Thursday Dec 29, 2022 - Anza Borrego Desert State Park

 

Other than the coyotes early this morning we slept soundly. The other campers here are all quiet. It is overcast but warm so we decided to hike up Palm Canyon to see the California Palm Trees which is about 3 miles round trip. Not too many others hiking but enough for a few nice conversations. A couple from San Diego gave us tips on other places to hike to in the park and also told us that the palm trees were burned in January 2020 by an arsonist. The palms have recovered but they are not currently letting people wander around underneath them. We made it as far as they let you go and then took the alternate route back which wasn't well marked, but we just followed whatever wash went downhill and ended up back at the trailhead. We had a long chat with a retired couple from Indiana who travel a lot in their 30’ camper. They stay at a lot of free site like Kofa where we stayed the previous night, and were here for a while in a dispersed camping section near Anza Borrego.

We were also treated to 6 or more Peninsular Bighorn Sheep which live in the hills and are on the endangered species list. They have no fear of people so they were just wandering around (maybe that’s why they're endangered?).

Then back to the van for a lite lunch and some reading. Deb heard of another short hike through a slot canyon so we drove about 20 miles away and found the trailhead. It was definitely a slot canyon with parts that you had to slip sideways through. The rock is really hard packed sand but softer than sandstone and all a mud grey color. 

Then back to Borrego Springs (the town where old movie stars used to go to escape their fans) and had a drink and dinner at the bar in Carlee’s. Two guys with a keyboard and saxophone were belting out the oldies while we took in the locals and tourists (us included) while eating at the bar. Love these local crowds.

Back to the camp site, hot showers, another Louis Penny show and then bed.

Wednesday Dec 28 2022 - Kofa National Wildlife Refuge to Anza Borrego Desert State Park

 

When we pulled the shade this morning we were once again blown away at how beautiful the place is. And it feels as though we have it all to ourselves since there are a few other boondockers here but they are pretty far away. Carmen was spot on and we will have to start watching for more of these boondocking places.

Cereal for breakfast, coffee, tea, a couple more pics and then rumble back down the 6 or 7 miles to Rt 95. It rained last night off and on but the gravel road is solid and not as dusty. Some of these forest service roads change from dust to slimy glue when it rains. And it did not rain much but enough to clear the air of dust and make things bright and new.

We saw a Vermont plate a half mile away last night but he/she was gone this morning. Hang a left on 95 and an hour to Yuma passing through more Kofa roads and also the Yuma military proving grounds (just more desert with warning signs). In Yuma we stopped for coffee and WiFi then west on I-8 across the Imperial Desert which is a giant sand dune. Back before interstates and paved roads they laid boards down so those old cars could drive across the sand. The good old days.

Then north past the Salton Sea (where they hope to get all the lithium for electric cars?) and north west to the park. We arrived half an hour before official check in and were told to come back in a half hour. They run a tight ship here in California.

Not as nice as Kofa (no place has been yet) but a nice desert park hugged right up against the mountains. The park is full but there is plenty of elbow room. Each site has a ramada to get out of the sun but no shade for the vehicle, but it was cool and partly cloudy so no problems there. If you camp out here in the summer, you need air conditioning. Most sites do not have electricity but we did see a section of the park with power and water where the big rigs are. 

Quick hike to the other side of the campground, from where we'll hike tomorrow back into Borrego Palm Canyon, where we hiked with the kids many years ago.

We finished up Deb N’s soup for supper (thanks Deb), watched a Louise Penny show, and then read. Quiet night except the coyotes yipping early in the AM.

Day 19 - odo = 3383

Tuesday Dec 27, 2022 - Wickenburg AZ to Kofa National Wildlife Refuge

 

The Aztec Village RV Resort was kind of a dump. It did have laundry and showers and it was a 20 minute walk from downtown but it was basically a trailer park. Nice enough folks but D- in ambiance. Both bathroom doors had combo locks that worked some of the time so you better not be in a hurry. Come back in an hour and the door would open (too late).

We walked under the bridge (nice riverfront walk) across the street to Micky D’s for WiFi and coffee, topped off our water (pretty good tasting potable water) and then we were on the road to our end destination, Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. The road was a pretty easy 2 laner (Rt 60) with a few trucks so kind of a main road but everyone was relaxed. The desert here is different somehow, a little more sparse on vegetation, but all the usual suspects are here, Saguaro (sparse but represented), Teddy Bear Cholla, Ironwood trees, and Palm trees which we do not have in Bisbee (not native anyway).

