Northrups Gather in Phoenix

I didn't take too many photos of Familia Northrup/Green because I had so much fun being with Nat, and Dad and Pat, who flew in from San Diego to meet up with me and visit inflict ourselves on the granddaughter and niece. Until Merlin and I both fell apart physically (he's fine and so am I for that matter, details below).

Perhaps the story of this visit has to do with Uber and Lyft. At some point before getting to Nat's, Dad and Pat (aka P&E) had a driver dump them. Not by the side of the road, mind you, but just dropping the fare. That reminded Pat of a ride she took recently with a woman Uber driver who kept saying to herself over and over, "I can do this!" Ha ha, we thought, and related stories of great gig economy ridesharing experiences. 

Then our Lyft ride to the restaurant arrived, according to the app, but was nowhere to be seen. Nat got on the phone to direct her to where we were, assuming the best about the vagaries of Google maps. She even ran down to the end of the long apartment complex driveway to flag her down. The driver arrived and freaked out, yelling at us about there being four of us and she had a support dog (which we could see was reacting adversely to her hysteria and anger), and, and, and.... That led to this:

Nat using my phone to attempt to cancel the driver-aborted drive and her phone to complain to Lyft about our driver, and Pat calmly calling us an Uber ride. Dad was with me, supervising their efforts.

I don't think we've had so much fun since every year we tried to sink a pontoon boat in Lake Tahoe.

Nat took us to a place in Old Town Scottsdale, theoretically by the canal. We wouldn't know. There was no canal. There was, however, great food on a lovely patio at The Herb Box. We had a similarly fabulous culinary experience the next day at Chelsea's Kitchen but with a 40-minute wait for the patio, dined inside. 

Our hostess, Natalie/Nat Northrup. Despite insisting that she wasn't a planner or a party-giver, she excelled. Shown here recounting Uber and Lyft tales. And despite insisting that she was not a fan of sweet potatoes, she ate every sweet potato chip you see on her plate.

My Dad, self-proclaimed Ancient One, attempting to determine how, exactly, to eat the dried kelp that accompanied his lentil meatballs. My Dad? Vegetarian meal? Who are you really?

Pat and Dad had not long before finished breakfast so she opted to skip to the good stuff created with a gluten-free brownie, of course. Phoenix ain't no backwater, ya know. 

As for Merlin and me, I'll spare you any gory details other than our digestive systems seemed unhappy. Merlin was uncomfortable enough that I took him to the First Pet Vet emergency clinic a couple of miles away from RV Park we were staying. I'd thought about waiting until morning but, channeling the abundance of caution exercised by my friend Kay and other dog friends, took him in to be seen by a professional.

We waited no time at all until being seen by a vet tech and then the vet herself. Merlin was his good boy with everyone but clearly was not himself. 

The very young vet took him "back" to give him fluids and extract a, uh, get a sample. My now lopsided camel-looking German Shepherd Dog came back in the waiting room to find that I, not him, had been supplied with treats. Talk about adding insult to injury.

The vet found no evidence of a parasite infestation, her biggest concern given he was from out-of-state. She, and I, concluded that my delicate little flower of a dog was suffering from stress. She prescribed a bland diet for 5 days and put some antibiotics in the mix for good measure.

Besides being incredibly relieved that my boy was not at death's door - that's how us dog moms and dads roll - the next great surprise was the bill.

Being from the San Francisco Bay Area, I fully expected a bill in the $1,000-plus range but, happily, it was not. 

The antibiotics and all caused him to be low-energy for a day. The boy is back! Using his barking perch (which should be my eating and writing table) and playing. 

A Walk in the Desert

Full disclosure to start: there are no Merlin pictures. I will, however, start with a short video. As I look at my phone sending it to email so I can download it, I'm not sure the Miracle RV Park in Tucson has the bandwidth to make that happen before I'm done with this blog. That's been the issue, you see. RV parks tend not to be WiFi hotspots. Well, sometimes they are pretty good but I have games and political news to catch up on. Ah! I unfairly judged the WiFi power here. Ta da!

The trip from Quartzsite to Tucson is only about two hours so I decided that I wanted to get our feet dirty in the desert. I drove about 30 miles south of Quartzsite and found a reasonable looking dirt road to pull off on and get beyond power lines to be able to share the beauty of the desert.

No place better to start with than the mighty saguaro, icon of the Southwest and found only in the Sonoran Desert.

Then there's the, "It looks just like the movies!" landscape. I hate it when people say that and they've been doing for a long time before so many of us rarely glanced up from our tiny screens.

We weren't there long enough, or still enough, to witness all of the life the desert supports. I broke what I thought was a rock and later found some elk dung that suggested the cool rock I collected was dried out dung. I hang my wanna-be-geologist head in shame. If you look, however, there are signs of life in what Maureen words for were, "It's so fucking desolate."

