Arizona – Page 3 – TooBusyForWork

Yuma and Casa Grande

We left Quartzsite on Thursday, 3 February for Sun Ridge RV park in Yuma. There was a really bad wind storm on Wednesday, so we delayed while most of our friends left on Tuesday to get out in front of the storm. We always love the Quartzsite area after most people leave; it is wonderfully quiet and empty after the crowds of the previous week. One other couple stayed at our rally spot, and we all went to the Quartzsite Yacht Club for dinner. We had ribeyes that were remarkably good, and Paul joined us. Ann had fish and chips, and she said it was quite good too. Two or three days later, the Yacht Club owner abruptly closed the restaurant. The pains of running a seasonal restaurant and bar during a pandemic just made her too tired to continue. She said the final straw was a very poor review. Be kind folks!

The RV park was where we had three sets of friends stay, so it came well recommended. It was not really set up for short timers, with lots of Palo Verde trees far too close to the road. We definitely got some rub marks, but nothing more serious. The sites are roomy, but are all 100% gravel with a small concrete patio. There was a quilting group, but I didn’t know about it in time to attend. The folks were really nice, but they had a rule they didn’t put on their website – no personal washing machines! Since one of the main things we wanted to do was laundry, this was quite disappointing. One of our friends recommended a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” approach since we were only there a week, and that’s what we did. I really, really prefer using my own washer and dryer, though there’s looked fine.

One Monday we did the main task we came for – heading to Algodones for discounted glasses. It was remarkably easy, and we ordered fancy progressive glasses with frames, mine with heavy tint and polarizing. Sadly they don’t make those in their own lab, so it will be three weeks before we can pick them up.

One of the main streets in Algodones. Medical tourism is the thing here

The process was easy: pay $6 for parking in an Indian-owned lot, walk right into Mexico after a cursory look in my purse, look for glass frames we liked, see the eye doctor, order, and pay with a credit card. Kevin also picked up some anti-inflammatories at the pharmacy next door. We wandered around a while, and I did end up with a new purse! It is a knock-off I am sure, but it is just the size I have been looking for. Getting back into the US was more effort than leaving. We had to wait in a line (of course) for 40 minutes, showed our passports to the agent, and then walked back to the car. I highly recommend going as early as you can because the lines are much shorter.

I wish I had a better picture of this little boy playing his accordion for tips while we waited for Border Control to let us back into the US.

Walkway back to the US with plantings and an accordionist

We also did some of our standard Yuma things like shopping (both of us bought shoes) and lunch at Yuma Thai (I recommend the green curry!). I also went to Bingo for the first time at the RV park. It was fun! Now I know the basics, and I may play at other RV parks since it is a common activity at the 55+ parks common in snowbird country.

I also came down with some type of gastritis with a fever, headache, and just a generally unhappy belly. Being in the times we are in, I took a COVID test twice, 24 hours apart, both negative. The fever and headache finally went away yesterday, but the belly discomfort is still there. Hopefully that resolves soon.

I did finish my donation quilt top which was good. It is hard to do a good pressing job in the limited space I have, but I finally got everything lying fairly flat. I will show a picture when I get it quilted.

After Yuma, we decided to go to Casa Grande and High Chaparral RV Park. I wasn’t nearly as impressed with this one – smaller sites and no landscaping. They have a gorgeous laundry room though, and they have a nice pool and club room. They also could only take us for 5 nights, but that long enough. Kevin has ordered a new control board for the auto star tracking on his tripod, and it is scheduled to arrive in Tucson tomorrow. We didn’t really want to stay in Tucson due to the crowds from the Gem Show, and I had been interested in the Casa Grande area for a future longer stay. It has gotten quite warm (low 80s), so having nice electricity and AC is pleasant. We will probably be heading back to dispersed boondocking, so I will use it while I can!

Big Tent show is over and we can relax

We are still in Quartzsite until tomorrow morning. We have reservations for a full-hookup RV park in Yuma where we have friends staying. Laundry will be first on the list!

Back to what we did in the last week. We did take a nice day trip to Lake Havasu City. Kevin had finally ordered a telescope and some accessories, and the only place we could find for Amazon to deliver it was LHC. Odd but true, due to the size of the package. He got excited, and when the app showed the package was out for delivery, we headed up. LHC is about an hour and a half north of Quartzsite, and we wanted to get dinner and do some sightseeing too, so we thought the timing would work. It didn’t, and the package didn’t get delivered until around 8:00 pm after we left! We did enjoy the trip though.

We saw this Osprey take off from the LHC airport! He flew right over us.

