THE YEAR IS ALMOST OVER, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

Hi to Roseann in Salmon Arm.  She sends Mitzy's new dog tag to us every year and enjoys reading our blog.   We're having one of the colder winters that we've experienced down here so far.  It has been windier as well.  Just mentioning the fact, not complaining!   We've had a couple more big card games with friends.  Yesterday, one member from each couple won a game and Aileen was our winner.  She went from last to first place in the last hand!  That was quite a surprise to all of us.
Our new neighbours from Saskatchewan, Steve and Linda, have been out riding a couple times with us but their UTV wouldn't start for the Friday ride.  We tried several things trying to get it to go but weren't successful.  Yesterday, I used our RZR to winch it onto our trailer and we hauled it to the dealer in Casa Grande for them to diagnose.
We bought an all in one Epson XP-830 printer the other day to replace the big old Canon that I've had for about ten years, I'm guessing.   I don't know if it is worth trying to fix it at this point.  It started printing everything magenta and the more I tried, the worse it got.
We are staying put here in the park for Christmas this year for the first time in several years.   We just took a turkey out of a friend's freezer a few minutes ago that we will cook on Christmas Day.  We are getting together with our Colorado friends and there should be at least five couples of us to share in the eating.

This Cactus Wren had a bath in our slideout awning and he hasn't dried completely yet.

We've had some rainy weather and some of the clouds were quite interesting

Fast approaching rain

Can you see the bare bum in these clouds?

That is a band of rain along the bottom of the clouds.  It caught me before I got back to the motorhome.  This is out behind the park.

After the rain, we had several days with a few degrees of frost.  This is the seat on an ATV that was parked where we gather for our rides.

It isn't too often that I get in the picture when we do stuff like this.  I'm usually behind the camera but this time I got my friend Dave to take some of me.

Here's a really distant shot of the Cochran Coke Ovens.  This area has been gated off so we can't go there anymore.  I'm guessing some idiots caused some problems for the rancher who controls the area so we all have to suffer.

This is a Pencil Cholla, also known as a Christmas Cholla as it has these nice fruits this time of year. 

On our trip to the Cochran area on Friday, I took some images with my full  frame Canon 6D to better show the great scenery we ride through.  

This shows South Butte on the left and North Butte on the right.  The Gila River flows between them.  Florence and home is way beyond them and hidden behind South Butte.

The Gila River is at the base of those cliffs where you see the gray band of brush