The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Surprises are good

I love it when life brings a surprise, especially good ones, surprises without drama, unless it is just the drama of the landscape. Last week when we arrived in Phoenix at the Royal Palm, life did just that. As I wrote previously, on Wednesday afternoon we read about the fifteen best things to do in Phoenix, and didn’t even finish reading the list when we decided to travel the Apache Trail, Arizona Highway 88. I wonder how many bloggers pored over those old Arizona Highways magazines as much as I did in my youth. I would read every story, ogle every red rock photo of Sedona in awe, wonder at the flowers in the desert. Today reminded me of an Arizona Highway day.

Getting out of Phoenix, however, takes a fairly long time. The huge valley is wide and sprawling, with freeways bisecting the city and Highway 60 taking off toward the east and Apache Junction. After many miles of hot desert, we arrived in Apache Junction, another sprawling metropolis populated with RV’s and what are actually called “Travel Trailer Parks”. The community has been high on the list of places to be for snowbirder’s, maybe just a hair below Quartzite in the winter. We only traveled through, with the Apache Highway as our destination.

Long before we reached the town, however, the mythical Superstition Mountains rose against the eastern sky. Highway 88 is a pleasant 2 lane highway, with the actual mountain itself on the eastern edge of town. Before we had traveled any distance at all, suddenly there appeared what seemed to be some kind of ghost town. We whipped around to get back to the entrance. Sure, it was probably a fake, and probably very commercialized, but it looked fun, and the buildings looked really old and authentic.

The built up commercialized town of Goldfields didn’t disappoint us one bit. Especially when we found the tall glasses of frozen lemonade to ward off the afternoon heat. I had a bit of a time tracking the history of the town, but eventually found out that it was indeed a real ghost town, where many of the buildings were reconstructed, but much of the machinery was from the original town.

After wandering around and enjoying the views, be again got on the Apache Trail heading east toward Roosevelt Lake. When I say the day was a surprise, it was because I had never heard of the Apache Trail until a casual mention by Wes last week asking if we had driven that road. Here is a quote from Theodore (not Franklin!) Roosevelt: “The Apache Trail combines the grandeur of the Alps, the glory of the Rockies, and the magnificence of the Grand Canyon, and then adds an indefinable something that none of the others have. To me it is the most awe-inspiring and most sublimely beautiful panorama nature has ever created.” Well, coming from Teddy, one of my favorite historical heroes, it must be really something, since he explored so much of the world and saved so much of it for our viewing pleasure.

Initially the road was paved, two lane highway, a bit winding, and steep in places, but not unmanageable. As we continued east, however the vistas got bigger, the canyons deeper, the colors brighter. After taking many photos of blooming cactus and distant mountains, we reached the unpaved portion of the road. Another 22 miles were ahead of us before we again would travel on pavement at Roosevelt Lake. I have to say that Roosevelt Lake was another surprise, since in all the blogging about the world of Arizona, I don’t remember ever even hearing of this place.

I think it took us about 7 hours to traverse the entire route to Globe and connect again with Highway 60, and it was enchanting every single moment. The most exciting moment was rounding a steep long curve and seeing the face of the Theodore Roosevelt Dam looming right in front of us above Apache Lake. I somehow had no clue there was a dam there, although a closer inspection of my maps would have shown them. All that water in the desert, silly, of COURSE there is a dam there, and a big one. This dam was built of bricks, yes bricks, and is the largest masonry dam in the country, probably because they don’t do that any more. It was started in 1903 and completed in 1911, and the Apache Trail then became a tourist route for scenic drives. Can you imagine those old cars on this road??

Once beyond the dam, the beautiful vista of Roosevelt Lake opened up before us, with the Roosevelt Bridge framing the view. Another wonder, this bridge was built to route traffic across the lake so that repairs could be made to the dam. Someone said that the dam is almost always in some state of disrepair and repair. The graceful bridge is listed among the 12 best in the United States, along with the Golden Gate and the Brooklyn Bridge. Again on pavement, we traveled quickly east past the Tonto National Monument, too late to go up the road behind locked gates and view the cliff dwellings, another surprise, since I hadn’t heard of this place either. Arizonan’s will probably think I must have been under a rock to miss all this, but in all my years of traveling the southwest, I never learned of these places. What a treat to find an unknown world right under my nose.

