Quartzite, the pictures

It is Tuesday morning, January 27: I woke up at 7:30 and it is too cold to get up so I decided to blog. I just downloaded my pictures to my computer so I can share some of what I see every day with you all. I know I won’t get any sympathy when I say that it only got up to about 55 degrees today - but there was a bitter cold north wind blowing all day so dad and I stayed in the trailer all day. Hope-fully tomorrow we can go wander through the bazaar again. I understand it was really cold up North today too and the storms from Sunday and Monday are now causing all sorts of havoc clear across the nation. (It is now Thursday and much much warmer. We will go four wheeling this afternoon - yeah!!)

Anyway - this is a picture of our home away from home. As you can see we have ‘prettied it all up”. The morning after we got here I opened the door and here was the rock decorations with the solar lights - Ed had gotten up a couple hours early and had set out a row of rocks and then a circle of rocks with a solar light inside it and then more rocks and then another circle and so on. We bought the woven mat down here and it matches the color of the trailer really nice. The hummingbird hook holds the pretty metal wind decor so we are in great shape.



To the right of the trailer is my whirligig that blows in the wind. Here is a picture of it but its not blowing enough to make it spin. Then of course, the American Flag is always flying every day.


This is a tree that is just behind our trailer - it has such a personality. I think it is gorgeous! Of course it is desert green. And its prickly. Everything in the desert stings, pokes or pricks!!





I mentioned in my last blog that I ran into a friend that I used to work with at Job Corps and she and her husband went four wheeling with us.

I thought that this picture shows very well the type of country we are traveling over and camping in. Lots of rocks and desert landscaping. Very dry country.






Here is a picture of Jimmy and Jana and our friend the teddy bear choya where we stopped for an hour for lunch. We hiked around and sat and visited and relaxed. The choya are so big and full this year...I don’t know if its because of last years cool winter but they all looked so healthy this year.



The red barrel cactus show up well in this picture. I thought they were so pretty I had to buy some!! Ed and I picked out about six or seven different types of cactus and we are going to plant them out in front where the trees used to be. The only one I didn’t get that I would like to was the saguerro. I hope we can keep them dry enough!!!



The picture on the right is just a gorgeous canyon above Dripping Springs











This is the actual springs - very small and just dripping, not running!

Quartzsite

WOW!! there are sooooo many people here right now. But the weather is nice - it has been in the 70's almost every day although a little too windy. It rained off and on yesterday but still is warm. We have had fun shopping in the open bazaars - all the booths are crazy...and they are selling all sorts of fun stuff.

We bought a propane campfire that I am going to love. You can expect to get to roast marshmellows and hot dogs at grandma's house from now on.

We have tried all week to get online - the local library has Wi-Fi and we go and get the code and then can't get on because there are way too many all ready on line. I was lucky today.

I have taken time to read and comment on everyone's blogs and they were so fun. I am not even going to take the time to read my emails today. I've been here almost an hour just reading the blogs!

My Aunt Bonnie passed away - she is the one that lives in Littlefield AZ and we knew the end was near. We stopped on the way down and visited with her a little bit. She has had emphysema for years and now her poor heart simply gave out. Dad and I will drive up for the graveside services while Ed heads to Dayton Ohio. Littlefield is about 15 minutes from Mesquite.

Your cousin Sheena has thyroid cancer. I know very little about that cancer. Tbey removed part of her thyroid and when it was discovered that it was malignant they have set up another surgery to remove the rest of the thyroid. We will try and keep you all updated on it. SCARY and she is only 34! Same age as Mauri. Also, I just heard that Misty had a miscarriage on Monday and is broken hearted. Kevin's family are really suffering right now. Keep them in your prayers

I ran into a friend at Church Sunday that I worked with at Job Corps just before I quit in 04. Jana and her husband Jimmie also have 4 wheelers and we all went for a LONG ride on Wednesday. IT was great fun. Your poor grandpa was so totally exhausted - we were gone for five hours although we did stop at dripping springs for lunch and stayed about an hour there. So only four hours of riding. (He wasn't sure he could handle two!!) He was a trooper though and seemed to enjoy it all.

Well - I've been gone for almost four hours doing laundry, shopping and blogging. I better close and head back to the trailer.

