Day Three - On to Tucson!

Can you hear Willie Nelson?

We left the KOA at 9am due to showers! Everyone needed one. We took Highway 79 down to Tucson because we didn't want to backtrack through Phoenix and I'm glad we did. It was really pretty out there. 

Again with the green. I thought this was a desert?

Had to take these pictures out the window as we drove through. 

We're already an hour behind schedule!

We stopped in "Florence" for gas and I wish I could have taken a picture of the sign "Entering Florence". There's a song on one of our Dr. Demento CD's about those signs and it's hilarious! Anyway, we arrived at Uncle Kirk and Aunt Candy's house around 11am and visited a while, then Kirk took us to the Titan Missile Museum. The boys were impressed!

Arrival at the museum.

Watching old "Duck and Cover" drill cartoons shown to school kids in the 50's.

There is a "watch for rattlesnakes" sign by that rock on the left. That is what they are doing from those benches, watching for rattlesnakes, but they never saw any.

Cool huge rock of Malachite.

The video portion of our tour.

Jake closing the blast door single handedly!

Tom and Jake launching missiles as the Ruskies!

Looks like Mission to Mars.

Down the hallway to the missile silo.

Check it out!

That's big.  

Jake checking out the shower head of fuel.

"Got Nukes?" It has some cracks but I bet they'd sell it cheap.

From the top of the silo.

After the museum, we drove back to Kirk's house, picked up Candy, and went Pinnacle Peak's for a steak dinner! That place was so good! Cousin Matthew works in the kitchen there and he came out to say hi. The restaurant is inside Trail Dust Town, which is a lot like Knott's Berry Farm. 

After dinner we walked over and watched the stunt show and we were very impressed! Again, I'd have more pictures of the evening but my phone died. This is getting annoying.

We walked around the town and played at the shooting arcade. The boys bought this...

as a souvenir and can't wait to try it on the cat when we get home.

We're staying at Kirk and Candy's tonight and will be moving on to Grandpa Larry's in the morning after breakfast!

Day Two - Into Arizona!

We arrived at the KOA in Apache Junction just outside Phoenix the night before after a long drive. Driving through the big tunnel was the highlight there and the boys were just as impressed as I was that it was such a big city.

The boys were up and ready right as the office opened at 7:30 because the were dying to play pool! After that, we drove the bug to Walmart and the post office to get some post card stamps. Then we were starving and after much debate decided to eat at the first place that came to us...luckily it was a Taco Bell! The boys were teasing me about my driving skills as we pulled in, but I told them to stow it because I was hungry and likely to beat them!

I wanted to go to The Lost Dutchman State Park so we drove up the highway and found it. They weren't in the mood for a long hike, but I did get to walk a bit close to that crazy looking Superstition Mountain. We need to come back here some day! Everything is so green right now. I just can't get over how pretty it is. It's like on big manicured desert garden. 

Here are the boys making faces about walking.

Ohhhh...pretty!

The light on this was awesome later in the day, but my phone died.

Walking back to the car.

Leaning tower of saguaro!

See how green it is?!

Then we stopped at the Superstition Mountain Museum. That was a cool find! There was a wedding going on inside the "Elvis Church" so we couldn't go inside. The museum was very well done. Lots of stuff about Native Americans, wars, gold mining, and legends. Jake got a pocket knife that looks like a shotgun shell at the gift shop.

Check out the weird Cholla they have here. They look like trees!

This is the Elvis Church and some other buildings from an Elvis movie "Charro". Add that to the list of movies to see!

We took this picture for Dan. It's an Apache Junction monopoly game!

This is a model of the biggest stamp mill I've ever seen. Can you imagine 24 stamps running?

Proud that the boys knew all the war uniforms and flags, except the first one "Castillan Spain".

We finished up there and headed back to camp for some swimming. This is the other reason the boys LOVE KOA's. It was perfect for it too. Plenty of shade for me to sit in and read a book. 

They are playing some strange game here.

