Leaving Green's Peak (Wed.-Thurs.)

We had our last campfire here at this beautiful camping spot Tuesday night.  Jeff and Sherry are the fire bugs.  In fact, Joe named Sherry "poker face," because she is usually poking at the fire, in competition with Jeff who is always in charge of it, while Joe and Danny just relax and watch the action.

 

We all missed a little excitement during the night.  Danny heard a noise, thought the cows might have turned over Jeff's smoker, so he went dashing out of his 5th Wheel in his underwear to wage war.  The cows were in camp and had, in fact, turned over a table by the campfire (it wasn't close enough to fall in, and the fire was out anyway, luckily), but he chased the cows out of camp.  He went head to head with a bull, picked up a stick to scare the bull off, but the bull just turned and challenged Danny, so Danny turned tail and headed back into his camper.  Unfortunately, we all missed his heroics, and no pictures of this epic event were taken.  We should have forced him into a re-enactment, but that was our last night here, and Danny didn't want to take any bulls home with him.

So Wednesday we got started packing things up.  We went for one last, short ride before we loaded the quads. We got to one steep hill that Jeff thought he needed to tackle, but Joe and I opted out of that (basically, me).  So we went on ahead, thinking the rest of them were going on over the hill, and that the road would reconnect. Well, when they realized we hadn't come up, they came back down the hill to try to catch up with us.  But we were trying to catch up with them, thinking they were ahead of us on the other side of the hill.  So we all rode fast, trying to catch up with each other, but we never did.  We beat them back to camp by about 10 minutes.  However, when we came out of the woods, we could see that a thunderstorm was heading our way, so we hustled back and finished loading. Just about noon, we were all ready to head out, with Jeff in the lead, Brenda following with their boat, then Danny and Sherry's 3-piece rig, followed by Joe in the RV and lastly, me in the truck pulling our box trailer.  Joe said I looked like a real truck driver.





 

 And we got out just in time.  The clouds were rolling in, and before we got to the main road (which took 20 minutes to go 4.9 miles), it started to sprinkle.


We were all sorry to leave our beautiful, green meadow behind. We really enjoyed our time here.  And I'm sure Danny was sorry to leave all his new friends behind (the bulls).


And we were really glad we didn't let the little camper parked here keep us from using this campsite because no one ever showed up at it, and we have been here 6 days.  So there it sat, all by itself, with the awning out, nestled back in these trees.  But our site probably worked better for us anyway, since we had so many units to deal with.

We drove through rain on our one-hour drive over to the Big Lake Campground.  Saw one elk, and some piles of hail along the road, which we apparently just missed.  We all got situated, which took some doing for the Pauliks and Schritchfields, since they had 7 units to try to fit into their double site (that's not counting Danny and Sherry's Razr, Jeff's Arctic Cat, or Brenda's quad).  But with some maneuvering, they got it all off the road, and onto their site.



Wednesday morning Brenda discovered that she had packed too light and only had brought 2 pair of jeans, so Thursday she went back to Springerville to the laundry.  Jeff wasn't feeling well, so he took the day off.  Danny, Sherry, Joe and I went for a ride but didn't scare up any elk or deer.  We drove back to Crescent Lake, and then we stopped at the dam at Big Lake.  There's is a lot of algae growing in the lake and it is reported that the fishing isn't very good.  Joe found a rock to sit on while Danny and Sherry walked on down to the spillway.  At 9000+ ft., it doesn't take much walking for us to be winded.

On our way back to camp, Joe noticed that the Visitor Center was open so we turned around and swung in there.  They have a nice display of a 300-year old tree, and of the hooves of the local wildlife.  They also had a sign about the little brown plastic tags they are putting on the pine trees to prevent the bark beetles from damaging them.  We haven't notice any of these tags yet, but we will start watching for them. 

After dinner, we went for an EWVD in Danny's fine, new truck.  We found a small herd of elk shortly after we left camp, I counted 6.

We drove all the way out to Reservation Lake, and Danny with all his fancy lights on the front of the truck spotted another small herd of elk in the dark.  I think there were 8 of them.  We also saw an owl, so it was a successful trip.

It's been raining here several times a day, and also during the night.  Temperature has been 51 when I got up these two mornings here, and into the 70s during the day.  We haven't gotten hailed on yet, but I think the opportunity is there every day.  Personally, I am hoping to avoid that experience.

Another trip to Springerville (Tues.)

As we got dressed this morning, Joe suggested we go to town and do laundry since we were running out of jeans and long socks.  Today was the day for the smoked brisket, and Jeff was out early with the smoker going.  In fact, when I first went outside, he was about to smoke us out.

Sherry had volunteered to fix breakfast burritos this morning, so after our delicious breakfast, we headed to town.  Brenda had wanted to go shopping while we were here, so she and Sherry picked me up at the laundramat, and Joe brought our laundry back to the RV AND PUT IT AWAY.  Shocking!  Jeff had to stay close to the smoker so he and Danny stayed at camp.

We didn't find any shopping treasures, so after lunch in town we women headed back to camp.  On the way, Sherry spotted a deer, then a small herd of 10-12 elk pretty close to the road.  When we arrived at camp, Jeff had the brisket just about done, so we had an early dinner.  Jeff's brisket was wonderful!

