#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!

#8 Coveys Great Adventure - Arizona Part 2

Arizona part 2: January 17-31, 2015

We are certainly seeing a lot of southwestern Arizona this month. We really enjoyed staying at North Ranch and touring the area around Wickenburg, but were ready to move on and revisit one of our favorite parks, Dead Horse Ranch State Park. On the 17^th we hit the road to Cottonwood to rendezvous with Christine and Ed Woznicki. 

Dead Horse Ranch was the destination for our first RV trip, and it was just as nice as we remembered. The park has a small river running through it that creates two distinctly different sections. We like the Quail Loop campground, which is along the river and has lots of trees that shade all of the sites. The other campground is on a nearby hilltop without any trees or shade, but compensates with great views of the surrounding hills and spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

The happy wanderers

Cottonwood has two unique personalities. The newer part of town offers all the usual chain store shopping options where we stocked up on groceries, wine and a few parts for the coach. Old Cottonwood, on the other hand, is the original town comprising a number of interesting shops, restaurants and galleries spread out along Main Street that has avoided looking too much like just a tourist trap. It’s a quiet, kind of low key place to stroll around, have lunch or dinner and just relax. One shop you don’t want to miss is Ye Ole Hippie Emporium at the east end of town. Along with an interesting assortment of 60’s revival “stuff”, it has a neat selection of off-beat posters, funny bumper stickers and signs pertaining to that era, and some very eclectic period music. Kayeanne says the book selection is worth browsing, too.

Jerome clings to the side of the mountain 
above the old copper mine

Revisiting the old mining town of Jerome was one of the main reasons I wanted to return to Dead Horse Ranch. Last year we had just enough time to drive through it and realize how much there was to see. Jerome was the site of one of the richest copper mines in Arizona, but when that played out in the 1940’s, it became a ghost town. In the ‘60’s, hippies started moving in and slowly began rebuilding the town as an art and crafts center. One thing lead to another and Jerome is now a popular destination with lots of shops, bars, restaurants and a very interesting mining museum that has a mine shaft going straight down over 1900 feet. It is covered in thick glass that you can stand over and look way, way doowwwnnn. If you have problems with heights you probably want to pass on that, but the rest of the museum is certainly worth seeing, too. Don't miss all the old equipment spread around the grounds.

This is one of the easy sections

Huge sink hole near Sedona

Ed and Christine towed their highly modified Jeep along on this trip. One day we planned to head into the back country that is only accessible with that kind of vehicle, but every trail we tried to use was closed. Not discouraged, we went to Sedona where Ed gave us a demonstration of what he described as "easy" rock crawling. I was a little nervous when he just drove up a boulder field that I wouldn't have wanted to walk up, but the Jeep handled it without even working hard. Very impressive stuff. 

Problems with the complex systems in the coach are my worst fear about this whole adventure. Casa Covey has run flawlessly since September when we had a number of incidents when the engine wouldn’t fire up. I thought we’d solved that problem with fresh batteries and a new relay in the start circuitry, but it wouldn't restart after pulling into the campsite at Dead Horse. Needless to say, that raised raised my anxiety level. After a few minutes it did start, which was both good and bad news: good that we could move to a better site and get properly positioned for the week, but bad because it is much harder to find and fix an intermittent problem. Ed and I spent most of two days testing circuits, looking at wiring diagrams and talking through the circuit logic. The upshot of all this cogitating was to replace a fuel system relay and the small solenoid it energizes that in turn triggers the big starter solenoid on the engine itself. It has started flawlessly since, so we’ll see whether we nailed it this time.

 My pictures don't do it justice, so I borrowed this one

Every January, tens of thousands of RVs converge on the desert around the village of Quartzsite AZ transforming it into the largest RV gathering in the world. After a week in the relatively lush area around Cottonwood, it was time to head to Quartzsite. As you crest the hill on I10 and start down the long grade toward town, you can see RVs are spread across the desert for miles in every direction. The draw is the world’s largest RV show, but for many people the show is only an excuse to head to Quartzsite to hang out with folks that they may only see once a year. Literally hundreds of thousands of RVs bring more than a million people to this small patch of desert every year.

Abandoned mine near Quartzsite

Like last year, we joined the group of Foretravel owners that Ed hangs out with on the Internet. They generously tolerate our Monaco coach among their classy, exclusive rigs. Ed’s son, Zack also joined us for a few days, and we all went off-roading in the desert, visiting an abandoned mine and seeing some really spectacular desert country.

