LOOKING BACK

Just one of those cool cloudy routine stay at home days with not much going on.  Clouds did begin to clear mid afternoon & I was able to charge my batteries enough to walk around the house a couple times.

CHECKING OUT OUR NEW ‘ROLLER FEEDER’

With not a lot to write about I looked back in my blog to see what we were doing a year ago at this time & I see we had just returned from Borrego Springs.  A week ago yesterday Kelly & I climbed Ghost Mountain.  I generally like make an annual trek up to the old Marshall South homestead.

THE DESERT IS BEGINNING TO SHOW SOME COLOR

Our trip to Borrego Springs last year was a short one for several reasons.  It was our first venture out in our recently acquired 2012 Sunseeker Class C.  Only took us a couple boondocking days to realize we had made a mistake & it was just simply too small for us.  Despite getting a super deal on it In Quartzsite we just couldn’t make the smaller size work for us.  We poured over ideas to take the horseshoe dinette out but in the end just had to accept the fact we were not going to get accustomed to the small bathroom or the corner bed.  Best driving & handling RV we’ve ever had but if one’s living quarters are not satisfactory nothing else matters.  With a big wind storm headed into the Anza-Borrego area we decided there was no point in just ‘toughing it out’ for the sheer sake of just ‘toughing it out’.  We’ve toughed out enough big winds east of Borrego over the years to know we didn’t need to do that again so we made the decision to make a quick dash for home one year ago today.

We were once again lucky enough with the Sunseeker to get a great trade in deal about 6 weeks later back in Canada when we traded it in on our larger 26’ Winnebago Class C.  Our Winnie is a big improvement over the smaller Sunseeker but we still have not adjusted to the smaller space like we thought we would.  No doubt about it, we really miss the roominess of a Class A.  Will we sell the Winnie or trade it in for another A??  Who knows, our plans are always fluid & we’re the type of people who believe if something isn’t working out the way you like it…….change it!!

 

OUR FORMER 23’ SUNSEEKER CLASS C      OUR CURRENT 26’ WINNEBAGO CLASS C

OUR FORMER 33’ DAMON CLASS A

Are you thinking of replacing that carpet in your RV?  Maybe it’s just time for a change & you want to put some different tile or laminate flooring in.  PETER is helping JIMBO with that very job right now & Peter has some experienced helpful tips for you do-it-yourselfer folks.  My idea of installing a new floor is to throw a few Walmart scatter mats down:))

GROANER’S CORNER:(( Q: Who has the right of way when four cars approach a four-way stop at the same time?
A: The pick-up truck with the gun rack and the bumper sticker saying, "Guns don't kill people. I do."

A LONG TIME BLOG READER DRIVES UP FROM TUCSON TODAY

SUNRISE AT OUR HOUSE

Long time blog reader & fellow RV Blogger Tom from TOM_KATHY_RETIRED drove up all the way from Tucson this morning just to say hello.  Tom & wife Kathy’s home is Anchorage Alaska but they winter over in their town house on Merritt Island near Cocoa Beach Florida.  They just returned from a side trip to Peru.  Tom flew into Tucson late Tuesday to check on his Class A Winnebago RV that has been in storage for the past couple plus years.  A quick check of the RV then using a paper map Tom set out to find us here in little old Congress.  Said Phoenix was a bit of a challenge but other than that he had little trouble locating us.

Tom comes from a military background.  He is a pilot, aircraft mechanic, & an electronic avionics guru amongst other highly prized technical skills.   An interesting down to earth fellow.  Really enjoyed having Tom here today & maybe the next time we see him it may be in Bayfield.  Kathy’s home town is near Detroit Michigan which is about a 3 hour drive south of Bayfield.  Really appreciated you driving all the way up here today through 2 major cities Tom.   Hope that traffic didn’t swallow you up on your way back. 

TOM, A PILOT WHO KNOWS HIS WAY AROUND AIRCRAFT SOLOED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A GRAVITY CHAIR THIS MORNING…TOOK A LITTLE INSTRUCTION BUT HE GOT ER OFF THE GROUND

OK CAPTAIN TOM WE ARE CLEARED FOR TAKE-OFF…YOU HAVE THE CONTROLS

   

ALL THE BEST TOM & MAY OUR TRAILS CROSS AGAIN:))

Took a short drive in Congress earlier this morning to have a look at a house for sale.  No, not for us.  An interested blog reader had emailed about it.  Wow, what a nice place for sure with it’s solid quality construction & mature landscaping.  Vacant at the moment.  We always like to walk around & look at places like that.  Gives us some great ideas we can’t afford………….

