ATVing on a very cool Arizona Day!

Our good friends the Cadden's from BC, (he worked at CPR with Doug) are in Mesa till the end of December and we have been wanting to take them out for an ATV ride. Our Alberta friends have gone home for the Christmas season so they lent us their ATV while they are gone. We planned to go for our ride this past Wednesday and it turned out to be one of the coolest days so far this year. We were supposed to head off first thing in the morning, but due to the cold, we decided to wait and go out after lunch. We met up with our other friends Ann & Trent and out we went about 1pm in the afternoon. It was still cold and I had 4 layers of clothes on and still wasn't completely warm! I know I'll get no sympathy from you people at home but it really was cool! We had just had 3 days where it had rained and Apache Junction received over 2 1/2 inches of rain. The most rain they have had in a long, long, time! As you will see in the pictures, it was muddy!

 

Elaine and I were riding in our ATV and as we have new tires with deep lugs, we were slinging mud like crazy and as we still don't have our new canvas top ready yet (Elaine and I kept thanking you Catherine for providing us with this experience), the mud was slinging from both the front and back tires and flying into the air and down through the top right on top of us, it was going down our necks, all down our backs. We were laughing so hard as there was nothing we could do about it!

We are still smiling so all is okay!

 For the life of me, I can't figure what my problem was when Doug took this picture because if looks could kill, I think we would be attending his funeral right now! From left is Elaine, Ann & myself

 That Doug and the camera, as we were following behind him at this time, he kept clicking that darn camera

 Ronnie sitting in our friend's ATV, Doug was probably visiting a P-tree!

 Part way through the ride, we noticed Doug;s back left tire was almost flat so we had a short stop to pump the tire up.

 We were all pretty muddy by then but having a great time. It was sunny and we had a beautiful blue sky and as long as the sun was high on the horizen, there was a bit of warmth to it

 It was amazing to actually drive through water in the washes!! In the 4 years we have been ATVing, we have never had water in the washes in December. There was a good 12 - 16 inches of moving water. Quite fun to us as it was so unique.

 The scenery is gorgeous as usual. We never get tired of it.

 You can see the weather was gorgeous even though cool

 That Doug and the darn camera

As you can see, there is a lot of water in this wash we are crossing

Our backs as we go around the corner

 We can't believe we are crossing another creek!

Another creek, more water but we're loving it!

 

Doug took a short video  of Elaine and I coming down a hill behind him and Ron

 Hard to believe there are flowers in the desert at this time of year!

 We took Ron and Elaine in to see the Native American corn grinding holes. These are a few hundred years old.

You can see how bundled up Elaine and I were. Here I thought I would layer on the clothes and by now expected I would be peeling them off - never happened! We had an excellent day and ride in the beautiful outdoors. We ended the day with all of us going out for an excellent dinner. Good day, great company!

This is the next day. Doug and I are sitting out on the patio at the back of our place. It was a blazing sunny day and we could see two army helicopters hovering low on the horizon just above the roof line.

The helicopter just hovered overhead in the open desert just beyond our community

Would have loved to have known what the heck those helicopters were doing but they certainly entertained us!

The Dixon's go Camping!

We decided this year we would try and go camping for 3-4 days every month to the local State and County parks as we enjoy all the wildlife, birds, hiking trails and just sitting out and having a campfire. New since last year, you have to go online and reserve your site and pay for it in advance and since we have favorite camp spots, I thought I was so smart because i went online mid-November and booked us 4 nights at Usery Mountain County Park so we would get one of our favorite spots! Well low and behold after weeks of above average temperatures and clear sunny skies, the weather lady says we are in for a cold front and heavy rain, 2 1/2 of the 4 days we are planning to camp! Talk about Dixon luck! Of course we are too stingy to cancel our reservation because we would lose too much money, so off we went. We had arranged with a group of friends to join us Saturday night for a campfire and get together before 3 of them headed home to Alberta for Christmas.\

 

 We are just setting up at our campsite and you can already see a few clouds gathering in the sky. I am also wearing my cotton sweater which is unusual for me!

This is our campsite from a distance and you can also see the rain clouds gathering force in the distance

 

 Of course Doug has to take a picture of me with layers of clothes on as he says no one would believe him otherwise. It kills me to have to dress like I was back in BC!

I had to take a picture to prove there were some blue spots in the sky throughout the day.

We were lucky the rain held off and we could have a campfire Thursday evening and enjoy the sunset and listening to the coyotes howl. Earlier, 2 very nice and healthy coyotes walked right through the desert next to our campsite and just kept an eye on us as they went by. They were no more than 10 - 15 feet away from us! Of course I didn't have my camera handy to get a picture.

 This is Friday and Doug and I are out for our walk and watching the clouds very carefully as we didn't want to get too far away from the trailer if those rain clouds decided to let lose!

 We could just see the rain coming, the temperature had also dropped and I had to resort to dressing like it was winter so I could stay warm on our walk. Just walking fast wasn't cutting it!

 I was standing outside the washroom waiting for Doug and didn't catch him taking my picture. I am wearing my beaver headband and mittens Catherine had given me for a Christmas present a few years ago. They were made by the Dene women in Fort Providence NT, and boy did they feel good!