I wished for more time to go into the visitor centers, to see the cliff dwellings, to learn more about the building of the road and the dam. We intersected Highway 60 about 3 miles west of Globe, and it was almost dark, so the scenic highway was merely fantastic silhouettes and shadows as we hurtled down the steep canyon back to the great salty valley that is home to Phoenix. Once again on the freeway, we were subjected to the erratic, speed demon fast, pass you in the right lane going 80 kind of traffic that seems to be the norm around Phoenix. Once again we drove into a dark campground and found the cat waiting patiently on the dash, meowing at us indignantly.

It was a great day of driving and short hikes taking photos, and being back in the wild world of the Arizona desert mountain landscape.

Eventually the internet will smile on me and I will have a connection that will allow me to upload the photos to Picasa. For more vistas of the highway, check here.

Family and Friends in the Desert

Our first preference for a destination wouldn’t necessarily be the big cities of Tucson and Phoenix. We both love the wide open vistas of the desert, preferably without telephone poles and skyscrapers, and miles and miles of traffic. However, another advantage of traveling in an RV is the opportunity to spend time with friends and family that we might not manage otherwise. Hence our decision to spend quite a bit of time both in Tucson and in Phoenix.

In addition to our friends in Sahuarita, we spent another day with a long time friend of Mo’s in Green Valley. Joan lives in another large gated retirement community with winding streets, a dog park, a community center, swimming pool, and lots of amenities nearby in Green Valley. Joan’s home is big and cool and with her recently glassed in patio, was a great place to leave Abby and her dog Rusty while we spent the day visiting the historic town of Tubac, just a few miles south.

Tubac was at one time a Presidio, and there is a nice state park in addition to several charming guest houses and a ton of interesting shopping choices. It was a bit like going to Mexico without having to go to Mexico, and some great art thrown in. We looked around town, enjoying the colorful pots and garden art, and exploring the Art Museum. Lunch was relaxed until Joan checked her messages and found out that Abby had been barking incessantly since we left and the neighbors were in a bit of a snit. Bummer. Abby is so good in so many ways, but the separation anxiety makes it hard to leave her anywhere except with a dog sitter who is paid to sit with her. We skipped the rest of our shopping excursion and rushed back home.

Once there, Abby was a perfect lady, lying quietly at Mo’s feet as if nothing was wrong at all. She is a perfect house guest, even if Mo isn’t there, she will be quiet and calm with whomever is caring for her. Only the slobbered up windows gave any indication that anything was ever wrong at all. We took the dogs to the dog park for some fun and then came back to Joan’s house for another lovely supper and more conversation around the dinner table. Once again, it was a long dark ride back to Tucson and home and the patiently waiting cat.

Early Wednesday morning we were back on the road heading for Phoenix. We did look into the Luke AFB Military Family Camp, but it certainly didn’t have the reputation of our previous digs at Davis-Monthan. The instructions said “choose a site and be sure the electricity is operating before you check in”. Another review referred to the constant barrage of fighter jet aircraft noise day and night. With temperatures in the 90’s this week, we definitely couldn’t boondock, so dipped into our Streets and Trips program to see what might be available north in Phoenix.

Just a few miles from one set of relatives, we found the Royal Palm Mobile Home and RV Resort. When it says “mobile home’ and ‘”resort” in the same line we usually figure we are in for one of those places that wants to sell a lot. Since it was a CampClub listed park, however, we called anyway. Sure enough, they had a spot with full hookups, 16 bucks a day. Electricity! Of course, the WiFi was extra, and I never did get it to work, and the owner gave me some sort of complex story about why they didn’t have cable tv, but it didn’t matter much because we were there to visit relatives, not relax in a city center kind of RV park. When we finally checked out the pool on our morning walk this morning before leaving, we decided it was pretty small for a park as big as this. It was also pretty darn warm!

