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Staying at Stovepipe Wells campground in Death Valley (and pictures from Yuma)

Warning: picture heavy. This is the first of two posts about our sojourn in Death Valley.

We are now in Needles, CA at the KOA. We got some shopping done, and we are just finishing the sixth load of laundry! Before I talk about recent things, I will post some pictures from Yuma and the promised Howling at the Moon concert.

Band stage. There was a US flag too, just not in the picture. Lots of Canadians winter in Yuma.

Now back to Death Valley. We spent 5 nights at Stovepipe Wells, arriving on Wednesday, 12 February. This is a much smaller campground than Sunset, but it has real tent sites and was very popular. There is a 10 site full hookup campground operated by the concessionaire, but we stayed in the NPS no-hookup campground. Nice wide and long sites were available along one side of the campground for big rigs like ours. Many of the sites would have been a bit short for us, so I was glad the camp host worked so hard to keep the longest sites for us big guys.

The concessionaire also operates a motel, restaurant, saloon, and souvenir shop. The saloon has good drinks and enjoyable bartenders, but the food (burgers only) was so so. The restaurant was better. The store sells snacks and prepackaged sandwiches, no real food. If you come to DVNP, you better be prepared! Normally there is a bit of WiFi at Stovepipe near the registration desk, but they had none this time, not even for the guests. I understand a power problem earlier in the year had damaged some equipment.

When we arrived at about 3:00 pm we had no trouble finding a site. During the holiday weekend it was just about full every night though. We didn’t do as much driving as we originally planned (just being lazy with magnificent weather), but we did see “wild” burros in the town of Beatty. After all, everyone needs to visit the Death Valley Candy Store. They have a huge selection of prepackaged candy, nuts, and dried fruit. We ended up with some divinity and some licorice.

Just wild enough to walk away as we drove by

We drove up to Wildrose, an old CCC camp still used by the park service. The road to Wildrose is paved, and it goes past a number of old mining sites. I took pictures in November so I won’t repeat them. They are worth a stop though. The road is paved all the way to Wildrose.

interestingly enough there was a burro here too. Note the open door of the corral. The hay may have been to attract other burros so they could be relocated.

We then drove the few miles to the charcoal kilns on a good gravel road. There was still some snow in sheltered spots, but the weather at this elevation was a balmy 55 or so.

The kilns has lots of vent holes. These were stopped up during a burn.

They were in great shape, better than any other charcoal kilns I have seen.

You can see these were big. The charcoal was used in nearby mining sites

You can see into the Sierra Madres quite well. Mount Whitney is there somewhere.

The Panamints in the foreground, then the Inyos and at last the Sierra Madres.

On Sunday we went to the Racetrack. The road was much better this time than on our previous visit a 2-3 years ago. It is required that you get a picture of the moving rocks.

“The Grandstand” sits at the start of the Racetrack. You just see the top of a large mountain that is mostly buried in ancient sediment. We didn’t get pictures of Ubehebe Crater since it was so crowded.

On Monday, 17 February we made our way to Sunset campground. I will put that week in its own post.

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.

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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!

Big Bend completion

I had great intentions of posting the day after my last post, but the reception was just too bad. Here is the entire Big Bend completion, all in one fell swoop!

We stayed 3 nights at Stillwell store campground. We then moved to the NPS campground at Rio Grande Village. I had carefully checked the campground size, and the site was plenty long for us. However there were lots of overhanging trees and we couldn’t get in! The lovely camp host moved us to an overflow site that was very nice. We stayed there 3 nights too. During the week, we drove the dirt road to Dagger Flats, home to a large number of Giant Dagger Yuccas. They were impressive in winter, and they must have been amazing when they bloomed. The flower stalks can be 70 pounds!

Plants 10-15’ tall, flower stalks another 4-6’.

