Decent Weather At Last

April 13

We have beautiful weather today and took a long ride to the foot of The Frog.  I think I have mentioned in an earlier post that there is a section of the mountains to the north that is known as The Frog.  If the shadows are right and you have had enough wine, you can see the head of a frog.  Sometimes it takes quite a bit of wine, actually.

This is a trail Mike will not run and only took me today as I had not been there.  After driving it, I won't do it again, either.  It is so rocky and steep and difficult, it's not really much fun.  I mistakenly continued across a wash and found out the trail ended.  Mike was right behind me and there wasn't much room to turn both rigs around.  Must have taken us 30 minutes of back and forth to get headed back the other way.  

Here are a few photos of this trail.  You will see why it's difficult.

16 April

Two days ago, we did an all-day ride with a couple from the Carolinas.  They are full-time RV'ers and will be here in Hidden Valley Ranch for another couple of weeks.  Lots of fun to talk with them about where they have been and where they might go next.  They spend most of the summer in the high country in Colorado to escape the heat.  Good riding where they are, I understand.  

Paul and Jill descend the bottom of Suicide.

Paul, Mike and Jill at Indian Bathtub.

April 23

Went up to Silver City today (50 miles away) for a horse rescue fund raiser.  Wyatt's mother-in-law Pat volunteers there.  Two other women from the park who have/had horses rode along and a good time was had by all.   

A horse came in yesterday who is in terrible shape.  She was tethered in a yard, thin, broken down, with a big sore on her withers.  The livestock inspector who seized her says she is 17 and I can believe that.  Her legs show evidence of her having been worked very hard for a long time.  The good news is she is now safe and will be fed and cared for the rest of her life.

Several months ago they got a band of wild mustangs and they are working to gentle them and get them the care they need.  A big job and at times a dangerous one.  These horses are not used to humans at all.  The people who own the ranch fund most of the rescues out of their own pocket.  The event today was to try to compete for an ASPCA grant.  See below.

Help A Horse Day @ End of the Road Ranch Spread the word and save this date & Time APRIL 23, 2016  10-2 End of the Road Ranch is Celebrating the ASPCA's Help A Horse Day    Community support is needed for chance to win up to a $25,000 ASPCA grant to help save more horses!   We will be taking part in the national celebration of ASPCA®'s Help A Horse Day on April 23 and competing for a chance to win up to $25,000 in grant prizes to assist with our efforts to protect horses.  Stopping in and signing our roster and/or making a donation this month helps us qualify for a grant from the ASPCA. Please stop by and/or donate to show your support of the horses.   To celebrate the day, End of the Road Ranch will hold an open house in honor of the ASPCA's 150th Anniversary celebration this year, the contest has been expanded to include a total of $100,000 in grant prizes, including a grand prize of $25,000.  This nationwide competition is for equine rescues and sanctuaries to raise awareness about the lifesaving work we do year-round to care for at-risk horses in our community who have often been abused or neglected.        End of the Road Ranch 4092 Mountain View Rd. Silver City, New Mexico 88061 Turn onto Mountain View from 180 W (Between the Comfort Inn and the Econo-Lodge) Drive approx. 3mi. to End of the Rd. Food-Games-Raffle Bring a friend, spread the word and come celebrate with EOTRR. Can't make that date, you can still help. Donate in honor of Help A Horse Day

Is It Spring Yet?

Today is Easter Sunday.  We are still having high winds (30-45 MPH) and days are mostly chilly.  Today has been warm but weather will deteriorate over the next day or two.

Michelle and Wyatt were here weekend before last. They came down to attend Columbus NM's 100th anniversary of the Pancho Villa raid.  (Hey, it's New Mexico...you have to stretch to find festive occasions.)  

No photos because my new-in-November Fuji camera had to return to Fuji.  They have, however, sent me a new one but it took several weeks.  And...I have to set it up again.  There must be 300 different settings or options.  

The next day they stopped to see us and to bring me the firearm I had asked Wyatt to find for me.  I have felt positively under-dressed during the warm-weather months, as everyone else is packing a sidearm loaded with snake shot.  I need a lot of practice or I better plan to throw the pistol at the snake and run like hell.

