Finding Desert Roses

  Last night's sunset was very "easy, soft, wispy, whimsical"....pastels, painted with a wide brush...

I covertly snuck out the camper door, crunched through the gravel and took a couple photos. It wasn't as vibrant as some of our sunsets, but it fit my mood....less intense, more like filmy strand of cotton candy... 
  This morning at 7:15AM, Den peeked out his window and stated that it looked like a nice sunrise...I thought about it for about 10 seconds, then I jumped out of bed, put on my slippers and did a repeat performance of last night, except I crept to the other side of the camper to get these...

As you can see, we are much closer to the mountains on our East side, making for better sunrise photos. There was a guy out walking his dog, and I felt a bit like a fool in my nightshirt and slippers. I thought he would never get going , his dog doing his duty at every brittlebrush, but they finally left  our area and I took one more...

   We have been trying to decide where to go after we leave here, heading back East into Texas. I got on the New Mexico State Park site and became intrigued with Pancho Villa State Park, in Columbus, New Mexico. In 1916, Pancho Villa raided the town of Columbus, NM...This was the first time a raid was conducted on the US since the War of 1812..and the last. The town still has some buildings that were standing during that raid.  If you know me at all after following this blog, you know I LOVE HISTORY!!! So we had to flex our dates to get 7 consecutive days there, but, hey, we have no real schedule!! Now we will be staying here until March 6th. We will be at Poncho Villa State Park March 6th for 1 week, and from there we will take 2 days and 1 night to get back to Canyon Lake, Texas...Whew!! I AM thrilled to get a taste of  some New Mexico history..
  We took our daily walk out into the desert. I haven't given up on the StoneMan, but I want to wait a few more days and sneak up on him...
  We got off the trail and walked into the desert...I love it here...

This was becoming a walk in pursuit of Desert  Rose Chalcedony, an opaque, waxy looking stone that takes on the look of a rose...When I look for rocks, I walk with my head down and could walk right into a cactus if I didn't look up once in a while. Dennis actually did walk into a little cactus bud from a Chainfruit Cholla, and it stuck in his shoe...

...You have to be careful when pulling it out or it will just turn it's sticker on your fingers...I know this because I have done it..
I was sure we were alone....until I heard some rustling in the brush ahead. I told Den to stand still and listen...he didn't hear it, but he doesn't hear a damn thing! I heard it again...then I thought I heard voices...Just over the ridge we met 2 guys walking a dog...Gringos from our campground..The "rustling" sound I had heard was the WalMart bag used to pick up the doggy pooh...I need to quit watching old Westerns..

  That little tiny strip of white at the upper left is our campground....

...Wouldn't you think that after pulling stickers from his foot he would have more sense than this???
   We ended up walking about 3 miles again today, but it paid off well. We did find some of the Desert Roses....

Den found this one..It is about 1 1/2" across....very nice find...

..These are much smaller..The one on the left has about 3 good roses in it...The one on the right is one rose...
I wish I would have majored in Geology in college instead of Boy Watching...

  I neglected to mention that last night , about 5PM, one of the young Indian boys who live here came around selling fresh, HOT, tamales...Homemade, by the lady that makes the famous Indian Fry Bread. I bought 1/2 dozen. They were really big, so I saved two for lunch and froze the rest. We had the two for lunch today and they were MAGNIFIQUE!! To our surprise they had a green olive inside (with a pit in it)...This may be the way they make them down here..I have never heard of it...all I know is they were wonderful!!!
 There is a motorhome across from us who are towing a huge trailer ...

...just guess what is in it???

....Ya just gotta love it!!!!

Well, it's time to get supper under control...pork and noodles, maybe a salad and cottage cheese...Tomorrow we are going to the Fiddler's Contest at the Country Club....Let's see....Country Club/Fiddling Contest...they really don't coincide...but I guarantee we will have fun....I will blog it...Thanks again for playing....

"THE FOG COMES IN ON LITTLE CAT FEET...."

...This morning we started the coffee about 7:20AM..When I came out into our living area and raised our shades I found we had a thick layer of fog hanging over the distant mountains. It made the look very serene and beautiful...

