Lots O Rocks

Just North of Prescott is this area called the Granite Dells. The rocks themselves are 1.4 billion years old and have been subjected to something called spheroidal weathering. There are two man made lakes here, Willow and Walker, that have been purchased by the town and are used for recreation.

The rocks have this unique rounded form that makes them appealing for rock scrambling and the area is popular with all sorts of hikers and climbers.

As the rocks weather, they break down into something that looks like sand but is sharper and much coarser. The locals look for opportunities to load it up for driveway fill as it drains very well.

The whole area is very attractive and it kind of draws you in. I kept wanting to see around the next hill or climb that rock over there for the view.

It's only about a half hour drive from where we're staying so I hope to come back at sunset and get some more pictures of it. As it was, I ran out of battery power after these shots. There's a great overlook in the county park but it was all tied up this weekend with the local Highland Games so we didn't get a chance explore as much as I had wanted.

Icon of the Desert

We found this little guy out in the yard yesterday. We took his picture and then released him where the cats wouldn't get him. We've been baby-sitting the two youngest grand-kids this week, ages 10 and 7 and they were thrilled to find this horned toad. That took me back to when I was about 10 and the circus came to town. In addition to seeing the elephants and the show in the big top, on the midway they had horned toads and chameleons for sale. For $1 you could buy one and with some string and a safety pin, you had a pet that would ride around on your shoulder. It was the most exotic thing I had seen up to that time and it bred all kinds of images of what the desert might be like. I got books from the library and read some and looked at the pictures (this was long before we had television). I dreamed of being able to travel to such an exotic place and see all these things for myself. And here I am!

Now that I'm out here in the desert, I'm seeing all sorts of different things. Different birds and plants and animals. I really need some guidebooks to teach me what they all are. I've downloaded an app for the iPad for the birds but the plants and flowers are still a mystery. You'd think it would be an easy web search but I haven't had a lot of luck so far. One of the problems is that many of the web pages are very general. The area out here is composed of many related but different bio-zones separated by altitude. Back home I'd  have to drive 2 or 3 hours to see a change in the plants. Out here, a trip to town of 20 minutes can change the altitude by 1000 or 2000 feet which changes the plant community significantly. Which side of the hill you're on counts as well. And then there's the all-important presence or absence of water. It's all very interesting but frustrating when I've always tried to know the names of the plants around me.

The other day, I saw two blue mockingbirds. Too quick to get a picture but I looked them up to find out what they were. Picture a bird that looks like a grackle but is entirely the color of a bluebirds wing. Very striking.

Last night we saw a coyote come up out of the wash below the house and trot right through the neighbors' yard. We have to keep the pets locked in at night to keep them safe.

The motorhome is almost done and the kids have gone home and we're looking forward to getting a little further afield to see more of the sights around here.

A Bird, or Two, In The Bush

Most of the time, any time, we see one or two or three of these little guys dashing across the road in front of us. They are Gambel's Quail and they would much rather walk than fly, much like turkeys. Their walk is kind of a fast waddle so they are both funny and charmingly pretty to watch. They often fly up to the top of a fence post in the morning to sit in the sun and look around.

When there are several foraging around on the ground they often post a guard or lookout to keep watch for predators.

They all have the cute topknot feather but only the males have the black spot on the breast. All of these pictures were taken within yards of the house where we're staying. We can sit on the back porch morning or evening and watch the quail working around in the brush below.

Speaking of bushes... we have these weeds growing all around the house. They are a type of grass and the locals call them foxtails.

They grow just a few inches high. They shed a pointed seed that looks a lot like a grain of wheat. But it acts more like a porcupine quill. It has tiny barbs that face back from the point and once it sticks into something, it just keeps burrowing in deeper. That's good for plant propagation but pretty nasty when it sticks into your shoe. I pulled six of them out of the fabric on my sneakers the first day. Since then, I've worn leather shoes. They are also very bad for the dogs. If they're not removed in a timely manner, they'll burrow right into the skin and open a site for infection or blowflys. Nasty things.

Our weather here remains idyllic, upper 70's in the day and upper 40's at night. I heard that Phoenix had a nasty storm yesterday but we only saw clouds here. I took the motorhome in to a diesel mechanic yesterday to get the cooling problem fixed. So far, he's found a collapsed radiator hose. I'm hoping that's all it is. I have ordered and received a replacement fabric for the awning which ripped in the wind so I'll be working on that when I get the motorhome back.

Shades of the Old West

This is the land of the Cowboys. There are plenty of boots and hats. And guns. Gun ownership is widespread and many of the younger cowboys experience firearms at an early age. As did I. I begged for a .22 just as soon as I was old enough to own one. We had rifle instruction at Scout Camp and it was one of the high points for me. I got a Remington bolt action .22 rifle at 14 and I still have one just like it. But yesterday was about handguns. My cousin and her husband enjoy a sport called "cowboy shooting". It uses authentic firearms to recreate contests based on the Western experience. One facet of cowboy shooting is called "fast draw". Think Marshall Dillon in the opening of Gunsmoke. The idea is to draw and fire a handgun quickly and accurately at a target a few yards away.

While there are professional shooters who use live ammunition and are blazingly fast, that can be dangerous, especially for a beginner. Check out Bob Mungen on You Tube. To make the sport safer and accessible, modifications have been made to the ammunition. The cartridge case is opened up to take a shotgun primer. The bullet is molded of wax, and no powder is used. So there's no recoil, almost no smoke and very little noise. Normal gun safety rules apply, of course. This allows practice at an inside range and we just happen to have one here. It's not much, just a stack of cardboard against the wall and a way to hang clay pigeons to shoot at. It's out in the farm shop. My cousin's grandson is interested in fast draw and he invited me to shoot with him yesterday. What fun! Not much in the way of fast gun handling but a lot of fun shooting and trying, emphasis here on trying, to break the targets. The wax bullets aren't quite as accurate shooting as I'd like but they still get the job done.

