MADE IT TOO CALIENTE TODAY

We arrived here at our winter hangout about noon today.  We travelled 2750 kms (1719 miles) since leaving the Shuswap.  We travelled on nine days, hung out for six nights in Penticton before crossing the border, stayed three nights in Mountain Home, ID then seven nights in Alamo, NV and two nights in Congress, AZ.  This was out most leisurely trip south yet.  Our longest travel day was 521 kms (326 miles) which most of the crew thought was too far. 

I think the carport was the dirtiest I’ve seen so far since we’ve been coming here so I guess that is a result of some of the severe storms that went through in the summer.  I swept and vacuumed then hosed it all down, sweating profusely since it was over 90F.  Both ATVs have been started, the foil shades removed in the park model, power and water turned on and lots more organized.  I also did five loads of laundry before supper.   There was lots of chatting with friends who have already arrived.

October may have been the hottest on record here but the forecast has the temperatures dropping considerably over the weekend.  I enjoyed the hot tub and pool tonight and Aileen found the pool temperature to be good for her, too.

No photos today. 

BACK TO ARIZONA AGAIN

Our week in Alamo, NV went by quickly.   Getting out geocaching led me to some interesting places.  I did have a couple of part days doing the ET Highway caches but it quickly started to feel like work, getting ten caches every sixteen minutes.  I decided I much prefer the back roads and some of the ones you have to hike in to.   I really enjoyed one called Bucky’s Point that I did on Monday.  It was about one kilometer walking each way and the scenery was really neat.   Since it would appear most people come to this area to make large numbers of finds, nobody had visited this cache since November of 2011.

Today, we moved down the road and are spending two nights at North Ranch at Congress, AZ.  This is an Escapees RV Club park and I took the opportunity to join Escapees today.   I have been considering joining them for years and by doing so today saved half of our membership fee with two nights savings.  We are now within about three hours of our home base at Caliente in Florence, AZ so hopefully that will be an easy drive on Friday.

The cache is beyond the pointy little hill just to the left of the car

On top of the pointy hill looking back to the car that is that little bright spot at the bottom of the road.  You'll have to click on the picture to enlarge it enough to see, likely.

What I was walking alongside of, looking back

And looking ahead

The little town of Alamo, NV from Bucky's Point

And from down in the valley looking back up to where I was.  That's Bucky's Point under the word cache.  The road went up the valley behind the cache then climbed way up the back side of the mountain.

SPENT JUST ABOUT AS LONG TAKING PICTURES AND EXPLORING AS CACHING TODAY

A view from my first cache today looking across the valley just north of Alamo, NV

This was near an area known as Hell's Half Acre

I was very impressed with the variety of rock formations in this area

A telephoto shot into the photo above

I'm not sure but this might be Purple Loosestrife

Could not ID these

Cuddling

Dinosaur

Ancient One

Chowing Down

Cats

Contemplating

ALAMO, NV A GEOCACHING HOTSPOT

And it is a pretty spot too.  We moved down here on Wednesday after a night in Wells.  We had heavy winds and rain our last night in Mountain Home and for the start of our journey when we left on Tuesday morning.  The drive south from Wells was great as it is a beautiful highway.  The road surface is excellent and very light traffic so it made for a relaxing drive.  There were several degrees of frost at Wells so it was good that I had disconnected the water hose the night before.

We are staying a week in the Alamo RV Park.  That’s pretty unusual for us but the weather is about perfect here and there are thousands of geocaches in the area.  We are less than 100 miles for Las Vegas where the temperature is much warmer.    We are about 760 kms from our winter lot in Caliente at Florence, AZ but I think we will take three days to do the run.  The plan at present is to leave here Wednesday the 29^th and arrive in Florence on Friday the 31^st.  We all know how loose my plans are don’t we?

I cached along the Extra Terrestrial Highway yesterday finding 106 caches, my largest day ever.  Today, I cached closer to home and settled for 41.  I did more photography and exploring today.  I may go back to the ET tomorrow or perhaps something else will strike my fancy first.  

Interesting cloud on our drive south on Wednesday

Rolling along down the Great Basin in Nevada

Who else should at the start of the ET Highway than old ET himself

There were 82 ET caches before the road made a turn.   I biked over half of it riding up hill caching then coasting back to the car and moving it further along the road.

There were some nice Joshua Trees along the way

There was a geocache on top which I got

Then I had to climb up the other side for another.  Can you see my car way down there below the first hill?

I think this is a Side Blotched Lizard

From the same spot, I zoomed in to 1200 mm equivalent then put the digital zoom to its maximum of 200 times.  Canon SX50 of course, as are all of the above.  The shots below are from my Canon 6D.

A late afternoon yesterday shot of the hills above Alamo on the east side

And a morning shot today

The hills to the west are an amazing variety of rock formations

Lots of hidey holes here

And another shot of the hills above Alamo taken from the south early this afternoon

STAYING PUT AND GEOCACHING

We have stayed three nights here in Mountain Home, ID and I have been out geocaching both yesterday and today.  I have mostly done my caching by bicycle, riding for a few kms then coming back and moving the car up.  Certainly one way to get some exercise.  I do get to better experience the country though.  Both areas I cached in had very little traffic so very peaceful and the weather was superb although a little too warm this afternoon.
We have changed our travel plans again and are now thinking a spending a few days in the Alamo, Nevada area giving the weather in Caliente a chance to cool off a bit.

My trusty bike out in the middle of nowhere

This is the Owyhee backroad scenic byway and this road runs all the way to Jordan Valley over in Oregon.  It turns to gravel just beyond the curve in the distance.

Bev Mc, here's a #2 maple leaf for Pearl

Looking back toward the NE from where I turned around on the scenic byway.  All the above shots were taken with my Canon 6D

The rest of the following are from my Canon SX50

A computer screen grab shot showing a very creative geocaching series.  All those green and a few yellow treasure chests are individual geocaches.  There are over 800 making up the train and puffs of smoke/steam.The line of them curving around the bottom are where I was working today.  The dark green squares and circles in the top right are irrigated hay fields.

A little ground squirrel I met today

He is a White-Tailed Antelope Squirrel

I also met this pronghorn just after getting onto the gravel part of the road

Or was it a Unicorn I saw?

MOUNTAIN HOME, IDAHO

After the grand total of 196 kms today, we have decided to spend a night or two at a Good Sam park in Mountain Home.  I parked Aileen in a wide spot where she could nap while I drove out to Bruneau Dunes State Park to check availability.  There were only two vacant sites and I met three RVs coming in when I was going out so that wasn't too hopeful.  Maybe we will try tomorrow or Monday.  There is a mess of geocaches further west from there that I'd like to try for so it would be a lot closer if we were down at the park.
I took my cameras and roared down that way after supper tonight and managed a few shots but quickly ran out of daylight.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Yesterday's shot at Catfish Junction with the SX50

This morning with the 6D

This evening near Bruneau Dunes looking south 6D

And across the other side looking north 6D

Bruneau Dunes this evening SX50 hand held at 865 mm equivalent.  

Canon 5D Mark 2 on tripod, 100-400 at 400 with polarizer using mirror lockup then cropped.  This image is nowhere near as sharp as the SX50 image.  When I zoom in on the SX50, I can recognize the shape of a man walking down the ridge.  With this image, the shape isn't discernible.  This was a bit of  a shock to me.  

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