OUR SKIES HAVE FINALLY CLEARED

OH HOW NICE TO FINALLY SEE SUNLIGHT SPLASHING ACROSS THE SANTA ROSA MOUNTAINS THIS AFTERNOON

Right up front let me thank readers for their comments and Shout Box suggestions in repairing or replacing the metal hardware at the camera end of my camera strap.  I agree, nothing wrong with the rest of the strap so why replace the whole strap.   Bob (Bob's Eyes) Noble’s ‘hammer’ suggestion made perfect sense to me so decided to first try that and see it it worked before heading off to the hardware store in search of some suggested clamps, clasps, and fasteners.  Bob said, “put that metal piece on a hard surface and whack it with a hammer a few times and it will be as good as new”.  I figured if it worked, great and if it didn’t I could still go with option 2 at the hardware store.

GUESS WHERE PHEEBS AND I WENT THIS MORNING

Friday mornings are market days at Christmas Circle ("Borrego," incidentally, is the Spanish word for fleecy white clouds.) so Kelly headed off into town early.  She didn’t seem to keen on me coming along so I figured she had herself some more browsing and shopping to do.  No matter as Pheebs and I were needing to take ourselves out for a tour anyway.  No Jeep this time so we had to travel on our legs for a change.  Out the door we went scrambling up the southern lower end of Coyote Mountain.

It was our annual Pilgrimage up to see the Great Stone Snake.  I know some of you are going ‘oh no not more pictures of the Great Stone Snake again!!!!  Well I’m afraid so folks and this time there was even more to see in the tiny hollowed out shallow sandy dish area where the big Snake makes it’s home.

NOT MANY RV’ERS AT PEG LEG YET

This is an area we have been hiking up to for a long time now and walking along the ever upward narrow path I again thought of the original Bayfield Bunch when all five of us would climb this trail up and back again.  Even in their last months Max and Checkers walked this trail with Kelly, little Cora, and myself.  Less than a year later Cora aka Motormouse also made her last climb up the trail to stand atop a rocky knoll overlooking the valley leading to Borrego Springs.

PATHWAYS AND TRAILS ON COYOTE MOUNTAIN CAN SOMETIMES BE A LITTLE DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW

HIGHWAY S22 FROM SALTON CITY IS FAINTLY VISIBLE COMING IN FROM TOP CENTER

KNOWING WHERE THE GREAT STONE SNAKE WAS PHEEBS GOT THERE BEFORE I DID

IT WAS EVIDENT TO ME RIGHT AWAY OTHER STONE CREATIONS HAVE BEEN ADDED SINCE MY LAST TIME HERE A YEAR AGO

NO MATTER WHERE I CLIMB MY LITTLE FURRY MOUNTAIN GOAT IS ALWAYS RIGHT BEHIND ME

The solution to my camera strap problem is a good example of how different types of minds work.  Generally if something breaks, ceases to function correctly or stops working altogether my non mechanical engineerless mind immediately thinks either replace the whole darn thing, run out of the room screaming, or go hide under my bed until the problem resolves itself.  Much better minds than mine think either fix only the broken part or replace only the broken part.  Yes, there are lots much more betterer minds in this world than this one I got stuck with alright.

I’M SURE ALL THESE STONE CREATIONS MEAN SOMETHINGSPECIAL TO THEIR CREATERS

PHEEBS KINDA BLENDS RIGHT IN WITH THE ROCKS

And here’s another fine example of how my mind works.  This morning while clicking on a weather site my Toshiba laptop seized up followed shortly thereafter by the dreaded ‘blue screen of death’.  No matter what I did I could not get rid of that solid robin’s egg blue color and I know I’ve heard about computers suddenly ending their days with these blue screens.  My first thoughts were of my blog thinking is this it, is this finally the end of my blogging days.  My mind then shifted to things lost followed closely by where is the nearest and quickest place I can get another computer.  Indio is the closest big city and for sure would have a Best Buy store.  There’s a Walmart in Brawley.  Should we leave here early and head for Yuma??  By the time I fretted and worried about where to find another laptop Kelly had walked by, picked up my computer without a word and sat down with it in her lap.  Ten seconds later the ‘blue screen of death’ was gone and my computer was running normally.   I don’t want to talk about!!

