ANOTHER GOOD OLD COW SMOOCHIN DAY FOR THE PHEEBS

Sitting outside basking in the early morning sunshine I couldn’t help but think, ‘what a difference a day makes.’  Friday morning we had howling winds & freezing temperatures & this morning the warming air had a silent stillness to it.  Birds were in the air & the view over our Mesquite filled shallow valley made one want to just stay right where we are without moving again for awhile.  I have a feeling that when we do leave it will be straight home for us & we will save Monument Valley for the Autumn beauty which I would much prefer to see if we can get away earlier this Fall.  Already have my fingers crossed:))

 

EARLY MORNING GAME OF TOYS

I was at the rear of the rig putting something away in a bin when I heard a slight scuffling behind me.  Turned around to see a dozen Cows at the front of the Motor Home, all standing staring curiously at the Pheebs a few feet away.  Well, it wasn’t long & the heads were together again, noses touching for another round of big slurpy Cow smooches with the  Fabulous Pheebs.  She walked around amongst the small herd with a big smooch here, a small smooch there, a few nose bumps & some downright comfy snuzzles.  Twenty minutes later the Bovine Bunch had disappeared once again into the surrounding Mesquite trees & a good time had been had by all.

 

 

 

 

At 11:45 I Jeeped myself up to the highway & opened the gate.  Parked the Jeep where it was visible to southbound traffic, focused my binoculars northward on the oncoming traffic & watched for a white van towing a little white Casita.  Yep, there it was alright, heading down the highway right for us.  A minute later with a left turn signal going, the van slowed & made a wide turn through the gate.  Yaaay, RV SUE & HER CANINE CREW had made it.  Really great to see Sue again.  She is one of our favorite people:))

COULD THAT BE RV SUE & THE CREW WAY DOWN THE ROAD?

 

YEP, HERE SHE COMES:))

I led the way as Sue & the crew followed us back into the desert on a hard packed sandy & sometimes bumpity road.  It’s a big area here & Sue found herself a real nice spot with lots of trees & birds.  And, lots of room for Spike & Bridget to get out & really rip & tear.  No cactus in this area so no prickly stickers to run into.  Pheebs spotted us & came running down the hill likkity split to see her old Pals, Spike & Bridget.  Spike was so happy to see Pheebs he was bouncing around upside down with squeals of delight.   I don’t like to bother people when they are setting up so I loaded up Pheebs in the Jeep & we bounced our way back up to our rig.  We’ll see Sue & the crew in the morning.  All is well in Boondockerville:))

KIND OF A LAZY UPSIDE DOWN 2 DOGGY DAY 

Rest of our day was spent just totally enjoying the fine weather.  No urge to go anywhere or see anything.  Just nice to kick back in our loungers & drift off to sleep in the warm Arizona sun.

   

Found it interesting reading the CAVE DWELLINGS post Friday when Donna mentioned about having to put up with noise levels once they return home to Illinois.  I am very much bothered by noise as well but do not remember that as being the case until we started RVing a few years ago.

 

GETTING THE BUGS CLEANED OFF THE FRONT OF THE RIG 

I first began to notice my noise annoyance after having spent our first winter in the southwest boon docking in the quiet desert.  Up to that point, every day noise was just that, every day noise.  Like most folks I really didn’t take much notice of it I guess.  But, with each winter’s time spent in our quiet desert boon docking spots I soon became aware of unwelcome noise.  People noise!!  When one spends pristine quality time with soft winds in the Saguaros & tweeting songbirds birds in the Palo Verde trees it’s pretty hard to have the patience for people generated noise.  But, here’s an odd twist.  I don’t mind the thunderous roar of jet aircraft in the overhead sky & yet somebody’s radio turned up or a bunch of people hootin & hollerin just drives me bonkers!!

THIS IS THE NEWLY POSTED SIGN IN OUR AREA

Our Sitemeter told me tonight we have hit the half million visitor mark on our Blogsite.  How well I remember starting out a few years ago with no visitors at all & I remember how great it was to see 2 or 3 hits on the site those first few days & weeks.  It was a slow start for quite awhile & I think it was Laurie from SEMI TRUE TALES OF OUR LIFE ON THE ROAD who stumbled across one of my posts way back when & mentioned the Bayfield Bunch in her blog that began the ball rolling.  My Google stats tell me most of our site referrals come from HITCHITCH so my advice to new Bloggers is to get yourself on Hitchitch to increase your blog’s traffic flow.  Probably the biggest boost our site has had came from meeting TIOGA GEORGE a few months ago.  His mention of the Bayfield Bunch in his blog nearly doubled our daily Sitemeter visits.  Our numbers literally shot up over night & amazingly enough have remained there.  Tioga George has had over 6 & a half million visitors to his site.  So, a big thank you to all my fellow Bloggers who have helped us along the way & pushed our Sitemeter numbers to the half million mark. 

