Boy, coming back to the dry desert of Arizona, after a week of the Grand Canyon & Colorado, is quite a shock.......!!!! We keep telling ourselves to remember what the people up there told us about their winters, but so far we "ain't" buying it.........!!! Especially when it's over 100 degrees & time to pick up poo...........!!!!
Enough whining I guess, considering what a great time we had. Got robbed by train robbers..........
Saw the Grand Canyon..............!!!
That little green stripe is trees, WAY down in the bottom. Actually it isn't the bottom, if you follow that line to the middle of the picture, it drops off a cliff hundreds of feet high down to the Colorado River.
Saw some wild donkeys, although the jeep driver said their names were T.D., his mom Jenny & Cinnamon. They know the jeeps & know the drivers sometimes have apples, so being wild is OK, unless treats are offered.
Got to the river & started a 40 mile trip, the first half being the white water part. Did that before lunch.........good thing...........!!!!!!!
Looks pleasant enough doesn't it? Till they get you in the raft........!!!
They forget to mention the water temperature is between 45 & 60 degrees, until after the first rapids............!!!! Of course we were all trying to catch our breath when the driver "mentioned" this little tidbit of information. I am sitting in the middle with my head down so the hat will catch most of the water instead of my face. John is on my right looking straight at what is coming. The woman on my left ended up flopping around in the bottom of the raft on my feet. They said if you fell to stay there, & she did until we got to calmer water.
The driver put me in the front in the middle, guess he thought I was too old to hang on..........!!!! Heh! Heh!
Rode up to the rim in style, neither of us had ridden in a helicopter before.
Headed for Colorado to visit with Kathy & Alan at Longhopes Donkey Shelter. Saw a lot of our stimulus money at work, at least they had up signs saying that's what they were doing.
In some places there were actually guys there, directing traffic & some equipment, but we really didn't see a whole lot of "WORK" going on. In most areas we couldn't even figure out what they were suppose to be doing, except for putting up signs & setting out traffic cones.
Colorado is gorgeous, I have to keep reminding myself, when it's winter time, they have REAL winter............!!! But this time of year it's was really nice.
Kathy & Alan have a wonderful operation. They have a lot of barns & sheds because of their winters. Most of the time Kathy said in the winter they close the doors, leaving an opening so the donkeys can go in & out if they want. But sometimes it gets so bad they shut everyone in, which makes for a lot of poo picking up. She has a lot of old guys that have to be blanketed too, so I guess SE Arizona isn't so bad after all.
Everyone was very friendly & wanted to be petted & hopefully given a treat.
What a great barn................ !!!!!!!
John visiting with some of the "fur" kids. She has a little mini named Caesar, that has access to the whole place. He likes to roam around & so far they haven't figured out how to keep him in the pens. He just wiggles under them & goes on about his business. He was a cute little devil, looked like Pepsi one of our little minis. I was trying to figure out how to fit him into the pick-up.......!!!! LOL
Got home & everything was pretty good, Michelle had even cleaned the refrigerator & the washer & dryer. I had to look twice at the W & D to make sure they were ours.
The flies are really bad right now, we're going into the monsoon season & the humidity is starting to climb. In fact we got a few sprinkles last night, so hopefully in the next few days we'll get some measurable rain.
Poor little Sha'ba, he is the one I worried about, because he already was having problems with habronema on his sheath, that I've been doctoring twice a day. Unfortunately there is no set method of getting rid of the little monsters. I had them put Ivermectin on his sheath & then coat the whole area with thuja zinc oxide, but obviously the flies worked around the barriers. I'm using Animax ointment, use to be called Panalog to help with the inflammation the larvae cause, which of course itches like crazy. We'll fight the good fight, I just wish he didn't have to put up with them.
We got in Saturday afternoon, & spent all day yesterday just doing crisis management. That's the bad thing about going away, there's always so much to do when you get back. But it was worth it, we had a great time.
2 comments:
Loved seeing the photos!
What a beautiful vacation....so glad you had a good time.
What are the donkeys wearing around their necks? bells?
Claire
Pink are girls, blue are boys, & each one has a cow ear tag on the "collar" with their name on it. They move around from pen to pen, & even get to spend some time in the yard, with grass. So they almost have to have a name on them, so the volunteers know who's who.
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