It has a Ring to it

Remember when we said we were bringing a "bit o' Facebook" to Da Blog? Well, here 'tis yet another installment of such frivolity and nonsense.  We found this story while reading about Kentucky being defeated by Robert Morris in the NIT.  Go figure.

See: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130315/COLUMNIST/130319734/0/APS?p=1&tc=pg

Check

Chess has come alive in our life in the past week.  Last week, as you know, we found and supported a Kickstarter project for an all-girls Tucson Chess Tournament on April 13.  Anjelina Belakovskaia sought $1000 to stage the tourney but now has $1,514 pledged from 63 backers with ten days still to go.

Anjelina is a 3-Time U.S. Womenʼs Chess Champion, Woman International Grandmaster, World Champion among students (USSR Team) and Leader of the US Olympic Chess Team and she's proven great at keeping project supporters informed.  Here's her latest message:

"I just ordered 20 chess sets - pieces, boards and quiver bags, 10 digital Saitek chess clocks, 40 scorebooks, numerous chess books for prizes, WinTD pairing software, and other stuff - worth over $1,000! Next are trophies, medals, and more... I am so grateful for all the support I got from everyone! Without you, it wouldn't be possible."

"Hopefully, we will attract more girls into chess and science and give them more opportunities in chess, academics and life. I am so excited, I can't wait to run the event! If you are in Tucson on April 13th - please mark this date on your calendar and come to the 1st Chess & Science Festival."

We are so happy we found and helped fund this worthy project.  You can click here to keep an eye on the project's progress:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/249675593/1st-chess-and-science-festival-and-all-girls-chess

Meanwhile, we opened Ye Ol' Inbox this afternoon and, LO!, what should we find?  Not one but THREE emails from Carrie Scheid in Idaho Falls.  And, gosh, you'd never guess what the emails are about--CHESS.

As most of you know, we dearly love the game of chess, even though we aren't very good at it.  We've been playing chess since we were perhaps 7 or 8 years old.  You'd think we'd get better at it in almost 60 years but, no, that's not the way it works.  A case could be made that we were actually a better player 50 years ago than we are now.  However, we digress.

Carrie, as astute Loyal Blog Readers know, is the Art Bench Woman who waved her magic wand across the Idaho Falls Greenbelt and improved an already fine amenity by facilitating the addition of many marvelous art benches overlooking The Snake River.

Now Carrie is making magic happen yet again on behalf of CHESS!

Can you believe it?  It's like a dream come true for a Old Chess Codger like me.  Now matter which of the three designs below is selected for the latest and greatest Greenbelt Art Bench, chess players rejoice!  It's so exciting!  The two artists who submitted draft deigns just happen to have designed and crafted two of our favorite Art Benches--both of which just coincidentally happen to be situated in the famous Hilda McClure Garden at The Falls.  Yep, Roy Reynolds (with Jim Colson) did the wildly popular Geese Seats and Ronda Friesen did the now world famous Horse Bench.

THANK YOU, Carrie, for sprinkling another dose of your Magic Art Bench Fairy Dust on the Greenbelt!  These are awesome and I can't hardly wait to sit and play at whatever bench design wins.  Can you possibly imagine the joy of sitting beside the mighty Snake River playing chess on a warm summer morning? Check!

WHA-WHOOO!

 Ronda Friesen Chess Bears

Below is Ronda Friesen's Alternate design.

Below is the Roy Reynolds/Jim Colson design entitled "Checkmate."

Time Lapse Treat

http://vimeo.com/62029739

As you know, we are smitten with "all things aurora."  The link above will take you to a great 1:06 time lapse video of the most recent Northern Light's Dazzling Display.  We've only seen the aurora once in our life.  It was in late 1992.  Gregg W. asked us to help him pack and move a truckload of stuff from his  Mother's house in Galveston, Texas, to Gregg's home in Flagstaff.  Our drive back from Texas was a classic Hunter Thompson road trip.  As we were heading north out of Phoenix on "the home stretch" we couldn't believe our eyes.  We had just topped out at Sunset Point and were approaching the Dugas Road exit when the entire northern sky turned totally neon and began pulsing with lights the likes of which neither of us had ever imagined possible.  We quickly exited at Dugas and jumped out of the rental truck and started hootin' and hollerin' and celebratin' this rare occurance.  Lots of other like-minded folks also pulled pell mell off I-17 to do the same thing as us.  For a brief time none of us were strangers but simply a pulsing party of people united by the joy of seeing the Northern Lights in Central Arizona.  To be able to see something such as shown in the video above would just be totally "over the top!"  Maybe someday once again....

Sweet Suite

Dear Friends Maria Elena and Tim have jumped into the vacation rental business.  They are offering a sweet suite in their home they call "Solaris."  We thought their suite was a sweet deal at their initial price of $80 a night but now we learn they've reduced the daily fare to a mere $70 a night.  This is an amazing deal for what's included: "Your spacious (820 sq. ft) ground floor private access apartment includes a large bedroom with queen size bed, a love seat (child hide-a-bed) and walk-in closet, a full bath; a well-equipped kitchenette; private front courtyard with BBQ grill; free WIFI; off street parking, hot tub and Breakfast, too!"

