Good Morning Tucson!

With a foggy forecast for this morning, I was out early. The fog turned out to only be in the lowlands - where the yucky city part is. But at least it got me out for the early light!

You can see the fog way down the road. The good stuff is in the other direction though!

I know, I know, looks like this saguaro's giving us the finger...!

At the visitors center in Saguaro National Park West. Cool morning shadow patterns.

I'm excited to say I got at least ONE good shot!! (click on it to enlarge)

Last of the Loose Ends...

View towards Volcan from the yurt - cool stormy look!

Ouraydog subjected to another posing session since Mom finally got a long lens (100-400mm off of craigslist.com)!

Another fallen dead tree after all the big, wet, windy storms. Right next to our driveway but fortunately not IN our driveway!! Will make good firewood though...!

Another long lens shot. Volcan Mtn. I love the snow, clouds, and lighting!

A local denizen makes a surprise appearance! Skunky Jr. apparently lives under a big dumpster on the neighbor's property. We got to see him a couple times. Please excuse the barbed wire - I had to get him quick before he made it back to the dumpster!

Yeah, doesn't he look good?! Even with 400mm scrutiny!

Mountain ranges to the NE of the yurt. Neato late day lighting and snow.

And the parting shot that our friend Karl took as we left his home and headed out of Ramona, Sunday, January 31st, 2010.

And now...on with Le Grand Aventure!!!

Santa Ysabel West

This trail (just west of the town of SY, on the 78) is my favorite of the two, but it is also a bit maddening! The trail is only open Friday thru Monday, and then only if it isn't/hasn't been raining anytime recently (presumably because of erosion concerns, but the trail is just old roads! So I don't get it...). And since this has been an El Nino winter, and we've had plenty of storms, the trail's hardly been open at all!! And I'm sure they'll wonder why so many people enter the trails illegally, when the preserves are closed...!!!! But I was good and went while it was open, which meant squeezing it in at the end of a Sunday afternoon, trying to beat the early winter darkness AND the rains predicted for Monday! Senny and I made it, although we couldn't do the whole 6+ miles and did end up back at the trailhead after sunset.

A lovely view from the top of one of the many hills. There is a lot of up and down on this hike!

Senny takes a drink.

I liked this stream view in B&W.

An example of some of the up/down stuff!

Storm is coming!!!

View looking east into the valley just north of the town of Santa Ysabel.

Senny wistfully scoping the hills for deer... (notice the hair blobs coming out on her shoulder. Yes, it IS winter! And yes, she IS shedding!!! We must've been keeping it too warm in the yurt! She and Ouray are still shedding like crazy)

Seneca "logs" in another hike...

The big bonus for ending a hike in semi-darkness...

Flashback! Santa Ysabel East

OK, so I know you're thinking "wait! they just left San Diego!" and we did! But I have a few loose ends to tie up first, and then we'll get this voyage truly underway...!

So this and the next post are going to take you hiking in the hills of eastern San Diego County. This first outing was to Santa Ysabel Open Space Preserve East. It's almost 7.5 miles long and runs between Santa Ysabel and Julian. Two of my great hiking & photography friends came up, and we parked cars on both ends so that we could thru-hike the trail (east to west).

Ed & Brenda

The Land of the Crazy Sycamores

A whole forest of the tallest, biggest sycamores I've ever seen! And some of them were striking some very weird poses... A branch from the tree above had evidently come back down to earth, only to root and take off again!?! I dunno, weird. And then check out the tree below. At least I think it's one tree...? Rorschach Test? Well, what exactly do YOU see here? Dare I ask...?!

We were surprised to find a host of ferns at the Santa Ysabel Creek crossing.

Hullo!

Park rangers on horseback joined us at our picnic table for lunch. Someone must've felt left out...

But this poor guy must've felt even more left out!! He was parked even farther away!

Ready to ride...

Patiently waiting for that person who's ALWAYS taking photos...!!

Almost at the west end and looking down at the valley just north of the little town of Santa Ysabel.

On the road again...!

STAGE FOUR: Leave - Done!

So, at last, on Sunday Jan. 31st, we left for Tucson. We'd planned for mid-Jan. but weren't quite ready, and the big El Nino storms delayed us even more. Getting a new RV outfitted for full-time living is not a casual packing job!! It took a good, solid week. Some stuff came from the yurt. Some stuff went back to the yurt. Some stuff even made it back to the shed in Encinitas!

