A third down, two thirds to go

Gee, April is one third over today.  April has always been a "fast month."  Some months are real slow.  Take January, for example, January lasts twice as long as any other month.  April?  Poof, gone.  Looks like that's the way it's gonna be this year, too.

I went to Camp Verde yesterday to print out some photos of the Verde River trip to give to Dex and Jodi last night. Unfortunately, I took the wrong camera card and didn't have any river photos to print! However, Walgreen's was offering totally free 8x10's yesterday--no strings attached. So, I made a made a snap decision and decided to print the photo shown here in 8x10. It turned out great and even Susun likes it. Our hiking is coming along well--the "streak" is four days and counting.
We did the Long Canyon Hill in 28 minutes yesterday even though we weren't hiking "for time." (The spreadsheet now has it's own page linkable at top left.)

Gary came over early yesterday morning to set a trap for a gopher. He had success and we now have one less gopher on the grounds of Second Chance Ranch. Dex and Jodi arrived at 6 pm and we enjoyed a raging "white man fire" and then a dinner inside the straw house. The straw house wouldn't exist without the help of many of our Dear Friends. Brad and Kate and Dex and Jodi are four people whose efforts truly made this place possible. We will be forever grateful for their efforts.

Speaking of the straw house, we received our electric bill today covering the time period of March 21 to April 21. It was outrageous. No, not outrageous in a HIGH sense, it is outrageous in a LOW sense--the total bill (including the monthly service charge) is $12.93! I guess that freezer isn't sucking too much juice afterall.

It's amazing how high a quality of life we can have on one 20 amp circuit!

All-in-all, factoring property taxes, homeowners insurance, electric bill, trash pickup, propane tank rental, internet "dormancy fee," etc. we are paying less than $100 a month(on an annualized basis)to have this place available. Our new "fixed income lifestyle" easily affords this expense. Sure beats camping in an RV park.

My big project for the day yesterday was the installation of four steps on a steep slopes near the northwest corner of the property. I scavanged some old juniper fence posts and augered big holes through them. After much chipping of rocks, pounding of rebar and backfilling of the steps, they were completed about 4 pm. They look and behave very nicely. The steps will make visits from Gary & Robin much safer, especially when they walk home in the dark. Gary also brought over some fresh laid eggs and we're going to enjoy them this morning.

Carrie's Art Bench project submission deadline was yesterday. She received a tsunami of applications at the last minute yesterday and now appears to have dozens of designs from which to choose. We are on the "selection committee" and have until Tuesday morning to pick our Top 20. I can already tell you that fishing lure design shown below will make the final cut! We'll post our our selections Monday.

Have a great day and Many Cheers, jp

Hike Log back in action

Might as well be Type A about it!  We both amazed ourselves on the BRCT today--both of us were under an hour and a half.  I don't think I was EVER that fast in the "old days"!  Susun was way ahead of me on the first leg but I beat her by a minute to the finish line.  Great workout.  I ginned up a spreadsheet.  Click Here to check it out.

A Tale of Two Trails

We're fixin' to be OCD about hiking again. For the past 9.5 years, we've had this on-again, off-again obsession with day hiking. I wish it was "on again" all the time but, alas, circumstances conspire to change pretty much any favorite OCD activity.

We started day hiking on December 7, 2001. We had a great run of day hiking clear through September 2002. In fact, we had a "streak" going of 125 straight days of day-hiking. Our streak broke in Red Bluff, California, when we rec'd news that our house had been flooded.

We got another streak going in 2004 that lasted well into 2005. I think my streak then was over about 300 consecutive rain or shine days. It's in my log book someplace. There have been other minor streaks but nothing to compare to the 2004-2005 epic. Heck, I even taught a community college class called "Day Hiking for The Elderly" in March-April 2005.

We had a good run in 2005-2006 but nothing to compare to previous streak. After I herniated my L5 disk in May 2006, my hiking came to an abrupt end. It never really fully recovered as there simply wasn't enough time with the 2.5 year job, etc.

We've discussed how to get ODC about hiking again. And therein lies The Tale of Two Trails.

One trail is the world famous Bell Rock-Courthouse Loop Trail (BRCT). The other is a short section of the Long Canyon Trail (LCT). The BRCT parking lot is typically jam-packed by mid-morning. The first half-mile of this trail is teeming with people and it's often near gridlock from bicycles and people. The LCT is almost always deserted. We've only seen people on it once and that was yesterday.

The BRCT is about 4.5 miles. The section of the LCT we do is less than a mile.
The BRCT is mostly flat and all the grades are either short and or gentle. The LCT is a steep, steep hill that is a 100% climb all the way. Both trails are the closest two official trails to our home. The BRCT is smack-dab in the Village of Oak Creek, a suburb of Sedona. The LCT is more or less nowhere. Luckily, it has a parking area alongside the road to a rich kids school-Southwest Academy.

We've found that the best way to get back into hiking is, well..., to hike. Who'd a thunk it? The second ingredient is to hike every day. And the third ingredient is to really press ourselves to work a little harder each day. These two trails possess all of the above qualifications. They are endearing and compelling trails.
They are easy to access. Plus, both of them are great "timing trails." What's a timing trail? A timing trail is one that lends itself to timing yourself.

The Long Canyon Workout Hill is a classic example. There's an obvious starting point--the iron gate. There's an obvious finish line--twin juniper trees at the top of the hill. Voila, you simply time yourself between those two points. You aim for a faster time for each hill climb. No lolly gagging allowed!

Ditto The BRCT--you can really make that trail a tremendous workout trail but aiming to reduce your loop time. Two days ago we were slightly over 2 hours. Obviously, we are out of hiking shape. My best time there was 1:37 as I recall.
Yesterday on The LCT, I surprised myself with a 27 minute time. Susun was 32 minutes. My best time there was I recall was 23 minutes. I will check it in the historical log book but I am pretty sure that's accurate.

So, we've decided to simply alternate--BRCT one day, LCT the next, aiming for lower times each day. We plan to keep up this routine until the day before we depart Arizona. We know from past experience that this regime will put us back into credible hiking condition.

A classic past example of similar OCD behavior was in May-June 2004. We were coming off a very slacker-sluggish period in our lives. We'd started the Atkin diet on April Fool's Day and lost a bunch of weight. We were headed to our first summer in Idaho. We went into Garfield County, Utah, out by Bryce Canyon and camped one night at a place call "Red Canyon Equestrian CG." Nice place and free.
One night turned into 11 nights and each day we hiked for hours in the free Forest Service "mini-Bryce" area of Red Canyon. The main red Canyon (fee) campground had pay showers so we could wash off the red dust each afternoon. It was great. By the time we left Red Canyon, we were fully back in hiking shape once again. That was the beginning of our extended epic hiking streak.

Well, I write all of this rambling mumbo-jumbo for a simple reason--we're challenging ourselves to "stand & deliver" on getting our hiking groove back. By putting it out here on the blog, it's kind of like, well....what happens if you DON'T follow through, huh? We'd just look like foolish exaggerators, that's all. Our friends would say, "Yeah, they sure talk big sometimes, but where's the delivery, huh?" I think I will even start a public spreadsheet to hold our feet to the fire.

Hiking is not only fun--hiking is life. The more you hike, the healthier you are. it's a widely recognized fact these days. Practically the whole medical establishment is on the "walking is good" band wagon. I'm sure you've noticed that phenomena.

Well, got up late today--7 instead of 5 so we have to shuffle along and ride today's wave. Surf's up, let's go!

Cheers, jp

Volunteer update

As most of my Loyal Blog Readers (LBRs) know, I am still very much "in the mix" with the "world of volunteerism." I thought this morning would be a fine time to ramble awhile about whazzup with volunteerism.