We also drove to the Chisos Basin twice, both times to eat in the lodge restaurant. The lodge isn’t one of the classic NPS ones, but the food was quite good. Of course it is the only place to eat in the park, so I am glad it was good. The views are lovely, and the Basin is up high in the mountains for a totally different experience than down in the flats.

You don’t expect colorful oak trees in the southern Texas desert!

The Chisos Basin is surrounded by spiky peaks

Looking through a gap to the valley. Sorry for the trash bins.

The third part of the park is the Rio Grande River area. The mountains on the Mexican side were tremendous. Our campground was a couple of miles from the river directly, and maybe 5 miles by road. There is an official Border Patrol crossing its you want to go across the river in a boat, but we passed. The Rio Grande also had some hot springs right on the bank. It had been a popular attraction, and there were a lot of relics left.

Lots of remnants from when the hot springs were a big draw

Palm trees always mean someone had a commercial establishment. This is the Hot Springs store.

Astonishingly we found a tree felled by a beaver someone ago

The Rio Grande isn’t very big this time of year, but the reeds show where it is during peak flow

The hot springs have pools with reclining backs built in

A very impressive colony of palms protected some picnic tables

The other big advantage desert mountains have is the quality of the light at dusk.

Just driving one of the backcountry roads and saw a hawk

We saw only one javalina this trip, but we saw lots and lots of roadrunners! They are obviously experienced camp robbers, but they found us uncooperative. One walked up fewer than 3 feet away from me! We also had a resident coyote in the campground that cruised the dumpster hoping someone was messy. He was always disappointed while we were there.

We left the National Park today, and we took a slow road west through Big Bend Ranch State Park. This place had incredible scenery! It also was very empty past the entry point. Most people use the road we were on for river access since it parallels the Rio Grand closely. There just isn’t much river running in mid January though! It was lucky for me we had such limited traffic because the roads were narrow, steep, and winding. With no one behind me (only 3 cats passed me in 25-30 miles) I could slow down and enjoy the ride and the view. The most challenging section was a 15% (yes, 15%) grade both up and down. The diesel motorhome took it slowly and steadily, 15 mph up and 12 mph down. I doubt I ever break that grade record.

We now are spending the night at Van Horn RV Park where we stayed last year. They have a cute little restaurant with good food, so no cooking for us tonight.

Big Bend Day 1

We spent Sunday night at the Abilene KOA, and we made it to Stillwell Store and Campground by early afternoon Monday. The campgrounds d where we are is just a huge gravel area, but there is power and water plus big sites. For $25 I won’t complain!

This will be a somewhat disjointed post since we have pretty bad WiFi at the Visitor Center, and no data on the phone at all most of the time. Tuesday we did a lot of driving – into the park on the main drive, then headed west to Maverick Junction and the dirt Old Maverick Road, the back to hard surface road to Sana’a Elena Canyon, Castolon, and back to the entrance road. It was a long day.

I hadn’t been to Big Bend since my senior year in college, so I had no memory of the scenery. It is Chihuahuan desert, different from the Mohave, Sonoran, and Great Basin deserts I am familiar with. Nice mountains. Lots of volcanic rock intermixed with old sedimentary rock.

The Chisos Mountains are the major backdrop. — It was very hazy

The park service has left more signs of humans here than in any other park I have visited.

This was the jacal (home) of Gilberto Luna. He farmed here for many, many years.

Below Castolon. Home to a cotton rancher.

Homer Wilson ranch house. The circular wooden corral is still there.

We saw a lot of roadrunners, but only one cooperated for a (poor) picture.

We also saw a few mule deer. This one was hanging out less than a mile from the Panther Junction Visitor Center.

There were actually three in this group.

I will post day 2 tomorrow since we are still on it!

And we are traveling again!