  

What could RETIRED ROD, a ROOMBA VAC, Biscuit the dog, & a pile of dog poop in front of a patio door have in common?  EVERYTHING!!  Your gonna have to hold your sides when you read what happened here.  Don’t miss this one:))

A COUPLE NEW NEIGHBORS AROUND THE CORNER

And we have it on good authority a very well known fellow RV Blogger & her husband are headed our way next week.  Looking forward to that:))  We just missed Ivan last week when he came by so maybe next year.  Another friend of ours who winters in Bisbee will also be dropping by around the end of the month as she heads north for the summer.  Hope to still fit one more Winnie Wagon trip in this month sometime as well so March is shaping up to be a busy time.  Still want to drop over John & Jackies place & Pat & Mike McFalls too.  We’ll be seeing Jim & Bev, JANNA & MIKE along with Simon & Sandy early this Friday as we head out in an all day 4 Jeep caravan through some rough & tumble Cowboy country none of us has ever seen before.  Our destination will be a place called CROWN KING somewhere in the Bradshaw Mountains.  An old Arizona gold mining town that we hear still has an active Saloon.  Should be another downright dusty bone jarring rocky road day for sure….:))

 

STRUCK OUT ACROSS THE GREEN DESERT THIS MORNING BUT PHEEBS GOT A STICKER

Few if any of us have probably ever done this.  We have heard or read about daring people taking rafting trips down the Colorado River lasting a few hours.  But how about those true outdoor enthusiasts riding the rivers swirls & rapids for weeks at a time camping their way along.  John from FINDING OUR WAY with a group of like minded daring adventurists embarked from Lee’s Ferry just downstream from the Glen Canyon dam today on just such a perilous but exciting journey.  Might want to don your life jacket, grab a paddle, click onto John’s blog site & try to keep yourself dry for the next couple weeks as you weave & bob your way down the Colorado River through the towering majestic heights of Arizona’s Grand Canyon:))

HERE’S A FILE PHOTO FROM MARCH 6TH 2012 SHOWING RV SUE CAMPED JUST SOUTH OF NORTH RANCH NEAR CONGRESS AZ.

Back in the late to mid 80’s I took an interest in old black & white English Classic movies.  ‘Tale Of Two Cities,’ ‘David Copperfield,’ ‘ Les Miserable,’ ‘Great Expectations’, etc.  I lived in Stratford Ontario at the time & the CD’s were free from the library.  Loved that older style of acting & story telling.  Easy to understand & easy to follow.  Those old black & white movies remind me of a simpler time, a different era.  They remind me of my early childhood.  And I was reminded of those long ago days Tuesday night when Kelly brought home another old black & white move.  ‘The Ghost & Mrs. Muir.’  I always slide into a very nostalgic mood watching movies like that.  Don’t know exactly what it is but it’s just something that brings that little boy’s wide eyed imagination alive in me……………. 

AWWW COME ON DAD SHUT THAT COMPUTER OFF & TURN OUT THE LIGHTS WILL YA…..

GROANER’S CORNER:((  Imagine three of the nastiest outlaw bikers you've ever seen or heard of, all riding shiny chromed-chopped Harleys with dinky gas tanks. These are the kind of guys that give motorcycling a bad name. They stink, their hair is unkempt, their clothes are greasy, and they're rude.
Anyway, three such desperados pull into a roadside cafe where there's no one there except a RVer and a waitress. They decide to have some fun with the RVer, so they put on their most obnoxious sneers and walk up to his table.
The first one dips his finger into the man's coffee, stirs it a bit and puts the finger in his mouth and pronounces "This is lousy coffee".
The next one picks up the RVer's soup bowl, sniffs it, spits into it and says, "This is lousy soup".
The last one picks up the RVer's hamburger, squeezes it to a pulp and announces "This is a lousy hamburger".
The RVer quietly gets up, politely pays his bill and walks out. The lead desperado turns to the waitress and says "That guy ain't much of a man, is he?"
The waitress pauses and deadpans "He ain't much of a driver either ... he just backed over three motorcycles on his way out of here."

A MYSTERIOUS PACKAGE BY OUR FRONT GATE THIS AFTERNOON

Cloudy & cool this morning.  Not exactly my kind of a simulating start to the day.  Had left the Jeep & trailer over at the neighbors so figured I might as well load up & move a few more driveway brush piles while I had Jeep & trailer still hooked up.  Skies began to clear around 10 & with a few warming rays from old Sol my batteries were soon up to full charge & I was able to move another 5 piles of brush.  Some of we folks are so controlled by weather that it seems to border on the edge of downright silliness I’d say!!

KELLY FIELDS A DEER PARK LODGE CALL ON OUR MORNING WALK

ONLY ONE MUD PUDDLE ON OUR ENTIRE WALK & GUESS WHO HAD TO WALK RIGHT THROUGH IT?  HINT:  IT WASN’T KELLY OR I

It’s so nice working around on the neighbors nearly 4 acres.  Nobody around & I especially like a quietly peaceful area on the property with tall Saguaros, Agaves, & Joshua Trees.  It’s a serenity like garden & was one of the first areas I cleaned up when I started my little work project a couple months ago.  Birds make their homes in the Joshua Trees & Saguaros.  Bunnies play in the Mesquites nearby.

