BLOG DECISIONS & THE LITTLE WESTERN GHOST TOWN AT THE END OF THE ROAD

To-day’s blog photos are of Chloride, New Mexico.  The little western ghost town at the end of the road.  Hoover your mouse over all the photos to see the captions.  Blog done in Live Writer.  I’m hoping I have my photos sized better to-night.

I was in the Canadian Navy many, many, moons ago so I know what it feels like to be seasick.  Kinda was feeling that way to-day from so much leaning back & forth, back & forth.  First I was leaning to-wards Live Writer & then a comment would come in & I would lean back over the other way to Blogger's New Editor.  Vera's comment swung me back to the Blogger side of the deck  but then a big LAURIE & ODEL wave came rolling in striking me broadside knocking me back over to the Live Writer side of the deck again.  Dear oh dear, this is quite an unpredictable blog storm going on here to-day & these are indeed heavy seas matey!!  Check out Laurie's helpful tips about Live Writer in our last night's blog comments.

RICK ran himself into a big blog block Friday  but did very well at picking himself up, dusting himself off, & finishing up his blog in true blogger fashion form by blogging about blogging with no mind blocking.  Ok, say that one real fast 6 times:))

 

I'm not sure how other bloggers do their blogs but here's what works for me.  I type the blog in an email format in Outlook Express just as I would an email to someone.  I like Outlook's easy to use Spellchecker & that's a big plus.  When finished, I copy the blog, open my Blogger program & paste what I've written right into the blog program's body.  (Blogger's New Editor or Live Writer) From there I click the photo icon & head off into My Pictures & locate the photos I want to put in the blog.  Until a few days ago I would start with the last picture first.   I did that because I always had to drag the photo from the top of the blog all the way through the text & drop it in place.  It was easier to do if I didn't have to drag the photo over other photos already in the blog.  I am looking forward to not having to do that anymore.  After I have the photos in the blog I add the captions & adjust all the spacing.  I then put in the links & title.  A last minute check & whoosh, there goes another blog.  I then read it on our website & I would say about one out of every 4 or 5 blogs I have to go back & fix up mistakes I had overlooked.  Many times I miss the errors I've made & the blog lands on you anyway.........mistakes & all:))

Over the last little while I've been posting some of our ghost town travels in the southwest & have had to search through archived photos for blog pictures.  I've been disappointed in the quality of my photos especially in the exposure & color departments so I'm hoping to kick my photography up a notch & concentrate more on quality this year.  Fellow RVing friend Gordon Wolford is my kind of photographer & I'm always inspired by his work.  Not likely I will ever reach Gordon's level but I do hope to make some improvements in my own stuff.  Check out Gordon's recent central Ontario photography gallery HERE.  Gordon & Sandra's RVing blog site can be found HERE, & Gordon's own Nomads News site is HERE. 

In March of 2008 while boondocked near Elephant Butte State Park in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico for a week we did some day trips around the area & found a sleepy little western ghost town at the end of a long winding dusty road.  The towns name was CHLORIDE & back in the 1800's it was under constant attack by Apache Indians.   Only saw 2 people in town the day we were there & one of them gave us a tour of an old general store that has been lovingly rebuilt & restored as a labor of love complete with all it's original stock.  The blog for our visit to Chloride is HERE & our photos of Chloride are HERE.

Our days are getting cooler & our night's are getting colder.  Most of our front yard bird's are gone now & to-morrow will be another one of my favorite Saturday mornings.  Oh, how sweet it is..............:))

GROANER'S CORNER:((  And did you know..........If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS  http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.

WELL HERE I GO TRYING LIVE WRITER

 SOME WINDMILLS FOR MIKE:))

I think this is our 17th consecutive day of beautiful warm sunny weather but I am looking forward to some predicted rainy days at the beginning of next week.  I like the change in pace plus I need some serious time to get things caught up here in computerland.  It's hard for me to sit inside on nice sunny days because the guilt just drives me bonkers.  Always feel I should be outside doing something constructive.

