Naomi is protecting our cabin….

….while we’re off to visit children and grandchildren in Georgia.

 

 We have always thought that Cabbage Patch Dolls were ugly and scary…..until we got one.  

We bought this 1985 vintage doll as a birthday present.  And as soon as I opened the package, I fell in love with her! 

My dear Danny said I could keep her.

She is our baby that we were never unable to have, so I named her after Mom and Dad Graybill.  The first day I met Mom and Dad, I knew that they were kind, gentle, and madly in love….after 65 years of marriage .  I fell in love with them.  And I knew that this is what I wanted for my life,

Danny and I were married the next day, with Dad officiating and Mom singing at our wedding.  And we have what Mom and Dad had….over 12 years later, we are madly in love!

The heck with the mug shot....

 Who wear their ties this long?

Thank goodness for our Rad electric bikes!

Today we rode our bikes in the little town of Strawberry, just three miles up the mountainside from Pine. 

It seems that every street in both Pine and Strawberry is either uphill or downhill. Yesterday we walked 4.5 miles around Pine for two hours with an elevation gain of over 700 feet.  And today in Strawberry, we cycled 22 miles in two hours…and the elevation gain (and loss) was over 1440 feet!

This is why when we bought our cabin in Pine, Arizona, the first thing we got were electric bikes.  We love to cycle, but we knew that our old knees wouldn’t hold up on these hilly mountain roads if we used our road bikes.  

And boy, were we smart—the hills around here are amazingly steep!

But we sure do have a blast riding our e-bikes all around our little mountain towns…and look what we get to see after we climb to the top of the hill!

We can see for miles and miles.  And then we get to dash down the hills with the wind whipping against us and my hair flying on the wind—just like when we were children!

Could we be getting older too?

 Updated photos on the refrigerator at our cabin of our dear family….

We can’t figure out how our grandchildren keep getting older and growing up—but we seem to be ageless and never get any older?!!!

Vicky’s superhero….

Dan’s dream girl….

Well, we admit that we may be a bit older, but luckily, we don’t act any older and we’re just as silly!

Is the view better to the north or south?

While hiking on the Pine-Strawberry Trail, I was setting the camera up on the tripod and suddenly realized that the view was stunning both to the north and to the south.

I couldn’t decide if I should take our photo coming or going. 

Here’s what we saw as we hiked north toward the Mogollon Rim….

And the view behind us to the south was of the Matzatzal Mountains and as far as the eye can see….

That’s the great thing about this trail that traverses the edge of Strawberry Mountain between the small hamlets of Pine and Strawberry—no matter which way we hike through the chaparral and pine forests, it is spectacularly beautiful!

And to top it off, below our little town of Pine is nestled in a valley beneath the Rim…..     

…..where my Danny and I live so happily together in our sweet little cabin.

From our cabin’s back porch—the sun rising on our back lot, my Valentine’s Day gift from my dear Danny, with a view of the Mogollon Rim in the distance….

Latest Forest Fire on the Rim: The Graybill Fire

 We assumed the right to name it since we discovered and reported it.

Last night we had an enormous thunderstorm.  Lightning, thunder, rain, the whole bit.  It all sounds a LOT louder when you are in a camper.

Lasted quite a while. 

Today, when hiking, we saw smoke off into the woods, so went into the woods to explore.  It was clear that lightning hit the tree, the top fell down, and it had been burning for almost 12 hours.

 

It's about 1/8 mile from where we camped last night (maybe not where we'll camp tonight, though, if you get our drift).

Frankly, this is just too weird.

Night before last we had a terrific camp spot high on the rim, about 20 miles from here.  But there was a forest fire along the rim, the Brady fire, so we decided to do the discretion is the greater part of valor thing and go home to sleep and try again.

So today we hiked toward the fire, obtained the GPS coordinates, and called 9-1-1, who hooked us up with the Forest Service.  An hour later a crew arrived from Flagstaff--they must have left within a few minutes of getting the call.  When they got to what they believed was the correct forest service road they called us.  Vicky, a natural navigator, told them a much better way to get to the fire.  If Vicky had been the navigator for Christopher Columbus, they would have reached India instead of the Americas.  She's a map wizard.  

There were three vehicles and about 8 firefighters.  An hour later two more vehicles arrived. 

 

They all put on their yellow gear, which had to be very hot in the Arizona sun.

