Vermillion Flycatcher

It might not be a white Christmas but I did find some pretty red.  This flycatcher is such a bright color he's hard to miss.  These guys like to hang out down by the Colorado River where there are lots of bugs to eat.  We have friends that stay at Hidden Shores campground.  Its a campground that is privately run but is on BLM land right along the river next to the Imperial Dam.  This is the same area we've seen the long curved bill curlews looking for a meal.   It would be nice to stay at a campground like this that overlooks the river but it draws too many young people from California.  They just want to run the river in big loud boats or run their ATVS around camp. 

We have enjoyed a couple of Christmas parties with lots of good food.  I also got to enjoy a few days off where I just did some fun cooking. relaxing and reading.   Visiting friends and sending and receiving cards, emailing, texting and phoning loved ones and friends makes it easier to be so far away but still in touch.  Merry Christmas!

Pictures from earlier travels

 

 

 

I sent out my Christmas letter and put photos on the back.  I was able to send them to everyone on my list this year because I found a less expensive way to make lots of copies.  Anyone that has printed pictures with their printer knows how much expensive ink it takes.  I used the local UPS store to make copies and I got a small discount through working at Al's.  They gave me some pointers on how to have even better quality pictures on my copies next year. 

 

These two pictures that are in the letter were from our stop in the Black Hills on the way south this fall.  The pronghorn seem to like to pose for pictures but the coyotes were very busy looking for a meal.  When we got to the prairie dog village it was obvious that the coyotes needed to thin that population out a little.   Coyotes get a bum rap because they also prey on loose small dogs and cats and small farm animals.  They do play an important role in keeping certain small wild animal populations in check.  I would never get close to a cute little prairie dog because bubonic plague loves to hang out in these groups. 

 

We enjoyed fall colors on our trip south and now it feels like fall in Yuma.  There is some fall color with a few kinds of trees turning orange.  Christmas is coming fast and I don't need snow and cold for it to feel like the season!  

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Hummingbirds

I have a hummingbird feeder staked in the ground next to this ocotillo bush.  This Anna Hummingbird pretty much guards the feeder all day.  He fights with other hummingbirds that try to drink out of it.  Hummingbirds are pretty fearless.  This guy doesn't care if I get close.  He only gets upset with me when I'm trying to refill it then he buzzes me until I'm done.   The Yuma area has six different kinds of hummingbirds that hang out here in the winter.  Up north we only ever see ruby-throated ones so its neat to see the different kinds.

We seem to be fighting low water pressure.  The folks in charge of the local water system say they will have the system back up to full pressure by the beginning of this week.  They say its a combination of reasons that cause the low pressure.  The sudden influx of snowbirds, all of the farm fields that need irrigation, aging pipes that are leaking and breaking, etc. etc.   The water's not that great anyway -- very hard and salty.  We buy drinking water and have a little portable water softener hooked up to our water line so we've learned how to live with it.  

Dust and Fruit

I tried to get a picture of the dust filled cloud. You will just have to believe me that you could see the orange dust just loaded up in the clouds.  If it did rain -- it would rain dirt -- which is what it does here.  Thankfully it doesn't rain very often.  The other picture I took from our backyard was the neighbors' grapefruit tree.  The grapefruit should be ripe in a few weeks.  The owner of our rental lot brought us some fresh picked dates from a guy they know that has some date palms in his yard.  They were very good - soft and chewy and sweet.

We had a nice Thanksgiving having a nice meal by ourselves.  I made too much food so we had plenty to eat for awhile.   We've been out gold mining and have found a tiny bit.  While we were out in a slot canyon other folks came out to practice their shooting.   Its public land so its legal but I don't know why anyone would want to shoot into rock.  The chance for ricochets is high.   We will keep mining for gold until it rains then we will be done for awhile.  We need the exercise so hopefully it won't rain. 

Orange Skies and Gold Dirt

Sunsets have been beautiful with nice orange skies because of all the dust in the air.  I love palm trees because it reminds of how warm it is here 70's during the day and 50's at night.  They are also nice and green on top and its nice to see some green around here.  It rained a few drops so it might have knocked some of the dust out of the air.  We finally bought a small air cleaner for the RV and I've already noticed a difference.

We've managed to get out and do a little gold prospecting and ran some dirt through our dry washer.  I was very excited to find a small piece of gold in my pan that actually made a clink when we put it in the little glass vial.  Now we have to wait to go out until after the Thanksgiving holiday because too many people will be camped out where we look for gold.