You can check out their full listing and see all their many fine fotos here:  https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/984896

 The Solaris Suite is perhaps a half mile from Second Chance Ranch.  Idaho Dear Friends Kenyon, Julie and Karen stayed with Maria Elena and Tim in February.  As soon as the Air BNB listing went up, people started calling and booking the place. Congratulations to Maria Elena and Tim for taking the Big Leap and enjoying immediate success.

Winter's Last Day

Old Man Winter has packed his bags and he's waiting to depart on a night train tomorrow.  Today's his last day.  Nobody cares about Old Man Winter and he's standing all alone there at the train station, shivering with his own fading memories of swirling snow, howling wind chills and deep freeze frights.

Old Man Winter gets his marching orders on this day every year.  Whether he likes it or not, he's gotta go because Spring's gonna kick him out in the dark night at 4:02 am tomorrow (Arizona Time).  The Equinox comes a little early this year and that's a good thing. Click here to read about what makes the Equinox The Equinox. It seems so long ago that we stood 'round our Winter Solstice campfire December 21st wondering what the next three months would bring.  Bye, Bye Old Man Winter--Hello Happy Spring!

The Queen of Green

Who sez we don't celebrate St. Paddy's Day, eh?

Better not say that to The Queen of Green!

Not only did she get her "git up" on,

she even cooked eggs on in green spinach, too!

Kickstarter

We've posted up on Facebook about Kickstarter but haven't said much about it here.  Obviously, that's about to change.  This week, we found a cute little project on Kickstarter Wednesday evening.  At the time, it has $781 in pledges and hoped to get $1,000.  We chipped in a few bucks and encouraged our Friends to help support the project.  In less than 24 hours it was fully funded and the Good News continues.  It's now 37% overfunded!  Kickstarter is all about FUN and SUCCESS and it's great.  If you haven't spent time roaming 'round Kickstarter, we highly recommend it.  Even if you don't chip in funds for a project, just reading about everyone's creative ideas and dreams is a very positive experience.  One of our most fun places to hang out on Kickstarter is the "Small Projects" area.  A small project is anything seeking $1000 or less.  Here's the link to that sector of Kickstarter:  http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/small-projects

The documentary film category is one of our favorites to roam.  Here's a project we've been promoting on with our Salmon River online resources:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/backpackinglight/packrafting-documentary-learn-to-packraft-video-se

Northern Lights

You've probably read about the sun kicking up its heels for St. Paddy's Day weekend.  The sun pulled off what's called a "Coronal Mass Ejection."  No, that doesn't mean the sun threw away all of its empty Corona beer bottles--it means there was a giant gob of solar goo that got spit toward earth speeding faster than a Spring Breaker on the way to the liquor store...or the beach.

Anyway, oddly enough, the mainstream online media has dropped the ball when it comes to showing just what this Coronal Mass Ejection created in the skies about our lovely planet.  Not to worry, Trusty Spacewater Dot Com saved the day.  You can click the link below to see photos from around the globe taken within the few hours showing what brilliant aurora displays took place.  In the contiguous United States, auroras also appeared above New York, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Michigan and the Dakotas.

http://spaceweather.com/gallery/index.php?title=aurora&title2=lights

(BLOG NOTE:  DF & LBRs will see more of this type of blog post in the future.  It's one thing we actually enjoyed about using Facebook--the ability to post up stuff like this for the pure pleasure of posting it.  It's one of the things we're bringing over here to the blog after your five-month Facebook experiment--stuff we post for the "fun of it.")

Campfire

Our fondness for fire fotos will never cease.  It is only through the exercise of great personal discipline that we refrain from inundating our DF & LBRs with an incessant barrage of campfire fotos.  However, that said, we still will occasionally post up some fire fotos here.  We can't help ourself.  This video is only 14 seconds. Each of the 7 photos gets two seconds.  Many Cheers, jp



Here's the link in case the video above won't load:  http://youtu.be/8Klru2vwmnQ

The Techies who read this may be wondering why we bother making a video slideshow when a Google Picasa photo album would be just as well or better suited for this task.  Here are the reasons:
1) We use these little exercises to help remember how to make a video slideshow.
It's a learned skill that is easily forgotten if it isn't used fairly often.
2) Lots of extraneous stuff shows up on a Picasa slide show.
3) It's difficult to control whether the slide show truly autoplays or simply sits on one picture.
4) Making it a video slide show sets it in stone and the 2 second variable is not viewer-changeable.

Happy Family

Susun took some really fine fotos on her early March California Family Trip.  One of these days we're going to get those photos up and running.  In the meantime, here's three sweet photos copied off of Sarah's Facebook.  THANKS, Sarah, for posting these great photos.

 This is Sarah's Facebook profile photo showing a Happy Dad and Mom enjoying Family Life.

 Sarah entitled this one "My Li'l Heartbreaker"

Gage's is looking very mature far past his almost five years of actual age.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Saint Paddy's Day is never much of a holiday for us. Some people, as you know, go corned beef bonkers over Green Beer Day.  Locally, today marks the annual Return of The Turkey Vultures (AKA: Buzzards.)  There are a lot of Old Buzzards in this locality but the Turkey Vultures actually fly in the sky.  They are fun to watch and it's great to have them back.