Quartzite is talked about a lot among our RV friends and now we get it. There may be some houses somewhere but it looks like RV resort after RV resort taking up the whole town. Razor 4 wheelers buzzing around all the streets, gas stations, restaurants, Canadian flags. We say the movie Nomadland which shows the remote camping on BLM land and we did not see it in “downtown” Quartzite, but we soon found the vast areas where you can just drive around the washes and park anywhere, up to 14 days for free. 

But we are staying 30 miles south on Rt 95 where Kofa is. Kofa National Wildlife Refuge is much more remote and our friend Carmen gave us the road that she likes to camp on. We found Palm Canyon Road, which is a good gravel road (2WD ok) and drove to within 2 miles from the end and found a nice spot with amazing views. There were maybe a dozen other people doing the same thing and last night I could see their lights in their rigs off in the distance. So no neighbors. It was warm and windy when we got here but the wind died down at dusk and it was very pleasant sitting outside.

We walked the 2 miles up the canyon and there is a ½ mile hike up to see the native palms (last count there were 42 of them) so they are rare. We forgot water so I bailed on the last 1/2 mile but Deb did the hike all the way in and back.

Started to rain a bit tonight as we sat snug watching a Louise Penny show. Stunningly beautiful spot.

Day 18 - odo = 3173

Monday Dec 26, 2022 - Lost Dutchman State Park to Wickenburg AZ

 

Another good night's sleep so I got up late. Coffee then Carmen and Pam came down to our site to check out the digs and also the mattress (Pam & Katie are looking to upgrade). Back up to Carmen's site (center of party universe) and Carmen had red chili tamales on the stove that she bought in Bisbee. Pam & Katie were pretty much packed up so we all helped Carmen pack up her “party pack”. She has a big Chevy truck and a toy hauler so she has lots of room for all the camping gadgets. We hooked up her trailer and said our goodbyes. Katie has to work tomorrow and Carmen was planning on some more camping at Picacho Peak State Park if they had sites available. Deb & I headed to Wickenburg to try out an RV Park (something new). We drove back through Phoenix traffic that was not too bad since today is still a holiday for many. We got to Wickenburg around 3:00 and checked in at the RV Park where a very nice lady checked us in. The park lacks ambiance but it is close enough to the historic old town to walk. I think these places are a combo of year round trailers that “snow birds” keep down here, and folks who split the year between north and south (snow birds). She also said this time of year there are a lot of cowboys/girls who come for roping competitions and their families make the annual pilgrimage.

We walked into town and it is definitely loaded with cow people. We visited the Desert Caballeros Western Museum for the last couple hours and what a great museum. Wickenburg started as a gold mining town around 1860 something and after the ore pinched out the model T’s were starting to come through (this was the only road to California at that time) so they started “Dude Ranches” and it was the dude ranch capital for awhile before morphing into a tourist town. Somewhere along the way it became the roping capital of America. Lots of ranch history here.

The museum has the usual mining stuff, Barry Goldwater’s photographs (nice ones) some Russell and Remington sculptures and paintings, old barbed wire of course, and a lot of more modern artists' work. All in all a very nice museum.

We walked across the street to the Bar Seven restaurant which was full of folks with cowboy hats (probably the roping folks). Salad bar and some chowder. We found the Circle K and bought some laundry detergent and went back to the RV park, put our dirty clothes together and used the high-tech app driven laundry machines. You download an app and point it at the machine you want to use and it runs the machine and takes the money ($2 wash, $1.75 dry). No coins. And they give you $5 credit when you download the app. Send you a text when your laundry is done. Wow. Wickenburg is high tech.

Watched some more Jack Ryan (saving the US from bad Russian guys). Then bed.

Sunday Dec 25, 2022 - Lost Dutchman State Park

 

It was in the 50’s when we got up this morning. Showers (really hot water), then walked up to Carmen’s site where they were already putting together breakfast burritos. Eggs, ham, veggies, Mexican pastries, cranberry bread, empanadas, and Danielle's fruit cake. Then to work off the delicious food we hiked 4 miles or so to find the Lost Dutchman's gold (like millions of others). Lots of people out today with parents, kids and dogs. 

