AND TONIGHT….. A SURPRISE DELIVERY:))

MET THIS CHARMING LITTLE FELLOW IN OUR BACKYARD TODAY… MY  SOUTHWESTERN AUDUBON FIELD GUIDE TELLS ME IT COULD BE A SHORT HORNED LIZARD

The best part of Thanksgiving Turkey is turkey sandwiches for the next 3, 4, 6 or 10 days.  Or, like this morning, turkey for breakfast.  Supper tonight?  Yep, turkey with mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing & my very much most favorite vegetable of all time…..creamed corn:))

 

AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT YOUR PICASA PHOTO PROGRAM CAN DO FOR YOU USING ‘CROP’ & ‘RETOUCH’

A year ago this morning we left 32F temps in Truth or Consequences New Mexico & drove ourselves into some warm 81 degree temps just west of Tucson Arizona.  Love when that happens.  32 TO 81:))

<<< WE HAVE NEIGHBORS WITH ORANGE TREES ON OUR BLOCK:))

JEAN & SKIP are headed our way & should roll into Congress from Quartzsite about noon Saturday.  We met Jean & Skip in Borrego Springs a couple years ago.  Down to earth boondocking Snow Bird folks so we have a lot in common & feel at home with them.  Jean & Skip are Canadians & call Vancouver Island British Columbia, home.

THESE ARE THE MESQUITE BEANS PHEEBE LIKES TO SNACK ON ONCE & AWHILE…WE HAVE LOTS OF EM

Jerry’s got himself a whole new Suzy.  To date, Suzy has lost 127 pounds in less than a year & you just have to see how great she is looking.  Things are happening with these two folks down there at the Escapee Park in Benson, Arizona.  Been mid September since Jerry last posted so you had better drop in & catch up with these two.  Check out, REMEMBER US?

STILL WORKING ON OUR BACKYARD ‘LAUNDRY WATER BUBBLE UP’ PROJECT

Surprise drop off from Bev & Jim early tonight.  They had been visiting friends at Camp Verde awhile back & spotted an unusual piece of Mexican furniture left over from a garage sale.  Nobody wanted it.  Bev & Jim thought of us right away & said they knew of couple who might like it.  Because it hadn’t sold, their friends gave it to them & they hustled it right on over to our place on their way home.  Neat-O eh:))  Thanks guys……..

IF YOU CAN GET PAST THE TEMPORARY BLANKET CURTAINS, THE MEXICAN HALL TREE IS LEFT OF CENTER…TOMORROW WE’LL MOVE IT AROUND A BIT & FIND JUST THE RIGHT SPOT FOR IT   

  

GROANER’S CORNER:))  A big-city counterfeiter decided the best place to pass off his phony $18 bills would be in some small hick Southern town. So, he got into his new wheels and off he went. He found a tiny town with a single store. He entered the store and handed one of the bogus bills to the man behind the counter.
"Can you change this for me, please?" he said. The store clerk looked at the $18 bill a short time, then smiled and told the man, "Sure, Mister. Ya'll want 2 nines or 3 sixes?"

--------------------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.
- OUR PHOTO ALBUMS - .https://picasaweb.google.com/117858411710794543295/
stargeezerguy@gmail.com

KELLY NABS A BIRD IN WICKENBURG

OBVIOUSLY, I AM A LITTLE SHORT OF PHOTOS TONIGHT:((

At 5:30 this morning, standing quietly in our front yard doing a bit of stargazing, I listened to ‘Roosters in stereo’.  Two of the fellas across the road to our northeast & one fellow around the corner to our south.  Nice:))

Patience for tiddly piddly fiddly things has always been a challenge for me & now at age 68 I seem to have even less of whatever patience I had ever once had.  So it was this morning as I tried to affix a new camera strap onto my Nikon D90 camera.  I would probably have a better chance of climbing Mount Everest backwards.  I was all thumbs & once more it was Kelly to the rescue.  Between the two of us she managed to fasten the strap securely onto the camera. I am such an impatient boob with fiddly stuff like that:((

---

I don’t know why I wake up cranky some mornings, but I do & I don’t like it.  If I catch myself early enough in a cranky mood, I have learned a few ‘don’t do’ things over the years .  I have learned not to attempt to do something first thing in the morning that is going to make me even crankier for the whole rest of the day. (refer back to tiddly fiddly piddly)

