News flash!
We found two Road Work Ahead traffic signs from Southwest Barricades and
one from Bob’s Barricades on Picacho Highway out in front of camp. The Southwest signs have been on the ground
the entire time we’ve been here and Bob’s sign is upright…that’s the one we’ve
seen on our walk. It wasn’t until Kim
got curious and went over to the downed sign that I realized that all the signs
in connection with this project aren’t from Bob’s. Found this on the site swbarricades.com:
"The Better Barricade Company." We didn't get
that nickname by being late all the time. From our 24-hour turn around on
traffic control plans to our large professionally maintained fleet of trucks.
Calling our 24-hour dispatch number means you will get a person day or night.
With locations in Phoenix and Tucson, our goal is to get you on the road,
working, quickly and safely.
I wonder if they know that
their signs on Picacho Hwy are laying down
on the job. 😄
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The jackhammer was back at work this morning
before 8 a.m….bless his heart! It was
time to get up anyway but that’s an extreme alarm clock. I’d already had an earlier wakeup…Kim’s phone
rang at 6:15 a.m. His ringtone is quite
unique…it’s a recording of Clayton repeating what his Daddy told him at the cow
barn…Stay Out of Poop! Didn’t have to
hear that but once before I popped out of bed to answer it…Kim never did hear
it. Of course the lady on the other end
of the phone didn’t know that he’s in Arizona and 3 hours behind Michigan. She
was just doing her job of checking up on someone at the shelter. Her
interruption of my sleep was forgivable. But I’m not sure what was more
jarring…Clayton admonishing all in earshot to Stay Out of Poop or the
jackhammer.
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Got our 3 mile walk in this morning. It started out a bit warmer than in previous
days and there was little breeze...glad I brought my water bottle today. About noon I walked out to the road for some
pictures and realized that walking is definitely a morning thing…it was already
too hot out there for me.
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Kim was up in the clubhouse processing his
images from last night…the table he sat at had a giant checkboard on it. Three kids came in to play checkers. It was an interesting sight…3 kiddos and Kim
sitting together at a table in the corner of the room. A little ditty came to my mind when I saw
them:
One of these things is not like the others...One of these things just doesn't belong…
Two younger kids playing checkers while an
older third kid either watches or helps makes for some tears and whining about
unfairness. Or maybe that was Kim??😏
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Today
was laundry day…not my favorite way to spend a warm sunny day, but at least there’s
air conditioning and internet in the clubhouse. With multiple machines it takes
the same amount of time and when you’re done, you’re done for another
week. Doesn’t work that way at
home. Kim wanted to process his images
so it worked out well and there was plenty of day left for a ride. Time is what works against us for doing the
wash later in the day…all wash must be started before 6:30 p.m. because the
laundry area closes at 8. If we leave
camp we rarely make it back by 6:30, so this is how we have to do it.
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Great day for a ride…but where to? This is our 4th year of camping in
Picacho…we’ve done a lot of riding and have covered most of the area. But familiarity isn’t a problem…we don’t need
a new place to ride to each time. A
couple of hours, open roads and temperatures above 55o is all we
need. Although truth be told 60o
is a better threshold. Today we talked about riding IR 15/Hwy 86 to Sells which
is about 90 miles away from camp and 20 miles beyond the Gu-achi Trading Post. We didn’t quite make it to Sells because as so often happens on a Kim n Karen ride, we ran out of time. 😐
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On the way, I mentioned going out to check
out the hawk nest we discovered our first year here. It’s been occupied each year...and it’s on
the way to IR 15. It didn’t look very
promising when we stopped…no hawk visible.
Kim walked down the dirt road toward the pole with the nest on top and
suddenly it looked like a head was popping up.
It wasn’t until I got closer that the hawk flew out of the nest in one
fluid movement to land on a nearby post. At that point it screeched a few times
and flew off again. It didn’t take long
before two hawks returned…uh, oh, she called reinforcements.
We’ve
seen this behavior in the past…they land for a minute, then fly off and
eventually circle back down to the same pole.
We headed back to the paved road thinking maybe they’d calm down and one
would go back on the nest. I stood in
the shadow of a telephone pole, waiting.
It’s like they knew what I had in mind, though, and refused to give me
the photo op. I felt like I was wasting
ride time, so I reluctantly headed back to Zeus. Before I put the camera away I gave it one more
try, propping my camera on the mirror because the lens was fully zoomed out and
any little movement causes focus issues. Just as I zoomed in to find the nest, she
came in for a landing. Thankfully my camera was
on consecutive shoot so all I did was push the shutter button trying to keep the
lens centered on the nest. Bingo!! A
sequence of pictures showing the bird coming in to land on the edge of the
nest. That was worth wasting some of our ride time!
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One time when the hawks
returned to the nearby pole, the male centered himself on the pole and repeatedly
dipped his head to his feet. It looked
like he was ripping something apart.
Again, I’ve watched enough nature shows to know that he had brought back
prey and was taking the time to eat it. They
both flew off and I didn’t think much more about it until I looked at the
pictures I had taken. The camera caught
a picture of what we couldn’t see from our distance…the bird with the prey in
its beak. It’s looked like a frog to me
but I’ve never seen a frog in the desert so perhaps it was a lizard. Anyway, lucky shot!👍
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Because we made that side trip to see the
hawks, we didn’t have enough time to ride to Sells and back. We stopped at the Trading Post and got nachos
before heading back to camp. Maybe next
time we’ll get all the way to Sells.
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Random encounter of the day:
Toltec Road usually isn’t very busy out by
the hawk nest but today it was. A couple
of people slowed down and once Kim assured them we were fine they continued on
their way. However, one guy stopped his
car, got out and wanted to know if we needed water. Kim told him we were fine. Well,
here I have some water, why don’t you take some? It’s hot out and you have to stay hydrated.
Again, Kim said we were fine. Tell you what…take this 8 pack…this stuff is
really good and I have like 120 cans of it.
Not a problem. You take it and
stay hydrated, okay. It’s really hot out…you need this. At which point he thrust the 8 pack into Kim’s
hands, got back in his car and took off.
I heard this whole exchange but was watching the birds so I didn’t see
what he was giving us. Kim puts
whatever it is in the trunk and pops the top on a can of something as he walked
over to where I was leaning on the pole. He offered me a drink of Dasani Sparkling Tropical
Pineapple flavored water…I declined. He took a drink and said, “This stuff is
gross! I hope he didn’t pay money for
it.” After that ringing endorsement I
think I’ll find other ways to stay hydrated, thank you.
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Today’s miles: 137
Total miles: 1194
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