This guy was flying over the Tucson Speedway this weekend, I guess he was part of the show. They also shot off some fireworks, fortunately they waited for him to land first.

Today looks like the last day of sub 100° temperatures, by Friday it's supposed to be 108°, and I may or may not be leaving the next day.

I still don't know exactly what I'm doing, or how I'm going to do it, all I know for sure is I have to be back in Denver during July.... But how and when I get there, I haven't a clue.

I finally broke down and did some laundry today, I gave some thought as to which would be better, to throw all my dirty clothes away and buy new stuff, or go to the laundry room here at the campground and wash everything. Both things sounded equally distasteful but I figured that since there's hardly anyone staying at the Pima County Fairgrounds anymore there's less chances that a Bat virus would be hanging around so it would probably be better to wash the clothes than try and duplicate my somewhat unique wardrobe.

Price-wise there wasn't a whole lot of difference, when you consider on one hand my clothes are old, raggedy, and need replacing. And on the other hand a commercial washer takes more quarters than an Indian casino slot machine and will only hold a pair of jeans and one sock so washing or buying new stuff was kind of a tossup.

But it came down to me not wanting to spend all day shopping for clothes at the Goodwill when sitting in an un-air-conditioned 130° metal shed with some washing machines in it all morning watching scorpions fight over the underwear I dropped sounded like so much fun.

Turns out Scorpions are tough critters, touching my underwear will normally kill any insect and most reptiles. On a good note, I was able to save a little money on the dryers because at these temperatures and with the humidity in the low single digits the laundry comes out of the washer dry as a bone.

                               theboondork

This is the opposite of a wheelie, in motorcycle terms its called a stoppie

This girl hovers above the saddle, I guess it's a smoother ride that way.

Sometimes people ask me questions about my pictures, things like... "What brand of camera do you use? I want to make sure I never buy one of those." Or..."Have you ever taken a picture that you didn't consider embarrassingly infantile?" And even... "With all the hobby's in the world why did you have to ruin photography?"

But sometimes someone will ask a question that I actually know the answer to such as..... "Have you ever taken a picture that you  liked?"... And the answer to that is yes, and this happens to be one.

Technically it's not a good picture, the exposures off, it's not very sharp, and the background is way too busy. But to me I like the way the horse's mane, tail, and the girls hair is all blowing backwards showing movement and speed. And I like the position of the horse showing athleticism and power. But mostly what I like about the picture is the expression on the girls face showing the absolute joy in what she's doing, and the complete confidence in herself and her horse in their ability to move as one.

I spent a lot of time yesterday over at the covered arena watching the barrel racers which was a nice break from what I normally do every day, which is not much of anything. I really enjoy watching the skill and athleticism of the girls and their horses.

I didn't take a lot of pictures during the day because of the difficulty of getting a decent picture with the lighting being what it is at the covered arena so I spent most of the time just enjoying the show assuming I would have plenty of time to take some pictures later in the day when the sun light wasn't so harsh, and take a few more pictures today, because after all it is a three-day holiday.

The mistake I made was assuming that a three-day holiday meant three days of barrel racing, so when I moseyed over to the covered arena yesterday afternoon I was shocked and disappointed to find there wasn't a horse, a cowgirl, a horse trailer, or a bale of hay anywhere in sight, every single soul had packed up and disappeared like they had never been here.

What this means is I didn't get many pictures of the barrel racers and the ones I did get are nothing to write home about because of the horrendous lighting conditions at the covered arena. So my pictures instead of being random pictures of 40 different horse riders are going to be a dozen or so pictures of the same four or five contestants that I took while I was mostly watching the competition and not trying to get into position to get a decent picture.

Changing the subject a little, you may wonder how did I stay safe and follow all the CDC rules about being around crowds while watching the barrel race? Well first of all it was an outdoor event and that helps me  feel better right off the bat. Second, the event arena is pretty large, and lastly there was only about 75 people there, and not all at once, so people were spread out all over the arena.

There were no spectators..... except  me of course, it was competitors and their families only, so I just stayed off by myself and I seriously doubt if I was ever closer than 20 feet to anyone the entire time I was there. I carried my face-mask in my pocket, but no one there was wearing one, so I never put mine on. The fact is the only time I see anyone wearing a face-mask around here is when I go to the store during the Geezer hour, other than that nobody wears them...... I take that back, every single person involved with the high school graduation the other night was wearing a mask. but other than that people I see walking around everywhere, or working here at the Fairgrounds aren't wearing masks.

So the riders are gone, the horses are gone, the flies are gone, the roach coach is fully stocked up with Italian sausage......after all some horses didn't perform up to expectations, and now everything's back to normal..... I'm bored.

