Ajo (ah-ho, not A-hole)

The past couple of weeks Cindy and I have enjoyed visiting some of the area attractions. We headed down to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The park sits in the lower part of Arizona south of Gila Bend and borders the Mexico border. Needless to say we stayed on this side of the border and chose not to visit Lukeville, Az., a border town. There are some towns on the border that one crosses and there are others where it’s just plain smart to stay away from, and Lukeville is one to stay away from.

We left the park and some hiking and headed to a town called Ajo( pronounced Ah-ho, not A-hole as some of us do.) The town was home to a very large copper mine, the mine itself is actually 1.5 miles across and employed over 1000 workers until shutting down in 1985. Ajo is a small town with a few restaurants, shopping and some mission buildings.

Ater leaving Ajo we headed back to Gila Bend and enjoyed just lying around in the 70’s degree temperatures. After closely watching the weather map I now know why people head to the southwest part of Arizona. While everyone ( including Florida was freezing ) we were enjoying the temps in the mid 70’s in the day and mid 40’s at night ( makes great sleeping weather).

Wednesday, Jan. 13th, we had an opportunity to go to the bombing range just south of us. Now I have not talked very much about the bombing range( in fear of worrying some of you at home) around here but I will try and fill you in on what it is. There is between 1 and 2 million acres of desert here that is owned by the govt. and used for every kind of training from all of the branches of the military. It is not uncommon for us to be sitting outside or in the camper and hear them dropping live bombs. Sometimes they drop the BIG ONES (someone said around 500-1000lbs) and you actually feel the after shock of it. We have also had the opportunity to hear the A-10 Wart Hogs use live ammo ( 30 mm) , it shoots 3900 rounds per minute, 50 rounds the first second and 60-70 rounds per second after that, so what we hear at the rv park is the sound from this huge gun being used. The sound we hear is nothing more than a loud zipppp to us. The day we went to the bombing range they had the F-16’s dropping dummy bombs and firing live ammo. It was quit the experience to be able to stand on the tower and watch them fly by where you could actually see the pilot and watch them shoot at the targets ( see pictures). The only disappointment was that the A-10’s were not out that day but we did get to see quit a show put on by the F-16’s. including some rocket fire at targets.

NEWS FLASH: we actually got rain here, the past 4 days, and cooler temps, so I guess we have experienced WINTER in Gila Bend.

Desert Living

Yes, Cindy and I are still alive and well, we just haven't posted anything for a while and people have let me know about it. I have to admit that we have been pretty much just hanging around the rv park and not doing very much sightseeing. Basically we have just been waiting for some people to arrive here. The place is starting to fill up and we are meeting and making several new friends. The pictures on the first slide show are from a State Park called, Painted Rock. The petroglyphs you see were made by the Indians that lived here.



We spent our first Christmas in the land of sunshine, the temps here were in the high 60’s and mid 40’s at night. I will have to admit it was totally different being here for the holidays, no snow, no cold temps, no family, very few Christmas decorations around, but on the positive side, it sure was nice to go outside in our tee shirts and soak in the sun. Randy and family came and visited us on the 28th and 29th and we were very excited to see them. The boys sure are growing up fast and getting bigger every time we see them. We enjoyed the time we got to spend with them and hope they enjoyed it as much as we did.




For those of you who we haven’t told, we will be spending our summer months in the beautiful state of Colorado. We have already lined up a place to be, Rockmount Cottages, in the Estes Park Area. This place is located just 2 miles from the entrance to the Rocky Mountain National Park, in Estes , Colorado. Those of you interested in seeing where we will be can type in www.rockmountcottages.com and explore what’s there.(click on the numbered cottages and see pics of the actual cottage) We’re excited about the area ( lots of 14,000 peaks there) and are looking forward to being there.

Cindy and I experienced our first today. We spent 7 hours riding ( in mid 70's) 4 wheelers in the desert with several other people. The man that owns the RV Park here let us use his 4 wheeler and we had a blast sightseeing in the desert. I now know why people like to be in the desert ( if you own a 4 wheeler). For those of you who know us and know how much we love the mountains, well today we had the chance to see the beauty in the desert. We found our winter home( you'll find it in the pictures) and I actually found a crystal nugget with several GOLD flakes in it and we both found several small flakes (NO BIG NUGGETS). We rode to an old copper mine and the picture of the thing that looks like an oven ( actually it is) is called a smelter, used to extract copper from other iron. CIndy even came home with a nice size copper nugget. Other than having to eat a lot of dust, the ride we took today was one of the highlights of the things we have been able to see and do since we left home back in April. In fact in might even come close to catching a 24 inch rainbow trout.



We’re looking forward to the coming months and have several things planned, the most important one being a trip to Cancun in February, to see Aaron and Laura exchange wedding vows. We are also planning a trip in the next few weeks to drive down to Mexico and take in the sights there ( and yes, we are going with someone that has done this before).Until next time remember this, “ Life is not about how many breaths you take, but about how many moments take your breath away”.