  

Moving one of the brush piles this morning I was startled by a rather large dark colored lizard which I later may have correctly identified as a CHUCKWALLA.  He sure had quite a waddle to him as he quickly made tracks away from me in the direction of some dark underbrush.  Largest lizard I have seen so far here in the South-West.  I do remember seeing large lizards before but it was in Puerto Vallarta Mexico & they were sunning themselves on large rocks beside the Ocean.

NICE TO BE SO NEAR TO THIS JOSHUA TREE GARDEN…WHITE ROOF LINE IN BACKGROUND IS OURS

Kelly needed the Jeep for a Wickenburg grocery run so I finished up my voluntary work day by 11:30 a.m.   Sun was about out full force by then & it was getting too warm to be doing working stuff anyway.  At least for this guy it was.

 

Those ‘Daring Young Men In Their Flying Machines’ were busy overhead again today & I couldn’t help but wonder if training has been stepped up a notch in light of recent events in the Ukraine.

 

Must have been around 1:30 this afternoon when I slipped out into the front yard to re-plant a Cactus which had been blown over by the wind a few days ago.  I noticed a medium sized cardboard box sitting just inside our closed gate.  Figured it was something Kelly had ordered & Fed-Ex or Purolator had dropped it off over the gate.  Description on the shipping label said, ‘Roller Feeder.’  I was thinking maybe hair rollers but didn’t know ya had to feed them.  Took the box in & set it on the dining room table.

  

LIKE THE DESIGN ON THE AGAVE LEAF AT RIGHT…RED FLOWERS ARE A DESERT CHRISTMAS CACTUS

Kelly was home from the grocery store about an hour later & said ‘no’ she didn’t remember ordering anything.  We wondered right away if it was dropped off here by mistake……whatever it was.  I continued carrying the groceries in while Kelly opened the box.  Lots of wrapping paper but she soon lifted some kind of something out of the box.  We were baffled to say the least as we looked at this odd shaped object.  Kinda rectangle, metal construction, clear hard plastic, looked like some kind of tray inside.  There was a long metal handle or hanger with it as well.  We didn’t have a clue what it could be.  Kelly dug deeper into the box & found a folded paper manual or something.  ‘Well Holy smokes what do we have here’.

 

YOU CAN SEE I DRINK A LOT OF CRAN-RASPBERRY JUICE & DID YOU KNOW PHEEBS GETS HER OWN MAIL, CHECK THE TOP LEFT CORNER OF ‘HEALTH PET’:))

It’s a large bird feeder but not just any kind of a large bird feeder.  Booklet said this one was ‘squirrel proof.’  And it sure is!!  What a marvelous piece of quality construction.  ROLLER FEEDER was engineered by a clever mind.  Solid construction & ‘Made In The U.S.A.  But if we didn’t order it……who sent it????  We doubled checked the label again & yep it’s our names & our address on the shipping label alright.  The ‘Roller Feeder’ was definitely shipped to the right people, but by whom??

THIS NEW FEEDER IS QUITE A CLEVER PIECE OF ENGINEERING & IT’S WATERPROOF TOO

Label also told us it was shipped February 27th directly from the factory where it was made in St. Paul Minnesota.  We do strongly suspect a long time blog reader has sent this having read all the trouble we have had with Squirrels & greedy Grackles in Bayfield each Spring & Summer.  I have blogged many times about our epic battles with Squirrels trying to keep them out of our bird feeders.  In fact I do remember someone in the last couple weeks making a comment about our Squirrel problem but I cannot remember who it was.  We will have to do some serious sleuthing.   In the meantime we already have the bird feeder outside in a Mesquite tree.  We don’t have a Squirrel problem here but we wanted to get the feeder broken in so it looks used when we cross the border going home next month.  To the thoughtful blog reader who sent us this great gift we thank you so very much.  Our Bayfield Squirrels may not be thanking you so much in another couple months………………but we sure are:))

CAREFULLY FILLING THE NEW ‘ROLLER BIRDFEEDER’

And here’s another ‘must read’ from Wheeling It entitled, ‘10 THINGS I WISHED I'D KNOWN BEFORE FULLTIME RVING'  Written back in 2011 this info is just as current now as it was then.  A lot of food for thought here.  From new people dreaming of an RV lifestyle to folks in the practical planning stages, all will find solid suggestions & advice in this post. And for those of us already into the lifestyle whether it be Snow Birding or Full Timing, Nina’s article is just as current for us as well.

