Tuesday Jan 31, 2023 - Organ Pipe to Ajo to Organ Pipe

 

Kind of a rainy day off and on. First order of business of course is breakfast. Deb V’s famous steel cut oatmeal. We have an instapot mini that is perfect for the 2000 watts inverter in our van. We cooked it in our van and then took it to Deb and Dave’s Party Palace. Since it is drippy today, it's the perfect day to go to Ajo. All 7 of us (5 people and 2 dogs) piled into Dave’s truck and drove north on RT 85 to Ajo. Deb V & Milo came here in October for a quick trip but the other guys had not. Ajo is another copper mining town. The town was a from scratch built town, so it is in a fan shape with a nice town square. It was created in 1916 but I think the mining started before that. Nice coffee shop, visitor center and gift shop (Bisbee take notice) and a few art galleries. Like Bisbee, the mine closed and the hippies moved in, but 10 years later than Bisbee (1985).

We found a NAPA store so Dave could get some jumper cables to give the camper a boost. With little sun and our using their camper all the time the batteries were getting a little low. There are no powered sites at Organ Pipe so you are on your own for power.

We then found some lunch on the square, quesadillas after seeing all the other patrons’ yummy quesadillas going by. Good place!

Next stop was the Ajo Pit to see if their pit is bigger than our pit.  Ajo wins hands down for having the bigger pit. We stopped to see the nice woman who runs the pit overlook visitor’s center and gift shop. She is no nonsense in giving her presentation and she and a man from Montana were going head to head on who was going to talk first. She won. Her husband worked at the mine and he used to run the outlook center until his death. So she runs it now and has a script you do not want to interrupt. She also makes and sells her tasty prickly pear jam in the gift shop.

Next stop was the other museum, not far from the overlook center. No charge since it is an entirely volunteer run setup. Looks like they collected anything old laying around town and organized it into themes. Actually very informative.

Ajo’s population peaked in the 1960’s between the mine and the Air Force training base here. They trained fighter pilots during WW2 and there was some activity here after.

So back in the truck (with the dogs) and south back home to Organ pipe.

Carmen made beef stew for us all, Dave jumped the battery, and we all had a fun evening. In bed by 8 or 9. This camping business wears us out.

Day 27