Some mountain bikers, a couple of runners. Lots of happy people with lots of “Merry Christmas” exchanges. After the hike we had a champagne toast for Christmas, a late lunch, and then afternoon naps. Tonight we got together and nobody was really hungry so we played a game around the campfire until we decided to pack it in for the night. Deb & I watched another Jack Ryan show and then collapsed. It started a little cloudy but then clear blue sky the rest of the day, high in the 70’s. We got some good photos today. Tomorrow we think we are going to Wickenburg, but stay tuned. Day 16 (odo = 2944 didn’t go anywhere today)

Saturday Dec 24, 2022 - Dead Horse Ranch State Park to Lost Dutchman State Park

We only had a short way to go today to meet our friends Carmen, Pam, and Katie down at Lost Dutchman State Park so we took our time packing up. Pretty easy in a van since everything is already in here. Just tie all the loose stuff down and hit the starter. Dead Horse is an unusual place since you can walk 1.5 miles into town. Kind of nice. We refilled the water tank and stopped at the dump station on the way out, then stopped at Wally World to replace the collapsible sink without a stopper and pick up a few groceries. Finally we stopped for coffee and WiFi at Micky D’s. We left town as we arrived via the million rotaries spaced every mile or so in the middle of nowhere. Then it was 2-3 hours back into the 7 lane Phoenix traffic. Lost Dutchman State Park is 45 minutes from Phoenix but you have to go right through the middle of Phoenix and then east. 

Beautiful clear sunny day (again). We arrived at 2:05, 5 minutes after check
in time, and the nice park ranger said their computer wasn't working, so to just go on in. This place is fully booked. When Pam & Katie called us a couple weeks ago to invite us, there was only one spot left for 2 consecutive nights, site 10. The view from our site and most of the sites is beautiful, looking out at the Superstition Mountains. Carmen was already set up and Pam & Katie pulled in 30 minutes later. We had cocktails at 4 and dinner at 5, and a fire until 7 or 8. Nice to catch up with Katie & Pam who moved (temporarily) to Prescott a couple months ago. We had a fun Yankee swap around the fire then off to bed. Crawling into bed in the van is always a high point and it’s Christmas Eve too! Hope Santa doesn’t scratch the roof up tonight!!

Day 15 - Odo = 2944

 

Friday Dec 23, 2022 - Jerome State Historic Park / Douglas Mansion

 

We seem to get way more than 8 hours of sleep in this van. Nice and toasty, comfy bed. What I am getting to is we didn’t get our butts out of bed and on the road until mid morning. Cottonwood has the old downtown but if you go the other way you go through strip mall Cottonwood, which we did this morning. First stop was Home Depot to get something to hang the National Park shade with (already changed the idea this morning, but I bought a couple of needed clamps for the shop back home out of it) and some AAA batteries for Deb’s reading light.

Next stop Micky D’s for coffee and free WiFi to upload the blog. Next stop was Walmart to get a collapsing wash tub (with no @#$% plug in it), and some groceries. Finally we headed back up the twisty narrow road again to Jerome to go to the Jerome State Historic Park housed in the Douglas Mansion. We had someone tell us to make sure and see the 30 minute movie they have playing there, and they were right, it is great. Jerome struck copper a little before Bisbee and went through the same boom cycle and rough and ready times as Bisbee, except they did it on a steep side hill that kept sliding down the hill what with all the dynamiting going on. A big focus of their history is how many fires and slides they had over the years. It is a crazy steep side hill the town was built on. We were getting confused about the James Douglas connection here, as James Douglas was one of the founder men in Bisbee and who they named our adjacent town after. Turns out it was our James Douglas’ son James, brother to Walter Douglas who ran the Bisbee mine in later years.

Jerome had the same history as Bisbee in many respects. They ran out of room up on the hill so they moved the smelter down the hill to Clarkdale and built a narrow gauge railroad to haul the oar, just like Bisbee and Douglas. The rounded up 60 pro union sympathizers in the first week of July in 1917, Bisbee rounded up 1100 union sympathizers the second week of July 1917. Maybe the two Douglas brothers, Walter and James Jr, were talking? They both put them in box cars and dropped them off in the desert far away.

The other cool thing they did in this museum was to create a 3 dimensional model of the town that showed all the shafts, tunnels and ore bodies underneath. Bisbee should make one of those!

Turns out James Jr built this huge mansion perched on a knob with a to die for view and only lived there a very short time. He wrote a letter complaining about how it was way too big for just him to live in and there was too much air pollution (of course, from his mining operation).