Looks like the river peaked March 13th.

Spring Runoff is underway.  Spring Break, too.  Some Spring Breakers Run Off to far away places.  Snow, on the other hand, simply heads obediently downstream sometimes to the delight and merriment of river runners.  Yesterday was a very crowded day on The Verde River.  River Runners flocked in  much like Turkey Vultures.

We spent the evening at Jodi & Dexter's Place enjoying dinner and tall tales with Chip, Kathy, Brock, Kate and Jean.  Oh, how the river stories flowed as the evening progressed.  Whenever you get river runners together, river stories "do occur."  No matter what or where the river, each river creates its own plethora of river stories and they run off the tongue much like snowmelt runoff from higher elevations.

Speaking of The Verde River, it was 30 years ago today when I wrecked my right shoulder kayaking at a rapid known as White Flash.  The Doctor told me to hang up my paddle and forget boating so I traded off my kayak for an early version of what's now known as a Mountain Bicycle and began a new outdoor career attempting to build a business called "The Arizona Rough Riders."  One of these days, we're going to count the number of businesses we've tried to start over our lifetime.  It's been a bunch of them.

Back in the day we were actually a mountain bicycle racer, if you can imagine that.  Yes, we know it's hard to visualize a short, fat old guy being a bicycle racer but it's true.  We'll take more about that in the days ahead.

This week has been quite warm.  Thursday actually felt hot.  Thursday's high here reached 85 degrees but our "feels like" thermometer said it felt like 95.  Essentially, it felt like a typical mid-summer day in Idaho Falls.  Here's last week's temperature chart for Rimrock.

We're debating whether to do a road trip this coming week to Young via Payson.  Only two more weekends before Susun heads over to Grand Son Central in early April.  Our Arizona Season is fast coming to an end.

Horseshoe Ranch

This could be a long story but it won't be.  Promise.  We've wanted to visit the Horseshoe ranch for nearly 30 years.  Today we finally got to walk around the place and learn its history as well as a lot of other stuff.
This event was the major Arizona statewide highlight of the annual Archaeology Month.  Each year, one location is picked to be the focal point of the month-long calendar of statewide cultural, heritage and historical events.  The Horseshoe Ranch is essentially joined at the hip with the prehistoric treasure troves of the Agua Fria National Monument and made a naturally perfect location to celebrate Archaeology Month.

"Hazards Do Occur, eh?"  Wonder how many attorneys it took to think up that phrase?

Maybe it could have been better stated a la the old bumper sticker: "Hazards Happen."

 All of the visitors had to enter the ranch via this really funky suspension bridge.  I almost got seasick on it.

 There was a great array of educational displays.  All the archaeology organizations had great exhibits.

 We were finally able to have all our questions answered about both the Ranch and the adjacent Monument.

 Frankly, I really didn't look forward to walking back on the bridge.  I almost waded the creek instead.

 The National Monument has a robust and very active Friends group.

 One reason the event was super well attended was that it was set up as a Merit Badge gig for both Girl and Boy Scouts.  Here some Girl Scouts get their Merit Badge certification from Kaibab Archaeologist Neil Weintraub.

It was a great day down along the Agua Fria.

Happy Hiliners

Wednesday was a mighty fine fun day.  We went for a Red Rock Ramble with Wandering Wayne Ranney. We dropped his truck off at the Baldwin Trailhead and then drove back to the Yavapai Vista Trailhead.  It took us four hours to traverse the Hiline Trail.   Wayne gifted Susun with this great fabric he brought back from India.  Thanks, Wayne!  The Hiline Trail and all of its tangents and sentence fragments is our new "go to" hiking destination.

Susie's Shadow

There she is Shadow Dancing Again!  Susun's really smitten with this whole shadow thing.  It's great.  We're going to have to start a photo album devoted solely to Susie's Shadows!  This one was taken yesterday as the sun was going down.  Below is Susie's Shadow on the Horseshoe Ranch petroglyphs alongside the Agua Fria River taken this morning. Viva Las Sombras!

Welcome Back to Blogging

As you know, it's mid-March and a traditional time to begin to think about Spring Cleaning.  In keeping with the Spirit of Spring Cleaning, we've decided to sweep Facebook out the door and go back to blogging full time.  We've been tempted to put the graphic shown here on our Facebook but, nah, that's a little too Facebookie.  Anyway, that's your motto as far as Facebook goes is now: "That's All Folks."

We've been pretty close to hitting the wall with Facebook for the past few weeks.  Yesterday we finally hit the wall with it and we've signed off from Facebook indefinitely.  We won't even be checking book, so that says it all for astute.

Our own personal Facebook experiment began October 23rd and has thus ended effective March 16, just a little shy of 5 months.  We're not knocking Facebook for other people.

Surely, it must have some value for the one-billion people who use and appear to love Facebook.

So why are we leaving the fold?  It's just not for us.  It's a colossal waste of time for our particular lifestyle.  We are much better suited to be mere bloggers and we're returning to our roots here.

