Another Desert Day

Once again we didn't do anything worth writing about, a wander about the desert, a couple of great meals, and a picture or two of my friends the hummingbirds. Over the last couple of days there has been a few more rigs showing up in our neighbourhood, but none within our comfort zone, which is great.

Above is a look at our spot here. Although we have to share it with two or three hummingbirds and a coyote that comes by in the night, it is a pretty great spot to hide out from the winter weather back home.

Other than a picture or two of this little rooster that posed for my camera, I pretty much let the little speedsters come and go unbothered today, even hummingbirds get tired of being pictured all the time I bet. But they did gobble up a bunch of food on their visits here to see us.

We think this is an Anna's hummingbird but whatever he is he is a pretty little critter.

And Again

I needed to fill one of our propane bottles and it dawned on me that tomorrow was Thanksgiving here in America, and then Friday is that horror of horrors they call Black Friday and I try to avoid both of those days like the plague. So today was the day to run in and get ourselves ready for a couple of days hiding out here along the American Girl. The hordes won't find us here although, from all the toy haulers passing by on Obilby Road today, the Dunes to the west of us will be a busy spot this weekend.

I took this shot above as I left this morning on my ramble across the desert and shortly after this dead tree caught my eye.

And then as I returned I walked by that same old tree and the different light changed the whole view. Almost looks like one of those critters the folks were riding around in the movie Avatar was frozen in time and turned to wood.

We brought some leftovers home from our lunch yesterday and I do believe they were even better today than they were yesterday, so thanks again Don. Then I spent the rest of the day setting out watching the 3 Hummers we have here dogfighting and zooming back and forth in front of me. They are entertaining little critters and it is a good thing they are hardly bigger than a bumblebee, as agressive as they are. They are cool to capture with the camera, but it takes a little patience, and a well charged battery. Today I took about 750 images of them, and picked what I think are the best three to share with you folks.

So that is a hit rate of about 0.4%, now there were a bunch that were decent but these were my picks. With todays camera's there's not really a lot of terrible ones, but my first pass through I threw out about 650 of them as not worth keeping, and then the next time through whittled about another 50 out, most as pretty much duplicates of something I kept or Hummers, just like people, sometimes blink and we all know how folks hate those pictures so off to the round file they went as well. I did keep one of the terrible one just to post here though.

So for all our American readers, enjoy your day tomorrow and hope you are lucky enough to spend it with family or friends and eating to much.

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

American Girl Wash

Today began just like the past few days, a walkabout, but in a new place, not just for this year, but a different spot than we usually holed up in here along Ogilby Road. I took a hike over to our old spot just to see what is happening there. The approach off the road is a little sketchy now, we might have been able to drag the Solitude over it, but maybe not. There is no one over in that part this year and I think maybe that is because of this fellow we spotted there last time we were in the neighbourhood a few years back.

There is a sign over there indicating that you better stay on the trail, as these fellows and their buddies the desert hares might be having some kind of races going on. He has a hard enough time eeking out a living here in the desert without us infringing upon his territory so we are happy to find another spot.

This desert is completely different than back in our old spot at Bouse and walking is easier, not many hills, but the featurelessness is somewhat misleading, so I need to keep track of where I am going and make sure I don't just wander off into the desert and become a legend, lost forever.

These things, balloons that float off into the skies, should be banned, they are probably the most common thing I find wandering about out here, a few every year. They get released to celebrate everything from birthdays to memorials and then litter the landscape and either endanger the wildlife, like my friend the desert tortoise, or spook some unsuspecting horse and rider when one of these things leaps out waving a shiny flag at them. It is probably not a coincidence that just yesterday a friend of mine back home, down the road from Dogpound, was asking people to stop buying them. This one is safely in the landfill now. I am not sure we will have much of a sunset here tonight, as I write this journal late in the afternoon, we are getting a little rainfall, enough to dampen the dust here alongside the wash so for now I will stick in a couple of shots of the desert and the sunrise as I wandered about out there.

It never fails to surprise me how the sky can change so rapidly here, but those time-lapses I have shared have shown that pretty clearly.

More of the Same

After I got done my walk this morning I did absolutely nothing so that is about it for the day, a few pictures and a lot of chillin'.

Only after I uploaded the pictures did the similarity between my images and my day become obvious, a lot of deadwood there.

Out and About

Today we decided it was time to renew old acquaintances, a few years back, February of 2018, we crashed the party at Lorne and Sue's hangout north of Apache Junction, today we thought if was time to go back and finish the job. We sat in the sun telling some stories and chatting about life in an RV and all the people we know in common, bloggers all. And while we were there Riley and Deb from a A Long and Lonesome Highway joined the group. It was nice to finally meet them in person after following their blog for years.

As usual my people picturin' skills were sadly lacking and I didn't get any photos of either bunch, to busy telling stories Brenda said. She was probably right, it is not often anymore that I run into folks polite enough to not get up and wander off while I am telling stories. It never fails to amaze us how comfortable it is sitting with folks who we never really see very often or even ever at all. Reading their blogs/journals has given a window into their lives that is rare in this day and age.

The shot above was taken once again from the front steps of Dogpound Anywhere (DPA) and the sun was just starting its morning ascent, while the moon was lingering a little longer. Out of frame is Jupiter which was almost as prominent in that morning sky. I was just heading out on my daily wander through the desert, when I caught this one.

A couple of looks at one of the washes I wander down on my journey. And below is a shot from DPA's steps once we got home from our visit this afternoon.

And if this works here is a Time-lapse of the sunset here at DPA this evening.

And if it doesn't work, well it is pretty cool anyway, this phone continues to amaze me.

