Arizona – Page 4 – TooBusyForWork

A wonderful week at Kofa National Wildlife Refuge

After getting ourselves all cleaned up -laundry, grocery shopping, dumping waste tanks, filling up fresh water – we headed to Kofa National Wildlife Refuge to meet friends. This is yet more classic boondocking. We stay on a spot off of King Valley Road, about a mile from US 95, 30 miles south of Quartzsite. Kofa stands for “King of Arizona”, the name of a significant mine in the area. They stamped their bullion with the initials, and it stuck. And yes, the refuge is capitalized as I show it here (weird I know). We arrived on a Wednesday just after lunch, and we stayed until this morning, an entire week.

We mostly just relaxed, but we did do some 4WD roads in the area. The trip to the North Star Mine (and driving by the nearby King of Arizona) was the highlight.

Lots of these too in big bushes, especially near the road

The ocotillos were mostly past blooming. I find them the most interesting structural plant.

Oh, and there were some interesting ruins too.

North Star Mine. Much larger than it appears in this picture. The tanks were probably 10’ high or more.

A big picture view of the part of King of Arizona we could see

A very old “tank” along the road to North Star used to hold water for wildlife

An old well bore, maybe 8” in diameter. We put the cap back on

Pile of soft white material, maybe 30’ x 20’.

I have no idea what the white stuff is. The best I found out is a reference to a well 5 miles south of King of Arizona and supported an ore concentrator. I saw no signs of a mill, but there were some old metal fragments characteristic of the time. The well and white pile were right next to an obvious spring, so my guess is this is the concentrator.

We took a trip on another day to the Horse Tanks. They are natural water holes that have been enlarged by the Wildlife Service for game. Another gorgeous area.

The water from the hills comes down the wash resulting in lush vegetation

The Jeep in the landscape. Love the ocotillo

Just an interesting weathered area in the rocks

The lower Horse Tank. There is another above the pour over shown.

I have also been sewing. I have completed 3 quilt tops to be donated at the FMCA rally, so I haven’t only been goofing off. Oh, and I have gotten Kevin addicted to the Australian series Brokenwood Mysteries. I either download them (poor service spot) or stream them (good service location).

Sunset campground in Death Valley

Part 2 of our Death Valley trip.

We moved to Sunset campground in the Furnace Creek area. I was astonished to get what I consider the best site in the entire place – F1. It faces East so you get the morning sun but you have protection from the hot afternoon sun. It is also at the end of a row with nothing but a driveway between you and the mountains. We stayed for 7 nights, and we considered staying longer.

We did the must-see drive to Badwater Basin after a rain. Note the reflections.

Looking to the south shows the snow touched Panamints

Artists Drive and the Artists Pallette

Kevin took a trip to the Keane Wonder Mine again. I stayed at the coach and quilted.

We took what is probably my favorite backcountry 4WD road, Greenwater Road to the old mining communities of Furnace, Kunze, and Greenwater. Furnace had nothing left except a few sun bleached pieces of wood since it had been a tent city. Kunze was the small town, but had some great stone remnants.

Still with part of its roof timbers at Kunze

Someone has carefully selected some artifacts for the inside

There were other ruins in not as good of shape

The town of Greenwater was full of artifacts. This was the biggest of the communities, and it obviously spread out over a large area.

This is the “monument” to Greenwater at what was the towns main intersection

This type of debris was all over the square mile or so of the town

The Greenwater road had more animals than we had previously seen with numerous lizards running across the road and quite a few antelope squirrels. The squirrels look like small but very round ground squirrels except their very short tail (creamy white on the underside) held curled above their backs. They were very fast, and I never was able to get a picture. They were new to me this trip. The road was also a real 4WD road with big rigs that needed a high clearance vehicle and good climbing ability. The Grand Cherokee Trailhawk handled it like a pro. I am feeling more and more confidence in the vehicle’s abilities.