  HAULED THESE BIG CEDARS HOME TO-DAY

Knee is still acting up but things outside don't get done by themselves so I hooked up the utility trailer & hauled some branches & stuff down to our waste recycle area here in the park.  Many times in the past I have ended up hauling more stuff home than what I took there & to-day was no exception.  Spotted about a dozen 15' cedar trees that had been pulled out of the ground & discarded.  The trees were still fresh & had fairly good root systems on them so them so no way I could just leave the trees there to die.  Ron, our Park's number 1 employee came by in his little 'Skid-steer' machine & between the two of us we got all the big trees loaded onto my trailer. 

WE HAVE A SANDY LOAM SOIL HERE SO I USE LOTS OF PEAT MOSS FOR PLANTING

I knew my neighbor Richard would like some of these cedars so when I got home I had Richard come over & we took 4 of the trees to his place.  I then started digging big holes out front here at home & spent the next hour or so planting 5 big cedars.  They may or may not live but at least now they are back in the ground with plenty of water & peat moss & have a fighting chance.  Four years ago another neighbor pulled out 32 cedar trees & I was able to salvage 25 of them which are still growing to-day.

I read another one of RICK'S informative blogs this morning about the Windows Live Writer.  I remember giving that a try 3 or 4 months ago one time but got so bogged down in Windows downloads that I'm not even sure if I ever made it to the Live Writer part.  Must have been a low patience day for me because I dumped the whole thing after about 20 minutes of blundering around in a Windows pea souper of a fog.  I have a short attention span & if I can't make headway with something in a short period of time I turf it & head off in another direction.  I almost did that again to-day when once again I went Windows hunting for....... 'Live Writer.'

Waded through the usual morass of Microsoft Windows downloads, add ons, plug ins, plug outs, free this & that, toolbars, crowbars, chocolate bars.   I somehow ended up with another hotmail account along the way called Live ID or something.  By the time I found Live Writer I had already misplaced & lost it.  I think it must have been sandwiched between Windows live Bloogerbulst  & Microsoft's myopic Umplestencer!! Just could not get a concept in my head of what or where this Live Writer thing was supposed to be.  The ticking clock was counting down on my patience meter & I had to make a decision.  Turf the whole Microsoft Windows Bloogerstencer idea or call for back-up!!  I called for back-up.  

LOTS OF WATER & PEAT MOSS GO INTO THE HOLE FIRST

Within minutes, or was it seconds,  Kelly took over the computer's flight controls & had Live Writer up & on the screen as if there was nothing to it.  And for her, there wasn't anything to it but I'm another story.  She always finds stuff I can't, see's things I don't, & has the uncanny ability to have lost forever items appear magically out of nowhere.  Whether it be a computer program, a shirt, pair of gloves, a coffee cup or a lost hammer.  Makes no difference, she always finds stuff.  I bet she could find Amelia Earhart too!!

Haven't decided yet if I'm going to try Live Writer or not to-night.  Had a quick look at it earlier & saw some things I liked.  I should probably play around with it first before trying a blog but like everything else I get I'm always too impatient to learn how to use it first.  Just jump into the pilot's seat, crank up the engines to full  throttle & head off screaming down the runway.  

OK, JUST ONE MORE TREE TO PLANT

In MIKE & PAT'S TRAVELS a couple days ago Mike was talking about his childhood & his fondness for windmills.  That reminded me of a windmill photo I had take this past March on our way home from Arizona.  I think it was somewhere around Bowie Texas that I spotted a bunch of windmills huddled to-gether in a field.  By the time I got my camera swung around we were almost past them but I did get one shot out the motorhome's window & that's the photo that heads this blog.   Ride on over to MIKE'S blogger site & see how he spent a big part of his younger days on his horse Angel, riding the range checking windmills for maintenance repairs & water.  As a boy his horse Patches took him to school & back & sometimes in some mighty deep snow.   A true cowboy this fellow.  A lifestyle I only dreamed about as a kid.

Kelly tells me this afternoon that we may have to extend our departure date to October 24th instead of the 17th because of her Deerpark Lodge job.  Al is not a happy camper!!!!

OK, I have just put this altogether using Windows Live Writer.  Tried out some picture frames too.  I think I’m maybe going to like this…….we’ll see:))  If I go to publish this thing now & it all goes glooberfooster I’m a gonna be really ticked off & may run away to a foreign country & bury my head in the sand!!