Note that we WILL continue to maintain the Facebook connected with That Salmon Thang, we're simply doing some Spring Cleaning and sweeping our personal Facebook out the door

We have learned a few things from Facebook that we intend to attempt to use here on the blog.  One is to have a mix of both short and long posts.  Not all posts should be long tomes and not all posts should be short & Tweet.  So, we will mix them up more than we have in the past.

Anyway, we feel a great sense of relief after having made the decision to eschew Facebook.

That's All Folks!  Many Cheers, jp

Hillbillies

How would Jeff Foxworthy say this?  "You know you're a Rimrock Redneck when you put your leftovers on top of your truck camper so the coons and skunks won't get it."

Yeah, ya see, when our fridge is full, it's a whole lot easier just to put some foil on top of a casserole dish and chuck it up on top of the camper shell.  Hey, it's like free refrigeration.

There's only one problem with this hillbilly plan--you have to remember to bring it in the next morning, especially BEFORE you drive off with last night's dinner on top of your truck.

Well, so we left at 9:30 am this morning to meet Wayne Ranney for a hike on the HiLine Trail.  About half way through this fine hike, I asked Susun, "Did you bring in those stuffed bell peppers and green beans from the top of the truck."

"No," she replied, looking perplexed, "I thought you brought them back in."  "Oh," I said rather sadly, "I wonder where they landed?"

Well, we learned where they landed when we came back home hours later.  They slid off and landed right smack dab in the middle of the intersection of Goss Street and Barbara Lane.  But the time we saw what was left, hundreds of tiny glass shards glittered in the late afternoon sun.

There was no sign of a single green bean or stuff green bell pepper.

Alas, there are risks and hazard to our Hillybilly Rimrock Redneck Lifestyle.  Now what are we going to do for dinner tonight?

Gaming

Anybody who knows us knows we a "gamer."  Give us a game to play and we'll play.  We're what's called a "gamer."  When we play, we play to win.  We may not always win, but we sure play to win.  We're a Gamer!

And so it is with our Salmon Thang.  We're playing to win.  And win we've been winning lately.  This evening we crested over the 40,000 total page view mark since we started this gig on May 16, 2012.  Not only that we also created over 8,000 pageviews in the last month alone. That means 20 percent of our total page views have come within the last 30 days.

That's what being a Gamer is all about.  It seems like only yesterday when the website's usage was languishing and going nowhere slightly about 30,000 page views.  That's when we decided to get back in the game again and amp it up.  We've created over 8,000 page views in the last four weeks.  YES!

GAME ON!

It's a lot of fun writing about The Salmon River.  No doubt about it.  Frankly, though, for those of you know know us, it's one whole heck of a lot MORE fun being a Gamer and messing with our statistics and doing whatever it takes amp them up.  Writing is one thing--gaming is another.  Together, writing and gaming, they are providing immense fun from The Salmon Thang.  We love it.

Um...and just so you know, below is tonight's statistics for this blog so you can compare it to the above.
No, we don't worry about such low numbers.  As you know, we are writing this blog for just a very few people...AND ourselves!  The contrast is pretty stark!  We had almost as many page views on the Salmon Thang yesterday as we had in one whole month here on this blog. Also note that the 34K "all time history" page views covers 3.25 calendar years while the 40K pageviews from the Salmon Thang covers 10 months. Don't worry, we LOVE our DFs & LBRs and we will keep writing here long past when the cows come home.

The Basket

So, Wednesday we were at the Dee-Eye in Mesa, Arizona.  (Dee-Eye = Deseret Industries)  We had just picked up Susun at the airport and were heading to her brother's place.  It's an obligatory ritual to stop at a Dee-Eye if one is nearby.  As we prowled and perused the place, Susun spotted an old-fashioned picnic basket.  She was immediately smitten with it and wanted to buy it.  Naturally, Old Man Grumpy sniffed, "Well, what would you DO with it anyway, Susun?"  Naturally, she said she would fill it with magazines and Grumpy mumbled, "Oh, great." and rolled his eyes and hobbled off in search of left-handed golf clubs.

Meanwhile Miss Susun bought her basket for four dollars and then immediately began to try to find uses for it.  She's been busy every since Wednesday plotting and scheming how to use her basket.  As you can see from the photo, it sure didn't take her long to find a good use for the basket.  She packed all her stuff for the Girls Night Out in the basket so she can skip up to the doorstop at The Home of Phyllis like a little fairy singing, "A trisket, A trasket, Susie's got a little basket."  Ah, My Sweetie--she's So Special and I love her Dearly.

Play With Poems

It's cold.  It's wet.  It's gray.  We are under House Arrest here until the weather clears.  So what's to do?  Why, Play With Poems, of course.  As you know, we love Sharlot Hall and her poems, especially her 1911 book "Cactus & Pine."

Well, since we are confined to quarters here today, we've been playing with poems.  First, we found that Google has scanned in "Cactus & Pine."  I think we already knew this and put up something a year or so ago but today's playing with poem took us to the next level.

