Liz and I decided that it would be a good idea to go camping for my birthday.  We set out from Phoenix to do a loop through Prescott, AZ up through Ash Fork to Williams, then down the dirt roads from Williams into Jerome, AZ before heading home after this short two day, one night get away. Storm clouds threatened us nearly from our door step, but we felt good that we were finally getting the little M416 Jeep trailer on the trail.  This was a project that I took on just before the table saw incident and has been a long time to completion.  She ran perfect; straight, quiet, and took the harsh beating that Arizona roads are known for.  And, this trailer setup is so light, you hardly remember that you are dragging it along.  Our day started early and we were in Prescott for Breakfast.  We hit the store for supplies, then headed north on 89 to the town of Ash Fork.  The skies were dark and as we approached I-40, they opened up and flooded the streets.  We slowly motored up the street through what seems to be a deserted town, then picked up interstate 40 and headed for Williams.  More to ...

Well, we’re off again on this year’s trip. Tonight we find ourselves in Overgaard, AZ. It’s about 4 hours north east of Phoenix and was a good choice to avoid the traffic getting out of town. Tomorrow we push to Taos, NM where we have what looks to be a great B&B to stay at. This trip was a long time coming and both Liz and I are excited to be on the road last. The road out of Payson travels up on top of the Mollogon Rim which reaches into the sky some 7000 feet. On our way up, we passed through a summer storm that dropped rain in front of us most of the way up. We were greeted at the top by a double rainbow and a bright orange sky that looked as though the surrounding pines were ablaze. Not a sight unfamiliar to this area as the surrounding hills are still charred from wildfires in recent years. Thankfully the BLM is wising up and cutting down the underbrush that fuels these fires and we saw plenty of evidence of that on the way here. Tomorrow will be a mildly long day in the truck; traveling from Overgaard, through ...

It has been a while since I've added any content to the site. Life has been busy and it is fixin' to start moving even faster in the next couple months.  Both Liz and I have business travel that will take us from coast to coast over the next few weeks.  Since we will hardly see each other for a good stretch, we decided to take last weekend and hit the open roads of Arizona. Our trip started on Saturday and took us out through Globe and Superior, the later of which I think is a real estate investment boom waiting to happen.  We cruised up route 88 which is a lonely stretch of asphalt that traverses through the outer fringe of the Superstition Mountains before spitting us out at the top of Roosevelt Lake.   The plan was to camp on top of a mesa overlooking the lake and with any luck, we would have the place all to ourselves.  The recent and abundant rains had lifted any chance of fire restrictions and we have a bed full of wood to burn - good old fashion camping. Eventually route 88 turns to 288 and with that came a gravel road. I think the last ...

9/21/2003 - Departure from Reality   I left Phoenix about 7:30 am and was in Flagstaff by 9:30.  There I did some chores before moving on the Page/Lake Powell area.  I arrived at the horse shoe bend of the Colorado around 2:00 pm and loaded up the camera gear for the short hike over the hill.  I struggled to get the whole scene in with my wide angle lens and was shocked to find out that you practically need to shoot strait down over a cliff to get the shot.  I think the right lens would be a 8 – 10 mm fisheye if you are shooting digital.  I may stop on the way back and shoot the film body to make sure I get it.  I’m sitting on a cliff that must be 2000 feet above Lake Powell watching the sun set over my shoulder and lighting afire the canyon walls before me.  This was a nice surprise with today’s flat skies.  Water is extremely low exposing much of the low level shoreline. It’s pretty clear that we are suffering from a wide scale drought.    My lookout is known as Alstrom Point and proved a difficult find even with the modern ...