FORBODING SKIES AND BIG WINDS

DARK CLOUDS OVER THE RANCH HOUSE

Some of you folks may have clicked on our blogsite last night & seen 'no blog tonight.'  Well, that was true but I got up early this morning, redid the blog, & posted it.  In it I talked about the new Dolorme PN-40 GPS unit we just ordered yesterday.  Also gave an explanation of how I'm thinking the entire post was lost.  Combination of Live Writer, Verizon, our computer, and of course last but not least.......Me:((  Seems the madder I got the harder I banged on the keys with my hammer & finally the computer had had enough & just seized up & shut down!!  Want to thank KAREN for her tip about setting up 'autosave' in Live Writer.  Blogger does it automatically & I guess I assumed LW did the same.  It doesn't!!  You Live Writer folks might want to check that out.  Don't thank me for the tip.....thank Karen:))

A FLOCK OF BIRDS TAKE FLIGHT AGAINST STORMY SKIES

Thankfully we had a quiet night with only a slight patter of rain around 5 A.M.  At first light we could see the heavy dark cloud cover overhead moving from south to north up the valley at a fairly good clip as far as clouds go.  By 8 the big old Arizona sun had managed to burn a few holes through the thick cover setting the valley floor & mountain sides ablaze with small traveling splashes of sunlight.

As far as weather goes though we sure can't complain after reading Joe & Sherri's blog, SOMEWHERE IN TIME.  They are over in Texas & got hit real bad in a hail storm & lost vent covers.  Like Joe said, "We could see the storm on the radar & knew we were in trouble!!"  Hail scares me because it could easily smash to bits our two expensive solar panels on the roof.  Kelly had a fairly new car smashed up in bad hail storm years ago & it looked like someone had walked around with a ball peen hammer & hit it about 50 times.

Been organizing things & cleaning the rig up in preparation for getting the big wheels rolling again at the end of the month.  Been here at the ranch for nearly 3 months & a lot of dust had settled on the dash so with a little soap & water & some Armor-All I've got things sparkling like new again.  Windows cleaned, bins reorganized, tires & batteries checked, etc. etc.  As usual when it comes time to leave I will be filled with sadness & excitement again all at the same time.  It will be the two ranch dogs, Gleason & Pearce who we will miss the most.  I think they are going to both need doggy counseling when we leave.  Pearce loves spending his days in the rig snoozing & Gleeson just about jumps out of his fur every time we come outside because he is so happy to see us.  And every Sunday their cousin Corky comes for the day & we'll really miss that big playful guy as well.  And the donkeys, Charlie the cat, & all the chickens.  Oh dear, I'm getting myself all teary here.  Yes, it's true, in these last bunch of years I have found that animals have a far greater emotional effect on me than people do.

I uninstalled all our 'Tweet' & 'Tweetdeck' stuff today.  Never use it, seems kinda silly, & I suspect it was one of our main bandwidth drainers.  We have Facebook so I think that's good enough although I do get very annoyed about all that moronically silly game & goofy heart throb stuff on there.  We use it strictly as a communication tool.  In fact, that's how Kelly found out she had twin babies Grandson/daughter awhile back.  She knew daughter Sarah was having them but didn’t know she had gone into the hospital.  Found out her Dad was in the hospital one day two weeks ago on Facebook as well because her family is always on there.  If used properly I think Facebook is a good thing.  Just seems like some people spend endless hours on there looking for totally stupid ways to annoy other people.  Enough said!!

A few weeks ago we had an email from Erika B. at the Media, Public Relations & Film for the city of Sierra Vista asking if they could use one of my photos from a hike we did in the Coronado National Memorial.  Of course I said yes & today we received an email from Erika showing us their new brochure which can be seen here at  CORONADO.  If you look at the photo on the right you will see Kelly hiking along the trail.  Yaaaaay Kelly, you go girl:))