No word yet on the property ker-fuffle at the house on Ghost Town Road but I expect we’ll hear something from the Realtor this coming week.

AND, I THINK THE COWS HAVE JUST FOUND SUE & THE CREW:)))

GROANER’S CORNER:(( The sheriff pulled up next to the guy unloading garbage out of his Class C motorhome into the ditch in Kentucky. The sheriff asked, "Why are you dumping garbage in the ditch? Don't you see that sign right over your head".

"Yep", he replied. 'That's why I dumping it here, 'cause it says 'Fine For Dumping Garbage'".

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-Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
BAYFIELD BUNCH PHOTO ALBUMS https://picasaweb.google.com/117858411710794543295
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of
right now...AL.
stargeezerguy@gmail.com

COLD WINDY DAY WITH THE ONLY EXCITEMENT BEING LAUNDRY & ‘OH OH’ A NEW ‘NO CAMPING’ SIGN!!

KIND OF A BORING DAY AT OUR HOUSE TODAY
Beautiful night sky last night with the planets Jupiter & Saturn converging & due to pass each other in another week or so.  The Planet Mercury is also visible low in the West at dusk & soon the planet Saturn will be in the night sky making for 5 visible planets overhead.  Maybe not to interesting for most folks but the night sky has always been a very interesting place for me.

How nice to look out our windows this morning & once again see a different landscape.  A few days ago I could watch the sunrise from my chair & now we are faced the other way & I can see the sunsets at night.  Just another great advantage of the boon docking lifestyle.  We can change our surroundings whenever we choose, always keeping the views fresh & exciting.

KELLY GATHERS UP SOME TRASH & POSTS A SIGN
Quiet night until the winds suddenly picked up about 5 a.m. this morning rattling our slide awnings & bringing in a cold front.  Would have to say this turned into the poorest weather day all winter for us.  Lots of the usual sunshine but the high winds mixed with colder air had me in my lined winter pants & warmer clothes including mitts.  Had to retract our bedroom slide because of the gusting east winds.  Not nice!! (the winds finally quit about 5 in the afternoon)

GATHERING SOME FIREWOOD IN THE COLD WINDS THIS MORNING
We headed back up to NORTH RANCH this morning with a Jeep load of laundry.  Back home I always do my own laundry but while traveling we just sort of jumble it all together & Kelly usually gets stuck doing it.  She’s just a better laundry person than I am.  I have a tendency to turn nice white things into various shades of groovy grey.  They have a large lounge area with a mega screen TV near the laundry room.  Oodles of books in there too.  In the adjacent bathroom was a couple of spacious showers so I was quick to take advantage of that.  How nice to have an unlimited hot water supply in a space bigger than half a broom closet.

IT WAS A LAUNDRY MORNING AT NORTH RANCH 
No sooner got back to our rig when a tan colored pick up truck stopped at our site.  It was the Fish and Game Warden.  Nice young fella but asked if we had seen the ‘No Camping Permitted’ sign on the road coming in.  Actually we did see a sign this morning on our way in that we thought was new.  And, it was.  The sign had been posted just yesterday for the whole area where we had been camped.  So, if we had not moved yesterday we would for sure been moving today!!  The area we are in now is OK but the big area where most RV’ers & Week-end Warriors go is now off limits.  Day use only.  No idea what prompted this but the ‘No Camping’ sign is in the ground!!

PHEEBS BRINGS HOME ANOTHER OLD DESERT BONE
Here is the location of the now ‘No Camping’ site.  On highway 89 south of Congress Arizona you will see the Escapee Park called, North Ranch.  It is on the east side of the road.  About one mile south of there on the same side you will see a gate.  You will also see a large brown water tank way back in.  It is the large area around that water tank that is now ‘off limits.’  It was at the southeast corner of this area where we were parked our first week in this area.  Water tower is at the northeast corner.   And, a word of caution.  Highway 89 is a 65 mph narrow no shoulders speedway & it is a dangerous turn off the highway through the gate.  You need to have someone open that gate for you first so you can make a wide turn off the highway to get through it straight on.  You can get pulled off the highway at this gate but it’s still going to be difficult to get in because you still need to swing back up onto the speedball highway to line yourself up with the gate.  Lots of Cows, ATV & Jeeping roads here.