We landed in early afternoon, immediately turned on the air conditioning and called the relatives to schedule a convenient time to visit. Once arrangements were made for the following day, we used the iPhone to check out what to do in Phoenix. Found another website, “The Fifteen Things to do While In Phoenix” and when we got to number 7, drive the Apache Highway, both of us said, “Yup, that’s it”. We could take the dog, be in the cool car, and still get out to see something interesting. I’ll write about that part of the day in a separate blog, because it was an incredible treat, and I took lots of photos. We didn’t get back to the park until late, and with a sandwich for supper we fell asleep with the windows open and the Fantastic Fan on full blast.

The next morning we first visited Mo’s cousin Jim, who with his wife Linda has lived in the Phoenix area since 1994. They love living here and love the convenience of their location in the city. Their home was at the base of a mountainous park nearby, and within a lovely resort now owned by the Hilton. Linda served us a great breakfast, and then Jim treated us (mostly me) to his technical savvy about all things computer related. He also showed many of his great photos taken with a Nikon D-60 on his huge flat screen very high def TV. Nice morning. Jim is very much into the family genealogy and we got a great tour through some family history and stories.

Mid-day, we had just enough time to get across Phoenix to Sun City Grand near Surprise to visit Mo’s Uncle Albert and his wife Caroline. They live in a sprawling, very elegant, Del Webb community with 4 18 hole golf courses, a huge recreation center, and a club for just about anything in the world you could want to do. Their home was all soft white and pristine, with wide open views of the golf course. Caroline served us lunch while Uncle Al continued the stories of the Ross family history. Mo’s mother was from a family of ten kids, and Uncle Al was one of the younger uncles. Mo has lots of great memories of the many uncles teaching her to play basketball, taking her fishing, and doing all sorts of fun things along the mighty Columbia River where she grew up.

We looked at many more historic family photos from the homestead in North Dakota, the cemeteries we visited last summer, and the family homes in St Helens, Oregon. What a family, and what a history! Of course, the wild ones, the skeletons in the closet were the most fun, with Billy Bob, hanged for horse stealing, being a star. Many of the uncles and cousins have history as military airmen and some have been commercial pilots. Mechanical skill seems to run in the family, so Mo comes by it naturally. Gee, with all those uncles and brothers, it’s no wonder.

Uncle Al kept us entertained until late in the afternoon, when Cousin Jim called and wanted to confirm an early evening date for drinks and supper at Aunt Chilada’s, near their home. We didn’t even have time to stop in to the MoHo to say hi to Jeremy, and just drove through the crazy traffic back across the city once more. Supper was also great, with lots more stories and laughs.

It was long after dark when we finally returned to our park and the patient cat sitting in the window wondering when we might settle down again. The last of the “visiting” is over now, and we are traveling north toward Laughlin before once again winding our way into some wild open desert landscape. Visiting is nice, it’s great to get to see relatives and friends, but it’s time for some companionable silence and wide open vistas, for sure!

Tucson, Bisbee, and Fort Huachuca

(Been trying to post for 3 days now, hopefully this time will be the charm!)

Somehow, without paying attention, it became Monday. At the moment, on Monday afternoon, I am propped up on the bed with pillows and the computer with the late afternoon light sifting in the windows through the shades. The air conditioner is running pretty steady now, after a lovely day with the Fantastic Fan keeping us cool enough till mid-afternoon when we came in and turned on the air conditioner. It’s probably in the high 70’s, low eighties today in Tucson, and the breeze is brisk enough that we took down our awning, but not so brisk that it isn’t pleasant.

Great dog park here at the AFB camp

Three days have passed in the blink of an eye, punctuated by visits with friends, walking tours, long drives, and cool evenings. Ahh, it’s the desert. Home in Klamath it is snowing again, and a few text messages from my daughter have made me very happy to be here and not there. This was a “catch-up-day”, you know those kind, when you do laundry, sit in the chairs and watch the sky, and hopefully manage all the photos and try to remember the last busy times. I haven’t had a particularly fast connection here at the base, so haven’t kept up on blogs. We also don’t have a satellite, and the TV stations we have dialed in are in Spanish, so I’m not sure just what is going on outside the world either. Kind of nice to disconnect a bit, I think.

