What season is it, anyway?

You know that feeling when you take a little nap and are confused as to what time it is when you wake up? I'm feeling that way about the seasons. It really seems like fall this week. We had a little winter in Kingman, AZ, with 5 inches of snow New Years Eve that hung around for 5 days. after that it warmed slowly and our last week in AZ (last week of March) it was definitely summer with highs in the 90s. The cool rainy weather we are experiencing now in southern Wisconsin really seems like fall. But I saw a crocus and the tulips are coming up so I'm sure I will get over it, especially as the days get longer. But I am not sure I will make a good snowbird!

When I started working at Kingman Regional Medical Center, Kingman, AZ, December 1, I totally forgot about blogging. With some structure to my schedule for 3 months I got back into an exercise routine, did more cooking and bakiing and spent too much time on FaceBook. Besides, we didn't travel much so I didn't have anything exciting to blog about, or pictures to post. We went to Parker, AZ, on the Colorado River for Christmas because I had 3 days off. It was in the 60s! We also made a quick trip to Tucson for Rollie to umpire a softball tournament that got rained out. Otherwise we just resided at the Kingman KOA and planned our next adventure. When I finished my assignment we took off for San Diego and worked our way slowly up the west coast to southern Oregon. Three weeks wasn't really enough time! We saw the sights, sampled lots of wine, walked several beaches, met up with old friends and visited several national parks. Then we headed to Tucson one more time to meet up with Alex, Laura, Michael, Kendall and Josh (Alex and Michael are my sons, Laura and Kendall are their girlfriends and Josh is a friend). That's when summer arrived and we were happy that I had arranged to come to Monroe, WI, to work for 3 months. We are not big fans of hot weather.

I'll see how many pictures I can add...

Koalas at the San Diego Zoo

Sonny on the beach

Ripe strawberries

Moro Bay

Moro Bay

Moro Bay

Moro Bay

Obviously Monterrey

Southern CA vinyard

San Francisco, on the ferry from Vallejo

Chinatown

Alcatraz

Redwoods

Near Eureka

Elk Country RV Park

Northern CA beach

Logging country

El Capitan, Yosemite

Half Dome, Yosemite

Rollie just had to have a fire!

The road we took between Yosemite and Sequoia

The drive up to see the sequoias

This big!

Orange grove just west of Sequoia

Barrel cactus with fruit

The gang in Tucson

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park

White Sands National Monument

Sonny and Mia in the back seat

More photos at https://goo.gl/photos/zPqXJmgaVhBjGK126

Wow! I have not blogged for a long time! Working full-time and trying to get into some sort of exercise routine have filled my days. Learning a new job is always stressful and taxing so I have had little energy when I get home. We have had trouble with the wifi at our KOA in Kingman so I am in the community room with better connection. And we bought a newer RV. Excuses, excuses...

We have been exploring the Kingman, AZ, area in our 6 weeks here and learned early on that it is 10 to 15 degrees warmer if we go 40 minutes west to Bullhead City on the Colorado River. Cross the river and we are in Laughlin, NV, which is known as "Little Las Vegas", where we found our RV. We have checked out some of the casinos but that gets old. We went farther down the Colorado to Parker, AZ, for Christmas and it was 20 degrees warmer than Kingman, 70s! We crossed over to CA and found "wild" burros begging along the state highway on that side of the river.

We had 5" of snow on New Years Eve which is unusual here. It stayed for almost a week, in the shady spots, which is also unusual. It was in the 20s 4 nights (40s in the daytime) so the park water lines froze each night. Luckily we are next to the bath house which had water, and hot water. Our new RV is better insulated and we got it just in time for the cold weather. But we still go through propane pretty fast when it is that cold. We also have a small electric space heater which keeps us warm down to about 40, which is normal for winter here. The dogs enjoyed the snow at the local dog park!

More later...

Mary

More photos at https://goo.gl/photos/P3Zh7yKjnH9NCE6c7

Our New Fox

If you know our dogs, you know that they are fox colored and many people say they look like foxes.

In our search for a better insulated RV (so we can travel more places) we happened onto exactly what we need AND it has pictures of foxes on it! 2012 Fox Mountain by Northwoods, who also make the Arctic Fox, the original 4-season RV. It is the same floor plan as our current Cougar so it will be very similar, but it is much lighter. We got a great trade-in deal so will be making the swap as soon as I can get a half day off work.

Look out world, here we come!

Sunrise, Sunset

I had heard that Arizona has beautiful sunsets and I have to agree. Most evenings there are no clouds so it is just the glow of the sky. But on partly cloudy days the sunrises and sunsets are amazing! Right now the days are just the right length for us to catch both when we normally walk the dogs. 

Went out this morning to have breakfast at a cafe and thanks to the clouds there was a beautiful sunrise. I took several pictures with my iPad and Google put 2 of them together for me!

It's amazing how the colors change from one minute to the next.

A week ago I took some pictures of the sunset, from the truck, which don't really show the colors I was seeing. I should get out my real camera and give it a try. Now where did I pack it...

Apache Trail

I have not researched the Apache Trail but I know from our drive through part of it, they were brave! AZ Hwy 88 runs from Roosevelt Lake to Apache Junction through a steep canyon in the Superstition Mountains. The sign telling us part of it was not paved didn't appear until we were already a few miles into it and really too narrow to turn the truck around. Many miles were unpaved and some was single lane but all was hairpin turns! It was quite an adventure! We hit pavement again just before Tortilla Flat which had the first signs of civilization, a quaint saloon. From there it was an easy drive to Apache Junction.