Disclaimer

When traveling I have to use an "app" to do the blog--called blogpress. It is a crummy program, time-consuming, erratic.

One place where the program really fails is in uploading photos. The images are seriously degraded. They all look much better than they look on the blog. When I can use my computer for the blog, I can insert photos that look much better.

Just wanted you to know that I realize the photos aren't very good.

Snow!

We spent the last three nights at Bogs Springs Campgrounds, in Madera Canyon. It is a National Park, part of the Coronado National Park.

We loved it there, even though the weather would not be to everyone's liking.

There are only 13 camping spots there, small by RV standards, which is fine with us. We arrived as people were leaving after the weekend, so got the primo spot. I won't say which one it was because we will want to go back and we don't want anyone else to have it. We are not nice people.

And we hiked to snow!

I think that the nights we were there we were one of only two campers in the campgrounds. We don't really understand this. All of those RVs in those RV campgrounds we have seen at Quartsite and Palmer Lake could be here instead?

The downside, I am sure, is that there are no "hookups" here--pit toilets, and no electricity. There is, however, water, and delicious water fed by springs from high up in the mountains. Springs we hiked to, in fact. Wonderful hikes, hard hikes, rewarding hikes. We loved it.

There is also the potential for it being cold. When we got up in the morning on our last day, it was 35 degrees, IN THE CAMPER. Boy were we ever glad we had a working furnace in our camper. Brrrrrr.

What is different about the desert, in contrast to home, is that after a cold and rainy night, the next day is sunny and bright! And we so we could get out doors.

It was quiet all of the time. In the mountains of Arizona, quiet, peaceful. One night the wind blew so hard that we felt like the entire pickup and camper were completely lifted off of the ground. It blew and blew all night, raining lightly but hard a lot of the night too.

It was such a contrast from our previous stay, and a welcome one at that, even though, for the most part, we enjoyed our previous place.

But this was a National Park, and the National Parks are really our place. We can't shower at them, there is no electricity or flush toilets, or vending machines. But there is quiet, and solitude, and beauty, and ways to not just look at the beauty, but also to touch it--to walk in it and mostly to hike in it.

I read once where the average tourist spends 20 minutes at the Grand Canyon. Drive to the lookout, take a few pictures, and leave. In 1997 my sister, brother-in-law Bill, and I did a 7 day raft trip down the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon. THAT'S the way to see the Grand Canyon--touch it, and really experience it.

Oh, I need to mention. My mother went with us. My 75 year old mother went with us, and had a ball. If she still could, she would be with us on this road trip, experiencing all that we are. She was more game on the Grand Canyon trip than were a lot of the college kids in our merry group. A number of the men remarked how envious they were of me, as they said they could never get their even younger wives to accompany them. My mother did the hikes, jumped into the Colorado River, and slept in the sand with the rest of us.

I was, and still am, so proud of her.

That is the way to experience America, and the outdoors. Touch it.

We did two hikes here. One was to Kent Springs, and the other was to Dutch John springs. Together they were 8+ miles, not a lot of distance. But the elevation gain was monstrous. Both were essentially walking up the entire time,

I hope the photos do justice to the park and to our hikes.

Our campsite:

The view out our "dining room" window:

Wild turkeys we ran across on one of our hikes:

Photos of our climbs:

Kent Springs. Our destination for our first day's hike. Were we ever glad to get there so we could begin our descent.

See the snow?

Soaking my foot. A ritual after hkes.

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.

My father's death

My father died 2/17/2012. Less than two days after we left to go to Organ Pipe National Monument.

We would have spent four days in Mesa if our old truck hadn't broken down. Because it did, we spent 12. I saw him every day except one, when Vicky and my mom were both ill from the flu.

I'm so glad the truck chose to break down when it did. I guess you never know.

Here is his obituary.

Tomorrow we leave for our next stop. We have people coming in stages to take care of my mother. We'll be back in 3 weeks.

I had a real Dad. He always showed up for me, and for all of us. I am a fortunate man. I loved him.