Downtown Tucson has some amazing colors

A highlight of the day was a delightful visit from Randy of the Roadrunner Chronicles. We knew he and Pam were in the park, but weren’t sure of their rig, so every day we would walk around looking for South Dakota plates trying to see if they were around. Finally this morning I saw a rig that I thought might be theirs, and timidly knocked on their door. It’s always a bit of a dilemma deciding whether or not to bother someone without all the texting and emailing back and forth beforehand and we hadn’t done any of that. Randy and Pam blinked into the sunlight and said “Hi” most graciously while they tried desperately to remember just who I was. We shook hands and didn’t stay long. Later, however, Randy came over to our place and we had some laughs and great conversation once he sifted out the details and picked us out from the dozens of bloggers who follow Randy and Pam across the country doing amazing Habitat for Humanity volunteer work. What a charming couple.

When we arrived at Davis-Monthan AFB Family Camp Friday night there were no spaces available so we opted to dry camp in the overflow lot, quite a pleasant place actually, with the dog park just outside our door. We were in sixth place for the 12 sites to be vacated on Saturday, and just had to be there at nine am to claim a spot in the park. Without a hitch, we got a perfect end site with a view of the mountains to the north, and full hookups for $17.00, although there is no cable TV. The Wi-Fi isn’t bad at certain times of the day, but other times it crawls along miserably. We heard there would be reveille in the mornings and taps at night, but since it was the weekend, we didn’t hear anything until this afternoon. This is one of the larger Military Family Camps with lots of amenities, and almost in the very middle of Tucson, so there is an incredible array of entertainment available. For us, we just wanted to be close enough to visit some friends in the area in addition to at last seeing the town of Bisbee.

Once settled in to our spot, with a 3pm visit scheduled to our friends in Sahaurita south of town, we decided that a visit to downtown Tucson would be a nice way to spend the rest of the day until then. We found the downtown visitor center, a place to park in the shade with no time limits on a Saturday, and followed the turquoise line for the 2 1/2 mile tour of the downtown part of the city. We just happened to be on the right day for a fabulous art show at the Tucson Museum of Art, with white canopied booths in all directions filled with real art, not just crafts, but “art”. I was amazed at the color and creativity of the artists, and only managed to get away by the skin of my teeth without buying more “stuff” for walls at home that are already too full. It was great that we could take Abby on the walk with us, and we found many people walking about town with their dogs. I especially loved the Presidio, with its murals of early Arizona life on it’s interior adobe walls.

Wes and Gayle are summer residents of Rocky Point, with a lovely home next to ours, and their main home in Sahuarita. Gayle is a great cook and they both love to entertain, so we knew we were in for a treat. When we arrived, they immediately loaded us up in their SUV for a drive to Madera Canyon, near Bald Mountain, not very far south from their home. There are hiking trails and birding viewpoints along the way, and there is a special migratory parrot that only comes here from South America. We didn’t see the parrots, but there were lots off other birds enjoying the feeders at the bird viewing platform along the canyon.

Home again to a great supper and some more of the extra special Cosmopolitan’s that Gayle makes. When we were here for New Year’s in 2007 I had one and have ordered them now and then since and still never had anything as tasty as that cranberry/pomegranate/lime thing that Gayle makes. Oh yea, I think there is vodka in there as well. It was a great evening watching the roadrunner and quail in the yard, checking out Wes’s new cactus gardens and shop, and enjoying Gayle’s sparkling conversation. We saw sad evidence of the winter just past, with many of their plants permanently damaged from the bitter cold. The tiny leaves on the mesquite trees have yet to come out, but many of the palms around Tucson are brown and tattered with only a bit of green emerging from the center of the trees. This last winter broke all records, as many snowbirders can attest. The blog stories of the Arizona winter were fairly extreme this year.