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Remember to smile.......it gives your face something to do!!

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS  http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.

ONE MONTH TO DEPARTURE....THE EXCITMENT & APPREHENSION BUILDS

A COUPLE OF TO-DAY'S PHOTOS ARE BORROWED FROM LAST SEPTEMBER (all photos should be clickable to enlarge now)

Purolator delivered our new Star Choice satellite dish yesterday & I knew I was in trouble right off the bat. I had unrealistically hoped the dish would have arrived in more of an assembled state. When I opened the box & saw all the screws, nuts & bolts, washers, tubes, & pieces, my mechanically challenged mind went into automatic shut down mode & seized up. I did force myself to waste some valuable time looking at the instructions but couldn't even comprehend step one. It didn't take Kelly long to get on the phone.

AWWWW NUTS, I WAS HOPING IT WOULD COME ASSEMBLED!!

 van rolled into our driveway this afteroon with the words L & A Southwest Satellite Systems on the side. (hmmmmm, how did they know we're going to the southwest:)) Two fellows jumped out & within mintues the satellite dish assembly was taking shape. Luckily, with a few simple modifications by the satellite guys we were able to use the same heavy duty tripod from our previous satellite internet/Star Choice set up. And, like I've blogged about before......if I want something done right it's usually better for me to get someone else to do it & to-day was another good example of that!! (that's why someone else is painting the kitchen cupboard doors right now too)

THE BOYS FROM L & A SOUTHWEST SATELLITE SYSTEMS TO MY RESCUE

My knee & I battled back & forth all day with both sides winning & losing a few wee battles here & there. Sometimes the knee was fine as I walked briskly around & then zap, a zinger of pain would flash around the joint like a small lightning storm causing me to wince & go into a limp & hobble shuffle. But, at least it's an improvement over the past few days so I'm looking forward to great & wondrous things from that knee in the very near future..........or else!!!!

Just as some fellow bloggers I'm not exactly singing the praises of the new post editor in blogger yet. Had a hard time placing photos last night plus a few other small things. Almost reverted back to the old editor but it was probably my old blogging habits interfering with the newer generation of doing things. I'll have another go at it to-night. I do like the fact that all my photos in the blog are now clickily enlargeable again. I had lost that feature a long time ago.

OUR NEW  SATELLITE DISH WILL BE USED WITH OUR OLD INTERNET TRIPOD

One month from to-day we will be on the eve of having the big wheels rolling for the southwest once more. As usual the excitement is always kept in check by it's counter part, apprehension. Will the tires be alright for another year, how about the brakes, hope we don't have any leaks in the water system, what if the aging sewer hose explodes in my face, is that Allison transmission as good as they say it is, what if a slide gets stuck in the out position, what if a Chinaman falls off his bicycle in Teananmen Square, will the dogs be OK this year, what if they don't let us across the border because one of the guards reads this blog, will our solar panel system work flawlessly again, hope the fridge doesn't quit, will Al's bad knee cause his right leg to fall off leaving him with only being able to do hikes going around in tight left circles, hope we don't get any bad dings in the windshield & I hope the car doesn't break loose from the tow bar on an interstate. There, I feel much calmer now. The excitement was just getting to be toooooo much when I realized to-day that we would be leaving in another month!! Nothing like a good solid dose of some really fine nerve rattling apprehension to keep that excitment in check.  Kinda like when you were a kid waiting on the platform for that first roller coaster ride.  Excited like crazy but scared like nuts that the roller coaster car was gonna fly right off the track on that first downhill curve!!

Took the van to Goderich to-day on a shake down cruise to check out the different transmission. All systems were go. We are very fortunate here in Bayfield to have a great garage & repair facility. The Bayfield Garage is run by an honest & soft spoken fellow by the name of Don Mcllwain. Fortunately Don isn't as old as the front part of the garage which I'm sure was lovingly constructed somewhere back in the last ice age. Additions to the garage have brought everything including equipment & staff up into the modern computer techno era & we the motoring public are very lucky to have Don, his equipment & his crew here to attend our rusty mufflers, worn tires, dead batteries, aging engines, squeaking brakes, overdo tune-ups, price war gas, & in our case....a flunky transmission. Would you believe they had that transmission changed in less than a day!!