How many people, when they are 90, hear someone say, the day before they die "I love you. Goodnight sweetie?"

Canal riders

Near the end of our time in Mesa it was necessary to drop our pickup off at the dealer. They installed overload springs on one of the days, and an anti-sway bar on the other.

We needed something fun to do for those two days while the work was being done. I had read about the canals in the Phoenix area, and it appeared that it might be fun to explore them. From what I read there were walkways along some of them, and people could ride their bikes on those walkways.

So we headed off in the general direction of where I thought we could pick up one of the canals. We rode on sidewalks instead of in the streets, though, because I wasn't confident about whether drivers in this city see enough bike riders that they would routinely watch out for them. We saw very few riders while we were here, even though many of the streets have great bike lanes. Perhaps the weather isn't conducive for a bike riding culture.

Having said that, though, we found the drivers to very considerate when they did come across us.

We finally located one of the canals and had a nice ride along a paved surface for about 5 miles. Then it turned weird. The surface became dirt, and went to an industrial area that had a homeless person living nearby in a makeshift structure. There was also no water in the canal.

Continuing in a differen direction at this point meant navigating some strange bridges:

And then we hit a place that was impassable--the Mesa Country Club, where they had conveniently erected a huge fence to prevent canal riders from crossing their golf course. Sheesh.

We appreciated the fact that some government entity had provided the paved parts. However, even at their best, they could not be useful because they crossed very busy streets. They would not be very usable by families, the elderly, or the handicapped.

Perhaps we are spoiled by the Burke-Gilman trail in Seattle which winds it's way through cites and countryside for 40 miles or more, with safe crossings and consistently well maintained trails.

It was a fun two days, though, and now we can officially say that we are canal riders. Can you say that?

Getting in shape for the STP at Usery Mountain

We had planned to spend a few days in Mesa visiting my parents and staying at Usery Mountain Regional Park. But the old Ford giving out changed all of that. Ended up spending 12 days there instead, waiting for parts to arrive and be installed that would improve the suspension and handling of our new pickup.

We made the best of it, visiting my parents almost every afternoon, and taking long bike rides in the morning. The rides went through a bit of the edge of Mesa, but mostly were through the country, allowing some beautiful sights. For the last two days we rode in town, on canals. I can't load photos of those rides yet, so will add another blog entry in a few days when we have a wifi signal to describe them.

We really enjoyed this time. We now have almost 300 miles of biking under our belts, a great start on getting in shape for the STP--the 200 mile ride in July from Seattle to Portland that Vicky, my son Jules, and I will do in July. My sort-of goal was to have done 500 miles by April first, the ending date of our road trip, so that the next thousand miles that will be needed to train for the STP would easier.

Because we couldn't plan ahead we had to move to a different campsite every night.

That's Vicky on my favorite part of the ride. It almost looks like a painting. It is so beautiful.

As mentioned, because we couldn't make plans in advance, we had to move where we camped each night. That was sort of a pain. Every night we had to learn a new route to the bathroom.

But the sites were nice.

I don't know how she does it, but Vicky can toodle along on her bike and still be very observant. One day she spotted an owl, asleep in a tree. I was doing more mundane things like watching for cars and stuff.

Sometimes we couldn't get a place in the campgrounds, so we had to stay in the overflow lot. This was not a lot of fun because of all of the generators that were running. Plus there were bright light posts so we felt like we were sleeping during the daytime. But it was cheap, and we had no real alternatives.

We learned after the first time we did this that the best spot was at the edge, so that's the spot we grabbed when we could. Don't we look sort of pitiful next to all of the RVZillas? It looks like we are hiding over at the edge hoping the big boys will ignore us and not pick on us.

A nice shot by Vicky out of our back window one morning.

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On one of evenings we went to a dance. It was fun to get back on the floor, although the music wasn't exactly our type (it was sort of Lawrence Welky--aren't we snobs?). I'm such a good dancer that I can do it with my eyes closed.

Oil everywhere--goodby to the old pickup

The pickup all but died.

