Western Backroads

A Cat's Birthday

2008-02-22T23:30:00.002-07:00

Archie turned 16 years old this week.

He started off the day by taking a nap.

When he finally got out of bed, he sniffed around a little bit.

Then, he rubbed up against the fireplace.

And rubbed against the coffee table.

Finally, he laid down for another nap.

Monument Valley Jeep Expeditions

2007-09-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

In March we found out about Jeep Expeditions and the Monument Valley trip that was planned. Dave and Kathy signed up and we soon decided we wanted to go too. A September 8/9 off-road tour was organized through Harold Simpson with Trailhandler Tours. After months of waiting, the weekend arrived.

Marcia and I both were able to get off work early on Friday and left our house around 2:30pm. We stopped in Flagstaff for supper and made it to the Goulding's Campground across the highway from Monument Valley around 9pm. We set up our tent and went to bed. Here you can see a photo of our camp site the next morning.

The next morning we broke camp and headed for the visitor's center at Monument Valley to meet up with the rest of the group. From there you can see the mittens.

Once all 14 Jeeps arrived, we headed out. The first day, the planned route was through Mystery Valley to the west of Monument Valley. We started out by heading through some sandy washes that hadn't been traveled on for some time. Not too far in, we came upon a big washout. The guide Jeep and Dave made it through in front of me, but I didn't have as much luck. I was soon spinning tires in the soft sand. Dave got out to help spot for me, but got a dirt shower as I made an attempt to get out.

A quick hookup of the tow strap yanked me out of the hole and the group was on their way again. Here are some photos of a few stops along the way.

Here is an arch that is cut out of the rock. Standing at the bottom, you can look right up and see the sky through it.

The next stop along the way had some ruins at the base. This location was named many hands as you could see from the petroglyphs on the walls.

Here is Marcia and her Jeep.

Towards the end of the route, we climbed a hill to a viewpoint looking north over Mystery Valley.

After exiting Mystery Valley we circled back around and entered Monument Valley. The guides took us to the campground under Rain God Mesa. Everyone setup their tents and prepared supper. As it got dark, Harold played the flute, told stories, and played the drum while singing. Jamie dressed in traditional attire and danced for the group. He also included the group and everyone got up and danced with him. I didn't get any photos of this, but I'll provide links to others who did.

The next series of photos are from our campground Saturday night in the heart of Monument Valley. We could see many of the monuments including Three Sisters.

Saturday morning we had to get up really early. That wasn't a problem for everyone because at 5am, Harold started banging on his drum and sang a Navajo song. He followed this 3-4 minute alarm clock, by two simple English words, "Good Morning".

Everyone followed Harold and Bah-hi out of Monument Valley and towards Kayenta 20 miles to approach Hunt's Mesa from the south. Here is a photo as we turned off the pavement and began heading back north.

After a few miles of easily graded road, we dropped off onto a harder trail that started as a 1/2 mile of sandy river bottom. Everyone was rolling right along and the end was fast approaching as the guide Jeep hit a really deep spot of sand and got stuck. Dave, following them, had to slam on his brakes to stop. He then tried to pull around them to pull them out, but was soon buried himself. George was able to get around and pull the guide Jeep out forwards. We hooked our Jeep up to Dave and pulled him out backwards.

Once everyone was out, we were able to make a run for it and get to harder ground. Immediatly after, there was a steep climb up a rock hill. Here you can see Dave speeding away and everyone else soon following.

The road contined from there on narrow mountain roads that varied in difficulty.

We finally arrived at the Hunt's Mesa overlook and stopped for lunch.

After lunch, we contined on to another magnificent overlook. We spent some time there and then backtracked the same way we came in. After following the same path out approximately 1/2 of the way, we took a different fork in the road to exit by another trail.

On this route off of Hunt's Mesa, we decended into a narrow canyon to view Spider Arch.

Where's Marcia? Can you spot her in this photo?

Bah-hi, the driver of the guide Jeep, encouraged me to climb up into the arch. This was very steep with poor footing, but he helped me climb all the way up approximately 100 feet to look straight up and see the openings. After a few photos, we slid down on our butts.

The rest of the trail out was very sandy, just as it had begun. We drove in a wash for some time and then climbed a sandy hill. On the back side of this hill was a huge descent down into another wash. You can see one of the photos Marcia took as we went down and then the rest of the group following. Harold mentioned that this is a one way hill and it is impossible to drive up. Many people have tried, but it has never been conquered.

Soon after, we came back to where we entered the trail and after one last stop, everyone headed on their way.

I'll add more to this later as more people post their photos, but here are George and Diane's Photos

Labor Day Weekend

2007-09-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

For Labor Day weekend, we decided to go camping up on the rim north of Payson. Dave and Kathy went up on Friday night and Marcia and I pulled our camper up Saturday morning. They found a really nice spot right on the rim. We didn't really do much all weekend besides hang out at our campsite and relax.

Paul really wanted to come with us, but couldn't because he was on-call for work. Dave called him and rubbed it in. Here's where Paul could have set up his tent.

Later in the afternoon, I lit up some of that Iowa oak that my dad brought me last winter. It sure does burn well for a campfire.

Here Marcia poses near the edge. Not 30 feet from where we setup our campers was a 500 foot cliff where you could see for miles.

Camping on the Rim.

Wickenburg Mountains

2007-08-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

See all of the photos here.

The August 4x4 Meetup was taking the Wickenburg Mountain trail from the Charles Wells book. Marcia had lasik surgery on her eyes the day before and didn't go along since she was supposed to avoid sunlight and dust for a couple weeks. The group started by meeting at the McDonalds in Wickenburg.

From there, Rob and Sharon took the lead and headed northeast on Constellation Road to the turnoff to the Wickenburg Mountains road. The road immediatly became more difficult than the simple graded road up to this point. Our first stop was Constellation City. Not much left anymore.

We drove on some shelf roads and down through a few washes before coming to a nice shady spot for lunch.

A few more miles and we arrived at the Isaac Bradshaw grave site.

We kept going and soon came to the end of the trail at Copperopolis Mine and Townsite. We did a little bit of exploring here and then turned around and headed back out the way we came in.

Steve led the group on the way back. At one point, we got stuck behind a cow that was walking in the road and would not move to the side. Finally, we got past him.

We reached the end of the trail along Constellation Road around 5pm. A handful of the members were driving up a washout as a challenging obstacle. Don "Jeepmasher" proved true to his name and broke his Jeep. His axle broke with the right rear tire flying off.

Ken and Amanda took Don back to his home in the valley to get a trailer. The rest of the group discussed the best way to get his jeep out. It was decided that we should get the Jeep out of the wash before it got dark. Kevin hooked up the winch and we pulled the vehicle up the hill to the main road. Everyone then headed back into town to wait for Don's return at McDonalds.

Dave hooks up a towstrap and helps Kevin and his Bronco pull.

Back with the trailer, we got it loaded onto the trailer and headed home. I made it home by midnight, so after all, it was a good trip.

Lake Pleasant to Crown King

2007-08-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

Every year the Arizona Virtual Jeep Club has their annual run from Lake Pleasant to Crown King. This road is also known as the back way to Crown King and is a very challenging trail. When the club was originally formed, this was the first trail they did together, so they have been repeating the trip every August.

Dave was planning on going, but Kathy didn't want to, so I rode shotgun with him. Paul also went in our group with Steve riding along. Kathy and Marcia stayed in Phoenix and did a little shopping and took naps while they waited for us.

In total, there were over 100 Jeeps signed up for the trip. Groups began leaving the trailhead at 5am and were spaced every hour for most of the morning. We were on the 8am run and met up with the approximately 30 Jeeps in our group.

Here is a picture looking back on the second half of our group. There were about 8 Jeeps in front of these that I didn't get a good picture of.

Near the beginning of the trail, the scenery was desert mountains and you could see for miles back over Lake Pleasant and towards the city. You can't see Lake Pleasant in the second picture here, but it's off in that direction.

The trail progressively gets harder the further you go. Here is Paul and Steve climbing the first obstacle.

Here is another guy in our group climbing up the same obstacle. I wasn't surprised he started having engine problems not much further along. That Cherokee wasn't abused in the slightest. Nope.

Here is a pretty picture looking back towards where we had just come from.

The next obstacle was one of the harder ones. It had two spots that made for a challenging climb. Dave and I were the 5th Jeep back at this point and watched the guys in front of us go up.

Here’s a photo of Paul and Steve on their way up with the others waiting behind.

Dave kicked me out of the Jeep to help spot for him as he came up. Here’s a photo of him climbing the hardest part of this obstacle.

Paul then came along and got hung up on the rock in the middle.

He backed off and came to the right more and made it up.

Paul and Steve climbing on out back to the main road.

Here is another shot towards the south as we waited for the rest of the group to catch up.

Our 8am group stopped for lunch and a smaller group from the 9am run caught up to us there. Dave and Steve knew Randy from our Meetup group, so after lunch we joined up with Mike in the yellow Jeep, Randy in the silver Jeep, David in the 2nd silver Jeep, and Paul and Steve bringing up the tail.

The vegetation at this level started getting quite a bit larger as we rose out of the desert and got into the higher mountain elevations. The trail was narrower and consisted of some fairly tight switchbacks climbing into the Bradshaw Mountains.

Along the way we passed the site of the Oro Belle Mine. Just before there we had to go through the wash area known as the rock garden. At one point I had to get out and stack up some rocks so Dave could get clearance to make it over a large boulder. Just after the mine was a challenging climb over some large boulders that we made it through fairly easy. Here's a photo of Mike going through one of those rougher spots.

