Darkness and Light

Today's "Verse of the Day" in the Bible app from YouVersion is 1 Peter 2:9 which says, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."

This reminded me about something that God has been showing me over the past few weeks and months... that sometimes the darkness needs to get REALLY dark for us humans to recognize that it has gotten dark, and that we need light.

There have been times over the past year or so that I have felt despair over the situations that are happening around me, in our country, in the world. I pray for God to relieve the situation, and sometimes He does, but sometimes He doesn't. Later I can see that by Him not relieving the situation, He has made it clear that there is a choice to be made - either stay in the darkness, or follow His calling "into His marvelous light". If there was never darkness, we wouldn't see the contrast that light makes.

Particularly when I am praying for friends who need salvation, who need to draw near to God, especially when I see that they are going through very dark times, I try to be careful to pray that God's will be done - because He may have them in darkness so they can see the contrast between the darkness and be prompted to listen for His call to His Marvelous Light!

Maintenance - tow bar

We had noticed when we disconnected the tow bar at Benson that it was hard to get it to release - so we had on our "to-do" list to clean it.

Dwayne took care of the task on Friday.

We had towed from DFW down to Mustang Island on the Gulf in Texas and then all the way across to Arizona (from the Gulf of Mexico to Arizona without ever disconnecting). Going through the wind and blowing sand, plus a few times of rain that would kick up from the back of the motorhome onto the Jeep and tow bar, really had it filthy. We clean and lubricate it with a non-greasy formula that is recommended by the manufacturer.

We hope to have it inspected by Roadmaster when we are in Quartzsite.

Travel to Cottonwood

We drove today from the Tucson area through Phoenix, to Cottonwood, AZ.

We stopped on the way at a scenic overlook along I-17.

Dwayne took some pictures with his new lens. I'll need to get the photos to share later!

Beautiful!

View from our campsite - out our front window are some rental cabins. There is a river down below with the canyon coming up on the far side.

Bird identification and measuring tread

First - in the post yesterday(http://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2017/01/trying-out-new-ef-100-400mm-lens.html), we labeled the birds pictured as "a grey and white bird with a beady eye" and "another bird". I figured that a helpful reader would provide us information about what kind of birds they were - I was thinking niece Ginny, but instead her mom, sister-by-love Regina, provided this very helpful information:

I bet Miss Kitty knows what the grey and white bird is.  Clue 1 – It has a love/hate relationship with cats.  Clue 2 – It is found all across the U.S.  Clue 3 – And you should know what it is from being on the farm.  It is the infamous Mockingbird!

 

The second bird is a Curve-billed Thrasher.  About 10 ½ in.  Large, blurry, rounded spotting on upper breast; long noticeably downward curved bill; orangish eye.  Habitat is semi-desert scrub and suburban parks and yards.  Forages on the ground for insects.  Also eats seeds, berries, and ofen comes to bird feeders for fruit, and to birdbaths.  It places its nests in cholla cactus, thorny bush, or small tress 2 – 15 ft. above the ground.

I kinda thought the first one looked like a mockingbird, and I definitely remember them. In the garden when I was growing up there was one that would dive-bomb on our boxer dog, Betsy. She was such a sweet dog and wasn't hurting the bird at all... oh well, that's the way mockingbirds are!

The other part of this post is to provide information to my brother, Jimmy, about what we have found in measuring the tread depth in the Jeep tires. As background information, regular readers might recall that we've had various and assorted tire issues with the Jeep over the past year or so... including having to replace tires that were just 15 months old because they were so badly worn. They didn't have anywhere close to the mileage that they were supposed to be able to run. As a result, we are watching the tires on the Jeep a bit more closely, ensuring that we rotate them at appropriate intervals. We are pretty certain that the front tires on the Jeep get more scraping as, when it is being towed, the tires are forced to turn or go straight by adjusting to the friction that they are receiving from the road surface (not by being steered in any way). Besides keeping better records (Patti the spreadsheet girl), Dwayne has been trying to keep measurements of the tread depth.

Back to the information for Jimmy. Dwayne went out to do the tread depth measurement but... found a problem... you might recall that we've been having quite a bit of rain and are pretty much surrounded by mud (http://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2017/01/does-it-rain-in-desert.html).

I thought I would share with you what our tires look like when we are parked at the campground...

We have to go through pretty deep mud to get to the campsite.