First, one of the really fun projects I am involved with is the Snake River Greenbelt Art Bench Project. Most of you have already read numerous blog references to this topic in past months. Carrie G-S is a delight to work with and she is a genuine textbook example of the very best and brightest that the upcoming Baby Boom Generation (AKA: The Age Wave) will be bringing to The World of Volunteerism. Anyway, Carrie has been busily sending along artist's renditions of various bench ideas. SO far, I think there's 23 proposed bench designs. I am in the midst of trying to figure a way to present the bench designs so that anyone can quickly get an overview of them. That's been my big project this morning. I've spent over an hour on it so far with perhaps 2-3 more hours to go. This is the type of volunteerism that I really love for myself--sitting at the computer and doing something actually productive. Imagine that!

The five graphic slideshow above is a draft concept of how it might be possible to present these designs. If any LBRs have any comments on this format, I sure would appreciate hearing from you.

OK, moving right along: my Loyal Sidekick and Partner @ RSVP, Dear Debby, informed be yesterday that somehow the federal continuation grant dropped through a crack during the my transition into retirement. There's a mere 2 weeks from today to "git 'er dun," soooo....that means I am going to be doing a heck of a lot of Virtual Volunteerism between now and April 21 to help Debby get the $65,000 grant turn in. Without it, RSVP ceases to exist on July First!

This week, I received a call from Stephanie G. of the Idaho Falls Farmers Market. I enjoy working with her SO much. Anyway, there was a momentary panic that the IFFM website had been inadvertently disabled. Luckily, it was a false alarm. We will be heavily involved with IFFM in the years ahead. This year, I suspect we will be doing some videos of various producers and mnaybe serving as prototype IFFM docents, too. We're going to try to schedule our travel so we can be home on weekends--primarily to attend the IFFM. It opens May 1 and we sure hope to be there.

We continue to put a lot of volunteer efforts into assisting the embryonic Friends of Harriman State Park. We were on the phone for quite awhile yesterday with the Asst. Park Manager. There's a fiasco-in-progress taking shape there. It's too long a story to tell here--maybe we will do a separate post on it soon here or elsewhere. Very sensitive, touchy issues. I hope those issues don't torpedo the great work done so far.

We've had some communication with the National Park Service about volunteering for our neighbor--Montezuma Well National Monument. However, it has become quite confusing, as any communications with the federales are wont to be. So, we've put that one on the back burner.

As you know, we logged 3 days as an on-river volunteer. We then let the Salt River Ranger know we'd volunteer for him, too, to do a trip through the whitewater and Wilderness there. He's interested but we haven't heard back from his in the last couple of days.

The idea to volunteer for Max Castillo fell through when he was transferred to Slide Rock State Park. The whole Arizona State Parks scene is in such turmoil, it's simply not feasible to hook up with this this year.

Meanwhile, we contacted our old Secret Shopper Boss, Sue Kocis in Michigan. We're applying to be a Virtual Volunteer for her. Time will tell if that works out.

The Volkssport idea is on hold until we return to Idaho Falls. We think it's in a good situation and is poised to become reality. It simply needs onsite management.

Our relationship with CAHA (Clayton Area Historical Association) continues to prosper. We are looking forward to working with them. We're already booked to be Chili Contest Judges in late July. Mike's agreed to pay our gas money to Clayton, too! Plus, all the chili we can stand to eat.

Gary G. of the Sawtooth Interpretive & Historical Assn. sent in a partnership agreement the other day. It's going to be great to continue to work with him--he's the MOST Awesome volunteer I've ever seen--well, maybe second to Buck H. Maybe tied with Buck. But awesome nonetheless.

We contacted our buddy in the Challis BLM about writing a river guide from Stanley to Corn Creek this summer. He's possibly interested and sent my email to the other agency river managers. It's a long shot but it's worth asking about.

We're going to jump on a personal volunteer project as soon as we return to Idaho Falls. I'm going to paint the railing along the Greenbelt at the intersection of Riverside and Broadway. That peeling paint has been bugging me since the first time I saw it in 2004. I told Dave C. I'm gonna paint it even if I have to pay for the paint myself!

I somehow suspect we will be doing some Program Development Volunteering for RSVP this year. It's just a suspicion and an intuition at this point.

This Friday, the Friends of Montezuma Well are apparently going to plant their Hopi Garden--working with at least one Hopi Elder. I think we will go there and see how they have their "volunteer act" organized. Here's a link about it.

Verde River Trip Photos

Here's 32 photos from the Verde River Trip. I took 188. Google is always tweaking its slideshow functionality. It now appears this show doesn't autoplay. You will need to press the play button to begin (>). Then note that if you mouse over the bottom of a photo you will see a left and right arrows plus the play button. This allow you to take your time reading the captions. YMMV!

Maybe time to play today?

Hum...let's see, maybe we get some time to play today. The wind has laid down this morning (so far)and it's clear, crisp and quite cool in the mid-30's. Do I hear a hike this morning? Time will tell.

Just checked on Idaho Falls weather. The Pokemon weather guys had this to say in their 3 am Area Forecast Discussion: HEAVY SNOW HAS BEEN FALLING IN IDAHO FALLS FOR SEVERAL HOURS NOW AND EXPECT UP TO 5 INCHES IN THE UPPER SNAKE PLAIN THROUGH MID MORNING. Gee...what's happening to the poor little forlorn Easter Bunny? He's freezing his energizers off!

Apparently, the Eastern Idaho area has been getting some early spring weather mayhem lately. I was reading the Island Park News and they were talking about 6-10 foot drifts and snowmobilers being rescued. Hum...if this trend keeps up maybe we will hunker down in Arizona and delay our departure to Tater Nation.

The Big Brush Be Gone Caper yesterday was the last of the Big Grunt Work we have to do here this spring. This visit has been nothing like the November-December marathon. The next biggest chore is additional weed spraying. Luckily, the wind has given me a great excuse to blow off the spraying. (No pun intended, of course.)

We might go to Cottonwood today and we might not. The sound of boots hitting the trail might be a stronger call than a few hours of shopping. I hear stirrings from Miss Susun's vicinity. Guess a new day is yawning, opps, I mean dawning.

Speaking of which--have a great day and MANY Cheers, jp

Brush Be Gone

We're trying to get rid of a lot of brush today.  We borrowed a trailer from a neighbor.  This is all mesquite brush.  That means it's 100% thorns.  Some of the thorns are longer than an inch.  It's wicked stuff.  Somehow, I have to get it all on this trailer and tied down and covered before I can go to the landfill.  Wish us luck! (We "got 'er dun" and were back home @ 2:45--only a 6 hour job. Whew!)

Monday, Monday

As expected the wind is picking up rapidly.  It's progged to get to 65 mph up on the Little Colorado.  The "angle of the dangle" translates that it maybe a 40-45 mph wind down here.  Way too stiff to spray weeds today.  We'll probably haul brush to the landfill.. WOT FUN!

Got up @ 5 am and spent a couple of hours researching conditions and circumstances about The Wave and also Bryce Canyon.  A potential trip to the West Deserts is looking dimmer than it did last night.  Well, The Wave idea bit the dust, too.  All online permits are already taken months in advance.  The only resource is the "walk-in" option.  They give out permits for 10 people each day.  That's ten people TOTAL.  So, I called the BLM in Kanab, Utah, this morning.  Hum...each day there's anywhere from 60-80 people vying for those ten spots.  Nah, we ain't gonna go there.

Meanwhile, believe it or not, the US NRCS SNOTEL at Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park still shows 30 inches of snow.  A potion of one of the key arterial trails is closed due to a rockslide.  I put in a call to them to see if the popular trails are still drifted in their shadowed areas.  Haven't heard back but Bryce is looking dim and dimmer, too.  It's looking less likely that we will try to do a river trip up in Zion NP.  Just not enough time.

We will probably simply stay here and ride out the full moon and take off April 29--just like we speculated a few blog posts ago.  Do the long run to Fillmore or Nephi and then play dodge 'em cars through Salt Lake and get home midday Friday, April 30.  At this point, that's the way I'm betting we will go.

