Good morning, my friends. We had the first visitor to our hummingbird feeder yesterday. I expect we’ll see more in the days ahead. I’m sorry I couldn’t get more color on the bird. The feeder is in the shade. As soon as the bird flies into the shade from the bright sunshine, its colors disappear. I know this is an Annas Hummingbird, though.
We had several items on yesterday’s agenda. We tried to get our business taken care of in Henderson all on the same day. I’m sure we’ll be back to Henderson again…that’s where the grocery store is. But we checked off a few items yesterday. Driving north, we had a good view of Las Vegas.
Our first stop was the quilt shop in Henderson…Quiltique. I’ve been to this store several times, and it’s one of my favorites. I wrote
a post about it back in 2017 after my first visit.
Walking through the front door, this was the first thing I saw. It put me in a good mood right away.
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been on the hunt for a back for the Shop Hop 4.0 quilt…this one:
I decided on this one. If you look at the image above, you can see there are barns in that border fabric. The border fabric was left over from another project, but I used it because of my penchant for photographing barns while we’re traveling. So when I saw this fabric below, I knew I’d found my backing. I needed four yards.
Also, I asked for two yards of this one below. As she measured the length, she found it was nearing the end of the bolt. She offered me 30% off if I’d take the whole thing. Sure! I’ve been looking for a good brown. So, I ended up eith 3-1/2 yards of it.
The reason for this brown is this: In the image below, you can see the head rest for one of the RV recliners. I’ve mentioned this “hyde of nauga” before. It makes crappy upholstery. We’ve been protecting ours by spreading quilts over every surface, but when we watch TV in the evenings, we’ll cover up with the quilts and sit directly on the furniture. And, as you might expect, our heads are resting on the head rests. In those spots only, the upholstery started to deteriorate on this trip. Weird, huh? What would it be about the hair on our heads that would cause this?
I can recall my grandmother used to crochet arm covers and head rests for her chairs, but I always thought it was because of the oils in people’s hair. I get that. I’m not sure why it would cause the naugahyde to deteriorate so badly. As you might guess, I follow several RV pages on Facebook, and I’ve seen others post pictures of their naugahyde upholstery looking like this. Usually, though, it’s much worse, and not limited to the head rests.
So anyway…all of that to say I’m going to make some little placemat sized quilts from the brown fabric. I’ll make it so that it can attach to the back of the chair with velcro, and maybe we can save ourselves the expense of having to reupholster (or replace) our RV furniture. Our RVing days won’t last forever. I’d just really rather not invest money in upholstery for what remains of our RV travel.
Okay, so we made a quick stop at the Ford dealership, so Mike could pick up his touch-up paint. From there, we drove to the Whitney Mesa Recreation Area to hike the Whitney-Mesa Trail.
This hike is surrounded by residential neighborhoods and about a gazillion homes. And so you can imagine the alarm when this obvious fire broke out at the trailhead. It fried those palm trees and everything else around it.
We learned from some local residents we met on the trail that the fire occurred about three weeks ago. Already, you can see some of the reeds are growing back.
The trail took us across a bridge here and the fire had burned on both sides.
More pictures of the palm trees. They look as if someone stuck their finger in a light socket.
It seemed incongruous to have a stream running through this burned out area, but there it is.
And when the fire was put out, a body was discovered. There was a shrine there. It’s a bit of a mystery about this. No cause of death has been announced, and the cause of the fire is unknown. The body was that of a young man 19 years old. Sad. You can read more about the fire at
this article right here.
Okay, so before we head out, I want to make sure you understand the risk you’re undertaking by going along. There are many ways you could die out here today, fire being only one of them.
And I’m afraid this hike isn’t going to give you that woodsy feeling. As I mentioned, it’s an urban hike. I’m afraid you’re going to see more “signery” than you are scenery. Also, we’re in the flight path of the Las Vegas Airport. Planes were landing about every 3-5 minutes. We could also see them taking off on the regular.
And so we can’t rule out the possibility that you’ll be killed when one of them crashes. Just sayin’. Do you still want to come? Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Okay, then. Off we go. Most of the trail was in well-groomed sandy gravel. Some of it was paved. We suspect this was to prevent erosion.
There were benches placed at regular intervals, and the ones we saw had trails leading out to a spur.
There, we had unobstructed views of the city and the desert landscape.
One of the benches contained this memorial. I like that last line. Words to live by.
This was an out-and-back hike, and we decided to turn around shortly before the end. Our farthest spot was the spur where I’ve indicated with a red arrow.
Here, we could get a good view of the size of Whitney Mesa. Over my right shoulder, it looked like this:
Over my left shoulder, it looked like this:
From there, we had a good view of this beautiful swimming facility. It had several different pools, including a dedicated lap-swimming pool. I’ve had periods in my life where I was a committed lap swimmer, and this made me want to dive in. As if.
Looking far off into the distance, we noticed the diagonal life in that butte. Cool.
Okay, and then we walked back to the parking lot and headed for the RV. I captured a little more of the freeway art along the way…these cacti:
On the main road heading into Boulder City, we saw these enormous sculptures of men building Boulder Dam (when it still had that name).
We had one more stop at an Amazon locker to pick up a package I’d ordered. That took us through the historic downtown area of Boulder City. (I really like this little town.)
At the spot where the Amazon lockers were, they were also selling shot glasses. Well. How could I resist? I have a refrigerator magnet from Hoover Dam, but no shot glass. Until now.
But that’s not all. As I was leaving the store, I happened to glance kitty cornered across the street and what to my wondering eyes should appear? FUDGE!!! HOLY SH*T!
Well. We’ll be heading back there very soon. In fact, we always have at least one lunch at Boulder Dam Brewery while we’re here, and it just happens to be right across the street from the fudge place. Dessert, anyone?
Okay, and back at the RV, I took the first stitches on my newest Reindeer & Snowmen project. There are 12 blocks in this quilt.
And since it’s time to choose a project for February’s
This seems the obvious choice. I’ll commit to finishing the stitching on Block One of Reindeer & Snowmen.
Okay, so today will be a stay-in day. Mike wants to go for a bike ride, and that makes it a good day for me to sew. Possibly, I’ll get out for a walk. I still want to choose a card from my pack of photography prompts pack and go on a little photography scavenger hunt. Mike got a bee in his bonnet for some Egg McMuffins. For the first time ever, we ordered online, and he went to pick it up, returning just now. Breakfast is served, my friends. And then I’ll get on with my day.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment