Sometimes

Sometimes after life hands you lemons it also gives you rainbows.

Too Cold, Too Wet, Too Windy

Once again my best laid plans ganged agley (you figure it out).

Our destination yesterday was Jerome, Arizona, official Ghost Town, located high in the hills.  When we left Cottonwood the sun was shining, there was a breeze and the temperature was in the high 50s.  By the time we negotiated the twists and turns of Hwy. 89A it was raining, the wind was blowing and the temperature was 45 degrees.  Denny had left without a windbreaker, the wind was strong enough at times to turn an umbrella inside out and the state park/museum which we planned to explore was closed with no explanation.  Dang!  We thought about wandering around the shops of town, but stepping outside the truck into that weather changed our minds quickly.

I changed the camera setting to sepia for today's picture, taken from inside the truck as we approached Jerome.  The streets are steep, winding and narrow, which is not a lot of fun in a ton and a half dually truck but the town is well worth visiting on a nice day.  The shops and homes cling precariously to the hillsides, although some of the buildings have slid down over the years.  The town itself is more of an artists' enclave these days and many buildings are closed or abandoned but it's still a funky little place to wander around and people watch.  

On a warm sunny day, that is. 

Springtime in the Desert

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Denny and I were out geocaching in the campground, wandering all over the hills.  I took my camera along and took pictures of an amazing variety of wildflowers growing on the rocky terrain.  We're about two weeks too early for the cactus to bloom, which is a shame because they put out tissue paper-delicate flowers that are incredibly beautiful.


I tried to identify these flowers by looking online, but was only  partially successful.  So I'm just enjoying them for what they are, lovely spots of color in the desert.

This flower's petals change to white as it ages and they can be blown apart like the fluff on a dandelion puff.

Desert hyacinth

This flower has the appearance of a small snapdragon.

While blues and yellows are the predominate colors in the desert, this small white chicory-like flower peeked out from under some bushes.

Desert cliff rose.

Globe mallow.

Desert paintbrush.

The vivid glow of desert paintbrush.

I call this one ghost flowers because of the way the fuzzy buds seem to create a sheer, ghost-like blossom along with the brilliant purple and yellow flowers.

The breeze was blowing too strongly for me to get a good picture of these snapdragon-like flowers but I was intrigued by the multiple colors of the blossoms.

This is a close up of the same type of flower as the picture above, taken the next day in a different location.  It doesn't have the same variety of colors on the blooms, possibly because they were more shaded and were newer blossoms.


There are a few more, but that's enough for today.  Who said the desert is dry and barren?

A Short Course: Pine Shadows Golf Course

I had those new golf clubs to try out, so yesterday Denny and I drove through Cottonwood to the Pine Shadows Golf Course.  It's a short nine hole course that ends up being very challenging simply due to the fact that the fairways are extremely narrow and the hillsides are full of rattlesnakes.  My first advice about this course is to bring a lot of old golf balls because you certainly won't be looking for any errant shots in the rough due to the vegetation and snakes.

The course is a par 33 course winding up and down through Mescal Gulch.  You'll see rabbits, quail, Green Herons and other critters (fortunately we didn't see any rattlesnakes) and enjoy fabulous views of the surrounding mountains and distant Clarksville, Jerome and Cottonwood.  The course itself is in wonderful condition with lush fairways and tee boxs and greens that are in excellent shape.  The cost to play 18 holes with a cart is currently $27 before 1PM and $22 after 1PM.  

We considered this a practice day since Denny had a very sore ankle and I had a new set up and swing to work on but we had a lot of fun teaming up with Bobbie and Leslie, a mother/daughter twosome on the last few holes.  Pine Shadows is a fun little course at a reasonable price.  A bit further out of town you can play Verde Santa Fe Golf Club in Cornville, AZ, an 18 hole course that's a little more expensive, running a little over $62 in the morning and $52 in the afternoon, or close to those prices.  That's just a tad too stiff for the two of us but it appears to be a beautiful course by the pictures online.

Photos from Gold Canyon

Our week didn't go as planned due to my multiple visits to the endodontist, errand runs and Denny's unexplainable sprained/sore ankle.  But we were able to enjoy an evening at the Arizona Opry with friends Rene and Barb before Barb had to fly to Oklahoma so at least we had that.

Elvis and mini-Elvis were in the building that night.  That's guitarist Bill Wells and the grandson of the business owners, the Staerkels.  The little one is four years old.

 There's my mountain to the rear of the Beast.  The gravel campsites aren't attractive, but the scenery around them is!

 While I'm not a particular fan of lizards, this guy has the most gorgeous scales when in the sun; metallic green, gold, bronze and silver.  He's about seven inches long and likes to sun himself on the wall behind our trailer.

We've had a golden fronted woodpecker on our hummingbird feeder here and in Ehrenberg.  I have to chase them off before their weight pulls the feeder off the window.

This little guy was actually at our last campground, but wasn't included in any posts, so here he is.