PHEEBE CHECKS OUT THE GREAT STONE SNAKE IT’S VERY SELF

CHECKING OUT THE STONE SCORPION

I took Pheebs for another short afternoon walk when all of a sudden we saw a sun splash on the Santa Rosa Mountains way far across the Clark Valley.  Soon a few more sunny spots and glancing up I was surprised to see some large patches of blue sky overhead.  We have been here since Wednesday afternoon and up to late this afternoon hadn’t even seen the tops of the mighty Santa Rosa or San Jacinto mountains. 

A FEW SUN SPLASHES BEGIN TO SLOWLY TICKLE THE SIDES OF THE SANTA ROSA MOUNTAINS

Despite a few weather sites calling for big rains overnight the skies just kept on clearing with a lot of soggy RV’ers out of their rigs with faces raised to the skies cheering on the clearing:))

OH HOW SWEET IT WAS TO FINALLY SEE SOME BLUE SKIES THIS AFTERNOON

This morning was the first time I had hiked up Coyote Mountain under a totally overcast sky so it was interesting to see how differently things looked without sunshine popping out the desert colors along the way.  On the way back down Pheebs and I decided to forego the easier path route and simply launched ourselves down the steeper rock strewn slope.  I’m on a bit of a kick to get my leg muscles back up to strength again and knew it would be a strain for them holding their own coming down along the slippery rock strewn slope.  And I was right.  My legs were sore by the time we got back to the rig and that soreness felt oh so good.

INSTEAD OF TAKING THE PATH BACK WE TOOK A SHORT CUT DOWN THROUGH THESE ROUGH AND TUMBLE ROCKS

PHEEBS SAYS ‘HEY DAD THERE’S A BETTER WAY DOWN OVER HERE’

WE’RE AIMING TO GET OURSELVES DOWN TO THAT PATH BELOW

Had forgot to mention that before Pheebs and I started out for our morning hike I did take my camera strap with attached metal parts over to the fire pit whereupon I laid it on a flat rock then proceeded with my hammer to carefully tap the two slightly contoured horizontal edges running around the hole flattening them out and effectively tightening them in making the hole with the clasp pin in it smaller.  From what I can see this has made a perfect fix and a big thank you goes out to Bob Noble for suggesting it,  I tromped all the way up to the Big Stone Snake area and back with the camera and lens swinging and bumping along the way with no problem.

HEY DID YOU JUST TAKE A PICTURE OF ME YAWNING!!

Kelly was back from the Market around noon I think and mentioned how small the market is now with this morning only having 6 vendors selling produce etc.  One of the Vendors told her it’s been down since the first of the year. 

OH HOW NICE TO SEE THOSE BLUE SKIES

KELLY POSITIONED HER CHAIR TO CATCH AS MANY OF OLD SOL’S WARM RAYS BEAMING THROUGH THE WINDSHIED SHE COULD

The first few years we came here we boon-docked further east out on the flatter valley floor but the last bunch of years we always try to get ourselves tucked up as close as we can to the foot of Coyote Canyon.  It’s higher ground with a better view than on the Valley floor plus I like to be in short walking distance of the Coyote Mountain trails.  The spot we are in right now is our all time favorite spot and we were surprised to find this little area open again.  There has been some confusion here as to who owns what with rumors of Anza State Park having taken over the Rock House Road area.  Well at least that was the way it was last year and the area we are in now seemed to have signs up discouraging boon-dockers so we camped elsewhere.  How happy we were when pulling in to see people once again boon-docking where we thought we’d never be able to camp again.  Some days are just darn well better than others:))

GROANER’S CORNER:(( The young couple invited their aged pastor for Sunday dinner. While they were in the kitchen preparing the meal, the minister asked their son what they were having. "Goat," the little boy replied.  "Goat?" replied the startled man of the cloth, "Are you sure about that?"  "Yep," said the youngster. "I heard Pa say to Ma, 'Might as well have the old goat for dinner today as any other day.'"

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Religion as Baseball

Calvinists believe the game is fixed.
Lutherans believe they can't win, but trust the Scorekeeper.
Quakers won't swing.
Unitarians can catch anything.
Amish walk a lot.
Pagans sacrifice.
Jehovah's Witnesses are thrown out often.
Televangelists get caught stealing.
Episcopalians pass the plate.
Evangelicals make effective pitches.
Fundamentalists balk.
Adventists have a seventh-inning stretch.
Atheists refuse to have an Umpire.
Baptists want to play hardball.
Premillenialists expect the game to be called soon on account of darkness.
The Pope claims never to have committed an error.