A Return to Almost Normal Life

My, how time flies...I see it has been almost 20 months since my last post.  With all the Covid lockdowns/restrictions, life as we knew it was pretty much suspended.  

We both have had the Covid vaccine, three times.  Expect to get a shot every year, just like the flu vaccine.  

 We took a flying trip last summer to Vicksburg, MS, to have lunch at the Gumbo Pot, a seafood joint with great oysters Bienville.  I think we ate there three or four days in a row. Drove through the Vicksburg Civil War park and located the area where Henry Waldrip (great-grandfather) was captured.  Then we headed north to Memphis to one of Mike's favorite barbecue joints, the Rendezvous.  Stayed in what had to be the worst La Quinta in the world...oh, well, only a few days.  Then over to Subiaco Academy where Mike went to high school (Subiaco Academy).  Beautiful campus in the middle of Arkansas, miles from the nearest town.  Both Mike and his brother Frank attended, three years together.

Since we had lost Mike's Tibetan spaniel the summer before, we were ready to find another one.  They are not a rare breed but they are uncommon and I wanted an adult, not a puppy (no longer have the patience to deal with puppy issues).  I found a breeder with an 18 month old male she wanted to place.  On our way back to NM, we met the breeder's daughter, picked up the dog (now named Stubby) and headed home.  He has a great personality and he plays and plays and plays with the old white dogs until they are all exhausted.  

Last spring we came back to very dry conditions in SW NM.  I looked out the window one morning to see this:

The bears came out of hibernation to no water in the usual watering holes.  It drove them into the park.  Park management asked everyone to pick up any water they had for birds, deer, etc.  Within a couple of weeks, we did not see any more of them.  This year is equally dry but so far, we have not seen the bears.  The one above is a youngster.

The usual kickoff to the summer season is Cinco de Mayo or Kentucky Derby Day.  This year it was a Mexican fiesta, complete with margaritas and a Mexican food potluck.  I wandered down to partake in the margarita part and then came home to fix Italian food (what is wrong with this picture?).    Saw lots of people I had not seen in some time due to the covid lockdowns and no activities for the past two seasons.  

My Yamaha Wolverine side-by-side has been troublesome since the day we picked up the machines, new, in Phoenix.  Yamaha replaced the fuel pumps under warranty on both; fixed Mike's problems but not mine.  We are hauling my cranky machine into a dealership in Las Cruces in an attempt to finally get resolution.  (The dealership in Phoenix had it for 13 working days and did nothing...AAARRRGGGGHHHH!)

Happy Mother's Day tomorrow to all you moms who are reading this!  

A Very Quiet Summer

With Covid-19, all activities in the park were cancelled indefinitely.  The ATV jamboree and Octoberfest were cancelled this week.  Ordinarily there are lots of things to do...Kentucky Derby party, Cinco de Mayo, Independence Day, etc.  Not this year.  To my knowledge, there have been no cases at all in park and about 80 cases in Grant County, most associated with the three big copper mines. 

Casual socializing, distanced appropriately of course, still is popular.  At a recent Happy Hour across the street, the hostess, Karen modeled her hummingbird hat.  They have three or four feeders and literally dozens of hummingbirds.

Interestingly enough, business at the park has been very good.  There have been 17 new leases written so far and the park has been booked up in advance for the holiday weekends. 

Living out here in the middle of 3.5 million acres of national forest presents some interesting problems.  Two of the neighbors came out on a Sunday a few weeks ago to find flat tires.  

Above is a photo of the across-the-lane neighbor's tire.  Note the teeth marks.  It was a complete surprise to me that bears are attracted to tires!  Bob, the neighbor, said that they are attracted to oil/fat.  Mutilated tires are a common problem for hunters who take vehicles into the wilderness.  

Update:  Last night I heard gunshots at about 10 pm.  This morning I checked with the neighbor across the street.  A full grown bear was on their deck licking the grill.  When Bob went out with a big flashlight (and a pistol); the bear just looked at him.  So Bob fired five shots into the ground to run off the bear.  It may be the same one who tried to eat Bob's tire.  Time for Fish and Game to come out to trap and relocate him to a more remote area.  