The moon shot is also from Ehrenberg.   I feel lucky to get a halfway decent picture when I'm taking pictures while Patches is tugging on the leash.  The full moon really called for a tripod and some careful focusing but this is what I got.  The sunsets here in Gold Canyon have been disappointing this week since the sky has been clear and cloud-free.  Maybe next time around.

Next week's campground will be a new one for us, although we've been in the Cottonwood area a couple of times already.  I hope to get out to take a lot more pictures there and maybe even do a little geocaching.

Playing Apache Creek Golf Course

Apache Creek Golf Club in Mesa, Arizona is one of those courses that demand you hit a straight ball or else you'll end up with a ball sitting on hardpan.  While the fairways and greens are grass, the rough is indeed rough being pure desert sand and gravel.  Throw in a few rattlesnakes and you indeed are playing desert golf.  But look at that view of the Superstition Mountains off the first tee!

For men, playing from the black tees means the course is 6785 yards long.  Denny and the twosome we played with played the blue tees for a distance of 6363 yards, with a USGA rating/slope of 69.4/119.  Women get quite a break, with a yardage of 5315 and a USGA rating/slope of 64.4/111.  It is an eighteen hole, par 71 golf course with no houses sitting on the course which is always a bonus in a winter tourist setting. A couple of the holes have water, including the oh-so-fun island green at hole 6.

The one nice thing about that hard desert surface is that the ball will run and run and run.  I even managed a birdie on a par 3, so it's a very playable and enjoyable course.  Just remember, hit it straight and watch for slithery things in the gullies.

Sunset on the Superstitions

As I was fixing dinner last night I glanced out our back window and saw the sunlight on the Superstition Mountains behind us.  Over a period of nine minutes I took these photographs which admittedly are of poor quality, my excuse being if I took them outside from ground level I would have been 3 feet lower and therefore most of the shots would have been blocked by the chain link fence and the house across the street.  So the images are marred by the interior lights reflecting on the windows, but I wanted to show the wonderful play of light on the mountains along with the beautiful clouds.  Pretend you don’t see the manufactured home, the power lines and the flashbacks, okay? ‘kthx.

Rock and Roll

We had a bit of rain over the past two days; as always in this area roads had to be closed due to flooding.  There are very few areas in this part of the world that have storm sewers so during downpours there is no place for the rain water to go once it hits the hard packed desert sand and gravel.  Wind gusts of up to 60 mph blew down shallow-rooted palo verde trees and snapped our neighbor's flag pole.  And the winds caused the Superstition Mountains to disappear from view when we looked out our rear window as shown in the above pictures.

All of which meant it was a good time to shop for wood for shelving and for metal shelving units to create more space in our bins and cupboards.  A couple of cupboards inside the fifth wheel were rearranged to better accommodate our "stuff" and we picked up some brochures on pull-out shelving as an idea for future creativity on Denny's part.  We also picked up a new water filtration system that we'll be trying in an effort to have some consistency to the taste of our drinking water/ice cubes in our travels.  If it works as advertised, then we'll put the name on our fulltiming website for others to try.  Denny will probably install it when we hit Yuma next week.  First he has to figure out how he's going to tap into the refrigerator water lines since we'll do that rather than drill through the Corian countertop by the kitchen sink.  The refrigerator in our new rig has an water dispenser in the door, so Denny plans on just connecting the water filtration system to that.  All of which means there may be some curse words flying around in the Yuma area sometime next week.  Fair warning.

Not in the Mood

The notice came up this week for the renewal of my website; the poor thing has been sadly neglected the past two years while Denny and I sat in one place working at our parents' homes. It's hard to keep up a travel website and blog when you are not traveling. I also just haven't been in the mood; a lingering bit of depression/grief? Who knows? But I haven't had much to say.

Yesterday was a sociable day for Denny and I; we went with a group of folks to see Avatar at the Imax, although poor Denny sat with his eyes closed through most of it. He gets nauseous on amusement park rides and the movie is one, big, long ride. Afterwards friends Barb and Rene hosted a chili dinner followed by an evening of Mexican Train (big with RVers). Much tippling and laughter ensued.

Today we'll work on finishing the new shelving that Denny built. I have to take some of the weight out of the cupboard on one of the slideouts as it's throwing off the alignment of the slideout. Since I need to coat the shelves with polyurethane I have to do it today; the dreaded thunderstorms/major flooding/impending doom are coming tomorrow.

That's the agenda for now.

Who Needs PS?

One of the things I love above Arizona is the sunsets. Out here, you don't need PhotoSh*p to intensify the color of the sky because Mother Nature does that all on her own. These shots were taken on the hillside that we're backed up against, so you see the tops of RVs at the bottom of the shots. Denny had just taken some luscious pork chops off the grill, so I rushed the shots a bit, but the colors speak for themselves. The fourth picture is actually the sunrise behind The Beast this morning, taken from inside the trailer since I don't wander out in my robe when it's 30 degrees outside; I'm weird like that.