 The entire desert around Quartzsite is controlled by the US Government Bureau of Land Management, so it is open to public use, including camping. We just pulled off of Rt. 95 onto a dirt road that lead to a flat piece of desert and spent the next 5 nights at no cost other than the fuel we burned in the generator.

Ed and Christine

Our group comprised about a dozen coaches, with some leaving and others arriving every day. Visiting each others rigs, talking about upgrades, solving problems and general palaver made for a very pleasant visit that we now look forward to every year. The RV show was interesting, too, but we managed to keep our wallets (mostly) closed. Maybe next year.

On January 26, Ed and Christine headed back to California and we pointed the coach toward Tucson where we will spend February at Justin’s Diamond J RV Park. More on that next time.

#7 Coveys Great Adventure - Arizona Part 1

Arizona part 1: January 1 -17, 2015

On New Years Day, we hooked up the wagons and headed east, looking, among other things, for warmer weather. Our departure was delayed a few hours by…ice. Yup, it sleeted and snowed overnight (it’s SoCal! WTH??) and we were stuck until it all melted. One of the first hard lessons we learned about living with an RV was that frozen awnings and slide covers must be fully thawed out before you try to roll them in. Really bad damage will occur if you try to rush things, so we waited until the sun rose over the hills surrounding Meadowbrook and eventually melted all the ice.

After being in one place for a month, the first few miles on the road can be a little exciting. Despite checking and double checking drawers, doors, latches and switches, Kayeanne seemed to be popping up every 5 minutes for the first hour to deal with the latest crash, bang, boom or thud. Someone once described RVs as earthquakes in motion, and I believe that’s pretty accurate. We’ve had drawers come right off the slides and end up in the middle of the floor, shower wands hit the floor with a frightening crash, pantry racks shoot out of cabinets on right turns and many other interesting events. One of these days we have got to write up a pre-departure checklist!

Saddle Mountain RV Park

Late that afternoon we pulled into Saddle Mountain RV Park in Tonopah, Arizona, about 50 miles west of Phoenix. Why it’s called Saddle Mountain I never figured out since the park is located in the middle of a very large, flat desert, over 25 miles (no exaggeratio

n) from the nearest supermarket. Tonopah consists of a freeway interchange, two gas stations, a nice RV park, a popular local’s bar and grill, and a huge poultry operation that you could smell 10 miles away when the wind was right. Luckily it was about that far from the park, because the stench driving by it was almost intolerable.

Sunset from the coach at SMRVP

Surrounded by desert and by surprisingly huge farms, SMRVP turned out to be a happening place, especially if you were into off-roading with Jeeps or quads. Everyone seemed to have at least one or the other or both. We found a large, end row space in the short timers section with a great view of the desert. Most of the park spaces are rented for several months or year round by snowbirds from all over the US and Canada. A full roster of activities filled the park calendar every week. Kayeanne went to two beading get-togethers. The dogs and I spent many hours hiking the trails and dirt roads in the desert near the park.

After a week we had exhausted Tonapah's many attractions and were ready to move on to North Ranch, an Escapees Rainbow Park near Wickenburg, AZ. Despite the sparse amenities (no pool or spa) and really poor WIFI, North Ranch turned out to be one of our favorite parks, so far. The Escapees is an organization formed in 1978 specifically to support full time RV'ing. Run exclusively by volunteers, the park has a couple of hundred privately owned sites of various sizes and several dozen transient sites that rent by the day or week. We spent 10 days in site 29, backed up to the field that contains the dog park and with a great view out the windshield over the park and desert to the distant mountains.

North Ranch Park Model

North Ranch is a very interesting mix of people at various stages of life. All are retired. Many of the sites are occupied by folks who, for one reason or another are no longer traveling full time. Some still have RVs and go on the road for part of the year, but others have sold their rigs and settled permanently at NR.

A number of the NR sites contain “park model” RVs, a hybrid between a large travel trailer and a mobile home. Park models are roughly 3-600 sq.’, depending on whether they have been added onto or not. Although they are towed onto the site like a trailer or a 5^th wheel and are built and titled like an RV, they are really never intended to move again. After delivery, the wheels and axles are removed and semi-permanent supports are added, similar to a mobile home. Park models are very popular throughout RV parks in the Sunbelt because of their relatively low cost and quick delivery.