A big deal is happening tonight.  It's the final game of the NCAA Basketball Season--the culmination of what's widely known as March Madness.  It's the Butler Bulldogs against a team a lot of people love to despise--Duke.  I've never cared for Duke and that disdain far predates their rise to a perennial basketball power.  Meanwhile, Butler is about as "down home" as it's possible to get in this day and age.  We have a Dear Friend (Pastor Pam, The Sermonator) who graduated from Butler.  She's rooting mightily for her Bulldogs tonight.  So, please, if you will, join us in rooting as well for those lowly Bulldogs--may they bite the mighty Blue Devils and be Champions of the College World tonight!

Weather Wonk Stuff

We are already beginning our pre-trip planning for our departure north to Idaho.  We became curious today as to how the April weather shakes out.  I reformatted the April statistics for both Beaver Creek ranger Station and Montezuma Castle National Monument.  You can see a Google spreadsheet of this data by clicking here.  In a nutshell, it can be quite hot or quite cold this month.  The Climate Prediction Center seems to feel it's going to be slightly below normal temperatures with lower than normal rainfall.  All of this information bodes well for us to stay well into April.  Our thinking in a prior blog post had us leaving April 29 because we are wienies about the full moon.  Now our thinking is to leave The Straw House maybe as early as April 25 and take a slow and meandering route north.  We're thinking about staying in Fillmore for perhaps a couple of days so we could explore the West Deserts.  If that plan falls by the wayside, we might stay in Panguitch and go hiking in Bryce for a couple of days.  Those trails "should" be snow free by then.

It was a great Easter.  We had a real nice morning--the rabbit started off on the right foot ( no pun intended).  We then went for a short walk with The Three Wheelers--Kate, Brad, and Joshua.  We went to a place of special family significance and enjoyed a thermos of hot coffee.  We got home about 12:30 pm and turned right around and went to the Annual Despain Family Easter Potluck.  It's an awesome family affair--egg hunting, huge gobs of food and all manner of chatter.  We enjoyed getting acquainted with a couple of retired teachers who served their career in Ganado. Dean Despain--The Grand Old Patriarch of the Clan was in his usual low key form.  Children ran hither and yon in their typical Easter dither.  We ate way too many carbohydrates.  Hey, it's Easter!

When we got back from The Despain's, we were both wiped out.  I laid down for a nap at 3 pm and didn't move until 6 pm.  I can't recall the late time I took a 3 hour nap (other than when I was down with the flu or something).  No campfire tonight--too tired.

Been studying the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.  It's been around since 1990 but I only "discovered" it today.  Click here for more information about it.   Be sure to read the History section and also note the Forest Service EA that's dated March 29, 2010.  Very interesting stuff.

Looks like it's going to be pretty windy for awhile.  No weed spraying on the horizon!

Thanks for a great walk back in time, Kate, Brad and Josh!

Easter Bunny

Back in the Old Days, we saw rabbits here all the time. Now, never. Until this morning. Perhaps feeling the imperceptible tug of the holiday, a real live Easter Bunny showed up on the property. "Cue The Bunny!" I opened the door to go get the Sunday paper at 6:15 am and there he or she. What a great way to start the day! Happy Easter!

'Twas a nice anniversary

We enjoyed a great campfire last night.  We spent most of the evening telling stories about how we started building The Straw House on April Fool's Day 1994.  It seems incredible to both of us that it was "only" sixteen years ago.  Gee, all the stuff that's happened in those 16 years is pretty incredible.  I was 46 years old then and Susun, 47.  Wonder what changes will happen in the next sixteen years--I'll be 78 then and Susun, 79.

I remember at least the dinner of my 16th birthday really well--it was a huge steak at the Attica Hotel in Attica, Indiana. My parents were real big on 16th birthdays and they made me feel real special.  I thought turning 16 meant that I had really hit the Big Time.  HA!  The very next day, of course, is burned in my memory and the memory of all those alive at the time--the violent death of President Kennedy.  Who can possibly forget where they were or what they were doing when that news broke?

 At the end of my second 16 year span, I reached a true milestone in my life--moving to Arizona on Valentine's Day 1979.  The third 16 year interval was marked by the completion of this straw house and really hitting stride on what became the culmination of my efforts to "save" the Verde River.  I won't know how the 4th 16-year chapter of my life ends for another couple of years---November 2012 to be exact.  It will be very interesting to see how it all evolves.

Last night, we both realized that the 16 year cycle for The Straw House has brought some really welcome developments.  For the first time, we are resting easy with the weeds here.  That may sound trivial to you but to us it's HUGE.  No one has ANY idea of the amount of time and actual blood, sweat and, yes, tears, I have shed over years of literal hand-to-hand combat with the weeds and the mesquites.  My arms bear lifetime scars from this battle.  For ALL of the time we have owned this property, I have always actually dreaded the onset of weed season.  It was a genuine fear and loathing thing.  Heck, it was never even comfortable to even walk around this property--you would always wind up with some sort of stickers in your socks and shoes.
I never "beat the weeds," they always won-year after freaking year.

Last night, for the first time, we enjoyed total freedom from Weed Anxiety. You have no idea how blissfully liberating that feeling is. It's delicious beyond description! We have finally Beat The Weeds. We won. They're toast. Fried. Done. DEAD! As we looked around the property, we realized that, after 16 years, we've finally reached a stable condition of this place that will allow us to actually enjoy it as never before in our history with it. What a great way to mark 16 years.

We took a nice hike April Fool's morning. It was along Wet Beaver Creek downstream from the 618 road. There are some nice red rock ledges and red bluffs there. The riparian is "old growth" and it's a delightful place. We had a little snack on a beautiful red bluff and enjoyed what we call The Dance Trail. No one ever hikes that trail, especially this time of year. It's one of the best kept secrets of this entire region.

We spent another four hours in Cottonwood. Paid our 2nd half property taxes and bought about $100 worth of groceries. We saved at least as much as that by astute shopping and couponing.

Yesterday was noteworthy in another arcane way. I had a HUGE breakthrough in one of my obsessions--the roasting of green chiles. All of my Southwestern Life, I've roasted green chiles on a grill. This involves painstakingly turning them one-by-one. Also, I have to hand select flat, straight chiles. Lately, the green chiles coming up out of Mexico haven't been flat or straight. They are twisted and knarly and quite literally impossible to roast on a grill. No way, no how. This has been a real vexation for me as I love roasting green chiles. Yes, I am obsessed with roasting green chiles. It's a fundamental part of my life.

So, here I have been deprived of my obsession as I can't even find a flat, straight chile to put atop a grill. What to do? Well, a combination of two things led to my breakthrough last night. First, Houn Dawg (Jeff, The Jon-E Handwarmer Kind) said he used a small propane torch to roast them one-by-one. These torches are generally used to thaw pipes or maybe sometimes solder a copper pipe. Next, I have always admired commercial rotary roasting drums. They roast 50 pounds of chiles at a whack. They're awesome and the envy of my eye. They use huge gobs of propane fed through giant flames as the drum passes by a pipeline of jet propelled fire.

Finally, the lightbulb went off. What if I used our huge weed burning torch? WOuld it work? First, I bought four pounds of the ugliest, most twisted green chiles I could get my hands on. Next, I set up a culinary grill atop two pieces of rebar perched on some white rocks. Then I backstopped this with some stucco lath and put the whole arrangement on bare ground beside our campfire pit. Then I laid out an array of homely chiles atop the grill grate. Finally, I sit the afterburner on the torch tip and had at it. When you apply gas to the torch tip, it truly sounds like a jet taking off on a runway. It's hugely loud and there's a frightful flame coming from the end of this torch tip. If used improperly, these things can be wildly dangerous to life and property.

Well, magic happened and I was able to roast 4 pounds of chiles in a heartbeat. Every little nook and cranny of the chiles was roasted to perfection. They were all blacked and blistered perfectly. It was an incredible sight to behold and really invigorating for a Chile Head like me. WOW--I would hardly believe my good fortune. Now my chile roasting days has been catapulted into a whole new realm. My head is spinning with all the possibilities. Now, I will even be able to roast pasilla peppers. Gee, I will be able to toast off entire masses of jalapenos in a veritable flash! WOW--this is rich stuff!

