Month: February 2019

Gave up running – just staying put

I made it through DFW, though it was a long tiring day. We arrived at Lale Catherine State Park on Wednesday. The sites are all long, but the one we reserved (number 46] was too unlevel to work for us. Since the campground was pretty empty, we just moved to another site (number 45). We also took a look at the forecast for Hot Springs and for Red Bay, and we decided o just give up on running before the storm! We are staying out until they go away, so we aren’t leaving until tomorrow (Sunday). I was absolutely exhausted on Thursday. All the driving, especially through DFW, added to not sleeping well because I decided to try a Claritin D instead of my normal Claritin, took a huge toll on me. I was tired and sore and DONE with doing 400+ miles a day, three days in a row, in a motorhome.

We had to change sites at the campground because where we were was reserved for the next couple of days. We ended up farther uphill in the trees instead of right at the lake, but the site is roomy, level, and quiet (site 8). It has rained and rained, so we just hung around the motorhome the first day. Yesterday I took a spa day, appropriate since We were in Hot Springs. I had a short Swedish massage, a facial, and a foot scrub at Quapaw Spa on Bathhouse Row at the National Park,  and it was lovely. We had a nice dinner at a German restaurant, and I feel rejuenated. Right now it is pouring down rain, but it is supposed to stop by noon or so. It is also warming up to almost 70, so we intend on doing some sightseeing before we leave. Rest does amazing things.

Change in plans – running from the storm

Just in case anyone in the US is unaware, the weather this winter is terrible pretty much anywhere. That is a sarcastic comment BTW, but it is certainly appropriate for our home in Iowa and pretty much everywhere we have been this winter. In Arizona it was a good 10-15 degrees colder than usual, and very wet. We took off Monday from White Tank Mountain Park by Phoenix, heading to Alabama. We spent last night at a lovely campground in the small town of Van Horn, TX, just down I-10 from ElPaso. The Van Horn Campground used to be a KOA, but it is immensely better than the KOA we stayed at in Benson. Plus it was a lot less expensive, a bonus. However it was cold there too with a low of 24. That is awfully low for a town 30 miles from the Mexican border. We took a look at the weather this morning, and left early to run in front of the sleet and snow that was heading our way. We chose a totally different route than we had planned. We decided to take I-10 to US 67 to Abilene and back to I-20. I admit I was not fond of the 150 or more miles of 2 land roads through oil country, and I am exhausted after 420 miles driving. We are spending the night at a Walmart in Eastland, 40 miles east of Abilene. Tomorrow we go through the DFW area to end up on I-30. We have reservations at Lake Catherine State Park for 2 nights.

Bisbee Arizona

We arrived Friday afternoon in Benson Arizona. We are staying at the KOA which is small, crowded, but wonderfully quiet. We immediately started laundry! We had lots and lots because it had been almost 2 weeks since we last did it. Saturday however we had a lovely day in Bisbee, about an hour away. We first took a golf cart tour of the town. Bisbee is a mining town set into the side of a mountain, so there was no way we could have walked through it. Since the older roads were laid out before cars, many of them are barely wide enough for small car (or golf carts!). In addition our guide grew up in the town and knew all kinds of interesting stories. It was cold and windy, so I didn’t get many pictures, but these will give you an idea.

Mountain towns mean retaining walls. Many have been decorated by artists.
Another fascinating wall.
A not too good picture of the town
A determined tree
Lots of small houses brightly colored are a fixture in Bisbee
“Art cars” are a thing in Bisbee

After a lost 3 hours on the tour we had a nice beer at a local bar followed by a so-so dinner at another spot. Then we took another tour, this one about Bisbee ghosts! I don’t believe in ghosts, but it was a fun historical tour.

We got back at 10:00 at night, which is late for this girl! It was so worth it.

Today we had a lovely lunch at a local restaurant and did more laundry! Tomorrow we leave for Alabama. The plan is to take I-10 to I-20 to US 277 at Abilene to Wichita Falls to Oklahoma City where we catch I-40 the rest of the way. We’ll see how the plans work! We will basically just be driving until we get to Little Rock. We then plan to take an extra day at Hot Springs National Park to take one of the hot baths. Then back on the road.

Last day in Phoenix area

We are sitting inside on a last, rainy day at White Tank Mountain Park. Outside stuff is mostly packed up since we knew the rain was on its way. Tomorrow we will just pack up power cord, water softener, water hose, and bikes, hopefully after the rain ends. It is always surprising how much “stuff” accumulates inside and out when we are in one place for a while.

We have had some good things happen while we are here. First, the scenery still is spectacular everywhere we look.

Take a look at some of my favorite saguaros.

Many of them have branches clustered along along a horizontal plane.
Some have branches going all which way
In this one the side branches are just getting started
Baby saguaros look a lot like basic barrel cactus when they are little.
A classic multi branched saguaro.

You can also see lots of cholla varieties in the backgrounds.

There are lots of flowers around too, even though the main bloom isn’t for another couple of months. Yellow seems the dominant color.