The small community of Havasu Lake across the Colorado

Lake Havasu City from a peninsula into the lake

Looking kind of north-ish across the lake.

We also went looking for boondocking opportunities in the area. We had stayed before in Craggy Wash, a BLM dispersed camping spot, so we went there first. Way too crowded for me, and the spots suitable for bigger rigs were mostly taken. The rocks are cool though!

There were some promising sites closer to I-40 that we might use some other time. The advantage of these sites is that there is good cellular internet service, a big plus in my book.

Poor Kevin had to return for the telescope on another day, but we enjoyed the trip back to Quartzsite. These were taken from an overlook along the Colorado River north of Parker.

And the telescope did finally show up, though Kevin took another trip to get it. It works well, but a control board in his tracking system is having issues. He can do some pictures, but it requires more manual work than he wants to do. You can see how close we are parked to our friends in the fifth wheel. Just for the rally, we all parked 30’ or so apart, awfully close for dispersed camping. The sites allows for much wider distances most of the time.

Speaking of cellular data, the reason I haven’t updated is because there has hardly been any until yesterday! When the hundred thousand or so people show up for the big RV show, service goes to hell. You can generally make calls and text, but internet access becomes almost nonexistent. Now that the show is over and the masses are gone, I have good service. I even streamed some television tonight. Our nearest neighbors, rally friends who also stayed put, are about 100’ away, just about the right distance LOL! I don’t like being right next to even friends if I can help it. One of the major advantages of dispersed camping is you can space yourself out.

Most of the folks left Monday or Tuesday morning ahead of the bad wind storm we had today. It had gusts of 50+ mph and sustained winds of 30 mph for a long time. We just hunkered down and brought in some of the slides. It wasn’t that they were in real danger, but the slide toppers were making a big racket! Before the storm we had some visitors nearby. Quail are my favorite desert bird.

Another picture before the storm.

We also have a Gila Woodpecker making busy in a nearby saguaro, but I never did get a good picture of it.

I visited the Quartzsite Quilt Guild a couple of times on this trip. Nice group of women, and I got a lot done in their free-sewing time. I sewed 10 new microwave bowl cozies to use as presents, and I finished all the rows of my triangle donation quilt. The plan had been to finish it today, but there was t room with the slides in. In fact, my sewing table is turned upside down on the bed right now! I can get the top finished next week for sure. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I did Dutch Oven dishes for the rally potluck – layered green chili chicken enchiladas and peach cobbler. The cobbler was such a hit I made an apple version on Monday evening, but still no leftovers. Sigh. It all went over well though, and there wasn’t much scraping needed to clean the pots!

Quartzsite, visit #7

We arrived at our campsite in Quartzsite, AZ after a 4 hour drive from Organ Pipe. We stay with a group of friends from an online forum, RVForum.net. As our seventh trip here with them, we don’t go running around as much as we did the first few years. There is a lot more just relaxing, talking by the fire, and doing hobbies. I have the sewing machine out, and I am trying to work on a Drunkard’s Path quilt made with 4” blocks. I am finding it much, much harder than the 7” block version I did a few months back! I also go my sewing machine adjusted so the needle bar was exactly in the hole of the needle plate, but the tiny adjustment has thrown off some of my measurements. I will get used to it, but it is a bit of a struggle. I did cut a bunch of triangles, and I sewed those without a problem. It is always nice to have “mindless sewing” available, something I can just enjoy instead of fussing around.

Kevin discovered why our generator wasn’t charging the new LiFePO4 batteries very quickly. Turns out there was a switch that limited it to 30 amps, and once that was updated we started getting 90 amps charging. That makes the entire process so much faster. We have had quite a few cloudy days here, and the solar just can’t keep up between the clouds, low sun angle, and shorter days. Our 900 watts of panels are flat mounted, and they don’t get more than 300 watts some of the time, and mostly less than that this time of year. That only gets us 18-20 amps from the solar.

Kevin put up our weather station, and I just love knowing the outside temp and humidity. We will eventually get the wind sensor working, but right now the mounting pole moves in the bracket. Kevin is 3D printing a clamp for it now. Hopefully that will correct the pole rotation.

I don’t have many pictures right now, but here is the last picture from Organ Pipe showing the motorhome and our campsite.

Note the generator access panel open on the front. We heard rumors of pack rats, so we kept all the hoods open to discourage them.

I also have a beautiful sunset picture from Quartzsite.

This shows not only the pretty colors, but also how people spread out here in the BLM area. We are in the southwestern Long Term Visitor Area (LTVA) at La Posa Tyson Wash. It is the least crowded of the four LTVAs, being about 3 miles from town. It is still an easy bike ride though, and I prefer the space. Kevin went to town twice, searching for bolts and a new sunscreen for the awning since he somehow managed to crush the zipper pull on the old one. I am staying at the camper, away from the crowds. He is good about wearing a KN95 mask, so he is as safe as a triple vaxed person can be.

