Friday

Happy Friday everyone!  Here we are still in Tucson, it is finally nice weather here today and I am sitting under the awning sunning my white legs.  Kim is here still and is sleeping on the couch.  She got sick a few days ago when we went to Oatman and has been sick ever since.  Such a disappointment for her to come all this way to feel that lousy.  She did get out riding yesterday for a couple of days.  She rode Bobe's horse and he was great with her.  We haven't been able to do any of the fun stuff we planned.  Maybe tomorrow she will feel well enough to go to Tombstone for the day.  She flies out Sunday then back to regular life.  Hope she is better before having to return to work on Monday.  Here's a few more pics from Oatman.

These are some humongous oxen we met in Oatman, not loose.

Here is the owner of the oxen, she actually yokes them and they pull a cart, can you imagine training them?

Lowell and his daughter Kim in the back.

A baby holding up traffic

MaryJean and Gracie go to the BIG City!

We are driving back to Tucson today from spending last 2 days in Laughlin, NV and Oatman, AZ.  Went to visit Lowell Mac. his wife and daughter and also to see him and Kim play yesterday in historic Oatman, AZ, home of the wild donkey herd.  We left on Sunday, picked up Kim in Phoenix and off to Laughlin we went.  When we got there we realized that Laughlin is like little Las Vegas and that MJ and Gracie would be staying in a fancy hotel/casino on the Colorodo River.  Lowell's daughter Kim works there and got us a really great cheap deal on two rooms.

In the elevator

They played a good game of pool, except I think Gracie cheated.

Of course they had to play the slots

Oatman!

Donkey's are everywhere here, this baby just layed down and went to sleep in the street.

Of course they are so fuzzy wuzzy we couldn't keep our hands off him and he never woke up from all the attention.

Bobe and his new hat!

Bobe, Lowell and one of the other musicians.

Kim and donkey friend.

In the historic town of Oatman, Arizona sits the haunted Oatman Hotel. Oatman was first established as a tent city in the early 1900s and the historic hotel, called the Drulin Hotel, was built in 1902. The eight room hotel did a brisk business to area miners, especially after two miners struck a rich vein that would end up being a 10 million dollar gold find in 1915. Prior to that time the town had been little more than a mining camp. The rich gold discovery brought hundreds of new settlers and within one year’s time, Oatman had grown to more than 3,500 residents. In just a few short years, Oatman suffered three major fires that almost destroyed the town. However, the town was rebuilt, and the old hotel was repaired in 1920, continuing to host its many guests. However, both the population and the mining boom were short-lived. The largest mining company, United Eastern Mines, shut down its operations in 1924 and the town almost died. But with the advent of Route 66, the old town and the hotel hung on, catering to the many travelers along the new highway. On March 29, 1939 Clark Gable and Carole Lombard spent their wedding night at the old hotel after having been married in Kingman, Arizona. Remembering this memorable night, the couple often returned to the hotel for the peace and solitude it afforded them. Clark was known to spend many a night playing poker with some of the miners.  Sadly, Carole Lombard was killed in a plane crash in January 1942. Though devastated, Clark continued with his life and his career and later married again.   Over the years, the old hotel carried a number of names but was changed to the Oatman Hotel in the 1960s. When Route 66 was replaced with the interstate, Oatman again suffered a devastating blow and dwindled to just a few gift shops and restaurants. Today only about 100 people live in Oatman year-round.

Another baby just hanging around.  More Donkey's to come!

Saturday

Howdy everyone!  Sorry I have been kind of lax in the blogging department.  I'm afraid we are getting boring and nothing exciting has happened lately so I will have to start making stuff up to keep you interested.
I am getting this strange light skin patch under my watch and wedding band and it won't wash off in the shower, must be some kind of arizona skin disease.
Totally unprepared Terry came to the desert with a BLACK cowboy hat and said his brain was starting to get fried from the sun so we had to go see the neighborhood HAT lady, Lois.  She has  a hat business in her backyard shed called "The Big Hat Society".  Isn't it a great community that sports a hat lady?  We made an appointment, walked over and picked out a great palm leaf hat which she took into the house, dunked it in her kitchen sink then proceded to shape it for him however he wanted it.  Awesome service for $30.00.  So now he looks cool in his big palm leaf hat and his head is happier too!
Yesterday we went to the movies and saw "Unknown"  great movie for Liam Neeson fans.  It's a real nail-biter kind of movie.  If you can make it to the first show here it costs $5 bucks.

Mary Jean attacked a wild havalina yesterday and we had free pork chops for supper!

Two days ago, Terry went to Phoenix golfing with an old cronie from the RR.  I stayed home, went to Yoga with my neighbor lady, cleaned the house then went riding by myself on Lady.  She was awful even though I played with her for a long time before we left.  She was starting to settle down then we saw a guy on a horse and she went nuts again.  Made it home okay and baked a cake in the convection oven.  It turned out great and I'm going to try baking bread in there next.

Tomorrow we leave for Oatman to see Lowell and the donkeys.  Don't get those two things confused.
Also, we pick up Kim in the morning on the way to Oatman.  Can't wait to show her this winter paradise.

