Gold Canyon Arizona November 2015

Well, here it is time again to write the next blog and as you can tell, I still haven't fixed the problem. It seems google has made some changes and messed up some other things. Anyway, we will continue on. November was the month to recognize our veterans. The park had their own parade for Veterans Day. It started out with a color guard of young Marines and was followed by a band.

Unlike the parades back home where we had dance groups, baton twirlers, Semi trucks and old cars we had golf carts with old people. Lots of golf carts. Followed by more golf carts.  

                                                   At the end was a little red convertible.

After the parade the park had a nice luncheon for the veterans and their spouses. They played all of the different service songs. As the song for your branch of service was played you were asked to stand up. Much to my surprise when the song for the Coast Guard was played there were two of us who stood up. Normally I am the only one standing, especially out west where you don't find a lot of shore line.

We took a trip into Scottsdale and went to the Hall Of Flame. It is a museum of fire fighting equipment. They have a fire cart back to 1735. They have equipment that used manpower to pull them to horse-drawn carts to the modern engines.

This is a fire sled from Nagaunee Michigan. It was  interesting to see how fire fighting has evolved over the years.

This is a hose cart that was horse drawn. It is really fancy for a hose cart but back then each fire dept. tried to have fancier equipment then the others. 

This unit has the water pumping equipment mounted on the front of the engine. All of the equipment has been restored back to its original condition. Notice how clean this unit looks and how shiny the chrome is. That's how it looked when it was in use. Just like the fire departments now days, the people took pride in their equipment.

This engine was the first one bought that started the collection for the museum.  It is in working condition and is used in local parades.

                                        The gold leaf designs used on these engines was amazing. 

Holly was able to cross another thing off her bucket list. Here she is driving a fire truck. Cool helmet sweetie.

They had several cases filled with patches from fire departments from all over, They were all donated to the museum. If you are a fire fighter or know one, they are always looking for patches. They have all been cataloged and you can see if your local department is there. We found this one from Hudsonville Michigan, and we also found them from Grand Rapids and Bay City.

In our traveling around we have seen that there is more to Arizona then desert. There are plenty of mountains and beautiful sunsets.

We went to the Phoenix Zoo and talked to the animals. Don't worry they didn't talk back.

It was a nice day to go to the zoo and they have a large assortment of animals in large and well kept areas.

This is an African Elephant. They have two but only one is out at a time while they other one is inside resting. They had camel rides and I thought Holly might like to cross something else off her bucket list but she thought two things in one month might be a bit much. Below is a tooth from an African Elephant. They only have four teeth but from the size of this one four should be enough.

Well that's it for now. Hope you are all enjoying the weather up north. We had a cold spell run thru here but it's now sunny and warm during the days and cool at night.  We have found our summer location. We will be in Southport Maine at Gray Homestead Oceanfront Camping.  We wish a Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Gold Canyon Arizona October 2015

Well,  I've been working on this months' blog for two weeks now and am still having problems. So until I get it straightened out the look will be a little different. We are now in Gold Canyon Arizona which is about 50 miles east of Phoenix.  This is the first time we have worked at an RV Resort and are enjoying all of the amenities that go along with it. Holly works in guest services and I work in the softball concession stand. That's right I'm the hot dog guy,

 All of the work campers are together in the same area which is nice because we get to know each other even though we all work in different areas. There is the table and chairs department, the kitchen staff and the decor department.  As you can see we have a nice view of the Superstition Mountains.

We took a little loop trip that took us to the town of Globe which is about 60 miles east of us. We found the BESH-BA-GOWWAH PUEBLO there. it is mostly just foundations of buildings that were there but the have restored some of the buildings. It was occupied between 1250AD and 1450AD.

As we continued our our trip we headed north and stopped at the Tonto National Monument. This is the site of some early cliff dwellings.

It's a nice paved path up to the site and only 1/2 mile long but it gains 350 feet in that half mile. As you climb you finally get a glimpse of the dwellings about half way there so it is a little incentive to continue. The closer you get the more impressive they look.

After our little walk we finally arrived and were able to get a closer look at the dwellings. We have been to other cliff dwellings before but are still amazed at how people used to build and live in them.

On the way back down to the visitor center I caught this fellow watching us. I think it is a spirit of a lost race making sure we treated the area with the respect it deserves.

After leaving the cliff dwellings we headed north and caught AZ Highway 88 back to Apache Junction. Little did we know that the first 24 miles were gravel, twisting, turning and a lot of ups and downs with a 6-mile stretch of single lane road. These two pictures were taken at the top of the pass and you can see the road down below.

When we finally made it back to paved road we found a little rest area and stopped to take a break and watch the sunset paint the mountains around us.

By the time we left there it was dark and we didn't get to see the last 17 miles. So we had to go back to see what we missed when it was light out. It was a good thing we did too because there is some beautiful scenery out here. No. that is not a painting below but a picture I took that just turned out great. I really like how it turned out.