Organ Pipe part 2

The sunrise this morning was spectacular!

Today we took another scenic drive, the Puerto Bueno road. It is labeled as needing high clearance, but I think most passenger cars could do it. Certainly a basic SUV could manage it. I didn’t take as many pictures as yesterday of the plants, because I did so many yesterday, but I still got some nice shots to remind me of the area. Might as well get to it!

The front plant is a teddy bear cholla while the back on is a chain cholla.

Top and bottom of hill is solidified slow moving magma called “ryolite.” Middle is “tuff” or solidified ash

Bonita Well was a popular way stop in years past

Pretty much the perfect saguaro at Bonita Well

This is the first time I had see “The Wall” in person. It is just as ugly and intrusive as I had heard. I know we need to keep people from crossing illegally into the most inhospitable part of Arizona (they DIE!), but having a big area literally plowed clear in a National Monument seems wrong.

Note the person-sized gates on this section.

After we finished the road, we headed to the historic town of Ajo for some ice cream. The town originally was a company town founded to support a huge open pit copper mine, the New Cornelia, now closed. Some of the by-products of the original mine are still being sold for other purposes.

The dry containment ponds from Ajo copper mine. They stretch much longer than my camera could photograph

The town itself has a very pretty historic district including this lovely town square. Surprisingly the town still looks pretty prosperous in contrast with other mining towns after a closure.

We are packing up today to head to Quartzsite tomorrow. Going to camp in the desert with friends for a while. It will probably be difficult to post due to data issues with the hundreds of thousands of people who show up for the winter, but we will get to some other towns off and on.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, part 1

Warning: picture heavy!

We left Willcox to head to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Like Joshua Tree, Organ Pipe was protected specifically for one type of cacti. Organ Pipes grow mostly in Mexico, but the almost all of the US ones are protected in the monument. As we drove into the Sonoran Desert, I noted again just how lush this desert is compared to the Mohave or the Great Basin deserts I am more familiar with. We drove through some lovely mountainous country and reached the campground about 3:00. While I had reserved a nice long site, we had the devil of a time getting into it. The entry road is only one lane and the pad was only one lane, but my motorhome take 2 1/2 – 3 lanes to turn right! We ended up going to the other side of the pull through site and backing in. The resulting location is wonderful though with decent screening by native plants all around us. We have saguaro, organ pipes, mesquite, teddy bear cholla, and brittle bush just outside the door.

Organ pipe at the edge of our campsite. I didn’t it it, but someone did.

We generally just got set up and relaxed. We had shopped in Willcox, so Kevin made smash burgers on the Blackstone grill for dinner. Yum.

Today we drove a wonderful interpretive nature trail – the Ajo Mountain Loop. It is just over 20 miles, and we took a leisurely 3 hours, stopping a lot for pictures and to read the information about each numbered stop. I am just going to drop lots and lots of pictures with captions.

There were windows/arches. These two had a trail to them.

You know I love rocks, this is Ajo Mountain

Baby organ pipes use other plants to protect them

Baby saguaros also nestle in other plants for protection

This shows all the spikes on a mature organ pipe

There are other plants. These yellow flowers are blooming next to a brittle bush

A dead cholla showing its structure. Interesting shapes!

There were a few birds out and about.

A small bird that visited the campsite. Great camouflage!

We got gas at Lukeville, 5 miles away right on the Mexican border. The gas station was actually closer to Mexico than the entry to the border crossing! We had fajitas made on the Blackstone, and generally just relaxed until we’ll after the sun went down. Tomorrow is another scenic drive, so I hope to post more pictures then. We head to Quartzsite the day after.

Monahan Sandhills, Deming, and Willcox areas

After we left Abilene, we decided to head to Monahans Sandhills State Park in Texas. It was just an overnight, but it was a relaxing stop. We got there in plenty of time to sit outside in the warm temps. The campsites are pullouts on the side of the road, and ours was listed as 40’. However it was plenty long enough for both the 40’ motorhome and the Jeep. Even better, it was deep enough that I didn’t worry about someone hitting the slide outs, something g that has worried me about other pullout spots! Here is a bit of a sample.

We next drove the short trip to Willcox, AZ. We stayed at Lifestyle RV Resort. It wasn’t bad with level sites, but I wouldn’t call it a resort even with an indoor hot tub. The sites were crowded on a gravel parking lot. The good thing was it was relatively inexpensive, level, and all the utilities worked just fine. We managed to get all our laundry done, some shopping accomplished, and we enjoyed a few short trips.

