Tag Archives: Arizona

Family and Friends, On the Road, Pictures of the Adventure, SOWER Projects, SOWER Projects 2024, The Adventure

Project Potourri

April 25, 2025 steph 1 Comment

Our March SOWER project at Ethnos 360 Aviation (located outside of Douglas, AZ) was unique is so many ways! Here are just ten –

1. We got to help with and attend a wedding!
  It was a small celebration of two widowers who had found love for a second time and we were so honored to be able to share in their joy!
  2. We did not have LIzzie (our RV) with us, and instead stayed in housing on the base.
  We had plenty of room and were very comfortable, even though it was a little weird not having all our ‘stuff’ with us! And we also were a fair ways away from our fellow SOWERs.
  
  We made it work, though – and it did have us closer to where we were working and meeting!
  3. We ladies got to go to a “Ladies Tea”! What a blessing that was!
  
  4. There is a wildlife preserve nearby and we enjoyed the beauty we found there!
  (If you look really hard you can see the flock of Sandhill Cranes to the left of the trees. I mean REALLY hard!)
  4. We also got to do a little exploring with our friends Joe & Kim!
  
  We were looking for Camp Rucker (an Indian War-era encampment) that we never actually found, but we did find some Green. While it wasn’t Vermont-Green, it was still greener than where we had been! And water!!!
  
  And there were trees! Big trees!
  
  It was a fun adventure with good friends!
  
  5. I had my first helicopter ride!!
  
  Probably it will be my last one also – but it was good to check it off the list! (Of course, I had to add it first!)
  6. Lunch with the girls in Tombstone – the town too tough to die!
  
  Super fun to be a little touristy for the day!
  
  7. We watched this older trailer (located just across the street from us) go from this –
  to this –
  
  to this –
  
  After they haul off the debris they’ll be preparing the spot for a new manufactured home for their trainees!
  8. Our work was varied! Along with helping with the wedding prep, we also did some cleaning (both pre-occupants and post occupants)
  
  some Mission Barrel (onsite thrift store!) sorting
  
  (my suitcase may or may not have been a bit fuller on our return trip!)
  and even a bit of sewing!
  
  (We were working on helicopter door covers. Who knew?)

The guys were also working on a variety of tasks – from plumbing

to welding-

to helping with that demolition!

(‘Cause everyone loves some good demo!)
9. After being part of the RV group “Escapees” for twenty years, we finally made it to one of their “Escapades” – a national rally of hundreds of RV’ers (I think there were over 600 units there!) filled with all things RV! We met up with SOWERs who were manning a SOWER informational booth and enjoyed the day connecting with friends and even making a few new ones!

It was a fun Tucson excursion to be sure!
10. And finally – those Arizona skies!

Fabulous.

It was a very special month. We worked with some our closest SOWER friends, and made many new friends along the way! We ventured into a part of the country that we hadn’t been in for many years, and most likely won’t get that way again. We were able to be part of the support team of a global ministry which is striving to bring the Gospel to the multitude of unreached people.

How honored we are to serve in this way!

Thanks for stopping by (especially after such a long time of silence!)-

On the Road, Pictures of the Adventure, SOWER Projects, SOWER Projects 2024, The Adventure

Arizona

March 11, 2025 steph 1 Comment

We made it!
It was a pretty simple trip, direction-wise. Get on I20 (about 3 miles from the house), drive until it dead-ends into I10. Continue on I10 through New Mexico and then into Arizona. Stay on I10 until you come to Route 191 in Willcox. Go south about 55 miles, turn left and then left again – and you’re there! Simple, right?
With the truck packed to the gills, a box of glazed donuts and a Costco-size bag of Cheez-Its handy to keep us fortified, we began our travels a little later than usual (8AM instead of 6AM) to (hopefully) avoid the Dallas/Ft. Worth morning traffic.

We didn’t quite glide through the cities, but we did make it out the other side without incident.

Phew.
We were hoping to get to Van Horn (a solid 600 miles and yes, still in Texas) for our overnight. We made it, but I have to say the last little bit went from a bit windy but manageable

to high winds and reduced visibility.

We were oh-so-happy to stop for the night and we woke to a crystal clear morning!

The wind had settled down and as we drove into New Mexico, all was clear ahead!

But before we knew it, this

turned into this –

And then this popped up on our phones –

Oh. Oh No.
Thankfully the visibility never got to zero, and we were able to continue on safely. Just as we were entering Arizona, a light rain started, which I think helped calm down the dust storms.

A little blue sky even peeked through the clouds to cheer us on!

Finally our last leg down Rte 191

and into our home for the next three weeks!

It’s a sweet little single-wide and we are more than comfortable!

Conrad Clutter abounds!
We are so very thankful for those (almost) 1000 safe miles – and especially thankful that we were in the truck and not the RV! Between the winds and the construction and traffic – it was so nice not to be supersized!

Thanks for coming along on the drive – it’s been a while since I’ve taxed you with so many windshield shots!

Oh – and if you want a little more info about where we are this month, check out the Where are We Now page!

Mondays are for Memories, Pictures of the Adventure, The Adventure

Mondays are for Memories – Critters 2

April 12, 2021 steph Leave a comment

Last week when I did a post about the critters that we’d spotted while we were in Florida, I realized I had done another blog post using the same title. I checked back to see just what that post was about, and it turned out that it was written just about the same time of year, but all the way across the country in Arizona. So, since it’s about time I did one of those “Mondays are for Memories” posts, here you go!

