Bull Fight at Willard Springs

There were two bulls fighting (practice fighting, I think) at Willard Springs - head to head.  It went on for a long time.  The bull on the left always won, he was either heavier or stronger, or just knew what he was doing.  The bull on the right, after being pushed back, would kick up a bunch of dirt with his front and rear hooves, then come back and start all over again.

You can see how dusty they are, obviously I didn't notice them at the beginning of this exercise.  Sometimes we were outside watching them, or watching through the window of The Palms, or walking nearby.  It was very entertaining, and as I said, it went on for a loooong time.

Facing off:

Kicking up some dirt:

After quite a few loses, the loser walks away...

The white faced bull (my favorite) watches him go:

Can't you just see him thinking, "Hummm, he's a poor loser...."

"Very poor fighting manners.  Too bad, he has such potential."

The loser lets out a LOUD MOOOOOOOO as he stomps away!

As the white faced bull watches, our winner takes off after the loser....

and it starts again.

I really thought they were playing but this exchange got a little rough:

One bull trying to push the other down:

Notice the smaller bull on the left watching?  A lot of the cattle were watching on and off during all the head pushing.

Then they stopped and the loser walked around to the corner of the fenced in area and the winner followed him and it started again - I thought he was going to force the other bull into the barbed wire, but he got away from the corner.

Then look what happens -  some of the other bulls started doing the same thing.  The white faced bull was pretty gentle with the smaller guy, though.

Finally it was getting late, and they all turned in one direction and headed off to wherever they went at night.

But guess who didn't go with them?  Right...  these two were still going at it.

Katie and I were walking along the fence line near the road and were watching.  When they saw us, they stopped head pushing and started walking toward us.  That's not a huge fence separating us, and I started getting a little worried and we turned around and quickly walked back to The Palms.  I could see out the window they went at it again.

All I know is:  they weren't still there the next morning.  What an endurance test!  It was sure fun to watch them.

From me and Katie, have a great Sunday, everyone!  ❤❤

Willard Springs event and some Katie photos

When I was at Willard Springs, there was an event going on in the large field.  Katie and I walked over to see what was going on.   This man goes by "Rooster."  Pretty cool, huh?

This is the name of the group, and the logo shield:

From their website:  The Society for Creative Anachronism (Click to visit their website.) is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. Our “Known World” consists of 20 kingdoms, with over 30,000 members residing in countries around the world. Members, dressed in clothing of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, attend events which feature tournaments, royal courts, feasts, dancing, various classes & workshops, and more.

Here are a few photos I snapped while there.  They were having a contest with swords at the time.

 

It wasn't a public event with booths selling food or items, but was open to the public in the sense that anyone can come into their area and walk around and watch the different activities.  It was interesting.

Lately Katie has wanted to sit outside in her stroller.  In fact, that's what she's doing right now.  She watches the cattle and birds and then will lie down and nap.  I'd never leave her out just on a rope, but in her stroller within eyesight of The Palms, I feel she's safe, and if there are any critters or loose dogs close by in the area, I just put the top down and she can still get the fresh air and the feeling of being outside.

Here's a hummingbird in the foreground that I didn't notice when snapping the pic of Katie:

And finally, a pretty sky after the sun went down:

From me and Katie, have a great weekend, everyone!  ❤❤

Kissed by a bull - or I should say, Slobbered On!

Well, actually not me, but The Palms.  When I woke up this morning and brought Katie out for her morning walk, I went to the truck hood to check underneath and make sure we didn't have any critter visitors during the night.  There was muddy slobber swiped on the corner of the hood, with short, straight black hairs stuck to it.  When I went back out to clean it off, I noticed it went all across the front edge of the hood and the other corner had been blessed by the cow's visit, too.  

And there was dried slobber on my chrome bumper.  Were they scratching their heads on the corners of the truck hood?  Or leaving kisses for me and Katie?

There were hoof prints in the dry dirt around the front of The Palms, and deep prints in the mud on the road next to us.
 

I really wish I was awake when they came by this morning.  I haven't seen them that close to The Palms, usually they are behind a fenced-off area, or out in the field next to us.  But it was nice to know they had been by.  And also that they didn't dent the truck!

Pretty exciting, huh?

From me and Katie, have a great week, everyone!   ❤❤

Willard Springs, AZ, just beautiful! ... Class A Toy Hauler for sale!

WILLARD SPRINGS

So, onward and upward - literally.  After having our new inverter installed in Flagstaff, we drove along Highway 40 to Highway 17 to Willard Springs Road in Munds Park.  It's a beautiful dispersed camping area (boondocking) in the Coconino Forest.  

There's cattle here, which I love, and tons of hummingbirds - all kinds - as well as other birds, and squirrels.  I haven't seen or heard any other critters like horses, coyotes, etc.  

This is a good place to move around, if you're like me and love to move sites frequently.  It's like Quartzsite - good level areas.  Lots of sun for solar people, and lots of shade for people who want it cooler.

This was our first site:

This is where we are now - a more wide-open area:

We had a really long storm night before last, rolling thunder, lots of lightening and tons of rain.  When I woke up in the morning, I saw that we were standing in water and was afraid we might get stuck, so we moved to slightly higher ground.  Here's the dirt road next to us before the big rain:

And this is what it looked like yesterday morning - Yikes!