AFTERNOON SIESTA WITH THE KID

The foliage is dying back in the flower beds, some leaves are drooping, & some shrubs are beginning to take on that worried pre-death look to winter. Soon it will be time to begin the annual ritual of returning all the lawn ornaments & furniture to the sheds for another season. In a few short months all this glorious green jungle of ours will look like the gray barren wastelands of Russian Siberia!!!! And feel about the same as well:((

GROANER'S CORNER:(( Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know 'why' I look this way..... I've traveled a long distance and some of the roads were definitely not paved!!

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.

MY WALLET HAD A HEART ATTACK & THE OLD GHOST TOWN OF GLEESON, ARIZONA

GLEESON'S SALOON WHERE TOMBSTONE'S INFAMOUS JOHNNY RINGO WAS LAST SEEN

Woke up this morning & the pain in my knee was gone for awhile until I walked around a bit outside. Definitely better than the last 3 days though so I have had to assign myself a difficult task for the day.....stay off that leg & rest that knee!! This did not turn out to be an easy assignment:((

THIS OLD JAIL IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING RESTORED BY A PRIVATE CITIZEN

Finished my part of the kitchen cabinet painting project late yesterday afternoon so the framework, baseboard, &cupboard ends are done. A friend is spray painting the cupboard doors so all that will be left to do by the end of the week is put the doors all back on. Not looking forward to that because putting things back to-gether for me is always much harder than taking things apart!!

Had a phone call from the Bayfield garage saying the transmission job on the van is done so we picked up the vehicle this morning & my poor wallet is now $986.20 lighter:(( The motorhome goes in next for an oil change, filter, fluids, brakes & tire check, etc. After that comes the Santa Fe......oh no, my wallet just had a heart attack!!

THESE CRUMBLING STEPS ONCE LED TO A LIVELY TOWN DANCE HALL

As mentioned before, I had been having a few problems with our hotmail account. I have switched most of our RV blogging email stuff over to our Gmail account now & noticed this morning that the MnMnM's blog comment has finally worked. It bothers me to think other people may have left comments in the past that I never got therefore never published them. So, my apologies to anyone out there who may have sent us a comment that we never received. We will still continue to monitor our hotmail account every day.

GLEESON'S OLD CEMETERY

Came across an update in blogger this morning that I wasn't aware of before. Had noticed about 6 months ago that my posting process wasn't working the way it did a year ago. I couldn't seem to regulate the size of my photos, clicking on photos to enlarge them didn't work anymore, & I was having difficulty placing the photos into the body of the blog. It had become an annoying tedious process every night. I hadn't realized that a new updated 'post editor' had been installed by blogger until I stumbled across the update last night. Looks like the new post editor has some great new features so I'm hoping when I add photos to this blog later to-night it's going to be an easier process for me. To check your blog for the new post editor, go......Dashboard-Settings-Basic. Scroll to bottom of page & look for 'Select post editor.' Make sure 'Updated editor' is checked & then have a look at it's latest features.

Some of the southwest's ghost towns we have been to were easy to find & some were not. It was about a half mile hike off the Charleston road on a rocky trail to reach Millville, Arizona. Charleston across the river required a river crossing plus a lot of searching among the thick mesquite to find it. Tombstone & Pearce you can drive right into & Fairbank has a parking lot just off highway 82. The ghost town of Gleeson was harder to pin down because you can drive right through it & not even know you were there. Just a few tumble down buildings scattered along Gleeson Road.

We had checked out Gleeson on Google Earth & noticed a cemetery on the northwestern side of the road so that's where we headed first to get our bearings. Our blog for that day is HERE & you can find our PHOTOS in our web album. Luckily we ran into a fellow by the road who pointed out an old decrepit building which turned out to be a one time saloon in Gleeson. Tombstone's infamous Johnny Ringo was reportedly last seen in this building at the bar. The falling down decaying building is the most authentic piece of the old west we've seen to date. The main door is locked & it was hard to see inside but I was able to stick my camera through a crack & take some photos. It wasn't until later that night when I downloaded the pictures that we actually saw what was inside that room. The roof was partially collapsed as well as the floor. Be sure to see the pictures & the surprise on the wall to the left.

