Home ... and it's snowing right now!

ARGH!  I guess we needed to stay another two weeks in AZ, at least.  But we're back.  Off to a quick start with an interesting meeting of the hooking guild Saturday.  I was caught up on the laundry and had flipped the dust bunnies around, so I went.  The Guild is moving right along with preparations for the fiber fair and almost everything looks good!  

Some interesting yard art north of Benson AZ

Some of the pictures I took in AZ were just unusual things I saw as we drove around.  What people put in their yards is always interesting to me.

Wouldn't you love to live next door to this guy?

Just north of Sunsites was this (what I call) helicopter graveyard.  This guy has a lot of them and scavenges parts to put together one good helicopter.  Then he sells them.  (You know, like the guy near you who collects old Ford pickups?)  But ... here's the question: would you want to fly in his "new/used" helicopter?

I loved this large rock that had been moved to the entrance to the new Pearce, AZ cemetery.  These holes were made when native Americans ground food on them .  I love seeing these metate rocks in their original settings, and they can be found.

 

 

Here's another piece of yard art in Sunsites: a barbed wire cactus (I guess there weren't enough REAL cactus there?) with a buzzard perching thereon.  (In the back yard was an OLD pickup truck with a cactus bed in the bed.)  It was a very interesting place.

BTW, I've moved all of the AZ pictures to the bottom of my blog.

Just wanted to let you know in this way, with these pictures today, I'm still thinking of the warmth and the BLUE SKY we saw on almost a daily basis during January and February.  And missing it.  But, I'm back.  God bless you.

Our last week ...

We've had a good time here and it's sad to be packing things away for our trip home.  But we do plan on a little side trip along the way back home again to Indiana ...  We will leave here Friday a.m. and journey to the Marfa, Texas area to reconnect with some church friends we made there two years ago.  Wendell attempted to reserve a room in the El Piassano Hotel but they were full because of a wedding.  So we will be staying 20 minutes north of Marfa at the Limpia Hotel in Ft. Davis.  Should be interesting; it's an old, historic hotel and right on the main street of Ft. Davis.  But actually, Ft. Davis is such an out-of-the-way place that I don't expect trouble sleeping due to noise!

Monday Don & Nancy came for lunch and a visit.  It was a good day and beautiful weather-wise.  The weather is back to normal after a snow "storm" last week (they don't know what a storm is ... either rain OR snow).  We get a kick out of the weather people on TV ... they really have to stretch to find anything to worry their viewers with.

Last week we went to the Chiricahua National Monument, east across the valley from us.  Again, just a wonderful day trip!  I'll put pictures top right.  First stop was at the visitor center where we watched "the film" ... there's always a film.  Then we took the drive up to the top!  WOW!  I drove up but made W. drive back down; I worried about me burning out the brakes.  The view from the top was outstanding!  It was somewhat cloudy but still you could see all of the way across the Sulphur Springs Valley to Cochise Stronghold!  That's about 30-35 miles.  You get a 360 degree view from on top.  There are just not enough descriptors to tell you about  the beautiful rock formations we saw along the way and from the peak.  After we spent some time up there, we headed slowly back down, stopping often for exploration and picture taking.  When we got back to the bottom, we had a picnic lunch.  There were lots of scrub jays around, begging for crumbs by the picnic tables.  After lunch we took the 2:00 tour of Faraway Ranch, which is right there within the national park.  They have volunteer tour guides and ours did a great job.  As an aside, we wish we had his life ... he gives tours in three different locations for three months each, then spends three months back home; a very interesting man to talk with!  He gets to stay in a wonderful little historic log cabin right there in the park.  The ranch house and out buildings have been carefully restored and they are fortunate to have many original artifacts from the family who lived there for three generations.  That tour experience just made the day wonderfully complete!

Then, last Saturday, we went to Gammons Gulch, a re-created western town built for filming lots of the western movies you have seen on the big screen and made-for-TV.  The owner, Jay Gammons, gave us the tour along with several other people from such varied places as Canada, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire and Texas.  He is a hoot and a walking encyclopedia of Western movie lore.  He and his wife live right there, in the "hotel".  There are several buildings and he takes you into almost all of them.  The place is very interesting.  And the countryside out north of Benson, where the ranch is located, is just beautiful.  My favorite part was the trip up to the mining camp.   Next door to the Gulch is a burro rescue ranch; what an interesting part of the country we are visiting.

Tomorrow will be our last full day and I am not looking forward to the clothes packing part but it's gotta be done.  Pray for us that we have a safe trip back to Greene County.