It was kind of a last minute thought this morning but Kelly was out the door headed for town to track down one of only two Thanksgiving Turkeys left in Wickenburg Arizona. She caught up with the bird at Bashas’. How did she know there were only 2 Turkey’s left? She phoned both Safeway & Bashas’s ahead of time & put a hold on the Basha Gobbler until she got there. Turkey with all the fixins for us tonight.  Yummy in the tummy.  It’s very rare for me to eat large meals anymore but tonight I made an exception.  I ate til I exploded:((

---

Been nearly a month since Kelly bought a new Acer Aspire 1 Netbook.  Tonight, she finally opened the box & kicked it into gear.

OOOOPS, PHOTOGRAPHERS FAUX PAS…LAMP GROWING OUT OF THE SUBJECT’S HEAD:((

Turned out to be a relaxing kind of day & we actually got ourselves slowed down enough to spend some restful time on our front porch.  Kelly read her Michael Crichton novel & I browsed through a Cactus book.  Pretty exciting stuff I’d say……….

 

GROANER’S CORNER:(( Radio conversation released by the chief of naval operations 10.10.95:
Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the captain of a US Navy ship.I say again, divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No, I say again divert YOUR course.
Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS ENTERPRISE, WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW.
Canadians: This is "Rocky Point Lighthouse”. Your call…………….

-----------------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.
- OUR PHOTO ALBUMS - .https://picasaweb.google.com/117858411710794543295/
stargeezerguy@gmail.com

A ROUGH ROAD LEADS US HALF WAY TO BAGDAD AZ.

NOT MUCH HAPPENING IN BEAUTIFUL DOWNTOWN HILLSIDE TODAY
With a growing half moon overhead, it is a real treat to walk with Pheebs around our fenced in property now.  Am enjoying seeing moon shadows cast upon the ground through our Mesquite & Palo Verde trees.   The nice advantage of a moonlit landscape is that I do not need a flashlight to keep an eye on the Pheebs.  She is easy to see in the moonbeams. 

HAD WE KNOWN THIS WOULD BE NEARLY 20 MILES OF WASHBOARD ROAD, WE WOULD NEVER HAVE TRAVELED IT
 
NICE TO SEE THE AREAS FALL COLORS 
Had the Jeep on the road by 7:30 this morning & the 3 of us were off to a town we knew nothing about.  It’s a paved road all the way for most folks but we decided on a secondary dirt road from Congress up through another little known place by the name of Hillside.  It was apparent right from the start this was not a good road.  Not because of the usual washes, holes, dips & doodles.  That stuff is acceptable.  Washboard is not, & by the time we reached Hillside 21 miles away we had spent two thirds of that drive on one of the worst & consistently long washboard roads we have ever been on.  Washboard roads just simply destroy vehicles by shaking them apart.  Not likely we will ever travel this particular stretch of road again, but we did enjoy the great scenery along the way.
  
A FEW INTERESTING SITES TRAVELING THE ROAD TO HILLSIDE
For me, Arizona never disappoints in it’s great ability to wow me with it’s ever changing majestic mountain & desert scenery around every bend in the road.  And so it was this morning as we dustily bumped & banged our way north over this rocky ridge, through that gravely wash, around another bend, & always between the Date Creek Mountains on our left & the Weaver Mountains on our right.  Can’t tell you how relieved we were to get our tires back onto smooth pavement again in a little burg called Hillside.  Turns out, Hillside was exactly half way between Congress & our destination….Bagdad Arizona.
 
 
A DESERT HITCHHIKER & WHILE TAKING A PHOTO ABOUT 50 YARDS BEHIND THE JEEP I FOUND THIS PART ON THE ROUGH ROAD…HOPE THAT’S NOT A JEEP PARTS NUMBER:((
Nothing much to tell you about Hillside.  It is like so many other forgotten little southwest towns that have passed their prime many years ago & fallen on to hard times.  In many of these kinds of places we rarely see any people, just old rusting pieces of long ago machinery, abandoned buildings & scattered pieces of civilization here & there.  And yet, all these weathered little places have an attraction & likeability all their own.  It’s like one has taken a ride in a time machine back, yet forward, to a planet of no people.  Just the remnants of a long lost civilization.  It is generally the sound of a barking dog, maybe a rooster or chicken somewhere, maybe a cow, that brings things back into perspective & tells us yes, this is reality & it’s time to move on.  We did see an interesting house & property for sale in Hillside though.  Guess we’ll never get that Real Estate excitement out of us will we:))
 
