My Hummingbird Feeder

With Will gone, I obviously have uninterrupted time on my hands. So I spent a very long time staring out my kitchen window at my hummingbird feeder. Caught a Broadtail --not often seen in the desert, they are a high altitude hummer. And a little Verden trying so hard to rob the sugar water.

Home alone

Dropped off Will at Tucson airport for his flight to New Jersey. He will be out there helping Doug out for a couple of weeks. They have some projects planned, some work to do and hopefully some good grandkids time too. Pretty quiet in the house without him. 

 

Halloween time in the neighborhood. Something has changed this year--we had so many houses decorated for Halloween on our street last year. This year only one house put out decorations. Not me, either, not into Halloween decorations. 

My amazing cactus bloomed AGAIN!! It is so confused. Love it.

Hiking Mt Lemmon

Took a-day-out-of-town and went up the mountain. It's  25 miles up Mt Lemmon Hiway and another 45 minutes from our house across town to beginning of mountain road. We were driving up as the sun was coming up and was a spectacular drive. Made our way to Summerhaven, through town to Marshal Gulch. 

Hiked a 4 mile loop trail (part of which was a piece of the Arizona Trail) that was harder than we expected. We were climbing a mountain, after all!! Beautiful views of the trail including a grand overview of downtown Tucson. Even some fall color which is hard to find in Tucson.

Back to Summerhaven for a well deserved lunch at the Sawmill Run restaurant.

Morning sunrise creeping up the mountain on our drive up.

Working at home -- life is good

Been quiet at home. Nice. Busy just doing stuff. Yard needed lots of work after summer of neglect. Slowly getting it back into shape. Still summer temperatures in Tucson--way above average so outside work happens very early in the mornings.

Then into air conditioned studio for the day. Really missed playing with clay when we are not home. Doing some carved porcelain.

Needs to be refired, not happy with the way surface colors turned out.

A little free form cactus sculpture.

Indian ruins and a train ride.

Today's morning hike was to Tuzigoot--a reconstructed ancient Puebloan village of the Sinagua people who lived in this valley up until the 12th century.

Interesting museum. With my interest in clay, I was taken with these huge pots. They have been carefully pieced back together but still is amazing to think how old they are.

And then the most fun of the weekend, we took a ride on the Verde Canyon Railroad. 

4 hour ride along the Verde River and into Sycamore Canyon in a comfy vintage rail car, provided a lovely snack lunch and knowledgeable and attentive staff.  We love trains anyway.

Anniversary trip to Jerome, Az

We celebrated our Anniversary just a tad late, with a three day weekend trip to Jerome, Az. It's this eclectic historic mining town up in the mountains not far from Prescott, Arizona. In fact the entire town is a National Historic Site. At one time 15,000 people lived here when it was a copper bonanza that deteriorated to almost a ghost town with a population of 50 in the 1960's. Then the "hippies" and artists found it and eventually turned it into the tourist destination it is today. Galleries, wine tastings, shops, restaurants, absolute awful parking conditions, boutique hotels, killer views of surroundings, restored and/or picturesque vistorian buildings. . .

Our B&B hotel was once a mansion for one of the mining bosses. Now it's a funky 6 room inn. The whole town plays up on the literal Ghost Town theme with paranormal sightings and ghost tours. And right now the whole town is decorated for Halloween so looks the part!

View from our second floor balcony

We spent a lot of time in Nelly Bly's Kaleidoscope shop. All Kaleidoscopes, in fact largest collection of them in retail store in country. So fun

Lots of eclectic shops, some more upscale than others

We are morning people so we were up before the sun to hike around the ponds at Deadhorse Ranch State Park. If we were going to get a hike in, it needed to be early before sun heats everything up. It's unusually hot here--like it is everywhere this year -- mid 90's. We were hoping for a cooler weekend.

Sunset off the mountain.

Our anniversary dinner at Clickscales Restaurant in downtown Jerome. Couldn't have picked a better place and highly recommend it to to anyone. Couldn't get reservation first night here but got in tonight--very busy place, with a difficult-to-remember name.