Later...

It's April 5 today.  FINALLY, WE HAVE WARM WEATHER.  Going to have 23 mph winds today so still not that great.

We went to an area (new to me) today where there are old mines.  It's a fair trip to get there and the road ends at the mines so you just turn around and go back.  There is one large open pit type mine and since we don't know what the area is called, we named it "3 Dog Mine" in honor of Indie, Muppet and Lola who were with us.  You can get an idea of the size as Mike is at the top in the first photo.  It's quite deep.  Don't have any idea what they were mining but it's been abandoned for a long, long time.

It reminded me of David Shrum who died as a result of a mine collapse in the California gold fields in 1861.  Dangerous business.  And there are idiots out here who like to go into these old mines.   

Life out here on the open range can be tough on the old, the young, the stupid or the sick/injured.  This unfortunate beastie didn't make it through the winter.  

Are We Having Fun Yet?

5 March

Well, nothing is perfect…

In addition to the problems we had with the furnace not working (it’s cold at night in the desert) we found that the water pump for the onboard water wasn’t working.  Inconvenient but not critical when you are connected to the park's water. I will return to this topic later.

So we started out home on I-8.  Mike looked at the rear view mirror and saw white smoke coming from the driver’s side RPOD wheel.  Uh oh… And there are only a few exits on I-8 between Phoenix and Casa Grande.  Fortunately Mike was yards from one of them and got the rig off safely.  I was ahead; the walkie talkies weren’t working.  Mike used the phone, told me the RPOD was ON FIRE, turn around NOW.  I had to go 10 miles or more to exit and turn around, spent 30 minutes (mostly on hold with Good Sam’s to place the service call), and turned back west to join a very aggravated Mike.

Mercifully, not on the shoulder of I-8.

And there we sat for five hours, increasingly angry at the poor response time from the repair service in Phoenix.  Fortunately, I was sufficiently foresighted to have cold beer and lunch on ice.  So we waited…and waited…and waited.  The repair guy finally showed up and did a great job.  He told us he couldn’t do a permanent repair but only a temporary one to get us home (we were about 200 miles away). 

Help at long, long last.

We started up again at 5:45 pm.  Mike wanted a Walmart away from the Interstate and on the east side of Tucson .  (Had to cancel our reservation in Willcox because it was too far).  Found a Walmart online and plugged the address into the Garmin and off we went.  And it got very, very dark and I’m night blind.  We finally got to where Garmin told us to get off I-10, far beyond Tucson and in the middle of nowhere with no lights visible.  Garmin kept saying “X miles to destination, .X miles to destination, etc.”  And still no lights.  I figured we would come to the address and there would be a big sign “Coming in 2017, Walmart!” 

I may never be as glad again to see a lighted-up Walmart.  We were dead tired.  Of course, we had no on-board water which made it majorly inconvenient.  I made the mistake of putting down the electric jack and forgot about it.  When Mike started up the next morning, the jack bent and jammed.  (Were we having fun yet?)  So we limped back to Deming with the jack 1.5” above the pavement. 

Well, the RV life is not all beer and skittles, as they say.  We got home safely which is the important part.  Hauled the RPOD into Jimmy’s RV Repair in Deming and went through a laundry list of things needing fixing.  Jimmy has until June to get them all done as we aren’t going anywhere until then.

For the past two days, I have spent all my time cleaning, doing laundry, and re-organizing .  With better weather, cold beer, and gas in the Honda I will be able to return to what I like…desert riding.

Arizona Adventures - Part 3

The Grand Canyon of Bouse (insert trumpet fanfare here)

The young man at the tire store in Bouse is an off-roader.  Mike asked him what, if anything, was east of the highway, as we had spent all our time riding trails west.  He said we could go to the Grand Canyon of Bouse, which, he said, is just a big hole in the ground (well, really, isn't that a description of the Grand Canyon?). He kindly drew us a map with only a couple of significant omissions.  After wandering around a bit, we stumbled on it.  

Grand Canyon of Bouse

Lots of old mining activity around it.  And it is just a big hole in the ground.