Life is good! Indeed. Have a great day and Many Cheers! jp

Grand Falls to make new high!

No, this is NOT an April Fool's joke.  I happened to peruse the USGS streamflow table this morning and my eyeballs popped out.  There's been a surge come down East Clear Creek south of Winslow and the Little Colorado at Winslow is running over 1600 cfs this morning.  Yesterday it was a mere 1,000 cfs and the day  before a paltry 600 cfs!  Clearly, the last dribs and drabs of snow have parted company with the watershed and are heading to a meeting of the molecules with the Big Colorado River in deep in Grand Canyon.  Rather than gunk up this blog post with a lot of arcane data, I put it on a separate page.  See above, left.

I clearly thought the Grand Falls has peaked about a week ago near 1500 cfs. Wrong again--this surge will probably eek out a slightly higher peak within the next few days--possibly as early as tomorrow.  I can guarantee you that this Easter Weekend will be primetime to go visit the Grand Falls.  They are SUPERB and not to be missed, especially if you have never seen them before.

Happy April Fool

Nah, I'm not gonna bother doin' no April Fool writeup here.  It's too predictable.  Practically everyone does it.
I'm just glad that March has marched on.  Man, it sure went out like a lion last night--the winds were a howlin'!

Yep, we sure 'nuf had ourselfs a campfire again.  What wind?  That's how come I built an 25-inch tall wind screen.  Laugh at the wind!  Susun rustled up some cowpoke chili and we chowed down on some good grub.

Both of us were plumb tuckered yesterday and didn't saddle up and ride out of our corral until high noon.  We went on over to Camp Weirdy (home of The Cowboys) and signed off on our taxes, bought some stuff and came on back to Second Chance Ranch.  While the wind whistled we each spent time doing stuff in our sheds.  My shed looks downright hospitable now.  You can even walk around without poking yer shins with sharp objects.

Today is Sweet Sixteen for The Straw House.  Yep, precisely sixteen years ago in 1994, we started to build the place.  We purposely chose April Fool's Day to begin.  I'm not sure why.  We have a photo of what we did that first day.  Pretty funny, actually.  We dug a big hole and hand-mixed concrete in an old wheelbarrow and poured it into the square hole.  That was it.  Looking back sixteen years, it's a wonder that we ever got this place finished.  Thanks to all those who made it possible. 

Yesterday was also officially one week since we sprayed for weeds.  We must admit the weed chemical really did a good job.  It's generic Roundup--a chemical called glyphosate.  They say it takes about a week for glyphosate to really do its job.  For the first few days, we were pretty pessimistic about it.  The last 3 days, the affects have really come on strong.  For the first time in our history with this land, we don't have to worry about the foxtail weeds--they are all dead now!  It's totally delightful.

Yesterday, I received a surprise--an email from Dear Friend Joshua W.  Joshua is excels at many things and now we learn he also excels at creative writing, too.  He sent along a link to a short story he wrote.  Click here to read it.  It's a most excellent vignette penned from the eye of a goat.  Joshua also sent his Bandcamp website.  He's composing his own electronic music and posting it online for free downloading.  I told him that Pink Floyd and Moody Blues would love to hire him for their next concert tour.  Next year, Joshua will be a senior at the Sedona Red Rock High School.  Thanks for the email, the story and the music, Joshua!  Ya dun good!

We think we will be leaving Arizona later this month.  The "when" of this plan is TBD (To Be Determined).  We'd like to be home by May 1.  I'd like to attend the May Parks & Recreation Commission.  We have a room booked at Old Faithful Inn May 8.  The keyu piece of this puzzle is the fact that we had our water and power turned off before heading south.  We can only get them turned back on during business hours of a weekday.  The full moon is April 28.  We generally like to avoid traveling in the days leading up to a full moon.  So, if we are "true to form," we will leave lickity-split, crack-of-dawn Thursday April 29--four weeks from today and arrive in River City, Idaho, about lunch time Friday.  Hopefully, we will have all the city's troops lined up to turn back on our power and water before the close of business on Friday at 5 pm.  (They won't turn it on unless someone is inside the house watching for potential burst pipes.  Smart plan.)

Anyway, this is relevant because if the above scenario turns out to be the case, we will be leaving Arizona precisely four weeks from today!

Have a great day and Many Cheers!  jp

Verde River Trip account posted

Howdy, LBR's! Believe it or not, I've spent OVER 2 hours writing up my account of my Verde River Trip this past weekend. I know some of you have been awaiting a detailed account of this adventure. Well, I put it on the other blog--it's a huge amount of writing! It's here:

http://azsnowbird.blogspot.com/

I haven't yet processed any photos and I expect that to take yet another hour or two in itself.  I have run out of time for this morning.  Maybe I will get to the photos tomorrow morning.  I hope so, I have some good ones.  Anyway, enjoy the writeup, it's as complete as I can make it.

I got out of here at 9 am yesterday and arrived back with Susun at 1:30 pm.  That's an amazing Hunter Thompson style round trip to Mesa and back in near record short time.  I was so tired upon return I actually took an hour long NAP!  Johnny don't nap, does he?  Well, he sure did yesterday!

After arising from the nap, the wind was howling pretty good.  So, I decided to make a windproof fire enclosure so we could have a campfire in a high wind.  I spent almost 2 hours messing with it and it turned out perfect.  I will get some photos up and running later.  Anyway, we can now have a fire in a gale force wind.  We have a nice light dinner of chicken breasts and sliced tomato and I went to bed a little after 7 pm.  UP at 5 am this morning and got busy writing a about 5:45.  Whew--glad that writeup is behind me.

What's on tap for today?  Good question--we have no clue--tune in tomorrow to lean how it all turned out.

Cheers!  J&S

Totally Tuesday

Looks like the last post here was Friday. Suddenly it's Tuesday. The river trip was great in every way. Much fun and enjoyment. Although we departed the Childs take-out at noon, I didn't arrive home until 3:30 pm and wasn't fully unpacked until 6 pm. By then it was Campfire Time so this is the earliest opportunity for a few words on El Blog.

Many Thanks to Dex & Jodi for a wonderful trip. We will write a much longer post about the adventure later this week. It's time to tidy the house and head to Mesa to pick up Susun. Hopefully, I can get there well before lunch time.

Supposed to be 86 degrees down there today!

Have a great day & Cheers, jp

Tale of Two Saturdays

Today feels so much like a Saturday that I'm going to accept and welcome the feeling. That way, I get to enjoy Two Saturdays--one today and one tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be a Go-Go Day. I have to be over at the Verde Ranger Station at 7:30 am to begin rigging for the three-day, two-night Verde River trip.

I can guarantee you I won't be blogging tomorrow morning--nope, I won't be writing anything until maybe Monday evening at the very earliest. It's probably gonna be Tuesday morning. Maybe I will post a few Tweets if I have a cell signal while we are hanging out at Beasley Flats tomorrow morning.

Dexter and Jodi and myself are the only people on this trip so it's gonna be real laid back and casual. The stretch we're doing is normally done in a single day. We're taking three days to do what most people do in a few hours. So, yeah, that's pretty laid back. Dex is the official Forest Service River Ranger so he has to make "visitor contacts" and all that formal stuff. I think I'm gonna be the Designated Photographer. We shall see.

Gotta go to Cottonwood today for a variety of various stuff. Well, time has slipped past this morning and I'm already running late. How's it possible to run late when you're retired? Beats me--but it happens.

Have a great day & Cheers, jp

This Campfire's for Dave

Thanks Dear Friend Dave for your kind voicemail.  It was Most appreciated!  All these photos were taken tonight in honor of your voicemail.

Weed Wars

Spent 3 straight hours spraying--laid down about 50 gallons of diluted spray--used about a gallon and a half of 41-percent glyphosate concentrate. 

Counting the prep time and the cleanup time, it was a little shy of five hours. Big piece of work! 

