SUNRISE TO SUNSET

THIS IS WEDNESDAY’S JANUARY 17TH POST
Sure am enjoying the warmer nights and mornings and it wasn’t until we reached the Ajo Arizona area that temperatures were such to make that possible.  Another nice morning walk around our mountainous desert neighborhood.  Both mornings we started off with a jacket on and both mornings we had to peel those jackets off before we got back to the rig.  By 9:30 the Sun was already hot but luckily the air was still cool enough to save the day.  Like I have said many times about the Southwest winter weather, if it gets too hot on the sunny side of the coach just walk around to the shady side.  It’s kinda like going from summer to winter in just a few seconds. 

KELLY SCOUTS THE WAY AHEAD ON OUR MORNING WALK
 
THIS AREA IS LACED WITH OPEN PIT MINE DIGGINGS SO ONE HAS TO BE VERY AWARE OF WHERE THEY ARE WALKING

OF COURSE OPEN PITS ARE NOT THE ONLY THING DESERT HIKERS AND WALKERS HAVE TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT

IT’S EASY TO SEE WHY THE SONORAN DESERT IS REFERRED TO AS THE GREEN DESERT AND YES THEY HAVE RATTLESNAKES AND SCORPIONS HERE BUT NOT SO MUCH IN THE WINTER MONTHS

THAT’S OUR RIG TOP LEFT OF CENTER AND YOU CAN SEE ONE OF OUR TWO NEIGHBORS AT TOP RIGHT….PHOTO ABOVE IS DONE AT A WIDE ANGLE SETTING OF 18mm WHILE THE PHOTO BELOW IS A 300mm TELEPHOTO SHOT WITH THE SAME LENS


NICE TO SEE A FEW RED OCOTILLO BLOOMS

PHEEBS HAS SWITCHED TO HER WISE AND WILY ‘DESERT DOG’ SELF AND NO LONGER BLUNDERS INTO CACTUS STICKERS

THAT IS BLACK MOUNTAIN ON THE HORIZON

KELLY’S ALWAYS CHECKING THE GROUND FOR GOLD NUGGETS

LOOKING BACK TOWARDS OUR RIG

YEP THAT WHITE DOT IS US AND THAT IS OUR IDEA OF BOON-DOCKING:))

OUR CLOSEST NEIGHBOR HAS HIMSELF A NICE SET-UP ON A VERY RARE CEMENT SLAB

OUR  HAPPY LITTLE DESERT DOG JUST A BOUNCING ALONG THROUGH THE SONORAN DESERT

BACK ALONG THAT ROW OF SAGUARO CACTUS ON THE LEFT IS WHERE WE BOON-DOCKED JUST OVER A YEAR AGO FOR NEARLY A WEEK

THIS IS A YOUNG ORGAN PIPE CACTUS AND THERE ARE MANY OF THEM IN THIS AREA
I didn’t have enough room in my Tuesday night post for Tuesday night’s sunset photos so I have had to put then in tonight’s post.  With no clouds in the sky tonight there wasn’t much of a sunset anyway.

A SETTING SUN SHINES ON CAMELBACK MOUNTAIN

BLACK MOUNTAIN ON THE RIGHT

THE DISTANT AJO MOUNTAIN RANGE RUNS ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE MEXICAN BORDER OFF TO THE RIGHT

CAMELBACK MOUNTAIN ON THE LEFT AND BLACK MOUNTAIN ON THE RIGHT
It was about 10:30 when we took ourselves into Ajo the back way.  From where we are boon-docked Ajo is only a short dusty road hop into the north end of the town.  Olsons grocery store was our first stop.  Everybody who is anybody and ever been in Ajo (pro-nounced A-ho) has for sure been to Olsons.  Not only a supermarket but an Ace hardware store as well.  I’ve always liked Olsons.  Second stop was to throw a little gas in the Jeep and from there it was down to Ajo’s beautiful one of a kind town center.  Kelly popped into the a Thrift Store and the Ajo Library while Pheebs treated ourselves to a nice green grass walk around the town center.  I have written much about and taken many photos of this downtown area and if anyone types ‘Ajo” in our search bar you can probably find my Ajo posts and photos going as far back as January 2007.  Ajo is one of our many favorite Arizona towns.  It’s kind of a tumbled down little place with a rather remarkable Spanish town center.

DOWNTOWN AJO STILL HAS THEIR CHRISTMAS TREE AND DECORATIONS UP

ON OUR WAY TO GET OURSELVES ONTO SOME GREEN GRASS

NOTICE THE ARCHITEXTURE IN THESE PHOTOS

IF YOUR WONDERING WHAT THAT DOMED BUILDING IS BE SURE TO READ MY POST…..ALRIGHTY THEN LET'S HAVE US A LOOK AT AJO ARIZONA SHALL WE…..CAMELBACK MOUNTAIN IN THE BACKGROUND AS SEEN FROM DOWTOWN AJO

We were back to the rig about noon and headed inside out of the heat.  With windows and door open we had the nicest cool breeze wafting through the coach and it made for a relaxing afternoon.  With the way both Kelly and I have been ‘creaking’ around on this trip I said to her ‘maybe when we get back home we should trade our Motorhome in on a wheel chair van’.  We’re quite the pair at the moment with our growing mobility issues.