                          theboondork

Sometimes you have to wonder how a horse can stay on his feet making a turn as fast as their going.

The horses get in some really weird positions to turn as fast as they do going as fast as they are.

Quick starts, quick turns, it's all about speed.

if you want the quickest time you have to get as close as possible going around the barrel without knocking it over, you can make the barrel move you just can't tip it over. It's hard to believe but she didn't knock the barrel over, in fact this young lady and her horse are performing perfectly.

this girl looks awfully young and small to be handling a horse the way she does, but my guess is she's probably been sitting on a horse for most of her life.

Last nights sunset. it wasn't all that great but its the first time I've seen any clouds in a while.

I'm actually writing this about 9:30 this morning because I just found out what's going on with all the horses running around the Fairgrounds this weekend. It seems that they're having barrel races this holiday weekend and that explains why there's a lot of horse trailers and cowgirls at the Fairgrounds.

All that was great news for me because I love to take pictures of horses doing things.... As long as they're not doing those things to me. I figured I will be over at the arena watching the events and taking pictures for most of the day and I might not have time to write my blog so I decided to hastily scribble a few words before I walk over to the arena.

And speaking of the arena, just my luck It looks like there holding the event at my least favorite arena, it's the indoor outdoor arena that's actually outdoors with a cover over it. Some of you may remember me complaining long and loud in the past about the difficulty of taking pictures in this arena because it's really dark down low where the horses are and really bright up higher where the rider is so the pictures are either too dark or too light and most are unusable. Oh well, I guess they're not holding this event for my personal amusement so I'll have to deal with it as best I can.

Yesterday afternoon and well into the night there was a Stock Car race over at the Tucson Speedway which is maybe a mile from where I'm camped. It's close enough that part of the nature trail that I walk on comes within rock-throwing distance of the stadium. That sounds pretty far away in less you've heard a dozen stock-cars starting up at the same time, it's absolutely earsplitting. The race and its various heats started around dinnertime and finally stopped about 10 o'clock, which is often when I go to bed so it worked out about right. I would've gone over and watched but like everything else now days they weren't allowing spectators, only the racers and their pit crews.

Next week looks like it's going to go full desert mode around here and their forecasting over 100° temperatures probably till the end of the month. I'm sure glad I'm plugged in because those kind of temperatures are hard to take without air conditioning even for a grizzled old desert boondocker like myself.

                        theboondork

Some of the competitors waiting for their turn to ride.

What's with this strange human that looks like a homeless bum? And why is he walking into my barrel racing world? Good grief, he's pointing a camera at me and the idiots holding it upside down. He looks very familiar.... he kind of resembles the kid that used to clean my stall back in Miami, I remember thinking at the time this kid Isn't qualified for a job even this menial, but its probably the best job he will ever have.... And by the looks of him it appears I was right.

As I was wandering aimlessly around the Fairgrounds this morning I saw what may turn out to be clues to what happens in my future, or it may be absolutely nothing at all, either way I'll probably find out shortly.

Yesterday I saw the RV show Roach Coach food concessionaire leaving the Fairgrounds and even posted a picture sharing this momentous event with everyone. But it appears that the appearance was not as it appeared to be, and instead of leaving the Fairgrounds it actually reappeared In a new location, which goes to show first appearances can appear to be deceiving.

Now when I saw the Barf Buggy in a new location near the rodeo arena this morning I assumed he had broken down on his way to somewhere else and was going to live there until his food ran out and he slowly starved to death, so I didn't give it much thought except how watching him starve after he had eaten his last Italian sausage would make an interesting time lapse video, but other than that I just ambled on down the road.

A few hundred yards down the road, or it might've been 20 or 30 feet and just felt like 200 yards, I saw three horse trailers, the kind that have living quarters in the front, parked in the cowboy boondocking area with two or three horses tied up outside, at least I think they were horses they were covered with flies so it was hard to tell. I think this might be another clue, but what could a Wurst Wagon food truck, and horses covered in flies possibly have in common?

As I turned and walked for a ways toward the rodeo arena I heard voices. Now I hear voices all the time usually telling me to shave and take a bath, but these were female voices, and not the female voices I  usually hear telling me to go away or they'll call the police, these voices were different.... they weren't screaming.

As I got to the rodeo arena the gates of the arena were closed, which is usually not the case and there were two horses standing around inside the arena and at the far end of the arena was what appeared to be two females dressed in cowgirl attire sitting on the arena fence, although it was too far away for me to be sure they were cowgirls. Now days you have to be very careful who you call a cowboy or a cowgirl. Back in the  day you could just wait and see which bathroom they went in but that doesn't work anymore, so I won't make that mistake again.

