All is Well

We've settled in with our electronics in functioning order

 and groceries in the fridge!

It's all good👌👍✌

All the Way Home!

We arrived back in Alberta at 6:30 AM, crossing at Coutts.

We had winterized our trailer as we departed from Idaho Falls (we could see frigid temperatures up the road) and made plans to stay in a Shelby MT hotel. Awaking early this morning, we showered and breakfasted and got back in the saddle! After reports of hours-long waits at the border, we were relieved to have only 3 vehicles ahead of us at the border & no complicated procedures. We left there with a handout outlining our self-isolation requirements for the next 14 days.

All in all, our travelling went very smoothly for this time of year. We had a few episodes of rain, light snow and wet dirty roads but no wind challenges.

Going forward, we have our very fine condo neighbours Dave and Barb on our side to help us get through the 14  days of self-isolation. Wherever would we be without Dave & Barb?



Welcome to Spring!

We won't get to enjoy it much for the next two weeks but should have "quality time" to:

🌷get our phone & internet back in gear (so far, we had our Telus cellphone working for about 11 hrs when they dropped us & therefore we can't talk to our IP for restoration of service so we are using our neighbour's internet - Bill is beyond😠)

🌷do our piles of laundry (very low tech)

🌷work on our income tax (oh joy, we e-file)

🌷catch up with family and friends (electronically... see item one!))

🌷answer our Christmas snail mail that was waiting

Halfway Home

We have had two good days on the road from Pahrump, NV and tonight are in Idaho Falls, ID. We had a few showers near the end of our drive today but winds have been mostly in our favour.

By tomorrow we hope to be close to the border and only one sleep away from home !

Wonder how busy the crossing will be as there are many Canadian plates driving north?

On our Way Directly Home 😒

After a disheartening decision, we have abandoned our touring plans and, starting tomorrow morning, are travelling straight home to Calgary.

Global Affairs Canada called upon Canadians currently abroad

 to hasten home while they still have the chance 

as countries around the world impose ever-tighter travel restrictions.

Today we are trying to get the oil changed in the truck, getting groceries for the trip, digging out our winter emergency gear, watching the weather up the road and getting our heads around the change in plans!

Wonder what we'll find at the border - long lines? temperature taking? recommendations / instructions for social isolation?

Escape to Death Valley N.P.

While our original plan was to spend the day at Death Valley today, the escape from rainy weather and world problems made it an especially delightful experience! About the only disappointment for the day was THE WIND! Gusts of 25-40 mph (40-65 kph) discouraged us from any of the exploratory trails - indeed at Ubehebe Crater they felt like they could cause dermabrasion and catch us off balance at any time.

Funeral Range to east of Death Valley 

Panamint Range to west of the park

Water on the highway into the Park

(rain the last few days left flooding & snow)

Leaving the Park, we saw a vehicle hydroplane in this water - 

we watched it leave the road in front of us, landing upright 

after it passed through the fence into a slough

Harmony Borax Works historic mining/refining site

20-mule teams hauled the refined borax

165 miles south to Mojave and a railhead in the late 1880s.

The water tank carried 1600 gallons for the mules.

Watching folks on the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

High winds on the dunes

Only found a few wildflowers in bloom as yet

Most were close to the pavement (warmer? wetter?)

like this beautiful orchid-type bloom

Ubehebe Crater formed about 2,000 years ago.

Would have enjoyed the hike around the perimeter,

or into the crater, but the wind just about blew us over on the rim!

Visitors walking to the water at Badwater basin,

 the lowest point in North America at -282 FT (-86 M) below sea level 

Didn't walk out here either!

Our last activity before leaving the park was a scenic one-way loop through multi-hued hills on Artists' Drive. 

As we drove in, through, and out of the Park, every corner delivered a new sight to behold. The colour, shape and panorama of the landforms was jaw dropping; for those who have driven through the badlands of Alberta you might say that Death Valley is like the Drumheller valley on steroids!!