Between Christmas and the New Year we cleaned the house, put up the Christmas decorations, and tried not to bring too much “stuff”. We left Iowa on New Year’s Day, headed to Yukon, OK to pick up the coach. Everything we well. The motorhome refrigerator worked just fine, and the “penny on a cup of ice” was still on top of the ice when we got there. I do love solar! We spent the evening setting up in a rather boring campground (Mustang Run in Yukon) and putting away all the stuff we brought with us. We spent the next few days just stocking the refrigerator, trying to remember how everything worked (how could we have forgotten so much in 7 weeks?), seeing family, and doing some preventative maintenance. I didn’t take a picture of the campground because it was so boring. Nice long, flat spots with a picnic table, but no trees, no playground, and right next to busy I-40. The traffic was so loud and so continuous that it actually became white noise and didn’t bother us at all trying to sleep. It was convenient for what we needed though, so we will probably stay here again if needed.

Today we drove to Abilene, TX, spending the night in the KOA. It is actually fairly nice. It is next to the highway, but there are enough barriers that the noise isn’t bothersome at all. The campground has lots of long term residents, probably associated with the local oil industry based on the trucks parked in front of the trailers and fifth wheels. Housing is a real issue in the oil fields, and the ones living here are definitely luckier than many. The campground even has some trees and good spacing between the sites.

Long sites plus the mistletoe-garnished trees

We did a huge grocery shopping trip today since we are headed to the Big Bend area tomorrow. We have 350 miles to get to Stillwell Store and RV Park on the east side of Big Bend National Park. We will stay there until we head to our park reservation later in the week. I don’t know when I will have data service, but I will have pictures ready for when I do.

Christmas preparation and aftermath

The truffles were great, best I have made in a few years. The sugared pecans were a huge hit, and I have had to make two more batches. My oldest three grandchildren, 6 and 10, joined me for a cookie decorating extravaganza. I think I made too many cookies!

I made about 10 dozen cookies, way too many!

Notice the fully covered table and fully aproned cookie decorators

Our Christmas cantata at church was a roaring success. The choir sounded fantastic, and the instrumentalists (two violins, viola, cello, trumpet, flute, and a keyboardist filling in for an oboe) brought it to the next level. We might not do as challenging of music as the choir in Utah, but the sound was actually just as good. I guess it does help to be in a college town with a strong music program!

The two oldest girls also came over for a crafting afternoon before Christmas. We made Christmas ornaments with vinyl decorations, decorated multi-purpose boxes with vinyl, and used HTV vinyl applied to shirts they brought with them. We were busy for 4 1/2 hours, and I was exhausted! The girls really did have fun, and they were operating the vinyl cutter independently before we were done. Too bad I didn’t take pictures of the shirts or boxes. We even made a set for the younger brother who just wasn’t quite up to the afternoon.

Christmas was held at my oldest son’s house, and it was also a success. I had three of the four children there plus spouses and most of the grandchildren. Luckily my son has a big house, though we didn’t stay with them (we live only a few minutes away). My contribution to food was all the makings for a pot roast, made in the Instant Pot, plus carrots and red potatoes for roasting. It was delicious, as was the ham and sides made by my daughter in law on the previous day.

I also got some sewing done! The quilt I made for the motorhome shrunk more than I expected, and it was about an inch short on all sides, I added a new 4” border to make up for it. Of course I couldn’t find any fabric of the same design, but I found some that coordinates well enough. It was a real pain, but I have it done except for the binding. I always serge the edge of the my quilt before binding, so it is good for the bed now if I don’t get the binding finished. I plan on getting the binding cut and pieced tomorrow, but I may or may not do the top stitching before the trip. I’d rather spend the time cleaning up the house and getting the laundry all done.

The bad thing that happened was with Lily, our cat. We had planned a preventative ultrasound and a tooth cleaning, but the vet found a small mass with a sore on her leg while shaving it before an IV. The vet had removed a basal cell cancer from Lily’s neck earlier in the year, so she was concerned. They called me, and we agreed to excise the small mass while she was already under sedation. Luckily the mass was benign, but we had one very, very unhappy cat for the almost two weeks it took for her wound to heal.

