Lost Dutchman State Park, Apache Junction AZ

Tuesday, November 28th

This morning, when Ray took Freya out for a quick bathroom break, we heard many coyotes. They were really close, just across the road and over the bank. Wow. It sounded like they were coming closer and closer. Freya did not "do her business" and both Ray and the dog came back in right away. It definitely was a pack of coyotes not just a couple. With the campsite being so empty I guess they have no fear of people and after yesterday seeing two of them so close and brazen I am glad we are leaving today.

Today Ray and I part ways with Dianne and Steve for a couple of weeks then we will meet up again at the Lost Dutchman SP for a week of getting into the Christmas Spirit. Hard to believe that the "big day" is less than a month away and we are still in shorts and sandals. It has been a fabulous month of unusually warm weather wherever we have been.

After a 2 hour drive, we arrived at the Lost Dutchman SP. by 11:30 am. Once set up, we ate lunch and then spent the afternoon outside in the shade.

Our view from our campsite, gorgeous. We are in the newest loop and the sites are much more squished together for the most part, but we lucked out backing onto the wash behind with no one there.

Campsite #103, back-in

Around 3:30 we took Freya for a walk down the wash and saw the biggest Chain Fruit Cholla we have ever seen!

Keeping my hands away from that sucker, especially since I already got a needle embedded in my ankle earlier today.

Wednesday, November 29th

Today I got my Christmas bin out of the basement and started decorating ... I know it is still 2 days until December 1st, but as we are leaving here December 3rd, I would like some time to enjoy the laser light Ray will shoot at the Palo Verde trees around our campsite. Need to get into the Christmas spirit as we are leaving for Vancouver in 3 weeks. With temps around 80F it does not feel like that time of year. :) The decorations will be back in their box December 19th until next year.

Christmas decorations up!

While I was busy putting up Christmas, Ray went into Tempe to take his camera lens in for repairs. He has been having trouble with focusing for the past few weeks and Tempe Camera is the authorised service centre for his Sigma Vacation Lens. By the sounds of the traffic he encountered I was glad to have stayed home! :) (It turned out his lens is fixable and at a reasonable price.) Whew....

As it was overcast today and muggy with tons of flies, we opted to stay inside for the rest of the afternoon much to Freya's disgust.

Thursday, November 30th

Hard to believe this is the last day of November and in 3 weeks we will be back in Vancouver for Christmas. Another very cloudy day. Oh well, time to restock the larder and this enforces Ray has another "toes up" day. Later in the afternoon I started a fire to help us get the gumption to go sit outside for awhile, which Freya greatly appreciated. We stayed out until after it was dark so we could appreciate our Christmas laser lights flashing into the palo verde trees. You could see the moon so it seemed to be clearing. Fingers crossed for tomorrow that the sun comes out.

People down here are hoping for some rain though. A friend reported "today Sky Harbour airport [Phoenix] passed a 79 yr record for days with no rain [99 days] and no rain in long term forecast".

This is great for us snowbirds but not great for the residents or animals in this region. Fortunately further north they've had rain so the nearby reservoirs have plenty of water.

Friday, December 1st

The car went in today for it's scheduled maintenance and oil change first thing ... 7:30 am Yowsers! The people at Robert Horne Ford in Apache Junction were excellent. They took the car right in and we had it back in an hour. After that, we went to Mesa Market to do a little Christmas shopping before heading back to Vancouver for the holidays. Although the kids have received their gifts/money in advance, I am looking for some small things to put under the tree. Hopefully they have what I am looking for.

The clouds started dissipating later in the afternoon so we decided to have a campfire looking at our favourite view. Yes, I have my hummingbird feeders and bird feeder out.

We even saw a very large hawk try and land on the top of our flagpole and almost fell so it decided the pole waaay too wobbly! It was pretty funny watching it swing back and forth.

The thinning clouds set up for the most fantastic sunset. Ray was walking back and forth like an "energiser bunny" trying to catch it all from one side of our coach to the other. (Of course the camera barely does the sunset justice compared to our eyes.)

The pink starting to light up the mountains with the super moon. (It will be full on Sunday.)

Getting pinker.

What a view.

After the sun finally set, we sat by the fire to enjoy the evening and I made hamburgers on the barbecue with all of the fixings, bacon, mushrooms and Havarti cheese, not to mention lots of lettuce and tomato. It was tough to do, but with perseverance he managed to get his mouth around this thing.

Ray and his Jumbo Burger! He is a happy camper.

Another awesome day here in Arizona.

Saturday, December 2nd

It was a little breezy overnight, hopefully it blew the clouds away. Other than going into town to pick up a few last minute things, it was a stay at home day. Ray has lots of pictures to work on from the sunset last night. While I barbecued our chicken for dinner tonight, Ray took off in the car to see if he could get some more sunset pictures and/or super moon pics and what great pictures he got!

I'd asked Ray to take a picture of the fall colours showing up on the mountain so here they are:

The trail up to Flat Iron

We thought this was an arch but using Ray's bazooka it showed what it really was ... a bunch of fallen rocks.

Picture of the "Praying Hands" (Just left of centre)

And after Happy Hour is this a Conehead or Ape head???

As the sun was setting ....

Ray took five pics with different apperature settings and combined them as an HDR with awesome results

The next two pics are of Flat Iron.

There are four deer in this picture that Ray saw and 2 more that were out of the frame.

I see a Super Moon on the rise:

First Super Moon of 2017 and we actually got to see it. 

Tomorrow we head west to Buckeye Hills Regional Park for a week before heading back here to the Lost Dutchman SP.