 Doug figured he needed a close up in case I denied I ever wore them in Arizona!

 The sun still tried to peak out as it was setting Friday evening. The rain did start shortly after and it came down in a deluge so we were unable to have a campfire Friday night. It rained all day Saturday so we went to a few garage sales and then just sat in the trailer watching TV, me knitting and reading a good book. We both found it very relaxing and enjoyable. Of course our gathering of friends was canceled due to the weather - boohoo

 Of course we had our share of birds: here you will see the Gamble's quail and pigeons of course

 This picture shows the feeders with wood peckers, quail, finch and pigeons all enjoying the food we put out

 It was very entertaining watching all the birds at the feeders, knocking the food out for all the birds on the ground!

 Sunday proved a beautiful if cool day so we rescheduled our campfire gathering but only 4 of the 11 people were able to come up on Sunday. Ron & Elaine and Rink & Lona all from Revelstoke joined us and we had a lovely fire. The sunset was spectacular as were the stars and the company!

 This is looking out from the back of our camp site just as the sun is setting

 These were the skies in front of our trailer. There was colour everywhere 

 The views got better the longer we sat there.

The sun has been set for about half an hour when we then get the magnificent orange sky

 Of course this is Monday morning, the day we return home when the skies clear and it was just gorgeous out. We were able to go for our walk with just shirt sleeves.

 Of course Doug had to take more pictures of our house as he added more decorations and lights

He had to take a picture of his truck because he added some battery powered lights to the front of his truck. They were judging the house decorations last night and we'll see how we do this year. A lady around the cornor from us has done a spectacular job of decorating her place so I am sure she will win first prize but as we won last year, we don't expect to win anything this year. We'll keep you posted.

Christmas Trains

Hi everyone, as we get closer to Christmas, we are always looking for activities that will get us in the Christmas spirit. Not always as easy when you are in sunny, warm Apache Junction! We deiced to go with a group of friends to a home that displays miniature running trains for 2 weekends before Christmas. We went last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. We arranged to go with friends Elaine, Ron and Grace and Malcolm. We got to the address to find a big note saying they wouldn't be open this year due to a family illness so we were very disappointed as these people have a massive display! They very nicely left out a brochure with the addresses of other people with displays open to the public. These people all belong to the miniature railway association of Arizona. We went to two different dispalys which were nicely done but not nearly as amazing as the one not open this year.

 

These are videos I took from the first and second homes we visited. It is amazing the amount of money people spend on their "toys"

 This is a still picture of one of the little villages that the train runs though. Very real and right to scale.

 Another picture of another part of the yard.

It was a lovely evening and we all enjoyed the train displays. We ended the evening going out for dinner at the Red Sage restaurant.

ATV Ride to Cochrane Coke Ovens

We just returned from an all day ATV ride to the Cochrane Coke Ovens. The day was beautiful and warm, about 27 degrees and sunny. We went to the Coke Ovens last year via a different much more extreme and difficult route and I am sorry to say I would never go that way again. If my hair wasn't already white, it would have been by the end of that ride! Friends told us of another way to go that was much more enjoyable with only a couple of difficult spots. Our friends Ann and Trent had never been to the Coke Ovens so we decided to try to find the easier route. It meant trailering our rigs to just east of the small town of Superior, about a 30 minute scenic drive and taking a dirt road in to the starting point. We left about 0830 hours this morning.

We are just leaving our staging grounds heading into the mountains to the south of the town of Superior

 We are heading into a small wash. It is interesting to see the Cottonwood trees are just starting to have their leaves turn yellow when at home, the leaves have been totally gone from the trees for months now!

 If you look up at the ridge you will see a hanging rock. It is amazing to see how it just sits there

 Unfortunately Doug took one dip into a wash a bit too fast and bottomed out ripping his skid plate half off! Of course duck tape is the only solution. He'll be busy now this week fixing it!! Boy talk about father taking after his daughter!! Between the two of them, our ATV will end up being held together with duck tape!

 We are sitting up on this hill looking over the San Carlos river valley, looking to the north west and way in the distance we can see the Coke Ovens and now we just have to figure how we are going to get there. We can't cross the San Carlos river right now as it is up to two and a half feet deep in places and fairly fast moving. Of course we all figure we can find a way!

 Looking the other direction, you can see the San Carlos river in the distance

 Doug and Craig having a reconnoitering discussion!

 A whoop of excitement went up as we finally came around the corner and saw the Coke Ovens in the distance! We were so proud of our trail blazing skills. It took us about 3 hours of hard driving to get here though

 Doug and I infront of one of the Ovens

 Doug and the $#@^& camera! He pops up everywhere when you least expect him

 Our riding group: from left: Trent, Ann, Doug, Sharon, Sharon and Craig

 The scenery was spectacular the whole way

 Down near the San Carlos river we traveled through a riparian area that felt like a tunnel. The temperatures were about 10 degrees cooler and it felt wonderful after being out in the hot sun! We are still waiting for the new cover for our ATV to be ready so we were riding with just the bare roll bars and no protection from the sun!

 The mountains were just incredible, every corner brought different spectacular views

 It was a wonderful day with great friends and in a beautiful state!