Clouds

We saw this interesting cloud formation over the Superstitions yesterday morning on our drive to hike Silly Mountain. Unfortunately my iPhone didn't expose the picture very well. The shafts of sunlight, a little visible here, were quite striking.

Bellagio Fountain

Here's a short video of the Bellagio fountain in Las Vegas "performing."

Road Trip

Not much going on... a little bored... where to go???

Vegas, baby!

Here's a picture of the Colorado River about 10 miles south of Hoover Dam on the way to Las Vegas.

Today's Hike

Here's some news - it get HOT here in the Phoenix area during the summer. Duh. We don't get to hike/bike as much as during the fall/winter/spring but we still get out every day and do something. Today we went to Usery Park and hiked the Merkle/Vista Trail. It took about 35 minutes to hike, enough for a summer hike. Here's our new Versa in the parking lot with Pass Mountain behind it.

Snake In A Bucket

We were at Usery Park today for a Ranger B brown bag-it lunch talk. After the talk ("All About Venomous Insects") Ranger B showed us a snake that had been captured near the Wind Cave restrooms. It was in a large plastic bucket waiting to be picked up by a local snake expert who was going to microchip it. This was a western diamondback rattlesnake and, at about 2' long, was a fairly small specimen.

Hot Hike

Today we went to McDowell Mountain Park outside of Fountain Hills and hiked the Lousley Hill Trail. While not positive we're guessing that the temperature was somewhere around 100 degrees. For us, hot weather hiking means that we go slower than usual and make sure to drink enough water. The good thing is that you rarely, if ever, come across other hikers. So you can add 2 things to that expression: The only things out in the noonday sun are mad dogs, Englishmen....and Ross and Karen.

This picture was taken near the summit with Karen come up the trail.

Must Haves

Besides fuel economy and comfort options like power windows and keyless entry, our only 2 "must haves" were an Aux port on the stereo system for hooking up the iPhone (to play music) and enough room in the back for our folding bikes. It took a little work but mission accomplished.

Time For A Change

Seems like every couple of years we make a major change. It's been a while so we did it again. We traded in the Xterra and Casita on a new Nissan Versa. We'd been getting tired of the Casita and paying ever escalating campground fees. When we started RVing the typical campground cost $20 - $25. Now it's $35 - $45. And that's for just an average campground. The nicer ones run even higher. Add in the cost of gas and traveling by RV just isn't very economical anymore.

Once we made the decision to get rid of the Xterra and Casita we devised a plan. We'd cleanup and sell the Casita and then trade in the Xterra on a small, economical car. We spent a very hot and exhausting morning cleaning the inside of the Casita on Friday. That afternoon we went to Earnhardt Nissan to check out the Versa. To make a long story short they agreed to take in both the Xterra and Casita on trade. We even ended up getting cash back. I'm sure we could have made a little more money selling the Casita ourselves but not much. The little we gave up was worth not going through the hassle of selling it ourselves. So yesterday we drove the rig to the dealership and drove off in our new Versa.

Solution To A Problem

While we're on the road in our Casita we wanted to make sure the A/C didn't quit running. That's especially important when we're in really hot locales like where we are now, Las Vegas, NV. After a lot of research we finally came up with a solution. It's an app for the iPhone and PC called Jumi. It allows you to view your PC's web cam on your iPhone. It took a lot of effort to get it working with our Verizon MiFi 2200 because of port forwarding restrictions on the MiFi. But we finally figured out a solution. Now we can leave the cats in the Casita and check on the temperature simply by viewing our thermometer via the PC's web cam. No more worrying about coming back to baked kitties!

Electrical Problem

We're staying at the Willow Lake RV Park in Prescott, AZ. While setting up our site we discovered that we didn't have electricity. Ross checked all the breakers in the Casita and on the utility pole but still no power. Immediately after reporting the problem the campground sent out a maintenance guy. He diagnosed the problem as a bad plug on the utility pole. Since it was late in the day he brought out a very long, heavy duty extension cord and plugged us into the next site for the night. This morning he came back and replaced the plug on our utility pole. Great service!!

Casita Casita

On our drive to Prescott we ran into another Casita in a parking lot next to a McDonald's. That's our Casita parked behind their Casita. They had the same model as we do. Happily this picture doesn't show how much shinier their Casita was was than our Casita.

Storage

We decided to escape the summer heat of Mesa. We're now in Prescott, AZ for a few weeks. It's about 20 degrees cooler here. We left the air on in the condo set to 90 degrees so things inside wouldn't fry. We felt bad about leaving the Giant and electric bikes in the shed so we put them in the kitchen. They'll be much happier there.

Product Report

I (Ross) sweat a lot. I always have and at times it's a real annoyance. Take bike riding in warm temperatures. I sweat so much that the sweat runs both into my eyes and down the insides of my sunglasses. It gets so bad that at times I have to stop to clean my sunglasses because I can't see through them. I went looking for a solution and found the Halo II Headband. I bought one on Amazon and used it today for the first time. It works great! Most of the sweat is absorbed by the neoprene-like fabric and evaporates. I'm not sure how it would do in a more humid climate but here in the desert it works great. The sweat that makes it past the fabric can't drip into my face because the nonabsorbent yellow strip channels it to the side of my face. After a brisk trial 5 mile uphill ride in 90 degree heat I arrived at our destination without any sweat having reached my eyes or my sunglasses. I'm going to buy another Halo II Headband as a spare and Karen wants one too. Highly recommended!