The weekend we were there was the Dark Sky Festival. There were scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Goddard Space Center, and more plus two local astronomy groups. The talks ranged from deep scientific topics to a kid’s activity of building their own Mars Rover model (quite popular I might add) to guided hikes to Star Wars filming sites (Golden Canyon). Death Valley has been used to test extraterrestrial vehicles for many years, and there were lots of stories about them. Most of the astronomy and astrophotography activities got rained out (DVNP got almost 1/4” of rain on Saturday), but we did go to one ranger program on Sunday night. Kevin has been playing around with astrophotography, and I love looking at his shots. Sadly I can’t show them to you in full glory due to size.

The Dark Sky Festival was very interesting, and I think we will plan on going again next year.

We left on a Monday and headed to Needles, CA as I noted in the previous post. We stayed for two nights at the KOA, and caught up on laundry, shopping, and the internet! I hadn’t had unfettered access for weeks which is the reason for the delay in posts. We are now at the Kofa Wildlife Refuge in a boondock site on King’s Road, about halfway between Quartzsite and Yuma. We don’t know how long we will stay, but it is glorious here.

Resort living

No pictures because we have very limited internet here at Craggy Wash BLM campground north of Lake Havasu.

We stayed at the Fortuna de Oro RV Resort in Yuma for a week. This is the first time we have stayed at a real upscale resort. My, but they can keep you busy! There are clubs for every interest, live music most afternoons/early evenings, planned Happy Hours, pickleball leagues and tournaments, softball, a golf course (but we don’t golf), etc. Quite impressive. We took the opportunity to listen to music a few evenings, I visited the quilt group twice (they have their own room at the resort), and we road our bikes around and around. This place is huge with about 1200 sites. Many are year around places, either park models or RVs, but there are a number of people here for a few days or a few months. We actually liked it so much we are pretty sure we will plan for two months there next year, February and March. Too early to make any final decisions though because the reservations aren’t refundable!

While in Yuma we also wandered around the town some. Decent restaurants, more shopping than I remembered from some day trips we made before. We did get the motorhome washed and waxed. Papi’s RV Wash gave very good results, but they were hours late! They were able to get rid of the brush marks on the side from close encounters tears with bushes and trees. The coach looks wonderful! We also went to a local community theater presentation fo Godspell, fun though pretty amateurish, and last night we went to an outdoor concert known as “Howling at the Moon”. Yup, 3000 people in lawn chairs listening to music, talking with friends, and, when the full moon came up over the mountain, howling at the moon. They do it once a month. We got to see some of our friends from Quartzsite so it was extra fun.

We were on the road from Yuma to Quartzsite by 10:00. Our black tank has not been draining well, so we set up an appointment to have the black and the gray tanks power flushed by “The RV Procologist” (love the name). It turns out the problem was that Lily had managed to put a sock in the toilet and we must have flushed it down in the dark! We can’t figure out any other way it could have gotten there. We have found a few of her stuffed mice in the toilet bowl in the past, but obviously this one must have been done at night. Oh, and they offered us the sock back, but I declined LOL!

We then drove on to a BLM dispersed camping site know as Craggy Wash. It is so lovely I wish I could put up pictures. Only a mile off Hwy 95 right at the north edge of the Lake Havasu airport, it is very quiet even though there are a number of rigs ranging from vans to a teardrop to trailers, fifth wheels, and motorhomes. Only a couple of generators going, and I hope they stop soon. Tomorrow morning early we are heading to Death Valley, hoping to spend a few days at Stovepipe Wells followed by another few days at Furnace Creek. We have seen a few flowers in the southern area beginning to bloom, and I am hoping to see some good blooms in DVNP.

I will post some more pictures if I get service at Stovepipe, but it is iffy.

Leaving Quartzsite tomorrow

We have been here for almost 3 weeks, and we are leaving tomorrow for a full-hookup resort-style snowbird park. It will be quite a change from the lovely quiet desert, but both types of places have their advantages and disadvantages. I am looking forward to doing my laundry in my own washer and dryer!