Boy, did I ever do something really super dumb today.  Every Sunday & sometimes during the week friends of Jeanie & Ray, Ingrid & Tom drop off their dog Corky for a few hours while they go into town.  Ingrid & Tom bring their pickup truck, park it, & switch to their car which they keep here.  The road near their house is too rough for a car & that's why they have a pickup too.  Corky came this morning so I was outside playing with the doggy gang for awhile but came in when the wind started getting too bed.  Awhile later I went out to see how the doggy guys were doing but Corky was missing.  I walked all around calling his name but no Corky.  The big front gate is always open & I figured the wind may have spooked him & he ran out the gate.  Quickly hurried over to tell Kelly that Corky was missing & then jumped into the car & hurriedly drove down the road towards the highway looking for him.  No Corky.  Made a U turn & headed back towards the ranch intending to check the road to the south.  In the meantime Kelly had been out calling Corky's name as well.  When I got back to the ranch Kelly waved me to come in but I still didn't see any sign of Corky.  I stopped & she walked over to the car saying, "didn't you notice the pickup truck was gone.....Ingrid & Tom have already been here & picked Corky up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Not once did I think to look over & see if the truck was there & I actually walked within about 10 feet of where the truck was when I was looking for Corky.  Didn't even notice there car was back when I walked right by it.  One of these days I'm going to have to get a big long leg extension so I can reach around & give myself a good swift kick in the assparagus. 

  

(click photos to enlarge)

The wind gusts snapped our flag pole in half today but our satellite dish is weathering the storm well so far.  Guess I should mention I accidentally stepped on the pole about a month ago & cracked the fiberglass.  Taped it up but today it broke.  Yep, I had better get that leg extension on order alright.

At the moment on this cold windy afternoon we have all 5 dogs in the motorhome & we're going to have us a game of 'spin the bottle' to see who gets the most slurpy smooches:))  Outside the sky is about as black as I've ever seen it & the wind has not let up one bit.  The rain finally arrived about 6 o'clock.

And, if you wonder why we leave our beautiful little town of Bayfield Ontario back in Canada to come south in the winter just check out our friend Jan Hogeveen's photos of the fishing boats coming into the Bayfield harbor from Lake Huron Tuesday.  We live about a mile & a half from here.

 

GROANER'S CORNER:((  And in these hard economic times remember to tell your children next time you are all together that you are going to have to let one of them go!!

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The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now....AL.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT’S BLOG…….A BIT ON THE LATE SIDE

A DUSTING OF SNOW ON THE MOUNTAINS WEDNESDAY MORNING

I was probably wrong in throwing all the blame for Wednesday night's blog failure at Live Writer.  As I see it now the blame has to shared by Verizon, our computer, & myself as well.  I write the posts as an email draft in Outlook Express & always 'save' whatever I'm writing every few paragraphs.  For some reason I failed to do that last night & that immediately alerted the patrolling Gremlins to swing into action.  Live writer has been operating very slowly the past couple days taking forever to upload the photos etc & it was no different last night after opening & pasting in the text.  Only had 2 more pics left to put in & it just bogged down.  Unbeknownst to me Verizon had dropped the signal.  By the time I realized this the screen was totally froze up with a blank white LW page.  Ok, I thought, I'll just do a reboot because LW will have autosaved the post anyway.  And remember, I had forgot to save my Outlook post to draft.  Rebooted the puter & opened LW but it had not saved my post.  Why??  Because Verizon had dropped the signal at some point so nothing was getting saved I guess.  No problem I thought as I went to Outlook to retrieve the 'saved' post but of course there was nothing there.  The Gremlins had seized the opportunity & done their work well & I'm sure they delighted in my obvious anger & frustrations.  After all, isn't that their main purpose!!

   

(click pics to enlarge)

Kelly did some more research on the internet yesterday about GPS systems & we finally found what we were looking for at a reasonable & civilized price.  Checked all the product & consumer reviews & the Delorme PN-40 came out on top.  It has all the functions we had been looking for plus a lot of extras.  Delorme is the mapping company that does many Atlas's & things so they have all their own mapping info which seems to be superior to the Garmin system.  Kelly ordered if from Amazon & it should be here in a few days.  It will be a big help in keeping me from getting lost every time I walk the 20 feet from the motorhome to the car.