I thought it wise to get an oil change, so stopped into a Jiffy Lube to get one. This is a plug for Jiffy Lube, because the guy looked everything over and said he wouldn't do it--there was oil in the antifreeze. This meant a big problem or a bigger problem, and he was sure that I would be wasting my money to even get an oil change.

So, bummed beyond belief, the next morning we scheduled an appointment at a Ford dealership only to learn that we needed $1000 in repairs--just for that problem. But then there was the oil all over the underside of the engine and that was dripping in other places that was of even more concern.



So, what do we do? Fix that problem, only to find another one, and get nickle and dimed to death with breakdown after breakdown? Do we spend this $1000, then have the transmission or something go out and basically have a pickup with no trade-in value at all?

We had talked about what we would do if this happened, because with 190,000 miles on it its days were numbered, and it was a likely possibility.

So do we patch it up, and cross our fingers that we could get back home with it? And then get another truck over the summer if we want to do this again next year? Do we get a new pickup now, and then be able to enjoy our next two months free of worry, and free of throwing away good money?

Another piece is that the old truck was very hard to drive. The handling was terrible--it was not set up for hauling a heavy camper (and it is a heavy camper, being an old one that is made with a lot of wood). It needed new shocks and springs. It rolled on curves, necessitating slowing on them which irritated a lot of drivers behind me (I am getting a little tired of getting one fingered salutes). We pulled over frequently to allow people to pass us--we tried to be cooperative in that way--but sometimes we couldn't. We slowed to almost 30 mph on mountain passes, and in fact drove out of our way to get around these passes instead of having to go over them whenever we could. And we weren't even attempting the high mountain passes. I actually dreaded the drives, and usually I enjoy driving.

In short, the old pickup was an old pickup, doing the best it could, but it was not enough. It allowed us to learn something very important though, and we'll always have a warm spot in our hearts for it because of that.

What we learned is that this is the life we want. We love the freedom and the excitement of being in new places. We love the parks where we can be almost by ourselves for days at a time, just hiking and looking at nature's beauty. We love biking in different places, on different roads. We love our camper, and living in that tight space, with no company except each other. We love making delicious meals together after long hikes.

We aren't the only ones--there is a whole world of RV campers out there who do much the same thing. Mostly couples we notice. Many confine themselves to RV parks, but a lot do what we are doing--actually traveling. Virtually all we have seen have larger and more complete campers than ours, but that suits them and our simple one suits us.

So we bought a low-end new Ford F250. Didn't get 4 wheel drive and didn't get diesel. Didn't get the high end packages. We're having stabilizer bars and extra powerful springs added by an RV place, plus improved tie downs to hold the camper on the bed.



It's not really a pickup that we are buying, though. Instead, it is a commitment we are making to this type of lifestyle. We will spend about half of each year traveling like this, with the remaining time being at home on Whidbey Island during the summer and fall when it is so beautiful there. This pickup also has the type of backseat for being able to haul grandchildren up to the mountains to camp. We did some of that, on a minor scale, with Ian and Adam this summer and it was a lot of fun.

I mentioned this morning to Vicky that I am having an unusual reaction to this purchase. It will cost us more than I've ever spent on a vehicle, yet I am not very excited about the vehicle itself. Usually a new car is a period of total excitement for me--the new smell, the new driving experience, etc. But what is on my mind this morning is not all of that, but it is the next place we will go with it--which is the Gila National Forest in New Mexico.

We will be in Mesa for a few more days, staying at a County Park and doing lots of bike riding. The parts that are needed for beefing up the suspension because of the camper won't be in for awhile, so we'll just stay here until they can be installed.


We hadn't planned on being in Mesa for so many days, but we also hadn't planned on our old pickup giving up on us. We were hoping to make it last long enough that we could get a few years from it, but as it was, it gave us what we needed--the knowledge that we will be living in this way for several years.

________________________

A couple of shout-outs. We got the new pickup at Berge Ford in Mesa. I did a lot of (quick) comparison shopping on the internet, and determined that the price they offered us was quite fair. The trade-in was also quite fair.