On Sunday we decided to drive a circular route to Bisbee, visiting Fort Huachuca along the way and returning via Tombstone. Originally we had planned to stay at the Military Family Camp at the fort, but changed those plans when we realized how close many of the things we wanted to see were to Tucson. It seemed much smarter for us to park the rig that gets 10 mpg and drive the one that gets 30, and to stay in one place and visit the others. Even though gas here at the base is only 3.27, that is still pretty darn expensive to be running around when we really don’t need to. Besides, it’s nice to stay put a bit.

We wanted to check out the campground at Fort Huachuca, but Mo also wanted to revisit the base where she attended training as an intelligence analyst in 1985. She spent three months there during the winter and had good memories of the experience. Once on the base, she said that much of the area had changed and it was hard to find parts that were familiar to her, but the mountains were lovely, with the base against the sideslope with a gorgeous view of the desert to the northeast. We found the older part of the base with beautiful historic officers quarters, the parade ground, and the Fort Museum.

After our visit to the base, it was just a short drive beyond Sierra Vista to the winding road to Bisbee. So many folks have so many good things to say about Bisbee that I was a bit skeptical. Could it really be THAT great??! Turns out that yes, Bisbee is that great. It’s a charming mining town, with interesting people, great art, lots of things to do, good restaurants, and it is extremely dog friendly. We found the ice cream shop, wandered the main street, with many shop keepers urging us to bring Abby in with us rather than having Mo wait outside on a bench while I browsed. The people were friendly and conversational, and I enjoyed visiting with some of the shop owners. When I asked one woman how things were going, she opened up and said, “Not so great. Most of us are doing about half what we did last year, and do you notice that no one is carrying anything they have purchased? No one has a bag in hand.” She loved it, though, seemed to love her shop and her life and was ok with how things were going.

On down the road, however, the story was a bit different. We walked into a lovely little shop with amazing huge brilliant copper plates among the art. An older woman invited us in with the dog of course, and I decided that a small version of one of those copper plates would be a perfect memento of our trip to Bisbee and would look great on our newly painted walls at home. After buying the plate, I asked the owner how long she had been in Bisbee, if she liked it. Her story was haunting. She had bought the shop 8 years ago, with the idea that she could build the business, sell the shop, and return home to retire. She was from the northwest and almost cried as she told me her story. Her hair was very gray, she was at least my age, and she said she would leave today if she could. She missed the rain, she missed the water, she missed the ocean, she was trapped in a dry mining town thanks to the crashing economy, and she felt she would never be able to leave. We all have our heart home, and Bisbee wasn’t hers. I loved Bisbee, but I would miss the trees, the rain, the water, the ocean as well. My heart hurt for this woman.

As we left town, we wound our way up the steep road to check out the Queen Mine RV Park, reviewed by Laurie here and just about the only place to stay in Bisbee in an RV. I can see how much fun it would be to stay there for a bit of time, but I don’t think I want to do it in January when it can actually snow!

By the time we reached Tombstone, it was too late in the afternoon to see all the famous staged gunfights, but the town was filled to bursting with bikers and tourists, especially the Shady Lady Saloon, which is THE place to go, I hear. We didn’t try to step in there with the dog, but it looked like a pretty lively place. I know some folks love this town, but for me it was a bit too touristy to really get into it that much. Wyatt Earp was my childhood hero, and just last fall we visited Dodge City, so I thought I might like Tombstone, but just as in Dodge, most of the historic attractions are behind fences and are invisible unless you pay the fees and listen to the folks play cowboy. I think I might rather listen to some of Al’s real cowboys than do the Disneyesque thing at Tombstone. I was glad to see it, and probably don’t need to see it again.

I have several albums on Picasa of the last few days, although I certainly can’t even begin to take photos like Al did of Bisbee. Go check out his blog here if you want to really “See” Bisbee in a way that I could never do. Otherwise, you can see my view by going to my Picasa site here.

Tomorrow we will visit another long time friend south of town, and she plans to take us to Tubac, another historic town, but this one is filled with art and food. UhOh. I might be in trouble again.