Anyway, we figured out to download the book, and then to print just specific poems as PDF and then how to convert the PDF to a JPG so we could post it here as a picture.  SWEET!  Our favorite poem is below precisely the way it appears in the 1911 First Edition.  Sweet, huh?

Playing With Ketchup Again

Well, here we are behind the 8 Ball once again. It's been almost a week since the last blog post.  We were doing a pretty good job blogging prior to this week. As long-term DFs & LBRs know, that's the way it goes sometimes.

Monday was tied up all day with the bi-weekly shooting match.  Tuesday somehow flow by getting ready to go to Phoenix.  Wednesday as a rush-rush day to pick up Susun.  Thursday was a blur that culminated in the Cubs-White Sox game.  Friday was a rush-rush back up here just barely ahead of getting caught in a major storm.  Saturday, so far, has been pretty lazy trying to recover from Monday through Friday.

We've actually been blogging quite a bit but it's all been on That Salmon Thang.  Things are going to slack off on the Salmon project since the Deadwater Ice Jam finally broke up sometime between Thursday and Friday.

Susun had a great time in California.  She learned an air guitar one-legged dance.  She's really stepping out with here air guitar dance thing.  Yesterday, she actually danced in front of a totally packed In-N-Out hamburger joint in Phoenix so she could see herself in the window.  Well, gee, that means all the diners dropped their jaws watching Susun dance in front of the big window.  You just never know about that girl.

Susun's taking off this afternoon to have a slumber party with a full house of girl friends.  Dear Friend Phyllis is graciously hosting the party which has been said to be in Susun's Honor.  We wonder how many times she will do the one-legged thing to entertain her girl friends?  The big question is whether the dance will become contagious and go viral...or feral, as the case may be.

We did not get to get inside the B-29.  Nope, it's a long story.  We did go to the airport four times on Wednesday and were unsuccessful each time.  Oh, well, it was a fun thought.

We had a really big storm yesterday here.  it dropped about an inch of pure rain on use and turned the place into a swamp.  Today is cold and gray and it's supposed to rain some more.  It's a good thing for the High Country as the storm dropped enough snow to assure at least a short river rafting season.

We put up 83 photos on Facebook of our experience at the Cubs-White Sox game. As we've mentioned, it's a lot easier to post photos on Facebook that it is on Google.  It's also a lot easier to share them with this shortened link:

http://goo.gl/tNsuY

Looking ahead--Once Susun's Sunday-Monday hikes are history then we're going to buckle down and start chipping away at our chores here.  Yep, we're short timers once again.  We have less than three weeks to get our chores done before Susun heads back to Oceanside on April 4th.  She returns on April 13th and we leave here April 18th.  Soooo.....our Arizona Season is rapidly coming to an end.

Many Cheers, jp

Church

Click here to see the full album of 29 photos: http://goo.gl/khCPp

We went to Church yesterday--The Church of Wet Beaver Creek.  The Sunday Service was delightful and The Spirit of Our Lord lived in the foamy, frothy, fast-flowing, fun-filled fluffy water.  Afterwards, we took a fine Sunday stroll into a couple of new little nooks and crannies hidden beside The Dance Trail.  We saw no one during the entire hike, not even from a distance.

After returning home, we realized Church was going to come for a visit so we dutifully waited as for those awesome beams of angelic light that beam through the holes in the floor of Heaven.  At first, we thought it was a pretty low key Church Service.  But the grand finale turned out to be one of the best we've attended this winter.  It's power, beauty and sheer magnificence brought tears to our eyes and laughter to our spirit.

You see it started out as a "Go To Church Day" which I discovered Dudeism.  Right away, I knew I had to be a minister and it wasn't long before I was able to become ordained and able to practice what I preach.

You can click here to learn all about Dudeism:  http://dudeism.com/

Get A Long

The Beaver Creek Watershed is one of the crown jewels of The Verde Valley.
Second Chance Ranch is at the bottom of the yellow line--the TH is at the top.

Time once again to "Get A Long." Yesterday marked this year's first face-to-face with the Long Canyon Trail's lovely hill climb.  As usual, Long Canyon kicked our anatomy--not once but twice.

After our pleasant excursion on The Highline Trail Thursday we talked around the campfire that night about "getting back in hiking shape."  You know how those casual words are so easy to say during Happy Hour but not so easy to "walk the talk" in unforgiving light of the next day in the Real World.

Si 'twas with the Long Canyon Trail yesterday.  After an indolent winter spent mostly in front of this computer, staring up at the steep trail felt none to inviting on a very warm first day of March.  Anyway, we'd given ourselves March-ing orders so off we went straight into our ascent.

The trail is thankfully very short--at least the hill climb part of it is.  It's perhaps a half of a mile.  The reason it's a "work out trail" is that it gains 760 feet in that half-mile so it's an approximate 30 percent grade.  Gravity is the key word here.  Pushing a 65-year-old body up a steep slope defies the laws of gravity.  Gravity would have us once again comfortably ensconced right here in our swivel chair at the internet's beck and call.

Alas, it was time to "walk the talk" yesterday so up we went, legs, thighs and lungs protesting mightily every step of the way.
"Back in the day" we've been able to propel our body mass index up this hill in the 23-24 minute range.  Yesterday, we barely broke 30 minutes and were really huffing and puffing by the time the crest of the hill came none too soon.

