Colours of Boyce Thompson Arboretum

On Tuesday we made a trip to Boyce Thompson Arboretum.  It is located about 15 miles south of Gold Canyon right off of Hwy 60 and is a perfect place to see all of the desert plants in one small area.  The trails total about 3 miles with most of them being fairly wide, level and handicapped accessible.  For those familiar with Southern Manitoba think the Morden Experimental Farm or the English Gardens of Assiniboine Park.  Its a great place to snap pictures.

The plant life is so diverse that I don't think it matters what time of year you come here there will always be lots of colour.  Our plans for next year include a 4 month stay in Gold Canyon so it will be interesting to see the effects of the changing seasons on the plant life as well as the variety of the birds and butterflies which frequent the Arboretum.

A trip to the Arboretum always includes a visit to Superior and lunch at Porters.  Aesthetically its a bit of a hole in the wall but the decor is interesting and the food, particularly the hamburgers, excellent.  The beer was nice and cold which was quite refreshing after tromping around the Arboretum for 3 1/2  hours.

So here are some of the colours we spotted in our afternoon trek.  (note to self.  bring Charli next time as it is dog friendly as is Porters)

The arms are supposed to be pointed up.
Perhaps he's giving us directions.

Bishops Cap Cactus.  Aptly named. 

Dwarf Pomegranate

Strawberry Tree from the Mediterranean with a large moth drying his wings. 

These are in the process of unfurling.  Will be in full bloom in a few days. 

Sometimes there are some great shots way up overhead.
Red Gum Eucalyptus.  So big it has its own name.  Mr Big.  

Calabrian Pine

Palm Tree.  These shots show how symmetrical the tree branches are. 

In some spots the trails are so peaceful.
Lots of benches so you can sit and enjoy the tranquility. 

Doesn't get much prettier than this.  

Boyce Thompsons mansion.  Restoration is ongoing.
They have opened it up on a limited basis for tours this year.

These Saguaro's are getting some blooms. 

These cactus have their fur coats on.  All ready for winter. 

The seeds don't fall to far from home.  Cactus condo.

Meanwhile back in Manitoba...........

Our friend Don.  Not sure if he is planning a BBQ but
he is determined to get the deck cleaned off. 

Not missing this one bit.  

Merry Christmas

Its been 11 days since my last blog and I certainly can't use the excuse that we have bad wifi.  We have been busy doing stuff in the Park with a few trips into town and haven't even set foot out on a trail.  Now that is very unusual for us.  It has been kind of nice to slow our pace down a bit.

Lori is up to 4 Yoga classes per week and I even managed to steal her away to an introductory Pickle Ball lesson.  I have been accompanying her to 2 classes and its nice to be able to touch my toes again.  We have also been going to the gym 3-4 times per week and Lori has made me an Elliptical convert.  The unit I have been using has a VO2 Fitness test program.  Not surprisingly I have been failing the test and coming up with a below average result.  Not sure how accurate the test is but I didn't need it to tell me I need to work on my cardio among other things.   There is a Steam room and Sauna which is a nice reward after sweating and straining against the weight machines.  This time of year its been almost like having a personal fitness facility.  Most of the residents don't come in till after new years and many that are here have gone home for Christmas with the family.  Apparently there are 70 RVs coming in on Jan 1 plus many of the Park Model residents will also be coming in.  Things will be hopping in Jan but we will be off to Desert Hot Springs on Jan 3.

I spent one day cleaning up the truck.  Things get a little dusty down here.  Then there is all the dog hair that Charli leaves in the back seat.  Nice job if I do say so myself.



























The next project was to wash and wax the trailer however given the the truck took the better part of the day and the trailer is MUCH BIGGER I decided to call a professional.  $200. later the trailer was power washed, buffed, waxed and buffed again.  With all the right equipment it took him 3 hours and he did a fine job.  I enjoyed watching with my feet planted firmly on the ground.

When he was done he told me to run my hands down the side of the trailer.
Smooth as a baby's bottom.
Hopefully the bugs slide right off on the next road trip. 

The main ballroom is nicely decorated with a large tree dominating the room.



The weather has been somewhat unusual with more clouds and rain then I remember from our previous trip down here.  Today, Christmas Eve, it started off with nice blue skies however the forecast was for wind and rain to come in later in the day.  Right on schedule, at 2:00, the wind picked up and we lost sight of the Superstition Mountains due to the dust and sand.  Following that we had a few hours of heavy rain.  Right on cue, just before sunset the skies started to clear and we had an amazing sunset.  Unfortunately I was a little late with my camera and missed most of the amazing colours.

