Brown Canyon Ranch House

I did not intend to ride out to the Brown Canyon Ranch House but I did want to ride up the slight incline that goes forever. Plus I wanted to ride my mountain bike today instead of the road bike and get some other climbing in. I also planned to ride on some dirt/gravel roads. This bike path not only goes 7 miles out of town but all around the town and through the town. Over 30 miles of devoted bike paths wide enough for two way traffic or enough room for walkers and bikers.

This is to the right of the path, so when I am tired or panting for air at high altitude, just glancing around at the scenery helps distract me from any pain I might be feeling. By the time I got to my destination and was about to turn around and enjoy the high speeds on the highway during the slight downhill for over a mile ... A sign said "Brown Canyon Ranch House .. 1 mile". There I went.

You can see this road up ahead but off to the right is the Aerostate, anchored to it's parking spot. I had no idea that is where they anchored the Aerostat. I have mentioned that on some of my Facebook photos showing the mountains after sunrise.

It is the "eyes and ears" for border patrol. I was told by someone that worked on it in the past it can focus in "on an eyelash on I-10" if it has to. This is what it looks like when I see it from my patio.

This road was a good experience. One mile of lose gravel, sand, and some sharp rocks to steer around, plus one really steep hill. The house is up around the corner to the left. Off the top of my head I do not remember the history of it but I will return in my car later on so I can take the tour inside and take photos of it. No time to look up the history ... my Reds game started 7 minutes ago.

I took this photo of my bike for the local bicycle group that posts photos on Instagram and Facebook.

Today I got in 24 miles of riding with 2 miles of that on the gravel / dirt road. Strava app told me I climbed over 1,026 feet worth of hills and at one time was over 5,600 ft elevation ... no wonder I couldn't find any air to breath.

Back home it was time for lunch, the hounds lunch, some book reading and then a short siesta ... Stella jumped up from the floor during our siesta when she heard the loud thunder for our daily afternoon rain. Quite a contrast in skies from the sunny morning and late afternoon.

Another find day here in the Wild West.

Maybe Some Answers For You

With the latest blog posts these past few days I am sure there are a lot of questions floating around through the list of readers. It's a long story with too much information to write about. That would take multiple blog posts to explain how we "snuck" out of town. One answer I'll start off with ... yes, that blue chair does not go well with the other colors of the house and patio but it was comfortable and I didn't want to spend a lot of time deciding what to buy. It is still in a 'temporary' status but still comfortable. The difference in colors is me thinking outside the box, as they say.

Why the secrecy about the move? What was I was doing last May when I wasn't blogging?

It's called being naturally paranoid, a private person (which makes blogging hard at times) and a reluctance to break out any information simply because I do not want the unexpected visitor knocking on my door because they have found me and want to see the hounds.

I have sent out a few invitations to people that I have met through this blog, a few in person but after reading in the past of people knocking on Al and Kelly's RV door late at night just to visit them or RVsue having strangers (blog readers) driving by her campsite and now her house, to visit her or see her pups ... I just don't want that.

(It took less than one hour for those two landscape pictures to change this morning)

I know that if I blog about what the hounds and are doing or where we are going for those short day trips like I use to ... the smartest and most motivated people will figure out where I am. It will not be hard to do. So I guess there is that fine line where I have to decide what to cover in my blog posts. I know I can take ONE photo of a place I want to go and write about and you would know exactly where I am.

I did not blog about this move a lot in May because I did not have time. I was doing that many projects at home and by the end of the day all I wanted was dinner and sleep, plus 600mg of Ibuprofen. There wasn't any time to blog. I had a date in mind for leaving but we ended up leaving about 6 days early and almost impulsively ... but that is how fast things were falling into place.

You might think the smell of bacon and eggs from the kitchen would have had a basset hound right at the stove begging for a piece, since Heidi is the biggest food beggar ever ... but not a sound from the computer room. I had to zoom in on her and get a blurry photo so I would not wake her up.

How could I leave a house like that, with all of that land around me and the quietness?

Well as time passed I was getting very very tired of the extreme weather, the ticks that I could never seem to get rid of, the highway noise which had increased with traffic with the new Interstate 6 miles south of me, and the redneck neighbor that was a nice guy but was into Mud Drag Racing. So you know you can't go racing without revving up those loud engines before you go. Plus I was finding it harder and harder to mow the yard in the middle of the summer heat and humidity.

