#12 Coveys Great Adventure – Vermillion Cliffs, Flagstaff, El Morro, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos, Amarillo

#12 Coveys Great Adventure – Vermillion Cliffs, Flagstaff, El Morro, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos, Amarillo

We have really been on the move lately. Before we left Jacob Lake, we took a day trip to Page AZ, via the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. The drive down (literally) US 89 starts in pine forests and rapidly transitions to stark desert as the elevation descends over 4,000’ to Page. Page is pretty forgettable, but there are some interesting parts. RD’s Drive-In serves really good burgers and fries, and the BBQ place next door sure smelled good and was very popular. We’ll check it if we return to Page.

The Vermillion Cliffs lived up to their billing, with brilliant colors and one huge rock formation after another unfolding for miles along the highway. Our pictures can’t do it justice, and we didn’t see the best of them, located down 20 miles of dirt roads that we passed up this time.

Pinegrove campground

From Jacob Lake we headed to Pinegrove NFS (National Forest Service) Campground in the Coconino National Forest, which turned out to be one of our favorite places to date. Located 15 miles east of Flagstaff, Pinegrove Campground has huge, level sites, many of which back up to thousands of acres of ….well, pine groves. We spent hours hiking around the lands surrounding the campground. The dogs were very happy to sniff the  trees, grass, deer and rabbits.

We spent just three nights there, but we ended up spending more time in Flagstaff itself  than we planned. Schroeder picked up a very common parasitic infection in his gut that required an unscheduled trip to the vet for an exam and antibiotics. He’s fine, the pills knocked it right out, but the budget took a hit.

Flagstaff is one of those places that we didn’t expect much of, but turned out to be a real

pleasant surprise. It is big enough to have all the services (except Trader Joe’s and Total Wine – see below) yet small enough to be very accessible. We enjoyed walking around “old town Flagstaff”. Being a college town (Northern Arizona University) lends a really nice vibe to the place. We look forward to going back.

Oh, yes, a plug: We had the buffet lunch at Cuisine of India, next door to Walmart. It was maybe the best Indian meal we have ever had. If you go to Flagstaff, don’t miss it. I’d go back to Flagstaff just to eat there again.

About half way down

It’s over 400 miles from Flagstaff to Santa Fe, so we decided to break the trip at Milan, NM. Milan had nothing to recommend it except its location, about 2/3^rd of the way to Santa Fe, and an inexpensive RV park with cable TV hookup. We hadn’t seen TV since Hurricane and needed a fix. We decided to stay an extra night, giving us a full day to look around. As you may have noticed, we like getting in the car and exploring the places we stay in, so we looked at the map and spotted El Malpais National Monument, about 30 miles south of town. El Malpais comprises unique rock formations that neither of us found very interesting, but on the spur of the moment we decided to check out El Morro National Monument, about 20 miles further down the road.

El Morro turned out to be really interesting. It has the only reliable, year ‘round water for many miles. Consequently, people have been coming to El Morro for thousands of years. As you can see in the photos, El Morro is a huge sandstone monolith rising high above the surrounding countryside. Sandstone is soft and easily carved, so visitors have left their marks (aka graffiti) all over the site. Indian hieroglyphics, 16^th century Spanish explorers, American settlers and US Army troops fighting the Indian wars all carved their messages into the sandstone cliffs.

The site was also inhabited for generations by several different tribes of Indians. There are a number of elaborate stone buildings that archaeologists continue to explore and conserve. El Morro’s unique structure also makes it home to a number of birds and animals that are not found in the surrounding lands. The National Park Service has a very interesting facility at the site staffed by knowledgeable and enthusiastic rangers and volunteers.  It takes roughly two hours to hike the whole site and is well worth the effort. We didn’t expect much when we decided to go and it turned into a very memorable day.

Albuquerque itself didn’t hold much interest for us, but we could not pass through on the way to Santa Fe  without calling Larry Girardi and Peggy Fiorini. Unfortunately, he was out of town but Peggy met us for lunch and we had a great time. Peggy and Larry split time between Albuquerque and Poulsbo, WA, so we hope to see them there in September if our current plans work out.

We also took the opportunity to restock the wine cellar at Total Wine because we discovered that good wine at fair prices is harder to find than we realized. I hope we have enough to see us to Denver, the next probable resupply point, at the end of June.

Way off the grid in Black Canyon

Black Canyon NFS Campground in Santa Fe is another gem. Maybe not quite as nice as Pinegrove, but close. Getting our coach into the site we had reserved did prove to be a challenge, though. The camp host said that we were the largest coach he had seen in the three years that he had been there. The government reservation website doesn’t take into account things like turning radius when they declare a site to be suitable for a certain size rig. It was very tight, but once we got in we really enjoyed it.