Last month I talked about the Lost Dutchman Mine. Well I don't know what the big deal was, I found it right away in the town of Tortilla Flats. That's Tortilla Flats below, it was built by the owner of the Lost Dutchman Mine. He didn't like that he had to go so far to get to a bar or store so he built his own town on the road to Apache Junction. Now if I could only find a way past the "KEEP OUT" on that mine and get some of that gold.

We took another trip to Carefree (yes that is a real town and the park was on Easy Street) and saw a display created by a well known carver that made several displays and carvings. Must be great to be so talented. We start out with this golfer getting ready to make his second shoot for the green.

                                                   We had a mariachi band to serenade us.

                                                 We had campers roasting marshmallows.

                          As always when walking in the desert you need to watch where you step.

                I took my eye off Holly for just a minute and there she was sitting with another guy.

            Notice that the last guy in the line is taking no chances that the jump will be a success.

Well that's it for now. I guess we will take off and see what new adventures we can find. Or maybe we will just sit back and follow this fellow's example and take a little siesta. Whatever we do, stop by again and see what we find next.....Adios 'til next month.

Home Again September 2015

 Well, we left Montana and ran home to see family and friends. I didn't take many pictures because of the short time we were there. One day spent at Freight Liner to have a wiring problem fixed and three and one-half days at Fleetwood to have some repairs from May re-repaired. Didn't leave much time before we headed out again. We loved Montana, the scenery was fantastic, the people we worked with were great and if we were to return to any of the places we have been, this would be at the top of the list. So with that said, here's a little review of our time at Libby Dam.

We saw waterfalls. This is the Kootenai River Falls and the swinging bridge over it. The bridge was built so that the Forest Service had access across the river and falls in case of a fire on the other side.

We drove many forest service roads and had the chance to see the beauty of the forest and mountains. We found gently flowing streams and were able to enjoy the peace and quiet of the forest.

We saw big horn sheep, and many, many humming birds. Holly had three feeders out and filled them at least twice a day and sometimes three. There were times when we had twenty or more at a time taking turns. When the weather cooled off at night, they were gone. The rangers were amazed at the number of birds we had around us.

We took one fire road into the clouds and found an old fire watch tower at almost 6100 feet. Holly climbed to the second landing and said she still couldn't see anything and came back down. We could only imagine what the view would be like on a clear day. We went huckleberry picking even though we had no idea what to look for. A very nice gentleman stopped and asked if we needed help. When we told him we were looking for huckleberries he took us to some and showed us what we wanted to look for. Now we have some in our freezer for huckleberry pancakes.

In our travels on the back mountain roads we saw Mrs. Moose and her calf down in a pond eating. We saw mature and immature bald eagles down by the dam, along with blue heron and osprey. We even saw a big black bear but by the time I got the camera in hand, he had run into the woods.

This barred owl flew right over the Jeep and landed in this tree right in front of us and turned around to give me some nice pictures. Thank you Mr. Owl.

We had lunch with a square dance group and stayed to watch them dos-e-doe and swing their partners round and round. They had a great time and we enjoyed watching them and had a great lunch. This one of the reasons we love doing this. We meet some very nice people and sometimes they feed us. Even if they didn't feed us we still enjoy meeting and talking to new friends.

Holly and I had our picture taken at McDonald Lake Lodge in Glacier National Park. We are still smiling and enjoying traveling and meeting people after living together 24-7 for over four years (in a 40 foot by 8 foot house on wheels). We had three does in the park by us and five fawns. That's two sets of twins and one single for some of you (you know who you are).

This is a selfie selfie I took in a restored home in Nevada City.  You may notice the mirror did not break. We also saw the ultimate motor home...nothing fancy but 4-wheel drive and plenty of off-road ground clearance.

We left Libby Dam early but not before we took some night shots of the dam. It's even impressive at night.

While we were home we went to St Ignace Michigan to cheer our son on in a race across the Mackinaw Bridge. For those of you not familiar with Michigan, there is Lower and Upper Michigan. They are connected across the Straits of Mackinaw by a bridge that is five miles long. The race is called The Mighty Mac Bridge Race and is just over six miles long. We dropped him off at 5:30 am to catch a bus to the south end of the bridge and then we and our grandson Graysen went back to our room for a couple of hours before going to the finish line.

We got a nice shot of him crossing the finish line and of him with his newest medal and Graysen. It was exciting to be part of this and so proud of what he has accomplished.  Well, as I said last month, I would let you know where we were headed for our next adventure. We are in Gold Canyon Arizona which is right next to Apache Junction/Mesa. The park is Canyon Vistas RV Resort. We have the Superstition Mountains in our back yard and with any luck we can find the Lost Dutchman Mine and be independently wealthy (after all I am Dutch so I should have a bit of an edge on finding it). That's it...stop by again next month and see if this old fool found some gold or just fool's gold!