The guns are the real thing. We used modern Ruger Vaquero single action revolvers in .357 and .45 calibers in authentic leather holsters and belts. The picture above is the rig I used.

New Scenery

We went to Phoenix yesterday to get  horse pellets. The feed store is on the South edge of Phoenix and it took us just about two hours to get there because we circled around the West side of town. We had to get the truck weighed before and after we had thirty 80 lb. bags of feed loaded. Then it was play time.

We went over to the new Cabellas that just opened. It's a good thing they aren't located any closer to home than they are. I've been to the one in West Virginia and it's just the ultimate toy store if you're interested in the outdoors. I bought a set of walkie-talkies so that if I'm out wandering, my wife can hail me back. Can't miss dinner.

There's a Cracker Barrel right next door and it was lunch time by then so we all piled in there for lunch. Well, more like dinner, 'cause I didn't eat anything to speak of for the rest of the day. Of course, we had to look around the store and I bought a tube of lip balm. This dry climate just drys out everything and my lips were feeling it. My cousin has a weather station on the wall and I checked it when we got back and it said 16% RH. I saw that the RH was supposed to go to 87% at home last night.

Just North of Phoenix, the land drops off to the lower desert and we started seeing the giant Saguaro cactus. It can take up to 75 years for one to develop the characteristic arms. These without arms are called "spears". They are just starting to bloom with a ring of white flowers around the top. Once you get into the right climate zone, they're everywhere. It's illegal in Arizona, where most of them grow, to harm them in any way. So, when they're in the way of new construction, they're carefully dug up and transplanted. Just how do you hold a green tube full of water on the inside and full of spines on the outside? We saw many that were transplanted to a new section of highway and they were propped up with lumber braced against pads wrapped in carpeting. I have no idea how they moved them. We're going to wait another week or so for the blooming to progress further and then make a trip dedicated to cactus.

Slowing Down

We've been taking it pretty easy the last few days, so not much to report. This morning, my cousin made these bran raisin muffins. Oh boy, were they good! As you can see from the photo, she bakes in cast iron pans. She warmed the pan in the oven and then took a stick of butter and ran it around each cup. The dough sizzles when it hits the cups. Then she bakes it like normal. When they're done, they pop right out of that pan just like teflon.

When you use cast iron, you just clean it up right away. I don't use soap but she does. Just a little bit so as not to disturb the seasoning of the pan then you dry the pan and put it away. Out here, a pan hung on the wall still damp dries out real well. Back home it would rust if I wasn't careful.

The dryness out here is pervasive. It just affects daily life in dozens of ways. First off, you have drink lots of water. We carry bottles of water with us wherever we go. But you feel it in your body. My hands dried right out so now I'm using lotion on them. Nosebleeds will happen without enough water. Gray water gets recycled as irrigation.

Back home this would be called a pond. Here it's called a "tank". It's really a sun pond that catches runoff water when it rains. No rain, no water. This one has damp mud at the center right now. We saw three coyotes checking it out last night.

This is the view out past the front of the motorhome. It's mostly low brush and very small ground cover. The ground cover crunches when you walk across it.

Most of the bushes are this shrub called catclaw acacia. Every branch and  stem is covered with sharp, curved spurs. You don't go running through the bushes around here!






Everything here either bites, stings or sticks you.

Here's a fellow we saw along the road the other day.

The is a Gopher snake, a non-poisonous snake. Actually beneficial as they prey on mice and lizards. This is a little one but there's a big one living at the back of the house foundation.

We're going to Phoenix to get some horse feed tomorrow so I'll get a chance to see the giant Saguaro cactus.

Where were the bodies?

Here's a shot of Curley investigating the roadside during a pit stop about 35 miles East of Flagstaff. Maybe you can just barely make out the San Franciso Peaks in the background. The highest one has snow on it.

One of the the things I found striking during our trip across the country was the lack of road kill. I might have seen three dead deer on my 16 mile commute to work back home. In 2200 miles, I saw one dead deer and no live ones. There were maybe three dead coyotes and several armadillos, but that was it. Driving in the East we'd see all manner of wildlife, dead and alive. I did finally see a small herd of pronghorn antelope just after we pulled out from the location above but I expected to see much more.

Where we are parked is a little different. In the morning there many Gambel's quail foraging around the area. Every day so far, I've heard coyotes a couple of hundred yards down the hill. We have to keep the pets inside at night or they'll be coyote fodder. We have mockingbirds back home but this place is loaded with them but I have yet to see a roadrunner, which are supposed to be common. I'm hoping to see elk and more pronghorn. My cousin brought home pictures of a golden eagle that she saw yesterday. It was just sitting on a fence post along the road.

The weather has been just perfect so far. Days reach the mid to upper 70's and the nights cool off to the low to mid 40's. It's calm in the morning but by afternoon the wind starts to pick up. I've had my awning out to shield from the effects of the morning sun. This morning I came out to find that it had started to tear away from its mounting on the side of the motorhome. I don't think there's any fixing it so it looks like it's time to replace it with new fabric. That's a two or three person job but I think we can handle it.

We've been catching up on chores and I still have a bunch of cleaning to do. But we're about ready to do day trips in the car to see some of the local sights. We're about an hour from Jerome, an old mining town and about the same from Sedona, home of the red rocks. It'll be fun to start seeing what we came for.