We love you all and wish you could come down and enjoy the warmth for a few days with us. Take care - I love you all.

mom

Body Worlds

Ed and I went to the Body Worlds exhibition at the Leonardo last night. It was worth the time and effort and money it cost. It was simply fascinating. The only bad thing was that we had a hour and 45 minute wait to get in. They started us in a line in the basement where it wound back and forth and back and forth and then woo wee, we got to go upstairs ....to more line!! It wound back and forth and back and forth and then we got to go upstairs again....to more line, but this time it was only a 15 minute line!


They scanned our ticket and we took a few steps and then we stopped and picked up the earphones that we had paid for and finally headed into the exhibition. It was fascinating, interesting, educational and beautiful. The full body skeletons (with and without musculature) were simply a work of art. There have been complaints that it was an abuse of the dead bodies but the people that signed up to have their bodies plasticized knew exactly what they were signing up for. The sheer amount of education alone would be worth going for. I am sure that doctors all over the world have learned much by touring through the exhibits.

The most beautiful thing were the sheer lacy exhibits of the arterial system that was shown throughout the whole exhibit. Imagine if you will a deep rich red lacy 'hand' - all the bone and tissue and skin have been removed leaving only the actual arteries getting smaller and smaller and smaller, more and more delicate.


Jamie had mentioned that she would have been upset by the babies - and actually that display was the most unreal. They simply looked like dolls - plastic dolls. None of them were cut open or taken apart (thank heavens) to show the different parts of their bodies like the full sized plastinated bodies were. Simply 'dolls' at different levels of maturity before birth - 16 weeks, 22 weeks, etc. The fascinating part of that display was the glass tubes showing them at 8 days - twelve days, 18 days etc. Finally at nine weeks you could see the full baby - about 1/4 to 1/3 of an inch long - you could see the eyes and face and mouth - the hands and fingers, the legs and toes. So truly amazing and yet so little.


I am so glad that we went. I learned so much - for instance the adrenal gland that sits atop the kidneys - what arteriosclerosis looks like, what cigarette smoke does to the lungs. I learned that someone can literally die of a broken heart and why!! I learned that the heart is such a miraculous organ.


I am thankful for the chance I had to see inside of the human body. Most of us will never get a chance to see it.


It was worth the wait!

Draper Temple

As I was driving home tonight from Lehi, I looked (as I always do) to see if I could see the new Draper temple...knowing that it wasn't open yet but maybe I would be able to see it anyway. As I finished coming around the point of the mountain and got to the bottom of the hill I looked up and glowing in the dark was the temple.

It was so beautiful - the mtns are behind it and it glows like the House of God that it is. They church is offering and open house from January 15 through March 14!! Two Full months. I guess they figure there will be ALOT of people that want to see it. I do... lets plan on going after Dirk gets home from Afghanistan.

snow ... Snow ... SnoW ... SnOW ... SNOW!!!!

Its snowing....

AGAIN!!!


STILL!!

What does it think it is ...January or something???

When I got home from my walk (COLD!! -- 19 degrees!!) on Monday I checked the temp outside and was amazed that it was snowing so heavily at only twenty degrees - I always thought it had to be warmer outside to snow - closer to 28 degrees. NOPE! So I thought - this is a good stay at home day. I changed the sheets, did the laundry, cleaned the houe, watched Treasure Planet (a cute movie I had bought for my grandkids a couple of years ago and never watched. It is a FUN movie!!) while I knit more pretty hats. After the movie was over I watched all the bonus material ...added another couple hours of the day. About 7:30 I went outside to take the trash can out to the curb and got out the snow shovel and cleaned the driveway, in front of the mail box, and the sidewalk up next to the house, along with the porch. I figure there were 5-6 inches of snow. It had quit snowing and I thought - ahhh, that's well done .... now tomorrow the sun can come out and melt everything else down and I will have dry cement!

HAH!! I got up this morning and the temp had moved up to a warm (?) 26 degrees! Again, it was snowing and again I got home from my walk drenched from the snow. (By the way, the duckies are starving so if any of you have old bread, stale cereal, or weavilly wheat - save it for me so I can feed it to the birds!)

I decided to go ahead and clean the walks and driveway off again thinking that the snow would be stopping SOON! By the time I came in the house I was aching in every upper body muscle. I took a short nap and then a HOT bath and waited for the snow to stop so I could run over to visit Jill and up to see my dad. HAH!

It is now almost 4:30...I did tromp through the snow out to the mail box to get the mail and to drag the trash can back to the house....but that is it!

It is beautiful though - the flakes are huge and it is so serene outside. I am so thankful for my nice warm house... I think I will go put another movie on!
Maybe White Christmas!!