Camping – Page 21 – TooBusyForWork

Kodachrome Basin State Park

Last January we made reservations for Kodachrome State Park in southern Utah. Spring is the most popular time, and reservations are truly necessary in this popular spot. We were able to get a lovely site with full hookups for only $30 a night, pretty good! There was no cell service, so we kept having to go to town to check on emails and texts to deal with selling the house.We had some friends join us, and we had a lovely time. I am going to add a lot of pictures, so be prepared.

Sorry for the antenna, but this is the general look of the area. Lots of rolling hills and mountains with juniper and sage.

While this part of the country is know for its red rocks, there are some big white bluffs too. Much of the white is clay, and it was mined extensively in the area.

This is a view of the area from the scenic byway Highway 12. We took an entire day to drive the 70 or so miles to and from the town of Boulder. Absolutely gorgeous.

On another day we went to Bryce Canyon National Park. It is high enough in elevation that it has lines instead of junipers, and snow was on the ground above 8000’.

View from a lookout at Bryce.

Nice arch at Bryce.

We also drove a rough dirt road, Cottonwood Canyon Road, to Grosvenor Arch. This is a well signed BLM site with picnic tables, a toilet, and a paved walkway that went most of the way to the arch. It was quite impressive – a full double arch that just opened up before you. Quite cathedral – like.

Kodachrome Basin is definitely off the beaten path, but well worth a detour. Mostly full hookup sites, 50amp electrical service, with a few no hookup sites available. All are reservable, and you need to reserve if you want a site. Almost all the sites will accommodate a big motorhome or fifth wheel with ease. Our friends had an electric site for the first 2 nights, but had to move to a non-electric on the third night. We shared cooking duties. She made sloppy joes with a wonderful fresh salad on her cooking night, and I made baby back ribs in the Instant Pot with pan fried potatoes, onion, and peppers on my night. Yum.

Military bases plus quilting

Odd title, but we did a couple of quite different things today. First we went to Fort Huachuca and it’s fascinating Buffalo Soldier Museum. Buffalo Soldiers were what African American soldiers were known as before integration of the Armed Forces after World War II. Supposedly the curly hair reminded the Native Americans of buffalo (bison). It was a good thing the museum was good because it took a very long time to get a pass for the post. It took my driver’s license and a long questionnaire, followed by a criminal background check and military records check before I got the pass, about 30 or 45 minutes total. While most of the post was very modern, I took a few pictures of the older part because I like the history.

EC965990-E2F9-40E8-A519-4A1C997DA4E8 — A duplex housing a Major and a Command Sergeant Major.

9C4C0D2B-24E3-4B4E-BB2B-887DD7FFE8C8 — Just looking into the distance across the old parade ground.

D02EC9F5-3E07-42E9-A011-9C98F5618541 — An old mission-style building.

72372CDC-0CF4-4EB8-A9BD-1EF4DFEDD482 — Old barracks now made into offices.

We did exciting things like laundry at the campground, and I got my latest Quilts for Kids project completed. I am pretty pleased with it. I did the quilting on my Bernina sitting at the dinette table, something much harder to do than using the quilting machine at home.

2B069882-93B1-456E-947D-80139E7AE5E4 The design is called “I Spy” because of all the different fabrics. I used a dark blue thread for the meander quilting. I probably should have used yellow, but I didn’t have any nor did I want to go to the store, so blue it was. It feels nice to get this one done. Next I need to work on the microwave bowl holders with the cute fabric I bought here, but we are leaving this campground tomorrow. I like the area, but the campsite is not nice at all. There isn’t room for the truck, so we have to park it in the overflow area, and it is quite inconvenient. We will probably head some place north of Phoenix for tomorrow night. Thursday and Friday we will be at Willow Beach below Lake Mead. A full hookup campsite! Of course that assumes the Government doesn’t shit down again.

Oh, and tonight I made baby back ribs in the Instant Pot again. Yum, yum! You notice no pictures; they didn’t last long enough.

Ghost towns and tourist towns

We decided to visit some old mining towns today – Courtland and Gleeson. They aren’t too far from Huachuca City or Tombstone, our ultimate destination. Courtland had obviously been a big mining district. There were tailing piles and mining roads scattered across the hillsides.

