Coachella Is a Really Cute Town!

After spending some time in Prescott Valley, I moved to warmer weather at a casino near Indio, CA. One day I went to see the nearby town of Coachella.

There are lots of beautiful murals here - it reminded me of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico where I visited almost 2 years ago.

In fact, the whole town feels like Mexico. I loved it!

But the best thing was finding this tree that was carved with a lot of animals.

I wish I had gotten more close-ups of the animals (and a few people) -

But these will have to do.

Then when I went around back, I found out that it had just recently been done! There is a good video done by the carver, Bob King here - https://fb.watch/2qs_i5d0F9/

This whole thing was done in less than a month! I found a picture of the tree pre-carving on Google Maps.

And they have pretty sunsets here too!

Still Another Boring Post (Yawn.....)

You would think that with nothing going on, that I wouldn't be this far behind on the blog. This post covers the beginning of October to the beginning of November. I moved back to Kaibab National Forest one more time before it got too cold. This is a picture of our rigs in the distance.

Nearby was Kaibab Lake, a lovely place to walk. Here I am with my twin!

I was surprised at how few wildlife we saw, but we did see one Abert's squirrel near the lake. Notice the ear tufts.

When it got too chilly, I moved down the hill a little to Prescott Valley. The only exciting thing here was that the Elks Lodge was a voting place.

The line wrapped all the way around the parking lot, and hardly anyone was wearing a mask.

But they have the best sunsets there!

In late October, my sister and I flew East to clean out my father's house. He passed away in May at the age of 99.

Coming into Baltimore, where we could see some really nice Autumn colors.

Even better on the ground!

We donated my father's Triumph Spitfire to the local Triumph Club. He really enjoyed doing things with them. They auctioned it off and donated the proceeds to charity.

Then we drove his other car back to Arizona. It was a long drive through Virginia and Tennessee, but finally we crossed the Mississippi at Memphis.

I have always wanted to see Cadillac Ranch, and didn't realize that we would be going right by it. But because of the snow, I didn't walk out to it. Next time!

Finally in Arizona, we had a beautiful drive down from I40 into the Phoenix area. Then I drove back up to Prescott Valley to pick up my rig. I hope everyone is doing well, and not nearly as bored as I am. Stay healthy!

Yes, I'm STILL Near Flagstaff!

I've been here since the end of May! I never thought I would be staying in one place for so long. But every 2 weeks, you have to go to a different forest, so here I am back in Coconino National Forest. I'm here with my sister and some friends, parked on top of the hill in the distance.

There is lots of volcanic rock around here. If it came from the San Francisco Peaks, that's a looooong way!

We had some visitors early one morning, including 2 black bulls. MOOOOO!

There were a lot of these guys flying around.

And we heard that this was a fox hole, but no fox to be seen.

And there was a lot of Bindweed all over, a kind of Morning Glory, but known as a noxious weed.

The end of another boring post!

Another Month in Flagstaff Forests (Yawn...)

I moved back to Kaibab National Forest, this time to a nice spot near Williams, AZ. Although I had been on a day trip to Seligman back in May, I went again to see what I had missed. I saw a lot of nice murals again.

And lots of Route 66 memories.

Especially a lot of old cars, or pieces thereof.

This one had a toilet as a flower pot on top.

I'm not sure what this is all about.

But this is my new best friend, Rusty.

And if you need to stay overnight, this motel has color TVs! Back at camp, I had a lot of hummingbirds around my feeder, but they would just fight and try to chase each other away. So I had a long talk with them, and explained that there was plenty of food for everyone...

And it worked!!!

Good night!

Another Boring Month...

I'm still bouncing back and forth between the Coconino and Kaibab National Forests around Flagstaff. I'm not doing many activities, but one day I went to Walnut Canyon National Monument. Unfortunately, the Island Trail, which goes around the "Island" shown down in the canyon, was closed. The only way to see it was from outside the Visitor Center.

Other than that, I've just been walking around camp, taking in the local flora and fauna.

There are some beautiful flowers blooming now -

And lots of little critters.

This one was big and unusual -

And I say alot of these little "buggers."

And even some dead critters.

And when I'm done with critter pictures, I take pictures of the sunsets.

Looking the other direction.

And then on a really exciting day, I did the laundry in a laundromat that had a lot of rusty stuff! Wow!

Bouncing Between the National Forests Near Flagstaff

According to Forest Service rules, you can only stay in National Forests for 14 days. But fortunately, there are 2 National Forests around Flagstaff. So after 14 days, I moved from Coconino NF to Kaibab NR. This is a much quieter spot!

I haven't been doing much, but did go into Flagstaff again to walk around and see more of the murals.

This one was on a round building at a restaurant.

And this one was incredibly detailed!

I joined in on this one.

I've been keeping myself busy by doing lots of ukulele, trying to learn Spanish on Duolingo, and looking at pictures of my past vacations - including

The cruise of the South Pacific in 2011 -

The Ecuador and Galapagos trip in 2016 -

The Copenhagen, Norwegian Fjords, and Paris trip in 2017 -

And the London trip in 2019, among others.