Thursday, November 27/2014

It is the American Thanksgiving today so we must say Happy Thanksgiving to all our American friends.
Well, there will not be any turkey for us today but John will be barbequing some moose steak. We promised Kay a feed of moose and today seems like a good day for that.
We are also supposed to be headed out on the quads later on to explore some more trails around here. The sun is shining and it looks like it is going to be another warm, nice day.
John started his sun tan yesterday!!
We took off on the quads and accessed a trail just down the road from the truck. It quickly climbed up into the upper elevations and became quite rocky. Again today, it was a lot of shelf trail. I really, really hate shelf trail!! We travelled about 30 kms today and at one point had to winch ourselves around a fallen tree. It took us about an hour but we managed to get around it and back to the trail.  Of course with all the climbing we did today, there is always a descent and I was certainly glad to get back to the valley floor!!
The sunset was awesome today and I managed to get a few good shots.
Back at the camper, we let Hogan out and he acted like we had been gone for a month!!
We watched NFL football tonight and then John cooked our supper. It was awesome!!

Our trail for the day

Trail we came up

Continuing the climb

At the top

Had to winch around this fallen tree

It was steep

Winched up

Then backwards down

Thats one

Now John's

Made it!

Another awesome sunset on the way home

Wednesday, November 26/2014

Once again, the sun is shining and the birds are singing. Another sunny, bright day is upon us.
It is a road trip day today so we piled into the truck and headed out.
We decided to see what the rest of this road was like to see if it was feasible to take the camper and trailer down it or if it turned into something we would rather not venture on. As it turned out, the road ahead has one huge up hill climb and I am sure the truck would be struggling if we came this way so, it looks like we will head back towards I-40 and then access Highway 93 on Monday and finally arrive in Wickenburg.
We took a few off roads and toured some of the desert back country. We managed to see two roadrunners, five quail and a coyote. That was the extent of our wildlife encounters. I often wonder what makes people build their homes in the middle of no where. There were some pretty nice homes out in the desert and there was also several parcels of land for sale as well.
Once we accessed the highway, we noted that there was a terrific mount of traffic and it was only when Kay mentioned to us that this was the start of the American Thanksgiving weekend that the amount of traffic was explained.
We stopped at an awesome roadside restaurant and had one of the best burgers ever. It was phenomenal!! I even had to go and thank the guy we gave our order to and told him to thank the cook for us.
We stopped at the local food mart and stocked up on milk and ice then headed back to the camper.  Hogan was glad to see us again.....gosh he acted like we had not seen him in a month!!
We settled into the trailer, turned the heat on as our 75 degree afternoon temperature had fallen to 55 degrees on the way home and watched some TV.
While sitting there, we heard a horrific crash. Kay and I looked over and saw that John's chair had collapsed and he now was sitting in what one would describe as a "recliner"!!  He had a rather stunned look on his face and all Kay and I could do was laugh!! Well, it was funny!!

Cruising the desert back roads

I guess he has been relegated to Hogan's chair until we get to Wickenburg!!
All in all, it was another good day.

Tuesday, November 25/2014

The sun is shining this morning and it looks like it is going to be an awesome day in the neighbourhood. We are surrounded by trees and scrub brush. Yesterday, I even saw a holly bush. I just may have to take some back to Wickenburg for the Christmas season. I have not seen real holly for a long time. The only thing missing were the red berries.
We are headed out on the quads today to explore some of the many trails around this area. Today, it will be Moss Wash Road and follow a loop trail which will eventually spit us back out onto the main road we drove in on yesterday.
Apparently there is some old "mansion" along this trail that John is interested in seeing.
We started out and soon found that the "road" part of Moss Wash was a huge exaggeration.There is no way one could even come near to classing it as a road!! It was a trail, one that was bumpy and rock strewn.
We travelled this "road" for several miles and eventually made it to the Gold King Mansion. It must have been something to see in its hay day as the structure itself was quite impressive. It was built in 1929 to house wealthy investors to the mining industry. Of course the stock market crashed that year and the mansion was abandoned and left to ruin.
We continued along the trail stopping periodically to enjoy the scenery and even chatted with some other riders along the way.
It was soon time to start heading for home and we accessed a few more trails always heading east and back to the main road.
We travelled a varied terrain today with way too much of it being shelf trail (my favourite!!).We travelled through a few riparian areas and one could see the many animal tracks around. Lots of Javalina tracks today.
We also travelled through some tall evergreen forest, through lots of desert like conditions and over lots of big rocks.  The trail travelled up into the higher elevations of the surrounding mountains and down into the various washes. There was a little bit of everything on today's trail.
I certainly could have used much less shelf trail but all in all, it was a good day's ride.
Back at the camper, John got a campfire going and I quickly did up some potatoes, onions and carrots in tinfoil so that John could get started on cooking our supper. I had taken ribs out of the freezer earlier in the day and they too were ready for the grill.
We sat around the campfire until supper was ready then headed in to eat and called it a day. Hogan kept the few cattle in the area at bay while we sat around the fire tonight. I am sure they will be glad to see the last of him!!

Another awesome day!