About 2 miles south of Crown King, we started catching up to the 7am group. They had over 40 Jeeps in their group and were delayed for a long time by a breakdown that blocked the whole trail so nobody could make it past. Here's the last guy in their group taking the climb over a huge boulder. Our group of 5 simpley drove the left of this boulder.

A little bit further along, we stopped for a break in the shade of the pine trees.

After arriving in Crown King, we walked around and went into the General Store to buy t-shirts, fudge, and ice cream. Here is a photo of the saloon and another shop in front of it.

Just to the south of those is the fire station with all the vehicles lined up in front.

Then, there is the General Store.

Now, for the lesson of the day. For any of you looking at these pictures and thinking "I'd like to try to go on the back way to Crown King." -- Do not attempt this trail in a stock vehicle. -- Well, go ahead if you want to destroy it. One of the guys in the 8am group brought his stock Ford Explorer. After our surprise wore off that he actually made it all the way up, we stopped and tooke some pictures.

Busted out back window.

Bent running boards.

Mangled front bumper.

Cut in tire sidewall.

Matching bent running boards.

Dented and scratched front quarter panel.

Bent frame under front axle.

Concaved skid plate under gas tank.

Another shot of gas tank skid plate where you can also see the dented in muffler.

Camping North of Payson

2007-08-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went camping on the rim, north of Payson, in one of our favorite areas. We left Friday night and drove up there with Marcia's parents, Paul and Barb, and Terry from Paul's work. We found a spot to camp just after dark and got our gear setup for the weekend.

Saturday morning we took off and headed east on forest service road 300. (Rim Road) Along the way, we came up to a turn off to the General Springs Cabin. It's was a smaller road that headed north from the main road. About 1/4 mile north we came to the cabin and stopped to explore.

From the cabin, the road continued north. We didn't know how far it went, but it looked like a fun trail. Dave lead the way as it went up over the hill along a large pipeline.

The road went northwest for about a mile before connecting to another road that we took south to reconnect to FR300. We continued east and by this time we could see some rain clouds moving in.

Approximatly half way on the 45-50 mile rim road is a turn off to Knoll Lake 4 miles north of FR300. We stopped and looked around for awhile. From there, we decided to turn around and head back to camp.

It had started to rain on us a little bit as we headed back. We pulled over at one spot to take pictures and watch the lighting to the south.

The first picture here is of our Jeep and camper setup before it started raining Saturday night. The rain hadn't made it that far west yet, but we knew it was coming. We put the awning out and began to cook supper. Paul started a fire and we worked on keeping warm and dry the rest of the night.

That area got a pretty good rain Saturday night. In the morning it had let up and I walked around and took a few more pictures.

Monsoon

2007-07-31T19:00:00.000-07:00

It's monsoon time in Arizona. We turn on the news while eating supper and watch the radar. Then, the wind starts blowing and soon it rains. Here's a really cool storm that rolled in.

It's Raining!

2007-07-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

Marcia got home before me today. I called her when I left work and she told me to hurry since it was going to start raining soon. I made it home dry and tooks some pictures of the clouds rolling in.

Then it poured.

The rain only lasted for 15-20 minutes. But the destruction was done. Look what it did to the street in front of our house. Puddled water.

Then, I walked out to get the mail and found some more destruction. Oh the horror. It will take them years to rebuild.

Bottling Beer

2007-07-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

It's bottling day. The beer was actually ready for bottling last Wednesday, but I have been busy and today was the first chance to get it done. I started out by sanitizing the bottles I had already cleaned. This was actually the most time consuming task since I rinsed each one with sanitizer and brushed them out.

After that, I moved my fermenting bucket to the kitchen countertop. I placed my bottling bucket on the floor and started the siphon to transfer the beer. At this time, I had also added my priming sugar. During this process, you siphon everything out, but leave the bottom inch or so with all the sediment that has settled. This gives you all the clear beer off the top. Here I am watching the siphon about half way through. Boy does it smell good.

From this angle, you can look down and see the fermenting bucket draining into the bottling bucket. There is a ring around the top from the fermenting process.

Here is the bottling bucket after the transfer is done. I managed to get about 4.5 gallons. I probably could have got a little more, but didn't want to risk sucking up some of the crud from the fermenter. I'd rather waste a little beer than get too much sediment in all of the bottles.

Here is the sediment (crud) that was left over that I've been referring to. It mostly consists of the yeast, but also has some other hops and barley particles that got into the first transfer after the boil.

And the bottle filling begins. I had my empty bottles behind the bucket by the sink. I would fill a bottle and put them on the counter in the left of the picture. You can see I've already completed a few of them. Marcia helped me as I filled the bottles, she would place a cap on the top.

After I got all the bottles filled, I began capping them. I do this with a hand tool that puts a crimp on.

Here's the first fully complete bottle. It's capped and ready for 2 more weeks of rest before drinking time.

I managed to fill 42 bottles. That's 7 six packs of beer. During the process, I poured some into a glass for sampling. At this point, the beer is still flat, but you can get an idea whether the batch is going to be good or not. Great news, it tasted pretty darn good. It should get even better with two more weeks of aging in the bottles.

Bulldog Canyon

2007-07-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

Next weekend is the night run through Bulldog Canyon with the Phoenix 4x4 group. Never having been through that area and with it on the upper end of difficulty for trails we like to run, we decided we wanted to try it during the daylight before going with a big group after dark.

Marcia's parents went along with us. We ate lunch first and as we were pulling out of the parking lot, we noticed our Jeep was turning over 50,000 miles. Here's the proof.

We took US60 east to Ellsworth road and then went north. This goes past the Usery Mountain Park. About a mile north of the park entrance is the locked gate to the Bulldog Canyon OHV area. To enter here, you have to get a permit from the Tonto National Forest first. It's free; you just have to go there in person and get it first.

The road is fairly easy at first, but a few miles in, we turned to the south to go through Bulldog Canyon. From here, the trail is more difficult with quite a few obstacles.

Here is the first climb we came to that was a little bit of a challenge.

Dave went down and came back up a more difficult path the 2nd time.

Here we are at the top of the hill with the gorgeous views in the background.

Dave and Kathy climb another steep, rutted hill.

A few more miles in, we came to quite a few hills that were covered in 6"-8" boulders. Marcia got out and walked up ahead of me following her in the Jeep.

Looking east at the Superstition Mountains.

The narrow trail meandering through the desert.

On the way home, the monsoon rains were blowing in. Here are 2 photos from the 101 looking towards the McDowell Mountains getting some showers and lightning.

Misc. Happenings

2007-07-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a post of a bunch of random stuff from the last couple weeks.

I bought a new air compressor. It's a 21 gallon upright unit with a self-retracting real that I mounted on the wall above it. Everything is setup in the picture below, except I hadn't installed the hose connecting the compressor to the reel yet. With the 50 foot hose, I can reach clear out to the end of the driveway.

Marcia refurbished the living room couch. She bought a new slip cover and installed that. She also sewed some new pillows for the back. Looks like brand new now.

Archie gets hot and has been shedding a lot lately. Marcia brushed him out and he really likes it.

The wind picked up the other night and blew over the cactus in the back yard. It had been growing too much for it's own good anyway. The thing was too top heavy and fell right over.

I've been working on redoing the irrigation system in the back yard. Here's some trenches I dug to install the water lines.

When we were in Iowa, I welded a little cat for the yard. Marcia thinks it looks like a dog. It's in the ground by our pool now whatever it is.

We were awakened one morning by the rain. It poured for about an hour until the sun came up.

4th of July - Brewing Beer

2007-07-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

Relax, sit back, enjoy a homebrew.

Brett's been brewing his own beer for over a year now and is turning out some pretty good stuff. It sounded really fun, so I decided to give it a try. Earlier this year I started saving bottles that I would need. It took me quite a few months, but I'm up to 85 in the picture below. Each 5 gallon bach only needs approx. 50 bottles, so I'm ahead of the game. First, I had to clean all of them and get the labels removed.

My army of bottles:

Next, I went to the homebrew store with Brett and purchased a brewing kit. It comes with the buckets, capper, and other tools you need to brew beer. I also got the ingredients to make a Fat Tire clone. The recipe I'm doing is part grain, part extract. The Sunday before, I went down and helped Brett brew up a full grain batch. This helped me see what needs to be done for when I had to do it.

I started off by heating up a pot of water and soaking the grain. You have to get it to a certain temperature and keep it steady for some time. The grain goes into a mesh bag and you soak and dip it like a huge tea bag.

It isn't easy sitting over a pot of boiling water for 2 hours when the temperature is triple digits. Yeah, it's 112* outside!!!

After I soak the grain to get all of the sugars out of it, then you add the rest of the extract. This is basically a big tub of syrup. Mix it into the water and then boil the whole pot for an hour adding the hops along the way. In the next picture, you can see my mash as it is really close to breaking into a boil.

Here's a picture of what it looks like once it's been boiling for a little bit and I've added the first portion of hops.

Once it has boiled for an hour and all the ingredients are added, I had remove it from heat and cool to under 80* as quick as possible. I didn't take any pictures from here out since it is critical to keep everything sanitized and I had to move fairly quick. Once cooled, I had to siphon it into my fermenting bucket. I added the rest of the water I needed to my fermenter to give me 5 gallons and mixed it up. I then pitched the yeast which will react with all the sugers from the mash and convert it into alcohol. Here is a picture of my fermenter with the air lock on top.

It has to sit in there for 2 weeks and then be siphoned off into bottles. Another 2 weeks in the bottles and then it should finally be ready to drink.

4x4 Meetup - Lava Cave & Cinder Hills OHV

2007-06-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

See all of my pictures and some from the other members HERE.