MOTORMOUSE PATIENTLY AWAITS A HAND OUT WHILE MOM MAKES SUPPER 
Guess we could have turned the afternoon into a Jeeping trip somewhere but we just opted to stay inside with the heater on & ride out the cold gusting winds.  Forecast is for the weather to calm down with 80F temps on the way:))

GOTTA DRESS WARM THESE COOLER DESERT MORNINGS
I have noticed my reading has been way down this winter.  Made two attempts at trying to get myself interested in a couple books but only got in as far as maybe a dozen pages or so & that was it.  My blog reading, email correspondence, & commenting has been way down as well compared to a year or two ago.  I think I just tried to keep up with too many blogs & just bogged myself down.  So many new blogs & so many new Bloggers.  I have folders within folders on my desktop of people’s blogs I have been trying to stay current with but alas, I just seem to fall further & further behind.  Just too many blogs for my aging memory to keep up with.  Plus, I have to get my eyes checked this summer for sure because I am definitely way overdue for new glasses.  Should have done that a couple years ago.  Trying to read some small magazine print this morning in the Escapee lounge was near impossible.

LOTS OF MESQUITE & PALO VERDE TREES IN THE AREA
How about having a Scorpion walk into your campsite near your feet & then awhile later have a Schwan’s Ice Cream truck show up at your site.  No, didn’t happen to us, but it did happen to K AND D IN THE RV down near Yuma.

DID YOU SAY ‘WALK’ DAD
RICHARD has joined the Bunch as Blog Follower 451 closely followed by SUSAN, our latest interested reader.  Susan is a very active outdoors Gal & you can check out some of her photo adventures HERE.  Thanks for your interest folks & welcome to our blog:))

OH DEAR, WE NEVER SAW ONE SINGLE COW TODAY:((
GROANER’S CORNER:((   A blind man, traveling with some RVing friends decides to take a walk from the campground they are staying at and walks into an all girl biker bar by mistake. He finds his way to a bar stool and orders a drink.
After sitting there for a while, he yells out ,"Hey, you wanna hear a blond joke?"
The bar falls absolutely silent. In a deep husky voice, the woman next to him says, "Before you tell that joke, sir, I think it is only fair--given that you are blind--that you should know five things:
1. The bartender is a blond girl with a baseball bat.
2. The bouncer is a blond girl.
3. I'm a 6 feet tall, 175 lb. blond woman with a black belt in karate.
4. The woman sitting next to me is a blonde and a professional weightlifter.
5. The lady to your right is blonde and is a professional wrestler.
Now, think about it seriously, Mister. Do you still wanna tell that joke?"
The blind man thinks a second, shakes his head and mutters,
"No. Not if I'm gonna have to explain it five times."
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-Tourists see the world, travelers  experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
BAYFIELD BUNCH PHOTO ALBUMS https://picasaweb.google.com/117858411710794543295
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of
right  now...AL.
stargeezerguy@gmail.com

OH DEAR…WE MOVED AGAIN TODAY

NEW DIGS TODAY
We barely had a scratch of water left in our fresh water tank, propane level was down to a quarter & our black tank was about full up this morning so it was time to attend to some domestic chores. Rolled the rig across the desert floor to the highway & turned right heading to North Ranch. Sure glad we renewed our ESCAPEE CLUB membership because it came in very handy this morning. Dumped the tanks, took on water, filled up the propane tank & aired up all the rig’s tires in one stop. The Escapee Club has a real nice Park here.  And thanks to blog reader TOM who recognized our rig in the Park & came over to say Hello:))   (pics)

 
YEP, THEY GOT A LOT OF NICE PLACES HERE AT NORTH RANCH

The site we have been staying at since arriving in the area just over a week ago is nice but we had spotted a nicer spot about a quarter mile away last week & on our morning walks we always admired the view from that site. Figured this morning was a good time to move to that site after coming back from North Ranch. I was a bit concerned about getting across a wash with the rig but we rolled right through it with no problems. Picked up some more really nice fancy desert pin striping on the way by well known desert artist, El Scratchy Mesquite Tree:))

Another reason for moving was to put a little distance between ourselves and the cows. Not that we don’t like cows but little Motor just would not stop gobbling down cow poop. Every time she went out it was like a desert Smorgasbord for her around the rig. Also, with the week-end coming up we knew the Weekend Warriors would be back with their ATV’s. The spot we are in now overlooks a shallow valley in what I would call a Mesquite Savannah. There are many trees here averaging maybe 12 feet tall. Best part about it is, there isn’t a soul around. Just the wind & the birds in a big old Palo Verde Tree right beside us. We can see for miles & miles & miles.