Now we are prepping to go to Mesa so Susun can catch her plane tomorrow. Will take the backroad through Payson. Whew, glad that's done!

A Wendy's rendezvous

Unsettled morning weather prevented us from getting a jump on spraying weeds yesterday. By and by, I discovered the new 4-gallon back sprayer was missing a key part.  So, it had to go back to Cottonwood Home Depot anyway.

Meanwhile, Susun was coordinating a meeting with her daughters and grandsons at the Camp Verde Wendy's.  Most of the day revolved around the sprayer and the rendezvous.  After a lengthy return process and some renegade guerrilla shopping techniques, I was able to get the vital piece and left Home Depot with a nice new feng shui sprayer.

We went to Food City and I scored over four pounds of fresh green chiles for a mere 33 cents a pounds! WOW! That's newsworthy. We traveled off to Dead Horse Ranch State Park, hoping to see Max C. No luck. We did see some familiar faces and therein lies several stories we hope to tell on our Arizona Volunteers! blog.

Finally, the girls called and we aimed for our rendezvous at Wendy's It came off without a glitch and young Gage frolicked in the parking lot. Baby Van even reached out and touched me. They are both sweet baby boys and it was great to see the girls and Peter again. They had a fine time at The Hogans.

The Big Deal for me was getting my .22 single shot back in my hands. My Dad gave it to me way back in 1956. It has no monetary value whatsoever--just sentimental. It was marooned at The Hogans back in 2006 and we forgot to pick it up last fall when we went there. Whew, now it's home again.

Got the new sprayer assembled and enjoyed a real nice all mesquite campfire. The evening light on The Mogollon Rim is spectacular this time of year.

We can still hear Wet Beaver Creek rumbling on the other side of the National Monument. It's a familiar, comforting sound, almost like the pulse of the earth purring.

We wrote a blog post a couple of days ago about the peak of the Verde River flow. Click on the Snowbird blog to read it. Anyway, the river came up good again yesterday but didn't come close to its March 19 peak. We continue to feel confident that the Verde is "past its peak." It's still a fabulous level, fluffy and plumb with melted snow water--but it's almost certainly in a downtrend of daily flow peaks from here on out.

Today is a mixed bag. We hope to spray weeds. We also MUST go to Mesa so Susun can catch her flight to San Diego early tomorrow morning. We awoke this morning to a fairly heavy frost so we are once again doubtful about whether we can spray. Sure, we could spray in the afternoon, but we will be long gone to Mesa by then.
This whole spray gig is turning out to be a real delicately-balanced chess game.
I've never used lawn chemicals before--especially of this magnitude. Messing with 41% glyphosate isn't something anyone takes lightly, especially when we're sitting on five gallons of the stuff. There are all sorts of terms and conditions and technical issues to be aware of. If it's "right" we will spray. If it's not, we won't. Simple as that.

Cheers! jp

Falling behind

For every blog post I make, it seems I wind up two posts behind! I look at the recent posts and realize they are two days old and think, "Gee, John, whazzup?"

I sent an email to a Dear Friend yesterday saying I felt like a twig being carried along in a flood. What we're doing clearly isn't as hard or of the level as what we did in November-December. At least we aren't immersed in a daily grind of total grunt work. However, we are immersed in a high speed flow of events and activities. Time seems to speed along like Tod and Buz in their Corvette in the Route 66 TV show.

Sunday, we had a fine short snowshoe up on the Coconino Plateau near the Willard Springs exit on I-17. Went to Cottonwood for some frenzied shopping and then enjoyed a wonderful, beautiful afternoon at the home of The Three Wheelers. Thanks, Brad, Kate & Joshua, that afternoon is a Golden Moment in our memories!

Yesterday was as close to grunt work as we've been since we arrived here almost 2 weeks ago. We both worked hard for 8 hours in the yard. Didn't even take a lunch break. I fired up the new $350 high wheel weedwhacker and Susun went hand to hand against the mesquite trees. We had a very successful day and now the place looks great once again. All of the work was in preparation to spray weeds today but it looks like Weed Karma has given them a temporary stay of execution. As you can see from the graphic, there's plenty of water vapor over Arizona. That blob of orange stuff is water vapor. It's progged to rain today. Not much, mind you, but ANY rain pretty much cancels a weed spray day. Dang, all dressed up and no place to go!

Talked to Dear Friend Dex A. last night. He invited me on a three-day, two-night river trip this coming weekend. I think I will clear my decks and say "yes" and go.
Thanks, Dex!

Dear Friend and LBR Kris C. sent Susun a note saying she (Kris) is enjoying the blog. We appreciate such notes. Kris said she uses the blog to keep up with what we are doing. That's why I titled this blog "The Daily News." It's good practice for me to keep this blog updated and it does help our family and friends understand how our lives are evolving. I only hope that the blog doesn't turn into "The Daily Snooze!"

Personally, I don't like blogs that aren't updated. I won't go visit them. Why should I? So, on that note, we pledge to do a better job at penning a regular dose of Daily News. Thanks for your patience and understanding, jp.

Quick note Sunday

Been real busy lately--no time for blogging. Hope to get a lengthy update later today. Trying to get outta Dodge here so we can go snowshoeing up by Munds Park someplace. How often does anyone getta go snowshoeing on March 21 in Arizona? Not real often. More later--TTFN, jp

Nice day for a hike

We enjoyed a great inaugural hike March 18.  Woods Canyon is an awesome place.  Here's the USGS hydrograph for its flow.

The streak continues

Yep, it's another Blue Bird Day!  The streak will end probably tomorrow as high winds sweep in a so-called cold front.  Yeah, right!  Temps will probably drop from the mid-70's down into a more reasonable upper 50's or low 60's.  Some cold front.

This morning I penned another water and snow report.  Click on the Arizona Snowbirds blog link at top left to see it.  It's full of good news.

Yesterday was quite busy.  I did manage to saddle up the bicycle and ride over to "well" of Montezuma Well National Monument.  Although we are contiguous to the National Park property, we are at the far west end of the Monument and the famous "well" itself is at the far east end.  The place was packed, not even an open parking spot.  People everywhere.  That's normal for a spring break.  Wet Beaver Creek was running real nice.  Spring at the well is always awesome.

I put quite a lot of time into the Volkssport thing yesterday.  It's moving along nicely.  It now appears 100% certain that we will get a club up and running in Idaho Falls this year.  That's good news.

I spent most of the afternoon cutting dead mesquite limbs from trees across the street.  I filled 3 wheel barrows to overflowing with the wood and then processed it down into campfire size pieces.  I then totally rearranged the woodshed and neatly stacked the mesquite next to the juniper.  Hopefully, we will now have enough wood for this visit plus enough to get us rolling next November or December or whenever we show up here again.  There are no firewood sellers out and about right now--they are thick as flies late each year--now they are totally vaporized.  Who's buying firewood now?  Nobody.

Susun and Stasea arrived at 4:15 and we enjoyed a nice afternoon and early evening.  Susun took her to Cornville about 6:30, returning well after dark.  Gary and I visited by firelight for quite awhile.  it was great to see Stasea.  We last saw her in Idaho Falls in the fall of 2008.  However, we hadn't seen her here at the straw house since sometime in the late 1990's.  She's doing great and has all the latest and greatest electronic stuff.  She's visiting friends in the Cottonwood area and will return to spend Friday night here at the Second Chance Ranch.

This morning's been pretty continuous.  Got up at 5:30 and, gee, now it's 8:30 and all I've done is send and receive emails on various volunteer projects.  Writing that snow and water report took a long time, too.  Hopefully, we will be able to go hiking today.

Well, that's all the news I can muster up this morning.  Cheers!  jp

Clear & Sunny

Odd how the weather has been clear and sunny each morning since we showed up here.  A week ago we were scraping ice off the trucks in Fillmore and faced a very dicey day.  Ever since then it's been smooth sailing. We even have a flock of mountain blue birds on the property.  It is too snowy for them to be in the high country.  They are hanging out here just below the Mogollon Rim waiting for the snow to go.  They have a long wait.