Here is a shot from a few weeks ago looking down our street to the Superstition Mountains.

This is what winter in Arizona is supposed to look like. 

Here is the same shot earlier this afternoon.

Where did that mountain go.  

Here are a few more shots of the storm.

On the positive side.  No shovelling will be required after its done.

The skies in the west started to clear just as the sun was setting.  I was about a 1/2 hour late getting my camera out.  The skies were filled with reds, yellows and pinks.  You will just have to take my word for it.


























Its Christmas tomorrow and we will be going to the main ballroom for a pot luck dinner with many of the other residents.   Hopefully the weather gets back to normal and we can get out on a few hikes plus a trip to Boyce Thompson Arboretum.  Guaranteed to have some good pics if we make it to the Arboretum.

Till then we wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year.

Arizona Sky

Sitting in my lawn chair with my 2 girls, make that one girl, Fixer Upper starts on HGTV at 7:00 so Lori has deserted me.  I suspect Charli will desert me shortly as the crackers and salami are almost gone.
Back to my story.
I am sitting here enjoying the big Arizona sky complete with a full moon shining over the palm trees.  It is almost pitch dark now and the stars are starting to come out.  I'll bet you are expecting some pictures however we spent the last 2 hours at a wine tasting and given that Lori isn't much of a wine drinker I consumed my allotment as well as most of Lori's.  Needless to say my manual dexterity is somewhat inhibited and setting up a tripod to take pics of the night sky is somewhat beyond my abilities at this point.
We are now well into our second week at Gold Canyon.  The first week we got the mandatory shopping out of the way.  REI, Outlet Mall, Mesa Swap Meet and a few other stores meant we are well over our $800. Customs allowance.  We have now started to indulge in a few of the park activities including regular visits to the gym, Yoga and a lot of walks.  We are planning some hikes, Pickle Ball and a few other activities in the coming days and in no time our visit at Gold Canyon will be coming to an end.  Next year we are planning a 3-4 month stay.
Had a nice visit with a former work mate of mine, Gary Gibson.  Gary and his wife were down here to visit with some family and at the last minute, Linda scored some tickets to "The Voice" in LA so Gary was left with some time on his hands.  He drove out to our RV Park and we had a nice visit.  We are hoping to arrange dinner some evening once Linda is back from her advendtures.  We are also Hoping to meet up with Joe and Bonnie, whom we me in Albuquerque.  They are at a park here in Mesa.
Time to go in as it's starting to cool off.  Will try to provide another update shortly, perhaps his time with some pics.

Packing up and on to Gold Canyon

On Wednesday, Nov 30 we spent the day at the campsite getting packed up and ready for an early departure on Thursday morning.  We wanted to be leaving by 7:00 AM and since the RV Parks office doesn't open till 8:00 I checked to see if someone could be there a bit early to take our electric meter reading so we could pay off our electric bill and check out.  They were very accommodating and asked me to take a picture of the meter on my phone and they would calculate my bill.  It came to just under $50. so for 1 month our total was $450 rent + $50. electric + 3 tanks of 30 lb propane $51= $551 for the month.  Not too bad.  

We would stay here again as the campsites are very nice although probably we wouldn't stay for more than 1 week.  The RV Park is located in a valley so our cell phone signal  wasn't too reliable.  We have T Mobile which doesn't provide the best coverage and from talking to neighbours, those with Verison had no problem.  The Campground Wifi was pretty much non-existent, probably due to us being at the far end of the campground, far removed from the office.  The other problem with this location is that most of the attractions are in Sedona or Cottonwood.  Both are a 20-40 minute drive so you are always on the road.  Not a major problem but would be nice to be a little closer to Sedona.  

We had a little excitement while I was draining our holding tanks.  My toe caught one of the water hoses and it tugged the faucet and the pipe snapped right off.  I'm not sure what the water pressure is but a geyser of water was shooting 30 feet up in the air.  Scared the heck out of me.  The underground water pipe is connected to a hard plastic line that extends about 3 feet up out of the ground to the faucet.  Not sure if there was already a crack in the line but the torque created on 3 feet of inflexible hard plastic caused it to snap off about 6" underground.  Needless to say I had the immediate attention of all the campers.  They got the water turned off and after about 3 hours of digging, cutting and glueing they had a new water line set up.   I was a bit embarrassed but I must say they took it all in stride.  

