8 March ‘08
Friday
There are a million and one trails around Arizona and yesterday Louise and I joined 11 others from our campground and headed out for a 6 mile hike.
_ 8 March ‘08 Friday There are a million and one trails around Arizona and yesterday Louise and I joined 11 others from our campground and headed out for a 6 mile hike. _It was another “Arizona Winter Day”, blue cloudless sky, and the temperature in the low 70’s. For most of us it was what you might call a “moderate” hike, but I’m sure we will feel some after affects tomorrow if we don’t take a couple of Tylenol at bed time. The desert is still very green and the spring flowers, well they are starting to show some early color. Even the cactus is a healthy green but no less dangerous to the touch. _We were all lucky with the cactus spines, but a few had found their way into some of the soles of the hiking boots. A couple of the hikers were on the watch for rattle snakes, but none were seen or heard. I was amazed at the amount of trash that was dumped…tires, beds, clothing, furniture, you name it and it was “DUMPED”. It is pretty sad that those people will go out of their way to take their trash to the desert instead of to the dump… Who knows, it could be that the Goodwill would have taken some of it but no, the dumb bastards have to take it out into the desert and create another “landfill” of shit!!! OK, I’m upset…but it is a shame and an embarrassment that someone who lives in this country would do this to “Their own neighborhood”. Louise and I purchased some good walking/hiking sticks last December at the Palm Desert market and this was the first time we had used them to hike in the hills. I must say, they really worked as advertized. I/we will most definitely use them more and more as we go out walking the streets or hiking the hills/mountains. One of the beautiful sites that we came upon was Mt. Picacho. _We are going to take the day this Sunday, and head up there. They are having a Civil War re-enactment of The Battle of Picacho Pass and we thought it would be interesting to attend...we’ll write more on that later.
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_ 5 March ‘08 Wednesday Our campground in Casa Grande the Western Horizon Resort and let me tell you, they constantly have something going on. As I was going to the rec room to pick up a freshly made muffin, I walked pass Greg and Doretta Oaklief. They were just about ready to make their presentation on 4 wheeling the Pinal County Box Canyon and I had to listen to what they had to say. Louise and I have had the Suzuki out in the mud before but if we were to go with Greg and Doretta this morning it would give us some time going over some “moderate rock and water” obstacles while trying to get further over the pass and into the canyon. Louise was in her exercise class while I was sitting through Greg’s lecture but I made the big decision that we were “in” for an afternoon of 4 wheel’ in. I through a quick lunch together, grabbed my camera and waited to tell Lou what our plans were for the day… She was as excited as I was to join in. _At 11am, Gary and Mary-Ann Tennent of “BC”, Greg and Doretta, and Louise and I headed out. The box canyon was about 40 miles northeast of Casa Grande. On the way we passed through Coolidge and then Florence. I’ll write more on Coolidge in the next couple of days but in regards to Florence…it is one of the oldest towns in Arizona and has the oldest courthouse in the state. A little note about the clock tower, they ran out of money when it came time to purchase the clock so they just painted the time of completion at the location where the clock would fit…11:40am is still painted up there and the plans are to just leave well enough alone. Another interesting note on Florence, they have 5 different jail/prisons here in this little town. The state penitentiary, a Home-land Security Prison, the city jail, 3 private jails that they contract to bring in inmates from outside of the state, and a juvenile facility...tough place but their economy is growing leaps and bounds !!! _ Now a little about our drive through the canyon. The pavement continued for another 5 or so miles and then we made our turn off to the right…all dirt, rock, and water for the next 4 plus hours. There were times when the dirt was just about as smooth as the pavements we have traveled in California but that soon was exchanged for challenging rocks of all size and a little flowing water down the drying streams. _The scenery was excellent. Cactus of all type and size, lots of new spring flowers, and of course the mountains…it was “excellent”. _ 3 March ‘08 Monday Coffee is brewing, Louise is in the shower, and I’ve just got to get something written this morning. We left Pomona on Saturday morning after getting in line with the coach for our scheduled weighing. It is very important to have the coach weighed at each wheel so that we have a good idea as to how much weight is at the corners…too much weight and it puts a heck of a strain on that tire or tires and it also lets us know if we are carrying a heavier overall cargo as well. Our report card showed us that we passed with flying colors…we were under our maximum gross weight by quite a lot and our balance was within 5lbs. from the left to the right side…we got high praise. Unfortunately this kind of weighing isn’t available just everywhere, so we jumped at the chance when we found it available at the rally. Well now we are on our way to Casa Grande, Arizona for a couple of weeks. We pulled onto Hwy 10 and headed east as far as Ehrenburg, Arizona, which gave us a run of about 200 miles and a familiar campground to stay at for a couple of days. In 1965, Louise and I moved into a new house in Alderwood Manor, which is a suburb of Seattle, and met another couple that had just moved into their new home as well…that was Karl and Nicki Ostrom. In 1969 Louise and I left the neighborhood as I was transferred to Portland, Oregon and unfortunately we had only seen Karl and Nicki once since and that was in 1986. Well we remedied that by finding out that they had a winter home in Lake Havasu, Arizona and try as we could, we finally got together Saturday. We met in Parker and enjoyed a lunch together and exchanged a lot of our past experiences since we last saw each other, family, and old memories of the neighborhood…it was great to see them again. Yesterday was our checkout day, but the winds came ripping across the desert and we opted to stay one more day to let them blow themselves out. This morning the sun is again with us, the temp is going to be in the low to mid 70’s, and “we’re ready”…Casa Grande, here we come. |
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