The Phoenix daily paper has a big front page story on the water.  Salt River Project is going to have to spill one million acre feet this year!  That's right.  The reservoirs are already full.  Roosevelt reached it's highest level ever.  There's one million acre feet in the snowpack right now and ALL of it is going to have to be spilled downstream. Wild!

Yesterday was another local travel day.  In Idaho Falls, we can shop several stores and perhaps drive maybe 5 miles, never more than 10 in a single day.  Here?  Well, a round trip to Cottonwood is 50 miles.  Yesterday we drove 60 miles because we threw in a side trip to the Village of Oak Creek (it has a Sedona address and Zip code) to get our mail. 

We spent $350 on one of those push-behind weed whackers.  There's no doubt we will need one and I really don't want to borrow Gary's or Brad's.  It's normally $400 at Sears.  We also finally found some generic glyphosate (AKA Roundup) and will begin spraying weeds either today or tomorrow.  We kept yet another appointment, running into Brad and Josh in the Safeway parking lot.  It sure was great to see them.  We might get together today.

Didn't get back home until 4 pm.  Lots of little nit-picky household chores.
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Gee, I started typing this before 8 am and here it is well after 10 am--those nit-picky household chores really DO stack up.  At least the house will look nice when Susun & Stasea arrive early this afternoon.

Keeping Our Appointments

We both really love it when we absolutely KNOW we've kept our appointments and show up at the correct time and place to meet someone or do something.

Here's how we kept a great appointment yesterday. First, we prepared to go to Phoenix. Just before we locked the front door, we thought, "Gee, maybe we should call Home Depot near Anthem and see if they still have the freezer." So, we paused to make the call. Some woman answers Extension #303 and says, "Are you the guy who talked to Jerry Saturday?" Um...well, yeah. "Well, Jerry got it all wrong. We don't have a 5 cubic foot freezer and never had. He looked at the wrong freezer."
Um...well, gee...thanks, I stammer and hang up.

Ok, now what? I sat down outside with the local phone book and began calling all of the appliance listings. One guy told me 5 cubic foot freezers were almost impossible to get because "the factory burned down." That's encouraging. Another woman said, "There's no way we could EVER get you a five footer!" Finally, just because I had run out of phone numbers to call, I called Sears in Cottonwood.

SURPRISE! This guy says, "They just lifted the hold on those freezers and we can sell the one we have in stock." WOW--I hot-footed it over there pronto. While we were loading it up, the guy tells a story. He said there was something wrong with previous 5 cubic foot freezers and they had been recalled or forbidden to sell or something like that. Meanwhile, they got the latest, greatest version of the little freezer in last Thursday but were forbidden to sell it. A notice from "corporate" came in late Saturday that is was "OK" to sell the freezer. I just happened to be the lucky guy that called first about the ONLY 5 cubic foot freezer in stock in this part of America.

OK, so now what? Well, I knew I couldn't levitate the freezer out of the truck by myself so I went to Home Depot to buy two eight foot 2x6's. I would make a safe ramp to slide out the freezer. So, I am walking idly down the main aisle and I hear this voice--PARSONS--the voice calls out real loud. SO I whip around and there is Max Castillo--standing right there just like we had an appointment or something. WOW!

As chance would have it, we were standing right next to some great patio furniture, so we sat down and had ourselves a righteous ol' 30-minute meeting just like it had been scripted or something. Max says he was driving along and saw our old green truck so he went into Home Des-pot (as he calls it) looking for me. Meanwhile, I had been thinking about Max all morning and regretting that Monday was his day off.
I really wanted to see and meet with Max--just like we did in the comfortable confines of Home Depot.

Now, THAT'S keeping our appointments.

Why was meeting with Max so important? Well, we logged over 400 hours volunteering for Max from January-May 2007. Max is Manager of the Arizona State Parks Verde River Greenway. Our volunteer project was to write a canoe paddle guide for a six mile stretch of the river and then to form a "friends" group for the Greenway. (Click here to get the links to see the canoe guide.)

Well, anyway, I have been hoping that I could volunteer again on this trip to do more river guide map making and so forth.  Max had indicated some interest a few weeks back.  Meanwhile Max had a meeting with the Forest Service last week and they pledged their support for an expanded river guide.  The feds also pledged their GIS unit support, too.  This is critical since the GIS unit has been cut from State Parks due to the Arizona budget mess.  So, yes, it was a great meeting and involved my top priority as far as volunteering down here goes.

If Home Depot in Anthem would have had the freezer I would have missed a key appointment here in the Verde Valley.

Spent the remainder of the day shopping in Cottonwood.  Bought various food, etc.  Returned home at 2:30 and got the freezer unloaded, installed and up and running by myself.  Then spent the remainder of the day beginning to make racks for our dutch ovens.  Enjoyed a nice campfire well into the dark hours.  'Twas a great day.

BBB

I guess we've just enjoyed a BBB--BIG BLOG BREAK! There's been no posting since Friday. Nary a word. The spirit has been willing but the fingers have been AWOL.

We got lots done this weekend. Pretty much everything is ship shape. Everything that needed to be assembled has been assembled. All the little nit picky chores are done. Stuff has been made to stand up and salute. Sheds are clean and organized.

Trucks are washed and fueled. Even the chrome wheels on the little truck have been polished! All my tools have been placed in their proper spots, awaiting future duty. Susun even finished the memorial to her Mom, Doris.

I have our mountain bike in tip top shape. The tires have been slimed, and all the bike parts are affixed and tuned. It's ready to roll should the need arise.

It's been more work than we expected. That's usual, I guess. It's been four 9-hour days in a row. Luckily, it hasn't felt like the level of work we had to do last Nov.-Dec.

Now we enter a new phrase of hustle-bustle. Susun leaves early this morning to pick up Stasea at the Phoenix airport. I drive down to NW Phoenix to buy stuff, returning later today. Susun comes back Tuesday or Wednesday. Stasea spends one night here and then one or two nights in Cottonwood. Stasea spends Friday night here. Sarah, Peter and the grandsons show up Saturday morning for breakfast. Stasea joins the family and drives off to The Hogans. We may or may not see Sarah & Family on their return--we hope we do. Meanwhile, Susun then flies to San Diego March 25, returning March 29. That means I have to drive Susun to Mesa March 24 and return to pick up here the following Monday. Hopefully, we will all be back here healthy and happy the evening of March 29.

If that sounds complicated, you're not the only one to think so. I've been trying to understand this schedule for days and daZe. It's already changed a few times and I expect it to change yet once again--probably sooner AND later. I am happy that Susun daughters will be able to visit The Straw House and I'm looking forward to meeting her Grandsons and son-in-law, Peter. I know it's typical that such Family Matters are always in a perpetual state of flux. I just think I need scorecard to see who's on first base and who's up to bat!

Whazzup with a buying trip to Phoenix today? Hum...good question. Well, we've decided to buy a very small freezer so that's the main goal. As you surely expect, however, I will manage to squeeze in a visit to my Holy Grail--Harbor Freight. A guy can never have enough tools, right guys?

I am also going to stop at Fry's Electronics in far Northwest Phoenix. At a bear minimum, I'm going to buy a desktop publishing program but I will probably buy more than that. What happens when you turn a geek loose in an electronics store? Um, well,...use your imagination!

Saturday night we enjoyed yet another campfire. This one was exceptional in that we built and maintained the fire in a 20+ mph wind. I always take a stout wind as a stiff challenge. Who's gonna let a little wind prevent a fire campfire, eh?

Gary & Robin came over for corned beef, cabbage, carrots and camaraderie last night. We have so much fun visiting with them. It's incredible that they wound up being our neighbors. Gary and I have been Dear Friends since the summer of 1980--that will be 30 years this summer--I guess we will have to have some sort of a party before we leave next month to celebrate this factoid.