Friday night we hitched up the camper after work and headed north. This weekend was a planned meetup group event to go to the lava river cave and Cinders OHV area near Flagstaff. By the time we made it up to Flagstaff, it was already dark out. We managed to get ahold Marcia's parents who arrived at our pre-planned meeting spot about 10 minutes after we got there. We found a spot to setup the campers and called it a night.

Saturday morning we kicked back and waited for the rest of the group to arrive. By 9am, the crew rolled in and after a little organization, we headed towards the lava cave west of the San Francisco Peaks.

Here is a picture of Marcia standing next to her Jeep.

To get from the camping area to the lava river cave, we took the Schultz Pass road on the north side of Flagstaff as a shortcut. Here's a photo of all the vehicles as we stopped for a break along the way.

Once we got down into the lava cave, it was really cold and dark.

We took the same route back to the campsite at the Cinders and spend the rest of Saturday and Sunday morning 4-wheelin' there.

Another groups posting with photos of the Cinder Hills OHV area.

Midwest Vacation -Part 7

2007-06-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

Wedding Day. The day started with the photographer. Here is a good one of Raymond and Leslie.

Here is a photo from where they got married outside looking down over the lake.

As the wedding started, the flower girls came down the isle.

They had a candle lighting ceremony to remember a few of those who couldn't be there.

Next, Raymond and Leslie held hands for awhile.

Then, they released some doves.

And made out in front of everyone.

And finally decided to head inside for the reception.

My dad and his three sisters.

Marcia with my mom.

Sunday morning, we drove to the Kansas City airport and flew back to Phoenix. We almost had to stay for an extra month. When we went to check in, they didn't have tickets for us. After some reasearch, they found I had booked the flights for July 10 instead of June 10. Luckily they got us on a flight that day and we made it home.

Midwest Vacation -Part 6

2007-06-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning, Sarah dropped Rachel off with us at the farm and went to work in Grinnell. We fed the dog and cats and then packed our suitcases to head towards Missouri. We were ahead of schedule, so we detoured through Rock Creek State Park and played on the slides.

From there we stopped for a snack at Casey's and went into the Theisen's in Grinnell. Rachel found a slinkey that we bought for her. We then met up with Sarah and headed to Des Moines to return our rental car. From there, we drove the rest of the day to Lake of the Ozarks, arriving around 9pm.

Friday morning we got up and went exploring. First we went down to the marina and then Rachel raced us up and down the stairs. After that, we went to the beach and relaxed for a couple of hours.

Midwest Vacation -Part 5

2007-06-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

It's Wednesday. Mom and dad left for Missouri and Marcia and I headed to Des Moines to visit with Matt and Lori. On the way, we stopped at Theisen's in Marshalltown and increased the farm store count to 3. Marcia found the shoes and just had to buy a pair.

The joy of new shoes was quickly extinguished when we exited the store and found it raining.

But then we went to Taco Johns for lunch. I forgot to mention that we ate at Taco Johns in Ames on Monday, so this is the 3rd Taco Johns stop on our trip.

After Virgil dropped Marcia off at her sister's house in Des Moines, he headed over to visit The Woodsmith Store.

Here's a view of Matt and Lori's house and each direction of the street they live on. It's quite a different look than in AZ.

We were really hungry by now, so Maegan made supper for everyone.

Midwest Vacation -Part 4

2007-06-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning Virgil and dad went fishing for a couple hours. The catfish were really biting.

After fishing, we went down to the shed and tried out the plasma cutter and welder. The goal was to make a cutout of a cat to put in our yard in Phoenix.

And then it was time to do some more fishing. Marcia casts off looking for the big one.

Jake, Danielle, and Harrison take the boat out for a spin.

Midwest Vacation -Part 3

2007-06-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

On Monday Leslie got us all tickets for the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines.

As we entered the first area, Jake and Harrison cross the bridge.

Maegan points out something off that way.

Giraffes.

Penguins.

Jake has to chase Harrison out of the tunnels.

Jake, Danielle, and Harrison get close to the fish.

The seal and sea lion show.

Maegan dusts with the feathers the train conductor gave her.

Midwest Vacation -Part 2

2007-06-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, everyone gathered for a BBQ at the farm.

Dad got out the 2 Kawasaki Mules and here's a picture of Virgil rolling out Rachel's Gator.

Rachel showed up in her fireman suit and firehose squirt gun. Marcia and Rachel go to battle.

Rachel gives Liana a ride.

Roy fires up the grill.

Here's a view of the south farm corn field.

A view down the driveway towards the shed.

And the house hidden back in the trees.

After lunch, a group of people went fishing down at the pond.

Everyone is getting into the boats.

Those who didn't go fishing went for a ride to look at the fenced off area with buffalo on the neighbor's property.

Dad, grandpa, and Marcia on the mule.

On the way back, we spotted a little fawn hiding in the weeds.

Jake, Danielle, and Harrison came over later in the afternoon. Rachel took Harrison for a ride on her gator.

Virgil and Jake fishing way on the other side of the pond.

Jake caught a big catfish.

Midwest Vacation -Part 1

2007-06-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

Friday night, June 1, Marcia and I hurried home from work and headed towards the airport. Our flight left for Des Moines at 6pm AZ time and landed by 11pm in Des Moines. We got the rental car and drove a mile down the road and stayed the night at the Comfort Inn.

Saturday morning, we went over to Matt and Lori's house. They gave us a tour and then we loaded up in two cars and took off for Ottumwa. We made a pit stop in Pella to go to Jaarsma Bakery and get fresh donuts. A few miles south of Pella, Lori had to stop and feed Ethan. We pulled over at the Tassel Ridge Winery. They were open, so we went in to check things out. Before we knew it, we were on a tour of their winery and then they let us sample the different wines they produce. Neither Marcia or I have ever liked wine that much, but they had some that were awesome. We ended up buying 2 bottles of wine we liked and got back on the road.

We met Marcia's grandparents and aunt and uncle at the Country Kitchen for lunch. After lunch, we all headed to her grandparents house to visit. Here's the whole crew in the kitchen.

Ethan's a fairly quiet fella. He doesn't really say much in between his naps.

After visiting for a couple hours, Matt and Lori headed back to Des Moines and Marcia and I took off for my parents house in Tama. We stopped at the Taco Johns in Ottumwa to eat supper. For those of you keeping track, the Taco Johns count is now at 1. Just behind the Taco Johns is a nice lake that branches off the river going through the city.

On the north side of Ottumwa was another place we couldn't go past without stopping. Virgil was in heaven roaming through the isles of the TSC store.

As we continued north, we came to Oskaloosa. We tried to go into the Orscheln farm store, but got there right as they were closing, so there wasn't much time to look around. For those of you keeping track, the farm store count is now at 2. Marcia also wanted to drive by the high school and see all of the changes they have made since she attended there.

We finally made it to the farm around 8pm. My dad was sitting out at the shed waiting for us. Looks like he had been busy mowing so everything looked nice for the BBQ the next day.

Memorial Day Weekend Near Happy Jack, AZ

2007-05-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo, a three day weekend!!!

Friday couldn't have come any sooner. We hurried home from work and hitched up the new camper and headed north for the third weekend in a row. This time we were going to the Payson area. Marcia's parents got off work a couple hours before us and were going to get up there first and find a spot. Once we got close, we contacted them on the CB radio. The place we chose was near Blue Ridge Reservoir about 40 miles north of Payson and 5 miles north of Happy Jack.

By the time we got there, Dave and Kathy were already setup with their camper. Paul and Barb, friends from the 4x4 group, also drove up to camp with us. Here is a picture of the forest service road heading to the reservoir near our camp site.

The next afternoon, Jerry and Ellen, also from the 4x4 group, came up to join us. Here's a picture of our group just after they arrived.

Dave and Kathy's Jeep with canoes and camper.

Paul and Barb's Jeep with tent.

Virgil and Marcia's Jeep with new camper.

Jerry and Ellen's Jeep and tent.

When Jerry and Ellen showed up, they started unloading and announced that they had a brand new tent. Oh yeah, everyone gathered around to watch the show. It soon ended up being a full participation show. After some work and fixing a broken string in one of the poles, the tent finally got setup.

Still wanting to try different things with our new oven, Marcia made pizza for supper on Saturday night.

Not pictured are blueberry muffins that we made for breakfast on Saturday morning. For breakfast Sunday morning, Marcia baked cinnamon rolls. On Sunday night, we fired up the oven again and made chocolate chip cookies for everyone. We were too busy eating them to take a picture.

After breakfast on Sunday, Dave and Kathy headed down to go out on their kayaks for a couple hours. The rest of us drove down to the end of the road towards the dam. We hiked the rest of the way down to the very end looking over the bottom side of the spillway.

As we hiked back to the vehicles, we looked down and saw Dave and Kathy in their red and yellow kayaks. Can you see them waaaaaay down there?

After that, we headed out to explore some of the forest service roads in the area. The last 3 pictures are from where we stopped for lunch off forest service road 300 (The Rim Road). We took FR96 from Blue Ridge Reservoir south to FR300. We then looped back to the campground. Here's a link to the path we took.

New Camper - Dead Horse State Park

2007-05-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

Northbound again this weekend!!! Off to pick up the new camper. During the week we cleaned out the old camper and got it ready for trade in. We made it up to Prescott by 8:30am and did a walk through and signed off on all the paperwork. We wanted to test everything out, so we drove the camper north through Jerome to Cottonwood. On the north side of Cottonwood is Dead Horse Ranch State Park. For $19 a night, they have water and electric hookups.

On the east side of the park are some water areas for fishing. You can see those in the following two pictures.

Dead Horse has two different camping areas. The one to the south has more trees and is down in the valley. We chose a spot on the northern loop which doesn't have that many trees, but you can see for miles. Here's a picture looking south with our Jeep and new camper.