Tourist are everywhere in Santa Fe

Santa Fe is about the same size as Flagstaff, but much more touristy. Tourism is important to Flagstaff, but it doesn’t dominate the economy like it does in Santa Fe. We spent a morning at the Georgia O’Keefe Museum which has so much material that it changes the theme of the exhibit three times a year. Unfortunately, neither of us were particularly interested in this exhibit that focused on her earliest work. None of her New York cityscapes or Ghost Ranch landscapes were on display, but luckily a number of Alfred Stiglitz’s photos of her covering the 1920’s-1940’s were being shown. I was really disappointed not seeing the landscapes, though.

That afternoon we visited the Museum of International Folk Art and were absolutely enthralled. Alexander and Susan Girard spent a lifetime collecting folk art figures, toys and textiles from around the world, ending up with over 100,000 items that they eventually donated to the museum. 10% of the collection is on permanent display in an

extensive series of dioramas designed personally by Alexander Girard specifically for these items before his death in 1993. If you visit Santa Fe, the Girard Collection has to be on your “don’t miss” list. 

 

After several of two or three night stays in a row, it was time to settle in one place for a week to catch up on maintenance, laundry, mail and Amazon deliveries. We wanted to see Taos, and the Taos Valley RV Park proved to be the right place: good wifi, a laundry, cable tv hookup and and interesting area, all at a reasonable price.

Taos is a pretty small town that hasn’t recovered from the last recession. When I visited Taos on my motorcycle in 2006, it was crowded with BMWs, Mercedes and Range Rovers. All the restaurants were filled with well to do yuppies wrapped in Oakley shades. Construction was going on everywhere as old houses were renovated and expanded, and new ones were sprouting up out of town. This trip I didn’t see a single new house being built and several shops in the downtown area were vacant.

Every Thursday night during the summer, Taos has a free concert in the town plaza. That night, two local country bands preformed to an enthusiastic crowd of residents and visitors of all ages. People bring chairs or toss blankets on the grass and many, like us, brought their favorite adult beverages to enhance the music. Folks danced and mingled, a few low-riders (like East LA, but the guys smiled) slowly circled the plaza and the food cart vendors did well. We had a really great time.

One evening we met Laurie and L.E. Bender for a nice dinner and good conversation at the Taos Inn, the oldest hotel and restaurant in town. They had moved to Taos from Nehalem, OR about nine years ago to escape the winter weather on the Oregon coast. They reinforced my view that Taos had seen many negative changes since its heydays, noting that over half of the art galleries had closed since 2008.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

One day we decided to follow the Enchanted Circle route from Taos that passes through Angel Fire, Eagle Nest, Red River and Questa, and returns to Taos with a short detour to see the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. Motorcyclists note: this is a very good ride. Mountains, rivers, high alpine meadows and interesting towns made it a memorable day. We also visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a truly moving experience for everyone of our generation.

As much as we enjoyed Taos, I had an appointment in Amarillo, Texas, for the road test to complete my Class B license, which Texas requires to legally drive RV’s over 26,000 pounds. Amarillo was the closest test site I could find to Taos, about 285 miles each way.

West Texas in general and Amarillo in particular were pleasant surprises. I expected desolate sage brush and cactus, and a few skinny cattle trying to scratch a hard existence form the harsh countryside. Instead, we saw verdant fields of hay as far as the eye could see, with thousands of cattle grazing knee-deep in lush grass.  We haven’t been paying much attention to the news for a few months and missed the bulletins about West Texas, New Mexico and several parts of Colorado achieving the wettest May on record. That certainly accounted for the lush greenery and fat, contented cows that we saw everywhere we looked.

Based on my experience in El Paso, I was prepared to be under whelmed with Amarillo. That also turned out just the reverse: Amarillo is a nice town, and it seems to be quite prosperous.

The Texas Department of Public Safety (sic) license examiner duly passed your humble scribe, who now holds a Class B license to drive RVs with air brakes that exceed 26,000 pounds. That done, we turned right around and headed to Colorado. We plan to cross Texas next winter on the way to the east coast, but we’ve seen all we want to of it now.

More soon.

#11 Coveys Great Adventure – Vista, Simi, Pahrump, Hurricane, Zion, Jacob Lake

May 2015

It was a bit of a shock to deal with that long, rough dirt road after the tranquility and beauty of Burro Mountain, but I have to say it was good to get on the road again. Both of us are ready to travel after sitting in one place for a week, no matter how nice it is. We looked forward to this trip because we were returning to California for Ted Anderson’s 65^th birthday party, and to visit friends in Thousand Oaks and Pasadena. We intended to make it a leisurely 5 day trip, stopping off in Apache Junction AZ and Borrego Springs CA, but it turned into a marathon road trip, instead.