We have new neighbors in the park who have a home in Deming.  This summer, with the heat wave, Deming has been slightly hotter than the surface of the sun so they decided to find someplace at the higher altitudes close to Deming where they can spend time.  They stumbled onto Burro Mountain Homestead, saw a place for sale, talked with the owner, agreed on a price.  Within a week or so, the park had run their background check and they had turned over the money to the owner.  Diane left everything...patio furniture, accessories, linens, kitchen equipment, the works.  

Their new neighbor across the lane had an Arctic Cat Wildcat side-by-side she wanted to sell so they bought that as well.  They had no experience in driving an off-road vehicle and, of course, no knowledge of the trails up here.  We've been coaching them on both.

Yesterday we got a phone call from them that they had gone out by themselves (a very risky idea) and their Wildcat had sprung an oil leak and they were stranded.  It was over 90 degrees.  Took several hours to go out to where they were, set up the tow strap, and then tow them back to the park.  

Mary Anne and Nina at the top of O Shit Hill

On a ride with Nina and Roger, their friend Deb saw a great rock climbing opportunity.  She is far braver than I am.

This is the time of the year when we start seeing the does with their new babies in the park.  Mule deer commonly have twins.  We had two moms and their two each babies this morning at the salt block we recently put in the yard.  The photo is a little fuzzy because I had to take it through the window of the trailer.  I also put out pieces of apple for them.  First one to come by gets it all.

Oh my...where did the past 12 months go?

Somehow the past 12 months have flown past me.  My charming son gave me a push when he recently texted me that I was overdue for a blog post.  He's right...drat.  And then he sent me a second text on the same subject...

Okay, so I will do a recap of the past months with photos.

Shortly after we arrived at Ramblin' Roads RV Resort (RRRR) in October, we visited an off-road dealer in Phoenix to upgrade our rigs. Mike's old Wolverine was beginning to show its age and my Polaris had needed $1,000 in repairs and wasn't even two years old.  I no longer trusted it to keep me safe out in the wilderness.  

The one above was my choice.  (The red truck in the background also belongs to me.)  

This is Ray, our neighbor in the park directly behind us.    Ray is sitting at the entrance to the Desert Queen Mine (Winchester and the Desert Queen).  He was not familiar with off-road so we took him on an excursion in exchange for his helping to remove the spacers on the Polaris.(Spacers set the wheels out about two inches which makes for a more stable ride.)  We didn't want to trade in the Polaris with the spacers on it and we had friends who wanted them (see below).

Robin and Steve live down the lane from us in New Mexico and they also spend winters in Arizona visiting friends in various places.  This photo was taken on Super Bowl Sunday while we watched the KC Chiefs trounce the SF 49'ers in the last quarter of the game!!!!  Steve and Mike installed the spacers mentioned above on their Polaris as it was the same size as my old one.  

We took Robin and Steve on a couple of our favorite rides before they moved on to visit other friends.  This photo was taken at Picnic Hill, a short distance from the park.  In fact, you can see the park by looking out from where Mike is sitting.  

Shortly after Robin and Steve left, our other neighbors in New Mexico arrived for a visit.  Karen and Bob live directly across the lane from us on Sunrise Ridge.  They are experienced side-by-side drivers so we picked some of the more challenging trails for them.  (One trail we wanted to run had a major collapse over the summer and is no longer accessible.  About a 25 foot section of the trail slid down the hillside.  If you go back on the blog posts, I believe I did a post and photos of it year before last.  It's the Yuma Mine Overlook trail.)  

The photo below was taken at what we call the No Left Turn Mine.  It is in a box canyon, and to get to the trail, you turn right at the No Left Turn sign.  And why, you are asking, is there a traffic sign in the middle of nowhere?  If you turn left, there is a parcel of private land which is not open to the public .

It was quite an interesting winter for us as we kept getting new neighbors who like to ride.  One day I walked into the office to buy quarters for the laundry.  Standing at the office window was a tall, attractive 40-ish man who was asking about riding opportunities.  I asked him where he was from (west of Fort Collins, CO) and where he was parked at RRRR.  Oddly enough, he was two spaces down from us.  Well, we had a great time with Jason and Michelle for several weeks.  His sister and brother-in-law joined them for a few days so we had four rigs on the rides.  

Our neighbors from Montana, Colleen and Mike Fenimore, were also at RRRR for the winter.  They frequently came over to join the post-ride festivities with Jason and Michelle.  Here Mike looks over Jason's firearm.