We were excited to try out the new amenities. For supper, Marcia made spaghetti and then we baked brownies in the oven. And finally, we had bacon, eggs, and hash browns for breakfast.

Camping in Prescott

2007-05-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

We loaded up the Jeep and hooked on to the camper and headed north this weekend. Once arriving in Prescott, we drove right to the white spar campground south of town so we could find a spot before they filled up.

Back in town they had a arts and craft show going on in the town square. We did a little shopping and then ended up at Many Trails RV in Prescott Valley. We had been thinking of trading in our camper this fall and wanted to look at some of the smaller models they had. Well, we ended up finding one we really liked and they cut us a pretty good deal. So, we bought a new camper. The model we got is a Wanderer manufactured by Thor, 19FQ. It's a 19 foot travel trailer for a total of 22 feet long when you count the hitch length. It has all the bells and whistles for a trailer that size.

Here's the floorplan:

An exterior picture:

The front with queen bed and wardrobe on each end:

Kitchen:

Dinette:

Photo towards rear with kitchen on right and dinette on left. Bathroom is through the white door.

Shed Jr.

2007-05-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

There is now another shed on our property. Trivia: Guess where it came from?

A. Marcia was jealous of Virgil's shed and wanted one of her own.
B. Where did that come from? We didn't put it there.
C. We've spent so much money at Home Depot, they gave us a free shed.

Ok, none of the above. Since my new shed is a workshop and not for storage, the garage had been used as storage. It's getting hotter and we wanted to be able to get both vehicles inside, so a new storage shed was needed. We assembled this one on Sunday and put it on the RV pad for now. Eventually we plan to move it behind the other shed by the pool pump. It measures 8 feet wide and 6 feet deep. The new shed is big enough for our bikes, extra camping equipment, and the pool cleaning supplies. If we organize it a little better, we could fit more.

Cinco de Mayo

2007-05-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today is May 5, or as the Mexicans celebrate it, Cinco de Mayo. I have no clue what the holiday is really about, but do know it involves drinking a lot of beer. Today I put on a new shirt and will be drinking a few bottles of DosXX.

History: Sinko de Mayo

Most people don't know that back in 1912, Hellman's mayonnaise was manufactured in England. The "Titanic" was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after New York City.

The Mexican people were eagerly awaiting delivery and were disconsolate at the loss. So much so that they declared a national day of mourning which they still observe today. It is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo.

Pulling Wire

2007-04-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

With the entire length of conduit installed, I went Friday and bought wire. I was contemplating over pulling a string through first to get a good measurement, but ended up estimating by how much conduit I used (about 80-85 feet) and just bought 100 feet of cable. I got a good deal at Home Depot since Ace Hardware had wire cheaper, but HD does a price match plus beats it by 10%.

After thinking things over, I decided to pull the wire from the shed towards the main panel. Originally, I had thought it would be easier to pull from the house out to the shed, but decided against that. By doing it that way, Marcia didn’t have to try to get up into the attic with me.

We started by having Marcia outside the shed at the junction box and me up in the attic at the next junction box. I tried to push the fish tape from the attic out towards Marcia. It kept getting stuck about 15 feet in right where I used the flexible elbow exiting the attic and going down the side of the house. After some thought, Marcia put the vacuum cleaner on the shed end and I let it suck a string through. At that point, I tied the string onto the fish tape and she pulled the fish tape past where it was sticking. Then, we were able to hook the wire on and pull.

From there, we went outside up by the main breaker panel and fed the fish tape in again until it came out in the attic where I had just pulled the line. We hooked everything back up and Marcia pulled from the front corner of the house as I now fed her the wire from the middle point in the attic. Then all we had to do was feed about 12 feet through my big conduit on the side of the house and back feed 5 feet up into the shed breaker panel. It was about noon by then and getting really hot on Saturday. I was nice and sweaty up in the attic. Blown in insulation feels great stuck to your sweaty arms and legs.

On Sunday I was able to finish making the connections in the shed breaker panel. I still haven't hooked anything up in the main panel so we are not live yet. I also drove in the two grounding rods with the sledge hammer. That actually went in much easier than I had expected. I used the deep root watering spike attached to the garden hose to drive down the first 3 feet. With the hole started, I put the rods down in there and began hammering. Both went difficult for the middle 2-3 feet, but the last 2-3 feet hit some softer soil that went quite easy.

Now I need to get some wire to connect the ground rods to my sub-panel and make the connection at the main panel and the shed is electrified. It ended up being about 85 feet total. With a couple feet scrap at each end, my extra cutoff was only about 10 feet. I'll probably use that up wiring the outlet for the welder.

Jeep = DEAD

2007-04-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

The good news. The Jeep looks great with the recent upgrades. Here is a picture of it out on the trail Saturday.

The bad news times two.

1. When we got home I was admiring our new tires and spotted a nail sticking out. Well, it wasn't leaking so maybe it just was stuck in the tread. I grabbed the pliars and pulled it out. SSSSSSSSS!!! Crap, it was leaking. I put on the spare and we were good to go. Marcia took the tire back to Discount Tire tonight and they couldn't repair it since the hole was too close to the sidewall. The good news is Discount Tire is going to replace it for free since the tire was only 3 days old. Wow, we lucked out. Hooray Discount Tire!!!

2. So, a little bit later I went to start the Jeep up and it just clicked. The battery didn't have enough power to turn over. Well, we were going to replace it in the next week, so I guess we'll do that TODAY!!! Long story short, new battery is installed and the Jeep fires right up.

Here's a picture of under the hood just for fun. After removing the battery, I blew the dust out with the air hose, so it's a little cleaner now.

Ready for Wire

2007-04-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

The conduit is finally completed. Now, I just need to buy wire and get it pulled. In the picture, you can see the last section I had to complete from the main panel into the attic. I had removed a 3/4 inch flexiable conduit that the previous owner had instlled for some additional circuits in the garage. I used 1 1/2 inch EMT conduit for my outside run because I'm going to rerun those circuits I removed, plus my feeder for the garage in one conduit. Once painted to match the house, this should be a much cleaner looking install than originally done.

Here's a picture of the conduit on the back corner of the house after I got it secured and filled in the trench.

I would have got more work done, but I had to stop and restack the wood that my dad brought me. His stack only lasted 3 months. The firewood pro that he is, I expected a little better than that. haha.

Sheep Bridge Meetup Trip

2007-04-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

After getting the lift spacers and new shocks installed, we had new tires put on the Jeep also. They had to order the size I wanted, but we were able to get them installed by Wednesday night. Here is a picture of Marcia standing next to her Jeep with lift kit, new shocks, and new tires.

I'm not going to post any photos for this trip since I posted 30 photos HERE. Just open that link and click on "See all photos" on the right side. Not only can you see my photos, but the other member's photos also.

We met up with the group at a QuikTrip on Cave Creek Road north of the 101 in the morning. Eight vehicles headed out at 8am north on Cave Creek Road. The drive takes us through the towns of Cave Creek and Carefree and then past the turn off for Barlett Resevoir. Another few miles and we pass the turnout for the Sears Kay Ruins and soon the paved road turns to gravel. This is FR24 which enters the Tonto National Forest. This road passes a couple hiking trailheads and a turnoff that takes you up to the top of Humbolt Mountain. (The one that has the radar station at the top that looks like a huge golf ball.) The Seven Springs campground is closed for the last couple years, but there is still camping available in the area at some other nearby spots.

We kept heading north and passed the turnoff for the Table Mesa road that heads back to I-17. For the most part, the road has been really smooth with just a few washboard spots along the way. As the trail continues, we came to C.P. Butte where some of the members climbed up and back down the hill there. Another few miles and the road comes to a T. At this point you can go left on the Bloody Basin road which connects back to I-17 or go right 12 miles to the Sheep Bridge.

The sheep bridge road is narrower and a one lane road for the most part with wider spots for passing oncoming vehicles. There were a few water crossings where the water was approximatly a foot deep. Also, the road is no longer nice and graded, but has quite a few small boulders to drive over and around. The group made it to the sheep bridge around noon and ate lunch on the sand bars down by the Verde River.

After lunch, Brian and Pat decided to challenge their vehicles. As you can see from the pictures, Pat made it through the swift and deep river crossing, but Brian flooded out. Luckily, there was another large truck there with a winch that pulled Brian's Bronco backwards out of the river. Then, Pat attempted to come back across the river and also got stuck and needed pulled out. You can see that as Pat got about half way across, the current actually started taking his rear end downstream.

A few members decided to camp out overnight, but the rest of the group headed back at 2pm after checking out the sheep bridge. On the way back, we took a detour up Humbolt Mountain to see the views from the top. In some of the pictures, you can see Horseshoe Resevoir. We made it back home by 6pm.

Garage Sale and Jeep Lift Kit

2007-04-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

Please buy our crap! We started off the morning by having our semi-annual garage sale. Got the new signs out by 6:30am and the customers began rolling in. By 10:30am most of the traffic had slowed down and we were getting tired of sitting in our driveway. We packed away what was left and counted the cash drawer. Woo hoo, a profit of $104. Here's a picture of everything right as we got it set out.

After taking a break for an early lunch, it was time to begin installing the lift kit and new shocks on the Jeep. Here are 2 before pictures.

I started by jacking up the front end and getting it on jack stands. The first picture below is an action shot that Marcia captured. With the tires removed, the second picture is of the old setup before I removed anything.

I had to take out the old shocks and remove the springs to fit in the spacers. The shocks were fairly simple with a bolt at the top and bottom. You can see me removing the top bolt in the first picture. I had to get a step stool to reach with the Jeep so high off the ground.