The town was hopping with tourists. I think Jerome draws a lot more tourists than Bisbee. They added a big free parking lot up past the town with a shuttle bus, which is smart, since the town’s narrow twisty streets (street) does not lend itself to easy parking. We had a late lunch/early dinner at the Haunted Hamburger Restaurant, then back in the van and back to the campground. Late snacky dinner, watched some Jack Ryan shows, followed by reading (Treasure Island!!) and sleep. Another great day in Sally Ann. 

Odometer 2799 - Day 14

Thursday Dec 22, 2022 - Dead Horse Ranch - Jerome - Clarkdale - Cottonwood

Slept like logs last night. A bit nippy this morning (30 deg F) but the little heater did its job. We hiked into Cottonwood on not so well marked trails, stopping at the ranger station/visitor center on the way. Crossed the bridge to get over the Verde River, which had a nice bunch of water flowing through it, too wide to jump over, then cut back under the bridge and walked into the downtown Cottonwood streets. Cottonwood is where a lot of the mining folks lived when the mine was really going. Clarkdale is another few miles up the hill and was a planned community in 1912 and was also where the smelter was located. Jerome is another 4 miles up the hill and it is where the ore was dug out of the ground. I’ll double check all this tomorrow when we go to the museum in Jerome. I work at the Bisbee museum and I am spying on other mining town museums.

We had breakfast at Old Town Cafe which is a small diner kind of place (coffee, eggs, toast, more coffee kind of place). An older gentleman (88 years old) sat next to us and he was just getting coffee and a pastry while he waited for the jeweler to open next door (his wife’s Christmas present). Wonderful guy, worked his career in the State Department as a physician mostly for the Secretaries of State, but also traveled with Jimmy Carter when he was president. Lovely man with lots of stories from around the world. You never know about that man or woman sitting at the next table…

We walked through town, stopping in all of the stores, and then back to the campground. In the afternoon we decided to drive the van up to Jerome to prospect for the next day’s activities. We stopped at Tuzigoot National Monument where Native Americans lived between 1000 and 1400 ish. During the depression the government hired a bunch of folks to excavate it with a couple of science guys.

We then drove up to Clarkdale and finally up to Jerome. We had been to Jerome 5 or 6 years ago and remembered where we stayed and where we had dinner. Jerome is a small town with a lot of tourists (good for them). Clarkdale is kind of run down but there are new housing developments going in all over. Cottonwood is a tourist town and has a big commercial strip (Walmart, Home Depot, etc) and again, lots of new housing going in. Jerome is kind of old and beat up but they are really working the tourist thing.

We stopped at the Smelter Town Brewery in Clarkdale for a couple of drinks and an appetizer, then back down the hill to Cottonwood and had dinner at The Tavern for two nice big salads. Then back to the campground, showers and maybe a Jack Ryan episode later tonight.

Day 13

Wednesday Dec 21, 2022 - Bisbee to Dead Horse Ranch State Park

 

It’s about 5 hours to Dead Horse so we were kind of leisurely putting everything together. Remember you can buy anything you forget. This will be about two weeks so it’s the first longish time out in Sally Ann. Seven days worth of socks and underwear, etc, empty the house fridge and put it in the van fridge (minus all that moldy stuff in the back). Passports (we hope to go to Mexico to see Jake and Nath), electronic thingies (chargers, cables), etc, etc. Pile it all up in the driveway and then pull the van up and heave it all in the side door. We put everything away in the van, nice and neat. Deb broke the handle off one of the antique water spigots so I turned the water main off (in case it is open, gotta fix that when I get back).

One more trip downtown to get the mail, drop off some books, stop at Dave’s to drop off some books and north on Rt 80. Detour (so some reason) west to Mustang Corners and north to I-80. The cruise control to a Jersey Mikes on the other side of Tucson for a sub lunch. More cruise control through Phoenix and then Rt 17 all the way north to Dead Horse Ranch. Once we left traffic in Phoenix we climbed to a high plateau. I never get sick of the mountains seemingly always on the horizon. We passed the pie place in Rock Springs and then over the divide and down into the Cottonwood basin where Dead Horse Ranch is. Deb reserved site 92 which she was told was the best. We will be here for three nights. Nice bathrooms with showers and a  place to wash dishes. Bought some fire wood ($8) from the campground host (Santa looking guy with a little dog, splits his time between here and Colorado). Tomorrow we figure out how to walk into Cottonwood (Santa says it’s 5 miles, Deb’s friend says it’s 1.5??). Grilled cheese and leftover

soup for supper. Nice and toasty tonight with the Wabasco heater.

Odometer this morning = 2411, tonight = 2738 = 327 miles today.

Day 12