One of the larger NR home sites

NR also has many larger lots, up to a quarter acre, allowing people to build more elaborate homes that often incorporate a large garage specifically to house their RV.

NR is a happening place. There's a comprehensive activity schedule (pickle ball, beading, off-roading, Chi Gong classes, dance classes, happy hours, breakfasts, lunches, etc, etc, (phew!).  The proximity to Wickenburg and the surrounding area proved to be a real bonus for us. Wickenburg is clearly a small town in the best sense of the term, but it is large enough to offer two good markets, a couple of sizable hardware stores and a few good restaurants. With Amazon deliveries by UPS, FedEx and USPS right to our site, all of our basic needs were met. One market even carried a few decent wines at reasonable prices!

Suspending the travelogue for a minute: weight is a big deal on RVs. Tires, wheels and axles are rated for maximum loads and really bad stuff happens if you ignore those ratings.

Steer tire failure can be really serious
(from Michelin website)

We had the coach weighed in Paso Robles on a truck scale that scared me silly because it showed that we were right on the max weight limits on the steer (front) and drive (dual) axles. We had less than 1,000 lbs. available out of a 47,000 gross vehicle weight limit. Yikes! I suspected that we were heavy, but not that heavy.

Truck scales just give an axle weight, so you can’t tell whether one side (wheel) is carrying a disproportional share of the load and might be over its limits. I lost a lot of sleep over this because tire pressures have to be adjusted to match the load. Too little pressure leads to catastrophic tire failures. That is bad in a car; it can be extremely serious on a coach like ours. Without good weight data you are only guessing at the right pressures.

Finding a place to weigh individual wheels is not easy. North Ranch is one of three Escapees sites that offer the SmartWeigh service, a process where each wheel is weighed independently. Weighing the wheels individually gives vital information about what share of the load each one is carrying. It turns out that we are right on the limits but not over on any given wheel, and I had guessed pretty close on the pressures. We can’t buy any pottery, iron or glass souvenirs, and we need to drink up the wine cellar but I now sleep better. 

Wickenburg has a legitimate western heritage dating back to the mid-1800s. It is a for-real cowboy, cattle herding, ranching town that is only beginning to be yuppified (real word) and is quietly resisting that insidious fate. Many of the ranches are still operating, although some are being turned into golf courses surrounded by faux-adobe ranchettes. 

The Desert Caballeros Western Museum is a must see. Many local museums are not, but this one is worth the time. It has accumulated a really nice collection of Remington bronzes and paintings, but the highlights for me were the photographs from 1900 to the 1980's of the people who worked the ranches over several generations, especially the women. When we go back to NR I’ll spend more time at the museum. Walking around the small downtown area is a relaxing way to spend an afternoon, too, with a couple of ice cream shops and several eateries to pass the time and sustain life. The library has strong free WIFI; drop a couple of bucks in the jar on the way out, please.

Until we spent a couple of hours in Jerome last year I didn’t realize how big mining was and is in Arizona. NR is roughly 60 miles from Bagdad, AZ, a town I'd never heard of. Bagdad is the location of one of the largest open pit copper mines in North America, and it is also one of the few remaining “company” towns in the country. Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) owns every building and employs every person in town, even if they don’t work in the mine itself. When people retire they have to leave town. Many have lived there all of their working lives and retirement can be especially traumatic for them.

Getting to Bagdad takes a little effort. Its located about 40 miles up US93 from Wickenburg, then about 20 miles across the desert on 2-lane swoopy, curvy roads (fun!) that climb into the mountains. Bagdad is a clean but rather colorless town. It had one gas station, one market, one fire station, one .... etc, etc. It also had one 9-hole golf course that was free to whoever showed up to play. Carts were $5 per round, but you could walk the course and pay nothing. We had to play, but the less said about that the better. We stunk.

The pit is several miles across

As interesting as Bagdad town wasn’t, the reason we were there was the mine. Once a day FCX escorts visitors to an overlook where the active mine can be seen. The pictures can’t begin to show the scale of this place. Underground mining began in the 1920s, and open pit mining started in 1945. The current pit is over 2,000 feet deep and miles across. As they dig away one mountain they create another with the scrap rock and dirt that has to be cleared from the ore-bearing rock. It is called overburden. It turns out that the key to open pit mining economics is how much overburden there is and what you have to do to get rid of it. 