In the next two pictures, I am all done with the front. You can see the new white shocks and the shiney black spacer at the top of the spring. To get the spacer to fit I had to compress the spring and disconnect the sway bar to give me enough room to fit everything in.

In the next picture, I had put the wheel back on, but the front end is still up on jack stands so there is more space in the wheel well with no weight on the suspension yet.

Done with the front, we turned the Jeep around and got the back end up on jack stands. In the first picture, you can see the old setup before I began.

Everything was very similar in the rear except the shocks mount slightly different. Here's what it looks like when all done.

And here are the after pictures with everything put back together. Not really noticable from looking at it, but the new shocks are awesome. We soon realized the old shocks were way past being worn out. The ride is noticably better/smoother now. Next update, tires!

Garage Sale Signs

2007-04-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight I painted in the arrows and removed the tape when it was dry. Marcia helped stencil in the words SALE on each one.

Testing the New Camera

2007-04-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

Marcia picked up a new camera on sale and I am testing it out.

Here we go:

First, we have the garage sale signs I am making. I had some scrap 1/4" plywood that I cut into three different sizes. I plan on placing the biggest ones out at 40th St. and Union Hills, the medium ones at 40th St. and Topeka, and the small ones at the entrance to our cul-de-sac. I painted them white first and in the picture you can see where I taped off for the arrows. Tomorrow, I'm going to paint the arrows and the word "SALE" on each one.

The next two pictures are of my progress on framing in an opening for the window A/C unit in my shed. I have it almost completed except for lining things up and installing some trim on the outside.

Here is a picture of the current status of the trench with the conduit between the shed and house. I was able to strap down the shed half and filled it back in with dirt. I still need to add some straps to secure the conduit near the house, so I held off on filling that part in yet.

Last is the cactus in our back yard. It got some rain recently and is wanting to grow and grow and grow.

Finally Time For Conduit

2007-04-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

I first had to dig my trench out from where the rain had filled it in with dirt. It was mostly loose soil and fairly easy to clean out. After that, I was able to rough in the conduit from the shed to the house. I cut the holes in the shed and dry fitted everything in place. That's where I stopped on Saturday in the following two pictures.

I recruited Brett to come up on Sunday and help out for a couple hours. With him, we were able to fish the conduit over the vaulted cieling in our master bedroom and make the needed connections in the attic. As of right now, everything from the shed underground and through the attic to where it comes out on the other side of the house is completed. I still have a few other small sections to complete and connect to the main service panel, but it's almost ready to have cable pulled.

I didn't get very good pictures of our progress on Sunday, but in the following two, you can see where we finished it on the outside. The clamps I bought to secure the conduit to the house were not going to work and I'm going to have to go back and buy a different type. You can see in the picture that the conduit is not straight and that will be fixed once I get the proper clamps.

Dig Those Stumps

2007-03-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

On Sunday Marcia put me to work digging out stumps. We started with 10 stumps along our driveway and 4 more in the front center of the yard. We managed to get all of the first 10 stumps dug out and I'll finish up the other cluster of 4 during the week. The ground was still softer from the past week's rain, but oleander stumps still didn't prove to be easy to remove.

In the pictures, you can see the debis pile for the bulk trash collection, the area where we removed the 10 stumps and the 4 in front that still need removed.

Water and Electrical Don't Mix

2007-03-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

Water and electrical don't mix - gotta keep making progress anyway. Here's what I got done this weekend.

I finished the electrical trench outside just in time for three days of rain. We had on and off rain for Wednesday through Friday and in the pictures below you can see the results on Saturday morning. I now have a long and narrow pond. Should I stock it with some fish?

Well, since it didn't look like I was going to get much done under water, I headed to Home Depot to buy my supplies. I had to go to two different stores and it took me most of the day to figure out all of the fittings and get everything I needed. I managed to haul all the conduit home in the Jeep just fine. You can also see where I aligned everything on the living room floor to make sure I didn't forget any fittings.

I also made a trip up into the attic to scout things out. Here are three pictures of the area I'm working in up there.

I also managed to mount the breaker panel inside my shed. It's just waiting for some conduit and wiring now!

Finished Digging Electrical Trench

2007-03-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

After work I finished digging the trench for running the electrical conduit. It proved to be somewhat difficult because I had to work around the existing conduit running to our pool pump. My back took a beating from bending over and digging with the pick axe. Here's the finished results. It's about 20-25 inches deep and approximatly 15 feet long.

Getting Back to Work on the House

2007-03-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we took Saturday off and had fun up in Prescott. On Sunday I continued working on the landscaping changes we are making. Marcia helped me cut out the row of oleander on our property line and pile them up for bulk trash collection. In the first two pictures you can see the aftermath.

After that, I started working on the electrical for my shed. I had to clean up the existing breaker panel some to make room for the feeder cable. I doing so, I removed a couple unused circuits for the old cooler that is no longer on the roof and also took off the old irrigation timer.

After lunch I started work in the back yard digging the 12-15 foot trench from the house to the shed where I need to run condit for the feeder subpanel. I'm about half done in the picture below and plan to finish digging it after work this week. I would have made better progress, but soon after starting the trench, I hit the conduit that feeds the pool pump and lights. I'm going to dig under that, so I can't go full bore with the pick axe to trench in that area.

A Day Around Prescott

2007-03-17T20:51:00.001-07:00

We hopped in the Jeep and headed to Prescott today. It was supposed to hit 100 degrees in Phoenix and only be in the 80's up north. Once we got to Prescott, we did a little shopping and had a nice lunch.

Then we headed south of Prescott on the Senator Highway and went at least 5 miles past where it turns to gravel. Due to a prescribed burn that got out of control earlier this week, they had the rest of the road up to Crown King closed. We took a couple smaller roads back east and then north before coming out near Lynx Lake. In the pictures below, you can see one place where we stopped to take a break.

After getting back to Prescott, we went to Cortez St. and spent some time looking through the antique shops before heading home.

We've Been Working on the House

2007-03-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

3-13-07 - I'm dating this post 3-4-07 since that is when these pictures were taken. I just haven't had the time to get these posted in the last couple weeks.

While Marcia was gone on her trip to Iowa, I tried to get a bunch of work on the landscaping done. The palm trees needed to be trimmed, so I got the ladder and saw out and hacked at them for a couple hours. Looking much better now although they are still somewhat brown from the frost we had in January.

Since I had the saw out, I cut out the hideous oleander in the front yard. Now I just need to get the stumps dug out.

Trimming the palm trees and cutting out the oleander made a huge mess. I gathered everything up and got it loaded on the trailer.

With Marcia back on Sunday, we made a trip to the dump north of town. After you weigh on the scales, you drive around to the building with bays to back in and unload.

It only took us about 10 tries to get the timing right, but Marcia was finally able to get a good action shot of me unloading the wood.

One other project I worked on was scraping up all the landscaping rock from the north side of the pool and dumping it over in the area where there used to be grass. We are going to cover that area up and then get a couple loads of new rock to spread over the entire yard. In the picture below, you can see where I got all the rock removed and then we put down the pavers for a walkway and positioned our grill.

Here's a view of where I dumped all the rock. You can see I got the whole area covered except a small part behind the chiminea that still has some grass showing.

On Sunday after getting back from the dump, Marcia helped me haul some more rock. I had a huge pile that I had scraped up a few months back and we covered up the area in the front yard where the red dirt was. The following three pictures show the front after we finished.

Marcia's Iowa Trip

2007-03-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

Marcia decided to go to Iowa for a week. Unfortunately, the weather didn't want to cooperate. She made her first flight to Salt Lake City Friday night, but the second flight to Des Moines was cancelled. They were able to get her on another flight that routed through Minneapolis and then to Des Moines. She made it there fine, but her luggage didn't. It was Monday afternoon before it arrived.

Marcia stayed with Matt and Lori at Matt's parents house. They were snowed in most of the weekend, but were able to make it to Ottumwa to visit her grandparents on Monday. First is a picture of the snow from their deck near Des Moines followed by a few family photos.

On the way back from Ottumwa, Lori drove Marcia by their new house. Here's a picture of the street nearby.

Marcia then headed to Tama for a couple days to visit my family there. Rachel has been taking dance lessons and put on a show for Marcia.

Matt and his dad helped take Marcia back to the airport on Friday through the nasty weather. Another storm was moving in fast. Marcia waited at the airport for a couple hours before they cancelled her flight. They rescheduled her for a Saturday flight, so she had to catch a shuttle to a nearby hotel and stay another night. The next picture is out her window at the hotel and then a picture of the Pella Bologna that she was bringing back for her dad.

While Marcia was gone, Virgil did a little shopping. I found a used planer listed on Craig's List really cheap and couldn't pass it up. I didn't have any hardwood to test it with, so I showed Marcia how it works by planing down a 2x4 from 1.5 inches thick to 1 inch thick. You can see the shavings that I swept up and the dimensioned board.

Landscaping and Painting

2007-02-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a couple weeks, but here's an update on what we have been doing. We have a list of jobs we wanted to get done in the next month so we can have weekends free for camping and other things this spring.

We finally got the post footings from the old fence loaded onto the trailer and hauled them off to the dump. I still don't know how much those weighed, but it was all we could do to get them onto the trailer. This was the first time we had been to the dump in Phoenix. You weigh on the way in and then pull around to a large building with many garage doors. They tell you which one to back into and then you can unload and leave as soon as you are done. They have huge machines that push the garbage off into piles in the background. Here's a picture right after getting them loaded.

In this next picture, you can see me struggling to get the footing off the trailer. At least it was easier than loading them. You can also see the huge front end loader they used to for pushing things around in the back.

Ahh, we got them all unloaded in the next picture. I just rolled them off the back of the trailer and you can see where it just smashed and bent the metal sticking out of the top. Have I told you how heavy those things were yet?

