We left Overton, NV and headed north. The weather was a bit cold and snowy on both alternatives, and the northern route was a lot less driving. We chose to spend 2 nights at the Kaibab Paiute Tribal RV Park at Pipe Spring National Monument. Full hookups, reasonable price, and big roomy sites. The drive her was lovely, heading up through St. George, UT and Hurricane, UT, just south of Zion National Park. We are in an area of high red mesas, and it is gorgeous! Normally I wouldn’t post this quickly after my last post, but we took an enjoyable drive along the Smithsonian Butte Backcountry Scenic Byway. The northern end is in Zion National Park, but the road was very muddy, and we didn’t make it all the way. We did enjoy what we drove though.
Getting there means driving through the former FLDS towns of Colorado City, AZ and Hildale, UT. We have been through them a number of years ago, and they were really depressing. Their “prophet” was sitting in jail for child molestation, and they were really rudderless. A trust was running the towns under the auspices of the state governments and a judge. The difference now is significant! Lots of new businesses, new housing, lots of non-FLDS folks walking around. It still has areas of decaying homes and yards overrun with trash and weeds, but there were fewer than the last time we came through when we visited Pipe Springs for the first time.
Once we were on the Byway, the views just opened up.
The bluffs and mesas are gloriousDramatic cloudsThe skyCloud shapes on the mountains
The entire area was getting pop up snow or rain showers, depending on elevation. I think this captures the true definition of a forecast for “partly cloudy with scattered showers.”
Along the valley coming back
Tomorrow we are going to Page, AZ, staying with friends at their rural spot. Undoubtably there will be more sightseeing and more pictures then.
No, they aren’t anywhere near each other, but I realized I didn’t post about our trip up the mountain to Mt. Lemon outside of Tucson. Nice ride with a variety of scenery and environments.
The road leaves town and quickly heads to an incredible saguaro forest.
Saguaro Forest on Mt. Lemon road
It then climbs through some interesting rocks.
View of the roadLots of hoodoosHad to zoom for this. Sorry for the fuzzy.Lots and lots of hoodoos
Eventually we leave the desert for true mountain surroundings.
Vegetation changingWe reached snowline
It was a nice trip, well worth the 2 hours or so.
We moved to the Hi Jolly BLM area north of Quartzsite. We haven’t ever stayed here before. It is free camping for up to 14 days, but no access to water, dump station, or trash. It was much more crowded than the LTVA areas we stayed in before, and I am not overly fond of it. We did meet another Tiffin owner who came by to chat. Nice guy, and he had Kevin hit it off. He was quite excited by some of Kevin’s updates, especially the new printed door handle. Kevin also showed him the DC to DC charge system he has on the alternator. He was kind enough to take us on a side by side UTV ride to a couple of historic areas to the northwest of us.
The first place was called “Lead Well”, a not too auspicious name! It was an established watering spot for the pack trains from the local mines in the early 1900s, before the railways.
Old watering troughLead Well
We also visited a marble mine. It only closed a few years back, so it was in good shape with soolid fences, interior roads, and the office still standing.
Office at marble mineSurroundingsInteresting window above the office
I have been careful to keep up with some of the local activities in town. We went to a Peter, Paul, and Mary tribute band concert at the Quartzsite Improvement Association. Not bad at all. I was surprised at the song selection. Here we are in heavy conservative grumpy old men Trump country, and they sang a lot of quite subversive Bob Dylan pieces. Interesting dynamics, and I quite enjoyed it.
“Mary” even had the right wig on!
Today we hunkered down most of the day with a heavy wind. Gusts were 40-50mph, and they really rocked the MH. We ended up pulling in the big living room slide because of the noise it made. There is a metal cover over the LR awning, and when the wind catches it right, it makes an awful racket. We also made a trip into Parker for groceries, and saw the wind storm just getting started. I only had my iPhone, but I think you get the idea.
Dust blowing as the front comes in
Toorrow we pack up and head somewhere towards Death Valley. We haven’t decided whether we will sleep there tomorrow night or whether we stop in a FHU campground along the way. It will depend on the wind and how early we get out. I am waiting for an Amazon package delivery that will be delivered tomorrow in Parker, so we will decide after we see how late it comes.