4E9E7A97-A68A-4215-AF84-64B328CE688F — Lots of rock buildings (sorry for the bad lighting)

ABA2B853-EE31-48CB-9E0C-1B7CD00F663D — Adobe buildings too

772D8EDF-1F8E-40F2-A83F-9D60D83380BB — This one looked scary!

AB77E2B7-02FA-4437-9BE5-FAE3A9A61FA5 — Distant views

122EAC6B-36A5-4A03-BDF7-E2607C9DDAFD — Yet more buildings, or at least their footings

300EDC3C-5DE3-4705-BBB8-EAC1F582B6E5 — Mine tailings. This one is still active. See the tiny white spec?

Now for Gleeson. Not as many pictures because a number of people still live in this community. There were even a number of mailboxes.

F5B4C86B-BDF8-412D-A619-51652BDD4C26 — This was a big building

17C0EF8F-3F35-4388-8D41-5B8981349CC2 — Leftovers of the mill and headframe

439927B0-C87F-4237-9D5A-AE1E52E9EE71 — Way at the top of a hill. Maybe a church?

After the ghost towns we headed to Tombstone. We picked a great day without many visitors since most people must have been planning on football. Lots of neat old buildings plus lots of relatively tasteful tourist shops. I was pleasantly surprised. We did take a stagecoach ride though. The driver/narrator was a hoot and deserved his tip at the end.

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This evening I pressed and sandwiched the Quilts for Kids project. I even got it quilted on my Bernina! It was the first time I have done free motion quilting on an entire quilt on the Bernie, and it went pretty well. Of course the quilt wasn’t big, about 40×45”. I will post a completed picture when I get the binding on.

Oh, and the Eagles won the game.

Huachuca City, AZ

After we left Quartzsite we headed east to Huachuca, just outside of Sierra Vista. We are staying at Mountain View RV Park. I would recommend this park for long term folks, but it is not nice at all for short timers! The first spot they put is had the sewer connection underneath the trailer. The manager was quite put out we weren’t willing to crawl underneath the trailer to get to our (paid for) facilities. With bad grace they moved us to “the only other site they had” which was very narrow and had two trees that keep us from parking on our site. Note that of today (Saturday) there is still a pull through site available plus numerous back ins. At least the place is quiet.

Yesterday we did laundry and went to a lovely little quilt shop called The Squirrel’s Nest. I got some cut fabric for microwave fabric bowls.

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One cover will be the bowl-kokopelli fabric and the other will have the quail on both sides. I love mountain quail! I also got fabric for two baby quilts. One is for my niece and her upcoming baby boy (the white and gray) and the other is for a son of one of my sons (the cream and red). I am going to make both the same pattern, an Irish Chain.

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Today we tried tried to visit Bisbee, AZ, but we couldn’t find any parking. We drove through town three times, checking out the public lots plus on street parking, and nothing was available. I can’t walk for blocks just to get to the historic area. We were both disappointed, so we decided to drive to Tucson to see the RV show they had there. (Yes, I know that makes no sense.)

We decided to actively start looking at options for selling the house, buying a house, and buying a motorhome. First step was to talk to a Realtor friend in Utah to see whether the market is as hot there as I have heard. Spoiler: it is! He was practically begging us to list, and he said he had folks who could help us get things ready to sell. There just aren’t very many houses on the market right now, and he needs listings. He also gave us some good recommendations on how to juggle the finances for house and motorhome. Ummm. Now we have to get serious! Our current favorite coach is a Tiffin 37PA. We plan on ordering a new one from the factory, so we need to finalize options. Lots to do!

More about the Quartzsite trip

Warning, this is a long post. I really should have posted more frequently, but the data on my cell phone has been very slow until a lot of people left.

While we did go to the Big Tent, we have also done other activities in the area. Last week we took a trip to Castle Dome, a mining museum and ghost town about an hour and a a half a way. The first 45 miles are highway, but the last 8 or 9 are washboard gravel so it was slow going. The area is well worth the trip though. Here is why the community and mining district got its name.

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The builidngs came from various mining camps in the area with only a few being original to the town itself. One of those was the hotel.

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The place is just full of wonderful history.