We spent several nights in our RV before we took off. We found that while parts of the RV were quite nice and even plush, others were very unhandy and still others were broken or non-functional! For instance, there are rubber seal/weather-stripping all along the edges of the slide-outs. On a particularly dewy morning, I found water dripping onto our leather couch. Apparently the seal is not doing its job!!! There are one or two other equally large problems and a smattering of smaller ones. It strikes us that there is quite a bit of very poor design involved in the manufacture of RVs in general and it's a sad statement on their quality control as well!

And that's only the half of it. The other half is the terrible servicing one receives after buying an RV. We'd heard that when you buy a new RV, you have to just plan on stopping by their manufacturing base sometime in your first year as there will be so much that needs fixing or replacing. On the other hand, if you buy a good used RV, those problems have probably already been attended to. That seemed to have been the case with our BRAVE. It really didn't give us any problems. And unfortunately, the TOUR has lived up to its reputation as well, that of a new RV. So, here we are in Tucson, and short story, the dealerships are not exactly bending over backwards to help us out...! So, for now, we will be doing our best to deal with the problems ourselves. Wish us luck because it's supposed to rain here Wed. I hope we get all this stuff sorted - I hate to see the wind get taken out of Bill's sails, and so early on too!!

I have to conclude that the RV industry's general demise is not due solely to a bad economy and high gas prices but also because of its own ineptitude and "whatever" attitude!

On the upside, we are in a great RV park here in southwestern Tucson, and the other campers are all really friendly, and most have dogs! The park is several miles from the city and surrounded by cacti and hills. Most of the spaces are roomy and lined with bushes. NOT the parking lot/RV city that many other parks are here in Tucson! AND it's cheaper! Phew!!

After a long day's drive, we got here after dark and couldn't find the park owners. I was afraid we wouldn't find a spot! But they found us and got us set up. There was a slight kerfuffle in the morning, involving a dispute with other recent arrivals over the spot we were supposed to move to. After having moved to the spot, we ended up having to move back! But it was not a huge deal, and maybe our paved spot will prove to be better!

Come Take a Tour!

A Tour of our TOUR!

So we FINALLY got the second big sorting done!

STAGE ONE: Sorting, packing, moving out, renting - Done!

STAGE TWO: Living in yurt - Done!

STAGE THREE: Sorting, packing, moving out - Done!

As the saying goes, things always get worse before they get better, and such was the case with both of our moving projects! The RV looked a chaotic mess inside, right up until it was finally finished. But here are photos after the stuff was organized and put away, things wedged or stuck in place with velcro, putty, or sticky tape, and dog hair and dirt vacuumed up with the central vac.

This is looking from the front of the RV towards the back. You can see the great desk set-up Bill installed, both of our computers and all! He first had to remove the second couch - good for entertaining, I guess, but overkill for us. We needed a computer place that could accomodate us both! The remaining couch is now ready for dog/cat inhabitants (and hey, even us!) with very soft, comfy, pre-dirt-color pet throws (thanks to friends M&M!!).

This is looking towards the front, from the kitchen area, which is about halfway down the RV.

Bill demo-ing the computer stations.

One of the reasons for the larger RV...
It may seem like plenty of floor space...till you add animals! They have a way of taking up all available room and are especially keen on reclining in walkways.

I've come to accept the ugly sink in the bathroom - my little ivy plant has worked wonders for that space! However, I had been looking forward to the larger shower - tired of having to sit on the shower floor at the yurt in order to shave my legs! Well, too bad. This shower's not much bigger AND there's no way anyone can sit on this floor! If you're able to crinkle your body up enough, you can put a foot on the bench, but then you also find out how cold the shower walls are!! Maybe if I lose enough weight... (ha-ha!)

Ouray and Scratty model the bedroom.
I started off sleeping on the closest side, but Bill and I have switched now because, while you can walk on the other side of the bed, the floor is raised there. Much easier for a shrimpier person to get around...! Ouray still occupies his usual spot - the middle.

From Where We've Come

Here's a photo of our friends' place in Ramona. This is where we stored our Brave (in Karl's workshop) and now our Tour. You can see our Tour if you follow the fenceline all the way to the back (the tiny black and white dot), but trust me, it's much larger than it looks here! Karl & Peggy have a really nice place, especially when it rains enough to create this lovely pond in front! Many thanks to our buddies - their generosity made our endeavors soooo much easier!!!!

We all loved using their old electric golf cart to haul our stuff (stored in the workshop) to the RV!

And yes. EVERYBODY got their turn riding in the cart!