Going to enjoy the Arizona desert... |
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| Before we get into the nitty, gritty (and that is not just a pun :) of April, I wanted to take a moment and do a little remembering :) ... | |
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In Memoriam The ETS (Employee Timekeeping System) White Rabbit is gone (I don't want to say dead). When I worked at Boeing, I worked on taking a "green screen" application to the web and we needed something for the front page that was associated with time or timekeeping. Well, I did a lot of searches on the web trying to find just the right image, I was originally looking for pocket watches. Then, the Alice in Wonderland White Rabbit showed up and I thought it was perfect. We made sure it was public domain, Mark (my son) added the gold to the watch and chain, then it became known as "The Rabbit Page'. It was the first page 80% of the Boeing users would see before they put their time in to get paid. He lived on that page for almost 17 years which is unheard of for a web based application. Here's to you, White Rabbit, thank you for being there all this time until you left on March 28, 2009. (He first showed up in August of 1992.) |
| April 1: Ok, now that is done, we left Sweetwater, TX and made our way to Lordsburg, NM. It was a long drive (not out of our range though) and Jim was so ready to get to the RV park and take a break. He wasn't feeling too good, so we wonder if he didn't get a little food poisoning from my birthday dinner. dang... | |
| We (I) am going to spend a little more time here to do more genealogy research on my gr-gr-grandfather John Fletcher Montgomery. This was the closest place we could stay and be in round trip driving range of the county in AZ that I needed to drive to. | |
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| Jim in the drivers seat as I help him navigate out of the Sweetwater, TX RV park. We had to watch out for a few trees as you can see. | Greenlee County Court house in Clifton, AZ. This was my first stop to see what I could find on my 2nd great grandfather John. I got lucky and found his probate record, when he passed away, he owned 58 acres and a farmhouse in Duncan, AZ where his 2nd wife was still living. This is exciting stuff to a genealogist :) |
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| There are two main occupations in this area, farming (which is what John did) and copper mining. I think these homes were built where they had once mined copper. Not my cup of tea I don't think. | Here is another shot, you can see the homes and to the top and right you can see the lighter colored "dirt" where they are currently mining copper. |
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| It took me almost 20 years to find this headstone, I found out where it was last year about this same time. Now, we are passing through the area and I get to get my own picture! | Texana is John's 2nd wife, John is Texana's 3rd husband :P She was one "hardy" lady. |
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| This is a picture of John Fletcher Montgomery, I can see a little bit of my dad in him. | Olive M(ontgomery) Elledge, John and Texana's only child together. |
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Tucson, Arizona |
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| April 5: we arrived in Tucson and made our way to Rincon Country West RV park. We are staying here because our good friends Jim and Allison are also here. They are getting ready to leave the area, they spent the winter here. We will be spending a couple of weeks here and then head up to Phoenix for a week. We are hoping to visit various friends in the area before we head up to Sedona for the last week of April. | |
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| There was some excitement in the park, a water heater caught some rags on fire and made a huge mess. This is a picture that Allison took while they were putting out the fire. | Another Allison shot of some of the firemen coming down from the roof. This is a huge issue, the repeater for the wireless internet is on this roof and now there is no electricity to the building, so no wireless now :P |
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| Allison came and got me, so I took a few pictures too. There were a lot of trucks to make sure this fire was out and to make sure no one was hurt. | Allison taking a shot of the hard working firemen. |
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| Wheeling a fan to blow out the smoke to the potluck room. This hurts, because this was also the closest laundry room! dang! | I walked around the RV park this morning for a little exercise, here is our home on wheels and Jim & Allison's 5th wheel to the left of us. We love being on the road. |
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| Cactus blooms, this was here in the park. | A prickly pear just starting to bloom in the park. |
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| I was busy fixing dinner for the four of us and sent Allison out with my camera to catch the last rays of the sun. She did a nice job looking over the tops of the RV's in the park. | A hedgehog cactus in bloom, just love cactus blooms! |
