Things are looking good

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 From the last posting I showed this bush from 6 inch sticks to almost full grown.  Now it is blooming and the blooms last for weeks.  Also, the most beautiful butterfly was getting some nectar from the blooms.  We both enjoy all the wildlife we see here.  We have had a coyote and javelina skirt the house.  The roadrunner comes through looking for a lizard meal.  The quail come by with their half grown babies.  The deer come through once in awhile.  So far the scary things like snakes and a gila monster have only been seen down by the pool area.  I am sure the water attracts them.  That is why we don't want a fountain in our yard.  We have enough trouble with rodents getting under the house.  These manufactured homes are set on top of a  three or foot deep whole.  The utilities are then run under the house.  

We had our shed rebuilt.  All of the siding and trim were taken off.  The handyman that did the work posted it on facebook.  He used it to advertise his business.  I shared the photo on facebook and then put it on my page.  He put all new siding and trim plus added flashing to the bottom so water doesn't pool at the base of the trim.  Jim and I painted it all.  We should not have anymore problems with rotting wood.  This avoids another problem as well--- termites.  They like wet wood.  

Bird of Paradise

 When we moved in to our house we noticed that the flowering shrubs in the yard hadn't been trimmed in awhile if ever.  We had the landscape guy/jack of all trades come over and trim them up.  He had to cut the Bird of Paradise down to a stump because it wasn't doing well.  After only 5 weeks it has come back with a vengeance.  It is now over three feet tall and looking very healthy.  Our lot is covered in pea gravel and the landscape guy treated it with a preemergent weed killer guaranteed for six months.  If a weed shows up he will take care of it.  

He was over the other day to look at fixing our shed that has some water damage and he noticed a weed.  Looking at it more closely he said it was a new Bird of Paradise coming up that must have germinated on its own from our bush.   It is in a good location so I said to leave it and we will see how well it grows.

We have been driving back and forth to Yuma.  Our truck is being repaired in Yuma where our RV is still parked.  We've been driving rental cars and using the time to move stuff out of the RV and put in the house.  It is amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in a small space.  

Cactus in our yard

 We have these lovely cacti in our yard.  I haven't found out the name of the one with the orange flowers.  The one in the bottom picture is called "old man on the mountain".  It gets all these fine white hairs covering it.  So far they are small and out of the way so we won't get poked or stabbed accidently.  As we walk around the neighborhood we have seen so many different varieties of cacti.  You just can't believe there are so many different kinds and each kind has a different color and shape bloom.  

Since this is Tucson and we are next to Saguaro National Park there are a lot of saguaro cactus in our neighborhood.  Those are the ones with the arms.  They are finally starting to get buds on them and will start blooming soon.  A gal from Saguaro National Park came and gave a talk about the park at our rec center.  It was very interesting to learn about all the wildlife in the area as well as learning more about the cactus.  

New House

 We have been so busy moving into our new place that I haven't taken time until now to put up some pictures.  We bought a manufactured home in a gated community in Tucson.  It is the nicest community we found in all of our searching.  All the properties are well kept and all look new even if they aren't.  There is an HOA but it is very reasonable and they actually spend the money on upkeep of the roads, common spaces, community center, pool and other amenities.  

As you can see from the picture the truck just fits in the carport.  We are hoping to get a different truck --something a little smaller once we are more settled.  We have some views of the mountains that are around us and the sunsets have been beautiful.  We wish we had more time to explore the area right outside the community because it is federal land with lots of hiking and atv trails.  We are too busy cleaning and getting the place ready for new flooring.  Maybe by this fall we will be able to get out.  It is starting to warm up here and soon it will be too hot to do much outside.   

We are starting to learn Tucson not having ever spent a lot of time in this area before now.  There is  a lot of traffic but we are learning what roads to take and which ones to avoid especially at rush hour.   

The house next door

 We have been watching them build a house next door to us.  It is amazing how quickly they can get walls built and raised.  The guys walk across the top of narrow boards like they are walking across flat ground instead of up in the air.   There are usually only two or three guys on a crew getting whatever the next part of the job is done.  Each crew seems to have their own specialty.  We have been impressed at how well the owner/contractor has coordinated the work being done.  It is his first building project in Yuma.  He has built homes in California around San Diego before this project.  

He told us he probably wouldn't build another house in Yuma.  It has been difficult for him to get workers and the ones he has gotten have had to redo a lot of their work because it wasn't done correctly the first time.    I didn't mean to take a video of the house covered in sheeting with the shingle bundles on the roof waiting to be installed.  It's supposed to be just a picture so you can't click on it.  

