Arizona Trip: announcement.


It appears that I was overly optimistic about wanting to have a daily, on-going monologue about the trip.  What I discovered is that getting the verbage and the pictures ready for upload to the blog was taking *inordinate* amounts of time.  Time that I would really rather be spending with Tom.





I *could* just make shorter entries and fewer pictures, but that kinda defeats the entire point of the blog, doesn't it?


Therefore, I will continue to write down my thoughts as the trip continues, but I won't be updating the blog until after we return home.  At that time, I'll do a daily upload, just as though we were still on the trip .. but it'll be days after the fact.  :-)

Arizona Trip
Day 3: Saturday, 9/17/11
miles traveled: I forgot to check
destination: Grand Canyon, AZ

Leaving Lake Havasu, we got to Kingman, which is on Interstate 40.  If we stayed on I-40, we'd have a straight shot to Williams (the Gateway to the Grand Canyon) and then onto the Grand Canyon.  But why stay on a boring interstate when historic Route 66 is calling?  :-)

The landscape across historic Route 66 is phenomenal ... ancient volcanic activity has created massive lava flows that go on for MILES.

Miles and miles and miles of small rocks ... it looks for all the world as though thousands of dump trucks have unloaded gravel. 

Tom has a custom GPS database of every single quilt shop in the USA.  Isn't he a terrific guy? :-)

In Kingman, we toured the historic part of this very sleepy town and found a pawn shop right across the street from the quilt store.  Eureka!  Both of us have something to look at!  The quilt store is Connie's Quilter's Hide-a-away and is a charming, charming store.  Connie wasn't there, but we got to chatting with one of the employees and a couple of the customers.  They advised us that there was a lovely quilt store in Seligman that we just HAD to visit.  I had no idea if Seligman was on our itinerary but Tom had a ace up his sleeve. :-)

At Connie's, I bought some Route 66 themed fabric with the intent of making a table runner and coordinating placemats (... someday ...).

 Kingman is also a major railroad town.  There was a full-size Santa Fe engine on display.

 But we had to move along, as Kingman was only the beginning of the day's travels.

Historic Route 66 is a very rural road ... well paved but rural.  There are a lot of sleepy little towns, some no more than a building or two.  After we had passed through Hackberry, we saw something amazing ... Burma Shave signs!  Honest to goodness!  Now, I know about them because Tom has mentioned them but here!  Here was Real Life Burma Shave signs!  We didn't realize they were there until we missed one sign .. "Violets are blue/ Roses are pink/ Who drink and drive / ......   arrgghhh!!  we missed this sign!!!  But we got the next one:  "Thirty days/Hath September/April, June/and the speed offender.   Burma Shave!"   and the last one we saw, "If you don't know/whose signs these are/you haven't driven/very far! ... Burma Shave!"    We were very amused!  (Alas, no pictures ... the signs simply appeared as if by magic, with no rhyme nor reason to their placement.  There was no time to get the camera ready to photograph them.)

The landscape here is much more high plains desert than before ... more plants, more growing things .. all due to higher elevations and lower temperatures.  At 2pm and 5200' elevation, it was a comfortable 73 degrees.

In the distance, there are miles and miles and MILES of volcanic tabletops.  Many of them have had their sides eroded away, exposing their sides.

At the end of historic Route 66 is Seligman .. definitely a touristy town.  There is every sort of schlocky, "worthless" Route 66 memorabilia you could imagine.  We didn't stop; we were on our way to the Grand Canyon!

After Seligman, the road started to climb .. eventually to 6000', where we started seeing Real Trees.  :-)  We turned northwards at Williams ... which is nicknamed the Gateway to the Grand Canyon.  Williams is a delightful, *working* town ... very viable and lively.  Tom started to park at a sidewalk slot ... I was wondering why, since we were *almost* at our destination.

Then I looked out the front windshield and saw ... another quilting store!  What a guy! 

While he occupied himself at the local watering hole, I perused the contents of Quilter's Mercantile and had a lovely chat with the owner.  After buying several patterns, we were once again on our way.

We finally arrived at the entrance to the Grand Canyon.  OMG .. the admittance fee was $25/car!  But to our astonishment, there was no one at the kiosk, so we (and all the cars behind us) simply tootled on in.  We had reservations for 2 nights (9/17. & 9/18).  We found our campsite readily enough, got it set up and because there was food establishments there, we decided to "eat out" for dinner.