That little truck climbing the hill is three stories tall

The scale of operations and the apparent capital investment is just staggering. From our vantage point, dump trucks seemed to be dogging it up a small grade. Then a pickup truck came along to give some scale to things. The mine dump trucks are simply enormous. They are so big they have to be assembled on site. The reason they crawl up the hills is because they are carrying a few hundred tons of overburden or ore. They are roughly ten times the size of conventional dump trucks! Bagdad operates 12-hour shifts around the clock, 365 days a year. The mine never stops working.  It’s a fascinating place, we learned a lot and really enjoyed the day.

Wow, I can run on! We left North Ranch on January 17, bound for Dead Horse Ranch State Park to explore Sedonah, Jerome and Cottonwood, and then on to Quartzsite with Christine and Ed Woznicki. More soon, stay tuned.

#6 - Coveys Great Adventure - Christmas at Meadowbrook RV Park

December 2014

Kayeanne has decided to publish her own blog, so watch for it coming soon.

It was great to get together with so many of our friends from Thousand Oaks and Pasadena during the latter part of November, but we needed to move closer to family in Hemet, CA for Christmas. I don’t remember how we found Meadowbrook RV Park in Perris, CA. At first glance, it didn’t seem very interesting: a 55+ residential park with a few short-term spaces is not usually what we look for when searching for a place to stay. Something on the website caught my eye, though, and we ended up spending the month of December.

Casa Covey fit right in among the full time residents

Meadowbrook is a co-op formed in the mid-80’s by fulltime RV’ers who wanted a home base that fit their unique needs. It is a very eclectic mix of about 160 park model RVs, 5th wheels trailers and motor homes nestled in a small valley off Rt. 74 about half way between Perris and Lake Elsinore. The park is spotless, with wide roads, a small pond, and some shade trees. Cell phone service is not good because the park is in a valley, but we did get WIFI via the hotspot feature on our phones despite missing lots of voice calls. For some reason, WIFI seems to be easier to connect to than voice when conditions are marginal.

One of the many park model homes that
permanent residents have built

This park is a real gem: it's clean, very quiet, and the residents couldn't be friendlier. Everyone also seems to be dog friendly; Lucy in particular became very popular because she is quite outgoing. There are trails around the perimeter of the park that Lucy, Schroeder and I hiked at least once every day. Since we were staying for the whole month, management found us an unoccupied resident’s site rather than putting us in the transient area. Because we were in a “resident” site, people treated us like a local. The neighbors couldn't have been nicer.

Meadowbrook is surrounded by hiking trails

One reason we chose Meadowbrook was its proximity to Ed and Christine Woznickis. When we camped together in Nevada City, Ed and I decided to tackle a major upgrade to Casa Covey. Our coach still had a square CRT-type TV that dominated the overhead cabinets over the dashboard. Not only was the TV not up to modern standards, the cabinet that housed it had some serious drawbacks: it hung down several inches below the adjoining cabinets, obscured the view through the windshield and caused real pain to both of us. We have several lumps on our heads from knocking into it. It had to go.

The new TV and cabinet mods transformed
the front of our coach

Once we got to Meadowbrook, Ed and I pulled out the old TV (yikes, it was heavy!) and managed to remove the cabinet without doing any permanent damage to the adjoining cabinets or ourselves. A local woodworking shop did a great job shortening the cabinet by 6 inches and adding a filler strip on the back that matched the original cherry wood and finish. We re-installed the cabinet (making the whole assembly a little stronger in the process) and mounted a new flat screen TV that looks like it was a factory job!  No more lumps on our heads, and it really opened up the view through the windshield. I love it when a plan works!

Meadowbrook gave us good access to our family in Hemet for Christmas, but it seemed like we spent December in the car. We made trips to Thousand Oaks, Los Angeles, San Pedro, Pasadena, West Covina, Temecula, Carlsbad, Redlands, Riverside and other places I forgot. We wracked up over 2,000 miles on the car! It certainly was great to see everyone, but by the end of the month we were ready for some peace and quiet.

Really?? We are out of here!

Beyond spending time with our friends and family over the holidays, we came back to SoCal for the warm winter weather. The Oregon coast was getting decidedly nippy when we left.  So we were more than surprised when we woke up on December 30^th to snow, ice and temperatures in the 20’s. RV’s do many things well, but freezing temperatures, snow and ice aren’t what they are designed for. It was clearly time to move on, so on the first day of 2015 we pulled out for Arizona.