That block dot you see in the picture is the same problem that Al mentioned on his blog post the other night. I clicked on his link for the cleaners he bought, copy the name of them, pasted them into my Amazon search and had them at my door the next day. BTW, that black spot is from my Canon GX 9.

The west has always attracted me and I had lived out west many years ... 15 years in southern California and 10 years in the Pacific Northwest plus a ski season in Breckenridge Colorado. I knew the day the hounds and I drove over the Rockies towards Rifle Colorado in June 2015 on our camping trip that I was definitely moving somewhere west in the next few years.

There is just something about those wide open skies that has always attracted me like a magnet to the west.

The factors I looked at were cost of housing, areas for hiking and bicycling, temperature ranges in the winter, conveniences for medical care, groceries, bike shops and restaurants. If you remember I mentioned a couple of websites I was using to compare towns. Those both proved to be accurate and very valuable. Plus a few people that knew this area well provide great information.

I did have a Plan B just in case this move did not work out. It would not take long to figure out that I did not need that Plan B. Before I decided to move I asked myself "if I put this much money into the house, the eroding bank along the driveway, updated appliances and floors, a new roof ... would I still want to live here?"

The answer was always 'no' ... it was time to move from 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

This was Stella's thought process this morning trying to find that perfect spot to take her morning nap after her walk. There was some scratching at the rocks to clear out, some indecision, but eventually she came to the best area to sleep.

That gate behind her reminds me how she tried to dig herself out of the yard the day I was out buying groceries. You would have thought a yard with a fence, a patio with shade, plenty of water and even the back door left open so she could go into the house if she wanted ... would have worked. But her separation anxiety kicked in ... she was howling "the loneliest howl ever" according to my neighbor across the street. When he came over to check on her ... she was digging through the hard soil to get under the gate.

I have other stories about her anxiety out here in the west, but that is for a later post.

How can I go from no neighbors to having one on each side of me, 20ft away ??

I thought long and hard about that. You would not believe how much I thought about that as I looked at the pictures of the house I bought, the neighborhood via Google Maps Street View. I had not had neighbors that close in 22 years!! What would it be like? Could I hear them talking if they were that close? What would it be like if they were 'bad' neighbors or like to have huge parties?

The person I bought the house from answered a lot of those questions I had. After I moved in I found out more information about the 'hood' from those that lived near me, or next to me and have been here from a few to many years. It's a quiet neighborhood and safe enough that you see kids walking in small groups or riding alone on a scooter. It so quiet that I am even surprised at times.

It's a great location and neighborhood.

It did not take long to get everything set up. The previous owner had left the utilities on, so the same day I moved in, I found their locations and phone numbers on Google Maps then had all the utilities changed to my name that afternoon with automatic payments set up. Since I did not bring anything the hounds and I were moved inside the house from the UHaul trailer within an hour.

From all the research I had done before I decided to move here, I had a pretty good idea where all the stores were, the bike shops, the main streets in all four directions. I was so familiar with the map that it felt like I already lived here as I drove through town that first time. There was nothing hard about this move.

I tried to keep the hounds eating at the times they were use to. That seems to be the deal for their breakfast at 7:30 Indiana time but for lunch they have both switched to local time. They are still eating between 11am and 12 noon.

Stella still likes a short after lunch nap and does this every day. Not long but just long enough for that hot sunshine to help those aching hips.

I thought I'd get her another bloodhound to keep her busy but she wasn't too interested as you will see in the next three photos.

She still does not like the sound of thunder and since this is the rainy time of year, she will have to hear loud thunder and see great lightning from inside the house for about the next 6 weeks from what my neighbors and my research tells me.

What differences have I noticed living here?