If you are always looking for good roads to ride or drive, add NM78 and US191 to the list. NM78 connects US180 to US191, which then goes on to hook up with US70. NM78 is one of those roads that a 43’ motor home shouldn’t be on (the sign said so), but the scenery was worth the occasional tight corner. I pulled over to check the dolly straps and the first local resident to come by stopped to see if we needed help. He said that he regularly towed a big 5^th wheel trailer on this road and assured me that we’d have no problem getting through to US191. It turned out to be a memorable drive.

We had planned to stop overnight in Apache Junction, but got there so early that we pushed on to North Ranch in Wickenburg for the night, and to pick up some mail that hadn’t reached us before we left after Bead Week. The next day we planned to stop at Leaping Lizards RV Park (really) in Anza-Borrego for a couple of days. We wanted to see that area and the park website showed pictures of a pool and spa. We envisioned ourselves sitting around the pool sipping a glass of wine after a refreshing swim. Well, we should have called. The pool and spa were empty, and the place could have used some sprucing up so we decided to push on to the Stage Coach Trails RV Park in Julian CA. That place also had issues, not the least of which was absolutely no cell or WiFi service whatsoever. It also looked a little seedy, so we decided to go all the way to Vista where we had a reservation starting later in the week.

There were three issues with that plan. First, we don’t like to drive more than 300 miles a day and going to Vista pushed it over 400 miles. Second, we would arrive after dark, which we really try to avoid because maneuvering our coach in some campgrounds can be a challenge. Finally, the only feasible route, CA78, prohibits rigs our size. Unfortunately, we were over 20 miles into it before we saw the sign. Not only was there no place to turn a rig our size around, but the only alternate route added another 100 miles to an already overlong trip. We really had no good options so we decided to press on. It got a little hairy in places because this road really isn’t designed for our size, but all ended well and we pulled into Guajome County Park campground about 8:30 that night after more 12 hours at the wheel.

Guajome County Park (forgot to take pictures, again) campground turned out to be a real find. It is actually in Oceanside, just off route 78. Formerly a large private estate and nature preserve, it has a small lake, extensive marsh land, miles of hiking trails and about 40 campsites, a few of which can accommodate rigs our size. Despite its seeming isolation, it is just minutes to Vista, Carlsbad and Oceanside. The dogs were very interested in the ducks and geese in the pond, and we got several watchable TV stations on the antenna. Everyone was happy.

Kayeanne and Judy: friends over 35 years

Ted and Judy Anderson have been our close friends for 35 years, so there was no way we were going to miss his party. Judy rented a beach house in Oceanside and friends and relatives from all over the country gathered to remind Ted that, yes, he is getting older. We had a great time and even got to bring the dogs, who got nonstop attention from everyone.

The Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum in Vista is one of my favorite places. It had been years since our last visit and we weren’t going to pass it up. Guajome Park is just a couple of miles from the museum, which houses one of the most extensive collection of gas, diesel and steam powered tractors, crawlers, farm implements and stationary engines in the country. It also offers extensive live exhibits on weaving, blacksmithing, machining and other crafts. On the museum website, note the Show dates in June and October. Collectors and aficionados of old iron converge from all over North America to show their engine collections and generally jawbone with anyone who stops by their booth. Much of the equipment is running, which really fascinates me. Don’t miss the daily old tractor parade which includes steam traction engines dating back to the 1890s.

We couldn’t come back to California without going to Thousand Oaks. The short trip from Vista to Simi is “interesting” in our rig. My hat’s off to the truckers who drive those roads every day. We again set up housekeeping at Lost Canyons County Park in Simi, and began a nonstop week of visiting our many friends in the area. I’m sure Judy Powell was especially happy to see us. She had been receiving packages from Amazon for us and got her garage back when we picked them up. It was really great to see everyone.

Liesa moved to Saint George, Utah, at the end of April so we headed there to see her new place and to spend time with her and her boyfriend Luis Orozco. On the way we spent a night at another Escapees co-op park, Pair-A-Dice SKP Park in Pahrump, Nevada. We enjoyed it and will stop again when passing through the area.

We spent several days visiting Liesa, helping with a few household projects and generally getting back in synch after not seeing her since Christmas. This visit also coincided with our 30^th anniversary and we had a nice dinner together at a Japanese restaurant for sushi.

End of the trail

Liesa and Kayeanne

Liesa had not been to Zion National Park, which is 20 miles or so from Hurricane, so one day we packed a lunch and drove over. It was just as spectacular as I remembered. We took the tram ride to the end of the line and then hiked to the end of the trail. I hope the pictures give you some idea of the beauty and scale of this place. If you haven’t been, make plans to go, it is really worth it. Here are better pictures.

One of hundreds of vistas in the park

WillowWind RV Park in Hurricane is one of the better parks we’ve been to, and Hurricane itself is a nice place to be. About the only thing that WillowWind needs is a dog park. We plan to stay here again when we return in July for Liesa’s birthday.

