#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!