Trust me, these were not your kitchen ants. These were some big ants. Desert Harvester Ants, in fact. There were other interesting creature holes that Merlin and I elected not to explore. 

I found a few other rocks on which I practiced my skills with my geology tools. There's probably gold in them thar hills but I didn't find any.

We also found evidence of human insult to the land. Take THAT! humans.

And now, particularly for my many SoCal friends, this is what "The 10" looks like in Arizona.

And, because some have asked if I've given up photographing birds, no I haven't. What I failed to pack is my field guide so I'm taking guesses as I go along. Feel free to correct me. 

Cactus Wren

Correction: I met up with my college roomie for lunch today who gently told me that I spelled Tucson wrong. If there's still a "Tuscon" in here somewhere, it is not for lack of trying on her part. Also, she confirmed that the bird is a Cactus Wren and gave me some cool birding info for local birds and birding hotspots in this part of the state. Thank you, Lynda!

Arizona Here We Come

Dad and Pat invited me to join them in visiting his granddaughter, my niece, in Phoenix. Another RV trip?! Of course I agreed. In the weeks before, in every conversation with Dad, he'd comment how glad he was that I'd decided to fly. I don't fly (for a lot of reasons) but the former fighter pilot simply couldn't help but try to persuade me by the power of his convictions that a short hop in an airplane was better than a 12-plus-hour trip in a rented RV. "Nice try," I responded.

Obviously, an enterprise as important as keeping Merlin safe over 900 miles of American freeways needed planning. Serious planning. Planning is my middle name. 

LA is a great big freeway, as Dionne Warwick sang in 1968. She forgot to add the part about a great big freeway where no one is moving at all for most of the day.

My route, besides getting from Oakland to Phoenix and avoiding LA, had one other strategic element. I wanted to look for rocks. And use my new geologist's gear. What? Yes, I've recently decided that I shall return to a love for rocks and geology. On the good old paper map, I spotted a town called Quartzsite that sounded promising for an obvious reason. Further research showed that the little town is known to millions of mineral and gem enthusiasts who each winter fill the landscape with their RVs visiting rock shows large and small. For instance, there's the Tyson Wells Rock & Gem Show that features, according to the website, "10-Day Show - A 25-Acre Outdoor Spectacular - An unbelievable variety displayed on 2.2 miles of aisle frontage."

On our first trip, I figured a compact RV would suffice. Nope. Not with a fairly tall woman and a very long German Shepherd. Merlin's nose work trainer, seeing the photos from the post of that blog, "Gypsies from the Sanctuary City," commented that it confirmed her suspicion that Merlin has no idea how large he is.

That experience taught me that I could risk driving a vehicle four or five feet longer so both of us could sleep in peace. 

See that in the back of the shot? That's a queen bed I will sleep in.

Merlin has his own bed made from the bench-seats and table set up in its dropped down configuration. We're both happy.

RVing, for me and perhaps others, is about continuous learning. 

• It took three days to track down all the clanging and rattling and my solutions:
• The screen door clanging against the outside door - electrical tape.
• The glass cover on the stove - a dishtowel.* 
• The microwave platter and turning disk - wrap them in dishtowels and put them in a cabinet.
• The provided or self-packed cooking ware - more dishtowels.
• The provided or self-packed utensils - even more dishtowels (I used a pair of shorts I brought to hang out in the RV since my legs will never see the light of day).
• The wine bottles in the beverage rack - keep resupplying them so the rack is tightly packed. This doesn't have to involve daily trips because you have storage in the back with the toolkit and other backup gear like a wire crate, crate cart, Aluminet and all of the rest your essentials.
• Flies in different states behave differently. Arizona flies are persistent critters. When we left from a rest stop, three had descended upon a yummy bug splat on the windshield. Even at 75 mph, the speed limit, they persisted. I wiped them to oblivion and I'm not ashamed. They are, however, fast. Merlin's been trying to catch the two buzzing around for a day. Lesson learned: bring some kind of bug destruction device.
• No matter how carefully you stow everything, you will spend the first three days asking yourself or, in my case, Merlin, where you put things.
• You will constantly run into things, bang your head, pinch your fingers and otherwise physically harm yourself. Buck it up, buttercup, thems the rules.
• Finally, it will come to no surprise to those with dogs, perhaps especially German Shepherd Dogs, that you can bring all the comforts of home but they will still be in the precise location to make it nearly impossible to get where you want to go.

Why yes, the shiny glass looking thing is a glass. A tumbler. Holding wine because wine glasses are way too unstable in an RV. Another RVing trip tip from me to you. Or, I just thought of it, drink from the bottle. 

* Bring every dishtowel you own. Better yet, go to the big-box store of your choosing and get dozens. AND bring every dishtowel you own.