                          

DELORME PN-40 GPS                                    A NEW DECAL HAS APPEARED

Tuesday night the wind waited until we were sound asleep before it came charging over the mountain range & down across the valley floor.  It slammed into us about 11:30 & had us both wide awake & out of bed scrambling to pull the slides in.  The howling wind set the slide awnings to flapping something fierce so it was imperative to get the slides in immediately.  Furniture had to be moved, dogs quickly relocated, & mats picked up so it was quite a stumbling scramble for a few minutes but we did get the slides in OK before heading back to bed.  

                            

A FACE IN THE CLOUDS                               BEAUTIFUL STORMY CLOUDS

The rain began about 3 & that was it for me.  My day began at 3:15 a.m. as I got up & plunked myself down at the computer.  I was wide awake!!  The up side to all this is that I finally began making a dent in my backlogged emails.  Started at the top of the list & worked my way down one email at a time.  Didn't finish but it sounds like we may have a rainy Thursday going for us so that should help me work on that list again.

OK, I'll keep this short, throw in a few pics, & try my luck at publishing it again.................:))

A STRING OF SAND HILL CRANES MAKE THEIR WAY HOME

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Two elderly ladies meet at the drug store after not seeing one another for some time. After inquiring about each other's health one asked how the other's husband was doing. "Oh! Harold died last week. He went out to the garden to dig up a potato's for dinner, had a heart attack and dropped down dead right there in the middle of the vegetable patch!" "Oh dear! I'm very sorry." replied her friend "What did you do?" "Opened a can of baked beans instead."

STORMY SKIES AHEAD

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The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now....AL.

no blog tonight:((

Live writer screwed up & let me down AGAIN & I lost the whole post because LW didn’t auto save.  3 hours totally down the drain.  Computer seized & I lost the draft in Outlook as well.  !**^###!!@::+))&*(

FROM BELLE’S TO BISBEE

AL & BELLE STARR

The winds came up in the night just enough to rattle some things on the motorhome & cause me to lose some precious winks.  Up at 4 & back to sleep at 5.  Was very surprised to see the outside temps at 58F when we got up around 6.  That's a whole lot better than 22F we had a few weeks ago.   Skies were looking very dark & angry up towards Benson & Tucson for quite awhile this morning.  We remained in sun & cloud for most of the A.M. & then clear bright sunny skies for the rest of the day with a warm to cooling breeze.

TUESDAY MORNING’S STORMY SKIES TO THE NORTH

Kelly skipped her Yoga class & we headed on over to Belle's ranch.  Red & Jeanie are still there & Red has all the electrical & plumbing repairs done.  Jesse was busy feeding the critters & Belle was busy doing battle with her computer.  The computer is 5 years old & in need of a major refurbishing.  Kelly tried to work her magic on it but to no avail.  It is basically bogged down to the point of malfunction.  Belle is going to have to send it the computer hospital in Douglas for some major surgery.  Took Kelly over an hour just to get the email program functioning & by now that may have crashed on Belle again.

KELLY WORKING ON BELLE’S COMPUTER                          

From Belle's we headed over to the Safeway store in Bisbee for some groceries followed by a mighty fine small pizza at Gus the Greeks.  It was such a nice day we drove over towards the south end of the Huachuca mountains marveling at the beauty.  A right turn on Hereford Road led us up the San Pedro Valley east of Sierra Vista & another right turn put us back on track for a return trip to Bisbee from the northwest end which incidentally is the prettiest way into Bisbee on highway 80.  Stopped for some pics just before the tunnel & then did a drive by camera shooting of Bisbee as we rolled right past on the highway heading east for the Sulphur Springs Valley & back to the motorhome.  Just a great day for a nice drive in some very beautiful scenery.