| April 8: Today we are doing a little site-seeing, Jim and Allison are going with us to Biosphere 2 and then showing us around some of there favorite places in Tucson. Check out the Biosphere 2 page when you have a chance. Some of the following pictures may look familiar, since they may have shown up on Allison's blog "Allison's Post Work Thinking" in a different view. Definitely worth checking out and bookmarking. |
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| After Biosphere, we drove back into town and head over to the Barrio Viejo. Allison loves this area and I can see why. Some of the area is up and coming, be restored for living and offices, some is falling down and in need of repair which is always a sad thing to me. We even looked in couple of the doors that were open, one was a shop making shoes and another was doing some kind of small construction work. You just never know what you will find. | |
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| Heading into the barrio, Jim and Allison up ahead and peeling paint and stucco. | Look between some of the buildings and you get this wonderful sense of space in this courtyard. Beautiful. |
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| Lots of different colors, styles and very big cactus plants! My Jim loved the "bigness" of them. | Senior housing... |
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| more color, in better shape, lovely part of the neighborhood. | I think this once was an old church, now??? |
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| not so good of shape, each door/window combo has it's own color. During it's "hey day" was probably eye fetching, now just crumbling. | This lady hand painted this mural on the side of the building that was being restored. She said it took her 6 weeks to paint this much. It was very well done. |
| After we left the barrio, we headed south and west to Gates Pass. The drive was very scenic and very hilly and was always climbing. Jim and Allison ride their bikes up here a couple of times a week, they do a 26ish mile loop. More power to them! I was happy in my car. | |
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| It actually looks green this direction with the bushes and saguaro cactus. This view is looking back toward North Tucson I think. | Looking up one of the cliffs from the parking area, you could see where saguaro cactus's had "climbed" up the side. How do they do that? |
| April 11: What a decidedly yucky day. It started raining around 1:30am and never gave up the rest of the day, well, it was mostly on and off, but it was hard to find the sun. Did a quick trip to Costco with Jim and Allison in the morning, not much more to do with the day. I got out and walked in the afternoon, but did get rained on. In the late afternoon, I finally got Allison over to help me color Easter eggs. I figured we should have some fun so that we could have some deviled eggs for dinner tomorrow, Easter Sunday. We will be having lamb chops and wine from Callaghan's. | |
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| Everything is ready, it's time to color Easter eggs. Don't you love the little cups that came with the coloring kit? | Allison is concentrating on her designs and they were wonderful. |
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| During the coloring of the eggs, I looked out the window and saw this glorious rainbow, it had all the colors showing, including the indigo. We both ran out to take a picture, we almost mowed Jim over as we ran out the door. | This is what the sky looked like most of the day today, it was suppose to be snowing up at the 6000 ft level. |
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| A well orchestrated mess :) We had a lot of fun coloring eggs, I think Allison really got into the fun of it. | The finished product. Eggs for deviled eggs, egg salad sandwiches, sliced eggs for a salad, or just plain old hard boiled eggs to munch on. |
| April 12: Easter Sunday, Jim & Allison came over for dinner. I prepared grilled Lamb Chops, grilled asparagus, deviled eggs, & green salad. Oh yeah, for dessert, we had strawberries marinated in Grand Marnier and whip cream. Yum. Jim did the grilling, I did all the shopping, chopping and preparation! I think it turned out well. | |
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| Our pretty eggs are now ready to eat. I even brought this lovely spring egg plate just for Easter :) it's amazing what I store in this RV. | I forgot to take a picture before I started eating, oh well. We had the salad earlier while the lamp chops were "resting". |
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Allison, Jim and Jim at the dinner table, cozy. |
| April 13: Jim D was busy with taking the truck to the shop and cleaning the outside of their RV, so Allison took me along on her hike. She and Jim do it much faster than we did, they are really out there to push themselves. Well, not today. We walked very steady, but I like to stop, look around and see if it is a "Kodak" moment. It was a glorious day, hot, with just a little breeze to keep you comfy. | |