While Jason and Michelle were with us one day, we came across these beautiful animals Big Horn Sheep .  I was leading, came around a curve, and the three rams were at the side of the trail.  Instead of bolting, they just slowly ambled across to the other side and stopped to look at us.  Jason got out to take photos.  (These are his.)  I was too gobsmacked to get my phone out.  

Jason always has a pistol on rides, as do many others.  Since the rams showed no reluctance about staying in the area, Jason fired his pistol to see if they would react.  They just looked at him.  Clearly, they are not hunted and do not fear humans.

Finally they slowly moved off and climbed a hillside, then disappeared over the top.  I asked at the office if people were reporting sightings this year, as we had not seen any Big Horns our previous two winters.  Joyce said that there had been a number of people who had seen them.  An incredible piece of luck to see them.

Before Jason and Michelle left, they told us they are looking forward to coming back to RRRR for three weeks next year to ride with us.

And the fun and interesting people just kept coming.  We met a couple from Maryland who also liked to off-road.  Steve and Levere spend winters in AZ, drifting around from park to park.  Steve drives and is relatively new to it; Levere doesn't drive.  We were careful about our selection of trails and went out with them several times.  Levere really wanted to learn to drive but didn't want Steve to teach her so I took her out a couple of times.  The photo below is what happens when you open the door and step out without checking where you are.  

Levere was driving and wanted me to take over, as she wasn't comfortable with driving the trail ahead.  So dummy me, I jumped out and rammed right into a jumping cholla cactus (Jumping Cholla).  I had jeans on when this happened so you can imagine what it would do to someone wearing shorts.  It takes needlenose pliers and tweezers to pull the spines out, as they have a barb at the end.  Go in really easy and come out really hard.  If you don't get them out, they create a festering sore.  

Going into Phoenix is an exercise in patience.  We are about 100 miles west via I-10.  The photo below was taken at 2:30 PM on a weekday.  Heaven help us if we leave any later than that.  

On this trip to Phoenix, Mike diverted to show me the Arizona Biltmore development and golf club Arizona Biltmore.  How the other 5% live...  He stopped at the club house and purchased the visor below so I could feel rich.  The parking lot at the clubhouse was full of BMW's, Porsches, Mercedes, etc.  

One more lucky encounter:  John and Wanda Kintzer.  They farm 30 miles east of Minott, ND and were in AZ for the winter.  Their son farms adjacent to them so he keeps everything going over the winter.  

John had an older four-wheeler and wasn't familiar with the side-by-sides.  Since we have two machines, we took them out for several rides and then we had the usual post-ride festivities at our place.  Both of them play guitars and participate in the jam sessions the park holds.  So one night, they brought over a guitar and we had our own little jam session and sing-along.  It was really fun.

We got a text message and a photo from them not long ago .  They stayed at RRRR weeks after we left as the weather in ND was cold, wet, snowy, etc. and the COVID-19 virus was making it dicey to travel.  As soon as they got back to ND, John went out and bought a Wolverine like Mike's!  They are planning to come back to RRRR next year and ride with us.

So now we are back at Burro Mountain. Lots of sunshine, wind, 50's at night, 70's during the day.  All park events (Cinco de Mayo, Memorial Day festivities, etc.) have been cancelled.  There will be no group events until further notice which may be all season.  Oh, well, since we are not social, it makes no difference.  

Hope you all are doing the appropriate things to protect yourselves and families from the virus.  

Been a While...

It has been a couple of months since the last blog post.  The time gets away from me, especially since the weather was miserable April and May and I had a lot of work (still more to do) on our new site at the park.

We took some friends, Sally and Ron, on a ride to Jack's Peak.  Faithful blog readers may remember photos from last year.  This is the site of the big wireless towers which cover this area.  BORRRIINNG ride, mostly county roads but this ride had a new feature:  ladybugs.  We took the trail to the top of the mountain and stopped for lunch.  

Every inch of this pine tree was covered in ladybugs.  One of the weather channels had a radar picture showing a massive cloud of ladybugs so this must be a banner year for them.