From hard to soft, canyons to badlands

Wednesday was all about hard granite, steep canyons, rugged mountains and wide alluvial valleys formed on the western edge of the park in beautiful granite full of quartz, mica, and sparkling fools gold. Our extra day of exploration at Anza Borrego led us into an entirely different environment of barren dry lake beds, and badlands formed in soft sediments, riddled with complex arroyos, and washes, and sudden surprise overlooks.

The skies were clear when we left in the morning, with just a slight breeze in Borrego Springs. Even with our 9am departure, we weren’t early enough to catch the early morning shadow light and by the time we rolled onto the Clark Lake area the winds were blowing hard. Right away we found the oven Al mentioned last month and Laurie and Odel wrote about. I had just started following Laurie’s blog when she wrote about camping here and building this oven, so it was with a special fondness that I took a photo of the well known boondock site.

We continued east on Highway S22 to find Font’s Point. Even with the recent rain the wash was filled with deep sand, enough that we were glad for 4 wheel drive. We wondered about the suggestion to come here for sunset, since driving back in the dark might be a bit challenging. I think someday I might try sunrise instead. The view was worth every moment of the drive through the sandy wash. Each of the geologic formations are immediately distinguishable and I wished for a good geology book to remind me of what I had read in the park visitor center. “Hmm, bottom tier clams. Top tier mammals. Wonder if that one has the horses and camels? Miocene? Sure is lots of stuff around the west that is Miocene era formations…yadayadayada….” Mo just said, “Pretty!”

The cliffs are extremely steep and the drop offs sudden on the soft barely coherent rock. Abby was all excited, and since we were alone, we didn’t leash her up. Next time we will. She rarely unglues from Mo’s side, but for some reason the expansive views got her all excited and she kept getting way too close for my comfort.

We continued along Fonts Wash to another turn east on Short Wash looking another viewpoint ahead. The map I bought from the visitor center was excellent, and we were both impressed with the small and simple, but effective signage out there in the middle of nowhere. In just a few more miles of sand, and one major drop off that required a bit of maneuvering, we were at Vista Del Malpais. The view from here was a bit different, not quite as high, but more from a vantage point within the badlands rather than completely above them. Here again I wished for a good geology book to ferret out the details of the formations.

Another examination of the map showed our wash continuing farther east to the 17 Palms Oasis. “Wanna try for it?” “Sure, lets go” It would be an in and out trip, past the primitive campsite at Arroyo Salado, but who knows what we might find. We haven’t seen an oasis palm yet. We hadn’t read anything about this site previously, and were surprised to find that it had a great little story. It was an historic stopover for weary badland travelers, and sometimes people would leave glass jars of water sitting about since the spring wasn’t always reliable.

There was also the “Oasis Post Office”, a wooden barrel wedged between two palms, where travelers could leave communications and notes for each other, a tradition that has continued. We found the “post office”, filled with journals and notes, and three bottles of water. We added our own little note to the journal, and noted that Libya was exploding, Fukushima was radiating, and the palms were still here, safe in the desert.

We reversed our route to the highway and continued east on pavement to Salton City. Ugh. Salton City was all the ugliness of the desert that we have seen too many times. Dirty, brown, with some new housing developments of low flat ugly houses surrounded by telephone poles and wires and no vegetation. It was the worst of the desert very close to the best of the desert. We didn’t bother to go down to Salton Sea, since we knew about the smell and the dead fish lying around.

All along the route south back to highway 78 the desert looked dry and barren, with no sign of flowers anywhere. To the west of us, stretching all the way to Anza Borrego was the Ocotillo Wells recreation vehicle area. Another word for 4-wheeler heaven. I have nothing against 4 wheelers, in their place. I have used them for soil survey, I totally get it, they are indispensable for farmers and ranchers with large acreage to manage and animals to care for. Tearing up the wilderness with a vehicle is another story. I am truly grateful for places like this huge area of Ocotillo Wells for 4-wheeler folks to play and have fun with their toys. It’s great. There should be more places like this, where I can stay out of their way and they can stay out of mine. Perfect.

