Missouri state parks

Wallace State Park makes a nice retreat for the night. As we walked the campground Gary found a tree with elaborate carvings of native species including geese, raccoon, a snake, and owls and even a donkey or maybe it is a horse. A creative way to bring life to a tree stump.

The unexpected in Oklahoma

As we move north we take our time to see the sites of the areas we travel through. Sometimes there is not much to offer on the freeway so we venture off the fast lane and find the hidden gems in that region. Hard as it is to believe the northern part of Oklahoma has some amazing vista with sweeping sand dunes and mesa's with views that stretch for miles. Gloss Mountain, so named for the shinny appearance of the mesa's due to the selenite content. The area is rich in minerals including copper, salt and spar giving the valley floor and eroded landscape colors ranging from deep rust to white and blushes streaks of gypsum. What a pleasant surprise.

Fire and Ice

As we head for home we made a stop in the Valley of Fires State Park. This area of New Mexico is home to the white sands to the south and an area where the earths surface was shallow enough to allow molten lava to perk up though the crust flowing along the valley floor. The contrast of the lava flow in the valley and the snow capped mountains to the east is stunning. Two years back when we came through we had an ice storm one night, this time it was in the 80's.

Desert Poppies in the land of enchantment

As we make our way slowly home our first departure from the arid Arizona desert is New Mexico. Even through it is a dry spring, the desert poppies are in full bloom along the hillsides lighting the way as we hike one of our favorite campgrounds, Rockhound. Blue is oblivious to their beauty as he walks the paths pushing the poppies a side, one of his favorite campgrounds as well.

New to my bird checklist

In our last week in Arizona, I've had the pleasure to include several new birds to my life list. Most from our campsites including the cardinal looking Pyrrhuloxia, a tiny Verdin who's bill could not fit in the hummingbird hole found a way to get some sugar water and just this morning a Scaled Quail that ran in front of Blue. One morning while I was watching the sun come up over the mountains a Coopers Hawk landed in the tree next to the rig to watch the ground squirrels digging new homes around the site. They seem to be small versions of the prairie dogs back in the Dakota, standing up straight as a meerkat to watch all they survey. I did not see the hawk take one for breakfast, but I'm sure he will as they get more daring and venture from their dirt dens.

An evening with Jim and Marilyn

As visitors to the southwest every other year, we did our best this year to visit some of Gary's extended family including an evening with Jim and Marilyn. It is always a great time and the evening ends way too soon, but we had a blast. They have a beautiful home in Saddlebrooke. As I was admiring the yard 5 deer strolled through just behind their fence and smiled for the camera. Marilyn tells me they have a bobcat that stops by nightly to see Kemp, their cat who spends much of his time indoors these days. Good thing, Kemp is a very nice guy but getting a little long in the tooth as my mother would say and I'm not sure if he would do so well against a bobcat.

From 87 to 50 for the high!

We have had the great pleasure to enjoy some nice warm days in central AZ, nut as they say, wait a few hours and things will change. And boy did they change from 87 down to a high of 50 with snow on the nearby Catalina mountains. That is correct, it is warmer in MN than where we are on Tucson.

Long walks make a guy tired

After a long hot walk in the desert, Blue dropped down in his bucket (which is getting a bit small) and took a well deserved cat nap.

More from the South Rim

We had a spectacular few days on the south Rim of the Grand Canyon, but the weather kicked up some 50 mile an hour winds and planned on dropping temps into the low teens at night so we have moved south again for some R & R in the sunshine for the last few weeks in the SW.

If you look close at the Angle Bright Trail Photo, you will see the mule team walking down the steep entry beginning at the trail head.

The foot prints in the snow are fresh cougar tracks.

The Grand Canyon at sunset

As we pulled into our site in the GC campground, Gary grabbed the camera to capture a small group of Mule Deer strolling through the site next to ours. No fear as these deer are very accustomed to people. We needed to switch sites as the first site was nothing but mud but our new sit is dry and in full sun, something we need at these higher elevations. And yes, that is snow on the ground, but it was in the mid 50's here in the Grand Canyons Trailer Village. But the trip is all about the canyon and OMG, words and pictures can not tell the story of how you feel the first time you look over the edge.

Granite Dells near Prescott AZ

We started our morning with a nice hike in the huge rocks surrounding our campground (Point of Rocks) just outside of Prescott AZ. It was a nice morning for a short hike to the top with spectacular views of the lake below the campground.

Our day ended with sunset shots of a much larger group of rocks called the Grand Canyon. This shot was our first look at the GC and what a view, WOW!

6100 feet, Prescott is up in the snow line

Today we drove to the town of Prescott high in the mountains. There was snow high in the mountains over 6100 feet, but the weather in Prescott is sunny and warm. We will probably have our first night below 30 tonight. No worries though, it will climb to 60 tomorrow and we are plugged in again so we'll stay warm in the rig.

Alamo Lake State Park

A few days at Alamo Lake gave us our first night on electricity in a month. Funny but we did not miss it. The lake is beautiful and has the animals we missed in our few days in Quartzsite including coyotes and donkeys and lots of hummers in the neighbors feeders. We were in site b8 but our favorite was site B12.