Jacob "Lake"

Visiting the North Rim of the Grand Canyon had been on our must-see list for some time. Luis is a wild land fire fighter stationed at Jacob Lake, AZ, in the Kaibab National Forest near the North Rim so we made a reservation at Kaibab Camper RV Village, next door to his fire station. This RV park has the nicest, hardest working camp hosts we’ve met, but it needs them because the place itself is a little sketchy. The area, though is just beautiful. We arrived early enough to explore some of the hundreds of miles of NFS roads that crisscross the Forest, noting a few places that we could dry camp if we return.

Hundreds of miles of dirt
roads, so little time

May 23. Really??!!

Jacob Lake (actually a really small pond, see photo) is on the Kaibab plateau at about 8,000’ elevation. We expected to be a little chilly, but we did not expect freezing temperatures and a blizzard. It’s almost 50 miles from Jacob Lake to the North Rim, and the further south we went, the colder it got. 

That is lightening approaching quickly

The drizzle we had starting out turned to hail and then to snow, with slush forming on the road. Slight changes in elevation seemed to dictate whether it rained, hailed or snowed. I felt really sorry for the motorcyclists that we saw. They looked really cold and thoroughly scared of the treacherous road. Having ridden in similar conditions, I know how they felt.

It wasn’t snowing at the North Rim and the rain hadn’t started there yet, so we took advantage of the weather break to walk the path along the top of the long promontory that juts out into the Canyon beside the

Even without sunshine, the views are really incredible

North Rim Lodge. The day was overcast, cloud cover was almost down to the top of the Rim and lightening flashes were visible as the storm moved closer. I remember how awe-inspiring the South Rim view was, but the North Rim is even better, despite the poor visibility. No way these pictures do it justice. Here are much better pictures, and be sure to come here if you haven’t been.

The incoming storm chased us off the promontory. The temperature suddenly dropped, the wind kicked up and the light drizzle turned into serious rain on the way to becoming hail and snow. We hustled back to the Lodge, got cups of hot chocolate and headed back to the coach right into the teeth of a real blizzard. The heavy wet snow was almost more than the wipers could cope with. By the time we got home the temperature had dropped to freezing and snow was accumulating rapidly. We spent the rest of Friday and most of the next day in the coach listening to music (thanks Jay!) and watching the snow fall. Heavy rain fell all night on Saturday and melted all the snow by Sunday morning. Without the pictures you’d never know it had snowed. As I’m typing this, a brief hail storm just blew through, so we may not be finished with this lousy weather yet.

On to Flagstaff, Santa Fe and Taos. More soon.

#10 Coveys Great Adventure – Bead Week, El Paso and New Mexico

 April, 2015

From the tranquility of Burro Creek we plunged directly into the hubbub of Bead Week. This year about 125 avid beaders from all over the country converged on the North Ranch Escapees Rainbow Park in Congress, AZ for a week of workshops and camaraderie. Kayeanne gave a class on making knotted string jewelry that was well received, and I joined other bead widowers for a golf tournament (our team tied for first place) and attended an introduction to Tenkara fly fishing. I may try that when we are in the right place. I also caught up on a few coach maintenance projects and took several long walks in the desert with the dogs, where we survived our first real encounter with a rattlesnake. Schroeder was very impressed.

Next stop: El Paso TX, of all places. Texas is a popular choice of residence for people without a fixed address, like us. The Escapees organization provides a number of services that make living on the road much easier and less stressful. We needed to finish establishing our domicile change from California to Texas by completing the vehicle registration safety inspections and getting Texas drivers licenses.   El Paso turned out to be the closest place to do that, so we packed up all the beads and made a long day’s drive to El Paso-West RV Park, about 5 miles south of the Texas-New Mexico border in Anthony,
TX. We had planned to stop off in Deming, NM but the first two parks we checked out were not places we liked, even for one night.

El Paso turned out to be an efficient location to get our administrative stuff done, but no place we wanted to spend time. The RV park was about ideally located on the north side of the city and only a few miles from the Texas Department of Public Safety office, but doesn't have anything else to recommend it. The day after we arrived we ran the coach and van through the Texas vehicle safety inspection; both passed without problems. With inspection certificates in hand, we went to the DPS office and exchanged our CA licenses for new Texas ones. We are now officially pseudo Texans, yahoo.

Great campsites

That done, we wasted no time getting back on the road for more interesting locales. You can’t go through southeastern NM without visiting Carlsbad Caverns. When searching for our next place to stay, we always check out state park campgrounds. Brantley Lake State Park looked like a good home base to explore the area around Carlsbad, visit the Caverns and relax after two pretty hectic weeks. Located several miles north of Carlsbad, the campground sits on a peninsula jutting out into a large man made lake formed when a large dam was constructed to control the periodic, occasionally catastrophic flooding of the Pecos River. We found a great site with an unobstructed view of the south arm of the lake and the dam. For some reason neither of us took any pictures, so I borrowed these.