..they almost had a lavender hue with the fog surrounding them...These mountains were to the South..

I noticed the mountains to the East were more shrouded in fog than these...

.....The sun was beginning to come up and I figured this beauty wouldn't last long once the sun burned it off..
.

...These mountains were almost totally lost in the mist...

And as the sun got further up in the horizon, most of the fog left, except the very low clouds, which refused to leave until later...

   We took our walk around the campground this morning. We had lost a few campers yesterday and we had our "wide open spaces' all around our HitchHiker.  When we got up by the casino, the moon was still up , and there was still a patch or two of fog left on the desert below..I tried to get them both in view...

....You have to look close, but the moon is up there!!!!

Believe it or not, but after our horrendous adventure of shopping yesterday, we still had to go into Ajo and get meat. I refuse to buy WalMart's meat when we have such great cuts at Olsen's Marketplace just 12 miles away..I was pleased to see that T-Bones were $3.88 per lb...You just don't find that back home...I bought 2 nice ones for $7.00.  I managed to get some great pork chops, lean ground beef ($2.79 lb), country style ribs, and Johnsonville Italian Sausage was $2.99 lb.
  After a quick stop at Dollar General, we made the trip back to Hickiwan...We didn't want to spend any more time in truck after yesterday.  We noticed that the mountains to the Southwest were still cloaked in a heavy misty fog..

When we got back, I fixed us a sandwich and then retired to the sunshine in my usual spot, so I could keep a close eye on the neighborhood.( Sometimes I feel like I am in the movie The Burbs..) There was a guy across from us with his ATV in the bed of his pick up...it almost didn't fit..I zoomed in with my camera, very indiscretely, and got a fairly good shot,

...Our neighbors next to us have been gone since Monday. They have family in Yuma and went to visit ....They asked us to keep an eye on their camper and gave us their cell phone number..They have a cute little Polaris ATV they zip around the desert in...

Do you think they would notice if we took a little ride around in it?? (just kidding)...I don't think Den knows how to hotwire an ATV...Then again, he IS nicknamed McGuyver!! This would surely get you into the desert a lot faster than walking!!! I've seen them use it alot...and they put those masks over their nose and mouth to keep from eating dust as they drive around...

...I just noticed they have it chained to their camper...Pretty wise idea...I am sure it would disappear in the middle of the night if they didn't have it chained..People also put locks and chains on their generators here..just in case...
  Dennis came outside to sit with me for a while. While we were outside, we could hear the roar of military aircraft and looked up to see two of the A-10 Warthogs flying low over the distant mountains to the West of us...

Again...not a very clear photo, but these things are really traveling!!!
  If I haven't mentioned, we have a portable ice maker, which really is worth it's weight in gold! As much ice as we go through, I think it has saved us money.  Last year,sometimes we had to go 40 miles into town to get ice!! This is so convenient. Is sits in one of the storage doors outside our backdoor. It can fill one of my gallon ziploc bags in the matter of a couple hours....Supposedly it will make 20lbs. a day...I love my icemaker!!

....OK, now it is time for our bike ride around the campground.....And we have just gotten more neighbors on the side of us and behind us!! Oh well....I gotta tell ya, the guy who helps out Ray in the park has a unique T-shirt on today..On the back it says D.E.A. ..."drink every afternoon"..I love it!! I guess I'm not the only goofy screwball in the park....More tomorrow!!

WHAT A WASTED DAY!!

  Today was a day you wish you could push the "reset" button on..It started OK...We got up early to get the laundry done so we could ride up to the WalMart at Casa Grande. I needed to pick up my prescription...and that was the main reason we went 95 miles. We also needed some groceries that are unavailable here in Ajo.
The sun was trying to peek through the clouds over the mountains behind us..

Before I bore you with our lousy trip...we had a great sunset last night...again...

...This came as a surprise because we had quite a bit of cloud cover all day...Somehow, the sun worked his magic at just the right time....
  We left the campground at 9AM, turned left on Rt. 86 and headed up the road, through the Indian Nation. About 15 miles later, we turned North on what is called Indian 15...(IRR15)..and the road was a very  good one, nice and wide..no gravel. It looked like rain in the mountains ahead...