Whilst at the Canyon Cafe (cafeteria style eating .. good food and plenty of it), we found out from an employee that there was free WiFi available at the Cafe and also at El Tovar (a 5-star hotel/restaurant ... wayyyyyy above our pocketbook and inclinations).  Sadly, the connection at the Cafe didn't work; the employee told us to go to El Tovar, since they had a separate server.

We relocated to El Tovar's lobby and .... hallelujah!  the connection was good.  I had previously written the verbage for the previous day's adventure and had previously worked on the photos.  *Unfortunately*, El Tovar's response time was dismal.  Everyone in the world must have been streaming videos because it took FOREVER to upload my 500 pixel photos.

In this instance, "forever" was 2 hours and 15 minutes.  I was dyin'.  Tom was incredibly patient ... he hung around, checked out the hotel's bar, read the newspaper, engaged in conversation with other patrons.  Finally .. omg, finally .. I was able to upload the last photo I wanted to the blog and was able to log off.

The downside was that I hadn't written anything about that day's adventures nor worked on any of that day's photos (the stuff you are reading & seeing here).  That would simply need to wait until I had a better connection.  (which eventually meant that I wrote it the next day (Sunday) and was delighted to discover that the errant server had been fixed .. so all of *this* content was able to be uploaded, albeit a day "late".)

We returned to our campsite and even though it was 11pm, we had our campfire.  After all, what good is camping if you don't have a campfire????  We broke out a bottle of nice wine (BV Wineries, coastal estates) and enjoyed the night's solitude.

It was peaceful and quiet and wonderful.  We love camping.  Especially if it's in the forests.  In fact, you might say that if it's NOT a forest, it's not "real" camping. :-)

Tomorrow: more Grand Canyon.

Arizona Trip
Day 2: Friday, 9/16/11
miles traveled: about 250
destination: Lake Havasu, AZ  (to see the London Bridge)


We started the day in Mojave, CA.  Just tooling around the town, we chanced upon an Army-Navy Surplus store.  Tom likes military surplus stores, so naturally we stopped to look around.  It was crammed ... STUFFED with every sort of excess military gear that you could possibly image and probably some that you couldn't.  At least, I couldn't.

Outside there was a small helicopter available for purchase.  I kid you not.  This particular helicopter was used in the Arnold schwartznegger movie, "The Sixth Day".  I've never seen the movie, so I couldn't tell you if the proprietor was shucking and jiving me on that point.

Mojave also has a Spaceport.  At the entrance they have a static display of what Tom said was an F4 .... I'll take his word for it cuz if a plane isn't a Cessna and it isn't a passenger jet, I don't have a clue what it might be .. especially military ones. :-)

On our way out of town, we passed by Edwards AFB.  I observed this FAST little white jet, screaming across the sky.  It disappeared fairly rapidly.  Not long afterwards, a bigger, gray plane came chasing after it.  Now this bigger, gray plane *looked* like it might be a fighter jet because it has long, pointed projectiles under the wings.  I watched them until they weren't visible any longer.

Now we were REALLY out of Mojave and headed east.  Interstate 40 and Route 66 are the same road at this point BUT there is *also* an historic Route 66.  The historic Route 66 is the REAL one.  The merged road is for modern convenience.  Given the choice and knowing that we didn't have a hard deadline to meet, we decided to travel on the historic Route 66.  To mark the historic road, there are Route 66 shields painted on the roadbed. 

This road was heavily traveled in times past.  There were thriving businesses and occupied homes along it.  But once the modern day Interstate 40 was built ... no more than 1/2 mile away!! ... the historic Route 66 declined.  It was so sad to see the boarded up buildings and abandoned homes lining the sides of the road.  People used to make a living by catering to the travelers here ... stores and motels ... but no more.  There's no stopping on the Interstates, so such businesses couldn't exist there.  Yes, there are exits so you can travel on the historic Route 66, but if you're already on the Interstate unless
you really WANTED to travel more slowly, there's no reason for you to leave I40.  Without the tourist, all the businesses went *poof* and the people living there relocated.

