S L O W S L O W E R S L O W E S T !
Seems the longer I'm here in Cottonwood Arizona, the slower the internet gets. I know there are providers that are better than Sprint ... which is more of a slow crawl than a sprint ... but I've had this plan, along with my I-Phone AT&T account FOREVER!! That means I have unlimited everything which I use to the max, so I'm just not willing to give them up and pay more. During the entire last year, this is probably the slowest it's been ... not bad considering my last six month trip.
Not the best picture of my boy, but Cooper wasn't much interested in doing anything yesterday either. I did try to go for a short walk, but with Miss Jessie The Terrible, I have to choose my times carefully! Many of the big dogs around here don't seem to need leashes, so we have had a few encounters.
I did a couple of quick loads of wash, including my stinky tennis shoes, but then I didn't have anything else to wear except sandals or big heavy cowboy boots. I decided to make a quick run to Big 5 and see what I could find. On my way out, I noticed the little cactus I bought in Tucson is a happy camper, sitting on the dash by the door!! There are three little buds around the outside growing like crazy! I have no clue if these are blooms or ones I should cut off and replant. Gee ... my pot is too small already!!
Always looking for more adventure, I've noticed two roads off Hwy 260 that say river access. No time like the present to check them out. Dirt, washboard roads, so S L O W was the name of the game. At the parking area, there wasn't a sole in sight. Thirty feet and I was standing at the edge of the river at a perfect spot to launch my kayak ... if I had one that is! The second stop wasn't really a stop at all. When I reached the end of THAT dirt road, it was occupied by a 20-something kid, shirtless, with every door of his trashy vehicle open wide, including the trunk, where I'm sure I spotted a rifle butt. Really? What is there to shoot out here. The road ended 50 feet up on the side of a cliff above the water, without even a lizard in site. Jeeps can turn pretty sharp when you want them to, as I made a quick exit left!!
Big 5 here is a great store ... bigger than where I come from with lots of stuff on sale, including these half price Saucony tennies ... good for hiking or running from shirtless loiterers!
Back at the rig, I tried to sit around like Cooper, but it's just not in me. I dug through all my bags of material until I found the potholder instructions. I'm discovering that the quilt pattern people sit hand in hand with the material business. The instructions tell you to cut SEVEN pieces of fabric ... which I did ... but in the end, you only use FIVE!! That's irritating ... I just wasted an entire $3.50 fat quarter!! Now I'll have to make two more potholders!! These are easy peasy to make, they just require quite a bit of sewing. Cut the squares (you can use scrap material in the middle), layer with Insul-Bright (the stuff that keeps your fingers from being burnt to a crisp) and sew across at a diagonal. Keep sewing every 3/8" across both sides.
At this point, the shop said you HAD to buy this fancy dancy tool to cut between the sewing lines. The lady said her hands just KILLED her by the time she got half way through using scissors. You REALLY need the $12 tool. Okay, I'll bite ... I bought the tool. Trouble is, you have to use scissors to get it started, which is when you will discover it's not THAT hard to cut after all. When finished cutting, sew binding on the edges and you have a GREAT potholder. I mean really ... they are nice!! I can hear the guys saying ..... B O R I N G!! Hey, I warned you it was a S L O W day!!!
To make it an even better Sunday afternoon, I had an unplanned burial in the trash bin. When I was here with the Westerfields about 9 months ago, we discovered the best bread pudding ever in Jerome. It's been on my mind, so I decided to make some ... with a new recipe. That seems to be MY recipe for disaster. I mixed it up, poured it over the croissants I purchased just for the occasion and baked it ... not done ... baked it some more ... not done. Finally it looked okay, so I made the sauce, which curdled immediately!! At this point the sauce hit the trash container and the pudding is in the fridge ... flavorless!! I don't think even the best whiskey sauce can save this bland bowl of mush. RATS !!!
I've been exploring the entire area here ... all the way up to Sedona, only 20 miles North. There are lots of ancient Indian sites around ... Montezuma's Well and Castle are a few miles North of Cottonwood on Hwy 17, the V Bar V Ranch is about 10 miles up Hwy 17, the Tuzigoot Historical Site and Museum is just a mile or so out of Cottonwood and there are a couple more to the Northwest of Sedona that I will check out before leaving. These aren't the cowboy and Indian type of sites ... these are the many thousand year old sites. Fascinating history!!
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