..There were an abundance of Saguaro Cactus on this drive....It looked like a Saguaro forest in some spots.  So far it hadn't rained on us, but in places the road was wet, so it must have rained earlier...

....Look at all of the Sagurao....Also, notice the small cross along side the road.. These are all too familiar..
 
We were driving along and we noticed a white truck following us...just staying far enough away, but not passing us. The speed limit was 55mph on this road, and we were staying right at it.. I asked Den if he thought the truck behind us was Border Patrol, or the police, and he didn't think it was anything but a normal white pick up truck. But, apparently there was a car behind the truck, because suddenly a car came zooming around us both ,and speeding on in front of us..And coming on the other side of the road was a Tohono O'odham Police Car...He must have known this guy now ahead of us was speeding..The cop did a U-turn and came up behind the white truck (who was still behind us)...All of a sudden they both came flying around us, going like a bat out of Hell...It was when they both passed us we noticed that the white truck WAS Border Patrol, and he had 2 dirt bikes in the truck bed..

..It is hard to see the bikes, but this must be how they get around in brushy desert. They both caught up with the affending speeder,just up the road, as you can see...

..The Border Patrol pulled his truck up on the shoulder...We crept by them...slowly...Den said he thinks the Border Patrol truck was following us for so long because he was running our plates... That was pretty exciting!  It wasn't even 5 miles down the road when we came across a Border Patrol Checkpoint...

...a little blurry....Border Patrol Checkpoints make  me nervous..I could never smuggle ANYTHING! The dog was again on my side of the truck..The agent on Den's side asked if we were both US citizens...Then he said, and I quote,"You have any rockets???..grenades???...people "under?"" He was, at least, smiling as  when asked..I think our toneau cover on the truck bed attracks their attention...You never know what we could be hiding "under" there.  ...I have sooo much respect for them. He smiled again and waved us through..and we were back on this very interesting drive..

..this was about 10 miles outside of Casa Grande..
When we got there we drove through Historical Casa Grande..

...somehow I don't think Food City was very historical.
I'll now cut to the chase...I couldn't get my RX because they didn't have enough of the drug...they could only give me "partial" RX.  I figured that meant that out of 90 pills I would get at least 30...WRONG AGAIN.. I got THREE pills....three!! So now I cannot take those without driving another 95 miles an a few days to get the rest...FORGET IT.. I will get the rest when I get time...
We got our groceries after waiting around for the 3 damn pills...It was now 2PM! We checked out and to make a bad experience worse, the checker forgot to use my 10 or so coupons..."I'm sorry, ma'am, but once I total, I cannot use them..." Let's get outta here!!!
 It was a quiet ride back...We were both pissed..But we settled down once  back at the RV park. How can you be crabby when you are surrounded by such awesome scenery?? It is now 5:30 , and I am well past cocktail hour, but never fear..I WILL have one!! It's cardboard pizza for dinner as another sun sets behind the Arizona mountains...Hey, we DID have a nice, exciting drive...and we both know...LIFE IS GOOD!!
I'll adjust my attitude and blog again tomorrow....Thanks for reading this far, and if you did...you deserve a medal!

Magical Mountain Views...and Magical Birds....

  Last night looked like another dandy sunset...I walked outside, uniform on again, and took a picture...

...Lots of pastels in this one...Den rode his bike up by the casino to see if he could get another one, but it was just enough later that the lighting had already changed, as the sun did a half gainer into the horizon....

...It is still beautiful, though..Thanks Den, for saving me the embarrassment of riding my bike in my jammies. And also thanks for sparing the campers the shock...
  We had our coffee this morning then took our walk around the campground. I need to further research the Stone Man legend before we go in search of him again....There were quite a few RVs that left yesterday, which seems to open up the views considerably. This RV park is quite popular with people who have ATV's. Some of them haul them behind their campers and motorhomes, and some have what are called "Toy Haulers", for obvious reasons..This guy had just pulled in and had the back end opened up to see his ATV....