One day we were parked in a wash in the shade, having lunch.  A guy on a four-wheeler passed us going the other way and he stopped to talk.  In the front basket he had two Yorkies, Lola's mortal enemies. She had a fit jumping up and down so I put her back in the Rhino but I didn't fasten her clip to the frame.  

The guy said goodbye and headed down the trail.  We decided to pack up and go.  And we were a dog short.  Looking in the direction of the ATV, we saw Lola, legs pumping like pistons and tail flying, disappearing over the hill in hot pursuit.  We turned the Rhino around and started up the trail to recover her.  In 50 yards or so, here she came over the crest of the hill, hot, thirsty, and unsuccessful.

On our last day in Bouse, we went back to the box canyon, hoping to see big horn sheep.  There were people at the end of the canyon who said "Oh, yes, there were three of them here just a few minutes ago."  Of course, they were long gone.  And so were the 10 mule deer they saw.  AARRRGGHHH.

The lady is the group warned us she had thrown away a turkey sandwich because it had gone bad.  Of course, Muppet and Lola found it, with predictable results. 

What's a guzzler?

This funnels rain into a basin underneath.

Watering hole fed by the catch basin.

Water is scarce in these parts.  AZ Game & Fish constructs these rainwater catch basins for the wildlife.  

There is a small outdoor park on the highway which goes through Bouse, a memorial to the WWII tank crews who trained here and fought in Europe.  

Eight Ball, the morale officer at Camp Bouse.
Slain by a jealous rival, according to the plaque.

We have had a great time and are headed home.  Will spend tonight in Tacna AZ and tomorrow night at a park in Willcox AZ.  Home to Deming Saturday.  

Arizona Adventures - Part 2

Lost Again:  The Search for Preacher's Pass

It's that way!

The trails around Bouse bear a striking resemblance to a bowl of spaghetti.  You start out thinking you know how to get to a point on Google Earth and find you are completely headed down the wrong trail.

For three days we searched for one of the trails leading to Preacher's Pass.  Local lore has it that the area preacher rode over the pass from Brenda to Bouse to conduct Sunday services....NO WAY.  It took us all day to get to the pass from Bouse, much less to Brenda.  

Some of you may be wondering "How hard can it be to find a mountain?"  Well, the problem is that other mountains keep getting in the way.  Every time you come around a curve you think "Okay, we are getting there."  And you aren't.  Can't see the pass until you are almost directly below it. The pass is actually not visible in the photo...it's behind the mountain where you see the trail, up another mountain.

See the road to the pass?

Great views and a popular spot.  When we reached the pass, we had it to ourselves.  By the time we left, there were 13 people and 7 rigs at the pass.  Not a trail for the faint-hearted, I might add. 

Convention at Preacher's Pass

See the bulldogs?  The owner told us one had backed into a teddy bear cactus and a chunk stuck and broke off.  The unfortunate dog tried to lick it off.  It took two guys and a pair of pliers to get all the spines out of the dog's tongue and rump.  

Teddy bear cactus

On our way back, we encountered another traveler who said he had just passed three big horn sheep close enough to the trail to see clearly.  By the time we got to the spot, they were gone.  Drat.


Took part of a day and drove over to Parker, CA to visit my Hidden Valley Ranch neighbors, Gary (Gary is a girl) and Craig Stewart.  They spend winters in Parker, spring/fall in Deming.  

The old iron bridge at Parker.  No longer in use.

The Colorado River

Note to potential visitors to Parker AZ in the winter:

Plan to spend at least two hours in Walmart buying groceries. Many, many, many retired couples whose weekly social outing is Walmart.  Patience, Mary Anne...

Woke up the other morning to a VERY COLD RPOD  (low 50's).  (It is hot in the desert during the day but gets cold at night.  Our 85-year-old neighbor saw us thrashing around and asked what we were doing.  Talking with him, Mike isolated the problem to a bad propane regulator valve.  Of course, there's nowhere in Bouse to buy such a thing. 