April 19, 2010 – Prescott Pines Conference Center, Prescott, AZ

Critters

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!

Thanks for coming along for this little memory!

Pictures of the Adventure, RV Life, The Adventure

Catching up – Second installment

February 11, 2017 steph 1 Comment

We still had a couple of National Parks to check out before we made that final dash to Waco –
Canyon DeChelly
This was another one of those ‘lesser known’ parks in the Four Corners area of the country, but we’re glad we stopped!

Here’s the opening blurb from the website –
For nearly 5,000 years, people have lived in these canyons – longer than anyone has lived uninterrupted anywhere on the Colorado Plateau. In the place called Tseyi, their homes and images tell us their stories. Today, Navajo families make their homes, raise livestock, and farm the lands in these canyons. The National Park Service and Navajo Nation actively work together to manage park resources.
Because we were stopping here on our way to our next campground, we opted to do the driving tour rather than a more extensive tour of the valleys. Once again we were treated to beautiful views and lots of pueblo ruins.

Here’s a bit of a zoom-in at the base of the canyon wall –

Pretty impressive views all around!

It was a great stop and we’re glad we put it into our itinerary!
(More pictures of the Canyon deChelly HERE) 🙂
Next up – The Petrified Forest and The Painted Desert.
WOW!!

The petrified wood was so interesting –

and very beautiful!

The drive through the painted desert

was spectacular, and the combination of the painted desert and the petrified forest

was pretty amazing.

Lots more pictures of this area can be found HERE. (Funny story about first world problems with the picture taking on this trip. Theoretically it was daylight savings time and I made sure my phone and big-girl camera were set to the same time so when I combined the pictures they would all be in order. HOWEVER, since Arizona does not do daylight savings time, every time we drove into AZ, my phone would change – but of course my camera would not. And then, if we were also in Navajo land, where they do do daylight savings time….well, let’s just say, getting these pictures in order was quite a task. Every park we went into in that Four Corners area had three clocks – Arizona time, whatever state we were in time, and Navajo time. Crazy!)

After the Petrified Forest, we put the pedal to the metal, and pointed the RV to Waco!
Back to Gary’s Journal –
[Following the Petrified Forest] we reconnected the truck and drove to the NM Welcome Center and stayed the night.

Left NM Rest Area @ 6:30. Stopped @ Denny’s for breakfast, drove East I40 to Rt 84. Stopped at Walmart in Lubbock, TX.
Left Walmart and drove East on Rte 84.

Arrived Waco 2:30PM

And that finally wraps up our very long drive from California to Waco long, long ago…..

Thank you for your patience – and for coming along!

Pictures of the Adventure, RV Life, The Adventure

Now where were we?

November 18, 2016 steph Leave a comment

Right – just leaving the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and heading to Page, AZ for our next National Park visit.

And what a beautiful drive it was!! Most of it was a very scenic drive along the Vermillion Cliffs, –

across the Colorado River

up a couple of ‘hills’

and then down into Page, AZ.

Page is a fairly new city, having been founded and then developed only during the building of the Glen Canyon Dam.

And of course, the dam created Lake Powell, which is a huge recreation (boating, camping, hiking, etc.) area.

Now we didn’t take in ALL there was to do the area, but we gave it our best (scratching the surface style) shot!
There was the Dam Tour –

which was made all the more interesting by our tour guide, who was a Page ‘native’ and had lots of stories from ‘back in the day’. Like when he and his buddies would cut school and explore the inner tunnels of the dam, before security shut that down. (He was also a retired policeman, so that added a bit of interest too!)
We took in one fairly long hike to find some “slot canyons”.

It was not only a beautiful drive to GET to the hike –

(more of those beautiful Vermillion Cliffs)
but since the hike was through a “wash’, there wasn’t much of an elevation change to deal with (our nemesis!).

Although the slot canyons at the end of our Wire Pass hike were probably not as impressive as perhaps the more well known Antelope Canyon (Wire Pass – Free. Antelope – almost $100 for the two of us), we certainly were impressed!

We absolutely love the sculpture of these rock walls

A wonderful reminder of the creative beauty of our God! (And the power of moving water!!!)

We checked out a bit of lake shore camping,

(maybe next time!)
enjoyed another short hike

and just generally enjoyed the beauty of the day.

As the sun was beginning to sink and hoping to catch the sunset, we checked out another highly recommended (and short) hike – Horseshoe Bend.

We were not alone in our thought process!

(I confess – this picture really cracks me up!! And – they are ALL too close to the edge!!!)
I guess I’ve seen more beautiful sunsets –

but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen more people hoping it wouldÂ be (more beautiful)!

So that about wraps up our time at the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. There was so much to see and do here (not to mention that it might have been nice just to sit on the beach and stare at that lake) that it might warrant a trip back! But for now – it was pack ‘er up and move on down the road. Â Still to come – Four Corners, Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, and the Petrified Forest.

Next time, okay?

As always, thanks for stopping by. And thanks for your patience as I work on getting this ol’ blog up-to-date between lovin’ on these cutie pies!

I’m sure you can understand my distractions!

Oh – and if you’d like to see some additional photos from our time in and around Page, Arizona, you can check them out HERE!

RV There Yet?

Tag Archives: Arizona

Project Potourri

Arizona

Mondays are for Memories – Critters 2

Catching up – Second installment

Now where were we?

Seeing the country……Serving our Lord!

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Seeing the country……Serving our Lord!