Home again, home again

I bet these dogs got your attention.  They sure got ours when they ran ferociously toward us, growling and barking.    It turns out they were sheep dogs.  (Doesn't the one on the right look much like my Susie?)  The Indian woman we later saw following them said with a shy smile that they were protecting the sheep.   When Tom threatened them, they ran back to the herd.    

This happened when we walking down a beautiful canyon next to a state park: -Blue Water - in New Mexico.  

We had been camping at a park near Show Low, Arizona where I visited my cousin and her husband.   She kindly drove us all around the area, showing us the town and more, especially the beautiful countryside.   We had no idea such beautiful forests and lakes were up in the hills of eastern Arizona.

Driving through a drier part of Arizona as we headed north and east, we saw some wonderful grasses and then rock formations.

We stopped for lunch in one town, Zuni, where each house had one or more of the above out in the yard.   They must be ovens, but we don't know.

Do you see anything valuable lying  around here?  In Arizona, near Flagstaff, we had seen many vehicles pulled over to sides of roads and people out picking up something under the trees,   A ranger explained that they were picking up pinon pine seeds.  Later, in Show Low, we found them for sale, roasted and salted, not shelled, at $5.00 for a small bag. 

After looking for them on the hike through the canyon at Blue Water, we came back to our campground to find the tree by our campsite had as many as we had seen anywhere.

So Tom sweetly set about picking up a bunch for us while I made some dinner.

Now we just have to roast and shell them:  No small task.

And then what will we do?  Eat them or save them to make pesto next year? !!! ?

That evening at Blue Water, it seemed like a simple sunset from afar.

But when I zoomed up on it with my new camera,  this is what it looked like.  This is not lightening.  These are the edges of clouds outlined by the sun!

When we left there and went onto I-40 headed for Arkansas, we couldn't resist one more detour, this time through northern New Mexico.   Our first night there was at a Corp of Engineers lake north of Santa Fe.  Me, above, when we walked a trail along lake.

Driving north from there toward Chama, a small New Mexico town just south of Pagosa Springs in Colorado, I hopped out to get a picture of these Gazanias along the road.

It turns out that this area is as beautiful as any we've seen on the trip.  Great colored rock formations rivaling those in Utah near forests with a variety of trees just coming into color cut through by clear streams and lakes.      We are definitely going back to get to know this area more, maybe this winter.

On the way across the top of New Mexico near Questa, we saw these bighorn sheep crossing the road.  No really big horns here though.

Our last night camping in New Mexico was in Cimarron Canyon State Park.  We got the best site, (!) looking over this lake where people were sometimes fishing.

Now we're back in Fayetteville, Arkansas.  It's warm and humid here.  It's also green and lush, just getting ready to change to autumn.   We may report from here too, once in a while, so stay tuned.

Headed south

To a viewer, these would look like just a conglomeration of pictures - no reason for their order.  But to me, they show clearly where we were and what we noticed.

After Sequim, with a few stops, we came to McCall, Idaho, another place we'd heard would be great to check out for living.  It was beautiful there, a small town on a clear lake.  We camped in the state park nearby and walked and biked trails in that park.   Above is from a trail along a wetland that we walked.

Along that walk was a natural sofa that I just had to try out.

Later, after driving through the Sawtooths in Idaho, we camped in a forest service campground, where I saw a moose crossing a field right in front of me.  But I have no picture to prove it. Tom came and saw it too, but where is that picture! ! !

Later, we crossed the above bridge that crosses the Snake River at Twin Falls, Idaho.

One Thursday, we picked up Tom's son Jon from the Amtak station in Elko, Nevada.  

He rode with us through Nevada into Utah where where we spent a day near Glen Canyon Dam where Lake Powell is.  We camped where we watched the sun change everything as it set. 

The next night, we camped near Flagstaff, where we drove up a hill (alongside many others) to watch the lunar eclipse.

We dropped Jon off in Flagstaff, AZ where he caught a bus up to hike into the Grand Canyon.  That afternoon, Tom and I hiked a loop trail down into Walnut Canyon east of Flagstaff.  The canyon featured many former dwellings of native americans built into the horizontal lines of the canyon.

