicing so she had a new one for a couple days.  She drove over to our site, picked me up & we went back to her site.  She fired up the big Bounder & drove it over to our site a couple miles to the north.  I followed in the smoooooth Honda CRV.   Pheebs & Jake got to race around again for a bit.  It was a few minutes before 9 when we said goodbye to Annie, wished her the best & pulled out headed for home.

ANNIE HEADS FOR HER NEW SITE

PULLING IN

   

JAKE & PHEEBS KIBBITZING

One stop for gas & coffee at McDonalds at the #17 & 260 interchange & we were on our way.  Traffic was lite.  Little bit of construction on southbound 17 & we were soon on 169 heading west through the Prescott Valley.  Nice scenic & relaxing drive around the Prescott by-pass soon had us on Iron Springs Road southbound for Skull Valley, Kirkland Junction, Peeples Valley, Yarnell, & down the Hill to our home base in Congress.  We rolled into our yard as the bell tolled high noon.

89A HEADING TOWARDS COTTONWOOD AZ

Nice to be back to our sticks & bricks & holy ker-smokes was it ever warm.  Reminded me of a nice pleasant Summer’s day back in Ontario.  As always we hit the ground running & had the rig completely emptied & everything put away in under an hour.  Couple loads of laundry, bird feeders filled, a long hot shower, & I even managed to catch my favorite Canadian half hour sit-com ‘Corner Gas’ at 2.  A bonus day & hey, no complaining from me for a change:))

 

DEFLATING THE BIG BALLOON MONDAY MORNING

We noticed right away how well our Aloe Vera plants are already growing.  Found them in a ditch a few weeks ago.  About a dozen or so.  Tall stocks with flower pods.  Hope all my Cactus plants will soon start showing signs of Spring growth as well. 

 

Saw a package leaning against the fence inside our gate.  UPS had left it there whenever & it was my new PJ’s.  I’m happy for that because my old ‘jammies’ were well beyond wearable.  But wear them anyway I did.  One set of new ‘jams’ are blue with gold teddy bears on them.  Second set are camouflage colors which I could wear to Walmart & people would think I was one of the local hunters.

 

I’LL WEAR MY ‘CAMO JAMS’ FOR STEALTHY NIGHT MANEUVERS

I usually dump the black & gray tanks soon as we get home along with checking the Jeep, Winnie’s, & generator’s oil but will do all that in the morning.  Just a little too warm for me outside today. 

SHARING A BEDTIME STORY WITH MY LITTLE PAL

Had a little chuckle at NAN'S comment on my Tuesday post when she said, “Three years ago, we were climbing up to a vista in Death Valley. A tour bus came in and a gaggle of oriental tourists got off, rapidly walked past us to the vista, snapped their photos and left without appreciating the beauty. They just wanted their photos”.  If you go back to my ‘bus photo’ in Tuesday’s post & look closely at the people you will indeed see that was an Oriental tour bus as well with folks doing just as Nan said……:))

THERE IS MORE THAN JUST ONE JEEP COMPANY DOING TOURS IN SEDONA

Slight correction to Tuesday night’s post.  Ranger at Montezuma Well said that big Sycamore Tree was the oldest tree in Arizona not the largest.  Kelly thought he said 150 years old & I thought he said 300 years old.  When we have a difference of hearing like that I have learned to defer to Kelly’s audio.  And about that green pepper Pheebs had……just about the time I snapped the photo of her laying down to eat it I thought ‘oh-oh’ could be a HOT pepper so walked over & took it away from her.  And no after effects for Pheebs after eating those 8 chocolate chip cookies a few days ago.  We kept an eye on her & she was fine.  Thanks for your concern Chinle.

And as much as we both enjoy getting away on our little adventures every 3 weeks or so we also enjoy returning to our sticks & bricks home base each time as well.  It’s almost like we have to come home for a rest & a re-charge.  When on the road we go at our day trips pretty hard sometimes & it is not unusual for me to take a couple hundred photos a day.  Soon as we get back to the rig I start right away writing my nightly post.  Then comes the editing of all my photos.  Each & every photo has to be looked at, assessed, & edited accordingly.  I enjoy this process but it takes time & it can be very tiring.  Once the post is written & the photos edited I have to put it all together in some semblance of reasonable readability.  Usually by this stage I am so tired some times the printing gets blurry, I make time wasting mistakes, & what little patience I have with myself just drains out through the bottom of my feet.  Final proof reading of the post is a chore.  By the time I hit the ‘Publish’ button it could be around 10 p.m.  Publishing times on the road can very from maybe 20 minutes to over an hour sometimes.  I have to stay awake for this because sometimes it times out & I have to re-start the post by hitting the Publish button again.  Not unusual for me to finally turn the lights out sometime after 11 & crawl up my bunk ladder to bed.  Add to this the fact I do not have a comfortable work station in the rig & you can begin to see why I sometimes look forward to coming home after just a week on the road.  I need that comfortable home time to get rested up for a few weeks before we hit the road again.  Am I complaining?  No Sireeeeee, despite the obvious & occasional difficulties I do love sharing my hobbies with everyone.  Thanks again for stopping by & making this Blog possible folks………………….:))  

GROANER’S CORNER:(( An Asian fellow has moved in next door. He has travelled the world, tried swimming with sharks, wrestled bears and climbed the highest mountains. It came as no surprise to learn his name was Bindair Dundat.

- An auto club tow truck stopped beside me at a street light today and the driver was sobbing uncontrollably. I thought to myself, "that guy's headed for a breakdown!"

- My dad worked repairing roads for the city for twenty years before he got fired for stealing! At first I didn't believe it...but when I got home all the signs were there!

- What do you call a Pope who has already resigned?
Ex-Benedict!