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The mining continued through the 1950s, but I didn’t take pictures of the later period exhibits. Down the road a bit they have a walking tour past a number of old mines. They range from hand dug pits 30’ deep cut by the early Spanish explorers to sophisticated hard rock mines last worked in the 1950s and 60s that are hundreds of feet long with multiple levels. The area was know for gold, silver, and lead with some copper too.

We took a trip down to the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge southwest of Quartzsite on the Colorado River. When the river was channelized for irrigation purposes in the 1960s, the refuge was established to mitigate some of the loss of wetlands. We drove down on a dirt road that mostly edged along the river. It had been washed out completely in a few spots. Most of them had been fixed recently (the bulldozer tracks were still fresh), but we did have one spot where we had to detour. I would not recommend this route for passenger cars. We returned via a hard surface road that went to Blythe that would be suitable for passenger cars. The refuge looks like a classic dry desert until you round a corner on the auto tour and see (and hear) this. You will have to click to see the video, but it is worth it to turn the sound up.

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Besides the thousands of ducks, geese, and pelicans in the water, we also saw a few dozen sandhill cranes standing in the alfalfa fields grown for their use.

We also took a trip to the Desert Bar northeast of Parker, about 45 miles from Quartzsite. This is a classic place, completely off the grid, open only on weekends from October to April. All kinds of bar and grill food – burgers, pulled pork, chicken fingers, etc. – plus a full bar and live music. The road is very rocky and rough. A passenger can would have to be careful, but it is doable.

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14CC2CA4-2257-42BF-9A78-7A6AE1DA658D — The band the day we went

50599FEF-6D84-4078-ADF2-8A5CCC84514C — Love the views

1366E67F-71D2-4ACF-B3DC-F05EFDE035B1 — Nice view from the open air bathroom (the stalls have doors)

A7308B1B-9807-44DD-B51E-0FAA76403670 — It takes a lot of solar to keep this place going

DBE04F31-288A-4694-B118-1F455D9C0548 — A popular viewpoint

We now intend on staying here until Thursday. Early Wednesday morning there will be a lunar eclipse, so we decided to stay another day.

Oh, and a few housekeeping items. There is a really nice Albertson’s in Blythe, CA about 20 miles away. Quartzsite only has a couple of convenience stores that carry a (very) few groceries. We did laundry on a day trip to Yuma at Plaza Coin Laundry, a very nice spot. We ate lunch at Ronnie’s Pizza. Great pizza at a real hole in the wall place. I did make ribs again, and this time I took a picture before we ate. E1625881-BF04-47C2-A38D-4F4BB68808AB

For the traditional Saturday potluck I made my tried and true green chili chicken enchiladas, made New Mexican style (layered) in the Dutch Oven. They were a hit. I always feel a bit guilty when I get complements on them since they are sooooo easy.

Quartzsite with 200,000 of my closest friends

We drove from HB on Friday to the desert south of Quartzsite, AZ. This is the snowbird capital of the world for a week or so during their RV and Big Tent Show each winter. The rest of the winter the desert is still popular with snowbirds, especially if they can dry camp. For a $40 fee the BLM will let you camp on their land for 14 days. There is access to water, a sanitary dump, and trash bins. They also have a $180 fee for those who want to stay for the season – as long as 7 months. I can’t imagine doing that, but this is a great place for a couple of weeks. We met up with friends from RVForum.net, and we have daily Happy Hour get togethers plus a potluck planned for today. Nice folks.

Saturday was the first day of the Big Tent Show, and it is a BIG tent (picture from last year).

We should have waited. The show was dreadfully crowded, and parking was a mess. Kevin kindly dropped me off near the door and parked a 5 minute walk away. Did I mention it was crowded? We still haven’t bought anything but two USB charging cords, funnel cakes, fry bread, and ice cream. The last three were over three separate trips, so it wasn’t quite as bad as it looks in writing. We finally figured out the best time to go was mid afternoon, around 2 or 3. Much less crowded, and it is a great time for funnel cakes (a not so secret vice of mine).