I ended up removing the stitches in my hand myself. However there is a tiny piece that didn’t come out! I am going to have to dig it out soon. It has impacted my ability to ride my bike, so today was the first time I really took it out. Kevin and I rode to Bad Boy’s restaurant in Quartzsite and had one of their nice breakfasts. The weather today was actually so warm I couldn’t sit comfortably outside in the direct sun (83 by one account). However the weather is changing. We have a strong wind, and a cold front is on the way. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be 50, so quite a change.

The weather has been a challenge for Kevin to take some good night photos. We did get a few clear nights though.

Pretty impressive view of the Milky Way from just outside our motorhome. Note the aircraft lights that were captured.

Blow it up to see the mountains, moon, and Venus

I will also provide a bit of info about the rally. We had at least 35 people show up in over 20 rigs. Some were here for a few days, others for weeks. We are a loosely organized group. There was one 4 WD trip that we didn’t take, a daily 2 mile walk in the morning, and Happy Hour around the campfire each night of the Big Tent RV show. Smaller groups visited the favorite restaurants (Bad Boy’s for breakfast and Silly Al’s for pizza or lasagna), visited the show, drove to the wildlife refuge, or visited Castle Dome. I must admit the quiet this week, the week after the show, has been lovely!

Oh, and I almost completed a baby quilt out of scraps. I still have to apply the binding, but that is all thanks left. I will post it when it is all done.

To Yuma!

From Quartzsite and the environs

With me being hobbled by my hand, we haven’t been doing a lot. Then again, beautiful sunny skies and temps near 70 (or more) have made doing nothing very enjoyable! There has been a lot of sitting in the sun during the day and sitting around a campfire at night.

We did go to Cibola National Wildlife Refuge on Tuesday. We took a slow but scenic route through the Yuma Proving Grounds on a gravel road that wandered through beautiful country.

YPG is a wildlife sanctuary and desert plant refuge in the barrier areas.

Lots of green here plus a (Afghanistan?) “village”

Of course I don’t recommend going off the main road!

Cibola NWR attracts a lot of birds to its ponds

There were huge numbers of sandhill cranes too

Oh, and this style of saguaro was plentiful

Click on this link to hear the birds in a video.

IMG_3716

Saturday our group had a potluck meal. As usual my Dutch oven green chili chicken enchiladas were a hit, but there was a lot of other good food too.

Sunday we took a trip to the Desert Bar again, a totally off grid bar and music venue that is only open 12-6 on Saturday and Sunday during the winter. Amazingly cool place.

The last 5 miles are on a very rough dirt toad — The last 5 miles are on a very rough dirt and gravel road

The roads in the area originally led to mines

A number of old dead cars along the road

It isn’t a “real” church, but you can have weddings there

A mandatory view of the women’s toilets built into the hill

View looking out from the women’s toilets

Totally self-contained and off grid but with a 1000 people means lots of solar

We have decided to stay in Q until we head to Yuma on 3 February. I am sure I will have at least one more post from here. Hopefully the cell service improves with thousands of people leaving.

Excitement in Quartzsite

We left the Van Horne RV Park (and their nice little cafe), and we spent Monday night in Willcox, AZ at the KOA. Nice campground with big roomy sites and very little road noise. They had a cafe too, but it was very mediocre. It was particularly disappointing after the enjoyable experience at Van Horne.

I was starting to get antsy about getting to Quartzsite, so we were up early Tuesday to go to Destiny RV Resort in Goodyear, AZ (Phoenix suburb). Nice place, but complicated to get in and out of. Most of the sites are seasonal or year around, but it was definitely one of the more upscale places we have been. There were orange trees all through the campground!

