Left the Ponderosa Pine forest near Prescott to continue back to Bryce Canyon for summer and did a little shopping on the way to my next stop in Dewey before the final stretch.
Vickie has a nice Santa Fe style home she and her father built in Dewey with a RV full hook-up site next to the guesthouse. I met Vickie working at the Mule Desk at the North Rim Grand Canyon in 2008. Always a pleasure for me to chat with her when slipping through the Grand Lodge on the way to a geology or Condor talk on the verandah. Hadn’t seen her in a few years what with me loosing my job at the canyon in 2018 and COVID keeping her home last year and this.
I planned to stay one night, maybe two, and that turned into three. We had a lot of catching up to do. Plus a couple other mutual North Rim friends came over for dinner one night. I helped her hook up a new printer to a new Chromebook and because of the strong WIFI I downloaded a lot of stuff on the new laptop. A couple of old favorites, Picassa and Windows Live Photo Gallery are no longer available for download. Moving data no longer happens laptop to laptop with a cable on Windows 10. Love/hate relationship just like Google. Good thing I back up files at least twice on external drives. It’s a slow process.
Hummingbird building nest outside the door
I also finally received an email with the official job offer at Bryce Canyon and had a bunch of paperwork to do online.
Plan E included spending at least one night at Lee’s Ferry communing with the Colorado River. Took my life in my hands driving Interstate 17 north to Flagstaff followed by the bumpy SR89 through the Painted Desert. The wind was blowing hard on the side of the camper.
Sadly, by the time I got to Lee’s Ferry the campground was full. I wasn’t happy about more time behind the wheel but continued up onto the Kaibab Plateau where I saw little patches of snow and wasn’t going to boondock with lows hoovering around freezing.
So I kept on going for Plan F to the Wheel Inn RV Park in Fredonia where I stayed a few days in the fall. It’s not particularly pretty but reasonably priced at $30/night and provided electricity for overnight heat plus decent WIFI for more work on the new laptop. Dang, that takes forever and I’m glad not to have to do it any more often. Wind gusts full of dust kept me indoors. Wonder if wind is what tore off the shroud over the AC unit on the roof somewhere on the way. Sure hope it didn’t hit anybody. Another is on order.
Finally, Sunday I could actually move back to Bryce Canyon for the summer. I got an early start but the Mountain time zone worked against me and it was an hour later in Utah. Arizona doesn’t honor daylight savings. Why we still do that is beyond me.
Arrived before noon to my big house and with the help of a friend moved clothes and food from the camper to the 5th-wheel. Thank goodness I can park with the doors pretty close to each other. Got all the utilities hooked up but with that night going below freezing didn’t turn on the water so still jugging it like this winter. Didn’t feel settled in at all. Like confused a bit, not sure where things are or belong.
And Monday morning I started back to work at Bryce Canyon for summer. But at 24° it sure didn’t feel like summer.
Welcome to your summer home!, looking forward to your photos.
Windows Live Photo Gallery was/is part of the Windows Essentials bundle. It was essential, but now it is no longer included 🙁
Thanks. Sadly I wasn’t allowed to successfully download Essentials any more. Let me know if you know a way please.
http://web.archive.org/web/20170112124505/http:/wl.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/C/1/B/C1BA42D6-6A50-4A4A-90E5-FA9347E9360C/en/wlsetup-all.exe
Thanks. Got it and glad.
What a lovely stopover for you in Dewey. Sad you didn’t get to stopover at Lee’s Ferry. I love that place. And shoot!! I had a feeling to drive over to Wheel Inn and see if you were stopped there on your way to Bryce. Remember you had stopped there last Fall. Well that settles it — I’ll be coming up to Bryce to see you!! Stay warm & out of this relentless wind if possible!!
You might want to wait a bit for the cold wind to pass at Bryce. Yovimpa Point was brutal today.
Will definitely wait – I’m not one to ignore good advice! 👍
Yes, I too am looking forward to enjoying your photos and vicariously visiting that beautiful park.
Thanks. Might have to warm up a bit before my hands can handle the camera.
Oncomp.com (Mar 15) tells how to get Picasa:
“Fortunately, I found the old Picasa. Go to https://archive.org/details/picasa_27 to find the most stable version. To download it, click on the “Windows Executable” file in the upper right. It posed no security threats when I ran it.
With it, the reader said he was able to bring in all the photos on his system, which he found “very useful.” He’s also enjoying the “export” feature, which I also love. I exported my special photos to their own folder, making them easy to find and email. My relatives adore seeing themselves or loved ones in an occasional blast-from-the-past note. I also love the way Picasa shows so many thumbnail photos at a glance, with the file and folder names from Windows off to one side.”
I hope this helps.
Thanks. I’ll look into this. Did download Photo Gallery.
