Cacti up close and personal

This is the growth on the top of the barrel cactus, kind of looks like little pineapples to me.

Here is the curved thorns on the body of the barrel cactus.  We are to avoid this at all costs, when these get in your horses legs the hook can get around tendons and require surgery to remove.  We give these wide berth.  Of course these things are everywhere and I noticed people landscape with them a lot.

Grace with a jumping cholla stuck in her foot.  She wasn't upset about this, just standing there waiting for me to rescue her, it was stuck into her pad about 1-1/2 inches.

Guess who?

Not sure what these are but they are pretty and very pink.

This is the trunk of a cholla, could it have one more thorn on there??

We have had a great Sunday. Terry went to the men-only breakfast with Tom and Al while I stayed home and fed horses, dogs and worked out then we went to church for the first time this whole trip.  We went to a church that is about 2 minutes away, it was a very friendly church but not my kind of church.  Next week we will try another.  Then we went for a drive out to San Manuel to check out a cheap golf course.  It is about 25 miles away but really nice looking and cheap for around here.  Then we came back and walked over to Tom and Vicky's house to hear them play and sing the afternoon away.  It was nice out today, 60's.  A lady told me at church that last week's cold was the coldest it has been here in over 100 years.

Our water heater quit working so Terry and Tom and our neighbor Ray worked on it a bit this afternoon with no luck.  I successfully baked turtle brownies in the convection oven and chicken in the crock pot, yum!

We are getting our first vistor!  Kim Ross will be arriving for a visit later this month and will share the couch with MJ for a week.  Looking forward to seeing her here in sunny AZ.  Kim and Steve are horsesitting Jr. and Miss for us in Fenton.  Thanks for that. We are blessed with good friends.

It is super bowl sunday and we have successfully avoided it all day, we are afraid to turn on the tv since we only get one channel and it might be football on there!  ek!

Out riding the other day

Our friend Al

Bobe and Al

The jumping cholla cactus, nasty buggers that you have to remove with a comb or pliers. (Ida-Mae, that tool is handy, thanks)  So far we have managed to keep us and the horses and dogs out of the nasty prickers.   Bobe is out helping our neighbors set up for an endurance ride tomorrow.  He left at 6:30am, not sure how long he will be at it.  I am getting ready to go for a hike with the dogs, it is 10:20am and 47 degrees so I think I can handle that.  There is a news alert here now regarding the freezing weather.  A lot of broken pipes here as they are having record lows.  Everyone keeps blaming us for that but I think it was our neighbors from Iowa who brought it.

Michigan 2 degrees, Arizona 40 degrees, Kim sitting outside in shorts: PRICELESS

What can I say, I've got some crazy friends!! 
Love ya Kim!!

This is where we have landed for the month, our spot us the 2nd one up on the left.

We have our own hitching post and the horses are just down the hill about a 1 minute walk. There are three other trailers parked here this winter.  Check out the view behind the horses, that is where we ride.

Lady and The Tramp's pen.

Our horses are in a pen behind that far trailer to the left.  That isn't snow, it's hail!

Beautiful sunset. 
Today we went to the feed store and bought hay for $11.50 per bale, We only bought two bales so it wasn't quite so shocking plus they are about 110 lbs a piece.  We invited Tom and Vicky for dinner tonight but told them it would have to be at their house so we are making chili and jalapeno poppers to take over there in about an hour.  It is beautifully sunny out but wicked cold.....for here.  Supposed to be back in 60's by weekend!  I have been working today some for Muddy Creek.  All I have to say about that is everyday I thank God for Valerie Vance and the Internet so I can have the chance to go on this fabulous trip.  We are really blessed.  We miss all of you at home!!

HOME SWEET HOME IN MICHIGAN

Tombstone

"One boob says to the other, if we get any lower they'll think we're nuts"  ...The funniest thing I heard all day. 

Can't say who said it cause he would be too embarassed since within two seconds of him saying it I told him I was putting that on the blog and he turned bright red.  Today we went to Tombstone and saw some big double D's today in Big Nose Kate's Saloon.  I wondered if this poor lady when she gets dressed up everyday like a 1880's prostitute to go to her waitressing job and looks in the mirror just shakes her head at herself.  They were short on staff today and she was literally running around in this skimpy outfit, glad she didn't hurt herself.  Tombstone was really really cool except for the STALKER.  More about that later.

Tombstone court house.

The mail stage, a fee gets you a ride in it!

Lowell, Tom, Vicky, George, and neighbor playing Sunday afternoon!

The outlaws in the courthouse, Lowell, Bobe, Vicki and Tom.