Since we were going to be dry camping for the next few weeks, we made sure to do our shopping, laundry, and clean out the tanks. We really took our time on Wednesday morning, and we didn’t leave until nearly 11:00. We did make it to Quartzsite though.

On Thursday we had Countryside Interiors come install our new RV furniture!

A smaller sofa (full-sized air bed sleeper) plus two lovely electric recliners! The color is a very light beige, not the white that shows in the pictures, and the upholstery is super soft, a better grade than the original. The quilts brighten it up nicely too. We will eventually get a small table made to fit between the chairs. Countryside took away the old furniture, and they said someone was sure to take it so it wouldn’t have to go to the landfill.

I was enjoying my furniture so much that I wasn’t concentrating as I left the coach on Thursday afternoon, so I fell down the stairs! It was a hard and painful fall, and I cut my hand badly on the metal somehow. I was bleeding mightily, and I could see immediately that I was going to need stitches in my hand. I just sat on the ground and cried a few seconds before Kevin helped me up. We wrapped up my hand, put a bandaid on the bloodiest of my scrapes, changed my clothes (I had spilled the drink I was carrying), and took off for the medical clinic in town. They told me they didn’t do stitches and sent me off to Parker’s Emergency Room. I was getting shaky as the adrenaline wore off, and my hand and elbow hurt like crazy. Luckily they got me in quickly. The doctor was worried about my elbow and knee since both were very sore, and he had the do a couple of X-rays. Luckily nothing broken and I didn’t hit my head or lose consciousness. My hand took a bunch of stitches though. They gave me a tetanus shot, wrapped up my hand, cleaned up the rest of the scrapes, and send me back. Still hurt like crazy. I get the stitches out in 7 days. Luckily the new chairs recliner so much as to almost be a bed, so I slept there. I was worried I would bump my hand or knee or elbow in the bed!

To put it mildly I wasn’t feeling good on Friday so we just hung around the motorhome. A lot more people joined the group we are with (RVForum.net) on Thursday and Friday, and more are still arriving. We had an enjoyable evening around the fire with friends even though it was a bit cold. I was feeling a bit better, so we had fresh green beans with onion and bacon (made in the Instant Pot), gold potatoes with onion and peppers, and roast turkey we had frozen from Thanksgiving. Yum, and I don’t have to do any dishes until after the stitches come out!

Today was the first day of the big RV show in Quartzsite, and Kevin braved the crowds to talk to the BlueOx people about refurbishing our tow bars. They have a fixed price for routine maintenance, and we dropped off the tow bars with them this afternoon. The place was crazy busy. I can’t ride my bike right now because of my hand, so I may not go until much later in the week. Kevin did pick us up a funnel cake!

A Grand Canyon detour

It always takes a long time to restore order in the motorhome whenever we have been in one place for a while. After two weeks at Furnace Creek NPS campground, it took us about an hour and a half to get ready to leave. It is amazing how much stuff gets pulled out of the storage bays when we are stationary for a while – grill, Dutch ovens, picnic table cover, chairs, mats, and even more. The inside was a mess too with dust and dirt everywhere. I do vacuum every 4-5 days so the tile floors don’t get scratched, but that wasn’t even close to enough. Wiping counters and other surfaces, dusting, vacuuming, and even mopping was the order of the day. We didn’t leave until just after 10:00.

Sunday night we stayed at Fort Beale RV park in Kingman, AZ – back to mountain time. Not a bad place, though we just barely fit in the big pull through we had. The Grand Cherokee is a big vehicle, and we didn’t want to unhook. We did do some serious thinking about the route back to Iowa though, and spent some time on various weather apps checking forecasts for later in the week. It is nasty in the central part of the country right now, but it is forecast to be much better by when we would be driving through. Therefore we decided to take I-40 instead of the longer (and more boring) I-10/20. The other major consideration is when we will travel through Albuquerque, the only big city on the trip. I much prefer going through any big city between 9:00 and 3:00, so that generally means staying close to the city one night, if possible. Balancing all of that, we chose to spend last night at Twin Arrow Casino that provides free overnight stays in their parking lot. And since it was only a bit over 120 miles from Kingman, we took a quick detour to the Grand Canyon!

