Joe and Mary Ann's personal web site

This is my second post on our trip to southeast Arizona. This one covers Aravaipa Canyon, which was the main reason for our trip.

Mary Ann and I made our annual trip to Aravaipa Canyon. We went to the east side trailhead, and, as in previous years, we decided to go to Safford, spend the night, and go to Aravaipa the next morning. We took advantage of that first day by visiting Roper Lake State Park, which is near Safford. We left at 7:30 AM and got to Roper Lake State Park at 10:30 AM.

Tuesday, April 26, was Tony and Christy’s last day during their trip here for Aaron and Maria’s wedding. We decided to go to the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch (RPWR), which is close to where their RV park was located (Monte Vista Village Resort, at the 202, north of Guadalupe). We arrived at around 8:00 AM, and left at around 10:00 AM.

We went to Boyce Thompson Arboretum (BTA) with some family members who were in town for Aaron and Maria’s wedding. My brother Tony and his wife Christy, and Mary Ann’s sister Jane and her husband Albert, went with us.

Our son, Aaron, was married to Maria Clark on April 23. It was a wonderful celebration, and we’re very happy for them. I didn’t take any photographs. There was a professional photographer and videographer for that. However, several people sent me photos they took with their phones. I decided to post some of them for family members who are interested.

My friend Dave said there was a Pine Warbler reported at Desert Breeze Park, which is close to our house. The Pine Warbler is a rare visitor to our area. I grabbed my camera and met him there. This was a couple of weeks ago, and I am just getting around to looking at the pictures.

Mary Ann and I went to the Granite Reef Recreation Area on the Salt River on Feb 2, 2022. We got there at about 8:00. It was a cold morning (about 45 degrees), but quickly warmed up to the mid 60s.

This post has a few pictures from Josh’s birthday, which is Christmas Day (though we celebrated on Christmas Eve). I also included some pictures of the Naches, Steve and Michelle, and their girls, Bella and Marianna. They are friends of ours who now live in Chicago, but were in town, and stopped by for dinner. We grilled burgers and hotdogs. It was great to to see them.

Mary Ann is retiring! Her last ‘official’ day of work is December 31, 2021. The Arizona state agency where she works won’t allow gatherings due to Covid, so they decided to give her a parade (aka a drive by) celebration instead.

This post has the latest update to my yogurt recipe. After years of no problem with the pectin recipe, I had a mysterious problem of the yogurt not fermenting. In the process of fixing this, I discovered that if I use organic 2% milk, the yogurt thickens very nicely, with no thickener required (see the Thickener section below for more details). This surprised me – I didn’t expect that the organic milk would impact the thickness. But, I have lately been using this recipe with no thickener. I left the pectin recipe post alone (a link to it is here), and added this one. This recipe easier than the pectin recipe, because it eliminates the steps required to dissolve the pectin. It’s simple: just heat the milk, add the starter yogurt, and ferment in the yogurt makers. Why do I need a long post for that?