The first stop on this trip was Apache Reclamation and Electronics. It is a store I have shopped many times over the years. Basically every time I went through Phoenix I had to stop here and shop. I always came away with lots of good stuff. Unfortunately I saw on the store's Facebook page that they were closing it down. I was fortunate that my travel plans were going to put me back in Phoenix during the last few days before they closed for good. I made sure to make time in my schedule to visit them one last time. I got to spend a couple of hours there shopping and talking with the owners. I also made a video of my last exploration of the store. It's sad to see them go, but the same family that ran this store also runs Surplus City in Albuquerque, NM. Much of their unsold inventory is going to be shipped over there. I also have a video of shipping at Surplus City that I made six months or so earlier.

Once I got out to the cabin, job one on this trip was to upgrade the wash station. This was the original wash station I set up. It's just a jug of water on a folding table with a bucket below to catch the drainage so it doesn't become a muddy quagmire around the base. It works, but it isn't the best solution. It's low, which is rough on the back. It's hard to do dishes, and the setup really needs to stay outdoors due to splashing from the catch bucket. I was going to be there in chilly November this time, and maybe even during colder months in the future. It would be nice to have something that was taller and could go indoors during inclement weather.

This is the new wash station I built. It is taller, so there's no stooping required. It incorporates a small sink we found in a second-had store on our last trip. So doing dishes and even hand-washing clothes will be easier. Plus the drain line from the sink goes down into the catch bucket, so there is no real splashing. I also made the whole unit quite narrow, so it could fit inside the small cabin when necessary, and we'd still have room to get around it. It was a quick and easy and very successful build.

After warming up on building the new wash station, I started work on a new front porch deck for the cabin. On a previous visit I had enclosed the original front porch and turned it into a kitchen. I was missing having a porch and deck. I'm pretty good at building decks. I've built half a dozen or so in the last couple years. I figured I could knock this out pretty quickly and easily.

A day and a half later, it was done. I could have done this little deck even quicker, but hey, I was on vacation. No need to kill myself. Besides, I got a late start the first day because I had to drive all the way back into Show Low and back to pick up the lumber and other supplies. It got done pretty quickly, and went together without a hitch. Here the new wash station and a folding chair are sitting on the new deck. I love sitting out on the new deck and relaxing.

It wasn't all work and no play. I took a break one day and drove up to some of my favorite spots high in The White Mountains. I plotted out a route to get there that took me down some rough and twisty forest roads that I had never been down before. it's amazing that in almost 20 years of vacationing in this area, there are still so many back-roads I haven't explored yet. I could be at it the rest of my life and not see them all. It was a great day-long outing.

When Leslie and I were out here only about a month earlier the aspens were just beginning to change into their fall colors. Now they have shed all their leaves. I still find aspens to be among the most beautiful of trees, even after they have shed their leaves for winter.

The aspen leaves were still there. They formed a thick and crunchy carpet on the forest floor. It was elk hunting season while I was there. I could occasionally hear bull elk bugling in the distance. It's an amazing sound. The crunchy aspen leaves were going to be sure to give away careless hunters and give the elk a warning of approaching danger.

It had been a few years since I last drove to the top of Green's Peak, so I put it on the day's itinerary. There are radio antennas and microwave relay stations on top of the peak. So there is a barely passable road to the top for maintenance trucks. Fortunately my old Toyota Tacoma 4X4 got me there and back. It is a bit of a white-knuckle drive in spots.

The view is amazing from up there. I love the view looking down on stands of thick forests, mountain meadows, roads and lakes. Plus seeing all the way over to the ski runs on the distant Apache ski resort. It was a little hazy due to some controlled burns the Forest Service was doing to clear excessive underbrush before the next fire season.

Here is another view from the top of Green's Peak. Here I am looking off toward Escudilla Peak in the distance, and New Mexico beyond it.

After descending down from the peak, I found a nice spot in an aspen grove and had a picnic lunch and relaxed reading a paperback novel for a while. All the while listening to the birds in the trees. Later I meandered my way back home. It was a great goof-off day.

I was a little bummed out that I had missed the peak of the aspen colors. However, the cottonwoods at lower elevations were really putting on a show. I saw a few here and there in my travels that were in brilliant color. One day an errand was going to take me past Shumway Valley. I knew there were a lot of cottonwoods there. So I detoured a bit and drove up the valley photographing and just enjoying the colorful trees. There were also a few maples and oaks and other trees mixed in adding their own fall hues to the mix. It made for quite a sight that my photos don't do justice to,

More colorful cottonwood trees surrounding a homestead in Shumway.

Yet more colorful cottonwoods in Shumway.

And lastly, one lone cottonwood in fall colors.