For a while the roadbed was still very nicely maintained and we just zipped along.  But at some point, the surface became degraded.  It was obvious that surface was distintegrating, as you could see the old surface underneath.  At this point, the roadbed was *so rough* it was like riding a on a washboard.  Tom mentioned that his kidneys were getting a real workout and he'd probably be peeing blood for a week.  :-)

After a while, the novelty of riding on historic Route 66 lost its appeal and we returned to I40.  Tom's kidneys thanked him.  :-)

The landscape hasn't changed since Bakersfield.  It's dry, barren, rocky.  It's unrelenting.  There is no color other than brown, gray and charcoal.  There are places that definitely look like old lava flows.  The plants are a gray-green in color and small.  After all, this *is* desert country. :-)

Our first glimpse of the Colorado River!

We arrived at Lake Havasu City around 5:30pm.  It was 102 degrees.  Stepping out of the car was like entering a blast furnace.  Oh. My. God.  I could feel the moisture being sucked out of my skin.

We had reservations at Lake Havasu State Park.  Unfortunately, the ditzy blonde (and she really, really was) ranger had misunderstood WHEN I wanted the reservation (tonight, not last night) and the site she had reserved for us was now occupied by someone else.  ::sigh::  We drove around, found a site that looked to have more shade than the other sites and snagged it for ourselves.

Did I mention it was 102 degrees?

The entire point of this destination was to see the London Bridge.  This is an authentic bridge that, at one time, had spanned the River Thames in London.  If memory serves me correctly, the Brits were replacing it and some entrepreneur purchased the old one, relocated it to Lake Havasu as a tourist attraction.  I don't think Lake Havasu City has any other purpose in life than to be a site for the old London Bridge.

Since it was late in the afternoon, we weren't quite sure what the scoop was with the London Bridge.  As far as we knew, there was a closing time for it.  So, after securing our new campsite, we scurried to the London Bridge.  Fortunately, it doesn't have an admission fee ... it is simply a way to cross a stretch of water to get to the other side.  There is an indoor mall (THANK GOODNESS!) where the shops are located ... typical tourist type stuff and not worth mentioning.

It was dinnertime and we had our evening meal at The Barley Bros., consuming their house specialty of "all you can eat" fish-n-chips and beer.  *I* limited myself to the 2 big chunks of fish; Tom had another serving of 2 pieces.  He waddled out the door.  We were also kinda hoping that the temps had dropped some .... no such luck.  :-(

It was getting darker and we still needed to set up camp.

Did I mention it was HOT outside?

Back at camp, we thought that the tent would inhibit any stray breezes that might find us.  Sleeping under a lean-to sounded like an excellent idea.  We had chosen our campsite because it did have some scrubby trees.  It was from these trees that we we strung our lean-to.  A substantial amount of time later, we were irritably HOT and the victims of scratches and swatting little ANNOYING bugs away, but the lean-to was set-up.

We sat down in front of our empty campfire ring, relaxing with our beers.  The annoying bugs were attracted to the lanterns.  They were attracted to our sweaty skin and our exhaled carbon dioxide.  It wasn't 100% relaxing.

Did I mention it was frickin' HOT?

At one point, Tom noticed a BIG BLACK THING moving at a rapid place on the ground.  He followed it with his flashlight; it was a humungous bug.  Knowing that if that Texas-sized bug came crawling over us in the lean-to, I'd make a skylight in the lean-to.  He wasn't so thrilled with the idea either.

Therefore .... at 8:30pm, full dark, by the light of the lanterns, we set up our tent ... which, in retrospect, we should have done in the first place!  The lean-to idea sounded good but the bug situation made it intolerable.  (this picture was taken the next morning)

Did I mention it was HOT?

Between the heat and the bugs and not having a lot of battery power left for the computer, we decided to go to bed.  It was 10pm. Truly unheard of for us to retire at that time!  Inside the tent, there wasn't a breath of air.  Fortunately, we had packed battery-powered portable, personal fans.  They quietly ran ALL NIGHT LONG and kept it tolerable.

Unfortunately, there are party boats on the lake.  They have a circuit that seems to end exactly opposite our campsite.  These suckers are LOUD and they stay put for a LONG TIME ... well past the socially acceptable quiet time of 10pm..  Really, *really*, REALLY obnoxious.  I felt like launching an RPG at them.