 

Several more pictures are here. We all enjoyed Brantley Lake and will stay here again the next time we are in this area. The dogs want another crack at the rabbits that seem to carpet the area. I tried to count the ones in view one evening and gave up at 40.

Our main reason to come to Carlsbad was to tour the Caverns. After Kartchner Cavern I was a little blasé about another cave, but this place really lives up to its reputation. The sheer size and extent of the chambers and the infrastructure in place to make them accessible to everyone regardless of physical limitations are really impressive. A few years ago the National Park Service built a large visitor center with a good restaurant, a gift shop, an interesting educational area, and especially welcome, an elevator! Admittance is free with a Senior Pass, one of the few really worthwhile perks of attaining a certain age.

She says I need to show more people,
so here's one standing near the Cavern
entrance

Carlsbad Caverns are “dead” caves, meaning that they are mostly dry and the majority of the formations are no longer growing. In contrast, Kartchner Caverns are living caves and the formations there are still slowly expanding, just as they have for millions of years. Kartchner does not allow self-guided tours (aka wandering about) because the life of the cavern is threatened by the very process of viewing it. Carlsbad offers both ranger guided and self-guided tours; we decided we could handle it ourselves.

There are two routes into or out of the Caverns. We decided to walk in through the original, natural cave entrance and ride the elevator back up. The trail is quite steep in places, descending 750’ in 1.25 miles. Some of the folks we met clearly didn’t read the description of the physical conditioning required for this route and were struggling with the steep descent. When we finally reached the end of the trail at the Big Room we realized that we were only half way done. The tour of the Big Room is another 1.5 miles, gladly it is fairly flat. Yes, it is really big!

My pictures can’t show the almost unbelievable scale of many of the formations and especially the size of the rooms that contain them. In places the roof is over 100 feet above your head and the drop below your feet is almost as far. Handheld cameras (in my hands, anyway) just aren't able to capture that. Here are pictures that do it some justice, but if you haven’t been to the Caverns, make the effort to visit. It is worth it by any measure. We were certainly happy to ride the elevator back to the surface.

We enjoyed staying at Brantley Lake, but it was time to hit the road again. Alamogordo, NM offered a couple of places we wanted to see, the White Sands National Monument and the New Mexico Museum of Space History. Desert Paradise RV Park turned out to be seriously misnamed, but was an adequate home base for a few days.

Pushing the season a little in Cloudcroft, NM

US82 is a very beautiful drive through beautiful, remote country from Artesia, NM to Alamogordo. It passes through the Lincoln National Forest, topping out at almost 9,000’ near Cloudcroft, NM. I think we were pushing the season a little as you can see from the picture we took when we stopped to give the dogs a break. Cloudcroft looks like one of those places we’d like to explore in better weather, so we added it to our list for a revisit.

Space Museum

The Space Museum is a local venture put together by a few enthusiasts and the University of New Mexico. Though small, it has a lot of interesting stuff and is worth an afternoon. We didn’t go to the IMAX film or the planetarium due to scheduling but I later learned that we should have tried harder to see them, too.

No, that's not snow although it sure looks like it

White Sands National Monument has nothing to do with the missile range of similar name that surrounds it, or with the atomic bomb test site. It is hundreds of square miles of pure white gypsum sand dunes rolling across the desert. Some of the dunes are almost 100’ high and the National Park Service sells plastic toboggans for sliding down them. There weren't many people there the day we went, but judging by the piles of toboggans, sliding down the dunes is very popular. As you can see, the dogs just loved this place. There is a small, white lizard that inhabits every bush and Schroeder actually hurt himself trying to catch every one of them.

White Sands at sunset is spectacular

We decided to come back for the evening sunset ranger guided tour and learned a lot about the origins and eco systems of this unique place. The dunes are not silica sand like most of the world’s deserts and beaches. They are formed by powdered gypsum, the same material found in drywall, toothpaste and many other products. Unlike desert sand, gypsum is very good at holding moisture, so like at the beach, water can be found fairly close to the surface.  There are a number of plants, insects and animals that have evolved specific sub-species to successfully adapt to the unique conditions found here. This is a fascinating place, but like the Caverns, I could not capture the scale of it with my small camera. Here are more pictures. If you are in the area, it is certainly worth seeing.

On the road to Ruidoso

One day we decided to take a drive back to the Lincoln National Forest to check out Ruidoso, NM and to just meander . We were a little tired of deserts and needed a change of scenery. We headed north on US70 through Tularosa (the Tularosa Café is a good place to eat), climbing steadily as the road wound  through increasingly rugged and more tree-covered terrain. There was even a little snow on a few of the north-facing slopes.