I have put up hummingbird feeders, cake feeders for the acorn woodpeckers, and a box-type feeder for loose birdseed.  There is a particularly quarrelsome pigeon which likes to attack the box feeder and fight over the feed.  The fact that the box is full of birds already doesn't discourage additional birds from flying over and trying to land.  There is a dead tree across the lane; occasionally I look out and see dozens of these birds perching, just waiting for us to refill the box.  Makes me think of the old Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Pigeons!


Another interesting and beautiful bird common here is the 
 Acorn Woodpecker.  One enterprising bird has discovered that hummingbird nectar is quite tasty.  

We did another all-day ride with Ron and Sally to a place called the German Mine.  It's a 50 mile ride round trip.  Doesn't sound like much but most of the ride is on rough trails and average speed is less than 5 mph.

The old cabin for miners.

That's my Polaris in front, with the red "ribbon" on the winch.

Mike on an "up" portion of the German Mine trail as we were going back.  The trail is up/down/narrow so no matter where you are, you will encounter one of the above conditions.  I am at a curve looking back down the trail.

On the way back, we detoured to find a "seasonal" pond.  At this time of the year, there's quite a bit of water but by the end of the summer, this pond will be substantially smaller.

Yes, I Am Still Out Here

On December 26, bad weather blew in from the west and we are still having uncharacteristically cold, wet, and windy weather.  Winds in AZ topped out at 40 mph gusts, we had torrential rain at times, and many days the temps did not rise above 45 degrees.  Obviously, going out riding on the mountain trails did not hold a lot of appeal.

I have a bunch of unrelated photos which I will post with appropriate captions.  We are back in NM at Burro Mountain Homestead now, getting our new place organized and refurbished.  The site itself had not had any maintenance in probably at least a decade, maybe longer, so there is cleanup and painting to last for a while.

A very cold Bob Brown.

 Our new neighbors on Sunrise Ridge at Burro Mountain Homestead surprised us by showing up in January in the park in Arizona.  You can get an idea of how pleasant the weather was by Bob's photo.

Why you don't go out alone.

We went out for a ride one day with a couple of others from the park.  One of the guys had an older four wheeler which stopped dead miles from the park.  We managed to tow it back and he told us later than the local mechanic told him to get the backhoe and bury it in the desert.

Buzzed.

We were up at Flag Hill one day and got buzzed by a small plane.  There are a lot of small airports in the area and there must be lots of recreational fliers.  This guy, in my opinion, was way too close to the top of the ridge as he came past us.

Cocktail Hour

We met this delightful couple at the park.  Nancy and Paul live at Grand Junction, CO, where it was substantially colder than Hope, AZ, despite the poor weather we were having.

St. Patrick's Day

We had decent weather for St. Patrick's Day.  Paul and Nancy came over to help us celebrate the day.

A few days before we were to leave for New Mexico, our neighbors on the south from last year, Mike and Colleen Fennimor,  volunteered to take us on a ride we hadn't been able to find.  It took nearly all day to make this ride and get back to the park but it was well worth it.

View from the top of the Yuma Mine Overlook trail.

Looking down at the Yuma Mine from the top of the ridge.

Part of the trail to the top.

The day before we were returning to NM, we decided to have a couple of beers and burgers at a local cowboy bar down the road from the park.  No matter what time of the day, early or late, the parking lot is always full.  (Note to C'ville people:  this place reminded me of an upscale Westerner.)  There was the usual pool table, loud music, plenty of beer drinkers.  We walked across the building to the "restaurant" to order the burgers and then returned to the bar to wait for the food. 

We chatted up the guy sitting next to us who clearly had been on that bar stool quite a while.  While Mike was keeping up the conversation, I started looking around at the signs on the walls.

We planned our trip back very carefully, as it is 380 miles and we do it in one day.  Just one tiny oversight:  the highway we chose led right past the Renaissance Fair location and the fair was that weekend.  Took over an hour to go ten miles.  One bonus, though, was that the wild flowers were spectacular nearly all the way home.  That's what you get from all that rain all winter. 

'Twas the Day Before Christmas...

Temps in the mid to high sixties today, light wind, bright sunshine.  Definitely shirtsleeve weather.  

The park does a whole bunch of things for the holidays.  I volunteered one day to help decorate the rec hall.  Some decorations are especially eye-catching:

This is the Old West...you make decorations out of what you have.

There is a contest tonight with a parade through the park to choose the best-decorated golf cart or off road vehicle.  Here is one of the entrants:

And some decorations are more successful than others.

