January 4, 2021.  We hid out at our boondock spot near the Saguaro National Forest through the holidays, trying to avoid the crowds.  I think that’s the first time we’ve stayed the 14 day limit.  Good ol’ Roger has been playing hide and seek ever since. From the Saguaro Forest, we went to a couple of boondock sites near Aho AZ to check out the organ pipe cactus.  This cactus is like the saguaro, but it grows in bunches from the ground with little or no arms. 

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It also likes hot, growing on the southern slopes, mostly in the Mexican Sonora desert.  They have crept across the border only here.  

Every once in awhile the saguaro and the organ pipe cactus will grow a crest.  No one seems to know why.  We saw this one in the Saguaro National Forest:

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Since then we have seen others here and there.  There was one particular cactus that we thought looked so cute and huggable that we called it the teddy bear cactus.  Imagine our amusement when we found out it’s actually called Teddy Bear Cholla!

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Besides all the cactus, we saw a couple of land bridges, which we haven’t seen since Utah or thereabouts.

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Finally, we hiked up a trail to an old, broken down ranch whose name we can’t remember.

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October 22, 2020. We went past Grand Junction down hwy 50, then a couple of miles down a terrible dirt road to perch on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Gunnison River.

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My (Nancy) brother Jim, lives in Grand Junction, so he took us on a personal, guided tour of the Colorado National Monument.

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After two nights hanging off the cliff over the Gunnison, the wind came up and almost blew us off. We actually had to get up in the middle of the night and put the slides in. (Kinda like the anchor drag alarm going off in the middle of the night in Calliope!) Sitting at the top of cliffs gives a great view, but the wind can be murder. Also, it was supposed to get really cold, so we packed it up and high-tailed it to brother Jim’s to plug in to his electricity. Ha! Started raining, then snowing. Then branches breaking and his power went out. Was out for the entire time we were there! But we had fun playing with his two sweet grandaughters and playing cards with Jim and wife, Sue. Also enjoyed biking and walks with Sue. I like riding on flat terrain! Thanks guys.

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October 21, 2020. As we were leaving the Dinosaur National Monument, we saw several fields packed with sandhill cranes, with a few Canada Geese thrown in. Those guys seem to make it to every party. These cranes are big and loud. We heard them long before we saw them.

We found a great USGS website that shows a map of all the hot springs in the US, along with their temperatures. But that’s it. We have to then try and find them, determine whether they are on public land, private, or commercial. This one had a temp of 103 degrees F, commercial, with a campground. Well. We drove about four miles down a washboard dirt road and found a run-down hot spring. It had five or six different pools of varying temperatures, but the hottest one was barely warm enough to stay in. We figured 103 degrees is about the temperature of your standard hot tub. Should be pretty good. Now, we figure that 103 degrees is the temperature of the water as it comes out of the ground. Fill a concrete pool open to the air and it’s probably in the low 90s. I guess we look for springs with temps above about 125 degrees from now on. We stayed one night. It was tolerable but we wouldn’t have gone 60 miles out of our way for it (which we did).

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October 20, 2020. The scenery here is stunning, with amazing rock formations showing various layers of different colors: red, turquoise, yellow, black and brown.

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At the end of one of the dirt roads was an old cabin. Sign said it was built in 1914 by a woman named Josie Morris. She moved there when she was forty years old and lived there by herself for fifty years! She built a cabin, chicken house, barns, gardens and corrals. She used a box canyon for one of her corrals (only have to build one side of a fence)!

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October 20, 2020. We spent this day hiking and driving around looking for petroglyphs. We wonder how they managed to do this. Hanging by their toes, maybe?

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October 19, 2020. We spent a couple of days here looking at dinosaur bones, petroglyphs and the scenery. Because I have so many awesome pictures, I’m splitting this one up also. We wanted to stay here an extra day and hike a canyon trail but the temperature was heading down toward freezing so we left early.
The first place we stopped was at the quarry. The dinosaur bones that have been taken out of this quarry are found in museums all over the world. Sorry, didn’t write them down, but I do remember there are a couple in the Museum of Natural History in Washington DC (I remember this because I have seen them there). They left these bones in situ, about half uncovered, so we can see how they are found in different layers. It must be a real trick to put these back together into one animal!

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October 18, 2020. On the other side of the Flaming Gorge Dam, the Green River Continues. About 5 miles down the road is a charming place called Little Hole. We wanted to stay the night, but it was a day-use only place. The nearest campground was dismal, so we spent the afternoon at Little Hole, then continued south. Right now we are boondocking at a trailhead with a nice view of the valley and 3 bars on Roger. So I figured I would continue the update. Next stop is Dinosaur National Monument and then some hot springs in Colorado. Stay tuned.

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October 18, 2002. After boondocking in our mud hole, we continued south along the gorge. The further south we went, the more gorgeous it got. We went all the way to the Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah. It’s hard to get good landscape images with our equipment. They always seem less than the real thing.

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After leaving WY, we passed through Manila, UT, and into the Sheep Creek Canyon. Oh, my! So beautiful, and must be where it takes the name, Flaming Gorge.

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Wednesday, September 16, 2020. Here we are in Harvey again for the winter. We left Bellingham on August 31, headed for Tonasket and our dental appointments with Alan’s cousin Rob-the-dentist. On our way, we stayed one night at Klipchuck Campground on the eastern slope of the cascades just before Winthrop on Hwy 20. It was pleasant but noticeably hotter and drier with signs warning about rattlesnakes (yikes!). We spent the morning hiking the trail along Early Winter’s Creek and then headed for Tonasket. We forgot to take the phone or the camera on our hike so only have a picture of the campground map.