I walked around the house today with my camera and took some pictures. This is a view of the house from the road just below the river rock lined wash that runs on the west side. It was a beautiful day with a few puffy clouds and the temperature got up to about 103 degrees.
The cholla with the thrasher nest is at the extreme left side of the image. I peeked into the nest and saw that the third egg hatched and there are now three little thrasher chicks. Click on the image to enlarge.
We hitched up the trailer, not to go on a Fourth of July vacation, but to tow it to the dealer for them to work off a couple of squawks and replace the TV video cable with an HDMI cable. It takes a bit of effort to get the four-point anti-sway hitch ready to tow, so I did the job yesterday in order to be ready to roll this morning.
We took advantage of the trip after dropping the trailer off, to do a little shopping at Wal-Mart, where we bought a TV wall mount for the trailer and took it over to the dealer for them to install. We also stopped at Lowe’s to pick up a custom patio shade we ordered a couple of weeks ago.
Now that the chores are done, it’s time to settle in for a nice Independence Day Holiday! Happy Birthday America!
These three aerial views in the slideshow above came from the Maricopa County Assessor’s website. I can’t be sure of the dates the images were taken but I can guess based on my knowledge of the construction progress. Click on the slideshow to advance to the next image.
The first image was taken between 2008 and the first half of 2010; it was labeled 2010 on the county website and shows the parcel and the bare pad. The second image was taken in about November of 2010 judging from the building progress; this image was labeled 2011. The third and last image had to have been taken in late 2011, judging from the shrubbery and landscape; it is marked 2012 on the county site.
Unfortunately, the county only maintains images for three years; it would have been interesting to have a view of the parcel prior to the pad excavation.
Last week when we were in the Valley shopping, I bought this little swing for my musical mesquite tree. It’s actually supposed to be a bird feeder, but I like it just for decoration. The birds aren’t out of luck, though, since there are feeders out in the back above the RV drive. Click on the image to enlarge.
I rummaged through some of the old photos in the archives this afternoon. One image from March of last year shows the RV drive as it appeared at that time; it was taken from the hill to the east. I walked to approximately the same spot on the hill and took another image of the RV drive as it appears today.
Click on the image above to alternate between the THEN and NOW views of the RV drive. Notice the growth of the rosemary planted on the slope, the addition of the screen porch enclosure and, of course, the presence of an RV in the drive.
I got up early this morning to take the truck to the tire dealer in town. I wound up getting four new Firestone Destination LE tires mounted and installed. Doing some on-line price comparisons, I think I got about the average price, but I’m satisfied with the local dealer and spending the money here in town.
We probably could have gone another few months on the old tires, but Damsel pointed out that summer is almost here (it is 108° here today) and with some near future I-10 desert crossings, it would be appropriate to get them now. We can just picture ourselves on the side of the Interstate halfway between Blythe and Chiriaco Summit waiting for help when it’s 117° outside. Aargh!
One of the four new tires is pictured at the right. Well, it looked brand new at the dealer this morning, but it’s showing the dust and gravel collected along the 500 feet or so of “unimproved road” between the paved road and our concrete driveway. 🙂
Click on the image to enlarge.
We started planning on viewing the total eclipse even before experiencing the annular eclipse last week. We think that we will observe the total eclipse from Casper, WY, although that could change.
The eclipse is still more than five years in the future and since it will occur on a coast to coast path across the United States, there are a lot of places to view the phenomenon. The greatest eclipse will occur in Western Kentucky – that is when the duration of totality is the longest – two minutes and 40 seconds of totality in this case.
Image: Path of totality across the states. Click to go to the official NASA eclipse site.
Wherever we decide to view the eclipse, I’m sure it will be spectacular. In Wyoming, totality will last about 2 minutes and 24 seconds. That’s plenty of time to see the stars and planets come out and for the surface temperature to drop noticeably.
This is a long time away, but we wanted to make this note about it on the blog. Maybe over the next five years we can organize an expedition of family and friends to enjoy the event. We’ll see . . .