We called the Brundiges for an update and to sing Happy Birthday to Collins, who turned 71 today.  He had been to the doctor, and has some tests, including a colonoscopy, facing him, and they took him off some of his medications thinking that may be the cause of his problems.  Hopefully, they will get something figured out.

After dinner was cleared away, we all made a run up to the top of Green's Peak (approx. 10,120 ft.), and the view from the top was worth the ride.

and I finally got some pictures of our campsite, minus the Brundige units (motorhome and quad trailer).  Joe rode in the Arctic Cat with Jeff, and Brenda finally got to ride her quad.

And I figured out why the cows invade our campsite.  Apparently they like to check out the fire ring to see if there is anything left in there to their liking (or licking).

When we got back from our run up to the Peak, they were just about to enter our campground, led by Danny's red bull. 

Camping at Green's Peak (Sun.-Mon.)

Sunday morning we were all up and ready to go by 10:00 a.m.  Marilyn was a little sore from riding in Danny and Sherry's Razr, so she opted to stay at camp.  Jeff was the leader and found the only rough road around, I think.  We made several quick stops, some at crossroads, before finally finding a good spot to dismount and walk around.  However, a crime was committed here, and a criminal now resides among us.

When we pull off the trail, there was a lovely mushroom welcoming us.  We all drove past, except one person, and I got a picture.  So here's the saga.

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                                                        Lovely Mushroom, Before Collins,  It was probably 4-5 inches tall.

 Lovely Mushroom, After Collins ran over it

 The criminal being accused.

 Evidence of the flattened mushroom on the tire of the accused.

The criminal.  Expect to see wanted posters at all post offices nationwide.











There were lots and lots of mushrooms in this clearing, many different varieties.  But none as lovely as the one Collins annihilated.

 

So us ladies walked around checking out the mushrooms, and the men discussed the crime, and whatever else men discuss.

Right behind us was a tree stand used for bleeding out an animal, and there was discussion of a lynching right here.

We decided to have a trial later, but Joe and Danny did spot a perfect hanging tree just on down the road.

This forest is full of beautiful pine trees and blue spruce.  One huge tree had been felled here at our clearing.

Sherry really enjoys traipsing around in the forest, and she found several of the mushrooms.  She went back over to the scene of the crime to investigate the damages, and she dug out the mushroom next to the one Collins ran over.

Finally, we were on our way again, riding through this beautiful forest with a carpet of green grass.  We really expected to see lots of deer grazing on this grass, but we didn't see any wildlife.

We arrived back at camp, where a chipmunk or gopher entertained us for a while, digging a hole right under the canopy that Jeff and Brenda had erected.  He stuck his head out a few times, but he was mostly concerned with eating the little flowers.  (He's the brown spot to the left of the dirt pile).

Sunday night's menu was pizza pockets and pies over the fire, which Brenda made and Jeff cooked.  There was some worked involved here from the two of them, but the food was delicious.

The pizza, right out of the fire. 












Monday morning brought a change in plans.  Collins has not been feeling very well, so the Brundiges decided to pack up and go home, and get him to the doctor.  (We are a bit suspicious that the criminal was just trying to escape the jurisdiction of this trial court.)  Marilyn fixed her famous sausage gravy and biscuits before she left, and they got on the road shortly after 9:00 a.m.  That put a damper on the mood and none of us felt like going riding right then.  Jeff wasn't feeling so great either after our rocky ride on Sunday.  So Joe decided he and I needed to go into Springerville.  Brenda had seen on the GPS yesterday that a Circle K was only 18 miles away (Springerville), and he was obsessed with having his fountain diet soda, so off we went.  Danny and Sherry rode along, and we had a nice meal at Booga Reds.  We did a little shopping, picked up some ice, and filled up the gas tanks for the quads.

When we got back to camp, we decided to take a late afternoon quad ride, and we ended up going to Vernon, which is out on Hwy. 60.  On the way, the afternoon thunderstorm hit, and a flash of lighting and the following clap of thunder had me just about diving off my quad.  But we drove out of the rain pretty quickly, although we came upon a pile of hail shortly thereafter, so we knew we had been lucky.  We stopped at the convenience store in Vernon and had refreshments, then headed back to camp, figuring we were for sure going to get rained on.  But we lucked out, missed the rain, and saw two elk.  We decided on an easy dinner since it was about dark, so I heated up the chili and got out the fixins' for hot dogs again.  Joe did a great job roasting our hot dogs. 

Jeff had a little mishap when he was roasting his and ended up with a wet butt.  He sort of tripped getting out of his chair, and landed in Joe's chair where he had left his beer.  So the beer turned over, Jeff sat down in it, and a verbal battle ensued over the spilled beer.  So Jeff had beer-butt the rest of the evening.

We sat by the campfire until bedtime (which is different for everyone, and Jeff keeps complaining that we go to bed too early).  During the nights, the cows invade our campsite -- I'm thinking maybe this is their favorite bedding spot.  And did I mention they all seem to have diarrhea!  Danny and Sherry have out a set of solar panels, and the cows seem to think maybe that is a cow-lick, because it had tongue prints on it.   Danny wiped it off before I got a photo of the incriminating tongue prints, so I'll have to get up early tomorrow and check it out.

Collins and Marilyn reported that they got home about 3:30, and are driving down to the Valley on Tuesday to see the doctor.  We will await word from them.