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| The trail with the orange blooms of the ocotillo cactus on the right. | More ocotillo cactus bloom against the gorgeous, clear, blue sky of the desert. |
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| The cholla in bloom against the mountains in the background. | oh my, more ocotillo and more mountains, but you don't get this lucky and have them this clear very often! |
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| Prickly sentinels... | At the turnaround point, Allison looking out over the desert. It was a great view. |
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| Allison taking pictures of cactus blooms. | This is a beauty... from the cane cholla. |
| April 16: It's project day, it's get some exercise day. Jim & Allison are working on re-configuring one of their storage areas on their 5th wheel, so the boys got out the boy toys and started drilling, cutting, hammering and all those things. That evening, Jim and I drove up to the North end of Tucson to go square dancing with the Tucson Twirlers. | |
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| This is the new look, all caps must be on backwards to see where they are going and what they are doing... | Jim in his Texas shirt, if you follow Allison's blog, you would have seen us in all our glory in the full outfits. |
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Dave Walker, square dance caller for the Tucson Twirlers picking out his music for the next tip (dance set). Dave is an excellent caller and has been calling for a very long time. |
| April 18 - 19: more exercise and tourist activities :) We went up to Sabino Canyon in the Coronado Nat'l Forest to check it out, take the tram to the top and them walk back to the visitor center. It was a perfect day and we had great company. I made a video/movie of the great scenery, but be for warned, it is 4:36 minutes (and has music). There are some nice pictures, and even pictures of us, so might be worth it. Sunday, we met up with Jim and Allison at the Rincon Market for breakfast, they rode their bikes over, we drove our car; they left on their bikes and rode up to the top of "A" mountain, we drove up to the top of "A" Mountain. We didn't see them, we were faster, HA! but they got the exercise :) | |
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| Sabino Canyon "movie" instead of creating a new webpage :) | waiting in line for our "create your own" omelets. It was very busy, Susan G Komen run was that morning and many of their runners came in for breakfast too! very popular. |
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| One of the U of A students working on our omelets. YUM. | I had to take this picture, we could not believe how long her hair was, but it was her hair, no wig, no weave... glad I don't have to take care of that, nor have the headache from all the weight. |
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| Jim and Allison taking off after breakfast. | The front of Rincon Market, very busy, very popular... |
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| The U of A "A" on "A" Mountain, there were students repainting some of the rocks as we passed by on the drive up the mountain. | The view of our RV park from the top, that huge grouping of "houses" in the back towards the right is where we are parked. Home is where you park it. |
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| Looking out a little more North, that blob in the middle is a Marriott resort, it's huge, very upscale, very posh, and we parked there when we went hiking the other day :P | Allison took this picture of red prickly pear cactus blooms. We didn't see many of this color, so had to share. |
| April 21: What a day, long story short, we have had AC problems for a couple of years and we finally got someone who could actually figure out the issue, get the insurance adjuster out and see the problem, order a new AC unit and install. It was worth dumping our week in Phoenix to spend the extra time in Tucson to get the AC fixed. We needed it! Cameron's Repair service was excellent, the family was great (a family business) and very hard workers.. | |
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| This is Kenneth Cameron, check the wiring from inside the RV through the air-intake to the AC unit in question. | This is the NEW AC unit, going to be installed, no matter what! They are huge, heavy (80+ lbs) and cumbersome! |
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| Allison made up this little video, remember, they had to do this twice, once to get the old one down, then again to get the new one up! | While they were working away, the Jim's are taking a break (and trying to stay out of the way, but it didn't work too well :) It was nice, Allison & Jim had us over for dinner, so we didn't have to worry about trying to fix dinner and being in the way. |
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| Catching the sunset... | and they were still at work... but they got'ter done! |
| April 22: We stayed in the park and square danced to the local caller with lots of other dancers. Many clubs come to the park to enjoy the dancing and we had a great time chatting with them. | |