Dan finished work early and we cleaned up and took him to the Goldfield Ghost Town that we had gone by earlier. It was awesome! We took the mine tour and loved it. The weather was gorgeous and scenery...wow! We had some lemonade and looked around the town. Tom and I went to see a live reptile display but Jake refused. Recently he has acquired a serious aversion to snakes, strange. There was the biggest rattlesnake I have ever seen! All of them coiled up with their heads in the middle looking at us with those sinister eyes. I would have taken a lot more pictures but my phone is being really rude and not charging well. I took these pictures with Dan's phone.

Here's the town. Looks like Knott's! They even have a Mystery Shack!

Looks like a movie, doesn't it?

Checking out some mining equipment.

More desert gardens.

The place closed at 5pm, so we headed back to camp. There was a terrible accident on the road home. So sad. I hope no one was seriously hurt. It was the same intersection we passed through and didn't realize that the cross traffic didn't have a stop sign. 

We had taco salad for dinner and went for a walk around the KOA, admiring other people's set-up. Then everyone went to play some more pool. I came back early to update our logs. I'm the record keeper here!

We are planning on hitting the road early tomorrow to get to Tuscon and visit with Uncle Kirk and and Aunt Candy!

On the road again!

As soon as Dan got back from working in the OC, we hit the road and stopped in Old Dale for the night so that we could get a super early start in the morning. 

We weren't in our usual spot so the boys found some treasure, shot up old computer parts!

I went for a quick walk. I love the trails from hole to hole across the desert.

And there was a beautiful sunset. It was pretty darn windy and that kept me awake most of the night, so I was amazingly tired when Dan started battening down the hatches at 4:30 in the morning. But it was fun to get on the road in the dark with the boys snoozing away. Tom did poke his head down and ask what was up, but went right back to sleep. 

On to Quartzsite, AZ!

Spring Doings

I found the cutest thing to make for Spring! Check out the bunnies! I found the pattern here http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/bunny-nuggets

Uh oh! Looks like a bunny sacrifice!

Why do I always find really cute things to make when I don't really have the time to go all out? I found some cute spring colors of cotton at Michael's so I've been frantically knitting for several days. Luckily, I love to do that. 

Things are getting crazy.

The great thing about knitting (for me) is that I'm a bit obsessive. I like to watch TV shows with the boys. I like listening to Dan read a book out loud in the evenings. And I like to listen to lectures online. But I can't just  sit there. I've got to be doing something with my hands to really focus on listening. In the past I've played video games on silent, like solitaire or lately Candy Crush. But when I'm knitting I'm killing two birds with one stone. I am producing something with my obsessive hand motions! This time it is bunnies. They still need tails, but I'll take care of that today.

An army of bunnies!

On another note, I love SPRING! The wind is blowing today, but it's not an icy cold wind. There are birds chirping in the morning and green things growing all over. Here are some more pictures of the flowers blooming for you.

This is the same Joshua Tree bloom but further along. Looks like a popcorn ball.

This is a Yucca plant. The start purple and flower out yellow. 

We're still getting ready to go on our RV trip. Things are coming along nicely, but we're in a holding pattern until Dan's work lets him go. As soon as he's in the clear we'll be hitting the road!

Bunny!

So early this afternoon I heard a squeaking sound in the back yard. I've heard this noise before. It's "distressed bunny". Last time I heard it was when a gopher snake caught one outside my laundryroom. So I went outside and looked around. Here comes the cat sauntering up the porch. I look beyond him and a rabbit outside the fence is sitting there, kinda stunned, hops away. I thought the cat had caught him, he screamed, the cat ran off. The cottontails out here are an equal match for him, but they run and that catches his attention.

A little while later, I hear it again. Tom follows me out to find the source. The cat saunters up the porch again. Tom found it! A tiny baby bunny in the very center of a plant on the porch, like a cabbage patch kid! We scooped him up among many oohhhs and ahhhs! He was adorable! Bad kitty!

We brought him in and showed him around. He was stunned. That other rabbit was probably his mom! We put him in a box with a towel and he hopped around a little. He wasn't hurt, just stunned and very scared. So we looked up how to care for a baby rabbit, but the sites we found said that most wild baby bunnies will die in a week no matter what you do. They need their family. It said to put him around where we found him and his mom will come looking and calling for him when it was safe.

