Happy New Year

We've just been chillin' down here alongside the American Girl Wash, watching the hummingbirds and enjoying the weather. This winter has been pretty nice weather wise, most nights over 50F and the days in at least the mid 60's and often into the seventies, just about perfect for us folks from a land just north of summer over the Medicine Line.

That shot was taken one morning as I headed out my daily walkabout. I have settled on a pretty regular route, that amounts to about 3 miles out and back. Not a long walk but enough to get my blood pumping a bit and often I get to watch a pretty cool sunrise as I make my way across the desert.

The rest of the days have been spent watching our collection of hummingbirds buzzing about and heading up the wash and visiting with the folks in the colony up there. Deb and Ryley, Tom & Deb, Ken & Kim and Keith. We hung with them last night for New Years Eve, and enjoyed a beautiful evening and a nice fire to welcome in 2024. The sky has been pretty amazing this winter as well. This was the sunset a day or two ago.

Change Up

I thought it was getting a little tedious for our readers, a few pictures of sunrise, a couple of hummers blowing by, and then a few words of prose so we decided to change things up a little. We had been in our spot on the American Girl for two weeks and that is a good time to move on in this boondocking world. We had a couple of things that needed doing, like dumping tanks, laundry, and getting the AC in the 450 looked after. So I made an appointment for the truck, but first we hauled the rig into a park where we could abandon it for a road trip of our own.

A shot of the moon as I headed out on my walkabout a couple of mornings ago, and below some Ocotillo's and the sunrise along the wander in the desert.

Then we decided it had been 25 or so years since we had ventured into the San Diego area so we made some reservations and headed west, without the Solitude or the truck. They are staying back in the desert for this trip. It is some interesting country to the west of El Centro going over that coastal range of hills. I would call them mountains but they look like nothing more than huge, 4000 foot high piles of boulders, dumped there by some behemoth rock truck. One of the things I saw that kind of bothered me was the mammoth solar installations on the edge of the Imperial Valley, while I have no issue with solar power, we have it on our RV, somehow it seems that land like that in the Imperial Valley, North America's green grocers homeland, is not the place to sterilize so much of it with those installations. I have seen a lot more likely places on land that probably doesn't feed a continent. But enough said about that.

I found this fellow standing on the sidewalk when I wandered down to the local Amazon locker to pick up something, and his buddy was watching over the beach go'ers just behind him.

We had an early dinner at a rooftop place down the road from our hotel called the Pacific Beach Ale House, good food, great staff, and a pretty decent view as well. Then it was back to beachfront walk by our hotel to see the sun sink into the sea. That speck, kind of bug like is a Boeing V-22, maybe some Marines out for their own version of a sunset cruise. I suspect they were combining a sunset cruise/whale watching session with probably some training as they seem to do a lot of circling and swooping out there while we watched.

And in the tradition of Lorne over there on the A Place called Away blog here is a view from my window this evening.

Till next time, life is good here down the road from Dogpound.

El Centro

Today started the same as everyday, a desert walkabout, and then back to camp for a kick back and relax. Our rain last night didn't amount to much, but it did settle the dust around camp, but no sign of water in the washes. But, we did hear one crash of thunder off in the distance.

No real colourful sunrise but the clouds in the sky added a little drama to the situation so there is that. Yesterday I did manage to round up a hummingbird feeder so I shanghai'd a cup or two of sugar from Brenda's baking supply and mixed up a feed for my hummingbird friends. We haven't seen any around, since we arrived here at American Girl Wash, which is strange, but maybe now the grub is on the hook they will drop by.

Once we got all that out of the way a trip to Costco was on the agenda. We needed to restock our meat locker here at DPA and when we can't get our usual Long Run Ranch Beef down the road from Dogpound, we usually default to Costco. They seem to have good cuts of beef wherever we go, and for a change the Costco in El Centro also had pork chops with the bone-in. Those have been non-existent at our local Costco back at DPN, so they will be a special treat. Yuma, just across the California/Arizona border has a Marine base and we hear some fast moving jets going by but they usually are above the clouds or gone by quick so I miss any decent shots. However I did spot this pair over the desert early this afternoon, and I expect this was a refueling training mission happening.

And shortly afterwards this fellow gave us a pass by just checking out the RV'ers I expect.

Cloudy all day today, and then it was sunset time. Some places you go folks are lining up to shoot the sunset, but here it just us, and it almost seems a waste for Charlie Russell to waste all that time painting that sunset just for us two lone Canucks. But, dang it, I am going to enjoy it all the more, if it's just for us.

Now if there is one thing I have learned about picturin' sunsets or sunrises, you better hang tight and stay for the whole show cause something might come along that blows the already spectacular images you got clear out of the picture. The moon popped through the clouds for this cameo for about 3 or 4 seconds and I was pretty happy to be sitting there waiting for it. Not a hard job, it was a beautiful night and the entire event was pretty decent as the time-lapse shows but this image made the day for me.

Yellow Bird Country

Well we got done Brenda's mission in Vegas and headed south for a old favourite spot near Bouse, Arizona. Along the way we crossed through California for a short distance and caught this train headed for the coast.

It was pulling hard on an uphill grade and within 10 miles we passed two more hot on his tracks, literally.

We ran down through Lake Havasu, and stopped in Parker to pick up a few things and then we were off to the desert for a little down time before we head the rest of the way into Dogpound South. As I said this is maybe our favourite spot to decompress and get away from the rat race. Our solar panels keep us in power and we have a new WeBoost system for our cell phones so we might even have decent internet, although the country around here is pretty nice and we don't have much time for the internet anyway. Today we took a couple of runs on the Can-Am and saw some of the country, even passed through this high security gate with a keypad to open and shut it.

That was on our trip to the dump to get rid of our garbage, and then we headed around the mountain for a short ride. The desert is a beautiful spot and we enjoy seeing it in all its wonder.

Had a little excitement back at Dogpound North today, I won't bore you with the snow pictures but my Thermostat sent me an email about 4:30AM this morning to tell me we had a low temp situation going on back there, so I had a peak at the camera in the Furnace Room as sure as shooting the pilot light had gone out. I waited a while and then caught Matt on his way to work and he ran in and relite it for me so we have heat on the Northern Ranges as of this writing, but our furnace guy is headed there in the morning to give it the once over anyway, and probably replace the thermocouple as a little preventative maintenance.

It is a beautiful night in the desert tonight and thanks to WeBoost we are able to write this blog as Live Writer doesn't work so well in the Mac Ecosystem and it has to be done online.

One last shot of the moon tonight off our dining deck.