Catching up... Sedona - 3. HOT AIR BALLOONS

I never get tired of waking up to the dragon-fire-breath sound of hot air balloons.  When I wake up to that sound, I always picture a dragon overhead, shooting fire down.  And I climb out of bed fast, throw on some clothes, and step outside to see what's going on and what's going up (or landing).

Many mornings while camped in Sedona I saw hot air balloons either taking off or landing right outside my RV windows.  What a treat!  Usually a lot of my neighbors were also out watching, coffee cups in hand.

Here are a few photos:

Inflating the balloons:

Loading the passengers into the basket:

Fire in the hole!

Almost ready to take off:

Another company had five balloons.  They set up behind my friend, Mike's, van.  (Hi, Mike!)  We watched the three on one side of the road and these five on the other side all take off and fly away.

And up they go:

Pretty cool, huh?  My Sunseeker has become a Balloonseeker for a couple of weeks.  See the balloon behind the tree branch?

Never get tired of this.  And sometimes I lift Katie out of the bunk to come outside and join the fun.  Most of the time she sleeps through it.  :)

And that's the end of the Hot Air Balloon photos.  I promise!  Until the next time they're around us, lol.

From me and Katie, have a great day, everyone!  🎈🤓😍🤓🎈

Catching up... Sedona - 2. JAVALINAS!

My FIRST Javalina sighting!

Diana and I were out sightseeing one morning and she wanted to drive down Schnebly Road a bit.  We went to the end of the road where it's blocked, there's a trail head there, I think.  Anyway, we turned around and were headed back to town, when we were suddenly confronted with a JAVALINA CROSSING!  She stopped the car, and the people coming the other way stopped, too.  We both scrambled for our cameras!  I missed the herd, but got a few good pictures.

The herd (yes, a bunch of javalinas is called a herd) walked up the hill on our left and through the bushes and crossed the street a few at a time, walking across the road in front of us. 

Finally the one below came out of the brush by itself, limping a little, and walked slowly across the street, into the ditch, and up the hill on our right, following the rest of the herd.  What a kick!  I've wondered when I'd finally see some javalinas, and now I have.  Cute little critters!

And away they went.  I can't believe how excited I get about this stuff, BUT I DO!  I love these photos!  LOL

Some facts from ARIZONA-SONORA DESERT MUSEUM website:

"Javelina (Tayassu tajacu) also known as collared peccary, are medium-sized animals that look similar to a wild boar. They have mainly short coarse salt and pepper colored hair, short legs, and a pig-like nose. The hair around the neck/shoulder area is lighter in color giving it the look of a collar. Javelina have long, sharp canine teeth which protrude from the jaws about an inch."

From me and Katie, have a great day, everyone!  😎❤😎

Catching up... Sedona - 1. AMITABHA STUPA

Diana and I camped together in Sedona and then again in Cottonwood, and she got me out sightseeing!  Really!  She had me hiking, climbing, ducking branches and rocks, walking across rivers, giggling in some places and getting emotional in others.  And I totally enjoyed it ALL!  She's already been to most, if not all, of these places, so she knew where they were and the best times to go.  Most were free or inexpensive.  Yay!

I have a lot of photos to post, so I'm going to do one location per post, every day till they are DONE!  Then I'll have a record to look back on.  Some will be short, others longer, and most will be photo heavy/text light.

First, the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park.  It was FREE.  Just drive up and park in the (very) small parking lot and walk up the path.  Beautiful area, lots of flags hung in the trees, offerings left here and there, pottery and statues, bird feeders and water dishes as well as the two large - I don't know what to call them.  Not statues, not monuments.  Well, you'll see.  It was very quiet and peaceful with many people praying and meditating, although Diana and I did a little chatting and giggling.  Can't get the silly school girl out of the women!

"The stupa is one of the oldest forms of sacred architecture on earth, dating back to the time of the Buddha, 2600 years ago. Stupas are mostly found in the East, where Buddhism first took root and flourished. They are indeed rare in the West. A stupa is considered to be the living presence of the Buddha and as such represents the Mind of Enlightenment. Stupas have been built to avert war, end famine, and promote prosperity and well-being. Their sole purpose is to bring benefit for all living beings, and the mystical accounts of the healing powers of stupas are well documented."
-- from Sedona Verde Valley website

Visitors are directed by the sign to walk three times, clockwise, around the first large structure and pray for good things for others, peace, prosperity and the well-being of others.  I wanted to pray for myself, I always have a few on tap, but didn't want to tempt fate, so I prayed unselfish prayers.

Alter at the foot of the stupa, with dishes of water and many stone offerings.

Prayer Wheels - From  their FaceBook page:  Spin them clockwise! Each has close to a billion mantras on a 2000 foot roll of microfilm. Many blessings occur when you spin prayer wheels!! Remember: clockwise.

These bronze Prayer Wheels were beautiful:

Buddha in the alcove of the Prayer Wheel:

"Saturday, March 25, 2017 we had a dedication of three new prayer wheels donated by Mr. Tamaki from Japan, CEO of Tama International. We are so very grateful for his generosity! 20 of his employees and associates came from Japan for the celebration. Mayor Sandy Moriarty spoke as well. Please enjoy the prayer wheels."  From their FaceBook page

Here's the large carved wood Buddha:

Me with the Buddha:

Diana with the Buddha and Chimney Rock in the background:

Various other pieces of sculpture and trinkets, etc. were found as we walked through the area:

It's a pretty small park, but you can wander around for a while, catching new things to see on the various paths that go here and there.  We were there on a beautiful, warm day, a perfect outing!