I love this view because it shows the river

Even with the smoky haze blurring the view, the canyon is amazing.

We did get a bit of a surprise at the southern edge of the park with these horses.

They were just grazing at the side of the road.

A shy foal was hungry. Mom was keeping an eye on us.

Since they were right by a sign for a riding stable, we called the number, thinking they were escapees. Nope, they were wild horses the man responded. What a nice thing to run across.

We are now at the American RV Park on the west side of Albuquerque, a drive of about 300 miles. Nice place, and mostly empty this time of year. We have a huge pull through so no unhitching needed. Tomorrow we will be in Double D RV Park in Texola, OK, right at the TX/OK border. It will be a long day, 400 miles, so I may even let Kevin drive some! Then we will arrive in the OKC area for two nights, setting the rig up for storage. No more posts probably until I can recover at the house in Iowa.

Titus Canyon, Artist Palette, 20 mule team, and heading home

Folks, you just thought I had a lot of pictures in previous posts! Get ready for even more.

The most amazing thing we saw at this year’s Encampment was a 20 mule team pulling newly built borax wagons. The wagons are 2 years old, and carefully created by a wagon builder in Montana to the original specifications. They are huge! The Death Valley Conservancy paid for them, and they helped fund the mule team too. The mules are from Bobby Tanner, an outfitter and packer in the Sierras, and he is one of only a handful of people able to manage such a team.

See the FedEx truck? Yeah, so did everyone else! The road was closed, but he thought he could get past the NPS, CHP, and the Sheriffs. Didn’t work out too well for him.

This is Kevin’s picture, taken from a high hill so you can see the bigger picture. The wagon train consisted of two huge wagons for borax, a water tank, 18 mules, and 2 horses. Yes, the term “20 mule team” is a bit inaccurate, but that’s the way it was done historically. And the team isn’t driven from the wagon but through a “jerk line” wielded by Bobby Tanner in the blue shirt and hat on the horse in front.

And I got the most amazing video I have ever made! Click on the link to see it, and turn up the volume to hear the mule bells. Watch towards the back of the team to see a mule “jumping the chain” to change the wagon direction. The wagons had solid axles, and they had to be turned by brute force.

IMG_3382

We didn’t hit many of the standard places for Death Valley pictures because we have done them so often. We did make an exception for Titus Canyon and Artist’s Palette. Titus Canyon requires a high clearance vehicle and some confidence, but it is a lovely drive. It is one way on a very rough gravel/rock road with tight turns and steep climbs, but the views are well worth it.

You eventually drive down a wash with narrow walls

The town of Leadfield boomed for about 6 months and died. It was a hoax.

Someone didn’t believe the road needed high clearance. This resulted in a dead car and two days of the canyon shut down until they could tow the car out.

On the road into the canyon from Beatty.

Look at the layers curling more than vertical! That is an example of the stress the land has undergone

The Artist’s Palette is another famous section of one way road. The formations has different minerals that provide a wide range of colors. And no, the green isn’t copper.

It is pretty, isn’t it? I hope you now believe Death Valley is more than sand dunes and dull brown rocks.

We left this morning for the 1200 mile trip back to Iowa. We made it to Kingman, AZ at Fort Beale RV Park. Quite a change from the spacious spot we had at DVNP, but such is life. We did get rewarded by a fantastic sunset tonight though. Too bad it is the result of smoke from the fires in California.

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.

Lots of small houses brightly colored are a fixture 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.

In this one the side branches are just getting started

Baby saguaros look a lot like basic barrel cactus when they are little.

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 have just started blooming. They also have seed heads on them that almost look like tiny dandelion seeds

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

There are are a few in the blue/purple family

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.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31