- Well like I mentioned, I get up earlier and go to bed earlier.
- Less computer time, less tv time and MORE time outside doing something or exploring the area
- I ride a bike 4-5 days per week, averaging 13mph for 15-22 miles per ride. There is a lot of gradual climbing here and a lot of panting as I get use to the higher elevation.
- People are extremely friendly and like where they live
- No matter how the monsoons are, total annual rainfall is only 11" and most of that comes in 6 weeks
- College football games will start at 9am in the morning now
- I watch my Reds games at 4pm most afternoons instead of 7pm .. IF I am not out on a local drive
- My mailbox is down the block and around the turn with 20 other boxes
- Heidi takes a lot more walks than she use to
- Stella runs and trots on her walks a lot more than she did
- I have maps for bike riding, maps for hiking trails and probably more area to explore than I can see in a lifetime
- Groceries and eating out are more expensive here
- I'll gladly trade paying a city sewer service in exchange for no septic tank
- It was the easiest experience at the Dept of Motor Vehicles I've had in my life
- There's a great bike shop in Bisbee AZ ... like a museum and a great owner to talk to
- Stella has experienced daycare for the first time
          - With her anxiety and my need to buy groceries and furniture she had no choice but 'daycare'
          - They loved her and said all she did was sleep the whole time she was there
- I'm still waiting on my couch and loveseat to be delivered 52 days after I placed the order
          - Luckily they sold me a nice chair from their showroom floor so I had something to sit on
- Heidi misses her grass yard
- Stella does not seem to mind there is no field to walk through ... Sadie would have been irritated
- I don't ask nor dwell when the question pops into my head "why didn't we do this sooner"
- Yes, I did research to find out when was the last forest fire in this area. (2011)
- I have NOT seen my first rattlesnake, my first scorpion, or my first tarantula
- I like the 4Runner, I DON'T miss the Mini Cooper, I DO miss the Toyota FJ
- I have a lot more friends wanting to come visit me compared to when I lived in Indiana
- I like blogging and wish at times I could be as open as Al is over at The Bayfield Bunch

Another great day here in the Wild West.

Heidi Never Switched Time Zones

Every day seems to start with me waking up in the dark, barely light outside the southern window and the sound of basset hound ears flapping as Heidi shakes her head to start our day. Our day? Yes, because I am awake and this will also wake up Stella sleeping in the opposite corner of the bedroom. Once they gain clear consciousness they have one thing on their minds .... breakfast.


While they eat breakfast anywhere from 4:30am (7:30am Indiana time) to 5:30am if we sleep late, I make coffee and open the windows to get that cool early morning breeze moving through the house. The word 'humidity' is no longer part of our vocabulary.

While the coffee brews I am sitting outside enjoying the sounds of different birds, looking at the sky and feeling like I have just stepped out of my tent on a camping trip. Stella likes to check out to see what has been in her yard while she sleeps. I ALWAYS scan the yard for spiders or snakes before letting the hounds outside, even if I have to use a flashlight.

In a "sick" way I enjoy the plain stone yard. I have thought about having it landscaped with someone else doing the labor but when I think of plants I think of mice from the field, or scorpions or tarantulas and of course rattlesnakes enjoy any kind of rodent for their diets. Looking at photos from other people in this area on Facebook we may be the only people without landscaping in the yard and we may be the only people that have not seen at least one scorpion, tarantula or rattlesnake during the monsoons.

Of course the hounds make wake me up early so they can eat breakfast but that doesn't mean they stay up. Usually within 20 minutes after that last piece of kibble is eaten, they are both sound asleep in my computer room. Yet, I have become so use to getting up early like this since I have moved that I like getting up this early and I don't mind getting to bed early. The days of me staying up past midnight until 2am or 3am in the morning are long gone. A distant memory.

I am only in that room a short time before I walk back out to the patio to have another cup of coffee. Stella always shows up about 5 minutes after I move to check the daylight and see if it is time for her morning walk.  She will whine to go if I am lagging behind 'her' time.

She likes to make sure she stretches before she walks. She is trotting and running now, something she did not do a lot of before the move. We have ran into too many mountain bikers, bicyclists, walkers with or without kids and a car or two at that time of day so she always has to wear the 25' retractable leash for her walk.

There was the time we turned the corner across the street where we walk and were eye to eye with two coyotes. They stared, turned and ran away after seeing her. Where as those two yapping small "ankle biters" we met one morning almost home from the walk at 5:30am, broke free from their owner and their leashes and chased Stella all the way to the front door. If I had not closed the door when I did I have no doubt one of those dogs would have come inside the house.

So the retractable leash is a must when we walk. Heidi has a 15' one that she uses.

Once Stella lets me know she is stretched out and ready to go ... we head out for a walk between .56 to .75 of a mile, depending on where she leads me and what the apple watch tells me. By the time we get home the skies have brightened up a little.

This morning as I was leaning and looking over the fence Stella walked out staring at me as if to ask "what now?" ... she was back to sleep in the computer room within minutes after that pose. Normal routine. It was a few minutes before 6am when she looked at me.