Ruidoso was a larger town than we expected. It is tucked into a number of small, heavily treed canyons and large ravines, making the streets a little tight. It seems to be a fairly prosperous place, with a mix of tourist oriented businesses and a solid core of year round residents. We didn’t stop, but have added it to our revisit list.

One of the reasons we like to get in the car and just meander are the places we discover. We had never heard of Fort Stanton until we came around a corner and found the Merchant Marine and Military Cemetery seemingly out in the middle of nowhere. It was fascinating and

The Merchant Marine and Military Cemetery
at Fort Stanton, NM

moving to wander the graveyard reading the inscriptions on markers dated from 1900 right up to last month. I certainly don’t envy any of the residents, but I have never seen a more beautiful place to spend eternity.

Fort Stanton itself gave us an insight into a period of history that we had never heard of. Established as a US Army outpost during the Indian wars of the late nineteenth century, the Fort evolved into one of the many sanitariums established throughout the mountains of the Southwest to treat tuberculosis patients. The cool dry air of the Southwest mountain regions was about the only relief available for many decades for the many people who contracted this disease. During WW ll Fort Stanton also served as a POW camp, housing a number of German civilian sailors “lucky” enough to be in US waters when the war broke out. The Fort is an interesting place to visit, and the roads around are great fun to drive.

I know there is a lizard down there

It was a relatively short drive to Las Cruces, our next stop. We liked Las Cruces a lot. It has a strong sense of community that always makes a positive difference in a place. The people we met were clearly happy to live there and proud of their city. The farmer’s market was real fun and Coas Books is one of the best bookstores I’ve ever seen. Sunny Acres RV Park is located just a few blocks from downtown Las Cruces and is one of the better places we have stayed. 

Twice weekly farmer's market in Las Cruces

Old Mesilla Village is worth a visit. Located next door to Las Cruces, it features shops and restaurants around the carefully preserved town square founded in the 1840’s. For many years, Mesilla was the main town serving this region. It is not too “touristy”. We spent a pleasant afternoon browsing the shops and having dinner.

Located about 30 minutes east of Las Cruces is the White Sands Missile Range Museum. We have been testing missiles in this area since the early 1940’s and the museum has dozens of examples of this hardware. It was quite interesting to be able to follow the evolution of the designs as the technology changed through the fifties, and especially into the sixties and seventies. The increasing sophistication is readily apparent.

Just a fraction of the hardware on display

The museum itself is pretty quaint and could use the services of a good curator, but the section on life at the base from 1940 through the 70’s was interesting. Because of its location and mission, the base was a self-contained town, with schools, shops and services like a community pool and a golf course. The museum has a number of displays that depict the lives of the families stationed at what was then a pretty isolated location. I found the contrast between the town’s seemingly ordinary life and the base’s mission of weapons development quite interesting.

The neighborhood at Burro Mountain

As you would guess, Silver City, NM owes its name to the mining that still continues in this mountainous region. As far as I know, no commercial silver or gold mining currently takes place, but open pit copper mines are still operating. While looking for an RV park in Silver City we checked www.rvparkreviews.com, and spotted the only “10” review we had ever seen for a place called Burro Mountain Homestead. We had to see why, so we made a reservation and headed West.

Burro Mountain is located at 7000’ in the Gila National Forest at the end of a seven mile long dirt road. Big RVs like ours are not designed for dirt roads and it took us almost an hour to crawl our way to the Homestead to avoid shaking it to pieces. The coach got really filthy, but the effort was worth it. This is one of those places that turn out to be pretty special. 

One of the neighbors

Roughly 300 year round leased sites are nestled in the trees in the canyons and on the ridges surrounding the central valley where 40 sites are available for “dailies” to rent. Despite the isolation and the winter weather (it snowed one morning) about 40 people live here year round. The rest of the leasees begin to arrive about late May. We were invited to a happy hour at the community fire pit. As you might imagine, everyone there was a character. We had a great time.

The natural setting is quite idyllic. A stream runs the length of the Homestead and a large deer herd wanders at will throughout the property, driving our dogs nuts. The area around the Homestead is open range for cattle grazing. It is a little startling when a section of “brush” starts to amble off as you approach. The cattle really blend in to the terrain!

Free firewood!!

There must be a few hundred miles of dirt roads throughout the area, many of them maintained to one degree or another by the county, the National Forest Service or privately like the last couple of miles into the Homestead. We spent an afternoon following a few of them into places that a minivan wasn't intended to go, but nothing got damaged and we saw some fabulous country. Everyone at the Homestead has at least one ATV and off-roading might be the number one leisure activity.