REMINDS ME OF AN AFRICAN SERENGETI PLAIN…I KEEP WATCHING FOR GIRAFFE & ELEPHANT HERDS TO MEANDER BY
No fire pit here so that was priority & meant a rock & firewood scrounging expedition. A campsite clean up was in order so I raked up the usual broken glass & shotgun shells. Seems a lot of guys just have no interest in the environment & lack the willingness or care to pick up after themselves most times!!  I think Arizona needs to pull up their socks & get a handle on their anti-littering programs.  As much as we love it here in Arizona…..it sure needs a darn good cleaning up!!!!

The County Park I referred to in Wickenburg yesterday is also known as the Rodeo Campground because it is located right across the road from the Rodeo grounds.  It’s official name is, Constellation Park.

Had a couple of questions as to the location of the campground so here is what the Escapee’s ‘Days End’ book says as of 2009. (and I added some too)…….'Constellation Park, 35 sites, some with grills & some with fire rings & some with both.  $5 & a 7 day limit.  From Northwest on US 60 south of downtown traffic light just past McDonalds make a left turn north on El Recreo Drive.  Go 0.9 miles and the Park is on your left….Coming from the south on US 60 go past the second Shell station & past Tastee Freez, turn right on El Recreo Drive before McDonald’s.  After turning left into the Park through the tall wooden posts there is a large parking area.  If your towing a toad, I suggest you unhook & take a drive around to choose a spot.  Sites are small to extremely large.  Again, it’s a little hilly, a little curvy, & a little dusty.  Great view of Wickenburg:))       
       
I was kindly reminded by a reader this morning of something I posted last March after we arrived home in Canada.  Reader Jim A wrote……“Hi Al, I Saw recently that you had mentioned that in one month you may be on your way home, so I thought I would remind you of what you said last year (this is for your own good” :) )  “If we even remotely think of, or I write something about coming home before April 15th next year I want someone out there to seek us out, hunt us down & come give me a darn good swift kick in the ass!!!!  And yes, I know I used the 'A' word!!"  Problem this year is that I have an important medical appointment scheduled for April 10th.  Oh yuck:((

Had a comment about that big green rock frog in Wednesday’s post.  Far as I know it is a big rock that someone has painted.  It sits along highway 89 just north of Congress & Kelly mentioned this morning we should try hiking out to it so we just might do that.
  
Today we welcome YEE LING WONG as our latest Blog Follower.  Nice to have you along Yee Ling & thanks for being a reader:))

THE HOUSE WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING AT IS LOCATED ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF THAT LINE OF HOUSES…DATE CREEK MOUNTAINS BEHIND
About dusk tonight I was surprised at what I saw when opening our side door.  There, about 30 feet away were 6 young cows all standing motionless staring at me.  I felt like an Alien stepping out of a huge white spaceship that had just landed on the outskirts of Cowville.  Pheebs was out the door in a flash to greet her old Pals.  Had they come all the way down from their water trough just to see the Pheebs.  Hadn’t seen any cow paths or fresh evidence of cows in this area so needless to say I was surprised to see them here.  Of course the Motor will be delighted in the morning to see her never ending Cow Poop Smorgasboard supply has graciously followed us to our new spot.

 

GROANER’S CORNER:(( Three elderly ladies were discussing the trials of getting older. One said, "Sometimes I catch myself with a jar of mayonnaise in my hand in front of the refrigerator and can't remember whether I need to put it away, or start making a sandwich." The second lady chimed in, "Yes, sometimes I find myself on the landing of the stairs and can't remember whether I was on my way up or on my way down. " The third one responded, "Well, I'm glad I don't have that problem; knock on wood," she raps her knuckles on the table, then says, "That must be the door, I'll get it."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Tourists see the world, travelers  experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
BAYFIELD BUNCH PHOTO ALBUMS https://picasaweb.google.com/117858411710794543295
The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of
right  now...AL.
stargeezerguy@gmail.com