Our salesperson was Mel Palmer. He was informative and helpful. We needed several after-market parts installed, and Shawn Yates helped us with this. It was complicated because we arrived there with a camper on our old pickup. The camper needed to be switched, new tie-downs installed, things moved. Not your typical situation, but both men handled everything with calmness and assurance.

At the very end, as we were moving stuff from our old pickup to the new one I had a realization--what are we going to do with the tailgate? I found it quite amusing that I had not considered this.

So I asked Mel if it could be stored there. He didn't know of a place, but said he would put it into his garage for the month we will be traveling (we're coming back to Mesa on our way home).

OK. Not the biggest deal in the world, but still an awfully nice offer. Now we don't have to haul it out of the camper every night for the next month. And he had already made the sale when he made this offer. So that's where it is now--in his garage.

Anyway, we have been very happy with the service we received at Berge Ford and from the two salespersons who helped us.

So much for the King of Arizona

We had so been looking forward to getting away from civilization and camping like we did at Joshua Tree and the Mojave Preserve.

We read on line that one could camp in the King of Arizona Preserve, dry camp. Apparently there are a lot of Bighorn Sheep there, which sounded exciting. It was just right--about half way to Mesa where we planned to be in two days.

So we traveled south through a town named Weirdest-Place-on-The-Planet, Arizona and saw the weirdest sights on the planet.

Actually, the name of the town was not Weirdest-Place-on-The-Planet, Arizona. It was called Quartzsite. We thought it should be called "RVTown." There were more RV places than I could possibly imagine. I had no idea that there were that many RVs in the entire country, or maybe everybody with an RV had just gathered there today and nobody told us because they already knew we were driving through.

Outside of Weirdest-Place-on-The-Planet, Arizona there were miles of open dusty fields with hundreds and hundreds of RVs parked in them. We took some photos, but they don't really do the phenomenon justice. They went on forever--acres and acres.

It looks like they are all there for the winter, snowbirds from another world. In many of them it was clear that the most sought after sites were those around the edges, next to trees that were barely taller than the RVs themselves. Why are so many of them there? Is it cheap? Is it free? Do they pay people to stay there? RVs everywhere, like some type of RV hell. What do they do in their spare time? Is this real?

And most of those "campgrounds"were only partially filled. All waiting for our business! Oh dear God.

As we drove to King of Arizona (KOFA is the other official name) we were so glad we would be staying in a nature preserve instead of at one of these places.

We finally, mercifully, arrived at the road that entered the preserve, only to be greeted 25 feet later, by a sign that said "no camping from this point on." AAAAHHHHHHKKKKKK!! We had read on-line that one could camp by the side of the road. They lied! It's a made for TV horror movie, and we star in it!

So much for waking in the morning and watching Big Horn Sheep grazing contentedly just outside our camper.

Maybe that's what all of those campers around Weirdest-Place-on-The-Planet, Arizona are--people like us who were going to KOFA and only had enough gas to get there, so had to park in dusty open fields for the rest of their lives because they couldn't get into the preserve to camp. Maybe that would happen to us. Maybe nobody would ever hear from us again! Maybe I'm cracking up!

No. The story has a happier ending. A slightly happier ending. Luckily we had enough gas in our tank to make it 50 miles down the road, so tonight we are in retirement heaven in an RV park that has concrete roads, two swimming pools, a mail room, and a code you need to punch in to get into the bathroom (Hey, everyone! the code is simple: 1. That's it. 1. Now you can use the bathroom here whenever you want to come, although you won't want to because the RV camp half a mile down the road has nude hot springs swimming and I know you'd rather stay there and I don't know the bathroom code for there, though, sorry, although you probably won't care. Do you think we should feel insulted that at an RV camp for seniors they have only a one-digit bathroom code for us to have to remember?).

Here are some photos of the RVers who never made it out of KOFA:






And here we are in retirement heaven, just before RVZilla pulled in to the other side of us. And all I have to remember tonight is the number 1.