We have been busy buying a house in Tucson so I have fallen behind on doing the blog.  I should have pics of the house to show soon.  I'm looking forward to showing more new things of interest around Tucson.  We have been coming to Yuma for so long that there isn't much new to put on this blog.  

More Pima Air Museum

 There are so many airplanes at this museum it's hard to pick out a few to show.  I thought the top picture of the WW11 plane was cool.  The bottom one was President Kennedy and Johnson's plane.  What is now known as Air Force One.  I thought the paint scheme was pretty.  It sure looks small compared to what the presidents fly in nowadays.

We went out to our gold prospecting site and yes the dirt is still too wet to run through our dry washer.  We brought a small bucket home and panned it out and didn't find a speck so we aren't in a hurry to get back out there.  We do need to go and look for a new spot but we need more incentive.  We will probably just go on a 4wheeling trip with the neighbors for something to do.  That way I will have some new pictures to share.

Pima Air Museum

 Our truck was in the shop so we took advantage of having a rental car and went to Tucson.  We wanted to visit friends and check out some homes for sale.  We looked at a couple of nice 55 plus communities that were surrounded by nature either BLM land or state park land.  Tucson is a little cooler than Yuma but still quite hot in the summer.   Lots of new home construction going on around Tucson and someday I think Tucson and Phoenix will merge.  

While we were in the area we visited the Pima Air Museum.  We have been there before but its been many years now.  The museum is dedicated to military aircraft.  There are 7 or eight buildings full of planes and also a huge area outdoors with more planes.  They all look like they could take off and fly but regulations require them to be non flyable.  The corsair in the top picture was a popular fighter plane in WW11.  The super guppy was a weird looking giant transport plane.  President Kennedy and Johnson's plane was there an old version of air force one.  There is an sr-71 the supersonic spy plane.  There seemed to be every kind of plane ever used by the military but I'm sure there were some missing.   This is a great place to see aeronautical history and  especially get a sense of what flying in WW11 was like.  

Cotton and Mining

 

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Arizona is known for the four c's, copper, cactus, copper and cotton.  I was surprised about the cattle and cotton but when it gets too hot in the summer they raise cotton instead of lettuce in the southern part of the state.  Here in Yuma there is a cotton gin.  The area around these mounds of cotton looks like it snowed with the ground covered  in white.   They gin the cotton and bale it and probably ship it to China. like everything else these days.  

The top picture is the entrance to a mine up by Quartzsite.  We aren't sure what kind of mine it was either copper, gold or silver.  There were warning sings not to enter the area.  There were all kinds of hazards listed but the scary one was hazardous gasses.  You don't want to get close to that because you would be dead before you realize there is a problem with the air.  

Quartzsite Sights

 We are in Quartzsite and we were digging for gold until the rain came.  It poured and even hailed but the hail was clear not the usual white stuff that looks like snow.   So the dirt is too wet to run through our drywasher.  We have been doing some metal detecting but no luck there unless lead is worth something.  

We have been doing some trail riding for something to do.  I thought the turtle in the picture was a big rock in the road and drove over it.  Luckily I didn't hurt it.  We decided to move it off the road so the next person didn't hit it.  Its tricky moving desert tortoises because they have a water bladder that they store water in and that's how they survive in the desert.  If they are threatened they will dump their water which they might not be able to replace fast enough so they could die.  I moved the turtle off the road holding it very close to the ground.  The turtle made it without losing its water.  We're not sure where it wanted to go but hopefully its on its way.  

We also stopped to look at this medicine wheel that a group had made out in the middle of the desert.  It's just rocks piled into the shape of a spoked wheel.  It was well done and had some pretty quartz rock in the middle.

 

Grand Canyon Railroad

When we were in Williams we stayed at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park.  It's part of a big complex including a hotel and restaurant as well as the RV park.  The park is very nice with paved streets and long pull through, level, paved sites.  We were tired of our gravel, muddy clay site that we had for the summer.   If you stay here you get a discount to ride the train to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  It is a very popular ride and seems to have lots of riders everyday not just weekends.  Some people had luggage being stowed on the train we figure they take the train and spend the night at a hotel at the Grand Canyon and then come back the next day.  You leave Williams around 9-9:30 and come back around 6pm so its a long day.  Everyone packs a backpack and we also saw coolers being loaded so they must have a picnic while there. 

Its fun to see the train unload and all the families with small children having to carry them back to the RV park.  The kids get pretty worn out from the long day .  Although the adults look pretty worn out as well.  We haven't taken the train but if we were asked to go with friends we probably would give it a try.  The pictures are of the old steam engine train.  They run a regular diesel locomotive and passenger cars nowadays but on holidays they do still have the steam engine going. 
 