Las Vegas Trip

We're now back from our trip to Las Vegas to celebrate Karen's birthday. Ross's sister Lee accompanied us. Overall it was a good trip except I (Ross) got sick. Really sick. I'm not sure if it was food poisoning or flu. At one point I tried going out with Karen and Lee but got real lightheaded when I got down to the casino. I had to sit down at a slot machine but that didn't help. Next thing I knew I was on the floor with a bunch of very worried people standing over me. A woman, who turned out to be a doctor attending a medical convention, checked my pulse and asked some questions. Then the paramedics showed up. They put me on oxygen (which didn't do anything that I could detect), hooked me up to their portable EKG/monitor and ran the tests. Both the chief paramedic (who looked an awful lot like Tom Arnold) and the doctor gave the "OK" sign when they saw the EKG strip. After checking me out while sitting and then standing they had me sign a release and left. I made it back to the room OK and slept the rest of the afternoon. I was feeling much better by evening and am now about 95% recovered. All in all I can't really recommend that particular activity while visiting Vegas.

Oh, by the way, we stayed at the Monte Carlo.

Bike Parking

When we head out on our bikes it's almost always with a destination in mind. Locking up our bikes can be a challenge at times. A lot of places have bike racks but some don't. Today we're at a Subway restaurant located in a strip mall for lunch. There's no bike rack so we locked our Giants to this garbage can. Luckily it's not like New York City around here. There you can lock your bike securely, turn around and it will be gone! Bike lock companies test their products by locking a bike in NYC and seeing how long it takes the thieves to take it. Lovely.

Carrying Stuff

After buying our electric bikes we bought and mounted a rear bike rack on Karen's bike. We had planned on putting racks on both bikes but the design of Ross's bike made mounting a rack a very difficult job. Now we find that having the one rack is quite sufficient. We had an old file box that fits perfectly on the rack. We hold it in place with elastic cords. Besides using it to haul groceries we use it for one of our favorite activities: biking to Usery Park and hiking. We can carry our hiking poles, Karen's pack and other items we use like Ross's hiking hat which is the round object in this picture.

Now That's Annoying!

We like putting bike computers on all of our bikes. We use the Schwinn 12 function models almost exclusively. They're cheap compared to most bike computers and do all the basic functions we want. We get them at Walmart and have never had a problem up to now. The one on right we've had for a couple of months. The one on the left is brand new. Notice that the display is almost blank? That's because it came with an almost dead battery! We noticed that it was a different color than the other one but thought they had just changed the design. Apparently it had been sitting at Walmart for a long time.

Of course this isn't a tragedy, it's just annoying. As is the thought of trying to return it to Walmart without a receipt. But we may have a spare battery for it at home.

OK, that's it. You can go back to more important things now that you've read this minor temper tantrum.

Salt River Tubing Trip

Today we went tubing on the Salt River along with Ross's sister Lee. The tubing area is in the Tonto National Forest and one company, Salt River Tubing, has exclusive rights to run a business there. You can "do it yourself" but you'd need your own tubes (they use heavy duty truck tubes) and 2 vehicles. Some people go that route but most pay the $15 ($10 with coupon) and use the company.

After parking, paying and getting our tubes we got on a rickety old converted school bus which took us at breakneck speed to the put-in area. It was actually a bit frightening! This early in the season the driver warned us that "the water is 68 degrees and there WILL be shrinkage." Good to know. After the initial shock of the cold water we drifted lazily down the river. Until we hit the first rapids. Rapids? That wasn't in the brochure! Actually we had gone tubing for the first time on the river last year so we knew what to expect. During the first rapids Ross got caught in a back current and had to fight to get out. Eventually we all linked up again and continued on.

The next couple of rapids were pretty tame and fun. Then we came to the last rapids before our take-out point. Not fun! We really had to fight to keep from getting thrown out of our tubes while trying not to run into the branches hanging out over the river. As we raced through the narrowest part we saw a woman on shore yelling for help. She was OK but badly frightened. She was stranded on the wrong side of the river after having lost her tube in the rapids. Not much we could do but we did report her to the next people we saw on shore. They turned out to be part of her party. After getting out we ran into her husband who also reported her to a company vehicle that was near the river. They came back a short time later and told him the sheriff's department had been notified. I'm sure incidents like that happen frequently. But I'm also sure those people won't be tubing there anytime soon either.

Karen on a tame part of the river.

The Salt River with Red Mountain in the background.

Flowers

Not sure what they are but there are lots of them in the area. Anyone know what they are?

Electric Bike

Below is a picture of Ross's electric bike. It's the Glide model from E-Tour. You'll notice that it looks pretty much like a regular bike except for the object behind the seat. That's the lithium-ion battery that powers the bike. Our electric bikes are great conversation starters. The most commonly asked question is "how far can you go?" The bikes (Karen's Quest model is rated the same) are rated for "up to" 28 miles. That would be under ideal conditions; a light weight rider, flat terrain and very gentle handling of the motor control. Our experience tells us that the 2 things that limit range most are:

- Going too fast. The motors can propel the bikes at about 18 mph. That speed will drain the battery fast.

- Using the motor to accelerate.

We can ride about 10 miles going up a 1% - 2% grade and still have power left. A realistic range for us would be 10 - 20 miles because we go slow (10 - 12 mph) and use the pedals for initial acceleration after stopping.

Ross's E-Tour Glide electric bike.