..kinda like pulling your garage behind you...The camper part is obviously up front. We have seen many people who back big Harleys out of these ...Now there's a TOY!!! There is a guy who zips around here on his ATV, with his dog riding on the back, just like "driving Miss Daisy"....He goes all over with his dog..We ran into him on our walk this morning.....

 Ya gotta love it...
We have been talking quite a bit to a couple from Iowa who are in a HitchHiker just like ours, only one year older. On our walk about, we walked by their camper and he and another guy were outside trying to get a signal on their laptop, to get online. They were having zero success, so Dennis invited them up to our camper to see if they could get online using our router.  We have security protection on ours, so this meant we were going to have to let him in on our key code...I feared for him...You know the old saying, "If I tell you , I'll have to kill you"...(just kidding). They drove up shortly after, and all 3 of them put their heads together....That old saying that two heads are better than one...and three even better..not true...

...Everytime he tried to use our router, his computer would shut US down...Den thinks it had something to do with his older laptop. We have allowed quite a few people to "suck" off our router, with our permission, and we never had this happen. I wish we could have been more help...(but, they were cutting into my sun time...)
   After lunch I went outside to enjoy the great day. There were a few clouds, but they were really pretty...

I really loved the way the ones further away appeared like curves of smoke in the sky. These days are really hard to take..ha ha....I love sitting outside. There is always something going on ...and I am afraid if I stay inside I might miss a photo op...Here is proof...I heard some birds getting very noisy and, at first glance, noticed all of them at the pan of water under our tree. (In the desert you really need to make water available to the birds). I looked up and this is what I saw....

...At first I thought I was imagining the deep blue of these birds..but, I wasn't. I took a few more shots to make sure I would get at least ONE good one..The above photo is a bit blurry, but the rest turned out OK..

...I think I have it figured out that the pretty blue ones are males....the more dull ones are females...(and so it goes...eh?) Was that bird on the left mooning me???

..Obviously it doesn't take much to get me excited...I ran inside to tell Den...He came outside to sit with me...and the birds had left. They didn't return all afternoon...I hope I see them again. Den got out our bird book but he could not find them. Maybe it was because we have Audubon's North American Bird Book...(now, here is the clincher....)....Eastern Region...OOPS! DUH..we ARE out West....I am taking a wild guess that these are some kind of Western Bluebird...anyone know???
  There were a few more puffy clouds later in the afternoon..They make the mountains look almost magical as they pass over all of the valleys and peaks....

...I did a little cropping on these  photos to cut out the junk and they turned out pretty good.

   Tomorrow we are heading to Casa Grande to go to the WalMart up there...about 95 miles..I need to pick up my RX that has been sitting on the computer at Buckeye...I called and transferred it to Casa Grande. We have heard that the WalMart there is a tad closer, and we will drive through the Tohono O'odham Indian Nation to get there...I will take my camera, as usual, just in case. It is 2 lane all the way, but I don't think there are any dirt roads.....or so it looks. They are predicting rain tomorrow...may as well go shopping, I say. This weekend there is a fiddling contest at the Country Club in Ajo...(yes, they have a golf course)...We may drive in and check it out on Saturday....
Well, time for my shower. Tonight's menu, if you even care, is Five Way Chili , salad and cottage cheese....All of it waaaaay to high calorie, but so what...I am in the mood for comfort food!! I will blog later tomorrow after we return from our Casa Grande adventure....Catch ya on the other side!!

I DON'T BELIEVE IN THE "STONE MAN"..SOMEBODY'S JUST TOYING WITH US!!

   Last evening it appeared that there would be a nice sunset..Sometimes it's hard to tell. Just when you think the best color is going to be toward the West, the mountains behind us to the East turn a brilliant rose color. I am not sure how this works...Somehow the sun setting in the West illuminates the mountains in the East...This was one of those gorgeous evenings....