Petrified Wood in Holbrook, Arizona

Wow it is nice to have good internet.  It was hit or miss at the campground this summer and even my phone hotspot didn't work well.  This made it hard to do the blog so I am very behind.   We left Clay Springs and spent our first night in Holbrook just ninety miles or so from our summer campground.  We like to make a short trip the first day.  We never know if we are going to have trouble getting the rig ready to tow after sitting all summer.  The campground has a lot of clay and our rig sunk a bit when the monsoons came.  So we weren't sure how much work it was going to be to get the truck hooked up to it.  Luckily we didn't have any trouble so we ended up getting to Holbrook before 10 in the morning.  They didn't mind the early check in and it was nice to relax the rest of the day after the challenge of getting on the road again.  

Holbrook is the closest town to the Petrified Forest National Park.  They have several petrified trees at the campground that are very beautiful.  It amazes me how much it looks like someone sawed them into pieces but they broke naturally that way.    We left the next day and went to Williams which is the closest town to the Grand Canyon.  The battery light came on denoting a problem with the charging system in the truck.  There was a mobile repair guy that came and put in a new alternator and at least the batteries are charging but there is still a problem because the battery light won't go out.  We called our diesel guy in Yuma and he said the truck was driveable and to bring it to him when we get back to Yuma.  We are looking forward to being able to sell the truck for something newer when there are more trucks on the market.  We are now in Kingman and will be in Quartzsite by the end of the month.

 

Pretty Bugs

These mountains contain some weird bugs along with some familiar ones.  The top picture has a red and black striped beetle kind of bug.  It has these weird little wings up by his head.  I'm still waiting to hear from a friend what kind of bug it is.  The other bug which is bright green is a praying mantis.  The ones I'm used to seeing are kind of brown.    This year there are a few mosquitoes around with some biting flies.  Many more bugs this year than last.

We are getting spoiled being here close to farms that sell farm fresh eggs.  The yolks are a very rich yellow color and taste amazing.  The little store by us sells fabulous bacon and steak.  So we treat our selves once in awhile to the meat.   The owner of the park has a ranch and raises lots of vegetables as well as cattle.   He even gave us a small elk roast from an elk that the owners wife shot last fall.  It was very tasty cooked on the grill.

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The One and Only Mattress House

Clay Springs, the little town we are staying in for the summer, has some unique features.  One of them being this house made out of mattresses.  The design is kind of like an igloo.  It is not lived in but the guy building and rebuilding this mattress house lives in a house on the property.  He starts to getting it looking pretty good and then the monsoons come.  I don't have a picture of it after the rains but it has pretty much come down.  We just aren't sure why he continues to rebuild it.  This is at least the second year in a row for this project.  Hope he isn't trying to make it into a rental -- renters beware.

We are trying to get out in the forest as much as we can but it gest really muddy after a good rain.  You don't know until you get out there if the roads will be passable or not.  The rain here is very spotty.  It could be a deluge in one spot and fifty feet away no rain at all.   We can have mud and dust both on our 4wheeler after a ride.  

 

Elk

 If you click on the pictures they will be larger.  We have been searching for elk every time we go out in the 4wheeler.  We finally have been having some luck seeing them.  The first herd we saw crossing the road had made a lot of noise while doing it.  The elk moms have to call to their babies to get them to keep moving.  They don't bugle like bull elk but you can tell the call from the females is coming from an elk.  We have to be on our way out to the forest by 5am so that we end up down where we see the elk in time.  I'm glad we only go out every other day so I get to sleep in some days.

We have also been seeing cotton tail and black tail rabbits, Abert squirrels, turkeys with chicks, coyotes, mule deer, the elk and of course the wild horses.  One of the other guys in the park goes out in the forest and puts on at least 50 miles each time.  He has seen big herds of elk and some groups of deer with huge racks (antlers) hanging out together.  Another guy that was going out with his granddaughter saw two bears.  We would love to see a bear again.  We will keep trying.

Clay Mine

 I finally have a chance to update the blog.  Slow internet is the bane of every campground we've been in but I can usually use my phone hotspot.  I don't have much data on it so I have wait and use it when I get more each month.  We have been four wheeling in the forest and now that it has been raining it is getting green.  We traveled a different road and found this old mine.  Red clay was mined here to use for the clay rooftop tiles they use on the roofs here in Arizona.  We are in the town of Clay Springs so you know its known for clay.  The top picture shows the mine from a distance and the second I tried to show how tall the walls of dirt were from the mine.  They are at least a hundred feet high.  

