Farewell to Flagstaff

We're set to leave Flagstaff tomorrow. We're headed to Paso Robles, CA, which is some 600 miles away. We'll take two days to get there, spending a night on the road in the desert crossroads of Barstow, which is roughly halfway.

We've had a great time here in Flagstaff.  This is a beautiful little city, nestled in the pines underneath towering mountains. The weather has been absolutely stellar. When we arrived the nights were cool enough that we needed to throw on a fleece for our morning walks with the dogs. Daytime temps have typically been in the 80's, usually under bright blue cloudless skies. The last few days, while the rest of Arizona baked in 100+°F temperatures, we've been in the high 80's. Delightful.

Flagstaff is surrounded by National Forest land. There are hiking trails everywhere. We've done our best to hit a good portion of them, taking long walks with the dogs every day. 

One of the thousands of Pondersosa pines we walked by. 

We had a couple of enjoyable sidebars here. Although many outdoor amenities are still transitioning to reopening, the other day we drove  up to Sunset Crater National Monument, which is maybe 15 miles up the road from us. This prominent volcanic cinder cone was named by none other than John Wesley Powell his own bad self, naming it for the prominent red color particularly visible at sunset. Although the visitor center and campground were closed, the roads and trails - which were all that we needed - were open. Most enjoyable.

The aptly named Sunset Crater.

Additionally, yesterday we took a little drive out to the east of here. On the way home, we saw the signs for Walnut Canyon National Monument, which sits just three miles south of I-40. Although it was still largely closed, a short trail along the rim was open. This magnificent canyon, which must be 1,000 feet deep, was home to a large group of Pueblo Indians some 900 years ago. Their cliff dwellings dot the canyon walls. Although the trail down into the canyon was closed to us today, even seeing the sights from the rim was spectacular. 

If you follow either Cathy or I on social media you surely know that Sherry and Jill and their families visited us over the Memorial Day weekend. Words fail me to describe both how much we were looking forward to their visit, and how much we enjoyed their company over the weekend. 

Madeline would have taken Copper home with her if we'd let her.

Madeline beating aunt Sherry in chess. I carved the chess pieces for Madeline for her birthday present.

Cathy doing what she does best. Teddy loves giraffes.

End of the Road

This is a tough post to write. As I alluded to in the last post, we have decided to stop full-timing and settle down. It'll be two years the end of next month (June) that we hit the road.  Our original target when we retired was to full-time for two years and reassess our desire to continue.

I mentioned our plans for 2020 upon leaving south Texas in March included a trip along the Gulf Coast to Florida, up the Atlantic Coast to Maine and then along the northern tier of states all the way to Washington. COVID-19 forced us to abandon - or at least postpone to some time in the indefinite future - all of those plans.

Prior to our departure from Texas, we had already been talking in general terms about what we wanted when we settled down. Once the current reality set in, we started looking at our ability to accomplish any or all of our plans in any kind of reasonable timeframe.

After a lot of talking it through, we decided now is the time to stop full-timing. Why? We want to be able to do things that we can't do in our current home. Cathy loves to garden and wants some land to be able to do so; she also wants some space to indulge in sewing and other crafts. I would love to have a workshop, or at least some shop space in a garage, to build things and tinker. In addition, we want to be part of a community again; since we are essentially tourists everywhere we go now, we feel rootless. We miss having opportunities to contribute and build a community. Also, and perhaps most importantly, we miss being so disconnected from family.

I've struggled a lot with the feelings that we somehow "failed" or we're "giving up". Rationally, I am sure this is the right decision; I won't have any regrets once we're in a place. I think some of the struggle in my mind is that there's so much stuff to see and do and I don't want to miss out on any of it. I do know that we'll be so busy with fun projects that we won't have time for regrets; Cathy has no problem generating projects and tasks for five Ricks to handle. I also know that the places we want to visit aren't going anywhere; we've got lots of time to visit them in the future.

We've long thought we'd like to settle in the Paso Robles area. The area has several small cities stretched along US 101 in the central coast area of California. It offers a wide variety of housing types from urban to suburban to rural. Cathy's already reached out to a realtor in the area. We're hoping to buy a small house on an acre or so of land and our initial investigations suggest we can find something that meets our needs within our budget. We'll be exploring both buying an existing house and buying land and putting a house on it.

Once we've settled into a place, we will sell our current home and buy a smaller one. Our current home is just about perfect for living in, but it is, quite frankly, a little large for taking shorter trips - which we WILL continue to do. Buying a smaller trailer will allow us greater freedom to get into smaller campgrounds and will be more economical to tow.

Will all of this happen just as we've planned? Of course not. That's OK. Both of us are planners from way back, and we've long since learned it's far easier to change an existing plan than it is to simply wander through life.

We are planning on leaving Flagstaff - a place we have come to love - next week. If the NPS opens up the North Rim of the Grand Canyon we'll head there first and take a rather roundabout way to California. Otherwise, as seems likely right now, we'll simply chug westward on I-40 to the next chapter of our life.

Flagstaff

On Monday 5/11 we left Tucson and drove up to Flagstaff, about 275 miles away. Flagstaff is a nice little city of some 75,000, situated in a large Ponderosa pine forest. It is surrounded by the Kaibab and Coconino National Forests, and offers a huge assortment of hiking trails and destinations.

Flagstaff is a LOT cooler than Tucson. As much as we enjoyed Tucson, we were ready to leave. It got hot early in Tucson: we "enjoyed" a hot spell with ten or so straight days with high temperatures all above 95°F. Here in Flagstaff, daily highs so far have been in the low 70's, with nighttime temperatures down below 50°F. That's largely a function of elevation: Flagstaff sits right at 7,000 feet of elevation.

We're scheduled here for three weeks, departing in early June. Sherry and Jill (and their related attachments) are going to visit here over the Memorial Day weekend. As you might imagine, we are greatly looking forward to their visit!

From here, our plans are slightly up in the air. If the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park is open, we're going to head north and visit it. We're cautiously optimistic that it'll be open. The South Rim is opening up (today?) with a lot of restrictions.

If not, we're heading directly to Paso Robles, CA... we've decided it's time to buy a place and settle down. More on that, and our thoughts on making that decision, in a separate post.

Meanwhile, here's a couple of pics from some dayhikes in the last couple of days...

MORE Springtime in the Desert

So, we've noticed on our drives around town that in the last week or so the saguaro are starting to bloom. Somewhat to our surprise, some - but not all, apparently - saguaro show twenty or more buds at the tops of their stalks. The buds have been visible since we hit town nearly a month ago, but are now starting to open up. The saguaro flower is the state flower of Arizona.

A couple of days ago, Cathy suggested we hit the National Park and look for blooms. We went this afternoon, and weren't disappointed. Looking for saguaro blooms at this time of year is like looking for bison in Yellowstone: you won't be disappointed.

Also to our pleasant surprise, the park was largely deserted. Of course, the visitor center is closed, but the scenic drive and all the trails are open. We went in the early afternoon, but the temperature hit 100°F while we were there - not a lot of hikers present.

We continue to be blown away by the beauty of this desert. It seemed like everything we saw was in bloom. Here's just a few photos...

We'd never seen a prickly pear with orange blossoms like this.

I think this is a staghorn cholla, but don't quote me on that.

There's something like 30 separate buds here.