Tag: Willcox

Monahan Sandhills, Deming, and Willcox areas

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 road
Rocks are definitely the draw
My favorite view
This green lichen was on one side of a lot of the rocks
Columns 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 abundant
Here’s looking at you kid
Wish 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.

And we are settled!

For at least the next week at least. We are staying on BLM land just outside the KOFA National Wildlife Refuge on King Road. It is a gorgeous place with the mountains very close. Prettier than Quartzsite, and a lot fewer people too! It is free camping, but with a 14 day limit.

And how did we get here? Let’s start with Albuquerque. Nice enough place for an overnight, but it was certainly handy for shopping. Kevin got the water softener bought, initialized, and set up nicely. I found the fabric I needed at a great little shop, Ann Silva’s Bernina and Babylock store. Interestingly New Mexico takes their virus precautions very seriously. We saw masks on everyone, and stores had stringent capacity limits. We intended on going to Trader Joe’s, but the line to get in was 20-30 people. Nope on that one. Then we tried an Albertson’s. Nope there too, with just as long a line. Our only serious need was orange juice, so I just picked some up at the Love’s Truck Stop near the campground. We did take a short car trip on the east side of the mountain up to Madrid. Lovely with snow that started showing up about 7000’. I wish I had taken pictures!

We left Albuquerque early, headed to Willcox, AZ. We stayed at a KOA there that was much nicer than the one in Benson where we stayed last year. Knowing we were headed for dry camping, we did laundry and stocked up on groceries. The freezer is again was full, and the refrigerator was pretty full too. We want to minimize shipping trips due to the high virus infection numbers in California and Yuma county.

We again took off fairly early. The road through southern Arizona is lovely. Sadly I didn’t take any pictures of the higher desert, 4000-6000’. It is full of plant variety with saguaros, ocotillo, palo verde trees, and others. I did get some of the lower desert. The vegetation is less dense, and it doesn’t have the variety found in the higher elevations.

The view from the big windshield is one of the big pluses for a Class A.

Since it was a holiday weekend, we really didn’t see much traffic. The roads were pretty good, little construction, and we just cruised along.

We made it to KOFA about 3:00. Ahh! It was sunny and warm, and I sat outside just soaking up the heat. It cooled off quickly in the evening though so the heater gets a workout still.

Desert sun needed the awning out

We didn’t do much on Saturday evening, just relaxed. We have some acquaintances staying at the next site over, so we chatted with them a while. Today we woke up late (6:30 mountain time is late to me!) and generally goofed off quite a bit. Kevin made a needle holder to attach to my seeing machine, and he is at work on a 12v power supply to get rid of a bunch of cords and cables around the dash. I did quite a bit of sewing, and I pretty much have all the rows put together for a scrap quilt made of tumbler blocks.

Scrap quilts are very challenging to my OCD, but I promised myself I will get some of my multitude of scraps used up. This is a decent start – 12 rows of 15 blocks. I will press them later tonight, and tomorrow try seeing the blocks together. I am using the (new to me) 830 sitting outside. Pretty nice way to sew!

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!