                ONLY THE WALLS LEFT OF GLEESON'S ONCE PROUD HOSPITAL

I made my way through the underbrush around to the back of the building to see if I could get in a back door but part of the floor had tumbled into the basement & I couldn't get any further in. This is a genuine building, no renovations, no glitsy stuff, no phony artifacts, & no attempt to make it somehing it never was. This saloon is the real deal!! It's very unfortunate that it can't be saved & the state it is in now would require major effort & money to preserve it. I couldn't help but feel very sad for the old building knowing it's dark future & imagining it's colorful past. Dance hall girls, miners, cowboys, card games, smoke & laughter, saloon brawls, & lots of the boys bellied up to the bar. If your in the area, go have a look at this piece of genuine old west history because sadly, I don't think it's going to be around much longer.........................:((

ONE OF THE LAST UNTOUCHED & TRUE WILD, WILD, WEST SALOONS

GROANER'S CORNER:(( And remember this as you age.....First you forget names, then you forget faces. Then you forget to pull up your zipper...............and it's even worse when you forget to pull it down.

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.

POPPED THE CLUTCH ON MY KEYBOARD BEFORE PUTTING MY BRAIN IN GEAR AGAIN!!

ALL OF TO-NIGHT'S PHOTOS ARE FROM CITY OF ROCKS STATE PARK, NEW MEXICO.

Our 'after the rain' photos of the park are HERE

Was reading Joe's blog SOMEWHERE IN TIME this morning about the difficulties they were having finding a decent RV Park in Hope Arkansas. Some other bloggers had commented as well about deplorable parks so of course I had to go & put my 2 cents worth in as well ending my comment with the words, "RV Parks?? Bah Humbug!! Sometimes I am much more opinionated than I really need to be & that thought stuck with me this morning as I made a paint connection to Joe's blog while sitting on the floor painting our kitchen cabinets. Thought occurred to me that I have a habit of negatively painting all RV Parks with the same brush & that just isn't right on my part!! We have actually stayed in some nice RV Parks & would you believe I even had some nice things to say about them. Manzano's comes to mind in Silver City, New Mexico. We stayed there for a few nights & liked it so well I even wrote up a good review for a campground review site. We were there the first week in December of 08 & if anyone is interested they can find our blogs for our time at Manzano's in our archives under December 08. Before moving to Manzanos for a few days we had been at City of Rocks State Park just south of Silver City New Mexico Here are the photos I took of MANZANO'S RV PARK. It always annoys me though when I see RV Parks with sites jammed so close to-gether folks can hardly get their slides out. That smacks of pure greed by the RV Parks owners with no consideration whatsoever for the RVer. Jam as many people onto a plot of ground as humanly possible & then charge them astronomical rates for their stay on top of it. I do understand the need for RV Parks because without them there would be no RVing whatsoever for hundreds of thousands of people. It's just too bad that so many of them offer a minimum amount of comfort for a maximum amount of money!! I am a very fortunate fellow in that Kelly & I are alike in our RVing thoughts, ideas, plans, & dreams. Kelly comes from an RV snowbird family & as kids her Mom & Dad would load the family up in the old station wagon for camping & fishing trips into Canada. Kelly is actually from Spencerport NY where here parents, brother, & sisters still live. Her Mother & Dad had went to Florida every winter in their trailer, Class C, & Class A motorhomes so the RVing life comes natural to Kelly. Having raised 5 kids she came from a very hectic, busy, & socially active lifestyle & by the time we met back in 93 she had had enough of all that & was ready for a complete change of lifestyle. So was I & we've been pursuing the quieter, roads less traveled way of life ever since. We love the remoteness of the desert with all it's peace, serenity, & tranquility. Stars from mountaintop to mountaintop, only the sounds of the desert winds in the cactus. Morning walks in beautiful natural surroundings. No sides of buildings or RV's to look at, no traffic, no screaming kids, no noisy neighbors, & no people problems of any kind. I know we are in the minority with this kind of thinking but I'm glad we are because otherwise if people really understood the wonderful experience of boondocking they would for sure all rush out to the desert which would just turn it into a massive RV Park with paved roads, potted palm trees, pink flamingos, & golf carts. We would then be back to the place where I was when I originally started this blog. Oh dear, how did I get so off track again. Sorry Joe, I was just wanting to say a few words & apologize about my comment..........RV Parks?? Bah Humbug!!
Oh, & how's my day going?? Well, now that I asked.............it's not going worth a hoot. My right knee is killing me, my left leg is now sore from trying to compensate for the injured right leg, I got more paint on me than I got on the cupboards, our van is in the garage undergoing a transmission change & my planned blog for to-day about another ghost town will have to wait because.........I popped the clutch on my keyboard this morning before putting my mind into gear again & here I am!! Just read Jerry's comment from, OUR LIFE ON WHEELS & had myself a light bulb moment as to why I couldn't get RV DREAMS in our rotation list. Went back, made a simple change & Walla.............they are now in our, 'Blogs We Follow.'
GROANER'S CORNER:(( In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England , when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them "Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down." It's where we get the phrase......."mind your P's and Q's"

