Patagonia Lake State Park

We wanted to stay close to my mother, and found this place on the map. My sister is with her for a couple of days, and then my niece will stay for a week. At that time we will return for a few days, and then my sister and her husband Bill will be back.

It is different from other places we have stayed. It isn't an RV park where some people basically either live out the entire winter or their entire lives.

And it isn't a national park where people come for solitude and to hike, etc.

It is sort of in-between, and we sort of liked it as an in-between place, although the National Parks are our favorite.

The lake itself is kind of pitiful, frankly. It is about 2 miles long and 1/4 mile wide. There is an earthen dam along one side, and a spillway along another.

The history is interesting, and just a tad bit amusing. I think I have this right. Apparently in the 1920s a group of Arizona ranchers decided to create a lake for sailboating. That's right--sailboating in the desert. Arizona ranchers. Were there really a lot of them out here with sailboats just "itchin" to have a place to sail them? So they brought equipment and built a dam.

It might have been a good idea, though, before they started up the first bulldozer, to have had at least one of them have had some experience sailing. Because, well, they made the lake too narrow. There was no room to tack. So they sold it to the state of Arizona which made a it into a state park. One remnant of these entrepreneurial, if incompetent, spirits is the foot bridge, which was built so that sailboats could go under it. It is now as out of place as is London bridge in Havasu (one has to ask what it is about Arizonans and bridges).

One also has to wonder how many people, using this bridge, stop and ask themselves "why is this bridge so weird?"

We would characterize this place as a family campground, with all of the good and not so good that implies. The lake is stocked with trout, so it is a big area for fishing. We saw dozens and dozens of small fishing craft in and around the water, although we never saw anybody actually catching anything.



There is a big beach area marked off in the water, but not a lot of people in the water.

Instead, there were families crammed into campsites.

Across from us is a campsite with four vehicles in it, plus a big 5th wheel, four tents, and two canopies. They brought every relative within 500 miles I am sure. Maybe a few people crashed their family get together, and everybody is afraid to ask because they think they should know them.

It is a campground with children whizzing around on non-motorized scooters, smells of barbecues, and many conversations in Spanish. And lots of family laughter. A great thing the state does for it's citizens. The children are well behaved, and respectful. That's the good part.

The not so good part is the (far fewer, but nevertheless still present) sites with single young men, playing music louder, drinking into the night. In the morning we watch out our window as they disassemble their campsite, watching bare chested young men with guns stuck in their belts, swaggering around. Insecure people like them are scary. And how odd it is that the only scary people we have encountered on our road trip were in a family campground. Arizona is a strange place to allow both types of people to inhabit the same place. As nice as it is in so many ways, I would not recommend the families I know come here. That's sad.

But Arizona is odd in other ways as well, as we saw in this park. It is like it can't decide who it is or something.

Our first day there we rented a paddle boat for three hours. That is hard work, if you haven't done it lately. Now you know. But great exercise, and like so much we do on our road trip, good for getting us ready for the STP, for rehabbing my legs after three foot surgeries, and for working up appetites for the delicious meals we prepare.

The next day was hiking day. We biked two (hard) miles to a trailhead, of sorts, which was actually a horse corral. The hike was in a preserve next to the lake called Sonoita Creek State Natural Area. This place also shows some oddities of the state of Arizona. To hike here, one had to obtain a pass, and only 30 are given each day. According to the park rangers, usually not that many are requested.

From what we were told when we inquired about it, this is done so people can have a better hiking experience, and not feel overcrowded. And the trails were wonderful, and well marked. Many more miles of them than we could possibly do. So what is the weirdness issue here? Cattle. There were cattle all over the place, eating the sparse natural vegetation, and leaving so much cow dung that some places were just plain gross.

We asked why they were so careful about people but were allowing cattle to ruin this wonderful place. The answer was, in essence, "Arizona.". Apparently in Arizona you are responsible for keeping cattle off of your place--cattle owners are not responsible for where they go. If that doesn't sound like some old west stupid macho thing. Because of cut backs park rangers can't be hired to patrol the park. So it is getting destroyed.

This explains another Arizona weirdness--cattle guards. We frequently hiked or biked over cattle guards only to discover that there were cattle on both sides, roaming freely through downed fences. But there are those cattle guards by gum.

Instead of making taxpayers pay for monitoring herds of cattle why aren't ranchers responsible? It is silly. If you are reading this, imagine tomorrow morning watching out your window as a steer is eating your garden, only to learn that you were responsible for putting up barbed wire (and a cattle guard on your driveway)

At first the hike took us over a different type of desert than we have experienced before. We have learned what many other people have known forever--there is no single southwest "desert.". Instead, there are perhaps hundreds, all with different types of geographies, climates, plants, and animals. That makes every place we had gone exciting and new. We are gradually, very gradually, learning about the trees and plants of the southwest.

Then we descended to Sonoita creek, which was dry this time of year, but very interesting to walk along. We then ascended to fields covered with California poppies, which were blooming their little hearts out, before returning along a level trail made from an old rail road line.


Earlier in the hike we had spotted a concrete structure seemingly stuck out into nowhere, and realized on the way back that it aligned with the rail road trail, and was all that was left of an old bridge. We learned later the railroad stopped running in the 1920s when it got washed out in the area that is now under Patagonia lake.

The history is interesting. The New Mexico and Arizona railroad was more like a spur serving a few communities, bringing cattle to market. It is too bad they didn't get all of them instead of leaving a few to breed and ruin this beautiful park.

It is obvious that I am not done talking about this. Where are the conservation folks around here? Why aren't they making more noises? It seems so odd to set aside such a terrific place and then to just allow it to be ruined. Ok. It's out of my system now. I'll stop. Besides, I gotta run and chase a cow I just now spotted in my begonia garden.

That evening set up our lawn chairs by the water, and just watched the fishermen and families. It was very nice.

That's when it dawned on me that I was probably a failure as a man because we had bought a new Ford F250 pickup, and I had never even once looked at the engine! Can you imagine my disgrace? So after much searching I found the hood latch and determined that, yes, it had a engine. I slept better that night.

The next day we took a muscle building bike ride--not much distance but very hilly. We rode past some homes in the area outside the park. Clearly folks with money as they had a lot of acreage and views of miles of they desert. Some seemed built almost like castles, or perhaps Spanish missions like the Alamo. Don't they sort of remind you of that?

That evening took a guided tour of the lake and of the large variety of waterfowl on a pontoon boat. It was led by some park volunteers. (park volunteers is something we have experienced everywhere. I'll say more about it later, but it's about the best idea anyone has come up with for public areas that we have seen).

That night it was a bit noisy, but not bad. We did have sort of a problem of people cutting through our campsite, as it was on the route to a large area of the campground. We solved that with a strategic placement of our bikes, of our picnic table, and of our bench. (actually it was not really "our" bench, but instead was one that had been, as Vicky noted, strategically placed so people could get a nice relaxing view of the bathrooms. We thought we could make better use of it than than that).

Doesn't that just sound so old person of us? "You people stay out of our camping spot, you hear!"

We had a good time there, and it was good to spend it at a place where there were so many families enjoying themselves. I thought back to the many times my family enjoyed the outdoors, usually picnics and trips up the Big Thompson canyon and vacations, and also with my children to Door County and Cape Cod. My father said several times in the days before his death about how right he thought it was what Vicky and I were doing. And I damned well am going to enjoy these brief years when we can do this kind of thing.

Tomorrow we head off to a National Park. It will be quite different from this place. In going through my fathers things a few days ago I found his Golden Eagle pass. It was so worn you could hardly make out the writing on it. He and mom used it a lot. Good.