Coffee Greatness

It seems that coffee is really good for you.  Good thing that Prescott is seeing some great new coffee houses in town now.

Boise Trip

We headed up to Boise, ID for a self storage conference.  The conference was well worth it.  We picked up some great information and met good people.

We got an AirBnB in Eagle which is a large suburb of Boise.  It is a very nice town but traffic can get pretty bad.  There are still plenty of farms but I am sure those will be gone in the next few years.

On Saturday, we drove up to McCall.  The drive followed a river gorge up to the mountains and into some beautiful farm country.  We did some hiking in Ponderose State Park and had lunch in a local saloon.  Weather was cool and there was even some snow flurries.

Mother's Day Weekend Activities

• Took NWS weather spotter training at ERAU
• Visited the Chino Valley Cooper Ag Museum
• Attended the MMRG picnic
• Picked up a few items at the Mountain Artists Guild Mother's Day festival

Art Festival

Ham antenna farm

Cooper Ag Museum

Maps!

I love maps!  I have a good collection of topo maps from Tom Harrison, National Geographic, various government agencies and smaller map makers.  The Harrison ones are my favorite but they don't have any outside of California.  I also have many guidebooks loaded with maps.

Over the past decade, I have used various online maps as well.  My go to app for foot travel is CalTopo.  For Jeeping, I use Trailsoffroad and OnX.  As good as the apps are, I always have paper maps when I go on a longer hike.  It is comforting to be able to pull out a map without having to worry about batteries, coverage, etc.

Lonely Gambel Oak

We currently doing alot of clearing on our property.  Jo is concentrating on the hoarhound and I am working mainly on the scrub oak and other brush.  During our efforts, we discovered a lone Gambel oak.  Since it was crowded by alot of scrub oak and mountain mahogany, we clear all that out to give it some space.

Our lone Gambel oak

Sedona Day Trip

Following a chapter in Boots and Burgers, we headed out to Sedona for a day of hiking and burgers.  We drove out through Jerome and Cottonwood  with great desert views.  Our first stop was the Aerie trailhead.  From there we did the Ground Control and Outer Limits trails.  Lily got quite dirty with the famous Sedona red dirt.  On the way into town, many of the other trailheads were very crowded; we got lucky that our hike was almost empty.  In town, we ate at Nick's which had very good burgers and the people were super nice.  After eating we dropped Lily off at Kim's Puppy Palace since dogs are not allowed at our next stop: Red Rock State Park.  At the park, we toured the visitor center which had some nice displays and movies.  We then hiked up to the old Apache Fires house and around the park to Eagles Nest.  The hiking was very nice.  We then got smoothies in town, picked up Lily and headed home.

BACN RIP

The Air Force is looking to retire its BACN fleet.  Hopefully the payload will live on in other platforms.

Holy Stone Drones Suck

I bought a few Holy Stone drones used on Ebay as a cheap way to get into drones.  However, they are very tempermental and basically suck.  They lose GPS, trim and the app is very hard to use.  Not recommended.

Lily checking out the drone