But there is still plenty to do!
We’re down to the last couple of days here at Prescott Pines Camp – and I thought I’d share a little about the camp and what we’ve been doing here.
Prescott Pines Camp, like many of the facilities that we work at, is a multi-faceted conference center. They have a great summer camp program, which centers around Frontier Town -

and comes complete with teepees (tipis?) and rustic cabins. There are zip lines and challenge courses and of course a pool. In fact, they even have a Human Fooz Ball court -

(We’re running across them more and more. One of these days we might even get to see someone PLAY Human Fooz Ball!)
The other side of the camp is still rustic, but much more civilized. There’s a lovely chapel -

a great gynmasium (that looks like a chapel)

and cabins and dormitory style buildings to accommodate men’s and ladies’ retreats and winter youth retreats along with Outdoor Education Classes from local (and not so local) schools. This place is busy all year around.
But truth be told, they had a very rough winter. The weather was especially harsh, storms were longer and meaner, and parts of the camp were severely damaged. One of the staff houses caught fire and sustained enough damage to render it unusable. A large pine fell into the dining hall, taking out a large portion of the roof. The septic system literally floated out of the ground after an especially wet stretch of winter weather. Pipes burst, trees fell, insurance was ornery. But through it all they could see the Lord’s gracious hand. No one was injured in any of the calamities. Since the roof now needed to be replaced on the dining hall, it made for the perfect opportunity to do some much need expansion and improvement (the original dining hall had been constructed in the 40′s I think). Not all of the work would be covered by insurance, but it was a good start. The septic system was needing an upgrade too, and since it was already mostly out of the ground…. you get my drift. God has been providing resources and enthusiasm and for the last several months He’s also been providing SOWERS to help with the various projects.
We worked hard this month – the guys were busy doing all kinds of things, from moving walk-in boxes to moving landscaping, to digging ditches and building sheds. They even got to help with some of the dining hall interior demolition. One of our group this month is a heavy equipment operator, and he has spent hours on a backhoe and a little bobcat. (I personally think he’s been having lots of fun on those big toys!)
Here are some shots of the guys at work -

Those boys have been workin’ hard!
But we girls have put in our fair share of work too! We started the week by removing landscaping stones from in front of the dining hall, then moved to cleaning two new-to-them commercial stoves and then tackled painting one of the cabins!

The bottom right shot is at the foundation of the house that burned. We were asked to clean up the debris from around the foundation. What a job!
Before -

After -

The backhoe guy came up today and scooped up all the debris we had moved from the foundation. I’m not sure what their plans are for this site, but at least now it’s nice and tidy. Well, more tidy than it was anyway!
And I must admit we were quite pleased with how the cabin came out!

And all in just three mornings! (Ok, so we just did the body of the building – the trim and deck had already been done. But still….)
Oh, and the dining hall? This is how it looked when we got here (except that the blue tarp and some of the repair boards have been removed)-

And this is how it looked last weekend -

I think all the building permits are now in hand, so the rest of the demolition and renovations can begin. They were smashing up the concrete floor today. (I’m telling you, those backhoe guys have the most fun!)

And once again, it’s hard to believe that we’ll be back on the road again in just a few days. There have been some challenges this month (one couple had to leave after a week due to altitude sickness), but it’s been wonderful to see so many jobs accomplished. And it will be exciting to keep in touch with the folks here to see how their spring and summer progress. I know that feeding the multitudes in a wedding-type tent is getting a little old! But I know that God will continue to work here at Prescott Pines Camp!

Being parked in the forest (more or less) has brought lots of opportunities to observe the local critters.
We’ve seen a lovely selection of birds -

Western Bluebird

Acorn Woodpecker (love his eyes!)

Redbacked Junco

White-breasted Nuthatch
And even though this wasn’t in our backyard (it was at one of those little lakes we visited over the weekend)-

A Blue Heron in a tree!
But we also enjoyed the occasional mule deer wandering around -

And even though we see squirrels just about everywhere, we really had never seen any that looked like this -


Catch those ears! Turns out this is a Abert Squirrel. You wanted to know, right?
Just today I spotted this little guy -

A Greater Short Horned Lizard.
And trust me, if he hadn’t moved, I wouldn’t have spotted him! He stayed pretty still and without hardly moving snagged an ant that walked just a little too close. Ah, nature in action!
We certainly have enjoyed our backyard this month!

So, just how much do you know about Prescott, AZ?
Did you know it was the state (well, territory) capital twice -1864 to 1867 and again from 1877 until it finally moved to Phoenix in 1889?
Did you know it has many Victorian style homes and, perhaps because of that, has been remarked to be the most Midwestern-appearing city in the Southwest. Prescott has 809 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places?
Many of those homes are Senator Way – the road we travel on to get into town.



The street definately does NOT say Arizona to me! And I loved driving up and down it!

Did you know that Prescott is located in the Bradshaw Mountains of central Arizona, at an altitude of 5,400 feet (our parking spot is actually 6200 ft.)? Just outside of town are the Granite Dells -

(this is not my picture, because we never actually GOT to the dells, but I sure thought they’d be purty!)
We did drive through the Granite Dells on our way to Prescott – and that was pretty impressive!

Did you know that Prescott is a main “get away from the heat” destination for folks in Phoenix and points south? The average high temps in Prescott in the middle of the summer are in the high eighties – as opposed to the 100′s in Phoenix. Plus there are beautiful small lakes and TREES here!



and a close up of those cattails -

And as a bonus, it has some lovely sunsets (even from the Wal-Mart parking lot!0

This is a beautiful area, and we can certainly see why it’s a favorite playground for many Arizonians.