More people are coming down every week but its still not very crowded.  Lots of empty spaces in the RV parks and lots of RV lots for rent in the foothills area where we are. 

Moon over the Gila Mountains

The view to the east from our lot is of the Gila mountains.  You have to come through them following I-8 over telegraph pass to get to Yuma.  They aren't very high -- only about 3,000 feet high but they look very tall because Yuma is a sea level.   I tried to get a shot of the supermoon.  It was pretty but not very super.  
We went out gold prospecting for the first time this season.  We tried some BLM land close to a gun range.  We didn't really find anything -- two small specks -  and decided we didn't like being surrounded by gun fire so we packed up and went back home.   We will be trying again in a different area where we have had more luck.  At least we know our equipment still works after being stored for the summer. 

Al's RV in Yuma

 

 

 

I threw in a few pictures from Rocky Mountain National Park since they were so pretty.


I have no pictures of Al's RV in Yuma.  Its the place I'm working for the winter.  Its a nice place to work and has a great selection of RV parts to repair just about anything on or in your RV.  The website is www.alsrv.com  The owners have two stores one in Yuma and one in Glendale by Phoenix. 

Many people come in to the store to find out about Reverse Osmosis (RO) water filtration.  The water in Yuma is salty and the only thing that takes the salt out is reverse osmosis.  We sell small RO systems for RV's.  The only drawback to them is it takes 4 gallons of water to make one gallon of RO water so it wastes a lot of water.  Some people try to save the waste water to use to water trees.  There are places all over where you can buy drinking water for 50 cents for 5 gallons so I think its cheaper to just buy drinking water instead of installing an expensive RO system but some people get tired of hauling water.    

Its still quite warm here -- in the high 80's which is warmer than normal even for Yuma. 

Our Winter Home

We found a nice RV lot to rent in the foothills area of Yuma.  It is so much quieter here than in an area RV park.  All of the parks are between the freeway and the railroad tracks.  Our lot is several miles away from both on a fairly quiet street.  Of course most of the snowbirds haven't come down yet so we shall see how noisy and busy our new neighborhood gets. 

There is a small shed behind us with a wash machine in it for us to use.  There is  a clothesline to use as a "solar" dryer.  We did a small load of clothes and hung them out to dry.  It was 92 very dry degrees today so the clothes dried within an hour.   We also have a small palm tree in one corner of our lot.  The owners planted it two years ago from a tiny seedling.  We have a Mexican brick wall all around the lot and a large rolling gate to drive through  and two small walk-in gates.  The lot is weed free and nice and level.   The lot space has room for two rigs so we will have a neighbor soon.    

Black Mountains

 

We spent more time in New Mexico than we had planned.  We ended up needing more than new shocks put on the RV we also needed the wheel bearings replaced.  So we took a few little road trips around the area as long as we had time.  One of our favorite little trips is a drive up into the Black Mountains.  It is just west of Elephant Butte and about 4000 more feet up.  At the top you are at  almost 8000 feet.  This is part of the Gila National Forest and there are lots of forest roads and trails to explore. 

We took a short hike along one of the forest service roads and came across a javelina (a kind of wild pig).  I didn't have a camera so no picture.  We left quickly since they can be unpredictable.   We also saw some mule deer.  As we were about to leave two guys pulling a camper pulled in where we were and said they were going to camp on the spot and hunt elk.  They had luck in the past bagging an elk in the same area so they were hoping to get lucky again.   We let them know about the javelina we saw but they didn't seem too concerned. 

We finally got the work done on the RV and hit the road. Now we are happily in Yuma, AZ where we will spend the winter. 

Elephant Butte Reservoir 2016

What a difference in the water level from our first winter here in Elephant Butte.  When we were here in 2008 the water level on the butte was all the way up to the top white line.  Now you can see three layers of water lines.  This one marina had two long docks to get out to it.  Now you can see one of the docks is totally out of the water.  They keep letting water out of the dam here to feed it to the farmers down river who have chili pepper fields and pecan tree farms that need water. 

Friends that live here year round said that on the major holidays this summer 90,000 people converged on this little town to enjoy the lake.  With so little water left its hard to imagine thousands of boats, houseboats, sailboats and jet skis out there.  We've been here for almost two weeks and the weather has been perfect.  Sunny and low 80's with no wind is hard to beat.  Yuma is still in the mid 90's and we should be "enjoying" the heat there by the end of the week. 

