HOME

“Home isn't where you're from,  

it's where you find light when all grows dark.” 

Pierce Brown

We consider ourselves lucky as we have many places we call home; our northern home where we live 80% of the time, our southern home where we thaw out our bones and our home where we grew up.  Each place is special where we have family and friends...friends that we consider part of our family.  As we start our journey back to the north I reflect on these places as they make my heart smile.

During our final days in Yuma Craig's parents joined us in spending a good part of the day with our friend Barb.  She took us to Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, the four of us have been through it before as we spent some time at Castle Dome but Barb brought us INTO the refuge.  We never knew what a fantastic place this is, we searched through some washes looking and gathering quartz.  Barb showed us where and what to look for, we are now proud owners of quartz that are so clear they look like glass, green, pink and blue.  She showed us some old mines and a cave where bats call home.  Just before the turn off we saw a coyote but by the time the Jeep stopped and I got out he was long gone.  Funny thing is on the way home a roadrunner ran across the road and it brought back fond memories of the Bugs Bunny & Roadrunner cartoon. 

This was the typical landscape of Kofa and it shows 

the wide range of cacti; Saguaro, Cholla and Ocotillo

Cholla Cactus

Another Cholla with Castle Dome in the background

One of he many washes

Craig, his mom and Barb searching for quartz

The next few pictures are of the many abandoned mines in the area.  Some of them you could not see the end as it went on forever but some were not that deep. 

To give you an idea of how small of these mines were here's Barb

showing off one.

Found this old Klik can with the key still attached

This was the cave we went part way in - I wanted to

go all the way through but everyone else got a bit

nervous as they saw a suspicious looking spider

We thought Easter Sunday was going to be spent with just mom and dad but Barb invited us to her home for a fine dinner of steaks with all the fixings.  Barb not only opened up her home and pool to us but also to Molly & Blitz.  I think she is their favourite auntie now plus Blitz was pretty happy that he found a new friend in Rufus her cat. Rufus is a very relaxed cat and I think he was just as happy to have some animal company as Blitz was.  It was a perfect Easter as we woke up to our usual bacon & egg breakfast but we added a couple of glasses of mimosa for each of us.  After a bit of shopping we headed to Barb's to spend the afternoon with her...it was the perfect day to end our time in Arizona.  Thanks again Barb for such a fantastic weekend.

The dogs sure had fun in the pool

Molly was pretty funny as you can tell she is just

floating in the pool as her legs were just dangling

Not sure who had more fun, Molly or Craig

A pool, a tennis ball and a life jacket = a very happy senior GSP

Blitz coaxing the tennis ball closer

Too funny not to share

I wonder what the conversation was between them

Craig and I left our Southern Home on Monday and spent the night in Phoenix as we didn't want to miss our flight.  Since mom and dad were leaving from Yuma we left them in charge to close up the house and we met them in Phoenix later the next day before we went our separate ways.  It's an early night for us tonight as we leave Edmonton for Cambridge Bay early tomorrow morning.  Even though we already miss Yuma it will be good to be back in our home in the Arctic. 

Talk soon!