Burros in Oatman AZ

A road trip to Oatman, AZ was on the agenda for today.  Oatman used to be a mining town.  When the minors left they did not take the burros with them. They still roam the street(s) drawing plenty of visitors to this little ghost town southeast of Bullhead City. The label on this little guy's forehead reads, "Stop. Please don't feed me anything."

Several groups of burros were on the main road headed in to town. Lots of babies. The people of Oatman love the burros.  We even saw one young woman wiping around one of the burro's eyes to keep the flies away!

We stopped in a little shop that had a living saguaro cactus growing through the roof. We bought a bag of burro food in the shop.

This little guy lay down just like a dog to be petted.

The town streets sure had a lot of character.

Just love these old west scenes.

Apparently Clark Gable and Carol Lombard spent some quality time here back in the day. They were married in Bullhead City.

We watched a gold prospector do a little panning demonstration. Pretty interesting. Hard work according to the prospector. 

Lots of stuff for sale. Oatman is located on the old Route 66.

 The piano player (not real) was right behind our table at lunch.

A couple of times each day the locals have a staged robbery and shoot-out in the center of town.

The town sheriff told a story about somewhere else in Arizona they also hold a mock gunfight. However one of the actors used real bullets and shot another actor and a spectator.  Yikes. Not so sure about the wild west.   http://www.people.com/article/wild-west-shootout-reenactment-injures-two-tombstone

Keep an eye on you back pockets here.

 A little hillside mine.

We went all the way to the back!

On our way to Oatman we made a quick stop in Searchlight at Terrible's Casino.

Then we headed south to Needles, California.  The road was full of dips. I would not want to do this road if rain was forecast!

Crossed the Colorado River into Arizona. 

And found some beautiful farm country. Sheep and hay and cotton.

A little rock art.

Wide open spaces. 

And a day rainbow guiding us home. 

What a fun trip.  Always lots to see.

Have a great weekend and don't forget to "fall back"!

It's all about the journey!

Love Nancy and Dan

Here's What's Been Happening Lately

I

Tried to catch the Super Moon
But it was cloudy here!

Where have all the blog entries gone? Well ... I was taking a break.  Busy times none the less.  Not long after I got back in Las Vegas we spent almost five days at the Texas Station Casino attending Nevada's Order of the Eastern Star Grand Chapter Session.  I helped with registration checking in visitors from all over the country and Canada.  Dan helped with the initial conference set-up and then he helped our friend Becky with the audio-visual presentations.  Hard to believe just a year ago we were visiting Nevada's Grand Chapter for the first time, not knowing a soul there.  Now we are members of Sunrise Chapter in Henderson, helping out at this year's Grand Chapter and already on the books to help out in Carson City next year.  We value our Eastern Star family both here and in Vermont.

Worthy Matron Patty and Worthy Patron Mike
of Sunrise Chapter

Grand Chaplain Marilyn and escort/daughter
Worthy Matron elect Peggy

Our first Star meeting back at our chapter after the summer break ended with a little excitement.  A helicopter had to make an emergency landing in the chapter parking lot. Luckily it was nothing serious.

Sunrise Chapter also had a nice family picnic a couple of Sundays ago, hosted by the Worthy Matron and Worthy Patron. We had somewhere close to 50 people in attendance.  Las Vegas and Henderson have beautiful parks spread though-out the area.  

Dan was lucky again and we spent an afternoon and an evening being entertained by Naturally 7, an A Capella group from New York. You can't be in the band unless you can sing and make your voice sound like some kind of musical instrument! They were amazing.

As soon as Grand Chapter was over my cousins stopped in for a visit.  We had a great time with Todd and Tali.

 We took a trip down the Strip. We hadn't been to the Flamingo before. Look out!

 Photo opps everywhere!

 We got lost in Caesar's Palace! We just didn't know it at the time!

A little bit of a break for spa time.

A trip to Pahrump to the annual grape stomp festival and a stop at China Ranch Date farm rounded out their visit with us.

I am surely keeping busy these days. Swimming with a group of friends every morning, fitness classes at the local Las Vegas community center and hikes with the Newcomers Club. At the end of September the hiking group went to Mt Charleston for a nice day hike.  My first hike since the knee repair. Beautiful day,

There is a nice coffee shop a short drive away in a shopping center designed to look like an Italian village called Tivoli. I stop in for a little me time once in a while.

Book club has started up again. Last week we met to discuss the Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho. Interesting discussion about good vs evil. Our next book is "Go Set a Watchman" by Harper Lee. I watched "To Kill a Mockingbird" over the weekend to refresh my memory. 

We just had a busy weekend but I think I will write about that in my next blog post.  

Have a good week.  It's still ... All About the Journey.

Love Nancy and Dan.