The specific area we are in is called La Posa Tyson Wash. The surface is mostly gravel so it isn’t hard to get around on. We have a number of OTA TV channels plus my Verizon phone gets good data service except when everyone else hits it by mid morning and again in the evening. We bought a 14 day pass, and we intend on staying until,after the lunar eclipse next week. When I mentioned the 200,000 other people here, I might have both understated and overstated the impact. Yes, there are actually more than 200,000 people here in the desert, but they are mostly spread out quite a ways. It feels much less crowded than a state park, and if you want solitude you could find it. We intended to camp with a group so we are in an area about 200 x 75 yards with 25 rigs or so.

BAA9A014-8234-4DD5-BF7A-E4E2ABD6EDE7 — Sunrise at Quartzsite

We also continued to look at Class A RVs. My latest favorite is a Tiffin RED 37PA. Nice kitchen, good storage, big bath and closets, plus big water and waste tanks so we can continue to dry camp easily. This one is certainly in the running. We also looked at about 10 other coaches, and nothing else hit our fancy.

Huntington Beach via Bolsa Chica State Beach

When I was still working, I did a lot of work for Boeing in Huntington Beach. Kevin hasn’t spent much time around Pacific beaches, so we decided to spend a few days at Bolsa Chica State Beach, 3 miles or so north of Huntington Beach. We arrived in early afternoon on Saturday after a long hassle driving in a crowded city. Ugh.

The sites at Bolsa Chica are very narrow and the road between the two rows is also very narrow so it was a challenge getting in. After we got set up I discovered I had not measured the spot for the slide correctly and we were 2 inches short! We just kept the slide almost all the way out since it was way too much work to move it over those two inches. The campground sits between Pacific Coast Highway and the beach. We had a site on the highway side and it was very noisy, but then again, it was at a beach so we just dealt with it. We wore foam ear plugs the first few nights, but it was better by Sunday night. Since we arrived on Martin Luther King holiday, the park was packed. We still managed to do a lot of sitting and looking at the surf, a lovely thing.

DF985F6E-B484-455F-A5F3-37AE446FF82E — Surfers were always present

0AD5CA6A-C54F-4B24-B386-C8D8B970C68C — The first few days had low surf

5CF6C033-2C76-4C81-8D26-56EF89D8CE1B — The last two days had high surf warnings

We had two problems. One, my back is killing me when I walk for more than 40-50 feet. That put a damper on wandering around much. We did get to have lunch at Duke’s on the beach, and I found a wild Hawaiian shirt at a store downtown. We even found a new hat for me at the HB REI store! The second problem is more of an issue with my back; Kevin forgot the chargers for our electric bikes! I can bike quite a way even with a sore back, but the bikes have a range of about 20 miles and we intend on being out of town for 5 weeks. We are looking for a way to get someone at home mail them to us, but we may have to drive back to pick them up. We can’t get any new ones mailed to us in time.

I am also trying a new hobby – English paper piecing. I am hoping it is something I can do in short amounts of time when I don’t want to pull out my sewing machine. 140323DE-9EBB-4E7A-B173-F7055E4336FE

We left California today to head to Quartzsite, AZ for a RVForum.com rally. Quite a difference from the ocean. More on that in the next post.

Calico ghost town

We did make it to Calico Ghost Town today, a San Bernardino county park. There is a full hookup area where OHVs are allowed but it was full, so we have a site with electric only. I am actually pretty glad because it is really loud in that area while ours is nice and quiet. It is a little tight, but we managed to get in.

The ghost town admission was included in the fee of $35. Not a bad price since admission by itself would have been $8 for each of us. The place was relatively empty which made for an easy visit, but some of the stores were closed on this Friday during the off season.

We ended up taking an eight minute train ride on a reworked ore train. I do like taking historic trains, and this one was great fun even if it was very short.

710CC792-8EC9-4BED-AE42-5C6C776299C8 — It was a very narrow gauge!

F45BA009-A959-4233-9230-2A7235DF32DE — The best miner’s houses were in the rocks to provide shelter from the blistering summer heat.

A7BFBF27-2EA6-44B5-9418-2866C2025F20 — This ore cart was sitting by the side of the track.

The view from the station back to the town was nice also.

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ED7C1C50-A510-49CF-A0BD-4645233225DC — I doubt the palm tree was planted by the miners.

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It was a nice relaxing day. We even had a beer at the saloon, a nice change from being in Utah.

