Paws and Friends

This morning we packed a lunch, some snackies (human and dog) and lots of water and headed north from our camp site at Furnace Creek. Death Valley is defined by mountain ranges alternating with valley basins. Active fault lines trend north to south along the western and eastern mountain ranges of the Park. One side rises, as the other side falls, and in spite of the erosion washing into the basin, it continues to drop below sea level. We saw mountains on both sides of us as we drove north. This got Lindy really excited as she watched the strata in the mountains change from diagonal lines to straight up and down!  She snapped way too many pictures! Here are a few that show this. We stopped at Ubehebe Crater , a large volcanic crater from what is called a maar volcano. With the Paws, we did little exploration. We understand in the 1 1/2 mile around the rim of the crater several smaller craters can be seen. If interested, click on the link for Ubehebe Crater. ...

Virtual Geocaching is always fun, for it allows a bit of history of the area to unfold....readers of this blog should NOT be surprised when we explore history.....! While doing this Lego Dan's Death Valley RR Cache , we found this bit of history, Oh, Ranger ! Check it out! Cool reading! We discovered connections between our visits (and histories!)  to Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks. Lindy has promised to NOT go into detail here.....but if you are just a little curious, click on the link to the digital book Oh, Ranger ! above! We have found these books that are free, at each National Park we have visited. We always pick one up on our initial visit to help as we plan our visit. This digital version, with 1928, 1929, 1934, and 1972 copyrights is indeed fun--according to Lindy....! It IS great history!!!! Today was our first full day here in Death Valley , Furnace Creek Campground. We visited Furnace Creek Ranch, the Borax Museum there, and the National Park Visitor...

Our good friends, and blog mentor, Bob and Jo, of How to Love Where You Are and Eat Where the Locals Eat!! drove up Monday, January 13 for a GRAND visit! (Don't you love their blog title? Loving where you are is key to the full-timing experience! If you don't, love where you are that is, you can always move on!) We sat in our "Arizona Room" and chatted--mostly about places to visit!!!  We picked their brains regarding their trip last summer, where did they stay, what is the name of the RV Park, etc., and they picked our brains for information on Northern California, Oregon and Washington. We only scratched the surface of possibilities! Planning travel is just as much fun as actually carrying out that travel! And, what is planned rarely plays out exactly as planned--another plus of full-timing--being flexible! They were also an excellent source on upgrading our wifi (from 5 GB to 20GB) for a very good price! And we have 4G! No more excuses now!! Time flew by quickly...

The monthly "Data Cap" was reached all too soon on the Riders' Internet feed in mid December....a very good excuse for no posts, don't you think?! But what, say you, explains the lack of posts from January 3 on....?  Ummmm, no excuses.....! Let's catch up! The Riders' explored the open land behind North Ranch, hunting for those Giants of the Sonoran Desert, Saguaro Cacti. There are not many near us (GREAT excuse for the Blue Buggy Ride!). We are after all, on the northern tip (see the link ). We traveled to "Lonesome Saguaro", aptly named for it stands by itself about a mile from the back gate. We continued on down the wash, heading south where we found some more on the hills above the wash. The closer you get to hills, the more Saguaros you'll see. Our travels allow us to see this country in a very different light than what one sees zipping by on the highways at 65 mph. Lonesome Saguaro -- Out behind North Ranch Blue Buggy, Rupert be...

Okay, so it has been a while since we have posted.... And then, Lindy pulled a REALLY bonehead thing! Let's make a long story short:  Lindy updated our GPS, taking 3 hours and many, many MB's of data--bringing us VERY close to our limit for the "month".....So we were bumped off of the Internet Grid.....Now we are baaaaaaack! Here's the first of several postings from December re: the Roving Riders...... We are enjoying being in the Arizona sun, doing as little as possible!  You don't believe us? We have been enjoying the sun--when it shines! It appears that the North West is fond of sending weather systems down our way....and we have been experiencing some very cool weather. On the other hand, we have enjoyed warm weather as well! In mid November (11/12/13 to be exact!) we realized the excellent cash value of our 08 Wrangler, so now face the challenges of getting a new vehicle,a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited,  ready for the full time experience. Wednes...