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"Flippo" (Marshall Flippo) is the main caller at the RV park; he is
a national caller, he calls all over the US. He was very good and
had a great time. We got home after the dance and enjoyed a glass of wine with Jim and Allison outside. It was a beautiful evening and the big dipper was just sitting up there big as you please in the night sky. After our visit (they were leaving the next morning), we found that there was not a good sound coming out of our AC unit! DANG. We turned it off and went to bed. |
| April 23: I told Jim he had to call Cameron NOW, this morning and get him over here to figure out what the problem was. In the meantime, Jim & Allison are doing the final packing to head out (and leave us all alone!). | |
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| They were in the park already when we called, they came directly over, took them a minute to get there. | I think I see the problem! yup, that plate is vibrating and making all that racket, let's put in these rubber shims and see what happens. |
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| Everything is put up and away... no chairs, no tables, no nuthin' | Allison directing Jim to hitch up... (look familiar?) she is doing a great job. |
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| Allison bringing up the stabilizers... | They newly "remodeled" storage space, everything in it's place. |
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| heading on out... | and down the road they go... |
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| Allison called from the check out area, told me there was an owl up in the tree and I should come take a picture... Here you can see the Mom(?) and one of the three babies (the little white head to the right of the mom. | Another full shot of the mom, but here you can't see any of the babies. This is a great horned owl and I was so surprised that I could even get a picture. |
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ol' lonesome us... |
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Camp Verde/Sedona, Arizona |
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| April 26: We have driven through Jerome before, but never stopped, so it was time to go back and see if we missed anything. | |
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| One of the more colorful homes in Jerome. | Curves ahead, I think that may be one of the reasons why the bikers like Jerome :) |
| April 27: We drove into Sedona to look around, I always take picture through the windshield as we drive in, I love the red rocks, what can I say? We stopped at the Forest Service HQ to get info on hikes, get parking passes, etc.; drove through Oak Creek Village, drove up to the Sedona Airport (there is a small vortex there and great views of Sedona), did a little grocery shopping and just enjoyed the atmosphere that is Sedona. | |
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| Highway 179 from hwy 17 is almost all repaved and great to drive on. That is Bell Rock on the left and Courthouse Rock on the right as you get closer to Oak Creek Village. | A close-up of Bell Rock as we drive through Oak Creek Village. They have added a whole bunch of round-abouts to control traffic... |
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| From the top of the hill where the Sedona airport is (there is also a small vortex that we hiked to). This is looking out over part of Sedona. | Looking back towards Oak Creek Village and the newly paved hwy. Again, Courthouse Rock on the left and Bell Rock in the center. |
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| This is Butch Greathouse, it's a small world, I use to work with him at Boeing before he retired. He now lives in Sedona and volunteers for the Forest Service! What fun to run into him here. | The sunset over Verde Valley, this is the view from our RV out our front window, you can't get any better than this for front row seats :) |
| April 29: We hiked up Cathedral Rock and then
drove over to Bell Rock and did the Bell-Courthouse loop. We
definitely felt it the next day! Though I thoroughly enjoyed every
step. I took so many pictures, I made a video of them so you don't
have to click the mouse very much. If you don't have time to watch
it all, watch the first part up Cathedral Rock... May 1: We hiked the West Fork Trail along Oak Creek Canyon. Again, so many pictures, I made another video. There is music with both, so if you want, turn on your sound. I hope you like this medium, it is fun for me and easier on you. Click to start, click to stop :) |
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| Cathedral Rock hiking; 107 pictures with music | Oak Creek Canyon; 53 pictures with music |
| April was packed, you wouldn't believe how many
pictures I took and I know next month is going to be worse :P May is all about National Parks & Monuments; Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Canyonlands, Arches & Monument Valley. I know we are going to have a great time... until then, Kim |
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