With Marcia off work for the last couple weeks, I've been putting her to work. One thing she did was paint the block fence.

With some of the recent rain making the ground softer, she also has been out digging the red dirt away from the front of the house. With that, we also removed three bushes from the front and got two of the stumps dug out already. Here's a pile of the dirt on the side of the house where I'm going to make a raised garden and what the front looks like now.

Last weekend it took us a long time to paint the dark brown on the trim of the shed. We got all that coated and this week Marcia painted the main color on the shed. It's now finished on the outside and just needs the electrical run to it.

Almost Done!

2007-02-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend I finished tweaking the door so it opened and closed smooth. I also installed the doorknob and deadbolt. You will also notice in the picture below that all of the trim has been cut and installed around the door and on the corners of the building. Now it just needs to be painted to match the house and the outside is done!

The Roof is On!

2007-01-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

Well, since it rained all last weekend, we had to wait until Tuesday night before we could take the tarp off. After I got home from work, we were able to get the tar paper tacked down and the drip edge finished. Then, my parents went to visit my aunt in San Diego for a couple days. They came back to our house Friday night and dad and I installed the shingles on Saturday. It took us most of the day to get all the components cut and installed. After we were done, we installed the door and cleaned up for a couple hours. I still have some trim to install and caulk all the joints before painting it to match the house. After that I'll have to run the electric too. My parents left for home this morning after spending 3 weeks down here visiting and building the shed.

Trip to Cabela's

2007-01-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

Since it was raining, we loaded up in the Jeep and headed to Cabela's in Glendale. I took a bunch of pictures of all the animals.

It's Not Supposed to Rain in Phoenix!!!

2007-01-21T10:45:00.001-07:00

We got up on Friday morning and before we could even start work, it was raining. It was bad enough fighting the record cold temperatures all week, but RAIN??? The rain continued all day Friday and into Saturday morning. By noon the rain stopped, but it was damp enough that we were not able to get any work done. Sunday morning we got up and installed the trim around the edge of the roof in about an hour. Then, the skies began to turn dark and before we knew it, the rain was coming down again. We got soaked trying to get the tarp pulled up and covering the roof. We placed blocks up top and bungee corded sacks with firewood to hold the corners down. So much for finishing up the shed this weekend.

Continuing Work on the Shed

2007-01-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we made quite a bit of progress. In the morning I started with installing blocking between the rafters while my dad added some framing for installing z-flashing and siding on the ends of the shed.

From there, we installed the z-flashing and finished with getting the rest of the siding installed on the ends.

As we finished with this step, the "inspector" came out and put her stamp of approval on what we were doing.

Now we were ready to mark the ends of the rafters with a chalk line and cut them off so they were all even. In the next two pictures you can see my dad drawing the vertical lines after we marked them and I follwed him with the saw and cut them off.

At this point, we were ready to start putting up the sheating on the roof. We got this installed fairly fast as I cut and handed the pieces up and my dad screwed them down.

We managed to finish all the roof sheating just before dark.

Rock Shopping and Canal Walk

2007-01-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

My dad wanted some Arizona rocks for making a flower garden on the farm in Iowa. We took a day off from building the shed on Wednesday and took a road trip. We were able to find a few places to get a good assortment of rocks. For lunch we stopped at Long John Silvers and ate a bunch of fish.

In the afternoon, we went for a walk from our house over to the canal that runs past our backyard. My dad has been wanting to go over there and check things out.

Once we crossed the canal over the walkway by the SR51, we walked on the top of the dam on the other side. As we went along, there were tons of quail hustling around between the bushes. I got a good picture of 5-6 of them, but we must have seen over 100.

As we got up behind our house, you can see our backyard and the rafters from the shed.

My dad was having fun and I could barely keep up with him.

Here's a view down 40th street.

Here is a picture of the exit signs and one of looking back across the walkway.

Siding and Roof Go Up

2007-01-16T17:30:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning we continued working on finishing the siding. After that, we spent the rest of the day getting the rafters cut and put into place.

The Walls Go Up

2007-01-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

We took a day off on Sunday and with Marcia and my parents went and did a little sight seeing and shopping around Phoenix. First we went to a Mexican crafts place at 32nd Street and Bell. They had everything from pottery to furniture to metal pieces. My parents bought a octagonal mirror made of tin and a pottery vase. After that we met up with Dave and Kathy and had lunch together. After lunch we headed up to Cave Creek and took Cave Creek Road all the way north until it turned to gravel. You can see for miles up there and the scenery is very pretty. On the way back we ate at Dairy Queen in Cave Creek and visited a few shops there before heading home.

Monday morning dad and I began working on getting the walls assembled. Brett was able to come up and help us again. In the first picture, you can see him celebrating after getting the first wall up.

From there with Brett's help, we were able to get the rest of the walls up really fast. The next pictures are of my dad and I after the second wall was assembled.

Just as we were finishing the fourth wall, Brett had to leave, but my dad and I were able to get that up by ourselves. Here's a couple pictures of him checking out our work.

It took us almost 2 hours with the levels, square, and tape measures to go around and make sure everything was lining up. We used temporary braces to get things where we wanted them.

By the time Marcia got home from work, we were able to hang 3 sheets of siding on the back wall and called it quits there for the day. Marcia even tried to help out some, but was just pretending to be working with the hammer. haha.

Work on the New Shed Begins

2007-01-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

My parents arrived on Thursday night from Iowa and Brett came up to help us start work. The first thing we had to do was anchor down the pressure treated boards that would be the base of the shed. This proved to be way more time consuming and difficult than I had planned. Marcia's dad had loaned me his drill, but it just wasn't big enough to bore holes in the concrete. We had to stop once to go buy another concrete bit and stopped the second time to go buy a bigger hammer drill to finish the job. By the end of the day, we were able to finish getting everything anchored down. Too bad I had planned on getting the walls constructed too.

Getting the Old Shed Out of the Way

2007-01-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

I've been planning on building a new shed at our house since we bought it last year. First thing I had to do was get the old tin shed out of the way. I broke loose the anchors fairly easily, but had to grind a few off. After that, the old shed slid out of the way. I was originally planning on leaving it where you see it in the pictures, but it ended up being bigger than I thought. I took a picture and posted it on Craig's List at 9:30am. I got a crazy number of calls and someone came and disassembled and hauled it away by 1pm.

W.E. Rock

2007-01-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

Today we went for the second year in a row to the W.E. Rock competition in Congress. It's amazing what they can do. Check out the pictures below.

http://we-rock.cc/

New Year's Weekend Camping

2007-01-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo, it's a 3-day weekend!!! We hitched up the camper and headed towards Tucson on Saturday morning. Just north of town near Oracle is Catalina State Park where we found a nice camp site and got everything setup.

After lunch we looked at the page of attractions I had printed out and decided to go to the Titan Missile Museum south of town.

Sunday we slept in and took our time getting going. For lunch we went to the Desert Diamond Casino and ate at their buffet. Then we each played about $5 in the slot machines to test our luck. With nobody hitting it big, we then headed to the Saguaro National Park on the east side of Tucson. Since moving to Arizona, Marcia and I have been to the one out west a handful of times, but never visited the east park. After entering the park and going to the visitor center, you begin an 8 mile loop trail with pullouts along the way.

We stopped at a few to take pictures and even hiked out a little ways at Javelina Flats. Marcia climbed the trail up to the rock cliff.

Along the way, Dave got into trouble. Did you know if you touch a cholla plant that you will get stuck to it? Good thing Kathy was able to help him get loose.

Monday morning we got up and spent the morning sitting around our camp site before packing up and heading back home.

Completion of the Block Wall

2006-12-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally finished the block wall around the pool pump. Getting the mortar just right took some trial and error, but once we figured it out, Marcia buttered it on while I set the blocks in place. In just a couple of hours we had it finished.

Who's Jumping in First?

2006-12-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

Well, it's full and we've been running the pump since last night. Over the next week we have to brush it every day and start the chemicals back up. They also took the box away from the slurry box and it is drying there.

Hey, Fill It With Warm Water

2006-12-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

When Marcia got home from work today, it looked like they had just started filling it within the last hour. Everything is put back together and the water is going in. Too bad it isn't warm enough to swim.

Happy Birthday, Your Pool Has Been Plastered!

2006-12-11T17:00:00.000-07:00

Today they came and put down the plaster in our pool. They were here by 7am before Marcia left for work. In the picture, you can see the basic color. It has a layer of dust over it so you can't quite see the true color. On the side of our house is a box of sludge. We are not sure what this is. It looks like they have to come back tomorrow and finish up some of the details.

The Tile is Done

2006-12-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

Today they came and installed the new tile. They installed the Nassau (NSBA 636) color of tile from Noble Tile. The plaster is scheduled to go on tomorrow.

Christmas Tree!!!

2006-12-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

Marcia put up the Christmas tree yesterday. We went and did a bunch of shopping today, so I had to edit out a few things that were not wrapped yet. Still looks a little empty under there, so send us presents!!!

Can you guess which stocking is Virgil's and which is Marcia's?

Answer: If you didn't get it or couldn't see it, mine is the camo one on the deer hanger. Marcia has a standard red stocking with a snowman hanger holding it up.

Auto-Fill Line Added

2006-11-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

Today when we got home, they had added the line to auto-fill the pool and keep it level. In the first picture, you can see the tub where the float goes and the pipe sticking through the wall where it will fill. I'm guessing after they get ready to put tile back on, they will cut the pipe to proper length.

In the second picture, you can see where they tapped into the water line and put an anti-siphon valve on the line.

I also removed all of the cleaning jets from the floor and took them to Shasta to replace the o-rings with fresh ones. There is also a little plastic piece in there that they replaced which helps the head rotate. I used the wire brush to clean them up before putting them back into the pool.