Chiriacahua National Monument was our primary place to visit. It is a pretty small place with only one scenic drive, but it was lovely. The rock columns are the draw here, and readers should know by now I like rocks!

This green lichen was on one side of a lot of the rocks

We saw lots of interesting birds including hummingbirds (no pictures), Mexican Jays, and another one I don’t recognize. We also caught a glimpse of some type of weasel, but I didn’t see enough to identify it.

Wish I knew what this robin-sized bird is

The day after Chiricahua we went to Cochise Stronghold in the Coronado National Forest. Cochise and his band were able to hold out here for long enough to convince the US to let him stay after making the area an Apache reservation. More rocks!

This shows a part of homestead that is now available for rent through the NFS.

There are a number of inholdings in the area

Wilcox also has a nice apple business where Kevin bought a great apple crumble pie. Nice supper treat.

We leave tomorrow for Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. I expect poor or no service, so it will probably be a few days before another post.

Sewing, a bit of cooking, and wildlife

It rained like crazy here on Monday, so we decided to go to Phoenix to do some shopping. Wow, did it rain! And snow! And sleet! There were quite a few cars in the ditches, and I pulled off the road for about 15 minutes to let the sleet/snow pass me by. We have had light rain a few times since too, but a good desert dweller never complains about rain. It has given me time to get some other things done. For example, I made an Instant Pot cheesecake using the famous “Cheesecake #17” you can find online. As usual, it came out great.

I also finished the third tumbler baby/lap quilt. The first picture is the teal/aqua one I did before that I didn’t take a picture of, and the second is with a dark blue contrast fabric. The patterned blocks came from a wonderful layer cake (10” squares) I bought on sale a while back. There are deep flowers, dragonflies in lots of colors, and some blenders, all with shimmery gold highlights. Sadly the gold doesn’t show very well, but it is much prettier in person. I have bought backing and 505 spray to sandwich at least two of the quilt tops I made on this trip, and I will start quilting them soon.

On Thursday we went to the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, driving on the dirt roads in the Yuma Proving Grounds to get there. Oddly enough the Army has been very good for the desert with the restrictions on activities along the roads, so it is a lovely section of “natural” desert.

Going through the Proving Grounds can be a bit interesting. We got to see an equipment drop by parachute, though we didn’t notice the aircraft that must have dropped them. There are 5-6 parachutes on the big item, and 2 on the small one. There is definitely a lot of training and/or testing going on. We have heard quite a few loud “booms” in the evenings, two of which had such a concussive force my motorhome swayed! The cloud ceiling was quite low, and that makes the shocks greater.

Another thing the Provong Grounds has is an urban combat practice zone set up similar to towns and villages in Western Asia, especially Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are small clusters around the area away from the larger “town.”

Just outside the western edge of the YPG is the Colorado River. It is mostly a slow moving irrigation canal here. You can see the heavily irrigated fields up west of the river in the picture below. They grow lots of alfalfa, some cotton, and even some produce from the cabbage family, though we didn’t stop to investigate.

The Colorado River isn’t too impressive here

We finally got to Cibola, and it did not disappoint. There are hundreds of Sandhill cranes, though this shows only a few of them.

There are a few other types of birds including this white heron of some type. This is zoomed in an awful lot, and I can’t tell exactly what species it is.

The best part of Cibola is sitting by the large pond that has hundreds and hundreds of waterfowl of all types. Click on the link below to watch a video, and make sure you turn your sound up!

IMG_4619

We are in Lake Havasu right now, picking up some Amazon packages and applying for our passport renewals. Mine expires in March, and I almost forgot about it! We plan on staying at Quartzsite until Monday, then heading to a private campground somewhere we can do laundry, clean the tanks, and shop. After that, we are off to Death Valley for a week or two. COVID vaccinations are still to hard to come by in Iowa to worry about, so we will just enjoy the warmth a while longer.

Kevin is actively looking at getting some lithium ion batteries for the motorhome, and that lets him have all kinds of fun. The plan is to put them in at home before our next summer trip.

Quartzsite 2021

We finally got our T-Mobile/Sprint hot spot, and it works soooooo much better than our Verizon hot spot here. I can post again! So be prepared for a LOT of pictures.

Monday we rode our bikes to the Big Tent for a funnel cake. I am addicted to good funnel cakes, and one of the vendors outside the tent has very good ones. I am a purist – cinnamon sugar only. This is the stand that is always set up on the west side of the tent.