Every morning is bright and sunny, going from the 60's to the 90's by early afternoon. By late afternoon the monsoons get into formation which might lead to some rain on us but most of it has been around us. Great light shows though and the thunder is the loudest I have ever heard.

Besides having gas stations, grocery stores, a dentist and bike shops all within 2 miles of my house ... one fine eating establishment delivers pizza if I chose not to visit their building less than a mile away. It's good that I ride a bike most mornings otherwise I would be adding some serious weight.

By the way that is a thin crust, just like the New Yorker's make with the best cheese, pepperoni, italian sausage and mushrooms. No, I don't eat all of that ... I save about half of it for the baseball games I'll watch later or my after bike riding breakfast the next morning. Speaking of which, I always knew my body worked better with Pacific Time than Eastern Time ... the ballgames are always over about the time I would be starting to watch them back in the Midwest. Getting to bed by 9pm is not a problem since the games are all finished.

The rest of the days are spent taking short exploration road-trips, staying home and reading books or an occasional siesta when needed.  I have a lot of free time now, more than I did before.

I didn't realize how much time I spent on yard work, minor house maintenance or a 'to do' list until I got away from that. Another big difference is the lack of noise from a highway. It is so quiet here, it's almost too quiet at times. Again, I did not realize just how much traffic noise I had grown use to living on the highway.

I am in a good central location where I can see old friends from my time in Southern California by noon if I am on the road by 7am. Or I can even check out some of the other places I considered moving in Arizona, New Mexico or Nevada a short day drive away ... some not even that. I have cities I can get to when I want but that is low in the list of things to do. I have plenty of things to do here and see near me I might never have to leave.

The hounds and I are good here in the 'wild west'.

What Is It About Blogging ??

Is blogging an addiction, an escape, a journal, online communication where the world can see you based on how you have your settings in the background? I do know that the internet, smart phones, online gaming or reading blogs is addicting. Some can handle it and control the amount of time they spend doing those things. Yet, is it out of control if you feel like blogging publicly again? I have quit many times since October 2011 when this blog started. A few of those times I deleted the blog just like I did to this one on July 25th ... but I always seem to come back.

Now the decision will be which blog do I use ... this one or my Wordpress blog ?? There are features I like on both formats, Blogger and WordPress. One big difference is Blogger has unlimited space for photos where Wordpress gives me a certain number of Mb of data depending on which plan I pay for. Since I just moved my blog back to their 'free' account, my space available for photos has decreased drastically.

Blogger compresses their photos Wordpress does not. They are not quite as sharp and clear on Blogger but is it that big of a difference? Big enough to pay for a plan just to have better quality photos? Remember, I'm cheap, I hate wasting money although I don't mind spending money ... just not for stuff like that.

So I am leaning toward returning my blogging to Blogger at this location.

I am sure a few readers are wondering what happened from my last blogging activity in May on WordPress until now. There have been a lot of changes and at the same time some things remain the same. The hounds do sleep the majority of the day but I have moved to where I am not pulling ticks off of me after every summer dog walk. Heidi misses her grass yard but she has taken more walks the past ~2 months than she has in years. Even Stella whines early in the morning if we are not out on her walk. If you remember she was boycotting the walks in late May.

The high desert doesn't have a lot of green grass or a hay field to walk in. I have found though, after years of very little running or trotting by Stella ... she does like to trot and even run at times as she walks down the middle of an empty street. She still can track scent on vacant land and we still walk the same amount of time and almost the same distance was we did in the field.

What is much different is Stella and I our doing our daily walks before 6am. Every day. She now lives in a neighborhood with neighbors nearby that have dogs. She can stand at the living room window and see walkers with babies and dogs pass by her house, or a group of bicyclist ride by her house or those that walk by with just their dogs, pass by her house. It depends what she sees or smells, if she decides to howl or not. She has become a neighborhood favorite to those that have met her.

She and Heidi have a fenced yard and all the sunbathing they can handle. Heidi still prefers air conditioning over hot sunshine while Stella will still lay out under the sun for the same short time after lunch as she did in the tropics of Southern Indiana. Nothing has changed there.

What has changed is me. After 21 years of staring at my bicycles leaning up against the wall, not ridden ... I now ride 4-5 morning per week and while getting in shape I can now ride 20-22 miles and around an hour and 45 minutes of continuous pedaling. This move has added years to my life and those changes are already showing my on the scale as my weight continues to drop.

