Sedona/Cottonwood/Camp Verde Boondocking Photos

I'm so behind posting photos - I'm going to put a bunch here that I took in the Sedona/Cottonwood/Camp Verde area when Jeanne and I were boondocking there on Forest Land. The weather was great, and we had a really good time.

Sedona has a Farmer's Market on the weekend and I found some great local honey there.  This is the beekeeper/owner of the honey that I bought.  I've never been a honey person, but there were a couple of booths at Quartzsite, one in the Big Tent and one outside.  They had the BEST honey.  Next year I'm going to buy gallons!  Now I'm looking for local, fresh honey wherever I go, and this man had a couple of kinds that I really liked.

While we were walking around the town of Sedona we walked past some REAL flowers - not desert blooms, but real city flowers like my mom used to grow, and like I had, too, when I had a house.  I had to snap photos:

When I lived in Camino, CA, I had a hillside that was full of these Iris.  It was beautiful when they were in bloom.  I used to cut them for a large vase on the dining room table.  

One day while camping in Cottonwood, it was SUPER windy and Katie had to go potty.  I put her Doggles on her, and she was a good girl and kept them on until she was ready to climb back into The Palms.  It's been a while since we've needed them, but that sand was really blowing!

Here's Katie yawning with her Doggles on.  It's so tiring being famous!

Speaking of Katie, she stepped in a red ant nest again, and here she is holding her leg up in the air.  She was panting like crazy - and looking a little crazy, too - with her ribs heaving in and out.  Her leg was shaking, her tongue was sticking up, and she wouldn't let me near her.  

I prepared the baking soda/water solution in my squirt bottle and waited until she settled down a little.  Every time I tried to get near her, she acted like she was going to bite me.  Finally I got a squirt of the solution on her foot, then more a minute later.  Not long after, she was up and running around.  That stuff is AMAZING!

I had two commenters asking the ratio of baking soda to water and answered them in the comment section.  Thought I'd copy it here for people who don't read comments but could use the info:  "Wil and Zooperson: The recommended ratio is just to make up a paste and apply to the bites. That would work for a person (or a pet that will just lay there and let you smear it on). Since Katie won't let me NEAR her and I do believe she would bite me - she is in so much pain and distress - the first time I watered it down, put it in a clean squirt bottle that's made for ketchup or mustard. I held it above her and just squeezed. She let out a scream when it hit her, but almost immediately calmed down a little, and I squirted more on her foot. The bite was between the pads of her foot, and the liquid landed on the top of her foot, but it dripped down and got the right place. She went from intense pain to normal in an amazingly short time."

We took a drive up to Jerome, AZ one day.  I loved that town, it reminded me of Placerville, CA where I used to live.  It's sitting on the side of a mountain, and all the old buildings have been either kept up really well, or refurbished.  An old, old town which is a tourist attraction now, but there are still homes all around the town.  I'd love to live there.

I didn't see a lot of different birds, but here are a few:

Black-throated Sparrow

Red-tailed Hawk

Verdin - the first bird I checked off in my Field Guide

These flowering cactus plants are the first I saw in 2016.  All of a sudden the plants around us in cottonwood were in bloom.  I thought these were the prettiest:

Now this next picture is kind of creepy, I think.  He looks like a kind of cricket or non-green grasshopper, but he was pretty big.  He blended in well and I'm surprised I saw him.  The "kind of creepy" thing about him is his face.  Don't you agree?

Next - I have to post another hot-air balloon photo.  Everywhere we camped, we saw them, and often they were headed right toward us, or landed on our road.  It was pretty exciting.  They are so large and beautiful, just floating along in the breeze.  I don't get out of bed at the crack of dawn, so I missed a lot of the balloons that other people nearby saw.

And now I have to post some cattle pictures.  It was really fun camping out in the middle of nowhere and having cattle traveling by us.  They would stop, eat, rest, MMMMOOOOOOO, then move on.  I loved having them nearby.  Sometimes I would hear them in the morning, or after I'd gone to bed.

A couple of funny stories:  The first one was when Jeanne and I were camped near some other people and we were all sitting outside in the early evening chatting.  Then we heard REALLY LOUD, AGRESSIVE MOO-ING.  It went on and on, right across the street from our camp sites.  We got up and walked over and saw this huge bull, roaring and roaring and roaring.

It went on forever, and then he walked around behind our campsites:

Still making a LOUD roaring moo-ing noise.  He was obviously in some distress and wanted us to know about it.  Finally he moved on.

A day or so later, look who I saw right below our sites:

There he is - with a cow and new-born calf.  I think the cow was below him in the valley giving birth when he was up on the ridge of the valley across the street making all that racket.  Worried, proud, warning us off?  If I spoke Bull language, I'd probably have a REALLY good story to tell you, but this is as good as it gets.   

Then the other cattle story was when I was going into town and headed down our road.  I had to stop for a real-life cattle crossing:

There was a car in front of me, and when it was coming down the road, some of the cows backed up to give it room to pass.  The other cows just stayed where they were. They weren't moving an inch - look at their faces - "Can't you see we're trying to cross the road?"  They had some calves with them, too.  You can see a white calf hidden behind the large black one above.

After the car passed it was so funny.  The little one started out, then they all just stood there looking at me.  I decided I had all day and was enjoying watching them, so I parked there taking photos until they were all across the road and walking away:

And finally, a beautiful moon-rise one evening.  there were so many gorgeous sunsets and moon rises, but I especially liked this one:

That finishes the pics I wanted to post from Sedona, Cottonwood and Camp Verde in Arizona.  I loved boondocking in all the places we found and I'm sure I'll be back.  There was at least one camping area I didn't travel to, but that's on my list, too, for next time.  It's a beautiful, interesting area with lots to do, and just perfect for doing nothing, too.

From me and Katie, have a wonderful Monday, everyone!  :)