I yelled across the arena..... IS THERE A HORSE EVENT GOING ON? And they yelled back.....GO AWAY OR WE'LL CALL THE POLICE!! I thanked them for the information and moseyed on back to the Arctic Fox.

Now I don't have much to go on right now but I am able to put two and three together and come up with four, so it appears there's something happening here at the Fairgrounds and I have no idea what it is. But it seems to involve a broken down food concession, three horse people so poor they have to sleep in a horse trailer instead of a motel, and two cowgirls or cowboys, or  nonbinary cowpersons that may  be just as confused about which one they are as I am.

I'm sure all of this means something, and will no doubt affect my future, I'll just have to wait for more clues.

                        theboondork

The Snack Shack reappeared this morning in an area adjacent to the rodeo grounds. I wonder if there's a correlation between this Italian sausage restaurant, and It's proximity to a large supply of horses? Does anyone know what Italian sausage is made out of? Does anyone care? Are there any Frenchmen in the area?

These flowers have nothing to do with the blog today but that's never stopped me before from throwing in a random flower picture.

Horse trailers that suddenly appeared this morning.  What are they up to? Why are they here? Why wasn't I notified? Why do horses attract so many flies? these and so many more questions remain to be answered.

I took this picture from behind the stage so everything is happening on the other side of this picture, being an outsider I didn't want to get in the way of the event just to get a better picture. The big thing on the far left is an inflatable 40 foot wide viewing screen, so the people parked in the back could see their kids close up. I watched the crew put the screen up and since it was kind of breezy it was pretty exciting. Those of you with eyes far better than mine might notice on each side of the picture there are red Budweiser signs. This outdoor stadium is sponsored by Budweiser so those are permanent signs and weren't put there by the graduation ceremony committee.

I went for a walk on the nature trail this morning but I got off to a late start and didn't get back to the Arctic Fox till about 9:30 and it was already starting to get too hot to walk. I try to walk for about 45 minutes fast enough to get my heart rate and respiration up so I'm breathing a little bit heavy.

I'm lucky that it doesn't take long for me to get my respiration and heart rate up, in fact just walking to the refrigerator to get another Bacon sandwich will normally get my heart rate over 200 beats a minute, and any heart that can beat that fast has got to be in great shape.

Whenever I mention my Bacon sandwiches everybody always wants my recipe and it's quite simple. Put down a slice of whole wheat bread, whole wheat is much better for you than processed flour, lay about half inch of uncooked bacon on the bread, add four or five spoonfuls of bacon flavored mayonnaise, a thick slice of cheese, and another half inch of bacon on the cheese, top it off with a slice of bread.... Wrap the whole sandwich in Bacon and cook until the cheese has melted and the Bacon is crispy.....Mmmm, Mmmm, Good! If you're on a diet, or have cholesterol problems just throw out the bread, breads not good for you anyway.


These Bacon sandwiches can be eaten not only for all three meals but make great between meal snacks, and of course is perfect for that much needed bedtime snack and the midnight snack when the bedtime snack just wasn't quite enough.

As you might imagine doctors opinions vary greatly on the health benefits of eating a Bacon sandwich, some doctors feel that eating even one could shorten your life expectancy by decades while other doctors say that just watching somebody eat one can permanently damage your heart. One well-known heart surgeon goes so far as to say just reading about a bacon sandwich on a blog can increase your LDL cholesterol levels 43%, and more than double your chances of getting the Bat flu.

I of course consider all that poppycock and a bunch of drivel written by people that have never tasted a Bacon sandwich. We've all seen how doctors will say something is bad for you then years later turn around and say new studies shows that same stuff was good for you all along, or how about the doctors advertising for Lucky Strikes back in the day..."LSMFT", so I'm just getting ahead of the curve, waiting for the doctors to catch up.

                           theboondork

At the graduation ceremony last night my campsite was very popular. I should've stood outside and charged everybody five dollars to park. These aren't the kids or the parents these are the people that are putting on the graduation ceremony, the kids and parents are all parked out in front of the stage.

Looks like the weenie wagon from the RV show is heading for greener pastures.

I don't normally think of cactus as colorful, but in this case it is.

 
I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do for the Memorial Day weekend that's rapidly approaching but I've got it narrowed down to either staying home and doing nothing, or staying home and doing something.

Doing something sounds like it would take a lot of effort on my part and I'm normally a firm believer in relaxing during holidays, but since I relax almost every day its getting so I can't tell the holidays from the regular days so I feel like I should do something just so I can tell it's a holiday.... But what?

