Tag: Arizona

Home (and getting there)

After a nice Brueger’s bagel, we headed from Tucson to Payson, AZ and Houston Mesa campground. It is a Forest Service campground run by a concessionaire just north of the town and set in the pine trees. It is just gorgeous, and there were only a couple of other campers. The camp hosts were very nice, and obviously rather bored with the limited number of campers. They talked to us quite a while, and were helpful in identifying places to go. The only problem with the big pull through site was the road noise; there was a lot of it!

We ended up just spending the night and decided to head to Utah. We drove through a wonderful scenic area with a huge copper mine. I live in the town with the Kennicott mine, the biggest open pit copper mine in the world, and I was still impressed with this one. Oddly the tailings were very colorful and interesting – all the shades of tan, brown, gray, along with green and pinks.

We spent our last night on the road at the Beaver KOA. Nice folks and only one other campsite occupied. It is a nice little place, very well kept and far enough off the highway to be very quiet. We took our time leaving, making sure the tanks were clean and empty before heading home. I even dusted! I still need to sweep the floor and wash the rugs, but it was pretty clean as we pulled it in the side yard. We started laundry (a never ending task) and cleaned out the refrigerator. Now the trailer will sleep for a few weeks.

We aren’t making any plans for April until we find out what is up with Kevin’s knee. It is very painful and makes these weird popping noises. He had this rather silly idea that he could wait until he went on Medicare in September, but it is just too sore. He saw our family practitioner today, and he has a MRI scheduled for Friday. By mid next week we will hopefully know what he has to do to be better since the PT and meds aren’t working. I am hoping it is a quick arthroscopic clean up of the tendon, but that is not based on any specific knowledge. If he can get better quickly, we may go to a high school get together in Oklahoma City on Easter weekend. If not, we will stay here (or at least close) until mid May when we have reservations for the Yosemite area.

Desert beauty

We decided to go to the Tucson area today. We are staying at the Pima County Fairgrounds, just south of Tucson proper. The site is fairly cheap, $25 for full hookups, but it is a crowded gravel parking lot. Of course it is just for an overnight stay so I don’t mind. We got in around 1:00 and chose a well-reviewed Thai restaurant for lunch. “Luckies” was wonderful. My green curry was loaded with good stuff, and just spicy enough to leave a tingle on my lips. It was deliciously warm today, upper 60s, so after lunch we took a trip to the Saguaro National Park’s east unit. It was glorious! I enjoy desert plants in general (such textures!), and I have a special fondness for the Sonoran desert flora. These are the types of plants I had in my yard in Albuquerque – yuccas, barrel cactus, chollas, sotols, etc. Here is a somewhat fuzzy picture of the area.

Saguaro National Park

I never had ocotillos in my yard since they need warmer weather. I do think they have the most wonderful shape though!

Ocotillo

The chollas looked like little fuzzy trees.

Cholla “tree”

And of course there were lots and lots of saguaros.

Saguaros

We keep heading gradually northwest. Where we stay tomorrow depends on when we get out of camp. There is a Brueger’s Bagel bakery not too far away, so we have to have breakfast there. They do real boiled then baked bagels, something I can’t get in SLC. I adore them!

Quartzsite, Arizona

Once we got out of the Salt Lake City area, we had smooth sailing. We spent the night in St. George and then left by 9:00 am to head to Quartzsite. We took the route through California instead of Lake Havasu, and it was a good choice. We arrived a little after 3:00 on 25 January, but by the time we got permits, figured out where the RV Forum group was camped, and got set up, it was just after 4:00 and time for Happy Hour! It was a nice way to meet the rest of the group. By 6:00 we were back at our trailer and finishing the setup. It took Kevin a long time to get the satellite activated, but that is generally the case with DISH. Sigh. The service is good once we get it started, but it is painful working with them every time we move to get our address changed.

Yesterday we went to the big Quartzite show. This is a ritual for RVers in the West. There are around 100,000 people mostly camped in the desert with a few in town at crowded RV parks. The “show” is centered at “The Big Tent”, a huge big top tent that houses many vendors. There are also lots of vendors outside the tent, and there are multiple other vendor areas that are mostly flea markets with a few nice vendors of a more artistic bent. There are also a lot of food vendors! Kevin and I shared a wonderful funnel cake, one of my main weaknesses.

Here is a picture of the tent. OK, it is a lousy picture taken from the truck, but you get the idea.

The “Big Tent”

One of the things about camping in the dispersed area the BLM calls “Long Term Visitor Areas” is that hookups are non-existence. There are a couple of places with a single dump station, but that’s not much for 100,000 people! The line at the dump station has to be seen to be believed. This picture was taken at noon yesterday.

In the afternoon we took the electric bikes out for a ride. The scenery is gorgeous. I like this scenic saguaro with the mountains in the background.

Today we went towards Yuma, Arizona. Our first stop was Castle Dome ghost town and mining museum. What a wonderful place! It was quite cold with a hard wind so we only did about half of the available exhibits. I definitely want to come back another year in better weather and do the entire thing. Here are some pictures. You can definitely see why they call the area Castle Dome. The rocks are volcanic, and there were 300 mines in the area, mostly for silver and lead.

Part of the Castle Dome museum
More of the Castle Dome museum

We also went through the Yuma Proving Grounds. There was a very interesting dirigible tied up not too far off the road. Maybe used for range communication or monitoring? It looks like an instrument cluster or radar at the bottom. You can’t judge the size from this picture, but I bet it was 30-40 foot tall, based on the hanger it was near. Odd site in the middle of the desert!

Dirigible at Yuma Proving Grounds