The reason we want to be off by 7:00 is we have an appointment at Straight Line Alignment in Mesa at 10:00 on Thursday morning.  The tread on the outside of one of my tires has been wearing and I'm thinking that an alignment is due.  A travel day is the perfect time to have this done as long as we can get in and have the job done and still leave in time to check in at our next destination.  It takes about 4 hours for the alignment so that should get us checked in by about 3:00 and still have time for Happy Hour after we get set up.    

While the trailer was in the shop we had 4 hours to kill.  We stopped at Camping World and made a few purchases and then headed to a nearby mall that we had frequented the last time we were here.  Lori went into the Barnes & Noble while Charli and I went for a walk.  Then we stopped for lunch at one of the restaurants who had outside seating.  Now we only had 2 more hours to kill.   We ended up driving out to the Gold Canyon RV Park and got all the paper work done to check in.  That would speed up the process when we came back with our trailer.  Next we went to the car wash down the road.  We visited here a number of time on our last visit as they have one of the wash bays converted to a dog wash.  Charli had become much like Pig Pen of Charlie Brown fame.  Every time we patted her a cloud of dust would appear.   It was now about 1:30 so just enough time to drive back to Mesa and pick up the trailer. 

The results of the alignment were not surprising.  All of the tires were out.  Both the camber and toeing although the one wheel where the tire was showing extreme wear was obviously the worst.  I had wanted to replace all the tires next summer with better quality rubber and now I can do so without worrying about premature wear.  

A couple of hard frosts and the leaves are falling like rain

Hard to see but a couple of green blurs in the picture are more leaves falling.
Kind of like a Christmas tree that has dried out.
Give it a little shake and all the needles are on the floor. 

The leaves on the top of the trailer were just about as thick.
Had to climb up on the ladder to sweep the leaves off the slides.
Not sweeping them off would have resulted in the leaves being
brought into the trailer when we brought the slides in. 

Our Christmas decorations at our Gold Canyon location

A palm tree with the neighbours lemon tree right behind it. 

Our street with Superstition Mountain in the background. 

The Lemon tree loaded with fruit just needing a bit more time to ripen.
We thought they were limes so cut one off to add to our Rum & Coke.
Tasted pretty good even if they weren't limes. 

We have been here a couple of days now and are settling in to the rhythm of the park.  A few walks, trip to the gym, a steam and a trip to REI to get some new hiking shoes.  Off to the Outlet Mall on Monday, some Yoga, Pickleball, some swimming and Photography club.  

Looking forward to our month here.   

A Climb up Cathedral Rock

On Tuesday, Nov 29 we took a hike up to Cathedral Rock on the Baldwin and Templeton trails.  We had had some rain and cold weather the previous few days and at the upper elevations that rain turned to snow.  As you can see below the snow created for some even more dramatic colours.  I keep thinking that the views on our hikes can't get any better and then the next trail we take proves me wrong.  This will be our last hike in the Red Rocks but I am sure we will make a stop in this area again in future years.  This is actually a great time to be here.  While the weather is a bit cool at nights the cooler weather during the day makes for great hiking weather and other than Thanksgiving week, the crowds aren't too bad.  

The snow on the higher peaks make a nice contrast

Sometimes the colours are richer and deeper in the shadows of the mountain

Yep.  We are heading up there somewhere

Before we headed up to Cathedral Rock we passed
 by this river swelled to capacity by the recent rains. 

1/5 of a second exposure shows the speed of the water.
Wished I would of had a tripod to slow the shutter even more.  

Fall colours on display

The rains resulted in little streams coming down the rocks.
Charli much prefers a muddy pool of water than clean water from our packs. 

Above.  To our left the valley below us with mountains in the distance.
Below.  To our right the cliff face of Cathedral Rock. 

Time for lunch.
 Charli is focused and waiting for the morsels that she knows will come her way. 

Maybe it was the snow on the mountains but on our way back to the RV we decided to treat each other to our Christmas gifts.  We each have hydration backpacks that we got at Costco a few years ago.  They have worked well for us but on longer hikes, particularly when the weather is a little warmer, the 2L capacity can come up a bit short, especially when we are also sharing with Charli.  Our current packs provide room for a small lunch and some snacks but not any room left over for additional layers of clothing or camera equipment.   

A stop at a hiking store and we soon had new Camelbaks, each with 3L water capacity and 22L capacity for stuff.  Perhaps a bit of overkill for our needs but it will be nice to have room for additional layers and for that big telephoto lens that is on my wish list.

Thats it for hiking in this area.  Next couple of days we will be packing up and driving to Gold Canyon.