20 May

And...today,
we went to walmart. 
butch needed a hair cut and thought he'd get out of walmart by having me drop him off at the barbers.  till someone pointed out that they cut hair at wallys.  lol

then, we had someone come over and ask us for help with their new motor home.  so we helped them out and in keeping with the adage-no good deed goes unpunished, when we came home, we had locked ourselves out of the motor home.  we're so careful about it, and didn't even realize that the door had locked.  we were going to have one hidden, but of course we hadn't. 
so an hour and a half later, the locksmith had driven 50 miles (we really are in the middle of nowhere), and $150 out of pocket, we got back inside.

and tomorrow, we go to flagstaff to get a new satellite dish since ours died. 
then we're off to the grand canyon where I don't know if we'll have any cell service, so you might not hear from us until we get to Vegas.

but I'll take notes.....

19 May

Walnut Creek Canyon
Sunset Crater Volcano

cliff homes once occupied by the Sinaqua Indians

 

this is one of the rooms that they lived in.

Unfortunately, in the 1800's this site as well as many other national parks were looted and destroyed.  Even after they made them protected National Parks, there wasn't any manpower to protect them.  We saw this also at the Petrified Forest. Sad.

 

when we first saw it, I said it looked like a baboons butt, then we found out that it was actually the volcano.  the red is from the iron in the ground that was heaved up from the eruption. 

 

some of the lava field from the volcano

17 may

Winslow AZ

Meteor Crater

 

 

 

 

Mt Humphrys-from rim of crater

 

 

 

Standing on the Corner in Winslow Arizona......

 

butch and his bud

 

this is the store front on the corner.  the girl in a flatbed ford slowing down to take a look at me...license tag on the truck is IG7-WOM.  (I got 7 women)  Eagle on window sill and also the couple in an upstairs window.  all painted on the brick front

 

and of course, it's a flatbed ford, so the ford man had to check it out good.

16 May

Winslow AZ
Petrified Forest National Park
Painted Desert National Park

the ravens are here!  this one is ray rice.  he could fly!

you can see for miles and miles and miles

old route 66 and an 32 model a

back side of a bench

this one I think is jacoby jones

Indian petroglyphs

teepee domes

this is a petrified log that is called agate bridge.  it was reinforced in 1910 with concrete so it's been an attraction for quite a while.

13-14 May

Phoenix, AZ

We didn't stay long in Phoenix.  It was 103 degrees and I'm sorry, but "oh, it's a dry heat" is bullshit.  If I stick my head in an oven it's a dry heat too, but I'm not going to do it either.

We went to Chase Field and saw the Diamondbacks play the Braves.  They lost...badly.
So our record is 1-1 or baseball.  Of course, pictures are on cell phone, and maybe someday I'll get them downloaded, but don't hold your breath on that one.  They had the roof closed and it was a beautiful 78 degrees inside.  Then they sang the national anthem and ta-daaaaa, opened the damn roof.  103 and they opened the roof.  Let the sweating begin.  It is a really nice ballpark.  They have a swimming pool and hot tub in center field bleachers.  Just our luck we didn't take our bathing suits......oh rats!  LOL

We also went out to Phoenix Racetrack and while it was closed, the guy in security let us go in and climb up Rattlesnake Hill and take some pictures.  The name doesn't lie, and I made sure I stomped my feet all the way so the damn snakes would hear me coming and go.  butch was looking for them. (eye roll here)

view from about halfway up with butch below

STOMP STOMP hey snakes, i'm coming

okay, so you leave Phoenix and it's like 2000 feet.  you then climb for about the next hour or so until you hit 6000 feet of so, in Flagstaff.  but what they don't tell you is that you also have to go down.  butch will never need jake brakes as long as he's got me braking from the passengers side.

Really?  if I turn here los angles is right around the corner?  love that signs do this.  but the Albuquerque reminds me of bugs bunny, who should have made that left turn in Albuquerque.

12 May

Tucson, AZ
Pima Air and Space Museum

Fairchild A-10 Warthog

made in Hagerstown

Corsair

P-38 Mustang

The pilot of this actually shot down another US plane to prevent it from landing on Japanese overrun runway.  He had kills on German, Italian, Japanese, and USA planes.  He was probably the only pilot awarded the Distingushed Flying Cross medal for shooting down a friendly plane.

This is Freedom One.

It was the plane that flew the Iranian hostages back to the US.  When it came into Boston airspace, the pilot radioed its call sign and Boston air controllers came back with "Roger Freedom One".  The name stuck and the plane was from then on known as that.

 

 

Colleen, Stu, Billy, and Scottie were so kind in everything they did while we stayed in Tucson.  They feed us unbelievable meals and went above and beyond in showing us their town, or letting us in on the cool things here that we may have never seen.

 

Much, much love to them all.

11 May

Tucson, AZ

Mount Lemmon
Damn Colleen is about as easy to get a picture of as I am.
She took us up Mt Lemmon not far from their home.  We were at 9100 feet.  Guess you could say we were really high.
Then we took a ski lift (yes, they can ski in Arizona when they're that high) up to the top and hiked up to a geocache.
The road is 23 miles of winding switchbacks.  The Subie was way confused after driving through the desert the day before.

They had a fire on the mountain a number of years ago, and while it's regrowing, the scars still show.

 

They have rebuilt the cabins that burned down, and they are beautiful A frames and cabins perched on the side of the mountain.  Not happening for this flatlander!

10 May

Tuscon, AZ

Desert Museum

Costas Hummingbird

I was sitting on a bench in the hummingbird aviary and he flew in behind me.  I was truly about 1 foot away from him and he sat and let me take pictures of him.  I wish that the bright purple on his throat had shown better in the light.

Antelope Squirrel

This little bugger was playing around by himself and when I tapped on the glass he started posing for me.  Way too damn cute.  When he realized I wasn't going to give him treats (window) I think he gave me the finger.

Mr & Mrs Bobcats

Yes, V, they were too damn pretty.  And no, they don't need a new home! LOL

Saguaro National Park

They say that a Saguaro has to be 70-80 years old before it grows an arm and then 10 years for each arm.  There were some that we counted 10-12 arms on.  Unbelievable how old these giants are.

 

Yes, Subie was 4 wheelin in the desert of Arizona!

9 May

Tuscon, AZ

We had to share our campsite with a nesting hummingbird. 

Sabino Canyon
Stu took us out to the canyon that is just a couple of miles from his and Colleens home.  They hike here all the time.  We took the easy way and took the bouncy tram. 

 

butch, Stu, and me

Colleen and Stu took us out for Mexican (after all we are in Arizona), and after stuffing ourselves and drinking a Prickle Pear Margaritas, we went off to the casino.  We went to Casa del Sol and didn't really loose too much money. 

6 May

Las Cruces, NM

 



 

They sold sleds at the gift shop so you could sled down the sand dunes.  There will be no pictures of that since there is NO WAY IN HELL that was going to happen!

Mountains ahead...yep, we went over them.  .Las Cruces is on the other side.  The road, it is long, straight and flat on this side.  Cruise control and you could take a 30 mile nap.  Sure different that the roads in PA that are built on deer paths.

 

White Sands Missile range.

(I will not make a phallic comment-snicker)