Just Another Beautiful Day in the Desert

I began this morning like every morning, with a walk around the desert, checking out the new arrivals and seeing what there is to see. You would think that after a few weeks of wandering about every morning it would get old, but it doesn't. I never take exactly the same route so although you might see the same stuff it is usually from a different angle or with different light on it. The last day or two have been pretty active with rigs coming and going, here is a bunch that are familar, they must have got tired of shivering up near Quartzsite and decided to wander a little farther south.

After my walkabout I jumped in the truck and ran into Yuma to pick up a couple of Amazon packages that had been delivered to a locker in there. Yuma is obviously a "remote" outpost on the Amazon planet as even with Prime it is about 6 days to get things delivered here and often the Lockers are full and that delays things even more, waiting on folks to get out and pick up their stuff to make room for more folks and "their" stuff. Oh well it is not like we are in a rush or anything. While I was in town I stopped by the Uhaul shop and filled a propane tank, and picked up a couple of things for Brenda at the grocery store as well. And of course got rid of some rubbish along the way as well. The rest of the day was spent chillin' and watching our little buddies buzzing around.

This fellow above came and sat in a tree about 2 feet away from me, obviously wanted his portrait done. And a few seconds later he jumped up and headed for the feeder for this action shot. They are not bugged at all by having me and my cell phone sitting almost on top of their feed source, and I can get within a foot or two of them while they are eating. All todays shots were taken with my iPhone.

Into Town Again

The last couple of days my walkabout have been almost all in the wash here as it has been quite windy the last few days and the wash gives a little bit of protection from the wind. Once I have gone half far enough I climb up out of the wash and let the wind carry me home. Each day I do somewhere between 2 and 3 miles, and that scratches my itch to do something at least.

Once I got back and got cleaned up we headed into town to make some arrangements for our next week or so of activities and meet Don and Angela Ritter, folks who we met down here, but have followed for a long time through blogs and such. Usually we are not so fortunate as to get to spend much time with them, but this year we have met for lunch twice, once here today, and once a few months back on their home ground, Vancouver Island. Thanks Don for lunch.

Long time followers will have come to the conclusion that I am not a very good people picturer, and today was no exception, besides between telling tall tales and gobbling down a great lunch who has time to drag out a camera. While we were in town we decided to brave the local grocery store, something we usually avoid like the plague in the days leading up to American Thanksgiving, but actually other than the many carts full of multiple (6-10) turkeys and hams it was really quite civilized in there today. We'll see what sundown brings but we may end up this post with a shot of the rig as I left this morning on my daily march.

Drinking and flying, guess he didn't read the JSA.

And sundown from the American Girl Wash

Trip to Town

I might have to call these shots looking back at the rig in the morning, the view looking in my window, playing on Lorne at A Place called Away's view from his window. Well I would but I probably can't depend on having a great backdrop like here along the American Girl every day so it is going to be a limited time offering.

After my walkabout, we decided we needed to run to town, Brenda had some shopping to do, not very successful I gather, and then we needed to stop by a Cannabis dispensary. She is having a lot of pain with her knee (CRPS) and hoping to find something that might relieve it a little bit. The place we stopped in Yuma needed ID and Brenda had forgotten hers and I know absolutely nothing about the whole wonderful world of Cannabis and without ID they don't allow you in the store, so she decided we needed to head back home without anything. Once we got here we realized there was a store in Winterhaven, on the California side of the river, so we grabbed her ID and headed back into that place. Apparently, they had an entirely different process there than across the River in Arizona, and she was happy with what she found. I will reserve my happy to see if it works.

This is the view on the way back to the rig in the morning.

What's Up

Since my last entry we have just been chilling here along Ogilby Road. The weather has not been the greatest, a little windy, a little cool, but the last couple of days it seems to have turned around and maybe winter along the Mexican border is almost over.

New Years Day we joined our friends from Dease Lake, Bill and Margaret at the Texas Roadhouse to celebrate Bill's birthday, he was a New Years baby way back in the middle of the great depression, so you do the math. That said he looks like he hasn't aged a day since we first met back 10 or 15 years ago.

The next day we had visitors out to rig, Skip and Jean are staying over in the Pilot Knob LTVA and ran over to chew the fat with us and see our new outfit. Hopefully we cross trails with them later in the winter again.

Then it was off to Mexico with Bill and Margaret, while Bill visited his dentist the rest of us wandered the town. Brenda got some puffers for Rebecca, and I got my Sunday go to meeting boots all polished up for Ryan and Lisa's wedding later in March this year. We stopped and grabbed some lunch at a pretty good little restaurant down there and then while the rest of them headed off to grab a spot in the line to cross back over the border I ran back and bought a bushel of shrimp from the Sea of Cortez. Despite Donny's threats the border was still open and we got back on the north side without issue.

Since then we have just hung out here and done the regular stuff like hitting the laundromat and Wally World to restock our larder. We needed to reprovision as we are heading towards Quartzsite tomorrow, we think, to join a group of folks who have rigs similar to ours for a little rally.

I have been hanging out shooting Hummingbirds and the odd sunrise.