A lot of folks go camping on the Memorial Day holiday and camping does sound like a lot of fun, I've always liked camping especially when I stopped doing it in a tent. Maybe I should throw caution to the wind and go camping. I would really enjoy that but I'm pretty sure it will be impossible to find a place to camp on Memorial Day. I'll bet every camping spot in Arizona will be full by Friday afternoon, and I certainly don't want to have to deal with crowds like that.

I suppose I could camp right here at the Fairgrounds after all the Arctic Fox is not just a home its also an RV, so I could "camp" right where I'm at so I don't have to put up with the holiday crowds. Well that settles it! I'm going to go camping for the holidays right here at the Fairgrounds. I'm going to eat and sleep in my RV and enjoy camping in the outdoors surrounded by nature, peace and quiet, and having a comfortable place to relax,  and I'm sure I will find plenty of time for relaxing.......

This is great I'm glad I decided to go camping and not just sit around the Arctic Fox all day.

                      theboondork

A White Rose slowly desiccates in the merciless desert sun. Having only days left to live it knows nothing of its fate so it clings without concern to its tenuous and rapidly disappearing hold on life.

This morning about 8 o'clock strangers started parking around the Arctic Fox, I found this rather odd because there's plenty of other places to park cars around here but for some reason they were snuggled up to me like I offered some kind of protection. Rational explanations eluded me so all I could come up with was....

The Secret Service finally caught up to me for making rude comments about President Jimmy Carter as he was in the process of destroying the country during the 1970s.

An IRS SWAT team is surrounding the Arctic Fox because they just figured out that I didn't owe any taxes last year and that can't be possible.

Their a gang that has heard my entire life savings is hidden in the Arctic Fox and there waiting for an opportunity to rob me. But they might be disappointed when they learn that my entire life savings consists of 3000 Japanese yen, and a two dollar bill with a picture of President Clinton's face on it.

It took me a while but I finally figured it out by coming outside and looking over at the outdoor stage where I saw a sign that said "Compass high school class of 2020" and realized all the activity had something to do with a graduation. That's not all that odd this time of year, it's actually the kind of graduation that was the strange part.

I talked to someone standing nearby, after all I'm camped only about 100 feet from the stage, and was informed that there is going to be a rehearsal this morning for the high school graduation tomorrow evening, and this graduation is going to be a "Contactless Drive in Graduation Ceremony". Now that didn't sound like much fun for the kids or the parents but I remember how happy I was to graduate and would've done it even if they had made me swim from Miami to Cuba and back again with a couple of Cuban refugees on my back.

I wanted out of school really bad.....but not nearly as bad as my teachers wanted me out of school. My grades drove down area high schools grade point average to a level that put Dade County's high schools below Haiti's.

But I digress, it looks like I'll have a front row seat to a strange Bat flu type of graduation tomorrow that for the sake of kids everywhere I pray is not going to become the new normal.

                       theboondork

Volunteers getting the stage and parking area ready for the rehearsal.

Here's all the kids for their dress rehearsal. Their only allowed out of their cars when their walking to and from the stage to get their diploma, and their diploma is not handed to them, its laying on a sanitized table and only they can pick it up...sad, very sad.

Everyone has gone home now probably to a sleepless night anticipating the big event tomorrow. They all have their own assigned parking space. And you can see the Arctic Fox on the far right.

A bench alongside the nature trail where someone can sit, take a nap, or even just think.

I picked up my new Trailer tag the post office had managed to deliver without any drama from the Fairgrounds administrative office today. My tag was mailed from Denver Colorado to Tucson Arizona and my tracking number showed the first place it went was Spokane Washington which is about 1400 miles north of Denver, bear in mind that Tucson Arizona is about 800 miles South of Denver.

Now I understand that the post office,  UPS, and FedEx all use hubs to move stuff around the country but you would think that the post office would have a hub in the Southwest part of the country and not just the Northwest and then maybe it wouldn't take four days to deliver a letter 800 miles. Believe it or not the Pony Express in 1860 actually delivered letters faster than that.

There are still some left over RVs laying around that haven't been removed yet, so I guess the RV show folks are in no hurry to put everything back on the sales lot. I imagine in a lot of the country this would be prime RV selling season with people starting to think about their summer vacation, or trading their old RV for a new one, but I don't know if it works that way in the desert areas of Arizona, It's too hot and a lot of RV people have left for cooler climates. I would sure like to be in a cooler climate but it looks like I'm committed to be here till the end of the month.

                       theboondork

Being a bit of a handyman myself I got a kick out of this pipe. The question must of been how do I hook up a standard garden hose to a 4 inch pipe? And It looks like the answer was to go through the junk box and grab every reducer and pipe nipple you can find, and keep screwing them together until a hose bib will fit.

