Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Retirement

Camping Day Four – Provo, UT

Camping at Provo, UT

We landed in Provo on our fourth night out after a day of fantastic scenery, but a difficult drive with windy conditions and up and down winding mountain roads for part of the trip. It was worth the effort though and we’re relaxing in a very nice RV park located in a wooded area near the Provo River and Utah Lake.

Damsel took over 400 photos today of the National Park this morning and of the various rock formations, mountains, rivers, livestock (did not notice any wildlife) and of a traffic jam on US 6 where the two lane road was restricted to one lane with a signal system for alternating between northbound and southbound traffic.

Tomorrow should be an easier drive along I-15 northbound and thence via I-80 westbound. Our next stop will be Elko, Nevada. Although the drive should be easier, it will be a fairly long 4.5 hours of driving – we prefer less than four per day because the tired and cranky kicks in with the longer drives. But the vast distances between towns in Northern Nevada dictates that the drive be a bit longer than we like.

12 Sep 2016 by Photography Retirement Wanderlust

Camping Day Three – Torrey, UT – Plus 9/11 Thoughts

Wonderland Campground

Day three finds us camping in Torrey, Utah which is about ten miles west of the entrance to Capitol Reef National Park. Today, like the first days of our excursion, we passed some incredible Western American scenery. We started near Lake Powell and climbed through southern and central Utah reaching a summit of almost 8400 feet above mean sea level.

Tomorrow, we will break camp, spend some time at the Capitol Reef National Park (neither of us have been here before) and then proceed northbound towards the Salt Lake City area where we have more camping planned. It is certain to be another spectacular scenery day for us.

Thoughts on the fifteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks

I was going to post something to commemorate the 9/11 attacks as usual, but since we are on the road, I did not have much time to come up with a suitable tribute. However, our long-time internet pal in Hawaii, Kini, says it best. His post tells it like it is when it comes to who are really the enemies of freedom. (Besides the Democrats, that is.)

11 Sep 2016 by Photography Retirement Wanderlust

Camping Day Two – Page, AZ

Jacked Up

Day two finds us in Page, Arizona after spending the day driving from Williams up through Grand Canyon National Park and then on up through the Navajo Reservation to where we are camped tonight. The drive was through some of the most scenic and colorful places on the planet and not all of it in Grand Canyon. Northbound along US 89 from Cameron is also quite spectacular.

The Page campground is a little funky. Our campsite is a pull-through towards the uphill side of the RV park. We are on a bit of a slope and when we did the automatic leveling of the RV, the front wheels are completely off the ground; you can see that in the image above.

Tomorrow, we will be in Utah after a short drive from our campground. Our destination is a nice little campground near Capitol Reef National park. We expect to see a lot more beautiful scenery when we head up that direction.

10 Sep 2016 by Arizona Photography Retirement Wanderlust

Camping Day One – Williams, AZ

Williams, AZ

Our first day out was pretty entertaining except for some congestion on I-40 due to road construction, but enough about that. Elsewhere, traffic was pretty good considering we were traveling on a getaway Friday along the main route between Phoenix and Las Vegas.

We made our first stop at Wickieup, AZ, after going through some pretty scenic areas like rock formations, a Joshua Tree forest and just beautiful places in general. We also stopped in touristy Seligman, AZ, where Damsel did some souvenir shopping at the Roadkill Cafe. We arrived here in Williams this afternoon, checked in and set up camp in the quaint Canyon Motel and RV Park.

Tomorrow, we’re going to top off the fuel tank here in town before heading up US 64 towards Grand Canyon. We checked fuel prices at our next stop and thought it best to tank up here even though we’re still half full. We can refuel when we get up into Utah where prices get lower again.

We will have more tomorrow from the next stop.

09 Sep 2016 by Arizona Photography Retirement Wanderlust

Throwback Thursday – Blogger Rendezvous

Blogger Rendezvous

This goes back to January of 2010 when Damsel and I were vacationing in Arizona just about a year before we moved here. We were towing a trailer that we rented in Mesa, AZ and parked it at a campground in Apache Junction. Glenn B who blogs at Ballseye’s Boomers happened to be in the area and we arranged an eating meeting there in Apache Junction. My little trusty Canon A710IS (on autopilot) took this photo of Me, Damsel and Glenn just after we finished eating. We enjoyed the visit with Glenn and continue to read his blog to this day.

I found this old photo in an archive I had on a memory card that had been languishing in a box in the desk drawer for some time. Click on the image to enlarge. Our original post of the encounter with Glenn is here.

04 Aug 2016 by Arizona Blogosphere Retirement

Clearing the RV Drive

RV Drive Now Clear Pile of Cut Branches

I took the Roadrunner (our 32 foot Georgetown RV) to top off the fuel tanks yesterday in anticipation of a planned excursion this month. On the way back in the RV drive, I noticed that the large mesquite adjacent to the concrete was hanging in the way and I made contact with some of the small branches as I drove up to the back of the house.

Damsel and I cut a lot of the tree down before, but it has grown a lot since then. We cleared the tree in June when we brought the RV back, so it must have grown a bunch in less than a complete month since then.

We removed three large branches and sawed the closest to the driveway trunk flush to the ground. The remaining part of the tree is growing away from the RV drive and shouldn’t be a problem anytime soon.

I didn’t take a before photo of the tree, but the after is the image on the left above. On the right is the pile of branches that we drug across the road to be further cut up and disposed at another time, possibly later this week or next. Click on the images to enlarge.

06 Jul 2016 by Arizona Home & Garden Retirement

Pruning Day


The little lemon tree next to the RV drive has been sprouting a bunch of new growth this spring and summer. The new stuff is fine, but it obscures the lemon fruit currently growing on the tree. Since it was a cooler day today (only 98 degrees), I decided to prune off some of the excess. The images above are the before and after photos of the lemon tree. Click to alternate between the two.

Damsel came out with me and took the shears to the mesquite tree by the drive (not shown) and took off a lot of the “suckers” (unwanted new growth on the lower branches). There were a lot of them even though we did this not too long ago.

The cooler weather is due to a moist parcel of air in the southwest that has, and will continue through Saturday, triggered thunderstorms and light rainfall. Well, light meaning not at flash flood stage yet. It also has made the humidity climb way above that which we are used to (NOT our famous Arizona “dry heat”). It feels as muggy as it does in Florida at this time of year.

30 Jun 2016 by Arizona Home & Garden Retirement

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