Well, sorry for the long absence away from the keyboard--I didn't have either time or inclination to sit here at the computer when the weather has been so nice for so long. C-YA soon, jp

Busier Day than anticipated

Yes, it WAS a "user friendly Friday," but it turned out to be far more busy than I had planned. First, I spent a long time roaming El Net looking for information on whazzup with the NPS--our neighbor. I found a 58 page document that finally explains what they are doing out there on the other side of our shared fenceline. Gee, it's a $600,000 project! They say they have a "public outreach" component but they never outreached to us. Oh, well...consider the source.

Dear Friend & Neighbor Gary brought over some real eggs from real chickens and we got to chatting about this and that. One thing led to another and Gary decided to help us get water out of our well. By and by, we fiddled with the wiring and, POOF--water comes jetting out the end of the pipe. No more water thievery needed.

THANK YOU, Gary!

After Gary left, we spent a couple of hours getting TV into the house. Then we unloaded all oru tools out of our tiny attic. Then I assembled that Patio Caddie grill and got it feng shui. By and by the trash company delivered a big trash container for us. Now I won't have to drive off to the dump. Whew.

Well, by and by, I decided to run off to Camp Verde and buy a nice 2x2x3 galvanized cattle tank. Why? Well, when we pump water, the water will have someplace to go--that's why. Then I went to the grocery and spent ten bucks and came home about 5 pm.

We had a nice campfire and enjoyed oysters and crackers for dinner. I finished up the day by visiting with Mr. Freely on the phone. When I am on a nice long call, I sit outside in one of the trucks. Lo and behold this HUGE raccoon ambles in front of the Nissan. it's the biggest coon we've seen since 1996 when we hiked out onto the Pacific Coast beach in the Olympic National Park. They have terrorist coons there. This coon was as big as those terrorists. Scary BIG!

Maggie sent a truly hilarious email about her name. Apparently, she has had similar issues with her name as I have had with Randy (and Rudy, too, by the way).
Maybe she will give me permission to reprint her email in this blog. it's a true hoot. Like I said, Maggie--you get 10 gold stars for that one!

Well, time to trundle off into never, never land. C-YA tomorrow. jp

User Friendly Friday

Do you remember when the term "user friendly" became part of our cultural lingo? I can't remember when it was. It seems like to came about when we started messing with 8-track tapes or cassettes or maybe early answering machines or VCR's. I'm guessing the term is probably 30 years old.

Why's that relevant to this blog post? It just seems like a nice description of our upcoming day today--real user friendly here at Laid Back Randy's. It's so nice not having to face a seemingly endless array of daunting chores, projects, tasks, "must-do" things and so forth.

As we were sitting around our first campfire last night, we both remarked how nice it is to be able to pick and choose what we wish to do. There's no pressure, no deadlines, no "looking over our shoulder," no waiting for the other show to drop. It's very refreshing and somehow the iconic "user friendly" popped into my blogged mind. That term really sums up the relaxed way we went through our day yesterday and plan to go about our day today. Whew, it's been a long time coming!

We were busy throughout the day yesterday but not in a harried or hurried mode.
Both trucks were unpacked. All the food items were arranged nicely in the pantry.
Everything is pretty much in its place. Susun completely redid the bedding. It's lightyears better than it was before. We have a nice heated mattress pad. If you've never used one, they are a real treat--so much better than an electric blanket.

I did have a fleeting moment of mild paranoia yesterday. I stole some water. Yes, it's true, I am now a broad daylight water thief! I put our four empty water containers in the truck and headed over to Montezuma Well National Monument to obtain our non-culinary water. Opps, the ditch wasn't running and the spigots are still shut because of freezing temps.

What to do? I went back to the house and grabbed a hose and headed off in search of a spigot. I found one on the backside of the C-store near the post office. I debated whether to do inside and ask permission or possibly offer to pay for the 20 gallons. Hum....what if they said no? It was late in the day and my options were slim and none. So, I just hooked up the hose, filled the bottles and hot-footed it out of there. I imagined someone running from the back of the store--"STOP, THIEF, STOP!" Luckily, no such thing happened. I will go in today and (hopefully) make proper arrangements for future water withdrawals.

It was great to get a campfire up and running again. There's really nothing like the smell of juniper smoke wafting over a landscape. It's quintessentially southwest--right up there with Kokopelli, lizards and kerchief-clad coyotes.

As you can tell, there's not a whole heck of a lot going on here at The 2nd Chance Ranch!

One last tidbit: this morning's paper says Flagstaff's 138 inches of snow ranks #11 on the "all time" list. There is speculation that a Top Five finish might be possible. I will probably write a longer post about this on the Arizona Snowbirds blog.

Have a great day! j&s

Today

Dawn of a New Day

So great to wake up here this morning. The storm is long gone and the skies are crystal Arizona Blue Bird late winter azure. If you could bottle this blue or put it on a ring finger...

Believe it or not, our first daily newspaper showed up in front of the house about 630 am this morning. Yep, The Arizona Republic got it right! Susun is now in her reading repose mode.

There's also nothing like real java perked on a gas stove top to fill the straw house with the wonderful aroma that only coffee can exude. We've opened up all the shutters and the sun is streaming into the house.

There was a very hard frost last night--I'm guessing the overnight lows were in the mid-20's here, maybe lower--thick ice on windshields.

Nothing on the property was molested in our absence. It's just like we left it yesterday. That's a big relief. It's so nice to look around and not see huge expensive, time-consuming projects staring you in the face.

Gary and Robin came to visit in the fading dusk last night. They were taking their two Rhodesian Ridgebacks for their evening walk. It was so fun to visit with them.
A light rain came down as we stood on the ramada giggling and swapping stories. We had a long talk with Mr. Freely, too, last night. I don't know if we could have made this trip without his help. He truly was an awesome Air Traffic Controller for us. We must have exchanged at least 50 texts between his email and our cell phone--maybe more, who knows?

Anything we do today will seem like we are slackers compared to the past few days. We plan on kicking back, unpacking at a slow pace and doing real minimal chores.

As we were passing through Kanab yesterday, we noticed a new kinda, sorta food/coffee place. It had a great big sign announcing that it was "LAID BACK LARRY's" place and the subtitle was "Chilling since 1949." The signs and building were decorated with the obligatory lizards, petroglyphs, kokopellis and other pseudo hip motifs.

Well, it got me to thinking. I'll bet none of you know the name of my youth was Randy. No kidding. My middle name is Randolph so my parents named me Randy. I spent 18 years of my life known as Randy. As soon as I turned 18, I changed it to my first name--John. ALL of the people in my hometown still call me Randy. My Mom calls me Randy. I lead a double life--Randy by Indiana and John everywhere else.

Well, after I saw Larry's place yesterday it got me thinking, maybe I should call this place, "Laid Back Randy's--Chilling since 1947!" Gee, now if I can only paint some hip motifs on our house walls...nah, Susun would string me up.

Well, ya'll have yerselfs a righteous nice lil ol' day and enjoy Many Cheers! (Laid Back Randy)

Online in Arizona

Wow, what a day! Bottom Line: We're Online Again. It's nearing 10 pm MST and I'm bushed. Going to bed now. I've done some righteous hand-to-hand combat with Qwest Tech Support to get reconnected here. Obviously we got 'er done. Long story.

Meanwhile the day's drive was off the charts. The last couple of hours was totally white knuckle to the Nth degree. We're danged lucky to be here in one piece.

We got all our infrastructure up and running and ate a real meal cooked on a real gas stove. Life is good.

It's winter down here--no kidding.

Well, lots more tomorrow--we're safe and tucked into snuggies. Many Cheers, jp

Time to go

Took about an hour to scrape and free up the trucks. The camper shell locks were frozen and I had to thaw them with hot water. Major work this morning--and without coffee, even. We walked over and looked at the old statehouse. Now it's time to go. I got a snippet of great news--Idaho Volunteer, Inc. is now a "certifying organization" for teh Presidential Volunteer Service Awards--this is a big deal!
Well, off into the snowy overcast yonder. Cheers! J&S

The Decision Making Process begins

Okie, dokie, folks, here we are again--Stay?  Or go?  If go, when?  If stay, why?  Decisions, decisions, decisions!

