Snow in Arizona

Talk about crazy weather! It seems to be going on forever. We were just having 80+ degree weather and loving every minute of it when they tell us we are getting a cold front moving in and we'll be having heavy rain. As usual, we get ready for it by putting all the outdoor furniture under cover and batting down the hatches as they say we are also in for some wind. Well we got it all but it ended up being colder than they anticipated and most places here in the valley got snow or at the very least grapple (a combination of snow, rain and hail if you've never heard of the word) Apache Junction was the only area that didn't gt snow on the ground. Phoenix had a couple of inches and all the areas around us also had snow. It was darn cold with the wind howling at 35 - 50 mph!

This is looking from our front patio out over the Superstition Mountains yesterday afternoon. It cleared up pretty quickly after that and we had a lovely sunset as it started to really chill off

Very pretty sunset from the back of our house

 This is what the mountains looked like this morning with just a dusting of snow left on them

 This is a braoder view of them

 The mountains more to the north of the Superstitions looking towards Scottsdale where just white this morning - what you could see below the clouds

It was a lovely sight but hopefully the last of this we will see this season

I have started to attend ladies craft night down at the club house on Thursday evening. We all gather and just sit around chatting as we do our crafts and the ladies think I have been living in the US too long as I am now making patriotic tea cozies! Really......I never even thought of it that way - I just had some left over wool I was trying to use up and thought these colours would look okay. Once they said that, of course I saw it right away but it really wasn't my intention!

ATV Trip to Walnut Canyon

Our ATV group decided Friday Feb. 15th was the day to re-try to find Walnut Canyon. It was a lovely sunny day so we headed out about 0900 hours to start the road trip to south of Superior. it takes us about 30 - 40 minutes to get to the trail head, unload our vehicle and head out.

 This was at one of our first stops on the trip. As usual, the scenery was breath taking. We decided all the people who come to Arizona and never take an ATV ride into the mountains are missing the best part of living in this beautiful State!

 We have now fond the trail we missed the previous week and are now in virgin territory for our group and heading into the mountains. We know we have two mountain ranges we need to get over to get down into the Gila River valley

 The different shapes of the mountains are really something. You just can't help yourself from taking pictures!

We came around the cornor in a wash to see a group of Mama cows with new calves. They were so cute. There was a little black and white calf I desperately wanted a picture of but Mama cow was having nothing to do with it and took the calf off into the bushes

 It is always fun to see cows in the desert and wonder what the heck they eat but this year with all the rain we've had, there is plenty of greenery out there

 We finally find the Gila River!! Obviously this is where the cows come to drink as it is pretty muddy and there a lots of hoof prints. You can see where you can cross the river and the trail continues on the other side but as none of us are very brave and we don't know how deep the water is, we decided we would wait till later int he spring when the water was lower - cowards we are!

 We walked out to the point but as the water was so muddy, we couldn't see the bottom and how deep it was. The current was running pretty strong. As we were all standing around chatting, we heard another ATV come along with 2 fellows in it and they obviously had been here before as off they went into the river.

As you can see, they had no difficulty crossing the river! They came back a few minutes later and told us the trail ended shortly after they got over the other side so not to bothering crossing here.  We then traveled on till we found another trail that looked like it was heading down to the water and off we went

 This time we were able to get down to a beautiful spot on the river where there was lots of sun and a great place to stop and have lunch. You could also see where people cross the river but again us women, decided we really had no desire to cross so we stayed on the side we were at!

 Such a beautiful spot to set up for a picnic! Ann and I by the Gila River. As usual, I am in shirt sleeves and Ann is in full winter gear!!

 Doug was out in the middle of the river playing at being stranded. He then decided to drive a bit down the river and i took a video of it. I was a bit nervous as you'll tell by the following video but the water wasn't nearly as deep as it seemed.

No sooner had Doug pulled his little stunt than we heard machines coming and across the river they came to where we were having lunch.  If we had crossed the river here, the trail then leads on to the Coke Ovens where we have already been this year so we really had no reason to cross other than the fellows playing in the water!