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.

FELLOW BLOGGERS, PAINTING BLUES, OUCHY KNEE & ZION CANYON

COLORFUL ASPEN TREES ALONG MEADOW CREEK IN ZION CANYON, UTAH

Well, so much for my NO PAINTING idea to-day. By noon I was up to my elbows in paint, brushes, rollers, trays, & whatever else all this messy business requires. Figured I'd get myself a little smarter to-day & only paint the upper cupboard framework & leave the bottom sections until my knee is feeling better. I think it was that getting up & down off the floor performance on Friday that somehow did my knee in. I'm hobbling around with the aid of a cane now trying to be patient because I know this ouchy knee will take a few days to clear up. I also know that I am probably in for a knee replacement somewhere in the future but I'm just not there yet. Got to get a few more miles out of the original equipment first!!!! ONE OF THE THREE EMERALD POOLS

Fellow RV blogger GYPSY has finally finished up her backwoods camp host job at Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California & is back on the road blogging again. She had a nasty encounter with an immovable object at a fuel stop near Vale, Oregon & is now having to deal with a damaged 5ver. Gypsy has a true pioneering spirit & is handling life's challenges well but if you have a minute you might want to drop by her site with a few words of encouragement.CAN YOU SEE THE 2 ROCK CLIMBERS....ONE IS DIRECTLY ABOVE THE OTHER

Been having a few problems with my RV Hotmail account lately. WANDERING WILLY & I have been emailing back & forth with info regarding some satellite equipment. I'm getting his emails but he's not getting mine. Another couple, MnMnM have had trouble posting comments to our blog as well. The comments come into hotmail. I'm now concerned that some emails I've sent to folks lately never got through so if fellow bloggers, MIKE, K&D, & Borrego David L, could let me know if they received an email from the Bayfield Bunch this past week I would appreciate it. Hotmail has been acting kind of grumpy lately so I may switch our RV email stuff over to our Gmail account. I'll post that if I do.

ZION CANYON IS A DRIVE THROUGH CANYON WITH MANY HIKING TRAILS TO STOP AT

In last night's blog I posted a photo of the moon taken from our front yard. I had meant to add to add an explanation of how I did that but forgot. The actual moon was of course smaller so I had to crop a lot of sky out thus enlarging the moon. I added some contrast to bring out more detail on the moon's surface & then added some color to the otherwise black & white picture. All this was done in Picasa 3 & shows once again what can be done with Google's easy to use free photo program. In all those colorful pictures you see in magazines with photos of planets, galaxies, nebulae, etc. color & digitizing has been added to produce those striking images. Those pictures did not just pop out of a camera looking like that. THIS IS A VERY MAJESTIC CANYON

My sore knee these past couple days reminded me of when this knee problem reared it's ugly head enough to grab my attention. Been aware for 3 or 4 years now that it hasn't been up to par but while hiking in ZION CANYON, Utah back on November 19th of 2007 I must have done something to really tick it off. It was a long hike for us & the next morning my knee felt swollen & was very painful to walk on thus ending any further hiking in Zion Canyon. Very disappointing so we moved on from there down to Kanab & did a driving tour down to the north rim of the Grand Canyon a few days later. Our ZION CANYON BLOG & PHOTO ALBUM for that day can be seen by clicking these colored capitalized words.