As we stood sweating in the shade of a puny juniper tree, who should call by Dear Friend Gary.  Gary wanted to do a work out on the Long Canyon Trail, too.  Afterall, we'd talked about it just the night before at the campfire.  I'd been th eone who invited him to hike with me.  Ah, the foolishness of it all.

Soooo...that meant we gingerly descended the rock and mud strewn trail to meet Gary at the small parking.  Yep, you guess it, up we went again.  The first time I'd made it to the top without stopping.  The second time?  No way, no how.  I make at least six short "catch my breath" stops.  Gary's a hiking animal, of course, so he barely raised his pulse strolling up 760 feet.

Surprisingly we made it up in roughly 30 minutes again but it was much tougher for me than the first episode.

Gary carries all sorts of medical monitoring devices and his pulse didn't even crack 100 by the time we reached the top.  In fact, shortly thereafter, his resting pulse was back to 67.  You don't even want to know what MY pulse was after the second climb but at least it did come back to 107 after a breather at the top.  Gary gently chided me about my oxygen level and offered to take my blood pressure but I politely declined the BP thing.  There are some things a guy just doesn't need to know.

Soooo...what's on tap for this sunny Saturday?  Yep, you guessed it--we're gonna "Get A Long" again.  As much as we dearly dislike that steep hill, it's the best work out trail anywhere near our place. It's a mere 12 mile round trip to the trailhead. During the winter, the trail is too slick and muddy to use.  However, now that Spring has Sprung, we really don't have a valid excuse to avoid our daily date with the Loooong Canyon Trail Hill.  Hopefully, as we get back to the future, we can get our time back down under 30 minutes while keeping our pulse rate at a reasonable level.

The nothing like a steep hill to bring home the reality of what being "out of shape" is all about.

The little red "o's" mark the beginning and end of our workout.  The trail itself continues for many miles.

Spring

Arizona Spring doesn't wait for its Equinox.  Spring in The Desert comes whenever it feels like it.  Spring is Springing as we write our first blog post of March.  How do we know?

• It was a still, cloudless, clear night last night and the temp didn't drop below freezing.
• Even a short sleeve shirt felt a little too warm yesterday afternoon.
• We checked the air-conditioning on the Nissan.  Yes, it's blowing cold air that felt good.
• Our cattle tank isn't freezing over each morning.
• It's supposed to be in the mid-80's in Phoenix this weekend.
• People are talking about spring flowers.
• The distant cottonwood has a green glimmer in them.
• Our local mating pair of red tail hawks has occupied their nest.

Those are a few of the "Here's Your Sign" indicators that Spring is here.  Spring always begins before its official Opening Day.  By the time March 21st rolls around, Spring is a done deal so this is about par for the course.  It's as if some unseen Alpha Javelina digs into the roots of a prickly pear cactus and accidentally flips an unseen switch.  Poof, Spring, just like that.  Happy March!

We dropped off Susun before 6 am this morning at the Camp Verde Wendy's.  She met Laura and the pair are driving over to Oceanside, California.  Susun is always so excited when she's taking off to see her Grand Sons.  It's almost like Christmas Eve when we were kids ourselves, only different.  Whenever she travels West by vehicle, she gets to take special "Treats for Tykes."  On this trip, she took two boxes of kid's books.  We betcha we'll be getting an iPhone foto real soon showing Mema reading to Gage and Van.

Chester The Sequester is coming to Rimrock.  Superintendent Dorothy Fire Cloud was quoted in the big daily newspaper this morning saying that Montezuma Well National Monument (AKA: Our neighbor) will "probably" close.  "Probably" in gubmint lingo means "you can take it to the bank, buddy."  The feds use words like "probably" so they can duck and dodge and weave early on and then pull the plug when they are back in the comfort of their cushy offices.  Local Ranger Rex thinks he will be the sole caretaker of The Well.  We will all know whether "probably" is really true by about noon today.  In 2011, officials figures show over 570,000 people visited The Well and the NPS claims the well helped boost the local economy by $30-million.  Even though the $30-million figure is undoubtedly fuzzy math, there definitely IS an economic impact to The Well and it will be surely and sorely missed here in Greater or Lesser Rimrock.

Our hootenanny continues with That Salmon Thang.  We did a really fun story that took the better part of two days.  The story discusses a great guy, Gary Lane, who created the photo of the now viral Salmon River Ice Circle.  Yep, that's Gary in the right of the photo with his wonderful wife, Barb. Years ago when he took the photo in late 2009, he had absolutely no idea the picture would prove so popular.  His own personal observations about the formation of ice circles and other ice-related tidbits are what makes the story so fun. It has been a genuine delight and gift to be able to communicate with Barb and Gary in the last few days. We swapped a lot of laughs and had a great time. You can click here to read the article we wrote on The Salmon Thang

http://www.salmonriveridaho.net/2013/02/salmon-river-ice-circle-photo-story.html

And you can click here to read Gary's spin on the whole ice circle deal:

http://wapitisriversedge.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/the-roundness-of-ice-and-absurdity-of-irony/

This photo of Barb & Gary accurately portrays their fun-loving Hearts & Spirits.