While the *mattress* was certainly better than last night's, there was absolutely nothing else to recommend this area to us.  I sincerely doubt we will revisit it.  (Aside to Catherine: they have one bookstore, Hastings, fairly large.  We were on our way out of town and didn't visit it.)

We got up the next morning at .... are y'all sitting down? ... 6:45am.  It was just dawn.  We wanted to break camp and be on the road before the air heated up.

We had a few errands to run before leaving Lake Havasu City and whilst doing so, we took a tour of the place.  Granted, we didn't explore ALL of the residential areas, but the ones that we did see was a lot of nice looking single family homes, most built in Southwestern architecture.  But EVERY SINGLE DANGED one of them ... I mean ALL of them ... were "landscaped" with gravel and rock and scrubby plants.  There wasn't a single blade of grass anywhere.  Now I realize that with the temperature being so frickin' HOT, it would take a lot of water to maintain a lawn (which is a water thirsty plant).  However, with the stucco houses, the asphalt roads and parking lots, the concrete sidewalks AND the rock hardscape .... this place simply RADIATES heat.  The only tolerable spots are air-conditioned interiors.

My goodness gracious ... HOW DO PEOPLE LIVE HERE?  and WHY????

Dear Motel 6,

Sleeping on a pile of bricks would have been more comfortable than your bed.   Just sayin'.


--Shelley

Well we finally made it on the road! It took us until 3:30 in the afternoon to get on the road but now we are on our way for 14 days of bad craziness. We managed to make it to I-580 south heading toward I-5 south when we ran into winds of about 50 MPH. It was blowing the stuff on the roof so we pulled over to tighten the load down. When Shelley opened the rear hatch, the tarp was blown out of the Jeep and was last seen heading east toward Tracy at about 10 MPH. We didn't stand a change of catching it unless we wanted to run across the freeway. I was going to, but Shelley convinced me the tarp wasn't worth risking my life. It was close though. I hate losing a tarp!  We bought a replacement tarp in Bakersfield so we are whole again.

So now we are holed up at at Motel-6 in Mojave, waiting to head out for the London Bridge In Lake Havasu, AZ. We get to stay at a campground, complete with a campfire, lanterns in the night, a tent with cool fresh air, and the sounds of the night. Being in a motel is kind of like being in a cage. you have 4 walls and a bed. How dull. How confining. Give me the open outdoors any day.

Well Shelley is turning off the lights so I guess it's time to go to bed. More in the morning.

Tom

Arizona Road Trip.  Day 1: 9/15/11  Walnut Creek, CA to Mojave, CA
approximately 300 miles.  about 5-1/2 hours travel time.

This trip is the 3rd try and third time's a charm, right?  The first time was in 2010 when it was to be in conjunction with my annual February Arizona Quilting Retreat in Pheonix.  But the weather for parts of that trip would have been colder than snot ... and I don't do cold.  The February road trip was deferred and I flew to the Retreat.  (and had a Really Good Time!)

The next attempt was later that year, in late October.  We kept *trying* to go earlier, but it just never worked out.  October was the first time it would work out.  Except that ... it didn't.  ::sigh::

So, NOW ... September 2011 is the third time and we've successfully completed the first leg!

Earlier in September, we hosted the wedding of our oldest daughter, Catherine and her fiance, Forrest.  Due to all the preparation of getting the ol' homestead ready for the event, we waited until after the wedding to start the prep for the trip.  But, dang we were tired!  :-)  We not only needed to get everything ready for the trip but clean up after the wedding!  And then along with the normal, every day chores that needed to get done, the actual process of getting our gear ready and packing the Jeep didn't get done until ....   oh ... today.  :-)

With all the last minute things to get done, we didn't hit the road until 3:30pm.  We traveled down I-5 in California's Central Valley ... I-5 is a boring, *boring*, BORING highway.  At one point, we heard a "slapping" noise on the roof of the Jeep and we were concerned ... heck, we were ALARMED ... that something on the roof was about to fly off.  So we pulled off the highway to check it out.  When we opened up the rear hatch door to get a step stool, the wind was SO BAD, it caught one of our tarps and blew it across the highway.  There was no way either one of us could have caught it.  We watched helplessly as it blew across the 2 southbound lanes (where a car immediately ran over it), across the median strip and across the 2 northbound lanes.  Last seen it was heading due east.  Elvis might have been sitting on it.  :-)

But, back to the scenery.  The Central Valley used to be a great inland sea (oh, about a bazillion years ago).  As a result, it's flat.  Really flat.  Probably flatter than Kansas ... but since I've never actually BEEN to Kansas and only having seen it from an airplane, I might be wrong about that comparison.