No Skateboarding Tonight

2006-11-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I had invited Brett over to do some skateboarding in our empty pool, but that won't work now. These pool remodelers are fast. Here are the pictures of the pool when we got home from work tonight.

They Stole Our Pool Water

2006-11-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

Well, Marcia and I came home from work to find our pool was drained. Someone had came and pumped all of the water out. I just hope they come back and refinish the surface while they are at it.

The worst thing was Marcia had really been looking forward to do some swimming. She got in the pool anyway and made due without the water.

Also, here's another progress picture of my block fence around the pool pump. I have the foundation set and the first row is roughed in and ready for mortar. I should be able to finish this weekend on it.

Quartzite Flea Markets

2006-11-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went camping south of Quartzite. Marcia and I left Friday night after work and met Dave and Kathy who had been there since Wednesday night. We spent most of Saturday in town looking at all the vendors. It's still pretty early for all the snowbirds. In January and February, the whole flat area where we camped is packed with RV's all the way to Quartzite about 6 miles north.

Looking west from our camp site:

Looking east from our camp site:

The biggest purchase of the day was when Marcia finally got a new camping chair. It is sturdier and more comfortable than the last one. It has a table on the right side and a pouch for magazines and drinks on the left.

We camped right next to a wash and I went exploring around down there. I picked up some nice rocks to put in our yard back home.

Both nights we could hear coyotes howling as soon as it got dark. When I was out walking around, I spotted some tracks. This may be from some old fart snowbird walking their dog, but I think it is from the huge pack of coyotes that tried to attack us each night.

Thanksgiving

2006-11-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

Marcia and I spent the day by ourselves. For lunch we cooked a ham with mashed potatoes, corn, and dressing. Marcia also made a batch of snickerdoodle cookies and helped me mix up and bake a lemon meringue pie. We used the Betty Crocker Cookbook and made this thing from scratch.

Good Guys Car Show

2006-11-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, we went to the Good Guys Car Show. They had the whole tent filled up with vendor booths, the huge field below was packed with cars, and up on the hill to the south was a whole row of people selling used parts at the swap meet. We must have walked miles looking at all of the cars. The temperature outside wasn't that hot, but the sun was shining down bright and sucked the energy out of us. We did get to see alot of awesome cars.

Landscaping Update

2006-11-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

I've been slowly making progress on relandscaping our back yard. Dave came up on Saturday to change exhaust on his Jeep and helped me remove the last 3 post footings. Here is a picture of the aftermath.

I've also dug down where the block fence is going to go around the pool pump. In the picture below, I have the first row just roughed in to show me where to dig and get an idea of how big it is going to be. I need to remove those and level the first rown now before I can mix up some morter and put the blocks in permanately.

Superior - Boyce Thompson Arboretum

2006-11-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend we took highway 60 east to Superior. As you enter town, Superior RV Park is on the south side of the highway. I had called ahead to save a spot, so we pulled in and setup our camper. Here is a picture from our camping spot looking to the north.

After lunch we headed back west of town a couple miles to Boyce Thompson Arboretum. We started by looking around the visitor center for a little bit and then headed out to walk on the 1.5 mile main trail. They were having a music festival this weekend and right outside the visitor center were two guys with one playing a harp and the other was using a bow and playing a saw. It made an interesting whining noise. We walked a little further down the trail and entered the hummingbird and butterfly gardens. Can you spot the hummingbird below?

We continued on the mail trail and came to some greenhouses where they were growing rare and endangered species of cactus. After that, we passed another group playing music before coming to the larger cactus gardens outside. A little further down the trail, we came upon some prickly pear cactus that were the size of trees.

From there, we hiked up the hill to the small lake. They had many signs here to help identify the different varieties of ducks that frequent the lake, but we only saw one duck on the far side of the water.

From the lake, we continued our climb up the hill before coming to a vista where you could see towards the east and also look at the mansion on the property. Then the trail begins a fairly steep decent down the hill into a small canyon where a nice stream flows through. At the bottom, the trail turns and begins heading back to the west. At one point, it is very narrow and clings to the side of the cliff above the stream. Marcia stopped and posed for a pictre here.

Soon after, we came to a bridge that leads to the high line trail on the south side of the stream. Marcia stopped to look around as I took pictures.

From the bridge, you can look back east and see where we just came from and also spot the mansion sitting on the top of the hill.

We continued on the main trail and came to the herb gardens before entering the flat area where massive eucalyptus trees are growing. There was another band playing music in this area.

We walked around the band and saw the signs telling us we had entered the Austrailian camp. They have a windmill, some corrals with an old truck, and a cabin where they shear sheep.

The main trail heads back into the hummingbird and butterfly gardens and back to the visitor's center from there.

We went back to the campground and relaxed for a couple hours. Wanting to do a little more exploring, we hopped in the Jeep and headed 30 miles east to Globe where we ate supper at Judy's Cook House. It's located on highway 60 at the junction of 188 that heads to Roosevelt Lake. We had a nice window seat facing west and watched the sunset as we ate supper.

AZ State Fair and Steve Miller Band

2006-11-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

Well, this is the 5th year we've lived in AZ and we still hadn't been to the state fair. Brett and Melissa invited us along Saturday to go to the free concert. We walked around the fair for a couple hours and checked things out. We bought a fried twinky, fried Coca-Cola, and fried cookie dough. Very interesting indeed. After that we went on the massive ferris wheel that towered over everthing else.

The Steve Miller Band was awesome! They played a 2 hour show and it was FREE! Besides most of their hits, they played quite a bit of blues music. Man, those guys can really play the guitars and harmonica. They said this was their last show of the year, but if you have a chance to ever see them, it would be worth it.

Exploring the Rim Country

2006-10-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend we headed up to Payson again and camped at the Houston Mesa campground just north of town. On Saturday we headed east on 260 to the Apache Sitgreaves National forest. Along the way there we saw Black Lake, visited some settler grave sites, hiked to some indian ruins, and even saw a group of deer. Once we rejoined highway 260 near Heber, we headed west before exiting on FR 518 to travel towards Chevlon Crossing.

I'm going to add more text to this later when I get the time. Enjoy the pictures for now and check back later.

Jeep Jamboree

2006-10-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

Today we went on the poker run hosted by Scottsdale Airpark Jeep. For the first stop, we went across the street to the Harley dealership and then down to Desert Rat in Tempe. From there we went to Saguaro Lake before going to run the Widow Maker north of Fountain Hills and back to the dealership. Dave took his Jeep up and down it 4 times. Twice with Kathy and once each with Marcia and Virgil.

We all won prizes in the raffle and enjoyed the live band, Soul Driver, and Honey Bear's BBQ. Definately looking forward to doing this again next year.

Garage Sale!!!

2006-10-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

Everything has got to go! Doors open at 7am. We had a pretty good garage sale even though it rained on us. Brett and Melissa came up later and spent a couple hours hanging out with us.

Camping in the Pines and Blue Ridge Resevoir

2006-10-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

Camping? What's that? We've been busy with many other things for the last few months and camping has been pushed to the bottom of our priorities. Well, not this weekend. Marcia and I packed up and headed to Payson Saturday morning for a weekend in the tall pines. From Payson we traveled north on AZ 87 to the west end of FR 300 (Rim Road) and found a nice, quiet spot to setup camp.

When we stepped out of the Jeep, the breezy 54 degree air sent us digging for our coats immediatly. Thoughts of a nice, warm campfire crossed our minds as we noticed there were some branches nearby that previous campers had left piled up. Marcia grabbed the hatchet and we broke some of them down into smaller pieces to burn later. There were also two larger logs that she proceeded to chop the bark off of. I was able to get her to take a break and pose while showing off her new Armentrout University t-shirt that her dad bought for her.

Once things were situated, we headed further north on AZ 87 to Blue Ridge Resevoir. We followed FR 751 all the way past the boat launch to the dam where it becomes a dead end. It was almost noon so we ate some sandwiches for lunch wile enjoying the scenery.

Marcia decided to do a little tight-rope walking. Too bad I didn't get the camera turned on in time to catch her out in the middle. She made it look easy and even stopped to drink her coke a few times along the way.

From Blue Ridge Resevoir, we returned to AZ 87 and headed further north to FR 95. This was the beginning of the Rim Road/General Crook Trail Loop. It is a fairly long, but easy gravel road through the Coconino National Forest. Passing over East Clear Creek and up and down the hills surrounded by pine trees was about as peacful of a drive as you can get.

New posts to old pictures

2006-10-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

I'm working on going through some of our older pictures that never got posted on here. So, I'm adding new stories that will not show towards the top of the blog. Here are some links to take you to the newer stuff.

Montezuma Castle

Watson Lake on Canoe

Quartzite and Palm Canyon

Diamondbacks Game - Goodbye Gonzo

2006-09-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

I got home from work Friday night and was waiting for Marcia to come home when she called me. "Hey, someone is giving away tickets to the game tonight, do you want to go?"

This would be the 3rd to last game of the season and the big news all week was how the D-Backs had decided not to renew Luis Gonzalez or Craig Counsel for next season. They are also changing the team colors next as if that will somehow make the team win more games. Resigning core players like Gonzo is how you build a winning team.

Anyway, we headed to the ballpark and found our seats. We were on the 3rd base side just past the dougouts in the 5th row. Not bad! The seats were way better than any other seat we have had there before. We got to watch Gonzo run past between innings and it ended up being a pretty good game. D-Backs beat the Padres 3-1 in the end.

Thanks for the tickets.

Getting out of town!

2006-09-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

Well, we haven't been doing much travel lately and both of us needed to get out of town this weekend. The problem was, we couldn't decide where to go. So, we went to multiple places.