It was Craig's 77th birthday so after we had lunch and celebrated with his wife Sharon's delicious bread pudding with fruit compote on top (beat a birthday cake anyday!) he had to find a shady spot to grab 40 winks.

 Doug was doing the same

 Sharon, Ann & Sharon

 After a relaxing lunch break, we decided we had better head back as we planned to take the scenic route back over the mountains and had been told it was much longer than the way we had come in through Walnut Canyon. Doug wanted me to drive as his wrists were sore and that was a good decision. The road out was spectacular but boy was it rough. We took one wrong turn and headed straight up hill on a very rough washed out trail and it ended on the side of a cliff and we had to turn around and come back down the same "trail". I certainly got some extreme driving in! The trails up and over the 2 mountain ranges were steep and very washed out so took a lot of concentration and help from Doug to maneuver some of the wash outs. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge though. Doug didn't get the chance to take too many more pictures as he was hanging on for dear life!

 These darn saguaros continue to amaze me and we needed a picture of this convoluted cacti!

 I truley was wondering how we were going to get to the other side of this mountain but you just go right on up and over it!

 This is half way up the side of this mountain and me wondering and hoping Trent in the lead knew where he was going!

 We stopped for a breather part way up the hill side

 I must of been driving okay as Doug continued to let me drive (or his wrists were so sore he had no choice!)

 You could just see for miles once we got to the top of the first range.

 This was looking towards the next range we had to now cross to get back to our trucks.

 I found this mountain range just so fascinating. We decided it was an alien ski hill or maybe an alien landing strip

 First off I know this is blurry but Doug took the picture and it was the only one I had of the mountain poppy and it is the first one we have seen so far this season.

 

 We are finally over the last mountain range and on the back side of a range I showed a picture of as we came in from the other side

 We are now heading back through Walnut Canyon to where we left our trucks and trailers. It was one of the best rides we have been on this year and the scenery well worth some of the rough stretches we had to traverse. A great way to help Craig celebrate his 77th birthday also!

 I had to tack on a picture of some of the rock clocks we are working on. Doug just has to put the clock parts into each clock and they are ready to go. About half of the rocks we have found in the desert and cut ourselves and the others we have bought at rock shows

 This is a picture of my latest creation. We brought some cholla wood back from the desert (this is the skeleton of the grape cholla cacti). We bring it in, soak it is a bleach solution to kill any bugs and bleach the wood. Then I have to work at cleaning out all the holes and the centre of the branches. Once it is all cleaned and brushed, I spray a clear finish on it to preserve it and then Doug cuts the ends of the branches level and we glue south western style bowls on the ends. I have seeds, cut fruit and water in the bowls and the birds love it!

A Day trip through Superior, down to Winkleman, and Oracle and back through Globe

Doug and I decided it was time for the 2 of us to go on a day trip by ourselves so we decided to do the day trip up to Superior, south all the way down to Oracle just north of Tucson and then back up through the mountains to Globe and then west to home. It was a gorgeous sunny day and we left home about 0830 after I had been to my 0700 hr water aerobics and then had breakfast. We packed a lunch to have a picnic along the way and off we went! It has been about 3 years since we did this drive and then we didn't go as far south as Oracle so we were looking forward to the day

 

 This is the Ray Copper mine south of Superior. We were really interested to see how it had changed since we had last seen it. The colours in the rock were fabulous

 We were amazed at how much more of the mountain was now excavated

 Every where you looked there were terraces with huge trucks rumbling along

 We could have stood there forever watching it was so interesting

 It was well worth the drive just too see this part of it

Doug this picture of me at the visiters view point at the Ray Mine

 

We drove into every little town just to have a look. Most of the little settlements were old mining towns that we almost ghost towns now. The roads were dirt and the villages very poor as most of the mines are closed now. We found this little cemetery close to the road among the trees and scrubs so did some exploring. There was the Copper Canyon Railroad tracks close by so not sure if this cemetery was for railroad people or for people that had lived in the area when mining was active

Obviously people still visit the grave sites as there were lots of plastic flowers at a lot of the sites. Stones were spread around grave sites to identify a grave.

