Back In The Saddle Again

Many thousands of miles have we rolled since last I posted to Gundyville. During that time we drove back east to Pennsylvania to visit my mother and do a few chores "at home" then we moved back down to Florida for the annual physical and financial checkups and now we are back in Arizona at our winter headquarters. As we had driven this route and done these very things quite a few times it felt too much like old news to be trying to keep up with posts, not to mention that that is one powerful lot of driving and a bit tiring and grueling to boot. This was the 13th time we have crossed the country in the last seven years!

But like I said, we are back in the saddle again. Had an all day quad ride into the desert to see a bunch of old mines and helped Lynn locate some geocaches on that first ride. It was pretty much an all day affair and we were rewarded with aching bones and muscles but with smiling faces. It is good to be back. Nearly all the gang is back and raring to go. Our Happy Tuesday tent is re-established and it would seem that no one lost any cooking skills over the summer- the treats have been really fine as in the past.

Here at our site in F-1, the gardens are pruned and looking super. The vegetable garden is planted and everything is up and running. Flowers are in hanging baskets, new hummingbird feeders are drawing lots of hummers (and not so many bees as last year) and we have stared a few new projects here and there at our place and around the park as well. Marilyn is in the Christmas decorating spirit- our tree - all 20 inches of it- is up and we have shatter proof balls on the mostly dead but making a comeback mesquite tree on the back wash.

A couple days ago a small group of us (I think there were 9 of us) got up at 5:30 and headed out on a full moon into sunrise desert ride that was totally awesome. Started out in only moon light (very dark to be riding) and set up a camp to make breakfast just as the sun came up behind a hill picked specially for the occasion. The black silhouettes of the saguaro cactus and mountains against the brilliant red sky at sunrise was all we had hoped for. There are only two good reasons to get up early when you don't have to: night riding like this in the desert is one and fishing is the other.

A couple of still shots for you today, a slide show, and a video clip if it will cooperate. And let me just explain that I will try to have this winter's posts be a bit more micro and or macro depending on what is going on. I plan to do considerably less of the story telling, unless of course a really good one comes along, and more of an up close and personal look at the things we see and do while we are playing in the desert. Hopefully that will mean more pictures, fewer words, but we'll have to see how things shape up.

Just one more small explanation for what you will see in the pics. We did not make breakfast like the cowboys used to do. No cast iron skillets, no steak on the fire coals, no kettle of coffee on an open fire. Nope. This was a ride hard and cook fast operation. To that end we all filled a quart sized zip lock bag with a couple raw scrambled eggs and whatever else we wanted to have in our "omelet"- mine for example had some slices of smoked turkey sausage and some cooked up bacon nibbles. Some folks added a few slices of mushroom. When we "made camp" we lit a propane tank hooked up to a single burner stove, heated a big kettle of water and then all threw our baggie omelets in the boiling water. By the time we had our sunrise photos well in hand, we had breakfast in a bag all ready- just dump onto a paper plate and eat. I'm not gonna tell you they were the most beautiful omelets I have ever seen, but they sure were tasty and doing the dishes was a total no-brainer. It's for sure we are gonna do this again!