The guy in charge said that it was the kind of fire that if it was still smoldering in a few days could have burned hundreds of acres.  The Fire Captain said that when lightning strikes a tree it makes the roots of the tree extremely hot.  It was potentially the birth of a major forest fire.

So I told him that Vicky wanted me to ask him if we could get a couple of Junior Firefighting badges.  He laughed.  (of course she hadn't said this).  I also asked him if they could name it the Graybill fire.  He laughed again.  Old man humor works with everyone.  

We are waiting for them to finish up.  He will let us know if it is safe to stay here tonight.  If not, we'll go somewhere else and deal with yet another forest fire.

There is NOBODY out here but us.  If we hadn't been here, and if we hadn't hiked this morning and noticed something unusual, something bad might have happened.  We'll never know.  These forests belong to all of us, including our families, and so we are happy we could do something.

Vicky had brought along a package of her home-made fudge.  She cut it up into pieces, and sent it with one of the firefighters back to the station to share with the rest.  How often do firefighters get rewarded with "Grandma Vicky fudge" for their work?  

Update:  3 hours later.  The guy in charge drove all the way back here to give us some children's Smokey the Bear Badges.    Can you believe that?  What a fun guy.  

The crew worked several hours on the fire--the water truck left once, refilled with water, and came back to dump more on it.  Very thorough.  You can all feel good about your tax money that goes to the National Forest.

We'll wear them with pride!

Update the next day:  

Here is how it looked the next morning.  All taken care of.

We discovered a wildfire and are responsible for saving Smokey the Bear’s forest.  We are now two proud Smokey’s Fire Patrol Deputies!

We are published in the Atlantic again

Our entry was shortened, and, for the record, it was from "Dan and Vicky," but we are now 2 for 2 in getting our opinions published in the Atlantic.  Not only that (bragging alert), but our quote is in the headline!    That's our quote!

We're pretty pumped, as you can tell.

An article by David Brooks, in the New York Times, laid out the case for why Trump voters might feel as if their lives have been made into "nothing" by the cultural elites.  It is pretty convincing.  It was cited in our submission to the Atlantic, but was cut in the interest of space, we think. 

Three little, tiny babies!!

 Look what we saw on our bike ride in Pine this morning…..

 

….three babies and their mothers!

These are the youngest, tiniest baby Coues deer that we have ever seen.  An adult female Arizona Coues deer weighs only 65 pounds at the most.  So compared to a female Mule deer or a Whitetail deer which are at least 100 pounds, the Coues deer look like delicate, tiny porcelain deer figurines. And the babies we saw this morning were so precious and little—less than a foot tall!

What a gift to see these little babies!  We feel blessed to live side by side with so much wildlife and nature.  We will never grow tired of all the beauty that surrounds us.

Hiking as the sun rises over the Rim

We’re up at 3 am and out hiking just as the sun is rising.  And we have been amply rewarded for being early risers!

Here is our view of the moon setting over Strawberry Mountain in the west as the sun rises above the Mogollon Rim to our east…..

Note the little house in the center of the above photo.  Someone very cleverly carved it using the top portion of the tree trunk.  Here is a close-up of this magical little home.

And here is the sun rising over the trees on the Rim….

Every morning as we enter the forest the birds are just awakening.  After their long night sleep they are hungry and awfully talkative.  As we trek through the pine forests, we are surrounded by birds flitting from branch to branch and singing and calling to each other.  This is one of the most beautiful songs in the world.

Mother cows with their new babies are up early too.  They greet us on the trail…and at time, are VERY unwilling to  give us the right of way.

Another reward for getting out on the trail bright and early, is that the Coues deer are out and about enjoying the cool morning air too.

Here is one of these miniature deer who moved moved off trail as we approached.  She blends in with the forest background so well that it is near impossible to see here in the first photo.

She’s in the center of this photo.

We always thought that the trails were made for people, but now we wonder as we see more tracks of cow, deer, elk, coyote, bobcat, and even bear and mountain lion, than human footprints.   We’ve decided that our friends, the wild animals, are pretty darn smart….a trail is much easier to traverse than the steep hillsides and ravines.  

One of our favorite views is from the edge of the Mogollon Rim.  We have discovered numerous trails that wind through the pine and oak forests to the edge of the Rim, where suddenly, the magnificent world to the south is spread out for miles and miles before us…..

Here is our little mountain town of Pine, 1500 feet below us, as seen from the top of  the Rim!

Surprisingly, we see no one else. We are together all alone, loving each other, in this mountain magical land, as the early morning sun brings light to our lovely world.