A dogfight at the feeder

Tough little guys to catch sitting still

Sunrise over the Cargo Muchacho Mountains

Imperial Dunes

The last day of 2018 started early when I headed over to Glamis to see if I could get a sunrise shot in the dunes. Although the picture I envisioned never materialized I did see some nice colours.

It was interesting that even though I was there before sun-up there were sand machines roaring through the dunes already. Yesterday I mentioned there were hundreds of rigs over by us, well over near the Glamis flats there were literally thousands of rigs spread for miles down the eastern side of the dunes. There is a stretch of these dunes north of Glamis that is a wildland so the dune system is protected from the marauding sand warriors up there I guess, although as I walked around it seemed like the wind pretty near erases most traces just overnight. I guess in a perfect world eventually vegetation would establish itself and these dunes would just become hills but that is probably not in the cards.

Other than the run to the Dunes it was a lazy day, I ran into pick up some smokes for Brenda and then just hung around camp the rest of the day. It clouded up pretty much and even some rain fell here and more over near Yuma, so it was an inside day and not much on the solar generating front either.

In Search of a Canine MASH Unit.

Maya has had an ear infection that Brenda has been treating for about 10 days. She develop a swelling in her ear that made us decide she needed to see a vet before Christmas. We started off looking around Quartzsite without much luck although the vet in Parker could see her after we got the appointment organised it turned out that vet was in Parker, Colorado, a long drive from Western Arizona. We tried Blythe but they couldn't do anything till mid next week, so we figured we needed to head for somewhere bigger. Yuma was our next choice of spots and they have 4 or 5 vets but as we got hooked up and heading down the road Brenda called them all and none of them had time yesterday to squeeze us in.

I guess through the miracle of social media Brenda got in touch with our own vet back home. Heather Van Esch from the Cremona Vet Clinic gave her some advice and a few tips on what to look for and some possible treatments.

Meanwhile I found a Truck/RV Wash in Ehrenberg, Arizona so we pulled in their before we crossed the border into California to wash some of the road grime off of our rig. It is a cash only outfit so I had enough to get them started then I ran over to the Flying J to raid a bank machine for the balance. It wasn't the greatest job, but they did get the big lumps off so it is better than it was. After that we headed through Blythe and then south towards the Dunes and Ogilby Road. We found a little spot just east of the road on Road 707 where we got ourselves set up. It was a little cloudy and cool yesterday, great day for traveling, but the sunset was pretty nice.

Dogpound Anywhere photobombing a great sunset.

Today we got up early and headed into Yuma to set up a blockade at the Ironwood Vet Clinic. They opened at 8:00 and Brenda was ready to knock the door down to get Maya looked at. We pulled into the parking lot about 7:00AM and one of the tech's was just getting out of her car. After hearing our sad story she took us in and we filled out all the paperwork and prepared to wait till they could squeeze us in. Fortunately an early morning surgery they had scheduled was late showing up so Maya was first up. Turns out Heather had nailed the diagnosis all the way from down the road from Dogpound and even the treatment, so we have some prednisone to deal with the hematoma in Maya's ear and the infection that was there last week is all cleared up so it is just a matter of time till all is right in her world again.

The vet visit out of the way we headed over to Walmart to re-stock our larder, we were running low on ice cream and that is critical component to our well being while we are down here. Picked up some other stuff and then headed back to rig.

It was a beautiful day today so we read a little, sunned a little, snoozed a little and then Max and I took a walk in the desert which brings us to now. No excitement planned over the next few days but who knows what tomorrow will bring.

California Dreaming

We headed out of Gila Bend a few days back and made for the California line. After getting through the traffic congestion at the Fruit Police stop on the border we made our way out to Grays Well Road and exited the freeway for a moment then headed back east to Ogilby Road. The overpass at Ogilby Road is having some work done so it is closed so there is no exit from the westbound lanes. We found us a quiet little spot north up that road about 4 odd miles and got set up for a stay here.

Blue and I took a spin looking for some folks that Ivan had told us were in the neighbourhood and met Skip and Jean and then Wandering Willy and had a visit with those good folks.

The next day our friends Mike and Shaunna Lewis and their horses/mule and well-trained mutts joined us here.

We headed south of the border to Los Algodones to order some glasses for Brenda and I and a new sign for Mike and Shaunna. Along the way, we managed to find a lunch and a Margarita and a Cerveso or two. Our glasses wouldn't be ready till the next day so we decided to pop back down the next day to have lunch and a few more Margarita's as well as make another run into Walmart for some necessary supplies.

Camp dogs

Back Yard

Lewis's sign

Algodones is always a great place to visit, the people are friendly, and so accommodating and very enterprising, it is nice to see, although the culture is a little different than north of the border. Good food, good music, and apparently good Margaritas.

Back in camp we enjoyed chewing the fat around the campfire both morning and night and were sad to see Lewis's pull out to start their journey north to the northern ranges this morning. Happy Anniversary you two.

Beginning the long journey home

Sunrises and sunsets in Arizona are spectacular and change so quickly, these two were taken with moments of each other this morning.

They are both panorama's made up of 3-5 separate shots but the colours are pretty much straight out of the camera. And this last one was taken just a short while later. Later in the afternoon Ivan himself came by for a little chin wag.