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 17th 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.