Silver City was worth visiting. The more modern commercial section had the usual stores and services. The historic downtown area is set up for tourists and has a number of galleries, shops and restaurants to browse and nosh, and the museum was pretty interesting, too. April is not their prime season, so some of the galleries and shops weren't open during the week. We liked Silver City; it had a nice vibe, good services and seemed quite accessible. We look forward to coming again.

On April 27th we pulled out of Burro Mountain bound for Vista, CA for Ted Anderson’s 65^th birthday party and then a week in Simi Valley to catch up with our friends in the area. More soon.

#9 Coveys Great Adventure - Yuma, Benson and Burro Creek

Yuma, Benson and Burro Creek - March 2015

We really enjoyed Tucson and especially Justin’s Diamond RV Park, but once again we were itching to get moving. Personal and mechanical maintenance had moved to the top of our priority list, so we packed up and headed out on March 1st. We thought the generator problem we discovered last summer had been fixed before we left but it reoccurred when we dry camped in Quartzsite. Our first stop, then, was Cummins Coach Care in Phoenix where we spent a couple of fun days camped out in their parking lot and waiting room while they worked on the generator. $1,000 later it looks like they fixed it this time.

Las Algodones main street

Our dental and vision insurance lapsed when I retired, so like many, many others in the same boat we headed to Las Algodones, Mexico, right across the border from Yuma. Las Algodones (LA) exists solely to serve the health needs of American and Canadian seniors. There must be 300 dentists, 100 optometrists, 50 plastic surgeons and 25 pharmacies jammed into a area smaller than most malls. Mix in a few hundred stalls selling belts, bags, blankets, jewelry, carved animals of every species and several cantinas and bars, all within walking distance of the border crossing and you can see why the place is packed when the snowbirds arrive for their seasonal stay.

She hadn't had a root canal

Getting to LA is easy, it has its own exit on I8, about 5 miles west of Yuma. The actual border crossing point is on an Indian reservation and those enterprising folks have a monopoly on parking in their lot that directly connects to the border. You just walk across, right into downtown LA, where dozens of shills immediately try to get you to follow them to the establishments that they work for. They are humorous and very pushy, but not threatening. Just smile and keep walking, you easily break through the scrum.

The big draw here is, of course, price. Routine dental care is roughly 1/3 the US cost, and implants and other complex procedures are even lower. It was my turn this year and I had a root canal and three crowns done for the cost of a single crown in Thousand Oaks. I also had an eye exam and got new lenses for about 1/3 what I paid at Lensecrafters a few years ago. As I write this 4 weeks later, I am completely happy with the glasses and the dental work.

Best dog park we have ever seen

We splurged a little and stayed at the Cocopah RV and Golf Resort (CRV) on the Cocopah Indian reservation in Yuma. CRV is a big place with about 1,000 sites, a very nice golf course, restaurant, pool, spa, cable tv at every site and one of the best dog parks we have ever seen. Schroeder and Lucy had a couple of acres of green grass to run around on and dozens of other dogs to hang with. Needless-to-say, we spent a lot of time there every day.

It took five trips to LA to get all of my work done, but in between those we managed to see a couple of interesting places in Yuma: the notorious Yuma Territorial Prison, and the Yuma Quartermaster Depot, at one time the Army supply depot for most of the southwest.

Notorious felon

Yuma was the first capital of the Arizona territory so criminals from all over the area were sent to the Territorial Prison to serve their sentences. What is left of the prison is now a State Park. Over the years, most of the land and buildings of the original prison were re-purposed or destroyed, but the main administration building and a couple of sections of two cell blocks have been preserved. Its reputation in pulp fiction as a hellhole seems to be more myth than substance. While it operated, it was known among its peers as a humane and progressive penal institution. That doesn't mean it was a country club, but there appears to be no record of systematic abuse of prisoners. Given the climate in Yuma and the reality of the facility itself, though, any time served there was clearly no picnic.

Until we visited the Yuma Quartermaster Depot I had no idea that Yuma was a major river port. Before dams and irrigation completely altered its character, steamboats plied the Colorado River from its mouth at the Sea of Cortez to Yuma and beyond. The fort was the Army’s supply depot for Arizona, New Mexico, west Texas, and southern Utah and Nevada. Ships would bring cargo to Port Isabel, Sonora, where it was offloaded onto river boats for delivery to the warehouses in Yuma. Until the railroads arrived about 1880, very button, bullet and bean that the Army consumed in the southwest arrived by mule train from Yuma. In its heyday the fort used over 900 mules to keep supplies moving to the outposts established to protect settlers from marauding bands of Indians.

Once the medical issues were resolved it was time to move on. We had been hearing good things about SKP Saguaro, an Escapees Co-Op park in Benson, AZ, and decided to check it out. Benson is roughly 45 miles southeast of Tucson, about 320 miles from Yuma using smaller, non-highway roads where feasible, a comfortable day’s drive for us. Benson turned out to be a neat town, big enough to have a Safeway and a Walmart, but small enough to see in about 15 minutes. Benson is a major terminal for the Union Pacific Railroad and fright trains pass through about every half hour, day and night. It is also on the road to Tombstone and Bisbee, and home to Kartchner Caverns State Park.

