Thursday, November 8, 2018

Bulldog Canyon - Tonto National Forest - Mesa Arizona

When I began writing this we were relaxing on a site in the Bulldog Canyon OHV (Off-Highway Vehicle) Area in the Tonto National Forest. The weather was perfect, sunny and 75°f.

Our journey has been interesting this year.  Our first stop was near Troy, NY and we were able to visit with my daughter Sarah and her boyfriend Max.


We continued our journey with one more stop in upstate New York. It is such a pleasure to be able to visit with a dog handler I served with in Vietnam 50 years ago, Walter Ballard and his wonderful wife Donna.


Next up was Debbie and Jeff Obrock. What a wonderful couple.


Life is good! Then it happened. Our trailer was broken. See previous post. We bought a new trailer. However, our travel plans were scrapped. We went on to visit Debbie and Richard Dirksen, who made some tater tots that we described having at a restaurant. Wow, what fun. Next up was Tim and Flo Kooi. We went to church and Sunday school with Tim and Flo. Then we visited Kay's Aunt Myrtle Kooi and cousin Janice (Kooi) Head in Streater, Illinois. 


While in Streater we visited with another cousin of Kay's, Sherri (Kooi) Sears and Tim Seers. It is so much fun to connect with family and friends as we cross the country.

Tim and Sherri Sears
From there we went on to Iowa and visited with Larry and Yvonne Voss, friends from Tuxburypond RV Resort. Sometimes we forgot to take pictures. Well, there's always next year.

As reported in our previous post, we couldn't go to Mount Rushmore because significant snow was in the forecast. We turned South and backtracked to Kansas City and met up with Mark and Karen. Mark also writes a blog: https://ourfutureinanrv.wordpress.com/. If you are thinking about buying an RV, then this blog is a must see!

While we were in Missouri, Jeannie, Kay's cousin's daughter saw that we were there and messaged us. Wow, we got together. What an unexpected treat!

Jeannie and Mike
Next up, Colorado Springs. We had to drag our feet for a week because the temperatures would be too cold and our water lines would freeze. When it warmed up we were able to visit with my son Bill and his lovely wife Denise. We also got to visit with my cousins Clyde and Kim, and Harvey and Mary Lou. Again we forgot to take pictures.

However, Kay did manage to take some pictures as we drove to the Tonto forest.

Fog rolling over the ridge

Snow capped peaks

Beautiful drive through the canyon
We love Bulldog Canyon and the wild horses..

Jake checking out the wild horses

More wild horses near our campsite

Love the desert sunsets

Wild horses near our site

Jake checking out the wild horse on the edge of our site

Ocotillo

Saguaro and desert vegetation

Our new trailer all set up in the desert. Free camping.

Cacti

More cacti

Palo verde


Our trip so far, or, how we avoided bad weather

Next up, Yuma and then El Golfo de Santa Clara, Mexico.

We are at Yuma Lakes RV Resort and will be here until the registration for our new trailer is resolved.