Whitewater Draw, Wildlife Refuge, McNeil, AZ

November 23rd

Saturday morning we left the Benson I-10 RV park by 9:30 am. A little later than usual, but we had showers and I did a big vacuum from all of the dirt before leaving as we would not be plugged in for the next 3 days. We only had a short little over an hour's drive today so no problem.

Arrived by 11 am and spoke with the other campers. They suggested we squeeze in as Jamie and Eli who had just a tent, would be leaving the next day anyways and squeeze in between them and Josh and Nash, the guides. Took no time to get set-up and we sat outside to enjoy the day. Our view off the passenger side of the coach. These pictures are from my cell phone ... not up to Ray's quality. lol

It is a good thing we did not get here until today. With the rains we had for several days the road in was a mucky mess. In fact, the guy behind us skidded off the road with this truck and trailer and had to be pulled out. The road was dry when we came.

Later in the afternoon Ray and I got our "campfire in a can" out so the 6 of us sat around it for a couple of hours. By 4pm it cools right down outside. I also brought out some antipasto and crackers that were well received. A great day.

Todd and his dog Charlie. His hunting partner, Ed, had already left to go back to Phoenix.

Currently Crane Season is on with limited entry tags. Had no idea that you could hunt these. Apparently they call them the "ribeye of the skies". They taste like beef. You can get 4 large 1" thick by 7" steaks out of the breast and you stew the legs and thighs as they are tough. You can only get a tag for 3 days during the 4 weeks that it is open and can only take 3 birds. This is to keep the population in check as there are thousands of the birds here and only so much space. At the same time hunters are going after ducks and grouse. A busy place, more than normal as the rains washed out a lot of areas that the hunters usually camp. 

Freya enjoying being part of a pack again. Ranger and Zeke are both 2 1/2 year old Brittany Spaniel bird dogs. Ray is sitting next to Jamie. Her and her husband Eli are avid hunters from Flagstaff. They gave us a taste of their Elk Steaks they cooked. I actually liked it. The only other time I have had Elk I didn't like it at all ... must have been due to the handling of the meat, I think.

Nash and Josh, the professional guides.

Nash gave us some crane wings so we could harvest some feathers for our son-in-law Jason who fly ties.

Sunday we went for a walk and then I spent a good part of the day cooking. Today was our "Turkey Day"  A good day with Jamie and Eli leaving and Todd who had been here for the past few days with no new people arriving. The 3 units besides us, the people were all out hunting so not here to hear my "noise". I started cooking the turkey at 2 pm and by 2:30 the little parking lot filled up with 3 camper vans, 2 pop-up campers, a trailer and an a motorhome on top of the 4 units already here. 2 more tent trailers also tried to come here but had to leave with no more space. Yikes. I had started the turkey so needed to keep the generator on to cook it in the convection oven. The people were none too happy, but I told them no one had been here when I started as they did not get here until later on in the afternoon otherwise I would be able to shut it off. I don't blame them from being perturbed, I would not have liked it being them either.

This area was all empty until 2:30 pm. There was one other pop-up in front of the one you can see.

Fortunately they all went out birding at 4 pm and I had the generator off by 5:30 before they returned. The turkey was not a 100% cooked but we were able to take enough off to have dinner. This whole thing kinda took the "happy" out of my day of cooking. Oh well lots of leftovers for the next 2 days. Lesson learned ... only cook a large meal plugged in or way out in the desert by yourself. Ray came in at 4 pm and started watching the Grey Cup on TV while I messed with our dinner. No pictures... I was too upset. Tomorrow I will have to finish cooking the bird and bake the apple pie that was ready to be cooked but didn't.

Monday morning Ray was out the door by 6:30 to get some pictures of the "mass exodus" of cranes heading out to feed. Pretty cold out at 39F. Apparently they did not all take off at once so he will have another chance tomorrow am before we move on to Tombstone for several days. Freya and I stayed hunkered down next to our Big Buddy Heater inside the rig. lol

A few Snow Geese thrown in.

The morning started out well ... I waited  until most people had left with their vans before starting the generator at 8:30 am.  Ray got back  and I put the apple pie into the convection oven as I was unable to bake it last night while making us breakfast. After about 20 minutes the whole power system shut down. The generator was running but nothing was working????? WTF not again. We finished our breakfast and then Ray went out to see if he could figure it out. He swapped out the big fuse again but that was not it. The transfer switch seemed ok. The generator stopped on it's own!! WTF again.

Ray was able to call a repair place about 20 minutes past Tombstone and they were able to take us in right away to diagnose the problem. I  packed up everything, stowing the food in the shower lol as I did not want to open the fridge and off we went.

They spent a good 45 minutes going through the electrical system with their tester. The generator did power up ok and the electrical was working inside again, the fridge and microwave. Apparently the "block" that the fuse is attached to is the problem. The opposite side of the fuse that the guy tried to fix in Flagstaff.  They ordered a new block and it should be there tomorrow. This is the fourth time we have had a problem with that part of the inverting system over the last 6 years.

We drove back the 20 minutes to Tombstone and they were able to fit us in a day early. The guy at Desert RV said we should be able to have power plugged in. Well we plugged in and everything seemed okay. Went out for a late lunch  at Big Nose Kate's and came back and the fridge was off. I ended up cooking the turkey in a roasting pan with broth to finish it on top of the stove, taking a page out of my Dad's book. Later Ray managed to locate a couple of extension cords so the fridge is directly plugged into the power pole and ran another one to the microwave convection ... needed to finish cooking the apple pie and cook off the dressing again to make sure it was okay ... no bacteria. What a day! Fortunately our batteries are fully charged so we will have lights and I hooked up our big buddy heater again so we will be warm tonight. Now we will move the extension cord over to the front TV so we we have something to do tonight as our computers will be dead shortly. (TV did not work either ... maybe there was a loose cord). We were too tired to bother so we just used the extension cord to power down the dish and called it a night! We were in bed at 7:30 thoroughly disgusted.

Hopefully tomorrow goes well ... I was almost ready to take the next plane home to our nice house where everything is fixed and works!!!