Tomorrow we will be at Bolsa Chica State Park on the beach! We will have water and electric hookups only, so we will be sure to dump and fill up before we leave here tomorrow morning.

On the road again, plus some food goodies

We left the “sticks and bricks” house today to head south for warm weather. We took our time, didn’t leave until 11:30, and we were set up at the Eureka Casino parking lot (free!) by about 5:30. It was 57 degrees when we arrived, a nice change. Here’s what else happened since the last post though.

I sent a couple onesies with the heat transfer vinyl off to my 11 month old grandson. My daughter is under strict orders to wash and dry them a lot so I make sure I have the technique down. So far so good. I also used the Silhouette cutter to label my food canisters in the kitchen plus decorated a couple of sweatshirts for Kevin and me. Mine is a little crooked, but his looks nice.

Last night we went to see “Something Rotten” at the Eccles Theater. The first act wasn’t thrilling, but good. The second act was hilarious and definitely made the play. Our next show is “The Sound of Music” on 28 February. We have been arranging our trips based on show times, and it is a bit of a pain. I am not sure I will renew the season tickets next year; we would rather RV!

As for food, I have conquered yogurt in the Instant Pot. It tastes yummy even if it wasn’t as thick as I wanted. My first one was a complete fail, so I was thankful this one worked so well.

The fruit came from individually frozen bags of cherries and raspberries. I did add a little bit of sugar since the fruit was unsweetened. Really lovely.

I didn’t get a picture of the other item of food porn: Kevin’s smoked turkey. It was a gorgeous color, amazingly moist, and utterly delicious. He vacuum packed it into 1/2 pound packages, and a bunch of it is in the trailer’s freezer for the trip. We bought the turkey when it was on sale after Thanksgiving. We actually bought two, but the other is in the deep freeze for smoking this spring.

We are all beginning to plan some trips in addition to the big Alaska trip this summer. We made reservations at Kodachrome State Park in southern Utah for late March. A friend who bought their first trailer last year is going to join us, a real treat. They have an A-frame trailer they call their “Tin Teepee”, a name if I find hilarious. During April we have to work around tickets to see “Hamilton” and my daighter’s completion of nursing school in late May. Fun times ahead. Tomorrow we intend on staying at the Calico Ghost Town. Let’s hope they have a spot open. Otherwise Plan B is another overnight in a parking lot somewhere.

Last hurrah of the 2017 season

Today was our last real day camping in 2017. We head home tomorrow. Even though we will spend one night on the road, I don’t really consider that “camping,” so today was it.

We went back to the Mohave to visit the Goff Schoolhouse Museum on the southern edge of the Reserve. This place is totally misnamed! It should be called the Goff Railroad, Mining, Ranching, and SchoolhouseMuseum since there are more exhibits in the first three categories than the last. Here is the namesake Schoolhouse.

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It is prettier than this picture shows. The big porch provided a cool place to sit on an unreasonably hot day. It also has a number of palo verde trees surrounding it, but they are just outside the frame. The museum is free though we dropped $10 in the pot. It would have been well worth twic that amount. Here is just a sample of the neat sites.

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These three pictures are of a two stamp mill mill that was disassembled, brought to the site, and lovingly restored by volunteers.

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This is a ten stamp mill, also brought back to life by volunteers. I guess my pictures sow I was particularly impressed by the mining exhibits.

We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Lake Havasu City. We also went to see the Christmas lights on the canal next to London Bridge, quite nice. We filled the truck with fuel, and we are back cleaning up for tomorrow’s drive to Cedar City. We will stop at the KOA there are get everything ship shape to put the trailer to bed for a month and a half until our trip to California and Arizona in mid January. I always take this chance to wash everything I can in the trailer, both inside and out. We pull the rugs, quilts, sheets, bedspreads, towels, etc. These things get washed as needed on trips, but this is the time of year they all get put back completely clean. Kevin has decided to winterize the trailer back home since the weather is still so warm.

Next at home is a lot of sewing and quilting. I am making myself finish quilting a bedspread for our queen sized guest bed. I also need to finish a couple of Quilts for Kids kits. We will see how much I get done our the quilt for our king sized bed. It should keep me busy!