SOME FELLOW CANADIANS DROPPED IN TO-DAY

To-night's photos I will entitle....'Ice Castles.'

As soon as I saw the cloud cover this morning I knew we were in for a cold day because the air's been nippy & it has only been the sun's rays keeping things warm this past while. I turn the ranch's water off each night & disconnect our rig's water hose. There is an extensive irrigation system here so it's important not to have above ground water pipes freeze.

Thelma & Don (Skip) rolled into the ranch about 10:30 in their Honda CRV. As mentioned in last night's blog they are Canadian snowbirds from Ottawa who like us, enjoy traveling the American southwest. They enjoy staying at State Parks & traveling without a heavy duty itinerary. Like us, they kind of go with which ever way the wind is blowing. They have been following our blog for a couple years & it was nice to meet them to-day. They had been hoping to see a sky full of Sandhill cranes but as luck would have it there were only a couple of distant flocks about a mile or so to the west making their way back to the Whitewater Draw. Too cold to sit outside so we had ourselves a visit in the rig. Thelma & Don wanted to stop into the town of Bisbee on their way back to their rig at Kartchner Caverns so headed out about 12:30. Nice folks & it was nice to meet them. Safe travels folks & may our trails cross again:))

At 10 o'clock last night Max was still unable to stand up despite looking better in the afternoon. His appetite was back but he hadn't gone to the washroom since early morning so we were a bit concerned. About 3 a.m. I was awakened by a whimper & he was on his feet by the door. He was able to go down the steps ok & outside for a little walk around & a whiz. Sure was cold out there in my pajamas!! He didn't want to go for a walk this morning & has spent most of the day snoozing. His mobility is back but he's just a very tired boy. Hopefully he will be spunkier to-morrow. And thanks to Gypsy for your email to-day:))

(click photos to enlarge)

Because of the drab day we opted to just stay in for the afternoon & relax. Several weeks ago one of our fellow bloggers had commented on one of our visits to Bisbee & mentioned a book & bookstore. We did look for that old bookstore but it was long gone. We did remember the book mentioned in the blog & a few days ago Kelly picked it up at the Elfrida library. I started reading "me 'n Henry about 1 p.m. & by the time I put the book down a few hours later I was on page 137. I had read about half the book. That's the way I used to read many books, many years ago, & it was nice to get into a book again that captured & held my attention right from the first page. Not a book you would find on any best seller's list & not a book any of the modern generation would be interested in. This is a book about real people & real times told in a simple manner by a fellow who grew up in the hard mining times of the very area we are in right now. 'me 'n Henry" is a book about two boys as they grew up in Cochise County on the old family homestead when Arizona was a brand new state. Each of author Walter Swans stories are short, exciting, humorous, & sad all at the same time. It's an easy to understand read & for those of us out here in the Senior years we can identify with many of the happenings, understand how & why things were the way they were, & live right along with Walter through his growing up years near the mining town of Bisbee, Arizona.

BITS FROM BILL has an interesting post to-day about Facebook & some of it's affiliates security issues. Both Kelly & I have Facebook accounts but we treat them differently than many folks we see on there. Neither of us have any interest whatsoever in all that game stuff & we totally avoid joining any of the countless applications.  We keep getting invitations to this & that & I can't hit my ignore button fast enough regardless of who is sending them.  Nothing personal against the folks who like these kinds of things but they just are not our cup of tea.  I don't like the television game shows either.  We're not Casino people so I think there is something there that goes hand in hand with that games mentality. Anyway, it is these many so called 'fun' things that are compromising peoples security. Gee, who could have seen that one coming huh!!  I do suggest you slip on over to Bill's site & have a look at what he has to say. I do have a Tweet account too but for the life of me I cannot figure out what is so darn popular about it. I think it's probably tied in with the cell phone & texting craze. Don't even get me started on what I think about......texting!!!!  I don't call myself a Cursmudgeon for nothing you know!!

A year ago to-day we were near Silver City, New Mexico visiting historic HISTORIC FORT BAYARD & two years ago we had just left Dead Horse Park in Cottonwood, Arizona heading for HICKIWAN TRAILS near Why, Az. We ended up putting a little website to-gether for Hickiwan while there & included a bunch of our photos on the site that I taken around there in the past few years. We will always remember our early morning desert walks at Hickiwan.

I saw snow on Mexico's Naco Peak south of us this afternoon & can still see snow northeast of us in the Chiricahua mountains so we may have to wait until things warm up a bit before returning once again to the Chiricahua National Monument's hiking trails. Hope to get down to Belle Star's ranch this coming week sometime too. Also want to do a night trip to Bisbee & photograph the lights. I would like to have a look at Tombstone by night as well. And another run over to Sierra Vista is in the works too. Gotta keep Al busy you know:))

GROANER'S CORNER:(( Don't spend 2 dollars to have a shirt dry cleaned. Donate it to the Salvation Army. They'll clean it and put it on a hangar. Next morning you can buy it back for 75 cents.

Live Writer, or our connection, or this laptop computer failed to publish the blog again to-night so I've just spent an additional hour wrestling the whole thing over to Blogger yet again!!!!  It's times like this that I just feel like throwing in the towel on this whole blogging thing..............................
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THIS IS WHERE I FOUND THE ICE CASTLES THIS MORNING

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