Okay, so one of these paragraphs is not exactly true.  Which one is it?

Sunday Feb, 13

These Saguaro Cactus are the coolest things ever.  We took this pic just so you could see how huge they are.  They like to grow on the southern slopes so there are literally forests of them growing together with all their arms going crazy directions.  They say they will grow an arm to help balance the gigantic and extremely heavy main trunk.

Riding out yesterday with Vicky

Our good friend Vicky!

this is the truck of the above cactus

looking pretty pleased to be here for sure!  When we were riding back yesterday we saw a bobcat just sitting under a tree watching us ride by.  It stayed there the whole time while we stopped and gawked at it. Cool.  We have also seen some roadrunners.  They are a little disappointing in person because they are so small, one expects them to be at least as large as a coyote, right? NOT.

Yesterday Terry got up and went walking with our friend Tom, they have been walking every day at 7am except on Sunday's when they go eat breakfast at the man restaurant. Don't ask.  He took MJ over to their yard and let her loose and he said she ran around like the loose end of a hose turned on full blast.  The dogs are doing great.  Lady and The Tramp are doing good too, they are shedding like crazy.  They are getting really cactus savvy on the trails, wiggling around them to avoid getting poked.  They also don't try to eat anything on the ground anymore.  Hope winter is treating all of you well!

Saturday Feb. 12

Howdy ho everyone. This was from our ride yesterday. 

This is Deb, Harold, Ray.  They are our great neighbors here in the campground.  Ray guided us up to the Petroglyphs yesterday.

More than 1,500 years ago, a small Hohokam village was established on a ridge above Sutherland Wash, now within Catalina State Park. Now called Romero Ruin, it is one of several large Hohokam villages in the Tucson Basin. It was occupied for about 1,000 years before being abandoned about 1500AD.

This village covers 15 acres, spans the entire width of the ridge and extends about 1/4 miles to the base of the Catalina Mountains. This was an extensive prehistoric occupation as indicated by the presence of numerous trash mounds, two ballcourts and the remains of stone structures still visible on the surface.

A large prehistoric agricultural field system extends for 1/2 mile south of the village site and contains two cobblestone field houses and numerous rock piles and rock terrace borders. These features were used to trap moisture and prevent erosion for the growing of crops which fed the village.

During 3 archeological field seasons at Romero Ruin during the past 10 years, many potsherds, chipping waste and projectile points dating between 700 and 1100 AD were excavated. Manos, metates, marine shell, animal bones and bracelet fragments were also discovered.
Thirty-three other archeological sites have been discovered within what is now the park boundaries. In 1940, a hiker stumbled upon a cavity about 3 miles from Romero Ruins that contained a treasure of Hohokam artifacts.

The cache held an olla (ceramic jar) containing about 100,000 stone and shell beads, as well as 30 copper balls. Twenty years later, midway between the village and the olla cache, a canyon containing petroglyphs was discovered. It was located near "tinjas," natural water catchment basins that were of practical and spiritual importance to the Hohokam.

This place was really neat and since I just googled it and discovered how old these etchings really are, now I want to go back again and hike around some more.  AMAZING!!!  We had a great ride yesterday and The Tramp did great.  I will send video of it.  If anyone wants to see video of riding here just email me and  I will add you to the list.  raincoatlady@gmail.com

Wednesday

Monday morning we went riding with Al Haggerty.  He is an excellent guide since he has wintered out here for 10+ years and knows his way around.  We were headed for the baby Jesus trail and he said we should pack a lunch.  Cool!  So I put on the sleeveless top, slathered on the 30 sunblock on my white arms added a sweatshirt and off we went at 10am.

Lady is looking for one of those humongous jack rabbits, they are about the size of Gracie with big mule ears.

Okay look straight out in front of Al and that is where we rode about 2/3 of the way up that mountain.

Getting closer.  It is hard to judge the distance out here because it is so open.

Word has it that two old ladies put this trail in and it took them about 3 months.  It is very wiggley through these rocks and even when you are riding on it  and look around it doesn't look like a likely horse trail but it is really cool and definately the riding highlight of this trip so far.

So it looks very brown and dry right now but they tell me come spring it will turn green and be filled with flowers and all the dry river beds will be flooded and overflowing.  I hope that happens before we leave, I want to see all those flowers! Also we are riding in a free range area which means there are loose cattle roaming the desert.  So you never know when you will see them and they have special watering troughs out there for them and us.  I wonder what in the heck those cows eat.  I mean you see the pics of this place, do you see any grass?  But all the cows are fat and shiny so they must find something to eat.  Sometimes when we see them they have those jumping cholla stuck all over their faces, OUCH.

We rode about 6 hours with 1/2 hour for lunch.  The Tramp had kind of a rough day, he was terrified of drinking out of the first cattle waterer because it had a water puddle around it so Terry worked with him quite a while until he would drink happily while standing in the puddle.  Then he got stuck in a rock V on the trail and fell down and couldn't get up.  He didn't panic at all just layed there thinking about it until he figured it out.  I have a video of it I will send you via email hopefully you can open it.  He didn't get hurt at all and was a real trooper on those rocky hills.
Today we went to the Gem Show, more on that later. Goodnight.