From me and Katie, have a great day, everyone!   😎❤😍

Onward and upward - heading to Camp Verde. And a tiny RV fix you should try. :)

When our 14 days was up at Lake Havasu, Craggy Wash Campground, Katie and I packed up and headed north to Camp Verde.  We stopped along the way to visit a friend, S.B., who lives in Congress, AZ.  Hi, S.B.!  That's a cool little town, it's where Al and Kelly had their winter home - which they recently sold - and I loved the area.  S.B. and I had a nice visit, Katie had a nice roll in some fertilizer in his front yard (P.U.!), then Katie and I continued on our journey north, both happy travelers.  But one of us smelled better than the other.  😏 

It was such a beautiful drive, we drove through fields of Joshua trees, Saguaro cactus, beautiful flowers along the road, and snow capped mountains in the distance.  A nice, relaxing drive.  This photo shows some of the terrain and the road ahead:

And the road directly ahead:

Joshua trees - photos were taken out the window while driving, so these aren't super clear:

A many-armed Saguaro:

Lots of flowers in the center of the road, it looked landscaped, but I'm sure it wasn't.

I had gotten new glasses at the local Wal-Mart in Lake Havasu City, and was wearing them during the drive up to Camp Verde.  My eyes were KILLING me.  I had something in them, or the prescription was so OFF that I could hardly stand it.  I waited a week for whatever it was in my eyes to go away, but it didn't and finally I went to the Cottonwood Wal-Mart.  I was going to have them check my prescription to make sure it was correct, and also check  the written prescription to my new glasses.  First I went to the Pharmacist to see if there were some drops I could use, and she suggested an eye wash.  I decided to try that first, before putting any more money into getting a new prescription or glasses.

When I got home, I immediately "washed" my eyes.  I've never done that before, and it wasn't anything like I thought it would be.  Instead of being creepy and awful, it felt so cool and good on my eyes.  Immediately they were better.  Weird, huh?  I was thinking, wow, I had something in my eyes, especially the left one, for a WEEK!

Here's me and Katie, talking to Diana out the window - those are my new glasses.  O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?  That's what I always feel like when I chat out the window. lol

Later I went back to purchase some eye drops and couldn't even get my cart into the "Eye Product" area at the end of the aisle.  After chatting with some of the locals waiting to get to the products, I learned that the pollen was SO BAD right then, that everyone was having problems.  I guess I just had pollen in my eyes?  That's never happened to me before, is that what an allergy feels like?  I'm sure glad the problem is gone now. Between the wash and the drops, all is well, and I think the pollen is finally gone.

When Katie and I arrived at our camp area in Camp Verde, my friend John warned me that there were tiny purple ground cover flowers that stained shoes and dog feet.  You can kind of see them here - they were ALL OVER the place!

After walking Katie the first time, the bottom of my shoes were purple!  Luckily it didn't stain anything and washed off with water.  Probably some of the suspicious pollen in the area!

We had some rain and cloudy weather while camped in Camp Verde - I liked this view out my window of the bushes and fields, then low clouds, mountains, sunset, higher clouds and blue sky.  It kind of had everything!  It was dark on the ground, and light in the sky above the clouds.

One day after the rain, an earth to earth rainbow came out - it was beautiful.  And I snapped The Palms right in the middle of it:

Rainbow closeup - it was SO pretty in person:

It was pretty cold, and more snow fell on the San Francisco Mountains in the distance, beyond the Camp Verde hills.

It's been a while since I've had birds in my campsite, and it was nice to see Says Phoebes flitting from branch to branch:

Remember Flat Stanley, the frog at Storrie Lake State Park in New Mexico that was run over on the road?  Well, we had our own Flat Lizzy here in Camp Verde.  Katie LOVES it when she sees a lizard, she goes bonkers and tries to get it.  So far, it's lizards about 500, Katie 0.   This is the first one she found that didn't run too fast up a tree or under a bush.  It was right next to the yellow painted line in the middle of the road.  Pretty little guy.  And according to Katie, it smelled really good!  I practically had to drag her away. 

And here's the Princess, little Katie, taking a nap on her quilt in the middle of the day.

And finally, I have a small RV fix that Kim, of The Travels of Kimbo Polo fame, told me about.  AND she also gave me the materials!  First you need one of the tiny zip ties.  This is a little baggie of zip ties she gave me to use:

I don't know about you, but I've read about people going down the freeway and realizing later that the cover for their hot water heater came off while they were traveling.  Then they had to order a new one.  The circular plastic turning lock thingie, I guess, isn't necessarily that hardy.  So...   All you do is locate the plastic round lock thingie:

and put a zip tie on it.  Easy peasy.  That's it!  It's horizontal when locked, and with the zip tie, it will stay that way.  No turning to a vertical position and slipping through the opening, and then the cover flying off on the highway.

After reading about other people having that issue, I've always wondered when mine would fly off.  Now I know - NEVER!   By the way, that's a vent guard over the cover, a "Flying Insect Water Heater Screen."  You can get them through Amazon.com.  That's where I got mine a few years ago.  It stops Mud Daubers and other insects from getting in and building nests, which can cause problems.

So, that's my tip - from Kim to me and from me to you.  : )

UPDATE:  I was sitting here looking at the photo above, and something didn't seem right.  I just went out and tried to get the cover off, and it CAME OFF!  I might not have done it right. I texted Kim and I'm waiting for her to look at my photo to see what I did wrong. I'll update here after I hear from her.  Maybe not so easy peasy for some of us!

FROM KIM:  You still need to put the white tab all the way down. Also, make the zip tie loop big enough so it can't pull through.   FROM ME:  Duh!  (red face)  That should work.

And from me and Katie, have a great day, everyone!   😊⛰🌧🌈🐸🐦😊