Family Week

We had a fun week with Janine, Colin, Zach (6) and Magnus (2) while they were staying in Phoenix with Colin's parents. There were a few warm, sunny days when we were able to ride and the youngsters could be outdoors.

Sky at the start of our ride Sunday morning

Homeowner along the bike trail made art with wheel discs/hubcaps

Other creative flowers 

#1

We are putting all of our Monday hike photos here for you to enjoy!

It's hard to get 8 people on the same page for a quick photo.

Luckily our walk through the interpretive trail at the 

McDowell Sonoran Preserve went more smoothly than the picture taking 😏😄

#2

#3

Then there was rain and the dark clouds of Covid-19....that meant a lot of indoor activities and that the children's hopes to go to places like Legoland and the Children's Museum were cancelled. So disappointing.

Now, the travelling family is facing two weeks of self-isolation on their return to Alberta, our condo, and the RV Park where we wintered in Apache Junction, have cancelled all public activities and our travel plans to Ontario to see Rose Lynn's Mom and our son Tyson & Veronica have been delayed. Wonder if we will be able to travel to Scotland in late June?

Meanwhile, tonight we are at Pahrump, Nevada, just outside Death Valley National Park hoping it will be dry for the next two days for us to tour this treasure for the first time!

We have lots of questions to answer in the next few days - do our friends in California and Oregon still want to take a chance seeing us? do we want to take a chance seeing them? or should we just head straight home?

Stay tuned

Starting the Journey back to Alberta...

Today we move to a campground in N Phoenix to await the arrival of Janine & family for a week's visit. As usual they will stay with Colin's parents and the two families will spend lots of time together. The weather is very warm - 80sF / hi 20sC so pool time should be a popular activity!

Then we are off to Death Valley for a first visit - looking forward to that. We'll follow that up with a visit to friends in coastal California near San Luis Obispo. Hope to see Yosemite National Park as we head north and then plan to visit friends in Oregon before crossing the border into Canada by month end.

Road Trip Wonder

On the suggestion of a friend we took a drive through a very scenic area east of Apache Junction; it's a rugged remote area of dramatic roads and past & present copper mines. Our Calgary friends, Bob & Ann, came along for the ride.

On a sunny cool day, it was a fun time being amazed around every corner, over every hill and into every valley. There were many Wow! moments.

Lunch time found us in the historic copper mining town of Globe. Here we found Spring, a good Mexican restaurant, La Casita (around since 1947), and the unexpected pleasure of the Copper Country Quilt Guild's 40th annual show at the Cobre Valley Center for the Arts (the former courthouse built in 1910 and beautifully restored in the 80s).

(a borrowed photo of the Cobre Valley Center for the Arts)

Arts & Craft Show

Arts and crafts groups active in the Park exhibited their works this afternoon. There were painters, wood carvers, stained glass, beaders, knitters, jewellery makers, barn quilt painters (square wooden frames painted with quilt patterns) and, of course, quilters!

Rose Lynn poses with the quilt that she started at home.

The "crazy quilters" make quilts for a local family charity. Apart from the batting, all the fabric and time is donated. We've made 16 (maybe more) this winter.

Using the "Fun & Done" technique* that the quilters use, Rose Lynn applied the multiprint strips that came already cut in a bag of "surprise" fabric from a local thrift store. She joined the finished squares together until the home space was too small to continue and the rest of the quilt was assembled in our meeting room by another sewer.

The back of the quilt which is 70 x 84

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ok67IvPfyI

Lost Dutchman Rodeo Days Parade

Saturday morning we enjoyed a variety of horses, horsepower (old vehicles and farm equipment) and beautiful weather. We also enjoyed the AJ High School band (about the only live music in the parade!) There was also good representation from the local police, fire, waste  services and local businesses ... but way too many politically flavoured floats.

"Burro-Mobile"

(a burro is pushing from the rear!)

Colour coordinated!

Driver said the tractor pulling the thresher is a 1950

In Laws / Out Laws Get Together

We met up with our daughter's in-laws in Mesa today.

