September '09 Newsletter
September '09 Newsletter |
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We arrived home from close to a month in Utah and Western Colorado to find a new resident, a rather large female tarantula, underneath our back steps. She and Susan almost gave each other a heart attack on their first encounter. We're hoping she sticks around, as they keep the cricket population at bay. We also have a petit, ugly Colorado River toad that Susan named "Yoda" living in the same area but we think she is dug in somewhere waiting for the fall rains to arrive.
Since we've been traveling with many of you, we've been at home less than half the time during the past couple of months. Most of this time we spent camping under sun-filled summer skies in either Utah or Arizona. There was very little rain any place we went, which was great for camping, but with daytime temperatures consistently approaching or exceeding a hundred degrees, it was certainly toasty. We're home for all of September and appreciating the shorter days of fall, especially after record breaking July temperatures. We have airline tickets to Turkey and plan to travel extensively there during October. Bob has a full knee replacement scheduled upon our return.
When here, we've been reluctantly catching up on a few of those annoying little jobs that everyone deals with and of course unsuccessfully trying to keep lean and mean while living on an ice cream and popcorn diet. Hiking out back this year, we've only encountered one pink rattlesnake, one Gila monster, one mud turtle, and several owls, or maybe that was just two owls that we saw repeatedly. We haven't had any two or three rattlesnake hiking days this year and we're grateful for that. Since the expected summer monsoons never delivered, the streambed behind our house has been pretty dry but hardy fall wildflowers are beginning to bloom.
Minnesota Family Trip (6/28/09-7/10/09)
We arrived in Hoyt Lakes to find the last 3 days of June to be what Bob considered winter-like. Temperatures never exceeded 60 degrees and ominous overcast threatened all day long with the possibility of rain. As it turned out there wasn't much, but Bob was rapidly becoming depressed. We were thinking of getting one of those florescent lamps to clip onto his baseball cap. Fortunately the weather improved for most of the rest of the trip and was excellent for the holiday weekend events.
Aurora, the town where Susan went to high school, celebrates the 3rd of July even bigger than the 4th. On parade day her entire family was parked on the curb, ready for viewing the big event. As usual for small town parades, there were myriad fire trucks from all the surrounding communities tooting their horns and blowing their sirens. The Shriners performed precision motorcycle drills on their Harleys and .... continued ......
2009 Trip Reports:
As usual, we spent two weeks in northern Minnesota visiting Susan's family and friends. We flew to Minneapolis and were picked up by Susan's sister Twila and brother-in-law Bill. After eating dinner on the way back to their home, we talked the evening away. Bob spent some time working on their computer, which surprisingly enough was in pretty good shape. Apparently their daughter Heidi tunes it up whenever she comes home. After breakfast, we visited Susan's old friend Frog to see his litter of puppies. Then Twila and Bill took us to pick up our rental car and we headed northwest to visit Uncle Bud and Aunt Jo. Their daughter, Trudy, who lives in Minneapolis had the day off and joined us. It was our first visit to their beautiful home and we enjoyed a tour of both their property and the community grounds and facility. We had a nice dinner out and a relaxing evening catching up on family news.
After our last bone-jarring, teeth-rattling trip to Crown King several years ago in our low slung Chevy Cavalier, we swore never to venture that way again. Finding ourselves with a few free days in hand, we loaded up the truck hoping to find cooler climes in the high expanses of the Bradshaw Mountains. The primarily gravel road to Crown King is sometimes washboard and always interesting. Mid-week there was little traffic, the recent rain kept the dust cloud down, and the higher clearance truck made the 30 mile drive almost pleasant. En route, we saw few signs of life other than the tail ends of two bighorn sheep disappearing up a wash. Our ultimate destination was Horse Thief Recreation Area, comprising the peaks directly west of our house. We were seeking a cool campsite with good views of the valley below.
After climbing back down from Tony's perch, we continued past a line camp and up a rarely used road to find a campsite. We paused to examine developed forest camps along the way but eventually we chose an at-large camp in the pines. Of the developed sites, Hazlett Campground was particularly appealing, featuring welcome rain/sun shelters. Perhaps next time we'll try it. Camp set up, we read through the hottest part of the day and took a hike to catch rim views and shadows as the sun sunk lower in the west.
Mike met us at the icehouse early on the day before we left for Utah. Our plan was to ice the coolers and turn Susan loose in Phoenix to shop the perishables. The Iceman's block machine had unexpectedly broken down and we realized we were going to be icing coolers again in Moab. Bob and Mike returned to Black Canyon City and began loading his truck and our trailer.
After everyone else left for home we retreated to Green River State Park to shower, catch up on news and take a break. To avoid a mildewed mess, we dried out the ropes and other river gear on the long campsite driveway. We didn't want to send Mike back to BCC with anything wet since it wouldn't be unloaded for several weeks. It all dried rapidly and by evening we were packed up and ready to continue with our adventure. Our top priority was replacing our blown tire. Susan hadn't been to Colorado National Monument and she wanted to visit a dinosaur museum in Fruita. The higher elevation of Grand Junction and the promise of cooler temperatures, sealed the deal.
Driving from Moab through twisted canyon country to Bullfrog Marina is nothing less than spectacular. Rather than taking the ferry from Halls Crossing, we met only ten vehicles motoring the longer distance. Surprisingly, Lake Powell once again fills most of the Hite Marina bay. At the completion of our last Cataract trip a few years ago, there had been only a river and a sea of mud in front of the marina. We were delighted to see wall-to-wall water again upstream of the Hite bridge.