It is amazing to see what people have done in 288 sq.' 

SKP Saguaro is the nicest RV park we have ever stayed in. I can’t imagine what could top it. The facilities are flawless, there is something going on every day at the big clubhouse and the people could not have been nicer. This is our first experience with an Escapees co-op park, where virtually everything is done by volunteers. In fact, the park itself was conceived, designed and partially built by the original founders. We just happened to arrive the week before their 25^th anniversary celebration. We quickly decided to stay the extra week and were immediately pulled into the festivities.

What with happy hour every day, beading and other crafts several times a week and breakfasts and dinners a couple of times a week there is no reason to ever be bored! And those are some of the normal activities, unrelated to the anniversary events, which included 3 dinner dances, a parade, blind man’s bluff in golf carts and a tour of the little houses called casitas that most sites have to supplement their RV’s accommodations.

These folks really know how to have fun!

This place is so busy it has its own cable tv channel that is updated every day to keep people up to date. There are about 300 leased sites in the park and we are number 276 on the waiting list for a vacancy. With attrition in the current lease holders and the folks on the waiting list (all “old” folk, after all), we figure we’ll get our shot in 4 years or so.  We’ll wait, it’s that good.

Mary, Kayeanne, me and Sam

It was a real treat to get together with Sam and Mary Proia while we were at Benson. Sam and Mary were visiting other friends in Tucson and the six of us spent the day touring Tombstone’s legendary Boot Hill and cruising the shops lining main street. While clearly a tourist destination, Tombstone has avoided becoming a total caricature. The grave markers in Boot Hill gave mute testimony to how hard, short and brutal life on the frontier really was. We had a great day, and it was hard to see them leave.

Benson has another outstanding attraction: Kartchner Caverns State Park. While not quite the same scale as Carlsbad Caverns, Kartchner is a living cavern. It is still growing as it has been for millions of years. The Arizona State Park Service has done a remarkable job preserving the site while providing excellent visitor access. The colors and shapes and sizes of the rock formations are really striking. The contrast between the harsh desert surface and the dark, cool, damp cavern was about as extreme as it gets. No pictures are allowed, co check the website. Admission was a little pricey, but I’m glad we decided to go. 

After spending all the money fixing the generator, we decided we’d take a shot at dry camping on our own for a few days to see how we liked it. We had dry camped in Quartzsite but were with a large group of folks including our friends the Woznickis. All of the RV parks that we stay in have electrical and water connections, and most also have sewer. Dry camping sites have no services at individual sites, and may or may not have a sewer dump station and/or access to fresh water. That means that we rely on the services built into our coach for electricity, heat and air conditioning, fresh water and waste containment.

Dry camping runs the gamut from just pulling off the road into the desert or primitive campgrounds that might have trash barrels, all the way to ones that provide improved sites with some amenities like picnic tables and campfire rings. Kayeanne spotted Burro Creek, a BLM campground near Wikieup, AZ, on the internet and we headed there from Benson on March 23.

Burro Creek campground through
the coach windshield

As dry campgrounds go, Burro Creek is pretty plush. Each of the 20-odd sites has a picnic table with sun shade and fire pit with cooking grate. There is a sewer dump station and fresh water spigots are sited around the campground, it even has flush toilets but no showers. There is an on-site camp host too, always a civilizing influence and a great source of local knowledge. There is no cell or data service at all out here.

We spent 5 days enjoying the splendid natural setting deep in a canyon with flowing water and an abundance of wild life. Burro Creek is popular with bird watchers and we saw blue herons, egrets, hawks and turkey vultures. We just missed a pair of eagles that had been hanging around for several days before we arrived. 

The dogs loved Burro Creek

We were very pleased (relieved) that the systems in the coach all performed as expected, and we had all the comforts of home living in the desert. We needed it, too, because the temperatures exceeded 90 degrees in the afternoon and plunged to mid-40’s overnight. Despite fresh water, grey water and black water tanks that are somewhat smaller than I’d like, we were able to get through 5 days by conserving water whenever we did use it. Paper plates, cups and bowls really help cut down the water usage. The generator kept the batteries charged up and allowed us to run the air conditioners during the worst of the afternoon heat. It may be a dry heat, but it was still HOT.

On the 28^th we pulled out of Burro Creek to return back to North Ranch (see #7) for Bead Week. About 125 avid beaders descended on the Escapees RV park near Wickenburg for an orgy of bead jewelry making. Kayeanne got roped into teaching a class, and I signed up for several events planned for the beading widowers. That’s it for now!