AN INTERESTING HOUSE & PROPERTY FOR SALE IN HILLSIDE…COMPLETE WITH A SWIMMING POOL

THIS FELLOW BUILT HIS HOUSE RIGHT ON HIS OWN DESERT ROCK GARDEN
A winding stretch of scenic highway brought us down a long curvy grade through miles of Prickly Pear & Saguaro Cactus before starting us on a short climb to our next destination.  For a little western town, BAGDAD Arizona was a big surprise.  Green grass, palm trees, a golf course, playgrounds, sports complexes & 4 lane roads running through the town.  The big copper mine here is obviously doing very, very, well.

AND, THIS IS BAGDAD ARIZONA
 
LUNCH IN THE PARK & A GOLF COURSE
Had us a little drive through Bagdad & stopped at a Bashas’ grocery store for a sandwich to go.  Headed right back to a playground/sports complex area where we had spotted a nice swatch of green grass shadowing under a group of Pine trees.  So nice to walk on soft grass again & Pheebs just loved it, racing around all over the place without the fear of prickly stickers.  It was 10:30 in the morning.

 
I JUST LOVE ALL THIS SOFT GREEN GRASS MOM & DAD:))
From Bagdad, it was west through more of Arizona’s great mountain scenery to the junction of highway 93 which connects Wickenburg with Kingman Arizona.  A left turn headed us south for Congress.

SOUTHBOUND ON HIGHWAY 93 HEADING FOR CONGRESS
We have been to JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK Park in California but we did not see the number of Joshua Trees there that we saw today just a few miles north of Congress on highway 93.  Wow.  Just about as far as the eye could see…..Joshua Trees on both sides of the road.  Now how nice is that.

JOSHUA TREES ALONG HIGHWAY 93 NORTH OF CONGRESS
Stopped to have a look at another house for sale really cheap.  No, we are not thinking of buying or moving but we do like looking at houses & properties now that the market is soooooo much in the buyer’s hands.  Nicely landscaped property but the house is in grim shape.  Not an old house but whoever lived there treated it very poorly.  Too bad because it has a garage big enough to roll a big diesel banging 40’ Motorhome right inside with room left over for a couple Smart Cars.  I just don’t understand how & why some people have such little respect for where they live.  I’m guessing the original owner must have rented it out to a bunch of Javalinas.  And, speaking of Javalinas, Kelly saw about half a dozen of them crossing the road just south of our house this morning.

THIS FIXER UPPER HOUSE & PROPERTY CAN PROBABLY BE HAD FOR LESS THAN $20,000
To wrap up, let me just say how much we are enjoying ourselves getting to know this whole area.  With each little Jeep jaunt we learn & see something new.  Just as we did in Cochise County these past few years, we are building new memories here in Yavapai County discovering our great Arizona environment.  Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a life it is……………:))

KELLY FIELDS A DEER PARK LODGE TODAY WITH THE WEAVER MOUNTAINS IN THE BACKGROUND
GROANER’S CORNER:(( 
'Twas the night of Thanksgiving but I just couldn't sleep.
I tried counting backwards, I tried counting sheep
The leftovers beckoned, the dark meat and white,
But I fought the temptation with all of my might.
Tossing and turning with anticipation
The thought of a snack became infatuation
So I raced to the kitchen, flung open the door,
And gazed at the fridge full of goodies galore.
I gobbled up turkey and buttered potatoes,
Pickles and carrots, beans and tomatoes.
I felt myself swelling so plump and so round,
Till all of a sudden, I rose off the ground.
I crashed through the ceiling floating into the sky
With a mouthful of pudding and a handful of pie.
But I managed to yell as I soared past the trees,
Happy Eating to All….. Pass the Cranberries Please.
----------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.
- OUR PHOTO ALBUMS - .https://picasaweb.google.com/117858411710794543295/
stargeezerguy@gmail.com