Ok, enough lazing around. Back to work.

Another job I wanted to complete on this trip was installing a window in the shower room. I built the shower room during a visit last year. It makes showering much more civilized than trying to do it outdoors in whatever weather Arizona is throwing at us. And for some reason every time Leslie visits it is cold and rainy and sleeting and sometimes hailing (it's usually sunny and not a drop of rain when I am there alone). Leslie objected to having to shower outside in those conditions, for some reason? So I built the shower room. It keeps us out of the wind, and we can put a propane heater in it to keep it toasty warm. The shower room also doubles as a place for the camping toilet. The only problem is that it is too dark in there. Plus there is no ventilation on hot days. The shower room was made from a metal lean-too shed grafted onto the back of the cabin. It had no windows or skylights. It can be really dark in there. So this trip I installed a window I bought second-hand. In this photo the window has been installed, but is only half caulked. I ran out of caulking and had to buy more on my next trip into town to finish the job.

The last job I took on this trip was building a framework for a canopy over the new front deck. I can drape a tarp over it and bungee it in place to get shade on hot days, and protection from the rain. It was an easy build using PVC pipe and some canopy fittings I bought at a swap meet several years ago, but never got around to using until now. It wasn't quite complete when I left. It still needs some diagonal and cross bracing to strengthen it against the winds we get out there. I'll add it on my next trip. The framework will be fine as it is till then with no tarp on it to catch the wind.

All the improvements to the cabin and bee-bopping around in the mountains were just incidental to the real reason I wanted to spend more time at our remote cabin. Astrophotography was the real reason. The equipment was working so well and I was getting such good images on the last trip, that I wanted more time out under that amazing rural Arizona night sky. After all, that's actually why I bought the place.

Here is an image of the Iris Nebula (NGC 7023) in the constellation Cepheus. All these images are stacks of many 30 second subframes taken through my 4 inch diameter refractor telescope.

Click on any image to see a much larger view.

Here is an image of Messier 33 (The Triangulum Galaxy). I really like this image. My technique has gotten much better over the last few months. The OB associations of hot, bright, blue star clusters in the neighboring galaxy are really visible in this image. I can actually see individual stars in this distant galaxy. The level of detail captured in the spiral arms is far better than any of my previous attempts at imaging this galaxy.

Here is an image of the Great Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31) and two of its satellite galaxies. Again, the OB associations really stand out. Plus the detail of the dust lanes and filaments in the galaxy is amazing.

Here is an image of The Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946) on the border of the constellations Cepheus and Cygnus, and a nearby open cluster of stars (NGC 6939).

Here is an image of the bright galaxy NGC 7331 and Stephans Quintet of small dim galaxies nearby. This grouping is in the constellation Pegasus. This is by far my best ever image of NGC 7331. Plus not only are the members of the quintet of other galaxies visible, but there are numerous other faint background galaxies visible in this image. I need to image this subject again at higher magnification.

Of course I had to image the Orion Nebula. It didn't rise high enough to image until quite late (early morning actually). So it was the last object I imaged one night before crashing into bed. High thin clouds rolled in and partially obscured most of the subframes, but the final image turned out quite nice anyway. I'm quite proud of the fact that I'm getting good enough at image processing that I can bring out the fine details in the outer nebula (and in the Andromeda Galaxy above) without totally burning out and washing out the brighter central region. The stars of the Trapesium are actually visible, and aren't just a big burned out blob.

Here is an image of The Cocoon Nebula (IC 5146) in the constellation Cygnus. It's neat how it is embedded in a filament of dark dust that obscures the background stars.

Here is an image of The Flaming Star Nebula (IC 405) in the constellation Auriga. I should probably image this object again with either more or longer subframes to bring out more detail in the complex of emission and reflection nebulosity.

Here is an image of The Crab Nebula (Messier 1) in the constellation Taurus. The Crab Nebula is a relatively recent supernova remnant. It is a small and (for me) difficult object to image. This is by far my bast image of it to date, but I need to try again at higher magnification.

Here is an image of interstellar dust reflecting the bright starlight from members of The Pleiades star cluster (Messier 45), also known as The Seven Sisters, in the constellation Taurus.

I imaged other objects too. Two weeks of mostly good nights at the telescope can produce an awful lot of images. These are some of the best. I have more that still haven't been fully processed, or processed to my satisfaction yet. I'm still working on them, and probably will be for quite a while yet.

All in all, it was a great and very productive and successful visit to our Arizona property. I can't wait to go back again.

Once I got back home, the package I mailed off from Phoenix with all the stuff I bought at Apache Reclamation was waiting for me. So I made a video of the unboxing. Check it out.