ON OUR WAY DOWN FROM THE HIGHEST EMERALD POOL KELLY STOPS TO BUILD AN INUKSHUK

Wandering Willy made mention in one of his emails a couple days ago that TIOGA GEORGE had made mention of him in his blog called, Intertwined Lives. WW has spent time in Mexico during the winter where Tioga George is now & had mentioned a great place for Shrimp Burgers. To be mentioned in Tioga George's blog is a feather in the cap of any RV blogger because Tioga George is kind of thought of as the great Grand Daddy of all RV bloggers out here. TG was one of the earliest blog people years ago & has been going strong ever since. Another very well known blogsite in the 'who's who' world of RV bloggers is the RV DREAMS people, Howard & Linda Payne. They have a very large following & their blogs are loaded with lots of helpful tips & RV information. They have a forum as well & hold some rallies every year I think. A scheduling conflict prevented us from meeting Howard & Linda in Benson Arizona this past winter. We almost met Tioga George near Gila Bend one time but he was a few days ahead of us in his travels. We have all these people in our, 'Blogs We Follow' so you can find any of them there anytime. The RV Dream site can be found at the bottom usually because it isn't a Blogger format so doesn't show up in our daily list. We have a few other blogs we follow that can be found there as well. If anyone knows how we can get them into our daily blog rotation I'd appreciate it. COLORS ARE VIBRANT IN UTAH'S AUTUMN

And not to worry, we'll continue our ghost town explorations again this coming week. Maybe even some photos of a wild west gunfight in Old Tucson too:)) GUNFIGHT IN OLD TUCSON

GROANER'S CORNER:(( And remember, don't let your mind wander......it's too small to let out on it's own!!

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.

ANOTHER PAINFUL PAINT STAINED DAY:((

A NEARLY FULL MOON AS SEEN FROM OUR FRONT YARD THROUGH MY NIKON D40 & 80mm REFRACTOR STELLARVUE NIGHTHAWK TELESCOPE LAST WEEK...... Should have mentioned that I cropped, enlarged, & added some contrast & color to the picture as well. Don't know why horizonal & vertical lines appear in the photo except it might be pixelation from enlarging)

My whole day was spent inside with my nose to the paint brush. When having to do something I'm not fond of doing my idea is to just get on with it & get it done so I can move on to something else I do like to do. I should also mention that yesterdays blog comments about the cupboards being outdated, old, & dark were all placed in my mind by my lovely wife, Kelly. Women are more attuned to cosmetic changes than men are & the decision to paint the cupboards was definitely a cosmetic one. I WILL BE SOOOOOOO GLAD TO GET THIS PRIMER COAT FINISHED

Now, let's have a look at this from a totally realistic man's perspective. First & foremost, there was absolutely nothing wrong with those kitchen & bathroom cupboards. No cracks, no broken parts, no old paint peeling off, & no wood rot. We had replaced the knobs on all the doors about 3 years ago so I thought that was sufficient to bring them into the 21rst century but a woman's mind knows no logical restraints & so sure, change was afoot. Puts me in mind of the old saying, "if it's not broken-don't fix it, but it was too late.....the decision had been made & I am but a bit player here in the Bayfield Bunch's grand scheme of things!! LILY PADS FROM ATOP A COUNTRY ROAD BRIDGE

So, with those thoughts in mind I have been diligently painting away changing perfectly good dark woodgrained cupboards into, well..........that remains to be seen. At least the two hardest tasks are finally over with the long boring preparation & primer painting behind me. Now I can begin to put on the first coast of melamine paint which at this point I have no idea what shade of white it is going to be. I'm a man so white is white....right!! Kelly picked it out at the paint store & went with a 'warm' white. What's warm about white I ask!!!! I probably would have went with a brilliant fuscia orange or something. White is not my favorite color & I guess that's why this blogs background is a dark gray & you can tell by the looks of my blog that I see the world in bright color.......not black & white!! And if the Canadian Tire store ever has a sale on colored spray paint I'm gonna get a hundred & fifty five cans of something & spray our big white motorhome orange, green, blue, burgundy, yellow, khaki or whatever paint they have most of in stock!! A HUMMER

