Camping and Hiking on my birthday....with buzzers......who always wave!

On Forest Road 172 in the Tonto National Forest…….an hour and 15 minutes from home.

Once again we find that we can have wonderful camping and hiking very close to home (32 miles).  There was a price to be paid for that ease of access this time, though, which is that there were more people in the area than for places that require more of a drive, especially on Saturday.  

But that is a small price to pay because in these places that are close to home the people who are here are almost exclusively ones who are in “buzzers” (our term for OHVs).  So they buzz by our camping spot several times a day, but within a minute they and their noise are gone, and it is once again quiet.   It is a total of maybe 15 minutes a day of disruption.  That’s all.  So what?  And they only do this from about 9:00 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon, so the mornings, late afternoons, and nights are totally quiet.

Saturday was is an exception, though, because there were a lot more people out in this area.  But we still had no problems sleeping or enjoying ourselves.  There is also a lot of target practice in these areas—guys come out with their families, set up a target against a hill, and have fun making noise.  That was also mostly on Saturday.

This weekend was possibly a bit unusual though because it was Super Bowl weekend.   On Sunday we saw only a few people.  Saturday may have felt unusually busy because everybody crammed their weekend time into one day.  Who knows. 

On one of our hikes we chatted with a couple of guys in one of the buzzers.  I asked how much he paid for it:  He said $28000 right off the lot, but then he added a lot to it.  And that was for a two-seater not a four-seater.  Wow.  That's getting close to what we paid for the 4Runner, and while the 4Runner can’t do these roads as fast as a buzzer can, there aren’t many roads buzzers could do that we couldn’t do.  The guy just loved his buzzer.  Isn’t that great?  And we told him that we have seen a lot of them and everybody in them was smiling and having a good time.  He agreed.  To each his/her own.

And here is something we have spent some time trying to figure out.  We have some theories, but that’s all.  People in buzzers virtually always wave to us.  It is kind of like it is the culture to greet other people in this way.  It’s very nice, and we like it.  Leisure World is sort of like that—people wave to us when we are cycling for example, or when they walk by our home if we are on our front patio.  But even in comparison to LW, people in buzzers throw up their arms in a wave consistently.  So do most people in pickups, and then slightly less so people we see in sedans.  There is something about the vehicle that correlates with waving to people who you’ll never see again.

We think it is because, in general, the people in buzzers are happy doing what they do.      

We took nice hikes.  Some were on the rough Forest off-roads where the OHVs go, some were in washes, some were cross country, and one was completely unique.  

And I had my birthday party here!  I got to put in a request for my dinner, so chose hamburger tacos.    And carrot cake for my birthday cake.  The way Vicky makes carrot cake it’s like getting delicious fruits and vegetables (fat free cream cheese, nuts, home-made apple sauce instead of oil, lots of carrots——YUM!) and call it a treat.  The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of nuts.  She put in 5 cups.  OLD MAN HUMOR ALERT:  I think she got “carroteed” away with nuts.  da-da-ching.  I love her.

And I got the coolest gifts.  Here they are before I unwrapped them.  One was wrapped in a real-man’s paper, complete with hunting guns, etc.  The other with a bunch of bears doing ballet.  My wife obviously thinks I’m a gurly-man.

My long cycling shorts now have probably 8000 miles on them, and they are worn.  She got me a new pair.  It is important to look cycling chic when we are using our $400 tandem riding around Leisure World, especially when we are wearing our Flying Nun green hats.  And then she found a Saturday Evening Post that was dated my exact birthday.  Not only that, but she also found one with her exact birthday.   Both of us were born on Saturdays--proof enough that we were meant to be together.

And she gave me one of our two remaining Whidbey Island wines, from the winery that was right next door to our Whidbey Island home.  A nice memory.   Sangiovese is the grape that is used in Chianti when it is produced in Italy.


Here I am eating tacos in our favorite Mexican restaurant (i.e., the desert):

But I have to say that being 72 hits me.  Turning 70 hit me, but now I am “in my 70s.”  I don’t want to be in my 70s.  I want to be in my 30s.  Or, better yet, 8, although there would probably be a law against being married to Vicky if I was.  Wouldn’t matter.  I’d just break it if there was.  

Our hikes:

What we find is that as soon as we get away from the main roads we can hike in solitude.  

One of our hikes was particularly interesting.  In the distance from our camper, cut into the hills, it appeared as if there might be an old railroad line.  For one of our hikes we decided to try to get to this line, see what it is, and maybe hike on it.    

We hiked off-trail to get up to it.

And found that indeed it was an old railroad.  The right-of-way is no longer used for a railroad but it must have been a convenient place to lay water pipes.  What all of this was at one time will have to wait until we can get home and do some research. 