Fall colors in Southern Colorado

We left Fort Collins, Co and headed south past Denver and Colorado Springs.  We stopped in Colorado City just south of Pueblo.  We stayed at the nicest KOA campground we have stayed at in a long time.  We spent two days there so we could take a drive up into the mountains.  We also stayed because the wind kicked up and there were gusts up to 50 miles an hour.  You don't want to be on the road with an RV in those kind of winds. 

The road we took was a scenic byway through a national forest and it turned out to be a very beautiful drive with good fall color.  It was mostly aspen trees and pines so lots of yellow but some orange and some of the grasses were colorful.   We got to wondering how many state and national forests we driven in with all the traveling we've done.  Someday I'll have to try and figure it out. 

We are now in Elephant Butte, NM and the water level in the reservoir is the lowest we've seen it.  We'll be getting some new shocks put on the 5th wheel and then be heading into Arizona. 

Rocky Mountain National Park

From the Black Hills we went down into Colorado and stayed in Fort Collins.  We found a nice KOA there and drove about an hour up to Rocky Mountain National Park outside of Estes Park.  We hit it just right to enjoy fall colors and the elk in full rut.  This bull elk was bellering/bugling trying to maintain his turf and harem.  There was another male elk that this guy chased off after taking him on in a fight.  The other elk lost one of his big long antlers in the tussle. 

We drove up to the Alpine Visitor center which sits at almost 13,000 feet.  There is a hiking path there that you can follow up to the very top of the mountain at almost 14,000 feet.  We didn't try it having not had much chance to adjust to the altitude we didn't want to get the headache and blue lips from altitude sickness.  We got to see and touch some snow and enjoy some beautiful fall colors in the mountains. 

Now we are in Colorado City -- a tiny town on I-25 in the southern part of the state.  We are heading into New Mexico next. 

Big Horns and Big Waterfalls

We drove over to Spearfish Canyon on the west side of the Black Hills.   The canyon was beautiful with lots of fall color.  At the end of the drive is Roughlock Falls.  It was so beautiful and it had plenty of water spilling down because it had just rained two nights ago.  It was so worth the drive to see.  Then on the way back to camp we went through the towns of Lead and Deadwood and there just outside of Deadwood was this group of Bighorn Sheep.  Half of them had crossed the road and gone up the bluff but there were still a half a dozen that wanted to cross the road.  There was a sign about a half mile farther down the road stating watch for Bighorns crossing the road.  The sign was just a little too late.  

We had to have a front hub and assembly replaced on the truck.  Something to do with the 4wheel drive that we almost never use.  It was making a terrible squeaking noise and the guy said eventually the wheel would have locked up if we didn't have it replaced  Don't need that kind of excitement on the road.  We are for sure headed to Wyoming now and then down through Colorado. 

Black Hills Elk

We traveled from Bemidji, MN down the east side of North and South Dakota.  It was so nice to travel good roads with little traffic and almost no road construction.  We would have had to fight bumpy roads, lots of traffic and loads of road construction if we had gone south through Minnesota.  We then cut across South Dakota and are spending time in the Black Hills.  We've been driving through Custer State Park early in the mornings and have been seeing all kinds of wildlife.  We were even lucky enough to see this herd of Elk as we drove the Wildlife Loop road through the park.  The big guy in the center of the photos was obviously the top bull.  He chased all the other males out of his way.

We also saw lots of pronghorn antelope, deer and mule deer, mountain bluebirds, western meadowlarks, a badger, lots of cute little black tailed prairie dogs, wild burros and buffalo.  I really don't like the wild burros.  They hang out on the road hoping you will feed them.  They don't want to move out of the way so I just collapsed the mirrors on the truck and crept through the throng.  They will move when forced.    We aren't sure how long we will hang around here but when we decide to move we will probably head over to Wyoming and then down through Colorado.  If the weather hold out.

Paul Bunyan & Friends

 

 

 

Our first stop on our slow journey south is Bemidji.  We didn't go very far but we've never really explored the area west of Lake Winnibigosh.   The resort we are staying at is on Cass Lake and is very nice.  Its right off of Highway 2 -- the highway that goes all the way across the top of the U.S.  Bemidji is a nice small town that is growing quickly.   We had to go see Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.  The statues are in a little park right along the shoreline of Lake Bemidji.  There is a cute visitor center with more of "Paul's stuff" -- a huge ax, a huge fishing pole, a big long rifle that took up most of a wall.  It was fun to see what they came up with to show off his big size."