Me and Bobe in the courthouse. Whenever I see myself in a picture I still think who is that gray haired lady??? Oh..its me.

More courthouse...

more historic courthouse, blah, blah, blah...

Ride'em cowboy Tom Smith.

This big scary guy came by wearing this bird and gave him to Vicky and this bird started necking with her right away, look at her face, she almost had a hickey when they were done.

Bobe just confessed that he have the scary guy his last five bucks.

Downtown Tombstone. 

The graveyard.

Tombstone has wooden sidewalks.

Okay so when we arrived there this weird guy  was standing there like he was waiting for us to get there and started following us right  away.  He followed us right into the restaurant where we ate breakfast and he drank breakfast and everytime I looked at him he was STARING at me.  I thought.  Everyone got up to leave and I went in the restroom and when I came out he was waiting for me and walked me to the door, and I said to him "Have a nice day" as the hairs on the back of my neck stood up he said" Are you sure"? in a foreign accent.  I rejoined the group on the sidewalk and he followed us into every shop until someone mentioned him (creepy man following us around) to one of the store owners and he had a talk with him and we didn't see him again for a while.  When we went into Big Nose Kate's Saloon for lunch I looked over and there he was sitting right near us at the bar.  CREEEEEEPPPPPYYYYYY.
Tomorrow I will add more about our ride yesterday.
Bobe's two cents:  Tombstone was pretty cool but big tourist trap.  I would go back and go through all the stores next time we go down there we will stop in Bisbee.  It looked like snow out here today when we got home from Tombstone.  It was just hail.  See y'all later.

Tucson

Arrived in Tucson just a little over 24 hours ago.  Sitting here under the awning in SHORTS and T-shirt with bare feet and white legs.  AHHHHH, this is what we came for.  Went riding this morning in 40-50 degree weather turned to almost 75 within a couple of hours.  Saw every kind of cactus on the planet I think.  It is like another planet here, vegetation wise.  Beautiful.  Everything here is sporting prickers of varying sizes so you don't want to stick your hand out to touch anything while out riding, even the trees.  You carry a comb and pliers with you to pull the stickers out of you or your horse.  But we are surrounded with mountains.

This is the Catalina State Park about 3 mile horseback ride from here.

Lowell and Vicky

How cool is that thing??
More later...

Onto Tucson

Good Morning,  Well, we are on the road once again.  We have been staying at Hugh and Jeanne Bishop's house, camped in their barnyard for the last couple of days. 

 The sweetest people ever, wouldn't take our money for camping.  They are very high up Mounted Shooters, world champs even.  They have one of the superstar horses of the sport who was featured in Shooting Magazine.  They sold us two bales of hay for $9.80 each.  It was all Terry and I could do to carry them to the trailer, the size of a coffin and over 100 lbs each.  I wasn't sure I could even lift my side of it but we wrestled them into the trailer and now have  hay for a good while.  We haven't touched the hay on top yet so we are doing good not overfeeding Lady and the Tramp.

This is in Jeanne and Hughs back yard.

Jeanne's shorty neighbors, check out their heavy winter coats.

Lady and myself, the weather was absolutely perfect that day for riding, cool air and warm sun!  We rode through a million pricker bushes out there, the horses were good sports though.  We rode by a few beautiful adobe type houses sitting on the top of the hills.

Bobe and The Tramp.  This morning when I went out to feed, The Tramp was playing kissy face with Jeanne's gelding.

To get out of the pricker bushes, we took this road quite a ways.

A short video, let me know if any of you can see this.

We walked up the hill to Bishop's house and turned around and shot this pic of our campsite, can you see the trailer? The little town of Gila is just to the left, there is a po, 3 churches and a store.

Bobe's two cents:  We are heading into the Texas Canyon in AZ and it is 55 degrees.  It looks like the old western movies with all the gigantic rocks.  The sun is shining and it is a beautiful day.  We are surely making memories.

Gracie and MaryJean are doing great traveling with us.  Yesterday we went to Silver City to get dogfood, a computer thingie, went downtown in the historic part and found the best antique store.  It was the perfect mix of antiques, jewelry and art.  I bought two heavy glass turquois colored small wine glasses for  the trailer.  The town is full of artie hippies, they leave dogs in the back of pickups in town and many businesses claim to be dog-friendly including dog water bowls on the sidewalk.  One store had a cute gray cat and the owner made beautiful glass beads.  We had a lovely day in town, went back to the ranch and had happy hour (3 hours) with Jeanne and Hugh before saying goodnight.

We are pasing the Tombstone exit right now and plan to come back here to ride through town.