Yee Ha

On Friday we crossed over the mountains, through hail and snow, to Reno Nevada and stayed at Silver City. When seeing the snow falling I thought we might be heading north too soon, but we were at 8,000 feet through the pass. We took a shuttle bus to the casino and had a nice buffet there. The food was excellent for a buffet. Prime rib, seafood, ribs the way I do them etc. etc. etc.

Now the chance of a lifetime. On Saturday we arrived at Juniper Ranch RV Park. It is a real working ranch and the RV park is a mile into the ranch from the road. We are here for a week. It's so peacefull looking out the RV and seeing cows contently grazing.

Upon arriving, there was a group there, that invited us to join them for dinner. We made some really good friends here. We played games, had a Sunday Service with them and ate some fabulous meals that they prepared.

Here's some of the group watching a cattle round up at the ranch.

As I said this is a working ranch. Even the kids get involved.

The kids mark the cattle with a big flourescent X, so they know which ones have been branded as they are singling them out of the herd.

They also give them a couple of shots while they have them down and if it is a bull they make it into a steer right on the spot. I think this one is almost ready to eat by the amount of smoke.

Here they are heating up the branding irons.

This round up was this boys first year roping. He is 8 years old and was pretty good at it.

This will teach quads not to mess with my Segway.

I went zipping around the ranch and trail riding on the Segway. Here's a bull protecting his herd. They wanted to check me out but the bull kept heading them off and giving me dirty looks.

At least there was one of these out on the range after he chased me. What a wonderful experience. The group here invited us back next year, so I guess they weren't too mad at Carol winning their bingo game.

Miner 49er

Monday we drove up Highway 49 through Yosemeti Park. This picture is by Moccasin. The road was quite windey and hilly. Very pretty countryside.

We are in Columbia at the Marble Quarry RV Site. It is on the site of an old marble quarry. The town is quite unique, like Barkerville, with displays in an old town, but the town is bigger than the display and they have characters living here that look like they should be in the display part of town. Anyway I'm the talk of the town on my Segway. People here don't get out much.

One main reason coming up Highway 49 was to come to the area the Highway was named after, the gold rush of 1849. We were here 12 years ago and always wanted to come back and spend more time here. Here I am prospecting for gold with a sluice box in Woods Creek. The richness of the diggings on Woods Creek is legendary. The creek was so rich in 1849, that it was reported that Woods & Company extracted $200 to $300 (40 to 60 ounces) daily by simply prying nuggets from their resting spots with hunting knives. Todays rates would be $50,000.00 for 40 oz.

Here's the fruit of my labour, a couple hundred dollars for a mornings work.

Route 66

Here's Carol flying around on the Segway. She's getting her experience in. Well, since it is starting to warm up in the north, we are starting our treck further north.

I always wanted to travel Route 66 so we headed north from Phoenix and caught it just before Kingman heading west. Here's Carol on the runningboards taking pictures.

One of the odd little tourist traps on the route.

Taking a break on Route 66. Very windey road and not too many pull over spots.

This is the area that they got the scenery and ideas for the movie Cars.

We came across the town of Oatman. It is a ghost town in the middle of nowhere that refused to die.

They have burrows that wander loose throughout the town. They are left over from the old prospecting days. Melanie's mother in-law said one tried stealing her purse when they were there.

We made it to Needles California, where we are spending the night. This place is on Route 66. Here's the palm trees behind our RV. At 9 in the evening it is still 40 degrees C here, so the airconditioner will run all night. It's a real nice park and the owners were really friendly. Strange though, they don't take credit cards but they took a cheque from us. We are making a list of all the strange things we ran into in our travels, with all the trusting people. Next is a full days travel to Bakersfield for one night and then north to Highway 49, named after the gold rush of 49. We will spend a few days in Columbia, Ca.

Twister

There was a small twister that touched down just north of here. At least it's not like Texas with damage. We just saw on the news some tornado watch warnings.

Mocha had a trip to the vet. She was chasing down tennis balls we were throwing and skidding on some cement and wore through her upper pads. She now needs some R&R to heal.

Casa Grande

On Saturday we headed east to Casa Grande Arizona, which is south of Phoenix. As you can see it's quite vacant as the Canadians all went home. We had our pick of spots.

Here's Carol with her new friends. Below is the pool and a meandering stream through the golf course.

Caught

You caught me. Here is the real picture. I was checking my email every hour to see Justin's parents reaction to the girlfriend. At least I picked a good one for him to strive for. I also had some other winners picked out.

Justin

We just had supper out with Justin and Natalie. We haven't met her before, seems like a nice girl. We went to Red Lobster down the road from his place. A lot of restaurants within walking distance of his place.

Spin the Compass

On Sunday we spun the compass to see where we are going next. First we got south, which is Idyllwild. We looked at the temperature and it is only 49 degrees, because it is in the mountains. Too cold for us. Next we spun west. Above is a picture from their web site. Who wouldn't want to stay there?? Seeing it was only about 10 km from here, we decided to go for a ride and check it out first. Good thing we did!! First we missed it as we were looking for greenery like the picture. We went back to what we thought was a RV storage lot from the road. This was it. There was no greenery at all, it was pavement, cement pads and gravel. The sites were so tight, if you open your awning it is almost touching the unit next door. And once the trailer is in, there is no room for the truck. It was sort of simular to a Walmart parking lot, but with water and sewer. Actually Walmart has sewer if you park at the right grate. The above picture is of a golf course next door, that you have use of if you stay here. Good thing we checked before packing up. So we are staying put for this week at Thousand Trails just out of Palm Springs. We are staying in close proximity as we are meeting with Justin Janzen in Rancho Cucamonga and maybe Shirley and Larry when they fly here this week.

Fire Ants

Fifteen years ago when we were in Palm Springs, they closed a city street one night a week for a sort of farmers market. I looked it up and they still do it. Here's Carol, thrilled that we brought Mocha along. Hey, the web site said dog friendly.

We ate at this vendor who had the best hamburgers we ever had. The meat was over an inch thick and not greassy. There were all kinds of things for sale, from home made soap, candles, ethnic foods etc.
Here's me buying from a vendor selling dried fruits. I bought dried pineapple rings, dried apricots, dates and pistachio nuts. They have this every Thursday evening.

I woke up early in the morning and thought that sand storm sure put some sharp pieces under the pillow. When I put my arm under there it really hurt. I got up to clean the sand away and it wasn't sand but tiny little fire ants under the pillow. I woke Carol and we vacuumed them up. I looked them up online and they are really in the bee and wasp family. They bite only to grab on and sting you with their stinger. Then they swivel around, still with their bite attached and sting again. Now I know why they call them fire ants, they sting like fire. I went to the store and got some insecticide bombs which we lit up and left for shopping.

Tonight were are spinning the compass to see where we will head off to next.

Sandstorm

Here's some golf cart front ends, from BMW to Jaguar. I didn't get the 65 Mustang or the Woody.

Late yesterday and all night we had a sand storm that reminded me of a Sumas Prairie snow storm, except this was 75 degrees and sand. Your never too old to see something new. I saw the snow plows going down the highway to clear the sand drifts. Things sure are backwards down here. Speaking of the sand storm there is fine grit everywhere. You can't see it but you put your glass on the counter and you can feel it. I blew out the computers and cameras with compressed air.