24F? That’s colder than I like. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of 90+ temps either – my AC doesn’t quite keep up when it gets close to 100. Bryce looks lovely though and your photos sure make me want to head that direction.
Way too cold. But it’s nice up here in the real summer when you scorch. Then a nice time to visit. Just expect busy.
Looks like you are having a nice journey back to Bryce Gaelyn Thanks for sharing it with us.Take care and enjoy the weekend.
Good to be back even if it’s bloody cold.
That is an outstanding first picture of Bryce. Calendar worthy for sure. Love the SW style of your friend’s house. Full hook up beside a guest house – the place of my dreams except I need it along some water for kayaking. I must have missed what new laptop you bought. I knew you were getting one. It really is such a bother when they discontinue programs that I like and are much easier to use than what they replace them with. Good luck getting everything working the way you want. I am dreading when I have to do that. My 2008 Dell is still humming along but for how much longer?
Love the nesting bird picture? A wren? Hate that you got to Lee’s Ferry and there was no room. TOO TOO many RVers these days. Plan F – good grief!! Your wind stories are so discouraging. I hate wind! I may have to stay east of the Mississippi.
Don’t envy you at all changing houses. Even when I stop by Virginia it is confusing and I don’t take anything out of the RV. TWENTY FOUR DEGREES – when does it warm up at Bryce. You are a hardy one with those temperatures and that wind. I’m a serious wuss and getting worse the older I get. As are my blabber fingers – sorry. Your posts are just so interesting.
Thanks, I love your wordy comments. The moving from one to another could be worse if I didn’t have duplicates of all things kitchen. Summer arrives late at 8000 feet, think maybe mid to late June. It snowed today.
Love your new header. Glad that you are safely at Bryce and I am sure you will soon get yourself settled and sorted out. Hope the cold soon changes to summer. We have a return of frosts which is really upsetting the garden! Looking forward to your new adventures and hoping the laptop soon gets sorted – I hate changing over and updating!!! Keep safe, hugs from us both Diane
Good to be here even if it feels like winter. Snowed today.
Oh I loved seeing Vickie’s house. A perfect dream for living in the warm sunny southwest, with a way to escape the winds! Nice that you could stay there a bit. You have such an eclectic bunch of great friends, especially the one that moves that big Fiver for you. So nice to get to Bryce and have it waiting. Although I don’t envy the move, but at least it can get done fairly quickly. That first Bryce photo is gorgeous. I keep wondering when I will ever get back to Highway 12. Miss that route, and of course if I go far enough south I can get to Bryce after filling up my soul with Capitol Reef. Probably won’t try it in the summer though. Maybe next spring? Who knows. Life keeps throwing curves at us, all of us. I have lost my ability to plan for the future since I don’t trust it a lot. Good plans are up close, like what is on my chore list today, when is the next mostly local camping trip, when will Recreation Creek be kayakable again, as in warm enough. I have a big desktop that I love, bought it in 2011. Put in a new hard drive 2 years ago, but before I decided to upgrade the hard drive I panic bought a laptop from Best Buy. I still managed to lose some stuff when the big drive when down even though I am pretty meticulous about backing things up. Ah well. Don’t envy you that job. I did manage to find a Picasa thing that actually works. It has a hard time with my 100k photos but once it loads up it works pretty well for the things that I use Picasa for. Quick searches, and mostly collages, and people searches, although google photos is doing better with that now. If you want the exe file for this Picasa I can send it to you. The other thing that makes me crazy about these new fangled computer programs is that everything is going subscription. Finally broke down and did the subscription thing for Lightroom. Ugh. and Quicken. Ugh again. Still holding out with my old Office 2007, but seem to have lost the disc so I am screwed. All of office is also now a subscription and I have so many excell and access and word files that I can’t figure out how to do without it. Ah well….as I said, don’t envy you having to do that laptop thing, but am glad you did get a new one.
I love my eclectic bunch of friends, especially when able to moochdock. Vickie’s guesthouse is available for rent. I had a big PC but it’s Windows 7 and way too bulky to travel with. Am close to having things set up on the new laptop but this Lenovo is a little smaller keyboard than I’m used to. I happily downloaded Photo Gallery with Jeff’s link. Would love the exe for Picassa as there are things I do there too. I’ve had Lightroom subscription for years. Was able to buy Office without a subscription thank goodness.
Back again to that lovely place, though I know you are shivering with temps that low. Your first photo of the hoodoos is wonderful. I sure hope the wind lets up now that you’re settled for the summer. Still snowing here – I’m getting tired of it….
19° this morning is worse than snow. Hard to believe even you are tired of snow. Stay well.
I hope you get settled in pretty soon. You sure do move around a lot but that is kind of what you do. My sister and BIL were here this weekend to help me sort through our brother’s stuff she had to get out of here early this morning because she reports to the west gate at Yellowstone pretty soon.
It’s not so much the moving as needing too many things fixed and waiting weeks for parts.