The next couple of days we spent with my cousin Barb and her husband Jake who live in Show Low, Arizona.  Barb drove us all over the place, and introduced us to her many friends.  We especially enjoyed a visit to a dude ranch where they drive their horses to lower pastures each October.  Above are some of the horses, fattened up by from the grasses grown during this good  year of rain here.

Tom and I both liked the opportunity to get up close and personal with a friendly horse.

We've been staying at a most wonderful camping park near Show Low.  From here, we go to New Mexico, then back to Fayetteville, AR, from whence we started this summer trip "to the West."

Come and gone

Okay, so we did get to Victoria, Canada one day.   We took the 8:15 am ferry from Port Angeles, 15 miles from Sequim as foot passengers, spent the morning shopping: shoes and a camera for me.  And then lunch and beers at a pub.



We took a water taxi tour of the waterway into Victoria, seeing how people lived along the banks and hearing stories about how things have changed there over time.

The picture above is actually from later, when one of the many water taxis happened to be alongside a plane taking off, kinda strange to see..

Later we walked over to Fisherman's Wharf where we admired the floating homes.

On the way back, we saw this apartment building, with several buildings at ground level, surrounded by a lovely created waterway.

Above is the ferry we boarded at 7:30 to come back to Sequim.  It's about 1 1/2 hours and 22 miles across to Victoria from the US.   The ferry leaves both sides four times a day and in the season is pretty full.

A day or two later, Tom and I visited my former neighbors in Issaquah, Washington where my former husband and I lived for 5 years before we took an extended RV trip and ended up in Fayetteville, Arkansas where I've lived since 1984.   We all felt so much at home with each other, it was though we'd been gone just a  bit and now we were back.    But no.

Then Tom and I spend the next day in Seattle, visiting places I remembered: Pike Place Market, Ballard Locks with the salmon ladder.  It was so hectic and stressful, getting from place to place, that we probably won't try driving in a large city together again soon.    Great to leave by taking a ferry over to an island, have dinner, then drive back to our little trailer in Sequim.

Last Saturday the yacht club here had a race and I got back in time to use my new Zoom camera to capture the spinackers.

Near us, just down the road is a reestablished estuary.  Turns out the culvet was too small to let enough ocean to support the wildlife that depends on it.  When they turned the culvent into a bridge, all manner of wildlife has returned and this has become, once again, a place where young salmon stop for food on their way from the nearby Jimmycomelately stream to the Stait de Juan de Fuca.

One day, Tom and I stopped by the Audubon Center in Sequim which is alongside the Dungeness River.  For a while, this year, the water was too warm and not enough of it so that salmon were not entering it to come back to spawn and die, their normal life cycle.  When Tom and I visited, it had rained a bit so now we could see many salmon, gradually decomposing, coming up the stream: the way it's supposed to be.

We've been here in Sequim since about August 25.  We had planned on staying a month, while checking out the place for living here.  People tell us they love it.  They also say that there are a few months when it seems like spring will never come.  And it's a long way from both of our families and friends.   So, for how, we have given up on the idea of moving here and tomorrow we are starting a trip east and eventually back to Fayetteville.   It's always fun to hook up the trailer and start away again, somewhere, so we're looking forward to it.

Sequim

That's pronounced Squim.

One of the good things about this place is the variety and quality of food.  We've found a store that sells everything it can from local sources.  That's means the peaches, apples, berries, vegetable, more are fresh and tasty.  They also sell all fresh locally-caught seafood and pasture raised meats, all at reasonable prices.

One day, we traveled over to a nearby town, Port Angeles, and then on to another county park, Salt Creek, where we saw the above.

Sequim, itself, is open dry fields with patches of forests.   The town is not too large: only 6,600 within the borders, with many more on larger patches outside of town.  You see fields of mixed vegetables, fruit orchards and corn, but more than any other crop, you see lavender.

Another day, we drove to Port Townsend, on a point of the pennisula to the east.  It's known as a wooden boat center and for its Victorian architecture.

What we will remember it for is its storm!   It was blowing very hard that day, so hard that this sailboat became unmoored and blew up to the beach.  Many people watched it as it tossed and was tossed.   Probably a total loss, because how would you retrieve something like this?

That afternoon, back in Sequim, although it had been very windy here, the sun came out while it spattered rain.  We saw this rainbow coming down to the water through our trailer window.