AJO MOUNTAINS IN THE BACKGROUND

AHEAD OF OUR RIG IS CAMELBACK MOUNTAIN WITH THE TOWN OF AJO RIGHT ON THE OTHER SIDE….WE ARE MAYBE 2 MILES AS THE CROW FLIES FROM DOWNTOWN AJO OVER THAT MOUNTAIN AND WE DRIVE INTO AJO AROUND THE LEFT SIDE OF IT

Here’s a little info I lifted off Wikipedia about where we are located in the Little Ajo Mountains::  The Little Ajo Mountains is a mountain range in southern Arizona, in extreme western Pima County, Arizona. The city of Ajo sits on the northeast of this small mountain range. Both the mountain range and city take their name from the Spanish word for garlic.  The range is a 13 by 13-mile (21 by 21-km) long range and is connected loosely northwest to Childs Mountain a northwest-southeast small mountain at the south of Childs Valley. Ajo, is in the center-east of the range, and is famous for the New Cornelia open pit copper mine located in the Little Ajo Mountains.  The peaks in the Little Ajo Mountains include the isolated Black Mountain which lies to the south of Ajo and has a peak elevation of 3,008 feet (917 m).^[1] Cardigan Peak at 2,922 feet (891 m) lies in the main mountain mass to the west of Ajo. Ajo Peak at 2,619 feet (798 m) and North Ajo Peak 2,776 feet (846 m) are isolated peaks to the southwest of Ajo. Camelback Mountain at 2,573 feet (784 m) lies just south of Ajo and overlooks the New Cornelia pit just to the east.<sup>[2] 

BRUSH UP AGAINST THAT TEDDY BEAR CHOLLA CACTUS AT THE RIGHT AND ONE IS IMMEDIATELY IN A BIG WORLD OF HURT!!</sup>

Sitting outside this afternoon under the awning enjoying a welcome breeze I was suddenly aware of a fast approaching unidentifiable sound.  It was coming in from my left.  An A-10 Warthog fighter jet??  No!!  An ATV?  No!!  A vehicle of some kind??  No!!  It was a sound not in my memory banks.  I was confused but all of a sudden there it was about 50 feet in front of me moving fast from left to right.  It was a small Dust Devil and it generated it’s own sound unlike anything I’ve heard before.  A sort of staccato rushing of air.  A pulsing swoosh, a gathering of quiet whooshes.  A whispering of souls in search of something as I sat transfixed watching it’s journey.  When it reached Darby Well Road a short distance away it appeared to stop, then move a short distance up the road before swinging around back down the road then hesitating before continuing it’s journey west into the greenery of the Sonoran desert where it promptly disappeared.  It was an uncanny experience that lasted maybe all of 10 seconds.  Thought to myself how fortunate I was to be in the right place at the right time to see this and hear it as well.   I was reminded of something Hickiwan Ray once told me about those dust devils in the desert.  He said they were Indian souls picking up their tracks in the desert.  And Hickiwan Ray believed that to be so…….

Hickiwan Ray was the RV Park manager/host at the Hickiwan Trails RV Park in Why Arizona where we first hung out for awhile in our early traveling days.  Never did know Ray’s last name and I always referred to him as Hickiwan Ray.   He’s long gone from Hickiwan Trails now so don’t know whatever became of him.  Hickiwan Trails RV Park is owned by the Tohono O'Odham Indian Nation.
GROANER’S CORNER:((  Two babies were sitting in their cribs, when one baby shouted to the other, "Are you a little girl or a little boy?"  "I don't know," replied the other baby giggling.  "What do you mean, you don't know?" said the first baby.  "I mean I don't know how to tell the difference," was the reply.  "Well, I do," said the first baby chuckling, "I'll climb into your crib and find out". He carefully got himself into the other baby's crib, then quickly disappeared beneath the blankets. After a couple of minutes, he resurfaced with a big grin on his face. "You're a little girl, and I'm a little boy," he said proudly.  "You're ever so clever," cooed the baby girl, "but how can you tell?"  "It's quite easy really," replied the baby boy, "you've got pink socks and I've got blue ones."
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Billy Brown decided it was time to buy a new house, so he decided to sell his old house and put the matter in a real estate agent's hands.
The agent wrote up a sales blurb for the house that made wonderful reading. After Bill read it, he turned to the agent and asked, 'Does my house have everything your ad says it does?'
The agent said, 'It certainly does. Why do you ask?' Bill replied, 'Cancel the sale. It's exactly what I'm looking for!'