And Finally.........March 25th to April 1st 2018.....

March 25th and on the road again from Tucson to west of Phoenix and Salome...
We saw this beauty at a truck stop on I-10 while having our coffee and cookies...
But disaster for Mrs Blogger, my SLR camera wouldn't work (this taken with my compact) and it's broken, I'm devastated, me thinks an expensive visit to Reids Photographic on return to Blighty.....
This is a route we have travelled several times before and when we head off across country (Salome is in the middle of nowhere) there are cattle grids and signs for "free range cattle"...Yorkieman commented that we had never seen a cow near this road and within 3 minutes there is a dead cow on the side of the road !!! We then spotted several cows and another 3 dead ones....we hadn't realised the road is locally known as "Dead Cow Road" !!!! with the size of some of them we hate to think of the damage to the vehicle, but it's a straight road and cows don't exactly leap out like deer !!!!

One of the lovely sunsets at Desert Vista RV Park, Salome...
We are here for 6 days to catch up with camping friends. We had a lovely surprise on arrival as a couple we had not seen for a couple of years stayed on a few extra days when they heard The Brits were headed to town !!!!

These stunning flowers only last a day or two especially as the daily temperature is now mid to high 80's..... 

Camp Harris...and it's hot hot hot...warming our bones ready for the cooler climes next week.....I had good news that I have work at the library for another year so one happy bunny.....

Not a very good picture of one of the many hummingbirds attracted to our neighbours feeder....we were quite fascinated watching them, as well as learning there are many different types it was interesting to see the "pecking" order !!  We were lucky enough to see a "brown rufous" which is quite rare in this area...
Had my SLR camera been working I could have done a better job..... 

I missed getting a pic the day there were 6 engines pulling the "cars" on our local line,  I was walking back from the club house without a camera...hey ho.....

A beautiful rising moon....just a smidgen from full...

Yorkieman and Wally as we head over to the clubhouse for the evening game of Fastrack.....a great strategy board/card game.....we are now proud owners of a board that Wally very kindly made for us....

Saturday March 31st.....
The long and not "winding road" as we say farewells to our camping buddies and head west on SR72....

We cross back over The Colorado River into California to head north on US95 to Nevada....

We could have headed north through Arizona and Lake Havasu and as much as it would have been good to see the London Bridge again this is a quieter route .....and we have a full tank of diesel so don't have to pay "Californian" prices !!!!

Our Hawaiian Bradda Ed is still happily shaking his booty......

The vibrant city of Las Vegas is on the other side of that hill....

And here we are once more back at Hitchin' Post RV Park in North Las Vegas all packed and ready for storage tomorrow and our flight back to Blighty...
It's hot and we are not looking forward to the cooler climes but we are very much looking forward to seeing family and friends....
We shall leave you with a heart felt thank you for following our blog and travels it means a lot to us.....
Until the next time it's bye for now from Yorkieman and Mrs Blogger.....

Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson....March 21st....

Our day out today is at The Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson......very much like Duxford with 5 huge hangers, but it also has acres of space outside for the "boneyard".....there are major renovations projects in process....

As mentioned before the Arizona, California and Nevada desert areas have huge aircraft boneyards....

This little Bumble Bee is in the record books as being the smallest plane ever built... 

The BD-5J....painted to represent the markings of the plane used in the Bond film Octopussy......

Today we will see the weird and the wonderful....

This F-86E Sabre was built in 1951 and used extensively in the Korean War....
This is a similar Sabre to the one we saw being tested at Duxford a couple of years ago.....

We rode the tram for the boneyard notated tour....

The Lockheed Constellation....Howard Hughes was the driving force behind the design this of elegant looking triple tailed airliner....

An early Airforce-One...

As our tour guide said "this must be the ugliest aircraft ever".....

A C-130 landing at the nearby air force base....

The gigantic B-52 Bomber....

Yorkieman was very pleased to discover they had a Spitfire....and we learn it was donated by our Hendon Air Force Museum......he had a great chat with two of the ex military pilots who were volunteer guides....he learnt that this Spitfire had a Griffin engine rather than the Rolls Royce Merlin engine...

We got home from another great day out to find our neighbour had kindly switched off the water main as our outside water hose had sprung a leak....luckily there is a very good hardware store in the nearby small town of Kinney....
This lovely old car was in the car park....

These yellow "buds" are actually the remains of last years flowers....
This cactus will bloom again late April....

