Choices, choices...

Yayy, I have a bedroom again!

MOST of my time this spring of '18 have been spent regenerating my southern home from the disaster of Spring '17.  The year of the "FLOOD"

...and a spare for daughter Holly.

People ask me unknowingly how I could possibly have a flood in the desert, after all, what you see on the tele are sagebrush, Bugs Bunny and dry riverbeds.  It's true that running water her is a rare commodity for anyone having grown up in Northern States or of course, Canada.

Course that's irrelevant if your toilet tank splits and the water is turned on, hence my flood within my humble abode.

My yard is cleaned up too but brutally hot!

The last two times here, were spent living out of a suitcase so to speak and waiting growing increasingly impatient with what seemed like a deliberate delay by the constructions people hired to do the job.  It took them 6 months to repair what amounted to a complete downstairs reno and half an upstairs.  The fact that it seemed to me very poorly planned, waiting for one portion of the job to be done before thinking about the next step in line.  I don't know if they were simply incompetent, maybe don't like Cdn's or it could have been deliberate, after all no need to put me off if I'm not here right.  We could have had two complete homes built from the ground up in the 6 months they puttered with my place.

Nevertheless, I have officially moved back in and managed to feel like I was living here once again.

Kitchen is more or less back to normal

Boo of course practically lives here year round in any case and I often joke she'd the only cat in the state with her own condo! It's nice of her to let me use her digs once in awhile.

She is a highly esteemed pal to me, and besides the furry company for which I am grateful for, I also have a local male all black that comes around and visits routinely.

I used to come here more frequently and generally in fall months and will continue to do that for the near future.  Much as I hate being cold, desert heat can be quite unbearable as well.  This trip there has been several days where the thermometer has been over a hundred degrees and new records have been set already.  Just a couple of days ago we reached 106 and to be honest, I can't ride in that kind of heat.  Don't forget, if its a hundred here in the valley, out of the city among the .rocks and canyons, it can be 10-15 degrees hotter yet.  Many years ago while riding my Seca 600 with then 16 yo Lisa on the back on a 7000 km round trip to Hollywood and return to Calgary, we experienced temperature in the mid 120 (50C) and let me tell you, that was pure hell, maybe hotter!  Fortunately next week is only in the mid 90's.

Unfortunately I would have preferred that while planning my XT 350 travels this trip.

People die out here every year.  It can be a furnace among the rocks

After Holly left I continued the task of getting this place ship shape and in the evenings I'd peruse the maps looking for doing some ground I'd not covered before.  I had the use of a Dodge Dakota this time around so was actually planning on driving some of the highway mileage, much more comfortable that getting battered on the slim lightweight dual purpose bike I was riding.

Rare outside the Sonora but plentiful here and in Baja Saguaro cactus

I had wanted to find the Old Stagecoach Road loop and close that but because of the pick up, I felt something a little more ambition would be more suitable and so it went.

THE Dr was going to redo some of my favorites especially the Fish Creek portion of the entire Apache Trail to Roosevelt and unload the bike and ride the East side of the largest lake in AZ (I've read)