   

THE TUNNEL NORTH OF BISBEE & BISBEE ITSELF AS WE DRIVE BY ON THE HIGHWAY                         (click on pics to enlarge)

A couple posts ago I showed a window in Naco with a bullet hole in it & a car parked on the street with a window busted out.  That prompted a few questions about the safety & security here so close to the Mexican border.  That bullet hole may have been in that window for a couple days or a couple years.  In the southwest a bullet hole in a window does not mean the window has to be replaced.  It just means there's a small hole in the window that's all.  And the car on the street with the smashed window??  Well, I wouldn't be surprised if we came back next near at this time that same car might still be sitting in the same spot.  It's just the way of the west down here.  As far as worrying about this sort of thing the answer is absolutely not.  We feel perfectly safe & the locals don't give their proximity to the Mexican border a second thought.  The media hype is always playing up the danger which, don't kid yourself, is out there but you just have to use your head & stay away from the trouble spots.  We're not crazy about crossing the border into Mexico anymore after an incident we had a couple years ago near Lukeville Arizona but that's just us.  We also would not go into any border town at night.  When we go to Douglas for example I'd say most of the people there are Mexican folks.  Store clerks, fast food places, hardware stores, garages, etc. etc.  It's just the way it is & you don't even think about it.  Due to the milder temps at night right now I'm sure there are probably more illegal's afoot nearby but if they hear or see you first you will never see them because the last thing they want to do is draw attention to themselves & they will hide from you until you pass by.  Drug runners are a different story but tend to stick to known routes & we are fortunately not in those areas. 

                                   

BELLE’S LONG TIME FRIEND JESSE HAS COME TO HELP HER WITH THE SILVERADO RANCH

And a note to Margie, Larry, or whoever may be looking at our site from last night's Margie's Coffee Cafe.  If you folks up there around Sunsites look towards the top of our blog on the right side you will see 'search this blog.'  Type in Pearce Arizona & it will bring up all the posts & pictures I have done in your area this past year, especially the Pearce Heritage Days awhile back.  I'm sure you will find the faces of your many friends on there:))

MONDAY NIGHT’S SUNSET

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Two old guys are pushing their carts around Wal-Mart when they collide.The first old guy says to the second guy, "Sorry about that I'm looking for my wife, and I guess I wasn't paying attention to where I was going." The second old guy says, "That's OK, It's a coincidence. I'm looking for my wife, too. I can't find her and I'm getting a little desperate." The first old guy says, "Well, maybe I can help you find her. What does she look like?" The second old guy says: "Well, she is 27 yrs old, tall, with red hair, blue eyes, long legs, big bust, and is wearing short shorts. What does your wife looks like?" To which the first old guy says, "Doesn't matter, let's look for yours."

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The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now....AL.

A TRIP TO TUCSON & A STOP AT MARGIE’S CORNER CAFE'

CURVED BILL THRASHER

Figured this was our last good weather day for awhile so decided to head for Tucson on a few errands.  Had some things to pick up at Camping World, a telescope repair at Stellar Vision Astronomy Shop, a stop at Trader Joe's & a GPS decision at the Summit Hut Outdoors store.  We had checked out all these locations before hand & found they were all located in south east Tucson.  I was a tad familiar with this area because I had been to the Davis Monthan Airbase in the same area on New Year's day of 2007.

 

Skies were looking pretty angry ahead as we headed northwards up the valley through Elfrida heading for I-10 just west of Wilcox.  A bit of rain started at the border patrol check point east of Pearce but it wasn't enough to get out & swim in.  All was dry again as we swung up onto I-10 & put the hammer down for Tucson.  Quick pit stop at Benson's McDonalds for a morning muffin & coffee.  The drive to Tucson was beautiful between the mountain ranges & the sky was a mixture of dark stormy clouds & filtered rays of sunshine dabbling across the desert floor.  The sky was cloaked in a moody personality which in itself complimented the hulking mountain ranges with shadows & color.  This truly is a beautiful part of the country & we are so fortunate to be a part of it.

 

(click pics to enlarge)

We hadn't used our Garmin Gertie GPS system since coming through Indianapolis last October so this morning it was time to wake her up & fill her in on todays activities.  She seemed a little confused at first but it didn't take long to get herself oriented with the orbiting satellites & as soon as Kelly punched in the address for Camping World, she clicked her heels, recalculated herself & set us on a northwesterly course for Tucson.  Traffic was light as it always is in the southwest compared to the east & before long we were pulling onto Irvington street where CAMPING WORLD is located.  It was our second time here having first rolled in here in December of 2006 needing a water leak repair in our 5th wheel.  No repairs today but we did pick up a few items in the store for the motorhome that we have been wanting.