Excursion to Quartzite.  Another note:  don't go to Quartzite.  Small town completely overrun with winter visitors.  It took us two stops to find a regulator valve which would work.  (On the positive side, Mike saw three big horn sheep about 100 yards off the Bouse-Quartzite Road.  I missed them as I was driving.)

Sign in the hardware store in Quartzite

Okay, so back to Bouse.  And a very long afternoon for Mike getting the new valve installed.  But it works:  we have range burners and a furnace again.

Arizona Off Road Adventures - Part 1

February 1 - Monday

Wow, what a BUSY two weeks!  We left Deming January 17, stopping at the Walmart Hilton in Buckeye AZ overnight as going all the way to Bouse was too far for me.  (I get tired and I make mistakes when it's over 300 miles.)  I am pulling Mike's Yamaha Rhino on my trailer behind the Jeep and he is pulling the RPOD behind his truck.  Our friend from Hidden Valley, Gilbert Minzenmayer, is with us with his big trailer and truck.

Gilbert and Mike at the Walmart Hilton patio.

Found the park in Bouse (rhymes with house) the next day and got checked in.  Immediately unloaded the ATV's and hit the trails right out of the park.  Great access.

The trails were originally cut into the desert to support mining operations, some from the late 19th century, others from the 20th.  

Another interesting fact about this tiny town:  it was the location of a super secret Army training base during WWII.

Camp Bouse

There is a one-room museum here (which also doubles as the Chamber of Commerce).  We stopped by the other day during one of the few days/hours it is open.  

There is a little general store here, A&C Mercantile, which carries (mostly) beer, chips, lunch stuff.  Step inside and you are back in the 1930's.  The other little market has even less...beer, ice, beer, beer, beer...

Thoughts on desert botany:

I am astounded at the diversity and tenacity of the desert plants we are seeing.  It's very different from what grows around Deming...some mesquite and greasewood and creosote but the species of cacti are quite different.  

The cacti are beautiful and very well armed.  If you are not careful and you brush against one, you will be very sorry.  Mike clipped one with the Yamaha.  Result below.

This one forms "forests."

 The two varieties below appear to a litter of some small furry animals.

And the plants take root and thrive in the unlikeliest-looking places, in solid rock.

Saguaro growing out of a mountainside.

The saguaro cactus is unique to the Sonoran desert and there are many around Bouse.

Saguaro

(Note to readers:  my camera lost its date one day so anything dated 1/1/2016 was actually taken probably on 1/27.  Problem identified and fixed.)


Much more to come as we continue to explore this fascinating area over the next two weeks.

It's a New Year!

New Year’s Day 2016

Dear Family and Friends:

Happy New Year to you all!

Life here at the ranch is quiet except for the incredibly bad weather we’ve had for the past month.  We’ve had winds up to 43 mph, rain, sleet, snow, sneet, and temps down in the teens at night. Feels just like Kansas!  The entire state of NM was under a winter blizzard warning for several days.  Fortunately, things have improved somewhat in that the temps are in the 40’s during the days and the winds have moderated.  Nastier weather than the past two years at the same time.

In two weeks several of us are going to Bouse, AZ to ride ATV trails there.  It should be temps in the 50’s (and maybe into the 60’s) with low winds.   We all have an extreme case of cabin fever as we are accustomed to being outside every day.  I bought a new Weber gas grill six weeks ago and have only used it a couple of times as it’s too cold to be out on the deck long enough to grill anything.

I see the Jayhawks’ basketball team is rolling…I thought their football season would never end.  And the KC Chiefs did well this season.   And, of course, the Kansas City Royals won the World Series.  A very good year for our teams.

I will post photos and reports from Arizona, as we will be there for a month.    Then back to Hidden Valley Ranch for the spring riding.  In June we will leave for an extended trip which will take us out to Seattle to see my brothers Mike and Dick and their families, and then into Canada for two weeks and back down through Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park before returning to Deming by way of several national parks in Utah.  We will get back about the middle of September.  Deming during the summer is slightly warmer than the surface of the sun and RV air conditioners just can’t handle it.  It’s better to find someplace to go than sit in these pizza ovens for three or four months.

Next post will be from Arizona in a couple of weeks.