These are everywhere along the roads.
These have just started blooming. They also have seed heads on them that almost look like tiny dandelion seeds
Tiny flowers on this shrub

Kevin took these two pictures along a trail near the campground.

There are are a few in the blue/purple family

Tiny, tiny forget-me-nots
Kevin found this on a cholla, almost blooming

We took a trip to a supposed dirt road west of Wickenburg only to find out it had been paved! The guide book to 4×4 trails is obviously a bit out of date. On that trip (last Saturday) we had a real mess in Wickenburg. They were having a big rodeo and history festival in town – Gold Rush Days. They even close their schools for the entire week, which is amazing to me. Carnival, parade, rodeos, UTVs, trucks, and thousands of people were between where we wanted to be and where we were! It took 30+ minutes to make a detour through town, and we completely gave up on our initial plan of having lunch there. It looked like a nice town though, so Tuesday we went back. We visited the Desert Caballeros Western Museum, and all I can say is WOW! It had some very good historic exhibits, but the art exhibits were astonishing. Caitlin, Remington, and many other famous western artists have originals paintings and bronzes displayed here. It is truly a gem, and worth much more than the $12 admission. They also had a special exhibit of Native American art pieces from a private collector. The items were mostly Navajo and Hopi, with some sprinkles of other groups. Baskets, pottery, and rugs were only a few of the items, and they were amazing.

Tomorrow we head to Benson for three nights at the KOA. It will let us get our tanks flushed well and do laundry. We are also planning on a trip to Bisbee. We visited there 20-25 years ago, and we have always wanted to go back. Then off through NEw Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee to Alabama and one last trip to the Tiffin factory for some small maintenance items.

 

White Tank Mountain Park and Phoenix

This is a beautiful place! We arrived Monday, and I was amazed at the scenery. Everything is quite green (for the desert) due to the rains. In fact, it rained quite a bit on Wednesday. There was quite a bit of water along the road and in low spots.  

The second one is taken through the windshield, but it shows the view I get to see.

Thursday we went to the Desert Botanic Garden on the far side of Phoenix. It was totally worth the drive and the money! Take a look:

The oddest one I saw.
This is an aloe. Lovely, isn’t it?
Hummingbirds! Do you see him at the edge of the bush?

This one was very cool. They aren’t flowers but seed pods.
Some of the yuccas were just starting to flower.

We also had lunch at the upscale restaurant inside. They also had a wonderful plant store where I forced myself to not buy a thing! It was very hard since the succulents were incredible. I love desert landscaping and succulents, but there is no room in the coach and the cacti won’t be happy at the house with the cold weather.

One of the nice things about being in civilization again is that we can eat regular food. I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and they are mostly balanced. It is lovely to have fresh veggies, fruits, fish, and meats. Those were hard to come by in the boondocks. I have enjoyed cooking, and I will definitely keep it up until we leave. We are planning on just heading to Alabama from here, and I want to have some food in the freezer before we leave.

 

 

Missing in action

It has been a long time since my last post. I have been trying to find the time and energy to post about our time at KOFA and then Quartzsite, but it seems overwhelming. Instead I am just going to provide a brief summary of the last four weeks, then my next post will be more recent.

We spent a week at KOFA in an great boondock site with friends. I started getting sick there – standard sinus problems I get on a far too frequent basis. On Monday, 14 January, we moved to Quartzsite with some different friends. I kept getting more sick, but treated myself with stam and keeping up with my allergy meds. Finally I acknowledged I felt like crap and was coughing so badly that I needed a doctor. We went to an urgent care facility in Lake Havasu, a bit of a drive, but I wanted a place with good patient reviews. Steroids and antibiotics to get rid of the bronchitis were the Rx. Within 24 hours I was sooooo much better! Steroids do that.

We did do a few things in Quartzsite. Funnel cakes and Indian tacos were a hit (different days). We also bought a couple of new camping chairs plus a little folding table. We had a lovely time with our friends, and ended up staying until Saturday, 2 February. We stayed in the town of Quartzsite at a full hookup site at Quail Run RV Park. Took a bit to get used to being 5’ from my neighbor instead of 100’, but it was nice to have unlimited power and water. I got to do all our laundry in our own unit, a big improvement over laundromats in Quartzsite!

On Monday, 4 February we checked in to White Tank Mountain Regional Park just west of Phoenix. Absolutely gorgeous, but I will pick that up in the next post.

A summary of some RV related information. We were having trouble keeping the batteries up even though we weren’t using that much power. Kevin found a hygrometer to measure their “goodness” only to discover they were not in good shape. Sigh. We drove to Phoenix to buy 6 new ones. Expensive, but needed. The solar worked better than we thought, even on cloudy winter days. We needed up needed the generator only about an hour a day most of the time. Everything else worked really well. We used the satellite when we needed, the refrigerator kept things cold or frozen as needed, and the weather wasn’t too terrible though significantly cooler than normal.