The area was really drenched - view from the rear kitchen window:

A beautiful sunset through the trees a couple of nights ago:

CLASS A TOY HAULER MOTORHOME FOR SALE

My friend Denise (SASSY'S ON 'DA ROAD) is a Snowbird from Canada who I've known since I started RVing.  Many of you know her, too.  Super cool woman.  Here she is in Quartzsite the first day we met, she drove up, I clicked the photo, and we introduced ourselves.  Her little dog, Benny, is in the crate behind her seat.  We had been reading each others blogs, so we were already blogger friends:

 
We've been friends for a number of years now, reconnecting in Quartzsite or elsewhere in southern Arizona every winter.  Denise has decided to stop RVing and stay in Canada year-round, and is selling her motor-home, a 39-foot 2010 Newmar Canyon Star 3920 Toy Hauler (click on link for her ad).  I've spent time visiting in this gorgeous Class A and can attest to the fact that it's super comfortable and has everything.  Even hot cherry pie and super rich vanilla ice cream:

If you know Denise, you also know she's an avid Harley Davidson fan, and rides her own 2006 Harley Davidson, Heritage Softail Classic that she always brought with her in the Toy Hauler.  I have a bunch of photos of her riding into or out of my campsite on her bike - what a kick!  Anyway, if you have any interest in a really nice toy-hauler, check out the link above for all the information or this LINK for her You Tube video, which has a bunch more video links in the "Comments" section.

(I should probably put a disclaimer here:  I don't own the above motor home and haven't had it inspected, so of course I can't guarantee anything about it.  I'm showing you this info as Denise's friend because I know her and I know she takes care of her things.  I wouldn't hesitate to buy anything from her.  And I'm not receiving anything for posting this info.)

From me and Katie, have a great weekend, everyone!   😊

Goodbye to the fur, feathers and frustrations at Bluewater Lake

I always enjoy myself at Bluewater Lake State Park.  This time was a little stressful.  The first 14 days were really nice, then we had to leave for 6 days out of the park, so we drove to Grants where there's a Walmart and some truck stop gas stations, all of which I use to overnight while in town.

There's a nice park in Grants with a lake running through it that has some cool metal sculptures and beautiful ducks and geese.

I had an odor coming from my fresh water and my whole house water filter was filthy (I must have gotten some bad water somewhere - Storrie Lake, I guess).  So I had to sanitize my fresh water tank when I returned to the park, and when that was done, had to switch out the whole house water filter.

I put the correct amount of bleach into the tank the night before returning Bluewater to let it do it's cleaning magic.

It was really hot, of course, and while I was doing all the filling, driving around the campground to slosh the bleach around in the tank, then dump it out, fill with fresh water and dump again - over and over until the bleach odor was gone.  Actually I couldn't get it gone, and ended up the last time filling/dumping adding some baking soda to get rid of the bleach smell.  Then a final dump and all was well, bleach odor gone, and I filled up with clean water to keep and use.

With all the fresh water fill-ups and dumping, I left my sewer outlet cover at the dump station and when I went back it was gone, so I lost it.  Bummer.

When I finally had clean water again in the tank, I needed to switch out the whole house water filter - it was FILTHY!  While doing that I got water on my solar inverter that was near it in the same area, which wrecked the inverter.

That meant we had no solar power.  (I couldn't turn on the TV and when the charge was gone from my phone and computer, I had to run the generator to charge them up.  The only good thing about that is that I could run the air conditioner, too while the generator was running.  I tried that for one day, but luckily the next day found a non-reservable electric site that had just become available and moved there for the duration.) Whew, that was a long, hot, frustrating day.  I felt like I was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off.

I talked to my daughter afterward and told her all the stupid things I was doing - all the running around, leaving things, losing things, breaking things, forgetting things, etc., I didn't put it all down here, there was more. 😟 She's a therapist and said I was acting like I had ADHD.  That I needed to settle down and concentrate on one thing at a time.  Boy, I sure feel for people who have ADHD - it must be hard.

Anyway, I ordered a new inverter and made an appointment to have it installed the following Friday in Flagstaff, AZ.  Then a couple of days later I got the call from my brother about my mom.

The day my mom died, after hanging up the phone I got out of bed and saw a dozen or so horses around The Palms.  It was so calming.  Usually they stay a while and move on to graze in other places, but that day they stayed all day, in front of The Palms, across the street in the field, alongside the rig, it felt spiritual, somehow.  I've never had a full day's visit from the horses before.  I like to find meaning when strange or different things happen and thought there was some meaning to their all-day visit.

Hey, No Parking!  I guess these colts can't read:

Lots of sleeping going on during the day, the colts would play, nurse and sleep.  So cute.  I'm glad I got to see so much of them this year.

And there were some squirrels, too:

We had a couple of Hairy Woodpeckers and I got a few photos - here's one pecking away at the tree:

Some of the prettiest sunsets I've seen while full-timing have been at Bluewater Lake.  Here's the last one from our visit there this season:

We left on Thursday and headed to Flagstaff, where we over-nighted at one of the local Walmarts.  Then up early Friday morning to head into the repair shop, where we had excellent service by a crew of very nice people.

I would highly recommend this shop, they squeezed us into their busy, full schedule since we had no electricity, got to us quickly, took the inverter that we brought with us, and charged us one hour service charge to install it.

We were soon on our way to the next gorgeous camping spot.  I think we're up to date now, and the next post I'll be sharing where we are and show you some beautiful photos.

From me and Katie, have a great Thursday, everyone!  ❤☺❤