Here are the basic facts.  There is light snow and overcast conditions in Fillmore.  The temp is just below freezing.  There's a LOT of ugly rock solid snow frozen stiff in the parking lot.  The trucks are encrusted and probably "frozen in place."  Way off a few miles distant, I can see the faint pinpricks of headlights moving south on I-15.  So, we know the interstate is open and flowing, as they say.

Here is what the SLC NWS wonks had to say in their 5 am chit chat: DISCUSSION...THE CLOSED LOW HAS MOVED OFF INTO NEW MEXICO THIS MORNING AND PRECIP DIRECTLY RELATED TO THIS FEATURE HAS ENDED. HOWEVER...CONSIDERABLE LOW LEVEL MOISTURE PERSISTS ACROSS THE CWA WITH EXTENSIVE LOW CLOUDINESS OVER AND WEST OF THE HIGHER TERRAIN AS WELL AS OVER THE SOUTHEAST. LIGHT SNOW OR FLURRIES HAVE BEEN FALLING OUT OF THIS AS NOTED ON CAMERAS AND IN A FEW OBS BUT THIS IS NOT EXPECTED TO AMOUNT TO ANYTHING. (They type in ALL CAPS, sorry 'bout that.)

Radar confirms the storm is gone. Meanwhile, the high temp here is progged in the low 40's.  The webcam on Utah 20 is dead.  The webcam on I-70 shows a fairly knarly scene. That's about the sum of what we know--other than the fact we haven't had coffee yet.

Let's now enter the realm of speculation.  Utah's highway people (AKA: UDOT) are really, really good about plowing and cindering. They really pride themselves on their aggressive approach to snow and ice.  Meanwhile, you have to realize that I-15 is MAJOR long haul route and serves 4 out of 5 of all the people in Utah!  Utah 20, is the major link to get truck traffic into Arizona via Panguitch and Page to I-40 at Flagstaff.

There's NO way UDOT will have a bunch of jack-knifed tractor-trailer rigs blocking the Utah 20 summit at 7900 feet.  Nope, not with this long a time period to plow and cinder.

Right now, I favor the "GO" mode.  The hard work is going to be cleaning ice and snow off the trucks and getting loose from the stuff here in the parking lot.  If it's progged to be in the 40's today, it's going to start warming up pretty pronto.  All we need is temps in the mid-30's to be home free.  We're going to presume UT 20 is well cindered by now and safe.  We still have to option of adding an hour to the trip by heading east on I-70 23 miles and then south on historic US 89 through Big Rock Candy Mountain Country along the Sevier River through Butch Cassady's birthplace and onto to Big Fish, Utah (AKA: Panguitch).

The Los Alamitos Traffic Circle

John, what in the world is the above picture doing in your blog? Is the Los Alamitos Traffic Circle located in Fillmore? Or Utah? What's going on here?

Naturally, I'd like to tell you a story. One of the many "fun things" about a road trip is the learning, education and downright mind expansion that goes on as one traverses wide swaths of geography. Being the inquisitive sort, I am always curious as to "this and that."

This morning, it's still snowing and Susun is still sleeping. We finally figured out how to get the room heater to work well and it's nice and toasty. With so much time on my hands, I figured I might as well learn some stuff. So, I began by Googling Interstate 15. It was once US Highway 91. I was looking for a way to interpret the Spinning Wheel motel in context of how people traveled what's now called OLD US Highway 91. Main Street in Fillmore was once a busy highway.

My online research took me through a lot of highway history. It seems that Old US 91 once terminated at a place called the Los Alamitos Traffic Circle in Long Beach, California. It was built in 1930 in preparation for the 1932 Olympics and was the first major "roundabout" constructed in America. I became fascinated with this traffic circle and went looking for any historical photos I could find.

That's how I stumbled onto Nikolas Schiller. Who's he? Well, he appears to be the most avant garde cartography I have ever encountered. His work is really "out there" and it's totally amazing stuff. Click here to read a 2007 Washington Post article about the guy. Imagine Martin Escher Meets Google Maps. Anyway, that's how the beautiful artwork above wound up on this lowly blog. Click here to go to Schiller's blog.  It has more of his maps and the right hand sidebar has links to other major media articles about him. You can bet I will be spending a lot more time looking at Schiller's "art maps."

As most of you know, Susun and I have a HUGE soft spot for maps in our lives. We both share a common passion and love for maps of all kinds. One of our many mottos might be "Too many maps is not enough!" So it is with particularly ironic that I "discovered" Schiller sitting here in a snowbound motel on Old US 91. Fillmore will never quite the same again. Ah, the webs we weave here in The Spinning Wheel Motel!

Well, that's just a tangent story--but that's the fun sort of stuff we love about traveling. Somehow, odd connections get made and strange thing get discovered. Interesting ideas are pondered and mysterious questions posed. Travel is good for your brain. Do it more often.

Here's a story. So, we're kicking back and enjoying Happy Hour here in downtown Fillmore, right smack across from the county seat itself. Susun bought herself a USA Today back in Scipio and so she's way happy. I got WIFI so I'm way happy--how much better can it get? OK, so I decide to check email, it's an upstanding American thing to do. Brush yer teeth and check yer email--you know how that goes. So I check the email and, Sarah sent a great photo of The Boys Gage & Van At Play in a San Diego Park. Oh, Susun was really excited. It was so fun to be able to pivot the laptop and show it to her right in her "reading position." Ah, the wonders of technology! How did we manage to survive road trips back in the Jack Kerouac Daze of Number 2 pencils?

Snappy Ain't so Snappy

Snappy's gotta be a little grumpy tonight! We're watching local TV here in Fillmore--actually the local TV is from Salt Lake, Cedar City and St. George. Get this--Beaver got 13 inches of snow! WOW--that's only 60 miles from Fillmore. We are so danged glad we didn't go there. THANK YOU, Mr. Freely for helping us out today. AWESOME!

(Edited later in the evening) It's after 8 pm and still snowing hard. NWS Doppler radar shows NOTHING here but I can tell you it's snowing HARD here. If this keeps up, we're gonna be here another night--no doubt about it.

It's funny, the Salt Lake Metroplex was mostly dry. We had some light rain here and there but nothing significant. It was dry in Nephi, too. Only when we got about 20-30 miles south of Nephi did it turn terrible. We passed three rollovers within a half mile at Mile Post 206 and then saw another two rollovers at Milepost 196. We were almost the first on teh scene at the 196 rollovers. Luckily, a tow truck driver was first and he was helping the injured out of their vehicles. We kept on driving as our double rig would have created a problem if we tried to park it beside the road.

Visibility had generally been about 5 miles but started dropping rapidly as we progressed south. It soon became a mile and then a half mile and finally a few hundred yards. The snow started swirling and I could feel a slight loss of traction on the freezing road surface. That's when we decided to "bag it" and head for safety in Fillmore.

Territorial Capitol

Here's the Crown Jewel of Fillmore. Click here for the Wiki on this building. 
You can Google up a lot of stuff on Fillmore.  Apparently there's a huge mushroom operation here.  Cambodians and Vietnamese apparently provide the worker-bee power to operate the place!  Click here for the article where I found this factoid.

Spinning Wheel Motel

Here's some shots of the Spinning Wheel Motel.

Deano's Pizza

Our Dear Friend Deano must be following us.  He opened up a pizza shop in Fillmore.  Maybe we will go see what Deano's serving tonight!

Welcome to Fillmore

Here we be in Fillmore, Utah.  The pix pretty much tell the story.  More later.  We're safe and sound and tucked into a nice room at the Spinning Wheel Motel--right smack across from the Courthouse @ 65 S. Main St.  $30 a night.

Hitched and ready to go

All we have to do now is blow the pipes.  We're probably gonna be outta here before 9 am.  Yeah, it's later than we wished but, hey, it's all good.  jp