After the past 2 days of contortionist scrambling around on the floor & up down the stepstool my troublesome & very painful right knee is totalled, I'm in my recliner with a cane propped against the chair & I'm down for the count. Definitely NO MORE PAINTING to-morrow!!!!

SELF PORTRAIT IN A DIRTY VAN WINDOW

Kelly's on the way home with a burg & fry's (only my third burg & fry combo in 5 months) from the Docks & all will soon be well in the paint stained world of the Bayfield Bunch's Rembrandt AL:))

GROANER'S CORNER:(( Blessed are the cracked for they are the ones who let in the light!!

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now....AL.

PAINTING!!!! NOT MY FAVORITE THING TO DO:((

GOTTA GET ALL THEM THERE CUPBOARD DOORS OFF:((

Our mobile home was built back in the early 80's when the wood grain paneling & cupboard look was still hanging on from the 60's. My trusty roller & paint brush took care of all that wood grain paneling about 5 years ago but our bathroom & kitchen cupboards were still dated & dark. Kelly informed me a couple days ago it was time to make some more changes!! It was time to bring those frumpy old looking eyesores from the dark age's into the dawning new age of the techno pop future. In other words.......paint the darn cupboards!!!! NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS PROJECT!!

I probably wouldn't mind painting so much if I could just snap open a can of paint, get a big gob on my brush, & swoop it on the wall....once!! No fuss, no muss, no bother. Boom, boom, boom, all done. But, oh no....not as simple as that of course. Gotta do all that time consuming & ultra boring preparation baloney. First comes the task of taking all 25 cupboard doors off. That is 25 cupboard knobs, 50 hinges, & 250 dinky little screws that scurry their way under the refrigerator, stove, & whatever else they can scurry under. BUT, AS YOU CAN SEE.........CUPBOARDS ARE JUST TOOOOOOO DARK

Fortunately a neighbor is going to spray paint the doors in his garage but all those 25 cupboard doors have to be thoroughly cleaned first so the paint adheres evenly. Next, get a bucket of warm water, add a dose of TSP & begin scrubbing them all down. Follow that with a thorough rinse & drying to make sure all the TSP is washed off. Why did I have to put it on in the first place!!

HEY, WHERE DID ALL THE CUPOARD DOORS GO??

I will be painting all the cupboard framework here so next comes the lovely task of tedious masking tape madness. So what if paint gets on surrounding stuff. I figure it gives things a Picasso look. And besides, I have to take all that tape off again later anyway. Don't figure!! TAKING KNOBS OFF THE BATHROOM CUPBOARD DOORS

With these dark cupboards I am told that a primer paint has to be put on first. Well, there goes my quick once over theory. I absolutely hate having to paint something twice but I am told I will likely have to paint all this monster framework stuff at least 3 times. And then there's the bone grinding business of getting down & back up off the floor about 6 dozen times while getting lower doors off, taping, washing, & hunting for screws under the refrigerator, stove........ well you know. Bones just don't flex anymore. Forgotten muscles & tendons are called upon to perform Herculean lifting & lowering tasks & grunting loudly is the norm now. The louder the grunt, the easier the move. There appears to be a fine line between grunting & screaming these days too!! And then there's my troublesome disintegrating right knee........but I'll complain about that another time:((

Just finished the first primer coat in the bathroom & if that's any indication of things to come I'd say I'm going to end up having to paint this monster 25 times!!!! It's not a latex or water based paint either so everything is extra messy. The primer didn't go on worth a snoot. I think it's time to chuck the paint brush, fire up the motorhome, & leave this totally rotten & boring paint project in the dust. Hi-O Silver awaaaaaaay!!

GROANER'S CORNER:(( And did you know that it is impossible to lick your elbow:((

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.