Coming soon – More on Prescott Pines, our April home!

We’ve had some beautiful weather here in Prescott, and Friday we figured we’d take advantage of the blue skies and check out some of the beauty nearby. And while I do think that Gary is maybe getting just a little tired of “looking at rocks”, we still had a great day!
Here’s our route -

We started out in Prescott (bottom left), drove through the built-on-the-side-of-the-mountain town of Jerome, continued on to Sedona and Red Rock Country, headed north through Oak Creek Canyon, touched the outskirts of Flagstaff and then headed south to see Montezuma’s Castle (cliff dwellings), then back to Prescott through the little town of Dewey (in honor, of course of my dear brother!).

“Curves and Grades ahead”

Jerome – artsy town on the side of the mountain. Lots of cute shops and interesting walks, but we just sailed on by. Those red rocks of Sedona were calling us….

Down the mountain we go…..

until the red rocks come into view.
Now the town of Sedona was quite interesting. Everything thing was quite lovely – lots of shops and restaurants and opportunities to take jeep rides into the mountains. And of course, all around this civilization were the beautiful red rocks of Sedona.



With such beauty all around, who WOULDN’T want to live (or vacation) here!
It made me think that THIS is what happens when an exceptionally beautiful piece of countryside does NOT get turned into a National Park. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely town with lots and lots to see and do. It just was so much more commercial than what we’ve seen recently.
But oh, the rocks – certainly worth the traffic (and even the construction)!



There’s the Chapel of the Holy Cross, designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright -



And the view from the chapel was also stunning -

All in all, the vistas were beautiful. My camera really didn’t do them justice (or maybe the bright sun was just in the wrong place), but trust me, it was an amazing area!

From Sedona we headed north through the Oak Creek Canyon. Another lovely drive, that took us up (eventually) to a vista where we could fully grasp just where we had been driving!

Quite the drive!
Up to the big interstate, and then south for the return home. (I think you’ve probably seen enough interstate windshield shots, so I’ll spare you any of those from this leg of the trip!) But we were headed for one final POI –
Montezuma’s Castle

However you look at it, that is one big “first step”!

It was an interesting stop – a whole community, that without any apparent reason, just packed up and left about 600 years ago. Maybe they just got tired of all the ladders?

So it was a good day – no dirt, 4 Wheel drive roads, but a good day nonetheless. We spent the rest of the weekend doing chores, washing the truck (sooooo overdue on that one!), housekeeping, and generally getting on with life.
I’ll leave you with this shot of a beautiful cactus flower. Don’t you just love Spring?

Have a good week!
We’ll stay in touch!

We’re getting settled here at our resting place for April, and I was going through my pictures and trying hard to hit the “delete” button on some of the obvious duplicates and just plain bad shots. And of course, I found a couple more that I wanted to share, too!
Camping in Death Valley
It’s hard to say that we were actually camping in Death Valley. Pretty much what we were doing was parking the house in a big ol’ sand parking lot that happened to have public restrooms.

Now, these guys were CAMPING!

It was fun to watch everyone setting up and taking down. Some even did it daily (not this Boy Scout troup, though).
Some unusual Death Valley sights -
This was on the way to the Racetrack (and the moving rocks) -

A little National Park clutter!
While we didn’t expect to see much in the way of wildlife in the park (though we did hear some coyotes), we did spot these two little guys hanging out around the Salt Creek-


I guess they were out catchin’ some rays!
A couple favorite Windshield Shots -
Our very early morning departure resulted in a beautiful sunrise

which of course eventually turned in to annoying sun in our eyes, but it was nice while it lasted!
This was taken a couple of days later (still morning, still pointing east), and I love the layered mountains in the distance!

Hoover Dam Update
Our next stop after Death Valley was Williams, AZ – the “Gateway to the Grand Canyon”. We decided to take the Hoover Dam route since although we had crossed it in the truck several years ago, we had never done it in Lizzie. (And I must tell you that the security check to cross over the dam was much more thorough than when we crossed the Canadian/US border. They checked all the bays and walked through the rig. Border crossings were pretty much just a couple of questions and off we went.)
ANYWAY – we also wanted to check and see how the new bridge was coming.
This is how it looked in December of 2008 during our first crossing-

A friend sent me an updated series of pictures of the area in a January 2010 email (though I’m not sure exactly when the pictures were taken). Here is one from that series -

And just this week, when we crossed over the dam, the bridge looked like this -

There’s still a ways to go, but I think it’s moving along nicely!
April Fools Day
We reached Williams without delay, and planned to head up to the Grand Canyon for the day on Thursday, April 1. However, after listening to the weather forecast we decided to postpone our Grand Canyon adventure until later in the month. When we woke up Thursday morning, we were pretty glad we decided to wait -

Sunny and bright, but snowy and COLD. I think we made a good decision! Plus, now we have reservations for 3 nights right up at the Grand Canyon for the end of April. Anyone want to join us?
Ah, TREES!
We’re all cozy in our new neighborhood, Prescott Pines Camp, which is outside of Prescott, AZ (pronounced Preskit, so it seems).
We’re up in the mountains (about 6000 ft), parked amongst the beautiful (you guessed it) Pines!

It’s a lovely change from the more desert-type neighborhoods we’ve enjoyed lately.
And Finally -
This is almost a week late (but we were in Death Valley on the day and even had to use a pay phone to call him, let alone find an internet connection to do a post!), but here’s a birthday shout-out to our youngest son, Josiah, who has entered his final year as a 20-something!

(Seen here with his two nieces!)
Happy Belated Birthday, dear one! May the year ahead be filled with blessings and may you walk closely with our Lord!