I no longer have to drive 6-12 miles to buy a tank of gas for the car nor do I have to drive 12-25 miles to buy groceries. Both of those services are within 2 miles of my house and there are more than one business to choose from. I love that change. The hounds get to keep their same dog food as they were eating back in Indiana although due to our location they are drinking about twice as much water.

They both like to lay out on the patio every morning as I have my first cup of coffee, where the skies are bright and the temps are cool. My day is no longer started by turning on my computer but by grabbing that first cup of coffee and stepping outside to sit and enjoy the sunshine that is rising or has just rose minutes earlier. By the time that first cup of coffee is finished Stella is whining to take her walk and Heidi has moved back inside to one of her three different morning sleeping spots. She likes walking later in the day, not first thing in the morning.

This move was not a spur of the moment decision. If you were to look at the blog archives on the sidebar, click any year and read through the months between December - February you would see that almost every winter I wrote about wanting to move further west away from single digit temps, humid ticky summers and to an area where I could bicycle at least 300 days per year. I would always talk myself out of making those moves. I'll not go over all the reasons why since they have already been written about but I will say a LOT OF RESEARCH took place and in some cases over a period of years ... before I decided "that's it, we're out of here."

I almost moved various times to Alamogordo NM. That is also located in the 'high desert' but with some information from a couple of people that live there I decided to check that town off of my list. I kept coming back every year to the town I now reside in and had for years. I also decided that "small towns" were no longer an option since I had done that for the past 21 years. This move was going to be one about "conveniences" and that seemed to be more of a factor as I get older.

I also decided that I would really downsize this time. I did a lot of downsizing in 2014 when I thought I was going to live full time on the road in some sort of RV or small trailer. This time the downsizing was serious, really serious. All furniture, my record collection, pots pans and dishes were given away. Almost all of my books except for a few favorites were donated to the local library. The things that people did not want for free I donated to Goodwill. By the time we left that early evening heading west ... I had a 5x8 UHaul trailer that was not even full with the possessions I had left.

Of course to tow that trailer I had to trade my Mini Cooper S Countryman. I did more research on what to buy. Not only did I need a vehicle that could tow 3,500 pounds safely but I needed a vehicle that could get me off road out here in the wild west plus plenty of room in the back for the hounds to make the cross-country trip and the local trips after I moved. They did well on the cross-country move and if the car was moving ... they were sleeping. They enjoy taking the local trips although they still sleep most of the time while the car is moving.

So there it is ... we are living out in the 'tropics' of the high desert where the days are hot the nights are cool and there are no ticks. It might get a little cold this winter but nothing close to single digits and most of those times the high temps of the day will be in the 50's not in the teens or 20's.

Oh, the house in the 'tropics' of Southern Indiana ??? It was sold to the young man that I called to give me a quote to sand and seal my hardwood floor in the bedroom. I was preparing the house to list with an agent to sell when I called him for an estimate. While he looked at the floor I caught him looking all over the house and a couple questions he had led me to believe he was interested in buying my house ... he called two days after his floor estimate wanting to buy it.

Everything that happened in the moving process happened right on time and it was the smoothest transition I had ever experienced moving. They hounds adjusted almost immediately. They still might be in the old time zone but that fits in well out here. Early to bed early to rise gives me more time to do things outside and believe me ... there are a million things to do or go see around here.

I had to wonder this morning when I decided to start blogging again .....

Since I no longer have to spend time mowing the yard, raking leaves or general old house maintenance ... I have more free time. I still have time to ride my bike 2 hours per day, take local trips, go hiking, watch ballgames and still have time to blog. I may not blog every day but a few times per week ... basically like always in the past, when I feel like it.

Now ... I just have to decide ... Blogger ?? or WordPress ???

The hounds love living in 'the tropics' of the high desert.

A Blog Comeback???

I am not sure yet but I am thinking about making a return to blogging. Some of you know there have been some drastic changes recently. The hounds are normal and a-okay, no problems there. I am also okay and more active than I have been for years with morning bike rides 4-5 days per week.

For reasons I am not sure of, I had the urge to blog again this morning. I'm even thinking of possibly letting everyone know what changes that have taken place. I almost have to if I am going to post photos of the hounds. The brain cells are still scrambling trying to get in order before things are official.

At least I did re-activate my blog here and on Blogger, then changing them from private settings to public settings, so I guess that is a start.

We'll see what happens.