As we continued south and then west, I noticed on the map that we were 175 feet below sea level. Looking a bit closer I saw a fine line called “ancient beach line”. 38 feet. A bit more research led to the fact that we were in what was once the Gulf of Mexico, the Sea of Cortez, extending all the way north, creating the Imperial Valley with all it’s rich alluvial soils. Rich and fertile, but still ugly at the moment. Once west of Ocotillo Wells, however, we breached the old beach line elevation and the landscape filled with gorgeous desert, unscarred by ORV tracks, and covered with the red haze of blooming ocotillo. Anza Borrego State Park is huge. We had only tapped the northern half and very little of the mountains. What an amazing treasure this park is to the state, the country and to the world. I’m so glad the powers that be haven’t let it be destroyed or lost to temporary budget troubles.

Once home, we were fairly worn out after all the bouncing around in washes, and just settled in early for a good spaghetti supper (from home again) and a movie. We decided to dump the tanks and get ready to go for this morning’s departure so it would be quick and easy.

This morning we were up early enough to see a magnificent sunrise punctuated by rainbows over the mountains and we were on the road by 7:30, heading for Tucson. A lucky break for us, however, that we didn’t leave earlier. Just as we started around the Christmas Tree Circle, we noticed that the Farmers Market mentioned by Kelly had already begun. It was so simple to pull over and park on the circle while we walked across the lush green grass to the vendors. I had read about the 3 buck bags of grapefruit, and the farmer from just north on Borrego Springs road was happy to give us a taste of his sweetest. Of course we bought a bag, along with two kinds of hummus and some soft pitas from a Moroccan man, and some local orange blossom honey. Yay for the Farmer’s Market! On to Tucson and a new experience camping at one of the Military Family Camps at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base on the northeastern heart of the city. We have friends and family to visit in the Tucson area, so this should be a good central location, and cheap!

At the moment we are crossing wide, open, rather boring land between Yuma and Tucson, and the air is thick with smog or smoke or what they try to pass off in the West as haze. It could be dust from all the recent storms, or it could be the sad state of air quality around Phoenix, but either way, I am especially grateful for the extra time we spent in the pristine world of Anza Borrego.

Anza Borrego State Park and Coyote Canyon

As expected, I took nearly 200 photos, if you want to check them out here.

Our rig faces northeast, with an open view of the mountains past the low lying, almost invisible buildings of Borrego Springs. Watching the morning sun stream in the windows, listening to all the birds, sipping morning tea in all that desert light was delightful. The day stretched ahead, with predicted temperatures in the 70’s and clear skies until late afternoon, when a bit of wind and showers could appear.

We knew that the park was huge, with miles and miles of dirt roads, some we could manage, and others maybe not. We also knew hiking is something we love but not sure where we could go with Abby. So first stop on the agenda was the main Anza Borrego State Park Visitor Center, just a hop up the road from where we are staying here at the Holiday Borrego Mobile Home Park. After a couple of nights near freeways and truck stops, the silence and darkness of Borrego Springs makes for amazing restful sleeping. In fact, Borrego Springs is listed as one of only two “dark sky” communities, and one of the ten best places for viewing the heavens in the United States.

The visitor center is beautifully done, with interesting displays, excellent volunteers providing information about where flowers are blooming, what roads are passable, where the sheep are located, and yes, where we could walk with Abby. All park roads, dirt or paved, but no trails. I especially enjoyed the geologic maps and prehistory of the area. There is so much to see here, and after buying a hat for Mo and a tee shirt for me, (oh my, will it end up in a quilt someday? I just can’t seem to resist those gorgeous park tee shirts.), we walked around the lovely naturally landscaped grounds before embarking on our chosen journey.

Coyote Canyon seemed to be the best choice, with many flowers in bloom right now after the rains. There were several people in the center, many of whom had only two wheel drive vehicles, but with our little Tracker we thought we could manage at least some of the 4 wheel drive routes.