There are a couple of the these raised grassy areas alongside the nature trail and when I first saw them I thought they looked like a drain field, but they don't appear to be big enough and there's no buildings in the area, But then I heard a rumor that made a lot more sense. These could be mass graves where they bury the people that thought they could exercise in this desert heat but found out too late they were wrong.

The RV dog and pony show packed up and started leaving town today, they have a lot of RVs to take back to the dealership so I reckon it will take them a while. I never did get around to asking anyone if they were selling anymore RVs than normal, partially because I didn't feel like talking to anyone, I didn't feel like I would get a straight answer out of a salesman, and since it seemed like there was a lot of RVs coming and going in the "sold" lot I'm guessing they had a pretty good four day show. Especially when you consider there can't be many RVers like me left in town, it's too hot and all the snowbirds have flown north. So I'm amazed they sold as many RVs as they did.

My daughter was telling me today that  they tried to get a camping reservation at a couple of Colorado state parks, and a commercial park but everything was booked up for the summer. I guess depending on how you look at things that can be good news or bad news.

If you're in the campground business in Colorado I imagine that would be great news. If you're an RVer hoping to go to Colorado this summer it sounds like if you're not set up to boondock, you might be out of luck. And if you were wondering if people were going to stay home this summer or go on their summer vacation to Colorado.... I guess that answers your question. None of that really affects me all that much because I have places I can stay when I go there, and I will have to go there to get my truck inspected so I can renew my license plate in July.

Before the Bat flu came along I was looking forward to taking some mini-vacations in my little Bronco pop-up slide-in camper, but now I'm not sure. I really don't feel safe doing that at this point in time but I'm not ruling anything out because maybe they will come up with something that can increase the chances of us geezers survival if we do get the Bat flu. Or maybe things somehow will improve enough so the government can take us old folks off the shelter in place list... But I'm not going to hold my breath....

Wait a minute, maybe I should hold my breath, I can't get sick if I don't inhale any Bats, but I can't hold my breath as long as I used to when I lived in Florida and  was skin diving and scuba diving... That's an idea, I'll get a scuba tank then I can inhale Bat free air so I can travel anywhere I want to...... for one hour. Hmmmm, I think my plan needs some work.

                       theboondork

A while back I thought I remembered buying an onion on one of my very infrequent Walmart grocery shopping trips, but looking for it days later I couldn't find it so I assumed I hadn't actually bought one. But recently I saw something mysterious peeking out from behind the kitchen curtain.    

OH, THAT'S where I put the onion. When I was a kid and I couldn't find something my dad would tell me that I would lose my head if it wasn't screwed on..... Looks like he was right.

This desert flower is so rare no one ever bothered giving it a name......or maybe they did and I'm just too lazy to look it up.

It was a beautiful morning so I got up and walked around the nature trail before I had my coffee. I don't call it a fitness trail anymore because having reached the pinnacle of physical fitness there's simply no more fitness I can gain by walking, so I save my strength and let my muscle tone themselves by relaxing at my  relaxation station for most of the day.

Today is the last day of the RV show and in a way I'll be glad to see them go. They have been handy to have around for me to take a quick snapshot every now and then, but they are kind of noisy. They stay up late, I guess as long as somebody's there kicking tires, and trying to make up their mind the salesman will stay as long as it takes. There's a crew of guys that drives around all day in a pickup truck that has a giant pressure washer, and a tank of water on the back and they wash all the RVs from dawn till dusk, and the gas powered pressure washer makes more noise than you would think possible for something that would fit in the back of a pickup truck.

I will probably miss the RV show a little bit because it did bring some excitement to the area but on the other hand it will be good to get back to the peace and quiet that was normal before they showed up. And speaking of peace and quiet there's hardly anyone camping around here anymore. The last time I looked the regular camping area where I normally stay when I need hookups only had six RVs there and I believe there is over 100 campsites in that one area.

It kind of makes me wonder if I'll be the last camper here by the end of May?  That would be great.

                         theboondork

This tree has fuzzy things hanging all over it which makes it look like a fuzzy tree....  I remember a long time ago Elvis Presley had a problem with a "fuzzy tree" apparently it made him itch, obviously allergies, I wonder if this could be that tree?

Top of an Organ Pipe Cactus.....not a good place to sit no matter how tired you are.......I won't make that mistake again.

Monstrous man eating space alien  attempting to disguise itself as a harmless desert plant.....I wasn't fooled for a minute.