"Hoppy"

There is a crow that has been hopping around our backyard lately.  For several days he was by himself and then a couple of days ago I saw him with another that I am assuming is his mate.  I have named him Hoppy because his right leg has been injured and he does not use it much.  When he is on the ground he holds the right one up under his belly and hops around on the left.  It doesn't seem to hamper him too much because he is still able to use his good leg and strong wings to take off when he needs too.  So for now while he is strong his life goes on.

Being Home

Being home is expensive.  We have been home a week and already we have had to buy two new TVs, a dishwasher, and a retainer for R's mouth.  I should have stayed in Arizona.  Soon we will go to the dentist and then it will get Expensive!  We each have a crown that is loose.  Should have fixed them in Mexico.

Posting

You probably noticed that I didn't post for quite a few days.  Actually, I tried to post and the system just won't let me.  All I could do was save them.  So finally I went into the settings and updated them and bango, presto, shazamm;  it worked again.  It just needed some TLC I guess.

Today, on our way home we traveled in hostile territory. Well, dangerous territory.

Well, interesting territory.

Area 51 !!! Do you know where it is? It is in the state of Nevada, near the village of Rachel. Its not even a village. Just a few buildings and a bar called the "Ale Inn ". There's nothing else. Or, at least, nothings else that you can see. Is there a cloaking device at work? Maybe there's more there than meets the eye.

At great risk I am including pictures shot at the scene. Two of these dramatic pictures were shot from my research vehicle as it drove rapidly through the possibly alien area. As you can see from these priceless photos, all is calm at the location right now. Or, at least, it "seemed" calm. What was going on in some secret underground facility nearby, is only for speculation.

Possibly the bunkers in Hawthorne, Nv like this last picture are used for similar operations. Click on the pic to enlarge it. I bet you didn't know that Hawthorne is also home to the Naval Underwater Warefare School. do you think it is just a front? Think about it.

4.22.11 Spring
in the desert.

It is spring in the Sonoran Desert.
Any place else and it would be summer-like weather. It is the perfect time to be here with the
day temps are in the 80’s and 90’s and night-time temps in the 50’s 60’s. To make
it even better the flowers are starting to show in the desert. The several of Saguaro Cacti are getting
blooms. It started several weeks ago
with one or two Saguaro getting buds on them.
And then, one or two of the buds started blooming. The blooms, which appear at the top of the
cacti and at the end of the arms, come out only at night and last until
mid-morning of the next day. As you travel through the desert right now you
will notice that many Saguaros have buds appearing on them. In a few weeks the desert will be covered
with blooms.

In addition, the
Organ Pipe Cactus is also starting to bud and bloom too. Their blooms are a few weeks behind the Saguaros. They also are night bloomers. Their blooms are even shorter-lived, with the
blooms lasting only until the early hours of the morning. R and I
got up at 6am to drive into Tucson
on Thursday. On the way out we stopped
at the Visitor Center to see a blooming Organ Pipe
Cactus.

If that isn’t
enough the Chollas are starting to bloom.
The Staghorn Cholla are getting redish brown blooms and Buckhorn Cholla blooms
are yellow. The Prickley Pear are
covered with new pads and blooms.

The bottom line is
that the desert is at it’s best right now and there is no one to enjoy it. The visitors have stopped coming. With the coming of the month of April,
visitation dropped off dramatically. The
campground, which has 120 sites, is down to a dozen or so occupied sites. And those are being used by Europeans. It seems that about 75% of the people that
come into the visitor center are from Europe.

If you are thinking
of a beautiful warm place to visit, during the month of April, this might be it.

Sells, AZ

March 31,2011

Just got home from a trip east on Hwy 86 to Sells, AZ It is the “capitol” of the Tohono O’odham Nation (pronounced - ta Ho no a’Autumn ). I am not sure how a nation is different from a reservation, but it has to do with how their officials and law makers are selected. The T O nation covers a large portion of land in southern Arizona from Why on the west almost to Tucson on the east and from Casa Grande on the north to the Mexican border. The area is well over 2 million acres. Actually the original O’odham homeland was twice as large encompassing areas north to the Gila River and west to the Colorado River and south 100 miles into the Mexican state of Sonora. Then there were five member groups of the O’odham nation living and prospering in this harsh land. The white man, early Spaniards and later miners and settlers, both Mexican and American, pushed them off.

Sells is a little over sixty miles east of Why on Hwy 86 which is the route I would take to get from here to Tucson. Several times I have recommended to our visitors at Organ Pipe that if they are heading east, there is an interesting place to stop on the way. We have a small map that we give out to people that show interest. It was time to take our advice and check the place out.

The name of the place is Himdag Ki. ( I don’t know the pronunciation.) But it is the Tohono O’odham Nation Cultural Center and Museum. Finding it takes a map for it is not located on the main highway (Hwy 85). Instead, its home is ten miles south of Sells on BIA Hwy 19. Hwy 19 is not signed so you need to know where to turn south and then know to go that far south for you are a loooonngg way out of town before you come to a small sign that shows you that it is a ¼ mile to the left. The map helps because it points out several landmarks ( i.e. water towers, school) along the way.

The actual museum is worth the hunt. The building is less than ten years old and is a unique design of steel, wood, and stone with lots of curves and windows. The story of the O’odham people is told in English, Spanish, and in the O’odham language. The latter is quite a fete because the O’odham language was not written language for a long time and like many verbal languages as was in danger of disappearing. An effort was started on 1970 to preserve the language by writing it down and teaching it in the schools and using it. The language is surviving, although the elders are more likely to use it then the younger ones. There is a local radio station that broadcasts bilingual messages.

After our visit to Himdag Ki was finished, it was time for lunch. The Desert Rain Restaurant is in the Sells Plaza. The menu uses a blend of local foods such as Agave, cholla buds, mesquite buds in it wraps and soups and salads for a unique twist. The T O people have a unique physical makeup. Their bodies were designed to use the seeds, buds, and flowers of the local plants such as cholla, saguaro, organ pipe, and senita. Nutrition required hard work to get it and slow digestion to absorb the food value. It worked well for them and they were fit and healthy. Flash forward to fast food and packaged food have changed all of that. The diabetes rate among the T O people is almost 80% not to mention the other health problems that accompany it. This restaurant is proof that prepared food can be tasty, locally unique, and healthy.

Home Again

We are back in Oregon. Arrived home on Tuesday afternoon. The trip was happily uneventful. We did spend two days at Valley fo Fire State Park about 60 northeast of Las Vegas. A very beautiful place. Great campground nestled among the red sandstone formations. Lots of places to explore and scramble on the rocks. Great "Kodak Moment" places.

We are back in our regular routine which means water exercises in the morning, and working around the house in the afternoon. The yard needs lots of weeding ( which I hate) and the house has some needs as well. The dishwasher is not performing properly, the TV in the family room died so we have some shopping to do. It seems that there is always something to spend money on.