Death Valley has extremely limited cellular data, so I don’t know if I will post anything until we come out Monday or Tuesday. We are heading for the Dark Sky event they are putting on, and Kevin has the telescope and camera ready!
Kevin’s package did come in, and he is now ready to practice some astrophotography. It is a bit complicated due to the full moon tonight though! The High Chaparral RV park was definitely not the place to do it either, so he will be trying it in Quartzsite soon.
On our way to Tucson, we took a stop at the Pinal Airport, one of the big airplane graveyards. You can’t get right up to the planes, but you can get pretty close.
Small jets are obviously not in demandThere were lots and lots of these decommissioned American Airlines affiliate jetsObviously the airport was a WW II facility with this tower“Reduce, reuse, recycle” comes to mind seeing this fuselage repurposed into a shopSome of the salvage has gone farther than others
While Kevin was impatiently waiting for his tracking board he was also keeping busy making a cool doohickey for the MH. Our model has a very inconvenient screen door latch. It is set quite low so I can’t reach it without going up (from the outside) or down (from the inside) a couple of steps. Awkward with lots of stuff in your hands. So he made a new latch that is higher but connects to the original. Ignore the dirt on the door – we had a windstorm!
The new latch applied to the door
Detail of how it fits on the doorHow it is usedSpring loaded depressing the original latch
I am quite impressed! It works marvelously.
Yesterday we left Casa Grande to go back to Quartzsite for a week. We had made another Amazon order, setting the pickup for Parker, AZ. There was a dreadful windstorm forecast, so we left at 9:00, arriving at Hi Jolly BLM area at 1:00, just as the wind gusts were getting fierce. We basically just stayed put inside until the wind died down in the early evening. Then we opened the windows and let the cats enjoy the light breeze that remained. We haven’t ever stayed here before, since we normally stay in one of the Long Term Visitor Areas (LTVAs) that charge $40/2 weeks but provide access to water and a dump station. Since we are basically just marking time until we can get into Death Valley, we didn’t need that this time.
In general our boondocking setup is working great. We use a lot of electricity with a residential refrigerator, satellite TV system, and heater fan, but an hour of generator and the solar recharge it pretty well most days. Our fresh water (90 gallons) and waste tanks (50 gallons black, 70 gallons gray) can easily accommodate a full week. We hope to leave here on Monday, but we might need to stay until Tuesday for yet another Amazon delivery.
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!
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.Sand dunes on the north end of the lakeThe small community of Havasu Lake across the ColoradoLake Havasu City from a peninsula into the lakeAnother viewLooking 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!
Pointy craggyMore rounded craggy
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.
The new toy
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.
There were actually 7 in the bunch
Another picture before the storm.
Moonrise
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!
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.
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.The organ pipes live right on the rocksTop and bottom of hill is solidified slow moving magma called “ryolite.” Middle is “tuff” or solidified ashWe found one cholla bloomingClose up of bloomBonita Well was a popular way stop in years pastCorrals at Bonita WellPretty much the perfect saguaro at Bonita WellSurveillance equipment for the border
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.
Climbing over the hills
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 photographThe mine overlook
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.
The historic square of Ajo
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.
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.This little window was more hiddenYou know I love rocks, this is Ajo MountainBaby organ pipes use other plants to protect themBaby saguaros also nestle in other plants for protectionThis shows all the spikes on a mature organ pipeThere are other plants. These yellow flowers are blooming next to a brittle bushA dead saguaro showing the substructureA dead cholla showing its structure. Interesting shapes!
There were a few birds out and about.
The nest of a cactus wrenSome kind of hawkAnother hawkA 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.
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.
And the sunset was gorgeous!
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!
Columns were all along the roadRocks are definitely the drawMy favorite viewThis green lichen was on one side of a lot of the rocksColumns were all along the road
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.
Mexican jays were abundantHere’s looking at you kidWish 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.
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.
Instant pot “Cheesecake #17”
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.
Teal background tumblerDark blue background tumbler
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.
Yuma Proving Grounds 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.
One big item and one much smaller
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.
“Little Baghdad”
There are small clusters around the area away from the larger “town.”
For Western Asia training
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.
Sandhill Cranes
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.
Some type of white heron
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!
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.