Highliners

After a three year yearning, we finally got to hike the Heart of The Highline Trail today.  It was everything we hoped it would be and more and we can't wait to get back.  Susun's heading off to California tomorrow and won't be back in action here until about March 10th so it's going to be awhile before we're on The Highline again soon.  You can click here to see our Facebook photo album of 16 pictures form today's hike.

http://goo.gl/wcwqv

 The picture below is simply a screen shot of that album.

One Sixth

Yep, Sports Fans, we're almost one-sixth of the year through Year 2013.  That's over 16% if you do the math.  These first two months are generally always the slowest of the 12.

February brought four "Idaho Visitor Events."  Julie & Kenyon; Karen; Kathleen & Roger and Barb M. this week.

Roger and Kathleen stopped by for about an hour last Friday.  Barb visited Monday afternoon and left after lunch Tuesday.  She stayed in her mini-motor home.

Barb's visit was unusual.  How so?  In a nutshell:  We'd never met before.  Barb's Friends were very concerned and kept saying to her, "You mean you're going to go stay with STRANGERS?"  Pretty funny.

We actually "met" Barb online.  No, we're not signed up for one of those matching making services.  Barb and her Dear Friends are doing some amazing, awesome, audacious and wonderful things in Salmon, Idaho. Barb was the leader in creating an online Citizen Journalism project in Salmon over five years ago.  it's called Lemhi Web and you can click here to check it out:  http://lemhiweb.com/

Naturally, when we started the Salmon Thang, we became partners with Lemhi Web.  We advertise them for free on our website and they advertise us for free on their website.  It's one of those natural partnerships that was obvious from the "git go."  Barb and we have carried on a lively email correspondence since June 2012.  She and her partners have carried many of our articles and we have relentlessly promoted Lemhi Web.  Barb's an avid day hiker and back packer.  She loves and floats The Salmon River.  When she happened to mention she was coming down to Arizona on a solo vacation, we immediately invited her to stop by and visit us.  We three hit is off immediately and it was like we'd known Barb for many years and vice versa.  We had a really great visit and look forward to seeing Barb in Salmon, Idaho this summer.

Monday afternoon we walked from The Straw House up to Montezuma Well.  Yesterday, we walked out to Alien Rock.  It's too bad Barb couldn't stay long as we surely would have had some additional great hikes.

By the way, Barb and her many hard-working Friends just started an actual print newspaper in Salmon called "The Lemhi Leader."  Ironically, the weekly newspaper in the city where I was born and raised is called "The Lafayette Leader."

Sometimes, there's no such thing as a stranger when it comes to being kindred spirits and so forth.  She was very happy to have enjoyed a fine visit and, of course, so were we.

Well, Wandering Wayne is back home in Flagstaff looking forward to his next snow shoveling episode.  He graciously told his wife, Helen, that he would shovel ALL the snow in March.  Chances are we will be getting very little snow in March (despite it normally being the wettest of the spring months) so Wayne's going to come out of that deal smelling like a rose.  We had a lot of enjoyment poking fun with out "Where's Wayne-O?" campaign on Facebook.  We even learn a new trick.  We downloaded a "cartoonizer" program and had a lion ask "Where's Wayne-O?"  Wayne went over-the-top with his blogging on this round-the-world trip.  He did such an outstanding job and set the bar so high, it's going to be very interesting to see if he can equal or exceed his sheer production and creativity on his next round-the-world trip.  He heads out to Lake Powell soon for a houseboating trip with famed photographer Gary Ladd.  Gary leads photography trips for Arizona Highways and we assume Wayne is along to regale the participants with Rock Talk.

The Salmon Thang has been doing really well the last couple of days.  Our normal daily visitation during the winter have been around 100 pageviews each day.  We forged a new partnership with a key property in North Fork, Idaho, and as a result, visitation on Monday was 286 pageviews and then a whopping 583 pageviews yesterday.  Today already, we are well over 200 page views again so life is good in that regard.  Messing around with that Salmon Thang is a source of great enjoyment for me and Susun.  It's a hobby we are very glad we adopted last year and it promises to continue to be a fun thing to do for many years to come.

Some of you know we kind of like to "mess with people's heads" now and then.  Right?  Right.  Well, not long ago, we put up a photo on Facebook of The Big Jud hamburger, a little known Idaho icon.  Roger P. took the picture.

Anyway, we put it up and we challenged various restaurants here in The Verde Valley to step up to the plate and see if they could muster up something similar or perhaps "worthy," you might say.
Lo and behold, one of our local fine dining establishments right here in Greater Rimrock stepped up to the plate and introduced a very worthy contender in The Hamburger Challenge.  Even though it's only available on Tuesdays, we're sure proud of them to putting together a righteous hamburger.  So, see, "messing with people's head" sometimes produces great outcomes.

Tuesday special at Vintages...Build A Burger just $9.95 - Half Pound Burger - ground fresh @ Vintages - (chicken breast or black bean burger avail) Select your cheese, three delicious toppings (bacon, avocado, jalapeno, fried egg, etc.) with your choice of side.