We walked around the "downtown area".  They have statues on the corners of all kinds of crazy things.  I took a picture of Humpty-Dumpty.  The statues were for sale at crazy expensive prices.  I doubt many will sell.  We will be heading out to the Dakotas next. 

Rainy Lake Walleyes

We went fishing up on Rainy Lake.  Its about a 40 mile drive from Kabetogama to the Rainy Lake visitor center where the boat launch is for the part of Rainy Lake that we like to fish.  We both caught very nice walleyes in the 22 to 24 inch size.  They are such a pretty color coming out of Rainy.  This size walleye has to go back in the water but we didn't mind -- they were so pretty.  We did catch a smaller walleye that we kept and ate -- one last walleye sandwich -YUM.

We are heading out of the area on Wednesday if the weather cooperates.  We will be spending a few days in Bemidji on Cass Lake and then we will be heading over to North Dakota.  We've decided that its not worth driving through the Twin Cities and going through all the road construction.   So we will be going through the Dakotas.  We will eventually end up in Yuma, Arizona for the winter.

Voyageur Sunrise Resort

I took some pictures of the resort that is next door to the one we are working at this summer.  I was surprised at how big it is. They have 15 cabins and 24 RV sites and enough dock spaces for all of the sites in a nice little canal and two huge docks.  There is a walking bridge up over the little canal.  You can see the green netting of the bridge in the picture.  Its a nice resort but we wouldn't want to work there because it has too many cabins to clean.  Most of the RV sites are for seasonal people -- they stay all summer -  there are only 4 sites for overnight RVs.
You can sure tell its getting toward the end of the season.  It has gotten very slow with very few guests staying at any of the resorts in the area not just ours.  Since it is so slow we get to leave a week earlier than we planned which is always nice.  We get anxious to move on after so many months in one place. 

Beautiful Views

Sunrises here are very pretty and so are the views from different islands and resorts around the lake.  Some people that stay at the resort can't get enough of the view even if its just a glimpse of the lake while others complain that they really can't see anything and aren't happy because they don't have a panoramic view right from their RV or cabin.    Each resort has good and bad views from cabins so you have to be careful when you book if you really want an outstanding view right from your cabin. 

We have had lots of people passing through checking out Voyageur National Park even though they don't understand its all about the water.  We've gotten good at asking the guests --RV'ers and those staying in cabins - if they have a plan -- have they signed up for a boat tour or do they need help figuring out what to see.  If they don't have a plan some of them have ended up in the resort for several days complaining that there is nothing to do or see.  Yikes!

IW Stevens Resort

The National Park Service put in a dock and some paths through an old resort on Stevens Island.
  I.W. Stevens moved to the island in the 1930's and built a resort.  He lived there year round until 1979.  The island still has the buildings of the resort on it.  This was one of the old cabins.  It was big and inside was all wood floors, walls and ceilings.  Everything had been stripped out but it was still in good shape.   When this was an active resort IW Stevens offered guests a sauna and there was a generator building so there was some kind of power. 

The views from the island were beautiful.  We could picture staying in one of the cabins back in the day and enjoying the views.  We had been past this area a zillion times in our boat and never knew it was here.  We saw the write up in the newspaper and went to find it.  The Park Service has put in a picnic area and some toilets so with the dock its a very nice place to stop. 

Pat Smith Island

This is Pat Smith Island.  Its on the far east side of Namakan Lake.  Its about a 40 minute boat ride from where we are staying.  If you look close in the top photo -- on top of the rock in the center of the picture is a tiny spike sticking up.  This is a spike marking the border between the US and Canada.  The border is north of the island in the middle of the lake so they put the spikes in the nearest land which happens to be this island.  We like fishing in this area because we usually have pretty good luck. 

The island has a campsite on it which means there is a wilderness toilet.  We stop at the island to take advantage of it once in awhile.  The last time we were on the island it was covered in ripe blueberries.  I picked a bunch and ate a bunch.  I wasn't big on blueberries but once I had the wild ones I discovered I really like them. 

We are busy working or fishing -- that seems to be our life right now.  Trying to get in as much fishing as possible because we don't fish in the winter. 

Pelican Love

We've been enjoying some great weather Finally!  Its been a little on the warm side but we aren't complaining.  The water has warmed up to 75 degrees which is pretty good up here.  We've been fishing our hearts out on our days off and doing pretty well.  We enjoyed some walleye dinners and even put some fish in the freezer. 