On Saturday morning we drove up to Prescott and browsed the shops on Whisky Row. We then ate lunch before heading towards Sedona. The drive northwest takes us past Mingus Mountain and through Jerome and Cottonwood. We visited our favorite shop in Sedona before traveling on Schnebly Hill Road over to I-17. Schnebly Hill Road can be seen on this page in the middle of the map. The photo below is looking back over Sedona from the east.

Arriving in Flagstaff in the late afternoon, we found a hotel room and packed our stuff in. Hungry for a nice meal, we went over to Black Barts Steakhouse. The wait was almost an hour, so we took a nice stroll around the campground attached to the restaurant. After supper, we drove around Flagstaff to relax and see what had changed since the last time we had been there.

The next morning we got up and headed back towards Phoenix. Taking the scenic route, we turned off I-17 to go down Oak Creek Canyon. The two photos below are from the Oak Creek Vista before you begin the decent down the canyon to Sedona. We made it back to Sedona just before lunch time and wandered around to some of the shops there before dining at the Oaxaca Restaurant.

Visitors from Iowa

2006-09-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

Good thing we setup the front bedroom as a guest room. Hotel Silhanek has been booked the last couple weeks. My parents were able to come and visit us for a couple days and we are glad they did. They arrived on a Friday night after we got home from work.

Saturday morning we got up and went to Ceretta's Candy Factory in Glendale and watched them make candy. After we filled up a couple bags with candy and checked out, we headed towards South Mountain. We drove to the top and got out and looked over downtown Phoenix. Too bad I forgot to take my camera. In fact, I didn't take a picture the whole weekend. As we exited the park and started heading back home, my mom spotted the Pheonix Ranch Market. We stopped and went inside to check things out. They purchesed some baked goods and mom also bought a pineapple. That night Dave and Kathy came up to visit and we grilled out for supper.

On Sunday dad and I went shooting at the range and then went over to the new Cabela's. In the afternoon, we swam in the pool. It is starting to get too cold outside to enjoy that.

Monday Marcia and I had to go to work, so we sent them off by themselves. They managed to make it down to the Arizona Nut House between here and Tucson. Dad bought a 50lb. sack of pecans and plans on giving them out to everyone he knows. I've been eating on a bunch that he gave me.

Visitors from Michigan

2006-09-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

Labor Day weekend and Matt, Lori, and Maegan flew down to see us. On Saturday they went and visited the botanical garden in the morning. Sunday morning everyone went and saw the animals at the Phoenix Zoo before returning home to swim in our pool. On Monday, everyone piled into the 2 Jeeps and headed north up Cave Creek Road. We drove into the Tonto National Forest and went up to the top of Humbolt Mountain. From there, you have a 360 degree view and can see for miles. From there, we went up the trail further and turned around just north of Seven Springs.

Pictured above are grandpa and grandma Armentrout with Marcia in the middle and Maegan posing in front. Matt and Lori are off looking around Humbolt Mountain and Virgil is taking the picture.

Woo hoo, Cabela's!

2006-08-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

They just opened a new Cabela's in Arizona. We went there the second weekend they were open and went back just last Saturday. Between shopping, they have so many different rooms with animals from local species in Arizona to African elephants and rhinosaurus. They also have a large mountain in the rear of the store, a gun collection room, and a 40,000 gallon fish tank.

Link to Cabela's website

2 posts down, 5 to go!!!

2006-08-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

by Virgil

Dave and Kathy were at our house today and Dave wanted to test out his new Hi-Lift jack that he bought for his Jeep. Well, we got it into the backyard and used some scrap wood and a 5 foot long 2x2 inch piece of solid metal that the previous owners left in the garage to pull out two of the post footings from the pig fence. I originally ripped the fence out when we first moved in, but since the ground is rock solid, I hadn't had any luck at digging these out yet. We got two done, but it's going to take more energy and another day to finish the others. They are HUGE!!! Each was filled in with a 2 foot deep by 2 foot wide chunk of concrete. Each one has to be 100-200 pounds each. Now that we got them out, I'm also not sure how we are going to haul them to the dump.

Edit: I did a search online and found that concrete weighs approximately 100-150 pounds per cubic foot. That would make each post footing we dug out at least 300 and maybe up to 500 pounds or more.

What have we been doing lately?

2006-08-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

by Virgil

Well, we've been working on fixing up our house in the last month. We painted all of the trim in the living room, dining room, kitchen, and guest bath with a fresh coat of white. Then, we painted the walls in all 4 rooms including the hallway.

Memorial Day Weekend at the Grand Canyon

2006-05-28T10:00:00.001-07:00

by Virgil

Over Memorial Day weekend, we went camping south of Williams. We found a nice spot in the Kaibab National Forest where we were all by ourselves. On Sunday we drove up and spent the day at the Grand Canyon. Afterwards we went to the Grand Canyon IMAX and watched the movie. Marcia also bought a nice blue coat at the Grand Canyon gift shop. It was windy out and she was cold while having to yell at Virgil to "Get away from the edge!"

Quartzite and Palm Canyon

2006-05-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

Summer is getting closer and the temperatures are starting to heat up. We drove over to Quartzite and camped just south of town. Normally the area we stayed would be packed with motor homes and fifth-wheels. We usually visit this area in the winter time and it was a little odd to see the place so deserted.

Palm Canyon isn’t too far from Quartzite and is fairly easy to get to. It is the only place in Arizona where palm trees grow naturally. We hiked about a half mile up into the canyon where the views are gorgeous. We even scared out a family of bighorn sheep and stopped to watch them move from one side of the canyon and climb the cliffs up the other side.

My first picture is looking towards the east up into the canyon. The palm trees are off to the left of the picture, but I couldn’t get a good shot of them since the sun was shining just right and caused a large shadow over the area.

After we got back from our hike, we drove on a 4wd trail just to the north of the canyon. After going as far up the wash as we wanted to go, we stopped and ate lunch. The trail was just a road cut up a wash and kept getting narrower as we went. Along the way were some interesting rock formations and even a cave that we stopped to explore.

Once we got back to our campers, we put out the awnings and did our best to stay cool under the blazing sun. The temperatures only got up into the 90’s, but the Arizona sun can make it feel 10 times hotter than that. Remind me to never try to camp here in the middle of the summer.

Jeepers Creepers!

2006-04-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

Last week we traded off the truck for a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee Special Edition. This will be better for us to tow our camper and do some off-roading. It's a 4x4, V8, slate blue, has leather seats, sliding sun roof, 10 disc changer, heated seats, etc, etc. Needless to say, I LOVE IT!!

2006-04-04T16:51:00.000-07:00

Jeep

2006-04-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

Jeep

House Painting

2006-04-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

We painted the house this past weekend. The front is done and we have 1 more coat to go on the other 3 sides. Then we will do the trim in a dark brown.

2006-04-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

New Paint

W.E. Rock!

2006-03-24T04:31:00.000-07:00

On January 7th, we went to Congress, AZ to the W.E. Rock "Put Up or Shut Up" rock crawl. W.E. Rock is the World Extreme Rock Crawling Championship Series. We got to see professional drivers maneuver courses set up for them on the rocks. What was so great about this event was that as a spectator, you could get pretty darn close to the action. We saw cars get wedged into the rocks, flip over, and get lifted out of crevices by cranes...and nobody got hurt! Courses were marked by orange cones. Each course had different options - one that was a little harder than the other and could score the driver more points. Each driver had a spotter that would guide him or her through the rocks and hopefully to the end of the course without a hangup. This event was a blast! I'm marking my calendar for the next one on April 7th at Globe, AZ. See you there!

2006-03-24T04:09:00.000-07:00

Crawling course. The car's spotter is in grey to the left. The orange cones mark out the course for the driver.

2006-03-24T04:06:00.000-07:00

Starting out the course. Notice the spotter behind the vehicle with the helmet and backpack.

2006-03-24T04:05:00.000-07:00

Almost...

2006-03-24T04:04:00.000-07:00

Made it!

2006-03-24T04:02:00.000-07:00

Rock Crawl

Moved In

2005-12-12T19:23:00.000-07:00

We got moved into our new house the weekend of the 2nd. We are still unpacking things, but have mostly gotten settled. We have a lot of projects we want to do already. We are learning about the pool and how to take care of it. You can have a pool person come out to take care of it but that costs about $50 a month so we are going to try to do it ourselves. There are chemicals to add if needed and a bit of cleaning too. The pool has a in-floor cleaning system with little pop-up heads that come out and blow the dirt into the floor drain. It's actually kind of neat to watch it cycle. We bought a new dishwasher and an over-the-range microwave last weekend. We went for a week without a microwave and that was hard!

SOLD!

2005-11-12T06:37:00.000-07:00

Our house went on the market on the market on Nov 4th. We had several showings the first 2 days. Then we had an open house on Sunday the 6th and an offer came in late that evening! It was a good offer, so we accepted it and will close on this house Dec. 5th. We will take our washer/dryer and fridge to the new house, which is good because the one there looks like it is from 1988. We are getting excited!

New House

2005-11-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

The latest news is that we bought a new house over the past weekend. It is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home built in 1988. It has a pool, RV gate w/large cement pad, fireplace and a big shed. It's not too far from where we live now. It's 2 miles north on the 51 freeway and on the east side, rather than the west side of the freeway where we are now. We are planning on closing on 11/30. We will put our house on the market this week, so if you know anyone looking...

2005-11-02T21:55:00.001-07:00

New House

2005-11-02T21:55:00.000-07:00

New House

2005-11-02T21:54:00.001-07:00

Living Room

2005-11-02T21:54:00.000-07:00

Dining Room