...I took a risk and ran out behind our camper to get these picture...no one arrested me.
  When we got up this morning, we had high wispy clouds and the temp was about 50. After our coffee we took our walk up by the mailbox to mail a couple letters. I was a bit nippy yet at 8:30..I wanted to sit outside and have coffee, but decided to put that off until it warmed up a tad. I came inside and put some rub on a couple pork steaks for dinner tonight..."Grill Man" is cooking.
  On one of our many walks in the desert, I picked up a few neat rocks. There are neat rocks here containing what is called Desert Rose Chalcedony..Sometimes you can find a single small one and sometimes there are a few embedded in a larger stone....like the one I found

..I you notice, it seems like circles (supposedly rose shapes) are growing in the stone..these are the Rose Chalcedony, or so I am told. They make necklaces and earring out of the smaller single stones..I felt like this was quite a find...I wish I had paid more attention to my Geology Science classes in school! This stone is about 4" across.
  I had a couple avocados, so I made some fresh Guacamole for lunch...There is a plentiful supply of great avocados down here and I take advantage of it. After lunch I had a need to see if we could go back out into the desert and find the legendary Stone Man.. Den went with...I won't go out there by myself...scaredy cat!!
  It was slightly overcast and there was a breeze, which made it a good afternoon for a walk..not too sunny and hot. We started out again on one of the trails going South. We knew we had to find the stone cross first. Our well informed source said we were very close last time, when we were at the stone cross. As we walked, I thought I spotted a vehicle way up ahead....Den and I figured it was probably Border Patrol, because only authorized vehicles were allowed in this part of the Sonoran...WRONG! As we got closer, we saw that it was a white Chevy Pick Up...about 2003. No BORDER PATROL written on the side..

.We took the walking trail right by it, and I was wondering if we shouldn't be a little scared..Upon closer examination we saw that the license plates were from Montana, and it was unoccupied. We just kept moving along, giving it a wide berth.. I wondered if maybe they parked it here and were rock climbing or hiking. At any rate, we took off toward the direction of the Stone Cross, or at least we hoped it was the right direction.
  After the trail almost vanished, we did find the stone cross, so we split up and walked off the path into the cactus to see if either one of us could spot Mr. Stone Man. (I made sure I always had Den in view.) To make a long story short, we never found him. We walked all over out there, and he is apparently invisible..OK, that was trip number 2 to find him. Stone Man was becoming as elusive as the burros once were.
  There are tons of neat rock formations out here. I never tire of taking pictures of this amazing desert...

....Notice the beautiful Organ Pipe Cactus growing out of the rocks in this next photo..

We were coming closer to the mountain and I noticed a small cave at the base...It could have been a den for some coyote or who knows what...I took my picture and moved quickly away...

This picture I took looking toward Ajo. That whitish ridge in the distance is part of the mineral overburden on the edge of town...12 miles away. Like I said...wide open spaces!! Admitting we were again defeated by Stone Man, we reversed our walk heading back the way we came.  This meant walking back by the white truck we had seen. I thought we should keep our distance, but Dennis just barged onward and we walked right by it....It was still unoccupied.  Thinking that maybe it might be important, I made a mental note of the license number...OK, so I was brought up with Cagney and Lacey....I could be called upon to testify...well, maybe not. Dennis thought I was over reacting a bit...I AM a "closet" detective...(with apologies to my son-in-law who IS a detective.)We got back to the camper and I wrote the license number down on a post it note...Hey, what can I say????
 This morning I took this picture of the large cave we walked to a few days ago...The one with the stone firepit. I could see it from our camper, about 1 mile East of us...Here it is on ZOOM.

...you can see the cave opening about halfway up...
 As I sit and type this, the campground is getting busy again. I think we are getting neighbors that will no doubt block our back window...again... Oh well....
  I am feeling a little sad for my Hummingbirds...Would you want to drink out of this feeder??

...the nasty little gluttons!!!
  It is clouding over right now, and we are suppose to get some rain tomorrow night and Wednesday. I would love to have a good lightening display embedded in a good thunderstorm...over the mountains...
 Right now it is time to get into my "uniform"...and almost cocktail hour. Don't forget that Border Wars is on tonight on National Geographic channel (if you are interested)...We won't miss it!! Thanks for playing....more tomorrow!!