 

GROANER’S CORNER:(( SNOW IN VICTORIA BRITISH COLUMBIA::  6:22 a.m.

Temperature plunges. Word spreads that a Victoria man has found ice on his windshield! Curious neighbors gather to watch him scrape it off with a credit card. One motorist, a former Albertan, claims that use of mysterious "defrost" switch on dashboard can aid in process.

9:30 a.m.

Canadian Tire has sold both of their snow shovels. Islanders begin cobbling together implements made from kayak paddles, umbrellas, plywood, cookie sheets and boogie boards.

10 a.m.

Golfers switch to orange balls. Beacon Hill Park cricket players, anxious not to repeat the ugly "snow blower incident" of the Blizzard of '96, switch to orange uniforms.

Noon:

Word of impending West Coast snowfall tops newscasts across Canada. Saskatoon hospitals report an epidemic of sprained wrists related to viewers high-fiving one another.

1:20 p.m.

Elementary schools call in grief counselors. However, the grief counselors refuse to go, citing lack of snow tires.

2:30 p.m.

Rush hour begins an hour early as office workers come down with mysterious illness and bolt for home. Usual traffic snarl is compounded by large number of four- wheel-drives abandoned by side of road.

2:50 p.m.

Airplanes are grounded and ferries are docked. There's no way to travel between the Island and rest of the world. The Victoria Times Colonist newspaper headline blares: "Mainland cut off from Civilization."

3:22 p.m.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announces Canada 's DART rapid- response team can be on the ground within six months." We can't leave Victoria to deal with 225 centimeters of snow on its own," he tells Mayor Fortin.. "Um, that's two-to-five centimeters, not two-two-five," replies the Mayor. The Prime Minister, feeling foolish, hangs up.

3:33 p.m.

Provincial government responds to crisis by installing slot machines in homeless shelters.

4:10 p.m.

At behest of Provincial Emergency Program people, authorities begin adding Prozac to drinking water.

4:15 p.m.

Fears of food shortages lead to alarming scenes of violence and looting. Grocery shoppers riot across the city - except in Oak Bay, where residents hire caterers to do rioting for them.

4:30 p.m.

Bracing for the arrival of snow, the city is gripped by an eerie stillness reminiscent of Baghdad on the eve of the invasion. Searchlights comb darkening sky for first sign of precipitation.

4:48 p.m.

Panic ripples across the region as word come in that the first flakes of snow have fallen on the Malahat.

5:40 p.m.

Television reporter, Ed Bain, shaking uncontrollably, tells viewers that snow warnings have been extended. This weather pattern could go on for days. Mercury is plummeting to Calgary-in-August levels. Martial law is considered. Victoria-area politicians announce plans to establish an emergency command center aboard HMCS Regina once it reaches Oahu…. and so it go's.

(thanks Ivan)

NOT A LOT ON MY MIND TONIGHT

Had been waiting on cooler temps & sunny skies before resuming my clean-up project on our neighbor’s property.  Today was that day.  Hooked up the utility trailer & headed next door to begin picking up the piles of brush along the driveway I had raked up over a month ago.  Already was a brush pile on the property so I hauled the driveway piles back to that.  Also trimmed up an overgrown Palo Verde tree.  Been awhile since I’ve been doing any physical work so I about wore myself out in just a short couple hours.  I’ll have another go at picking up more brush in the morning.

It seems at this older age now muscles just go to mush & joints seize right up if they are not being constantly used or exercised.  I can be working away at something outside, come in & sit down for 20 minutes & it’s a struggle to get back out of the chair again.  Leg joints just seem to seize up that fast.  I am certainly not impressed with this darn constant aging thing……………….

 

JANNA & MIKE dropped in this afternoon.  Always nice talking to these folks because we have many of the same interests.  Pheebs got to see Emmi again too.  We might just have us some plans brewing for later in the week:))

Not a lot on my mind tonight.  Well not a lot I feel like writing about that is.  May have some things coming up but we’ll see.  Most nights writing comes fairly easy but there are times when just trying to put two simple thoughts together seems all but impossible.  All day today & tonight has been one of those times.  Too many days in a row of doing too many of the same things methinks.  Say, are we not overdo for another week long road trip again…….:))

GROANER’S CORNER:((  So this guy opens the 'fridge to get a beer and there sits a rabbit."Rabbit, what the hell are  do doing in my refrigerator." To which the rabbit replies, "Well, this is a Westinghouse, isn't it?"  "Well, yes," says the guy. "Well, I'm westing!"………………Of course this joke reminded me of our own Wasscally Wabbit problem here at our house in Congress.  Since putting the granular repellent around the big hole in our foundation we have not seen hide nor hare of a rabbit since.  I put sand all around the hole as well to see if there would be any rabbit tracks…..nothing:))