So we did. Now the boys want a pet rabbit. Not going to happen. Between the cat and the dogs...it will get messy. We went to the spot where I saw the momma bunny and when we went outside the baby poked his head up and sniffed around excitedly. Then we put him near a shady bush with lots of cover and he hopped off underneath. I'm sure his mom will find him soon. I brought the cat in and gave him a reserve can of wet food so that he would be too fat and sleepy to go out there and look for him. He's happily asleep on Tom's bed now.

He was so tiny and adorable!

Joshua Trees Are Blooming!

I think we get more blooms the spring after a good cold winter. We had two good snows (for us) this year and now the blooms are everywhere. Down in town the blooms are totally out, but up here (only a few hundred feet higher) they are still budding, but some have opened.

This is a crazy looking plant! Joshua Trees aren't really trees. They are giant flower! And the leaves are super sharp. I've run into these with my head and my shin. It gave me lots of blood and bruising. And pain for over a week. Nasty things! But they do look strange and they have crazy flowers. The cactus wrens love to make nests in them. The bees and oriole's love the flowers. And they make a nice shade when big and mature. 

Here are a couple that are almost ready to open. I couldn't find one close to the ground that had fully opened. They look like popcorn balls.

My lilacs are starting to get leaves in the backyard. My strawberries are getting greener. And the iris's that I moved in the fall look like they are going to grow. The aloe plants didn't fair so well through the freezes that we had. The cactus wrens are busy making nests. The thrashers are out finding bugs. And we have about 30 quail in the yard. I haven't been able to get a picture of them. 

No cactus flowers yet. But the beaver tails have buds!

Today is Jake's 11th birthday! He is postponing his 11ness though because his brother is sick. He didn't want to have a great breakfast or get a cake if his brother couldn't share it with him, so early this morning he went and told him before he got out of bed, so that he wouldn't be sad. 

He came to me this morning and asked me how he could kindly tell someone to be quiet. He was trying to sleep and Tom wanted to tell him something. We talked about choices and modeled some ways to say it. And I even warmed him, that it may not work because his brother may choose to be selfish at that moment and he may have to find out why, or he may even have to be angry, like when they both push my limit in the evening when I'm very tired. It was a great conversation and made me happy.

Jake bought the part he needed to fix the dirt bike and Dan helped him put it on. The clutch lever breaking and having to be replaced fixed the problem they thought they were having with the transmission. Happy days! Jake went for a ride immediately. It still needs new handle bars, but that should happen this weekend.

Tom has spent his day laying on the couch watching motorcross, Gilligan's Island, and Modern Marvels. He's had some koolaid (which he says is the best thing to have when your sick) and some saltines. He'll be fine in a day or so.

I'm off to take another stab at making blackberry jam. I've never had trouble before, but yesterday the lids leaked and it got water in it. It's not ruined though, it's fine for syrup on my ice cream! But they didn't seal. I'm starting another batch now. Keep your fingers crossed!

Busy Weekend

It's Monday! I've been busy cleaning the house up (dusting and mopping) in anticipation of having some friends over tomorrow. It's Jake's birthday and we're having some of our local park day friends over for pizza and pie. The boys are hoping they will get the dirt bike fixed in time to show it off. Tom wrecked it Sunday morning and the part store isn't open on Sundays and Mondays.


Saturday was our big race day. Jake wanted to have another go-cart race at Adams Motorsports this year and we worked out a day that Uncle John would be able to race too. The race was fun to watch. Jake didn't win, but he had fun anyway. He crashed into John and it really hurt his hand, broke the cart too! I love watching them race but I wish they wouldn't all argue over who won and why. Makes me nervous! Just be happy to drive, darn it!


Afterwards we went for pizza at Shakey's and had lots of fun talking about motorcycles and our upcoming trip.

Sunday, some of our Orange County friends were coming out to camp at Joshua Tree National Park, so we drove out to say hi and bring them some firewood. We went for a climb on the rocks but the boys were ready to back home after that. They left me behind to talk to my friends and Dan came back for me later. It was a great afternoon relaxing and catching up with some friends.

I'm getting the camper ready for our trip this week. One more week till take off!