These pictures here are typical Central Valley scenery.  Boring.

When we finally pulled into Bakersfield, it was full dark.  There must have been a LOT of dust in the air today because the moon was *orange*.  I tried to take a picture of it .. it was so impressive .. but we were in the parking lot of Home Depot (to replace the lost tarp) and all the huge lamps totally messed up the camera's focus.  This is the best I could do.

Eventually, we arrived at our destination: Mojave, CA.

There's nothing that we wanted to see here; it was just a place to stay for the night.    Motel 6 is a known chain; we can have certain expectations and not wonder if we're going to share the room with cockroaches. :-)

--Shelley

The Stuff We Put Up With

Part of the general clean-up for Catherine's and Forrest's wedding was to tidy up the property.   We had a gardening crew come in and do a general purpose Clean Sweep from front to back and side to side.   Granted, it's not landscaped, but it is simply AMAZING how nicely it turned out!

This is the "North 40" .. it's all hard-pack adobe clay.  The intent was for as many guests to park here as was possible and then to put the overflow onto a nearby street.  We were astonished to find out that we fit ALL THE CARS ... and there must have been at least 20 ... in the North 40!  

Here's the front lawn, as viewed from the parking area.  In the foreground is the "dance floor".  You can see the mini-lights that were strung from the house to the trees in the background.  These lights formed the most beautiful virtual ceiling over the dining area.  On the right side, you can see a speaker in the area where the band played.  In the distance, around the perimeter of the lawn, you can see 2 (of the 3) park benches.  These are refurbished benches that Tom's Dad built in the 1950's, when they had humungus parties.  The third bench (which you can't see) still had the actual redwood that Tom's Dad used ... and it was still as strong today as it was back then.  We were told that the redwood used back then was simply structurally stronger than the farmed redwood used today.  Way in the background, you'll see a blue heap.  That is the general area of our "campground" where we had a campfire late into the reception.

Around the corner from the lawn is our deck.  The buffet tables for the food were set up along the railing that you see on the right side of the picture.

And then there's the campground area where we had a lovely, lovely campfire.  We moved the benches from the perimeter of the lawn to in front of the campfire ring.
























*MY* small attempt at beautification was to plant flowers in the planters on the chimney side of the house and in front of the house.  Those of you who know my infamous Black Thumb are already cringing at the fate of those poor flowers.  Oh ye of little faith!


We purchased some potting soil to fill up the 3 planter boxes and I chose a number of flowering plants from what was available.  It's always been difficult to have flowers in the chimney planter boxes because they never get direct sunlight.  Lots of light, but not sun.  Most flowers prefer sunlight over indirect light.  

BUT ... all I needed was for these flowers to look fabulous for ONE DAY!  I happily planted petunias (I love petunias), alyssum (a wonderful low level mass of tiny, tiny blooms), voilas, delphiniums, dianthus (I *love* the entire carnation family!), geraniums and some others that I can't quite remember.  DANG, they looked wonderful when I was done!

Deep in my heart of hearts, I just KNEW that if precautions weren't taken, my pretty flowers were going to be fodder for the deer that wander through.  So, the night before the wedding, I covered up all 3 planter boxes with ugly orange plastic construction fencing.  By golly, those flowers were gonna look nice for our daugher's wedding!

 

The day of the wedding dawned, the fencing came down and everything ... the ceremony and reception ... was just wonderful.  I do believe that everyone had a lovely time.  After everyone had left, I succumbed to tired eyes and went to bed.

The next day (the day after the wedding), I went outside to admire my flowers.  I knew that the fencing had thwarted the chickens and the deer.  What I had NOT thought of was ... the turkey.