                             

It was a good thing we had Garmin Gertie with us because I made a wrong turn coming out of Camping World & Gertie had to speak rather harshly to me before I was back on track again.  Kelly punched in the address for the telescope place & Gertie took us right to it despite me turning one block to soon.  I don't know where Gertie got all those nasty names for me but she sure wasn't short of any again today.  She's quite a gal & if it wasn't for her today we would have hopelessly been lost half a dozen times easy.

We had thought the STELLAR VISION ASTRONOMY store was going to be in snappy doo plaza & were a little taken aback when the address turned out to be kind of an industrial section of town & the store itself looked kinda shabby with a hand painted sign on the garage type large door.  Thought to myself, oh oh!!  When we opened the smaller worn iron screen door we were in for quite a surprise.  Telescopes everywhere!!  I had never seen so many telescopes in one place before.  Just about anything you could imagine was set up in this warehouse like room with the walls painted black & large colorful interstellar paintings & photos hanging all around.  Very impressive compared to the outside of the building.  Met owner & head tech Gary, showed him the problem with the telescope & he said come back in a couple hours & he would have it all fixed up. 

From Stellar Vision our Garmin Gertie gal carefully directed us through some 6 lane traffic with left & right turns along the way.  Once again she was spot on & deposited us right on the doorstep of the SUMMIT HUT OUTDOOR GEAR store.   We probably spent a good 40 minutes inside looking at & agonizing over various Garmin ETrex units trying to decide which one would be good for our hiking & driving needs.  In the end we just could not justify the expense of buying a GPS unit at those prices.  Kinda felt sorry for the young clerk trying to help us because he invested a lot of time in our many novice questions.  He probably went home this afternoon with a different view of Seniors today. 

From the Summit store Gertie led us another 9 or 10 blocks to Trader Joes.  When I walked in & saw it was just another grocery store I decided to go back & wait for Kelly in the car.  She explained to me that it is more than just an ordinary grocery store because it has it's own brands.  Well, a banana is a banana is a banana so back to the car I went.  Fortunately it didn't take her the standard half hour to buy one item & before long we were on our way back to the telescope shop to pick up the nicely repaired Meade 'Go To' telescope.  Nothing serious but the scope did have to be disassembled & re-calibrated.

With the repaired scope safely back in the car it was time to head for home. Gertie led us through many lanes of traffic & back up onto I-10 pointing our nose southeast with our destination being a one & a half hour drive to Margie's Corner Cafe in a little town called Sunsites on highway 191 southwest of Wilcox.  JERRY had blogged this morning about him & Suzi stopping in there Sunday for Chicken Fried steaks with mashed potatoes & gravy.  Said it was the best he ever had.  When he mentioned the words mashed potatoes & gravy I just knew I was going to have to get my face into a pile of that.  Sunsites was right on our way home so by 3:20 this afternoon we were seated in Margie's & I was awaiting a big plate of mashed potatoes & gravy.  Oh, & chicken fried steak too.

 

YEP, THAT’S LARRY THE FRIENDLY WAITER:))

The food was great, just as Jerry had said & I cleaned my plate right up.  Didn't even stuff anything in my pockets for later.  What Jerry didn't mention in his blog was Larry the waiter.  Larry's one of those fellows with a big personality & makes you feel welcome as soon as you come through the door.  He has a sense of humor & a genuine interest in his customers so if your in the area, drop in to Margie's, meet Larry the friendly waiter, enjoy a great meal, & tell him the Bayfield Bunch sent you.  Next stop was just down the road at Sweet Treats for some chocolate yogurt.  This is quite a colorful little sweets shop with just about every kind of candy you can imagine.  Jelly beans, home made fudge & much, much, more.  Kind of like those old candy shops of yesteryear. 

 

We were back at the ranch by 5 after stopping a few times along the way for photos.  The southwest skies never cease to fascinate me & it's hard to go from point A to point B without stopping to photograph something.  Lots of wagging doggy tails when we pulled in to the ranch & it is always such a great feeling to be welcomed home by such a great bunch of pals.................:))

GROANER'S CORNER:((  THE SENILITY PRAYER: Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

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The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now....AL.