UPDATE.............FINALLY

When I am gone for a week or more, it takes a long time to get caught up,  probably take longer than we were gone.  We went to the dirt races at Apache Junction, which is up by Phoenix.  They had 6 race nights in 10 days, with $13,000, to win the last night which was Sunday. 

We stayed gone the whole time except for coming home Saturday to attend our track's end of the year banquet.  We spent the night at home and headed back up there Sunday morning.  I had to come back and get my trophy for finishing 3rd for the year.  

The back of my head and my trophy as a center piece.  I had a spot all picked out for it behind the couch on a buffet with a couple of other "special:" trophies.  But it would have been tall enough to get into the ceiling fan.  So it's sitting on the floor BY the buffet........LOL   Thanks for the picture Lisa.......!!

The races were at night, so we had the days to do something.  We had never really been up in that part of Arizona, so decided to do the tourist thing.  We went to Apache Lake, Casa Grande Ruins, Canyon Lake, Camp Verde Fort,  ate pie at the Black Canyon Pie Cafe.  I don't think that's the name of the place, but it's world famous for their pies.

Casa Grande Ruins, probably was a religious center and maybe a gathering area for the surrounding small villages for an ancient swap meet

Spent the night at the Grand Hotel in Jerome.  It's suppose to be haunted, but we didn't have any visitors.  

The weather the morning we left Jerome

Lake Pleasant is a really nice lake and there is a herd of burros that live there, but we didn't see them.  Did see a couple of piles of poo, but that's it.....!!  In fact we didn't see any donkeys on the whole trip.  We've actually had at least one donkey come thru here, that was from the Lake Pleasant herd. 

We ate in Sedona, but it was just too crowded and so commercialized I told John it was like going into Costco before Christmas, lunch was really good though.

Wish I'd taken a picture when it came to the table, before we ate the corn on the cob, the salad, the rolled tacos and made a mess of the pinto beans, queso, salsa and guacamole.  It was really pretty, guess I was in a hurry to dig in and forgot to dig out the camera

Went up to Flagstaff, I guess to see their snow.  They didn't have much, but it was fun to see it thru the windows of the car.......!!!  LOL

Went thru a huge swap meet right off hiway 60 on the way to Apache Junction, it was another pre Christmas at Costco moment.  So many people and so much stuff to look at, it was rather overwhelming, so we didn't stay too long.......!!

Got home and found happy healthy donkeys.  Whatever BlackJack and a couple of the others had, didn't become an epidemic, thank goodness.

This is the herd outside Lynn and Linda's RV, I think they would have all the donkeys in the RV, if they could figure out the logistics.  LOL  Boaz was "front and center" at the start, begging for cookies from Linda.  

 We were expecting a new donkey named Poco in next week.  He was 31 and his owner is 87 and she wanted him to be taken care of, just in case.

I called her to make arrangements and unfortunately on Saturday, she found him down in his pasture and a coyote was attacking him.  She ran the coyote off, but said the damage to Poco's hindquarters was so bad, he had to be put down.  She didn't know if Poco got down and couldn't get up fast enough to escape or what.  She had him for 19 years I think she said and is just heartbroken, as we are, what a horrible thing to happen.

We were out of corral panels and pens, so I had ordered panels from a company in Texas that comes thru this area about once a month delivering panels and gates.

These are not all ours thank goodness.  Our order was the pile on top in the back.  This is Linda and John with the driver figuring out the next plan to get them on the ground

Unfortunately we won't need any panels or gates for Poco, but we will have some if we need them in the future.  We keep saying we are going to downsize, but that doesn't seem to happen.

Turbo begging Lynn for cookies on the feed room porch

"Ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille"  Thanks for the pictures Linda.....!!