 

 This grave site had a cement trim around it. Definitely not a cemetery that has been maintained by anyone!

After I took this picture and looked at it, it looks like Doug is doing something he shouldn't be in a cemetery but really.....he was just ducking under some branches as we walked along

This must have been someone important as it was the nicest headstone in the cemetery. It didn't say what the person did on the headstone s we can only surmise. We then drove through the towns of Kearny, Winkleman, and San Manuel, stopping at all their little thrift stores always on the look-out for good deals. Our last stop of the day was the town of Oracle before we heading back up and over the mountains into Globe

 

 This was a beautiful old stone church in Oracle.

 It was hard to bet a good picture as the sun was in the wrong direction. You can see some snow still on the grass by the stairs. The elevation was in the 3000ft level so they had recently had a snow fall

 This is a better picture of the old church, very lovely with the little bell on the top

This is just a picture of the geography around Oracle. Very much scrub desert with hills in the background. We had a lovely drive ending up stopping to have dinner in Gold Canyon at the Red Sage restaurant. Since it was the day before Valentine's, that was my treat from Doug!

Catching Up with the Dixon's take 2!

Boy I've been bad! It is hard to believe we are already 2/3rds the way through the month and I am only now catching up with my blog. We can't figure where the time goes but we sure keep busy! The weather has been crazy all winter and seems to want to continue this way. We have days where we are in the 80's temperature wise and 3 days later it is in the 50's! We go from shorts to jeans and goose down vests back to shorts all in a weeks' time! I am wishing it turns warm and just stays like that from now on.

Our riding group decided to trailer our ATV's south of Superior AZ to a start off point where we could ride into Walnut Canyon and get down to the Gila River. We have never done this route before but people gave us an idea where to go and we had our ATV book and GPS so figured we were good to go for the day

Here's Doug just finished unloading the ATV and putting our gear in it ready to go

 We are just heading out into the mountains, we are riding shotgun with Sharon and Craig in front of us and Trent and Ann further ahead

 This was our first time in this trail so the scenery was all new to us

 Everywhere we looked there was beautiful rocks and bluffs to see

 We were riding in a wash so lots of scrub bush still hibernating

1.  Craig took us in a little side road to an old well he had heard about that was pumping warm water to the surface at a pretty darn good rate! It was bath water warm. Craig is filling his water bottle but I can't quite imagine what he wants a bottle of warm water for!
2. 
   

 Of course Ann and I have to go over to see what the sign says

 Obviously the photographer didn't let Ann know the branches were in her face

 Saw a beautiful red-tailed hawk sitting up on a bluff

 

The scenery was just amazing 

 

 Trent standing at the top of the hill looking over wondering what is taking us so long. They hadn't seen the hawk on the ridge so didn't stop to take a picture

 We spent the whole day exploring trails and only once met another group of riders. There are just miles of trails and peace and quiet

 Just love those saguaro cacti and can't take enough pictures of them

Sharon and Craig are behind us now and you can see the rocky ledge from the other side as we have gone around it

 We have climbed way up into the mountains as we have to get over them and down into the valley below to get to the Gila river

 Doug heading in to visit a cacti!

 We spent hours driving in roads that dead ended on us and this spot we came to a huge rock ledge drop off that there was no way we could navigate down so as it was early afternoon, we decided to just stop here and have lunch. It was a lovely sunny spot.

Trent and Doug discussing our next steps. You can tell we are the only Canadians! We are in short sleeves and everyone else still has their sweatshirts on

 We are now heading back up and over the mountain to head home. We never did find the road into Walnut Canyon or the Gila River but we had a wonderful ride none the less! You can see one of our ATV's at the bottom of the hill just coming up to meet us. This was our last picture of the day and it was a fun day. We made the decision to come back next week and try one other tail we missed the first time we went in to see if it would take us through the canyon down to the river.