Lazy Days

I like to begin another lazy day in the desert with a little walkabout and some picturin' and try to take a different route each and every day. it is great to explore all the hills and crevasses of this landscape and do what Canon calls Exploring of Light. It is incredible how things change as the sun comes up, and again as it goes down, although I am rarely out wandering about at sunset. Not sure if I could find my way home in the dark. In my picturin' career I have always had the inclination to lean towards big landscapes or wildlife, but here I am gaining an appreciation for how the light plays on small things, rocks, trees, and small plants, although I guess yesterdays shots of the Milky Way don't really qualify as small.

Well, it is, they estimate that the Milky Way only has about a billion stars in it, of which, ours is a pretty minor one. Other larger galaxies, like Andromeda, are estimated to have over a trillion, yes with a "T", stars in them and some folks estimate there could be at least two trillion galaxies in the Universe. So in retrospect we are pretty small potatoes in the whole scheme of things.

Andromeda is visible with the naked eye from earth in fact it is just above Jupiter right now and to the left, and appears as a blur on the edge of the Milky Way. I am no astronomer but I think this is it outlined here, Jupiter is just off the frame to the right.

Well wasn't that a rabbit hole I have led you down, almost on the scale of a galactic black hole, but that is a story for another time so back to my wanderings about the desert here down the road from Dogpound.

And why am I wandering about the desert every day, while primarily because I love walking out there, but somewhat because of the good eats we get here everyday at Dogpound Anywhere. Quesadilla's today.

Days and Nights

Not a lot of exciting stuff happening today. The weather cooled off a little. It is more comfortable for Brenda for sure, but it portends a trend that I fear might be hard to stop. For a kid from north of the Medicine Line coooling trends to bring up that ancestral fear of WINTER, so there is that. Let's just hope whomever is controlling our climate conspiracies these days doesn't get carried away with this cooling phase to quickly. All things in moderation. I continued my morning visit with the desert today, so got a few shots that I will share with you on that ramble.

I head out early, usually just before sunrise and it is all about the way the light plays on the landscape that makes the place so beautiful.

Well, that and seeing new places, or the same old places from a new perspective.

I have taken to just carrying my phone with me on my wanderings, getting old I guess, and the big old lens are heavy and cumbersome, and the new phones take pretty decent pictures, especially for this format, where size doesn't really matter. But curiousity drove me to crack out my Canon and tripod last evening and shoot a little bit of the Milky Way. Now the Canon still does a better job for full size images but that little iPhone does a pretty decent job even of night shooting for sharing here on the interwebs.

The image above was shot with my iPhone 15, while the one below was with my Canon R5, both with similar post processing although not identical.

Although you can't really see it here the Canon image survives enlarging it better than the iPhone, but how many of us blow up our shots and hang them anymore anyway. Oh by the way, those little specks of light you see, our sun is just another one of them, not even a significant one, and we are just standing on a little rock traveling around that tiny speck. to lend a little perspective to the whole thing.

A little Picturin' a little Desert Rambling

Today was another great day here down the road from Dogpound. We had a beautiful sunrise to greet us as we stepped out of the door this morning.

I was off for another wander through the desert, it is a beautiful spot, that never gets the appreciation that it deserves if you just fly by on the pavement. It's beauty is in the cracks and crannies that make up what from a distance looks like a flat featureless expanse. The play of the light on those washes and valleys is wonderful to see as I ramble my way along. Every day I strike out in a different direction from camp so the light plays different each day as well.

The shot above is what I call TV Hill, not sure what others call it, but when we first came here a dozen or so years ago there was the remainder of an old TV relay station up on the side of it, all gone now. Satellites have made it surplus. Thinking back to those days a lot has changed. I can remember how excited we were when Rollie found a internet supplier who would offer us an aircard that gave us a whopping 5 gigabits of data each and every month for a not to dear a price. Now we are packing a Star-link system that is for all intents and purposes unlimited and has speeds which were only dreamed about a few years back.

Our motorhome back then had a pretty state of the art solar system onboard so that hasn't changed a lot, although what we have now works it is about 6 or 7 years old. But it still runs our new fancy Ninja Air Fryer thingy, and that allows us to make pizza just like at home out here in the back of beyond. No more satellite TV, although we still have the dish we stream most everything through the internet now, and of course searching for a spot with cell service is a lost art, we can communicate through the Stars as well.

All these shots are from my phone and all but the first which was actually taken from the door of the RV, were taken on my desert walk.

You gotta Love the Desert

Off on my morning hike today, years ago when we were first to this place I spent a lot of time hiking around the desert, put on a couple of hundred miles back then with my old dog Meg wandering the trails here, and then some years later I had our Can-Am here and drove most of those trails again. One thing about hiking is you can really kind of wander, while with the side by side you are staying on the old existing trails. I kind of prefer the freestyle hiking method, truth be known.

Once I got back from my walkabout we decided to run into town(s) for supplies. Brenda uses some CBD cream that they have at the local pot store to deal with some of the nerve issues with her CRPS and we needed to resupply that stuff so ran into Quartzsite for that, and to drop our trash at the local transfer station, as well as fill a propane bottle at the Pit Stop there in town.

Then it was back on the Highway for a run up to Parker. The "Q" doesn't have much in the way of grocery stores so we do most of our reprovisioning in Parker. We decided to not shop on an empty stomach so stop at a local pizza place we have visited before to fill our stomachs. Then it was off to Walmart for supplies, followed by a dash back down the highway to our spot near Bouse. It was 34C today in the neighbourhood so HOT, HOT, HOT again.