Rose Lynn & Elise attended Quilt Arizona! 2020 at the Mesa Convention Center. Hundreds of display quilts and plenty of vendors - say no more!

Bill and Ron took their bicycles to Tempe, rode up through Scottsdale to a favourite restaurant, Randy's, for lunch, and back to Tempe through Phoenix along the Cross Cut Canal.

A good time was had by all!

👍👍👍👍

Canada Day at Rock Shadows

It was a noisy sea of red & white togged Canadians at the annual Rock Shadows Canada Day Party. Just over 200 Canucks attended an evening of visiting, eating a volunteer-prepared meal and dancing to a live band.

The decorations were silver and ice blue with a snowball & snowflake theme - just in case we were homesick for those! Not. No detail was unobserved as the wine on the tables was a bottle of white and a bottle of red, bearing the winery name "Smoking Loon"!

Some of the food prep volunteers

We helped to decorate the hall with the special theme items

Licence Plate Creativity

PADE 4 

(on a beater truck)

2THPICK

(?, but amusing)

WHERAMI

(good one for travelers?)

HUA2LCO

(Pacific beach area, Huatulco, in southern Mexico (Oaxaca))

CRV4573

(oddly, this standard issue AZ plate

 was on a Kia Sorrento not a Honda CRV!)

AK47RND

(not sure about this one at all....)

Rain in the Desert

We had a 12 hour episode of rain from early morning to mid afternoon today; it went from light showers to downpours with quiet moments in between and there were flash flood warnings for the area. Bill even had to drive his music gear over to the Saturday afternoon jam location - usually he loads it into a wheeled trolley for the trip.

Windy & Nasty but Worth It!

It was a discouraging start to our hike on the L.O.S.T. (Legends of Superior Trail) trail out of Superior, 40 min east of Apache Junction; "gale force" winds (15mph / 25kph ?) were roaring through the canyon at the trailhead when we started about 9 am but became quieter in various sections and didn't feel so abusive as the temperature climbed above 60F / 16C. We almost gave up on the hike!

The trail follows the original 1920s alignment of US Highway 60 from the town of Superior up the lower portion of scenic Queen Creek Canyon to the historic Claypool Tunnel (1919). It's about a 2 mile / 3 km climb up to the tunnel and then an easy stroll down!

Rose Lynn and our condo friend Louise huddled against the chilling wind.

Large gusts would make us think about our balance!

Scene from the tunnel looking over the rugged Queen Creek valley, 

a water tank and our path leading down under the the current Hwy 60 bridge (seen in the previous shot)

Soon, all three of us were relieved to be out of the wind, enjoying lunch at Sun Flour Market on the historic Main St. of Superior (a copper mining community). Tomato Bisque soup, sandwiches and carrot cake hit the spot!

Historic Main St. Superior looking SW towards Picketpost Mountain

(borrowed photo)

Historic Main St looking SE with the dramatic Apache Leap 

in the left background (borrowed photo)

Sun Flour Market is in the white building with the burgundy truck at front

Windy, Warm and Wanderfull

What a fun ride we had today.

We started in Tempe but spent most of our time in Scottsdale, first on a standard route and then we went exploring! We had looked at our bicycle map and found a path along the Cross Cut Canal that we had never ridden. Bill made a good turn off our usual path and it took us directly to the Canal Path (new to us) and into downtown Scottsdale where we ate our picnic lunch in the shade beside the Arizona Canal. From there we were in familiar territory and it was a direct ride to the Cross Cut!

We'd do it all over again the same way!

Our lunch view

All who wander are not lost?! 

Spring Blooms

An acreage field that stores old farm equipment seems to have been seeded to these daisies (coreopsis?) that are in full bloom

Orange & yellow blooms

We have seen other spring blooms on our rides in the area including both pink and white apple trees and large blooming yucca plants. More to come we hope as we plan to travel to Death Valley on the way back to Alberta.