 The next time I saw the chimney planter boxes, they looked  like this:   

Interestingly, the front planter box was still intact.  Either the fowl creatures don't like any of the flowers in the front box OR they haven't discovered it yet.  I'm taking bets that the latter is the case.  Chickens are pretty stupid. :-)

 I still had hope, though.  There WERE some leaves and stems left on what was left of the petunia plants.  Maybe, just maybe, if I kept watering them, the root system would come through with new shoots.  Hope does spring eternal, ya know.

When I saw the planter boxes the NEXT day, I realized the war was lost.  I had won the first battle but lost the subsequent skirmishes and, with them, the war.    ::sigh::

And this time, IT WASN'T MY FAULT the flowers were dead!  Tom doesn't hold out ANY hope that flowers will ever flourish there ... not as long as those stupid chickens or the resident turkey are around.  I floated the image of thriving green shrubbery (not too expensive, maybe two heights to get the bi-level effect) instead, but Tom nixed the entire idea of living plants.  Too difficult to maintain.

He's going for some really nice looking fake plants.  And in the end ... that just might be our best bet.  :-)

But ... they sure did look purdy for the reception.  :-)

 

 

 

In Which We Begin

Friends!  Romans!  Countrymen! ... oops, sorry.  Wrong crowd.

To Whom It May Concern:   ooops, sorry.   Too formal.

Hey, y'all!    (ah, good.  Most excellent!)

Y'all might know that I have a quilting blog, the Dread Pirate Rodgers.  In that blog, I (mostly) talk about my quilting projects, but occasionally, I've put in some non-quilting stuff .... like chickens. :-)

Since my quilting blog is part of a globally distributed network, I don't really like to talk about non-quilting/family stuff ... cuz, like, who cares?  :-)

Now that CMR & FDD are safely married  (woo hoo!), Tom & I are ONCE  AGAIN attempting to go on our Arizona buycott trip.  I like to write about our trips and, in the past, have done so in a traditional journal.  I always had the intention of transcribing those journals into a webpage/blog .... but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and (wo)men.  :-)

THEREFORE .... !!! ... *this* blog (http://tom-shelley-rodgers.blogspot.com) was created to capture non-quilting, family stuff that the rest of the entire world needs not know about.  (ack ... what TERRIBLE grammatical structure that was, but .. eh.  ::shrug::)


So, I urge y'all to subscribe to this blog (http://tom-shelley-rodgers.blogspot.com) so that you will be notified whenever there is a new entry.  Of course, you can always simply bookmark this page and continue to check on it, but if we've been lazy bums and there's no new content, you'd be disappointed.


We wouldn't want to disappoint you now, would we?  So ... do yourself a favor and SUBSCRIBE to this blog!  You will be notified via the magic of computers whenever there's something new to read and you'll never miss an entry!  Your life will be complete; all will be right with the world.  The sun will shine and the birds will sing.  Sid Vicious will continue to be the Mighty Hunter and keep the world at large free of vermin.  :-)


As for what we are doing *right this very minute* .... we just took down the lights over the lawn that formed the virtual ceiling of the reception area.  We're taking Zuggie over to the mechanic to fix a (hopefully) minor glitch in the whatchamacallit and on the way home buying food for the critters, so they can be fed whilst we are away.  Once back on the ol' homestead, we will start to pull our gear for the trip so the Jeep can (eventually) be packed.   Anticipated departure: Thursday morning.  


Remember that saying about the best laid plans.  :-)


Once we are on the trip, I hope that our stops will include places that have WiFi so that I can blog about the trip in an on-going manner and you can read about our Adventure almost as soon as we experience it ourselves.    This post doesn't have any pictures but I expect the trip entries will have lots of eye-candy.  :-)

While I anticipate that I will be doing most of the blathering, Tom may make a written appearance as well.  You'll know immediately that Tom is the author, as his style of writing is distinctly different from mine.  :-)    He tends to say 'yep' and 'nope', whereas *I* tend to go on and on and on and on and on  .... stop that sniggering! .... ad infinitum and ad naseum.  :-)


Bottom line: subscribe to this blog and keep up with all the Bad Craziness that only the Rodgers can create. :-)

Oh .. and you'll be able to leave Comments, if you care to.  Just be aware that EVERYONE will be able to read your comments.  :-)