Faithful readers of the blog may remember that there is a lemon tree on the planting area next to the trailer and in front of it, a grapefruit tree.  While the lemon tree obviously isn't doing well (dead limbs, few lemons), the grapefruit tree is covered with fruit.  I brought my juicer from NM this year and I've had the BEST grapefruit juice on the planet for the past week or so.

The folks next to us on the north left the park at the end of last season and we had new neighbors this year for a month, Nancy and Paul.  (They have gone to San Diego for the holidays but will be back in a few weeks.)  One day the four of us wandered around in the mountains and wound up at Jail House Rock.  Already there was another group, several rigs.  Turns out they were from Parsons, Kansas, and they spend several months here every winter.  

Nancy with one the the ladies from Parsons.

I have been fighting with the seat belt/shoulder strap on the Polaris since I got it.  Finally I decided to order a four-point harness and take the factory-installed equipment out entirely.  This is an annoying job because you have to take the center console cover off as well as taking out both seats.  We only made one tiny little miscalculation:  when we removed the factory seatbelt, we engaged the governor that automatically limits the speed to 15 mph.  Fixed that the next day with a butt connector and electrical tape.  But we had to take the cover off the console AGAIN.

Paul kindly came over to assist in the job both days.  So now if I roll the Polaris, I will probably stay in it.  Probably a better plan not to roll it.

So to you all, loyal readers, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Whew, what a summer!

I'm just about worn out.  As you know from earlier posts, we took the Lance trailer to Burro Mountain Homestead, southwest of Silver City, for what we thought would be 4-6 weeks.  We liked it so much we signed a lease agreement and traded the Lance trailer  (22 feet) for a much larger one which we parked on the leased lot.  Within six or eight weeks, a much better lot, leased for decades, became available so we traded the Pinon Crest site for the Sunrise Ridge site, which meant moving everything.  (For you loyal readers, you may remember that Sunrise Ridge was where the cougar was spotted earlier in the summer.)

The new site came with an existing deck and two good-sized storage sheds.  It continues to baffle me how we have so much stuff when the object of living like this is NOT to have so much stuff.  The Hitchhiker trailer in Deming, with its great screened porch and storage shed, is for sale.  

No maintenance to speak of has been done on this site for a very long time.  It came with a 22 year old trailer which we just had hauled away, as the trailer we bought at the start of the summer is 20 years newer.  We did our best to get some of the maintenance done (the deck hasn't been stained for probably 20 years) but we ran out of time.  Lots of projects for next year. 

Many of the permanent sites have either a wooden roof/deck built or they have a car port covering everything.  Our new neighbor down the lane, Sam Bowman, has been incredibly helpful in solving a lot of issues and he told us unless we owned a lumber yard, a wooden structurer was cost prohibitive as well as taking weeks to get built.  He recommended a car port company out of Gallup, NM.  (Usually the first thing that goes bad on trailers is the roof; lots of caulking, a rubber sheet "shingle," and lots of opportunities for disaster.  The car port protects the roof and removes the dangers of leaks.  An additional benefit is the roof is shaded during the hot summer months and the trailer stays much cooler.)

Below are a couple of photos of that crew putting up the car port.  

Giant erector set.

When I ordered the car port, the company said to expect delivery in 6 to 8 weeks.  Although we were going to be in AZ at that time, Sam agreed to project manage it.  A week or so later, Sam got a call from the company that they could deliver it in 10 days (!).  So on the last day we were in the park, the crew showed up and got it finished in one day.  The wind kept rising as the day went on.  I finally quit watching the workmen because they were ON TOP of the rafters and passing big sheets of roofing steel which were like giant sails in the wind. A couple of times the sheet got away from them.  Fortunately no one was hurt but it was a dangerous day to be building one of these.  

We are now at the place in Hope, AZ, which consists of the park, a small chapel, and a closed gas station across the road.  The nearest "town," Salome, is six miles away.  I go to Parker (47 miles) or Wickenburg (60 miles) to shop.  It does encourage me to do a good grocery list because there is no running out to pick up something I forgot.

We have the side-by-sides with us but we haven't yet had time to go adventuring out onto the trails.  I hope we can get ourselves organized soon, as we haven't had much time to ride in a couple of months.