It was an interesting and full but very good day, well worth a visit....we had hoped to also visit the nearby Military Boneyard and take the tour but there is a 10 day wait list...
Beautiful blue sky and will be 94F tomorrow....
Not sure if I mentioned in an earlier post that a Cougar was spotted in the RV Park the day before we arrived....
More soon from The Happy & Warm Campers....

Mount Lemmon Scenic Drive....Monday 19th March 2018

We head out from our home at Desert Trails RV Park to the other side of Tucson for the 28 mile scenic drive to the summit of Mount Lemmon....
Camping buddies advised us to download an App from the University of Arizona, The Mount Lemmon Science Tour...very interesting and informative commentary following the road/route as we drove to the top....

Ocotillo....the spiny cactus....hummingbirds feed on the nectar from the red flowers....
Talking of hummingbirds I was walking around the RV Park early one morning (ummm cue for a song !!) and the most beautiful green hummingbird hovered in front of me and then followed me for quite a while, I wasn't wearing a bright colour or anything....a lovely experience...

After 4000ft elevation we loose the saguaro and cactus as they can't survive the cold winters....
The road is just visible from this viewpoint one of the many pullouts and viewpoints on route...

Pretty Cirrus Clouds.....

From 4000 to 6000 ft elevation the terrain is rock formations, with balancing rocks and hoodoos....

Mount Lemmon was not named after the yellow fruit but after botanist Sara Plummer Lemmon who in 1881 was the first woman to trek to the top of the mountain....

A view of the road taken from Windy Point....

Windy Point....a big expanse of slick rock and fabulous views....

Apart from how does it balance there...this rock formation reminds me of a Chinook Helicopter....ok I have a strange brain....

The summit is 9,700ft and a ski area...after 6000ft the landscape changed to pine trees and alpine type terrain...

A great day enjoying the scenery and information of this area....
Back home in time for late sundowners...
 There was a lovely crescent moon this evening and a clear sky....we have very little light pollution at this park.....

News from Lindford is more snow.....
Our neighbours sent us great snowy pics....we love this snowman that they built......
More soon from The Happy We Are Here Campers....

Bakersfield,CA to Tucson,AZ via Barstow and Ehrenberg....9th-16th March

Friday March 9th and we are on route to Tucson Arizona via two overnight stops at Barstow and Ehrenberg......
We head back up into the Tehachapi Mountains on a nice spring morning...the rolling hills are very reminiscent of parts of UK....

It's a pleasant drive...this is a major route but fairly quiet this morning...

We were fascinated by the different styles of wind turbines having only ever seen the "standard" ones and there were plenty of those too...these have different types of "poles" and much smaller blades...

The Tehachapi mountain range is on the edge of The Mojave Desert...a huge wind farm area....we have only ever seen more in Desert Hot Springs/Palm Springs, California...

The  Mojave airport was opened in 1935 to serve the gold and silver mining industry, it is now an industrial park for more than 60 companies engaged in flight development and a storage and reclamation area for commercial airlines....it is one of many airplane "boneyards" in California & Arizona.....

I have included this pic as a bit of nostalgia from our visit to Death Valley and the Borax mines and to once again marvel at the distances the early settlers travelled in such primitive conditions....

Saturday 10th March....
We stayed overnight in Barstow (route 66) sadly this visit not enjoying the delicious pecan pie at Peggy Sue's....The Colorado River and farewell California hello Arizona...
It was a wet drive to Ehrenberg today even on the 110 miles across the Mojave Desert...this road trip has had it's share of rain but at least we are not suffering the snow and disruption back in Blighty...

Sunday 11th March and a beautiful blue sky morning after yesterdays rain...
We are heading east on I-10 to Tucson, a long but straightforward drive to Desert Trails RV Park and our home for the next two weeks.....we stayed here in November...quirky and haphazard but a very friendly "snowbird" park...
Yorkieman once again does a great job of backing into our spot then we head over to meet up with camping buddies John and Elaine for a welcomed sundowner....
Monday 12th...
Our host Pericles has a Monday morning information talk, very entertaining and informative and coffee and donuts !!!!

We've had some fabulous sunsets at Desert Trails RV Park....

Time to hike the trails straight from the RV Park...
I love this pair of "dancing" saguaro....

Eagle eyed Yorkieman saw Wile e Coyote as we were hiking the trails from our RV Park......this pic on telephoto and taken by himself as even when he pointed out the spot I still didn't see him !!!!
More news from the desert soon from...
Yorkieman and Mrs Blogger.....