We are enjoying our second summer in this area of Arizona.  The weather is in the 80's and the humidity is pretty low although it does spike when the rains come through -- it is monsoon season.  So far we haven't had a deluge at the campground.  It has been just nice steady rain and a little thunder a day or two a week.  We don't do a whole lot except four wheel with the price of diesel.  It costs us over $20 just to go to town and back so you think twice before going anywhere.

The Petrified Wood Store

 

On our way to our summer destination we stopped in Holbrook, Arizona.  This is the closest town to the Petrified National Forest.  We have been to the park in the past so we chose not to go again.  We did take the time to go to the store in town (actually it is on your way out of town headed south) and take a look at some of the beautiful petrified wood they have for sale.  The top picture shows what look like cut logs.  This is all petrified wood.  The logs actually break that way looking like someone cut them.  They also had this beautiful waterfall running over colorful pieces of petrified wood.  The store was loaded with wood of all colors, shapes and sizes.  Some of it was sliced into slabs and made into tables - gorgeous and expensive.  The bigger tables were selling for $35,000 and that didn't include the chairs.

We are now settled in to our summer campground by Show Low, Arizona for the second summer.  It is cooler than most of Arizona because we are at 6700 feet in elevation.  It is very dry here and the fire danger is very high.  Everyone is praying the monsoons will come in a few weeks.

Saguro Cactus in Bloom

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Before we left Quartzsite it was getting very hot and the saguro cacti were starting to bloom.  The pretty white flowers that pop open are favorites for the bees and hummingbirds.   By the time we left Quartzsite the town was getting pretty desolate with everyone leaving.  We found almost a gram of gold while we were there which about covered the cost of fuel to go dig.   

When we got all hooked up and ready to leave we realized that our camera monitor wasn't working.  A wire had broken and there was no way of fixing it at that point so we had to drive without being able to see the 4wheeler behind us which was unnerving.  We got close to Kingman and heard a loud hissing noise coming from the truck.  A day at the ford dealer and our leaky exhaust hose was replaced.  Jim was disappointed because he had planned to go to the Kingman airport cafe for breakfast and instead got to spend his time getting the truck fixed.  
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Quartz veins

 On the left side of the hole you can see a large hunk of white rock.  That is a part of the quartz vein some old prospectors must have been following.  The tailing piles around the hole are littered with smashed quartz.  Sometimes gold follows along the quartz vein.  The hole is deep enough that you would have to go down in it to see how far back it goes but that is very dangerous to do let alone illegal.  I can't imagine anyone wanting to check it out with scorpions and snakes waiting for you in there.

Speaking of snakes -- a sidewinder (a kind of rattlesnake) parked itself under an rv here in the RV park we are staying at in Quartzsite.  The fire department was called to come and get it which they did quite promptly.  One morning I noticed a coyote laying down right outside the back gate looking like someone's pet dog.  He was resting while waiting for a quail or rabbit to come by and be his breakfast.  Other people have seen a large bobcat cruising along the back fence looking for a meal.  The back of the park is up against a large wash where the wildlife feel safe to roam even though it is in the middle of town.  

Digging for Gold?

 We traded fishing for the golden walleye and instead dig for that yellow gold.   Fishing was much less taxing and much cleaner.   I also don't think either hobby is cheap.  We had all kinds of money invested in a boat and fishing gear.  Now we have money tied up in a 4wheeler and all kinds of gear to find gold.  When you caught fish you had something to eat.  When you find gold you have something to sell although I doubt we will ever find enough to sell some.  

We have been digging in a huge tailing pile (dirt that was dug out of a mine ) and running it through our drywasher.  The place we are digging is on a gold claim that the club we belong to has and it is just south of the original mine.  We keep thinking that when they ran all the dirt the first time they must have missed some so we are hoping to find their mistakes.  So far, as you can see from the picture, they didn't miss much.  The hole that we have been digging is starting to look like a grave.  So if I go missing you know where to look.   😅

Back in Quartzsite

 We are back in Quartzsite through April and hoping we can last until the first or second week of May.  We will see because it might just get too hot.  We are scheduled to go up to Show Low, Arizona in Mid-May.  They were still getting snow there just last week.  Hard to believe that it snows in places here in Arizona.  We got to Quartzsite earlier than usual so we finally got to taste the homemade ice cream made right on site with this contraption churning the cream.  The guy that makes it has a booth near the big tent show that happens in January.  Lucky for us he was still here doing business in March.

Many people have left now that April is here.  They are ready to head back home after a winter of fun in the sun.  We like coming here after the crowds so we can enjoy the desert and the peace and quiet.  We have had some very pretty sunrises.  We get to see them because we are up and out on the 4wheeler while it is still dark out.  We get to our gold digging spot about the time the sun is coming up.  This way we can dig longer before the heat pours on which by 10AM its starting to get pretty warm.