The road north from Borrego into the park is straightforward, that is until the prehistoric animals start to appear. I recently saw photos of these critters on another blog, but it still didn’t prepare me for the surprise. With the sponsorship of Dennis Avery, a Borrego Springs philanthropist, the Mexican artist Ricardo Arroyo Breceda has created amazingly intricate and detailed iron sculptures that appear as though they just emerged from the landscape as it was a couple of million years ago during the Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Miocene eras. We hope to explore other areas of the park where fossils of this time period have been found, but today our journey was into the granite batholiths of the San Ysidro Mountains along Coyote Creek.

When the park says 4×4, high clearance, they mean it. Although that can mean two different things. We saw sedans crawling along the sandy wash road with success, and then we saw them turn around at “first crossing”. The Tracker made quick work of that one, and on to “2nd crossing” without a hitch. Good little Tracker. We saw a few Jeeps, real ones, not the SUV kind of Jeep, with explorers heading for the deeper reaches of the canyon, but when we reached “3rd crossing”, we decided it might be prudent to check it out and walk. We wanted a good hike today anyway, and this was perfect.

	Park volunteers warned of soft sand, but it wasn’t a bit of a problem for the Tracker
	This was second crossing, still no problem for the Tracker, even though there are some good sized rocks hidden in that foot deep water
	We started walking at third crossing, where the road followed the creek, but had no real clue just what was ahead of this part

Third Crossing was a bit of a surprise, since it followed the path of Coyote Creek, quite full after the recent rains. As we walked (and Abby swam) along the road, we came upon a young man walking back checking for parts that might not be as deep as others. He had driven across, but it was up to his tail pipes and he wanted to avoid an engine cutting out. We watched him plow back through the water and thought, “Good Luck!”

Continuing on with our hike, we noticed a trail of oil running down the center of the road. UhOh. Wonder if he knows he broke something. Then as we hiked up a couple of very steep very rocky grades, we knew that 4×4 definitely means something other than even a little 4 wheel drive Tracker in some parts of this park. We hiked high enough above the Lower Willows area to look down into Collins Valley and up the wild open distance of Upper Coyote Canyon. We didn’t make it as far as the hike into Sheep Canyon or Salvador Canyon with it’s hidden palms. In fact when we looked at our excellent purchased park map, it looked as though we just barely tapped into the wild distance of Coyote Canyon. The best part about all this was the perfect hiking temperatures, and the fact that Abby could be with us, and enjoy the refreshing stream. Not often you see and hear burbling water in the desert.

Once back to the car, and driving out, we saw many more vehicles, some parked having picnics, another big rough jeepy tour thing with six folks hanging on for dear life as he dropped down into third crossing. We wondered just how it might feel for those folks bouncing around in the back of the open jeep when they started up the steep bouldery road into Collins Valley.

This park whetted our appetite for a lot more. Like many others who come here, we looked at each other and said, “This place calls for at least a month in the winter” . We want to come back and explore so much more. Before settling in to our home, we drove around some of the neighborhoods around town. There is a stillness here, even in town, that is so rare in the desert any more. It reminds me of the California desert I knew as a kid, before the sprawling thing happened to Lancaster and Palmdale and Palm Springs. The buildings are low, there are no stop lights, no big box stores, very few stores at all, although we did find the ice cream store on the way back to camp. We loved the way homes here are scattered about the desert in a pleasing manner, that feels as though they emerged naturally.

It’s much different than the overgrown trashy desert rat kind of desert that is becoming the rule rather than the exception. Looking out over the landscape here, we saw no trash, none anywhere. From the quiet dirt roads around town, the desert vistas expand all around in all directions, clean and clear and silent. It is all that I dream of when I dream of desert in winter. It’s a place to soothe the soul and quiet the spirit.

After putting together a great supper with some of that pulled pork I made before we left, we enjoyed sitting out behind our rig on the edge of the park watching the light play on the mountains. Our plans were to leave for the Tucson area Thursday morning, but that just seemed silly. “What is the rush, I said? Why don’t we stay here one more night and take some time tomorrow to go find some of the places we couldn’t see today?” Mo was up for that idea, and we went to bed with the great feeling that the next day would be relaxed and fun, and we would have time to go find all those “points of interest” that we saw on the park map.