The resort has been busy but now its starting to slow down a little.  We are getting quite a few RVs in for a few days at a time.  Many of them are going across the northern part of the country visiting national parks.  They come from Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and stop here to visit Voyageur National Park and then move on to Isle Royal and the Apostle Islands.   Most of them sign up for the boat tours of the lake that the Park Service offers.  The tours are very popular and  sell out.  Luckily there are some private boat tours available that are almost better because they stop at more places.   We still have a few things around the lake that we haven't seen -- we've been too busy fishing!

Showy Pink Lady Slippers

The Minnesota state flower is this lovely pink lady slipper.  They are hard to find in the wild.  These were growing in a flower box in the front of the little general store and gas station at the turn off from highway 53 to Lake Kabetogama.  I've only seen one in the wild once over on Gunflint Lake on the Gunflint Trail out of Grand Marais.  We have seen the little yellow lady slippers growing in the wild up here but they don't compare to the showy pink ones. 

We just had two busy weeks with the resort full.  Most of the guests were a group of Mennonites from Indiana.  They were part of the Newmar corporation.  This is the Mennonite owned company that makes Newmar motorhomes -- very high end RV's.   Half of them had Newmar motorhomes and half stayed in cabins.  They decided that they needed one more boat so everyone could fish comfortably so they just went to the local boat dealer and bought one.    We never saw a group that loved junk food as much as they did.  They took bags full of every kind of candy, chips and other sugary treats out on their boats.  The women did tons of laundry (at 6.50 per wash and dry) and they used every towel in the cabins every day so we were doing tons of laundry as well.   They were very nice but they kept us hopping so we were glad to see them leave.

My Strawberry Moon

The night of the "strawberry moon" I got this shot of the sunset setting the clouds below the moon on fire.  Actually we haven't  seen much of the moon or blue sky for that matter.  Its been raining off and on all month.  I got this picture of the rain headed toward us from across the lake.  We don't remember being in this much rain before up here in the past.  We get rain coming up from the Dakotas as well as coming down from the northwest out of Canada.  It doesn't seem fair to get it from two different directions.  Needless to say we haven't gotten in much fishing.

The EPA paid the resort a visit.  Up on the cliffside where we are parked the owner was clearing trees, etc. to make room for more campground.  Well its a bluff overlooking the lake on the border of a national park so the EPA got very excited about the storm water runoff from the cleared area.  They made the owner stabilize the whole area by planting grass and putting more barriers down to try to stop the water runoff.  It didn't really stop the runoff because it rained so hard the other day that it was like a waterfall with rapids running down the cliffside from all directions.    Of course one cabin owner at the bottom isn't happy with water collecting in his garage.

Fried Walleye

We got out fishing and Jim managed to catch all the fish.  He caught a nice sauger and a keeper walleye.  The sauger has spots on its dorsal fin and no white spot on the tail.  Walleye have the white spot on the tail.  There is a hybrid called a saugeye but if it has the white spot it will be considered a walleye.  This makes a difference when you can only keep 4 walleye and 2 sauger but you could keep 6 sauger.    Most of the state has a 6 walleye limit but here on these border lakes the limit is 4.  It doesn't matter to us because 2 fish were more than enough for a nice fried fish dinner.  Normally, we put them on the grill in some foil with butter and salt and pepper but we had a yen for fried.  It was delicious.

It doesn't seem to want to quit raining up here.  Rain and wind and mostly cool weather have been the norm but now its getting very humid so it feels very warm.  We don't mind the heat so much but it makes cleaning more difficult when the toilets start to sweat.  At least the mosquitos haven't been too bad yet!

Pretty Feathered Friends

We were out on the lake fishing and got to gawk at some cool birds.  It was really neat to watch the pair of eagles.  They were busy fishing along with us.   They just sit up in the tree and look down in the water.  As soon as a fish gets too close to the surface they just swoop down and grab it out of the water.  These two will squawk at you if you catch something.  They expect you to give up your catch to them.   We didn't catch a fish close to them so we didn't get to hear them beg for our fish.

This Merganser just had all of these little ducklings.  They were less than a week old and so cute stuffed underneath her.  The biggest duckling rested a little apart from the group.  He didn't need to snuggle up as close as the rest for warmth and protection because of his size.   Mother merganser went to the water and the ducklings just followed right behind.  It was amazing to watch the littlest ones go in last but take off like a shot once they were in the water.