The area around the Big Tent was remarkably uncrowded. There were numerous parking spots in the lots nearest to the tent at 10:30 in the morning, something unheard of in regular times. Pretty much everyone was wearing masks, and almost everyone was walking the correct direction on the one way aisles. Kevin went in to take a look around, but we didn’t stay long. My e-bike was all messed up, and it took a while to get the battery monitor reset. Otherwise it was a lovely ride from our spot in La Posa Tyson Wash into town, about 3 miles.

We have done a lot of just hanging around in absolutely gorgeous weather – warm and sunny. We also reveled in some rain on Wednesday and Thursday. It out a damper on our evening campfires, but it sure cut the dust which had been pretty overwhelming. Lily decided she had enough of life during one significant shower.

We went to Lake Havasu on Thursday to do our laundry (such excitement), and to go to a couple of quilt stores there. Sadly I couldn’t find the adhesive 505 spray I use to sandwich quilts, so I will just have to keep sewing tops until we get to Yuma next week. We also picked up some groceries since the shops are better than closer to Quartzsite.

Today was a much more enjoyable day. Terry and Betty Brewer took us on a 4WD trip along with Bill and Pam. We went northeast of Quartzsite on BLM “roads”. We took off on Paloma Road and followed some combination of 80, 82, 90, and 92 before we came to Hwy 72 and headed back. The trip was somewhere between 25-30 miles of back country, and it was a workout for our Grand Cherokee Trail Hawk. It was fully Class 2, with a couple of sections that were marginal, but Kevin and the Jeep made it fine. I admit I don’t want to do roads much higher rated than this one though. As a passenger, I really got thrown around. The country was beautiful though, and the scenery made it worthwhile. Here comes the photo overload:

Vistas were dry due to no monsoon this year

A great example of the Palo Verde tree and Saguaro shading and helping each other hold water

Part of the ride was near the hills with great views

Looking into the valley where US 95 runs

The ocotillos were turning the tiniest bit of green tint.

Coming close to the end with fearless Terry and Better in the lead

Probably enough now with the pictures. I will post some more sewing stuff next time.

Short post from Quartzsite with lousy data service

We got happily settled into our regular spot at Tyson awash LTVA. Not as many people here as usual, but the data service is still as bad as usual! This will be really short because of that.

We really haven’t done much but relax in the sunshine. Kevin has been printing a number of little things to help organize, and I sewed a small quilt top, 40×48”. Pictures of those later when I have better service.

I did get a morning shot. See Venus?

A nice evening shot. I know the focus isn’t great, but this photo had the most accurate colors. It was beautiful.

We will eventually go into Parker or Lake Havasu, and I will put up some other photos then. Now to “publish” before the data service goes out completely!

At KOFA for a bit longer

We spent yesterday afternoon probably like everyone else in the US – glued to the TV. I am still enraged at the domestic terrorists and their instigator, the man who is still the President of the United States. We had to turn on the generator for quite a while since we had the entertainment system on for so long. It is a real power hog, equivalent to the domestic refrigerator we have. Part of it is just the way Tiffin sets things up, and part is the way the satellite system keeps track of the satellites. The TV itself doesn’t use much power. By 4:30 we decided to go to Quartzsite again to pick up a switch for a 12v power distribution system Kevin is working on for the GPS and dash cam. Now we have cords running all over the place. Pictures will come when he gets it done. He’s been having fun with the 3D printer to make the packaging.

While we were in town, we picked up a pizza at Silly Al’s, a great pizza place in town. It is usually very, very busy so we called our order in. They have a great Philly Cheesesteak pizza, something I have never been able to get anywhere else. When I went inside to pick it up (masks required – nice!), we also got a growler of their Irish Red Ale.

Today I finished up a quilt top. It was so, so hard! Not for the design, but because it was a scrap quilt. I had to force myself to randomly pick a piece out of a box without making any selection except not to have the same fabric next to each other. I have decided I am not suited to scrap quilts! It drove me batty.

I used a 4” tumbler die with my Accuquilt to cut them. Sadly, I still have a 100 plus pieces! I am sure it will be loved by some child as a “I See” quilts since there are so many designs and colors in it. I also forced myself to sew the rows together randomly too, so you will note a few of the same fabrics in adjacent rows. Luckily the next two quilts I am working on are more more orderly and planned.

We did sit outside a bit today. While there were enough clouds to filter the sunlight, I still got one good picture of the hill behind us.

I am not sure how the data service will be in Quartzsite. Usually it is absolutely horrid because there are sooooo many people. However I had really good service there a few days ago so we will see. If I have good service I will try to post every 2-3 days. If not, it might be 5-7 days. We will see.