I think our tread depth measurements might be a bit off if done now...

The campsite itself has gravel, which is where the rocks come from.

We'll get that tread depth measurement done at the *next* campground - hopefully!

Trying out the new EF 100-400mm lens

Patti and I went out to Saguaro National Park west of Tucson to try out my new Canon EF 100-400 mm zoom lens.  It will take some getting used to as it really zooms in.  The image stabilization works better than any I have worked with as it allows me to hand hold the lens and camera and be able to take photos using long exposures such as 1/20 and 1/30 of a second and still get clear photos (for the most part as I did a lot of culling out the ones that were out of focus). 


What is my sweet heart looking at?  Maybe a bird?

My sweet heart



Patti:  "Take a picture of that bird."     Dwayne:  "What bird is that dear?"

 

We don't know the names of any of the birds, so let's call this one "a grey and white bird with a beady eye".

The same "grey and white one with a beady eye". He/she seemed to like posing.

Grey and white with beady-eye bird says:  "What is that strange lookin' one-eyed monster?"

 

 

Here is another bird.  What is that it has in its beak?

 

A view of the mountains and saguaros

The blue shrouded mountains in the distance

A black and white version of that same picture done with the editing software.

 

Dwayne's new toy

Dwayne was wishing for a lens for the camera which would allow him to take better pictures of things like wildlife that is at a distance away.... so he did quite a bit of research and asked the opinion of a friend of ours who takes really great pictures, and identified the lens he wanted. Amazon had it, Josh's mother was agreeable to us having it shipped to her address (it had to be signed for so someone needed to be home on the day it was to come), and so, today, Dwayne got his new toy (we picked it up at Josh and Ginny's house - many thanks to Nancy for being the receiver!).

That's just the lens in his hands.

This shows the camera attached (I think I probably should say "the lens attached to the camera," but in this case, it seems more appropriate to say, "the camera attached to the lens"!)

Now to find some wildlife to take pictures of. Niece Ginny is working at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum tomorrow... maybe we'll head out there!

Does it rain in the desert?

We are just outside Tucson in Marana. We are in the Sonoran desert. Since we have been coming out here the last few years, I have been amazed at how beautiful the desert is - and how much grows in the desert. I guess I should not be surprised that it rains in the desert...

We have been experiencing some of the winter rains while here in Tucson. Nephew-by-love Josh told us that they generally get winter rains, and although the rains are generally in January into February, it is not unheard of to get the winter rains earlier in the winter. (However, these rains are evidently nothing compared to the rains during the monsoons in later summer.)

The campground where we stay here is nothing special - but it has full hookups for $12.63/night, which is a great price. The good news is that the sites have been fortified with a good amount of gravel, so we're parked above the puddles and mud. The bad news is that the roads have not had the same treatment...

The road just in front and to the right of the front of the bus. A guy tried backing his 5th wheel in next to us earlier today. His truck started spinning, so he got out and did something to the two front wheels (maybe put it into 4 wheel drive?), and was then able to get the 5th wheel up into the spot. However, a few minutes later he pulled out - I guess to go to another site.

Down the road in front of Miss Doozie. I don't think that area is quite as muddy, but water is definitely standing. Usually they put the "overnight" folks in the row where we are parked, but it seems they are putting some of the new folks coming in on the row across from us, maybe because there is less mud over there?

Behind Miss Doozie. I am glad we moved the Jeep to the front side - we had previously been parking the Jeep towards the back of Miss Doozie - I think we would be wading to get to the doors of the Jeep if it was parked back there now.

The "lake" behind Miss Doozie. I guess we have a waterfront (and water back) site!

Looking down the row in front of Miss Doozie - the sites have good amount of gravel and are dry. The next rig down the row from us is also a Blue Bird (actually it is one site separated from us, but no one has been parked in the site between us since the first night.. That Blue Bird is the one that inspired me to look at Blue Birds as an option once we decided Miss Daisy was not going to work for our full time rig.

Dwayne talked with the guy who owns that Blue Bird a few days ago. He leaves it parked here all the time. I think he lives in southern California and comes here to visit his sister who lives in this area. You may not be able to tell from this picture, but it is a pretty blue/silver bus, probably mid 1980s. Although I like the look of the classic buses, I'm glad Miss Doozie is newer as there are definite benefits (most importantly, the S60 Detroit Diesel engine) to the newer models.