Thursday

I found out that the cactus I called “Mickey Mouse Ears” is actually Prickly Pear. I like my name better.

I don’t want to offend anyone, but I was very shocked to be camped out here in literally the middle of nowhere, and visited by a Jehovah’s Witness this morning! I also had a very nice visit from one of my new rally friends, Donna Morey and her sweet greyhound Rosie.

I read that due to the record warm temperatures here, the rattlesnakes are emerging 2 months early this year! Oh joy. I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about them until mid-April. I suppose the scorpions won’t be far behind. Now I’ll have to add a couple MORE things threatening poor Princess Roxie. Sometimes it seems as though Arizona is just chock-full of dangers for small dogs…… coyotes, hawks & eagles, cholla cactus, and now rattlers and scorpions.  Yikes.

It’s a cloudy day today, how strange! The high is only supposed to go to 74 today; that’ll be quite pleasant. The wind is also blowing from the opposite direction as usual, which means I’m getting tons of dust off the road. I still don’t know why there’s so much traffic on this road, but I had been patting myself on the back for choosing a site on this side, as most of the dust blew the other way. Until today.

We took a little drive up to Sedona for a couple grocery items. They had Ben & Jerry’s ice cream on sale for $2.49 a pint; who could pass that up?! I haven’t had ice cream in a really long time; months, in fact. So I got some New York Super Fudge Chunk and brought it home for lunch. I couldn’t even finish half of it so I’ve stuck it in the very back & bottom of the fridge, hoping it will stay a little bit solid. I also bought a jelly doughnut. What was I thinking?? Everyone knows you have to eat doughnuts the same day; they’re just no good after that. So I had a jelly doughnut for dessert after my ice cream lunch. Hey, if you’re gonna blow it, Go Big or Go Home.

Oh MY! It’s gorgeous up in Sedona!!  The red rocks have amazing formations and are just beautiful.  These were all taken from alongside the road and on a cloudy day; I’m sure there are even more spectacular views elsewhere, and I’ll bet on a sunny day they’re prettier too.

When I got home I ate my ice cream & doughnut and then wanted to make a run on up this road to the Palatki Ruins Heritage Site; it’s supposed to be really pretty up there, and I also wanted to scout out more possible boondocking sites. I’d like to find one with some shade. But when I went out to the car, I had an almost-flat tire! Ugh, not more tire problems!! I have a little battery-operated tire inflater and it really does work. It says it will inflate a tire in 6 minutes but that was over-optimistic, but it did get it up to 32# eventually.  I won’t go anywhere else today, I’ll check tomorrow morning and see if it’s still inflated.