She already looked like a bit of a bobble head doll because of the neck skin removed in her earlier surgery, but the cone rubbed off even more hair! She will fill it out in a few months though. She is somewhere between 11 and 14 years old, and she has started losing enough weight we have moved her off her diet food to a more traditional senior diet. She had gotten above 10 pounds a few years back, and she should be about 8 pounds. She finally made it to 8 pounds, 2 ounces so she can go back to regular food. She does like her food!

We are now packing up for the next trip. We leave Iowa on Wednesday, New Yearks Day, and pick up the motorhome west of Oklahoma City. We will stay there a few days visiting family and restocking the refrigerator. We have reservations at Big Bend National Park beginning 9 January so we have quite a bit of time to get there. When we were on our way to Iowa, i wasn’t sure I wanted another long trip, but I am definitely looking forward to traveling again.

Thanksgiving and preparations for Christmas

Be prepared for a long post since it has been so long since my last post. I just don’t seem to get around to putting a post together when we are at the “sticks and bricks.” When I last posted, we weren’t quite at Thanksgiving. We had dinner on Wednesday because my daughter worked on Thursday. I used the Alton Brown brining recipe, and it was phenomenal! Absolutely the best turkey I have ever made. Even the white meat was good, and that is from a dedicated dark meat person. I made too many pies, but I have finally mastered a good pie crust made in the food processor. I splurged last summer on a Breville food processor, and it is phenomenal. Mashed sweet potatoes with butter and just a touch of brown sugar, mashed white potatoes, and braised green beans in the Instant Pot finished up dinner for seven adults and four children. The baby wasn’t interested 😁.

I have also been sewing a little. I made some stuff toys for the almost 3 year old grandson, but I forgot to take pictures. I tried making the baby granddaughter a pair of knit harem pants off a free pattern. The baby is very long though, so they needed to be longer. I will adapt the pattern before I make it again. They were just a trial run made with scraps I had around.

I have also been doing some vinyl work. I made a onesie to go with the pants that said “The Snuggle is Real” (forgot a picture), and a tshirt for almost 3 year old with reindeer names on them, both with heat transfer vinyl. I also did some Christmas ornaments with Oracal 651, a regular adhesive vinyl.

I have an assortment of them with different designs, and I have more I am going to do.

Kevin was busy outside. Looks pretty good! He has also ordered a lighted nativity scene that will sit on the porch. Kevin likes his lights.

Lights on the house and tree plus some deer and trees

We have also had some challenges. Our cat, Lily, had her teeth cleaned and a growth removed from her leg. She had a basal skin cancer removed a year and a half ago, so I am worried. It will be a few more days before we get the pathology report. The other really challenging news is my son’s dog, Lexi, who used to belong to us, is in final renal failure. She will cross the bridge on Saturday. She had a good life at 15 years, and she only had serious health problems in the last year. My son is devastated. He has had Lexi as his best bud for a number of years beginning when he moved to Montana for grad school 8-9 years ago.

Enough of bad news. My kitchen is also preparing for Christmas. I also made about 120-150 rolled sugar cookies. My oldest grandchildren will be here Saturday to decorate them. I might have gotten carried away though! I made some wonderful sugared pecans and the chocolate truffles will be finished tomorrow. They are a multi day process. I haven’t decided if I will make pressed cookies too, but I am thinking about it. I have an interesting ginger recipe that I would like to try. The Christmas music is also going full bore. I have been to a number of rehearsals for our church Christmas concert on Sunday afternoon. It is a variation of the traditional Lessons and Carols service.

Kevin and I were lucky enough to go to a production of Cabaret by the local university. It was a very moving show, and the ending was shocking and disquieting. As we left in silence we walked by a container of shoes, a nod to the Holocaust that many of the characters experienced. I did not expect such a professional show by a mid-level college; my error!

I will try to be more regular in my posts going forward.

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