Sunday March 12th 2017

Today got started on the wrong foot. With yesterday’s power issues, I had turned off the unnecessary power. One of those was the power strip I use to charge my phone and tablet. Consequently this morning neither my phone or tablet were charged. I turned the power strip on and set to charge my devices. Life in the connected age meant I didn’t want to leave camp without the security of a charged cell phone. I could have kept charging it in the car, but I didn’t think of that until after it was fully charged.

The result was that I didn’t get out during the cooler part of the day. This area is entering a heat wave. Each day this week is forecast to be ten to twenty degrees above normal. By the end of the week the highs are forecast in the upper 90s. I had entertained thoughts of going to the Picacho State Park to check out the desert in bloom and walk some of the trails. Doing that in the heat of the afternoon just didn’t seem like a good idea. Instead I drove east in the valley. My goal was to distant mountains on the side of the valley. The bottom line is they are much further away than they look.

The desert is very green. The side of the road is lined with yellow and blue wild flowers. Some of the cactus plants seem to be particularly brilliant. I haven’t seen this area of the desert at other times of the year, but assume it is a more natural brown similar to the deserts in Nevada and Southern California that I’m familiar with.

Arizona road message board.  What time and seat belts have in common is a mystery. 

Arizona doesn’t participate in Daylight Savings time. While most of the country turned their clocks ahead an hour they remained the same here in Arizona. Since I seem to tell time by the programming on the television, I’m an even more confused camper tonight. The local TV channels are on a seven to ten prime time schedule. Pacific Daylight Time on the west coast is the same as Arizona Mountain time right now but it has an eight to eleven prime time schedule. The satellite TV channels I watch are either EDT or PDT so I really need to think it through before I know what time it is. The bottom line is most of satellite programs I watch will be over before the regular over the air channels start prime time.