Mark Thatcher

Mark Thatcher

We can make a very compelling case that if it wasn't for a guy named Mark Thatcher, Susun and I wouldn't be together.  No kidding?  How's that?

Well, rewind your Way Back Time Machine to the fall of 1987.  Maybe September 1987.  Anyway, back in the heyday of the 1980's there was this sweet gig called "The Telluride River Rendezvous  staged each fall when the aspens turned to gold and river runners converged for a weekend of films, speakers and, of course, mass consumption of adult beverages and general debauchery in the usual manner to which river runners were accustomed in those crazy daze.

I was living in Flagstaff at the time with The Late Great Randy Fabres.  I had divorced earlier in the year and was a certified (and probably certifiable) single man.  I knew the River Runner Rendezvous was "THE" place to be for guys like me.

One day, out of the clear blue Northern Arizona Sky, Mark Thatcher stopped by to see "whazzup" with Randy and me and, well, one thing led to another.  In a blink, Mark invited me to head up to the Rendezvous with him in his hot BMW sedan.  Oh, Boy, what a trip that promised to be.

Mark and we rocketed up through the fall splendor of the Four Corners and into the picture postcard place they call Telluride.  We set up our tent camp in the city park and then proceeded to party non-stop for the weekend.

By and by, my path crossed Susun's path.  Yep, she was there, too.  You see, being an independent, free-spirited Lass, Susun headed up to Telluride on her own.  Naturally, she was The Life of The Party.  We had met but really didn't know each other.  She had enlisted me to help her get the infamous sand and gravel operators out of the river in front of her place in Cottonwood.  So, we had worked a little bit together but our life paths had only just crossed on a more or less coincidental sort of basis.

Anyway, Sunday rolled around and people were slowly packing up and beginning to drag themselves back to whatever rock they would live under until the next year's river season began.  As I was folding and stuffing my tent into its bag, Mark walked over and said, "John, I just bought a new kayak and I'm gonna go test it out, yer on yer own to get back to Flagstaff."

That's one of the things I've always liked about Mark--he's just real direct and straight to the point and that's that.  None of this "Gee, I'm sorry John, blah, blah, blah stuff."  Mark is just a great "Hey, Deal with it, Dude" kind of guy.  We always got along great and this sudden adverse turn of events didn't bother me one second.  It was just another interesting challenge of the day.

I wished Mark well and he disappeared in his BMW, leaving me to mull my options.  First, I approached Brian Rasmussen.  Brian had a small pickup truck.  Brian and his girlfriend would ride in the cramped little front seat.  Brian said, "Sure, John, I'll give you a ride but you have to ride in the back with my dog, Grizz."

Well, dogs being dogs is one thing but Grizz was quite another thing.  He was big, smelly, and generally rowdy in a way that certain annoying dogs can be.  The prospect of riding a few hundred miles in the open air with Grizz as a companion was easily the worst possible option I could imagine.

Hum...what to do.  Strangely, there were very few Flagstaffonians at the Rendezvous.  Everyone else seemed to be headed to places I only dreamed I'd ever go and some places I never even heard of before.

I was walking around in kind of a meditative fog when suddenly who should appear but Susun with her cheery smile and happy spirit.  AH, HA!  So, I immediately went over to her and started my song and dance about how I was stranded and about how I didn't have a way home and, "Oh, pretty please, could I ride home with YOU, Ma'am?"  Well, to her credit, Susun dutifully pondered whether to agree to take me back to Flagstaff.  Luckily, it didn't take her much pondering and after about a minute she said, "Sure, that sounds like fun, throw your stuff in my truck and let's go."

Well, the rest, as they say, is History.  We fell in Love on that trip back to Flagstaff and we been deeply in love ever since.  It was a fabulous and wonderful trip through the Four Corners and Monument Valley.  I even took Susun to the Blow Hole at Wupatki.  It was the first of many awesome and wonderful trips we would take together over the next 25+ years.  Nothing would ever be the same of us ever again.  We knew we each met the person we were born to be together with.

And so, you see, if it wasn't for Mark Thatcher buying a new kayak in Telluride, Susun and I might never had have that opportunity to fall so totally in Love with each other.  It's a great story.  The way Susun tells the story, she always likes to add this somewhat embarrassing summary, "I won out over the dog."

Well, Mark Thatcher went on to become quite legendary as the inventor and owner of  the famous Teva sandals.  Mark sold Teva many years ago and has been involved in all sorts of great things since then.  Today, I just received an email from Mark and he had started a new venture--the Sazzi sandals.  The Sazzis appear to be the next level of adventure footwear.  They combine ancient design with modern technology in a uniquely appealing package that's been receiving rave reviews since Mark introduced them last year.

Below is a video of Mark explaining the Sazzis.  Here's a link to his website for them:
http://www.sazzi.com/


If the video won't load, here's it's link: http://youtu.be/wZXaDzAAXsQ

Congratulations, Mark!  We're sure proud of you.  We wish you the best of success & HAPPY TRAILS!

Many Cheers, Susun & John