A STROLL THROUGH THE OLD CONGRESS CEMETERY

I remember the first cemetery I ever saw in the South-West.  It was somewhere in Castle Valley north-east of Moab Utah.  It was May of 92 & I remember heading south on Mountain Loop Drive watching a storm brewing in the mountains to the east.  I will never forget the lightning flashes, the dark foreboding clouds, the sheer mountain beauty, & the experience of this particular day’s drive.  From a  photography standpoint, the lighting was phenomenal.  One of my all time favorite memories.  Not sure where exactly it was but I remember spotting something on the east side of the road.  We (different traveling partner back then) stopped, turned around & went back.  Sure enough, it was a cemetery.  But a cemetery unlike any I had ever seen.  That was back in the days of 35mm film so I do not have any digital photos.  But, this morning at the Congress cemetery I was reminded of that very first one I saw in Castle Valley over 20 years ago.

 

 

There were no manicured acres of green grass, no tall stately trees, & no great granite headstones towering silently over unwavering rows of perfectly engraved marble inscriptions.  Things are different here in the south-west, including the cemeteries.  This mornings walk through the Congress cemetery was no exception.  Rather than explaining the difference, I’ll just let the photos do that for me.

 

Tombstone Arizona probably has one of the most well known cemeteries anywhere.  We have been to Tombstone’s ‘Boot Hill’ but I was not impressed.  Not impressed because we have wandered through some of the real cemeteries of the southwest.  Not to say Boot Hill is not real, but it’s pretty commercialized.  To see an untouched cemetery of the old days one only has to travel a few miles from Tombstone to what’s left of the old western town of Fairbank on highway 82.  A quarter mile walk will take you to a ‘Boot Hill’ that has not been touched by man’s commercialism.  You can read about & see photos of the old Fairbanks cemetery at our site entitled… THE GHOST TOWN OF FAIRBANK.

  

While at the cemetery this morning we scouted out a boondocking area close by.  A few rigs scattered about but we did find a nice spot for some RV Boondocker Blogging friends of ours who may arrive at the end of the week.

NICE ROOMY SPOT FOR AN RV

 

VIEW TO THE SOUTH & THE OLD CONGRESS GOLD MINE TO THE NORTH BEHIND THE JEEP

WE THINK THIS MAY HAVE BEEN RV SUE’S SPOT WHEN SHE WAS HERE EARLIER IN THE YEAR

After the cemetery, we took ourselves for a little drive around the wee town of Congress. There is more here than what meets the eye for anyone passing through on highways 89 or 71.  Not a lot of touristy things here & I like that.  The town may not be of interest to some folks, but my camera generally finds something of interest for me.  I will be out & about soon with an eye looking for a few things off the beaten path.  And, a few things on as well.

 

SEE THE 2 BIG WATER TANKS UPPER RIGHT…OUR HOUSE IS JUST BELOW & BEYOND THEM A BIT

In the shade of a Palo Verde tree, tipped back in my lawn chair for a few minutes this afternoon, I watched with interest as 2 fighter jets dueled it out high overhead in the clear blue Arizona sky.  Saw 2 orange flares out of one jet & then watched as the second jet rapidly gained on the first jet in a tight turn.  Another flare out of the first jet as they banked away out of sight.  I listened for another half minute as the engine sounds slowly droned away to the northwest.  I have seen this mock combat in the southwest sky many times before & I have a theory about the flares.  When one plane electronically locks it’s guns or rockets on a target & fires……the flare or flares ejected by the target plane probably signify a ‘hit’ to the pursuing plane.  Just a theory of course.  We often hear the roar of ‘dog fighting’ jets overhead.  Being a kid always fascinated with airplanes…..I like that:))

 

GROANER’S CORNER:((  A lady was filling her tank at a gas station, smoking a cigarette, even though all the signs say not to. The fumes that came out of the gas tank ignited, severely burning her hands.
But it also lit up her arm, too!
Instead of rolling on the ground to put it out, she panicked. She took off running down the street.
A police car was at the intersection where it happened and he tried to stop her to put out her arm, but she just kept running and screaming. All the officer could think of doing was to shoot her. This took everyone by surprise. The officer ran over to her and put the fire out, then called for an ambulance.
When questioned about his course of action to stop her, the officer said, "My only thought was to stop her. After all, she was waving a fire-arm."

-----------------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.
- OUR PHOTO ALBUMS - .https://picasaweb.google.com/117858411710794543295/
stargeezerguy@gmail.com