Judging and Hauntings

Sometimes I travel to judge miniature dairy goat shows! I have been judging for over 10 years and love the opportunity to travel to different locations. Usually I don't get to do much sight seeing. This trip will definitely stand out!

One of the things that I love is the ability to take photos while flying. Although they aren't the best quality, I think they still convey what I see.

Lake Tahoe is a wonderful place to visit and we have been there several times. Seeing it from the air shows how beautiful (and big) this lake is!

And, I was able to take a picture of a field where, I do believe, the farmer is showing support of his pick for the next President. 

I really enjoy judging. I love the interaction with the exhibitors and seeing the animals. 

The best part is meeting up with friends I haven't seen in awhile and making new ones! 

Left to Right: Virginia Johnson Gruver, me, Donna Elkins

In room 13 of the Ione Hotel (CA) it is said to be haunted by a drunk man (George) that died there. George doesn't care for male guests! He is said to male guests they can't sleep there (guess he likes women so doesn't bother them)! It is also said he poured a phantom pitcher of water over one man's head!Also, it is said that a prostitute nicknamed the Black Rose killed herself here. Before she died she painted a black rose, right side up, on the wall. When she died, the black rose turned upside down. There is also a "copy" of the rise in the carpet next to the bathroom!

Kayaking, Camping and Fishing

One of the several things Doug and I love to do is go fishing! We don't have a boat though. We fish from our kayaks! We get a workout (sort of) while enjoying one of our favorite pastimes!

We have been on the lake when there have been 20 mph winds, so yes, we did get a workout!

Out on Big Lake a little after sunrise. It is absolutely beautiful and peaceful at that time of morning! 

Waiting for the fish to start biting! And, not stressing about if they do or not! ;)

Wildfires

We live in Arizona. During the summer, we seem to always have quite a few wildfires! This one, the Cedar Fire, is/was burning near Showlow, AZ. Most of the wildfires that start are human caused! It just takes one careless moment.  Please take time to put out campfires correctly!

The smoke was so thick over Pinetop/Lakeside, it literally blocked the sun!

More Geocaching

 Doug and I love looking for caches that are a little off the beaten path! Which takes us to places we normally wouldn't go! But we get to see things we normally wouldn't get to!
Like, hand made signs!

And cows....

One of the things I would like to stress, especially during this time of year, is to watch for critters! I was so intent on looking at my gps to look for a cache, I almost stepped on this little bugger! Scared the jeepers out of me! (I have a phobia of snakes)!

Doug did the husbandly thing and scared the little guy off since he was in the vicinity of the cache. However, he didn't just go slithering off elsewhere! He went UP the tree he was next too! And where do you think the cache was?? In the same tree! Guess he was trying to show us where it was!

We are so lucky to have our four wheel drive, but it does encourage us to take roads that, well, may make others think twice. We are on this one road and ended up with a tire going flat (thank goodness for tire plugs!) and one of our side steps a little higher than the other. Thanks to a boulder we landed on...

We must have missed the sign at the other end where we started out, but definitely saw it at the end of this road!

This is one of the more interesting places for a cache. This stump looked to me like a lion roaring.

After we found the cache, Doug puts back a piece and it looks like the lion shut his mouth!

This is a very old Juniper tree!

And you find all sorts of curious objects in the caches! 

Yarnell Hill Fire (Tenderfoot Fire) 2016

Once again, Yarnell is under the threat of fire! We watch from our house as the smoke spreads and the helicopter and planes fly back and forth to battle the fire. Although we are miles away, wildfires are always a threat!
Between the awesome firefighters and the wind, they were able to keep the fire away from Yarnell!

 Doug drives through Yarnell every day back and forth to work. He was able to get this picture on his way home the afternoon the fire started.

*From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Yarnell Hill Fire was a wildfire near Yarnell, Arizona, ignited by lightning on June 28, 2013. On June 30, it overran and killed 19 City of Prescott firefighters, members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. The wildfire was fully contained by July 10, 2013.

This event resulted in the highest wildland firefighter death toll in the United States since the 1933 Griffith Park Fire killed 29 firefighters, and the highest death toll from any U.S. wildfire since the 1991 East Bay Hills fire killed 25 people. It is the sixth-deadliest American firefighter disaster overall and the deadliest wildfire ever in Arizona.^[2]

Granddaughter Week, part 2.

We also took our granddaughter to Wildlife World Zoo.

Wildlife World Zoo & Aquarium is a 215-acre zoo and aquarium in Litchfield Park, Arizona, United States, near Phoenix. The zoo specializes in African and South American animals, and has Arizona's largest collection of exotic animals.Wikipedia

We took the wagon because it's a big zoo and knew someone would get tired...

I was able to get some pretty good pictures of the monkeys through the glass. These guys were very entertaining!

Kiera was more fascinated by the strange monkey in the corner of this enclosure!

I really don't think you are supposed to pet the exhibits but this bird wanted Doug's attention! It was very sweet.

"Where's dinner?"

I love the meerkats! You can take pictures and caption them all day long!

One of the beautiful finches.

This was funny! Papaw wanted a picture of Kiera next to this duck on the sign. She wasn't entirely sure the duck wasn't going to come after her!

Kiera even took turns pulling the wagon..... However, 

She had finally had enough!

 Well, until we told her we would take her on the log ride.

A great way to cool off on a hot day!

Next, we went to the aquarium! (nice in cool in there!)

This was only the 3rd record breaking day of heat in Arizona!

This piranha was back lit so couldn't resist a picture!

This alligator seemed very interested in what was inside the wagon! ;)

Although it's hard to tell in the picture, the fish was bigger than Kiera!

Grandma showing Kiera how to feed the stingrays (she didn't want to)!

Papaw got splashed when he did it!

Kiera was watching the other stingrays and didn't notice this one coming up to her. It touched her hand and she freaked!! "I touched it's eyeball!" (they are slimy). We told her that she had only touched it's "nose". :D

Last shot of the day was Kiera feeding the fish.

We had a blast with our granddaughter and are waiting for our next visit with her!

Granddaughter Week, part 1.

It's the beginning of summer and we had our granddaughter for a week! She is 5 (going on 6) years old and is a joy to have! Most of the time... ;)

We took her "treasure hunting" (geocaching). She loves doing it but she did have to learn she had to trade items. She has her own cache bag too!

Here she is helping papaw with a cache.

Caching makes for a very educational time for the granddaughter too! Although this snake is not poisonous, it gave us the opportunity to show our granddaughter that you always need to watch!

Which also included this guy! The shadow you see is a javalina! We were lucky he was only interested in being in the shade! We skirted him, he skirted us!

Geocaching can sure take you to some interesting places, like this very large culvert! You had to walk from one side to the other to get to the cache. Our granddaughter loved the echos!

Our granddaughter didn't want to go with us on this one, our 400th find!