You can tell that the rust on the rails and the deterioration of the ties means that it was an old line and no longer used:

There was a very old spur that had an unknown purpose, lost to time.  

Vicky tried to make the train exit onto the spur, but it had rusted shut many years ago:

Spur from the other side.  Very old:

It ended at someone’s private property (looked like a horse farm), just before a bridge.   I wonder if this means that this farm owns a train trestle made of wood.  Wouldn’t that be neat?  I wonder if it’s for sale.  Always wanted one.  Leisure World probably won’t allow it, though.

Photos of our other hikes.   

 

 

 

In the afternoons we would just chill out and look at the desert.

A great way to turn 72.

Our hikes:

Addendum:

The rail line appears to be the Magma-Superior short-line railway.  It was active between the years of 1920-1943.

Tuesday morning dances in Leisure World

Every Tuesday morning (during the winter season) at Leisure World, the LW Big Band rehearses.  Anyone is invited to attend, listen, and dance.

We arrange our schedule to be home on Tuesdays to catch them.  They are fine musicians who play a broad variety of tunes, all of them danceable.  Chip in a couple of dollars for coffee and treats, and away we go.

Ironically, on the day we decided to bring the camera to get some photos so we could remember this event, the people who organize things were having a birthday party for Danielle, one of the women who regularly attends and listens. She is one of several people who we have met at these dance/practices who is friendly and warm.

OK.  We're just starting  here.

So, we ask Danielle what day her birthday is and she says "Friday, the 31st."

Well, Friday, January 31, is also my birthday, which we just had to share and which everyone thought was very fun.

OLD  MAN HUMOR ALERT!  So, my joke was "Dan"ielle and "Dan" are celebrating their birthdays together today at  a "Dan"ce.  (You were warned).

MORE OLD  MAN HUMOR ALERT!  How coincidental is this?  One of the cakes actually had MY name on it!  How did they know ahead of time?

Here are the birthday septuagenarians:

 

Here is Vicky with our buddy Esther who we always sit with at these dances.  She was 97 on Christmas.  She has been attending these dances for three decades.

One of the things we notice about living in Leisure World is that people dress up.  For even an informal morning event like this.  It's kind of nice, actually.

And now for some nostalgia.  One of the reasons we love coming to these dances is that this room contains powerful memories.  In 2005, my mother who was 83 at the time, was a member of the tap dance group in Leisure World.  My daughter Emily and I attended her last performance in 2005 as a member of that group.

She never had dance lessons.  Yet in her mid-70s, just decided that she could do this.

Who takes up tap dancing at age 75?  

And here we are, 15 years later, dancing in the same room.  Who could have predicted that?  I feel her presence every week we go.  But this time it is she who is watching us.

Mom is on the far right, at her final concert at age 83.  Way to go mom....you look great!

Camping and hiking near the Seven Springs Recreation Area

Using our voluminous library of maps, Vicky had found several possible camping spots in this part of the Tonto National Forest, with areas close to them where the hiking looked good.   We tried several ways to get into those camping spots before we finally realized something was not right.  We went to the Ranger station and learned that the area Vicky located had sustained a burn  (in 2005) and was closed off so it could heal.

Undaunted, we headed to another place Vicky had located—the Seven Springs Recreational Area.  Vicky is really the map queen.

Years ago we had tried to camp in this area, but learned at the Ranger Station then that their campground was closed.  We were discouraged, so left and went to Cave Creek Regional Park.  That was early in our road tripping before we had discovered dispersed camping.   Now we don’t care whether a campground is closed.

Campground?  Campground?  We don't need no steenking campground!

Ironically, we found a place to camp that reminded us of our earlier road trips when we camped exclusively at campgrounds.

We found there was a campground named the CCC Campground.  And, of course, we just had to stay there.  We have been big fans of the CCC since we started exploring the US.  

As a refresher, the CCC is the Civilian Conservation Corps.  Roosevelt started it almost 90 years ago as one way to jump start the economy during the depression.  Young men from all over the country build roads, bridges, campgrounds, dams, and trails. The CCC lasted until WWII when the young men were needed to fight (and die) in that war, and in doing so gave us the lives we, our children, and our grandchildren now have. 

We have seen CCC structures all over the country, a testament to how well they were built.  Much of what they built is still usable.  Made of rocks and back-breaking labor. 

This campground was built for the young men in the CCC to stay.  We read that there was an administrative site somewhere close, but didn’t know where it was.

One sort of odd thing is that years ago when we were told at the Ranger Station that the Forest Service Campground was closed, they didn’t mention this CCC campground that was open that was right next to it.  We would have come here then.  Up the road a bit is the Seven Springs Campground. They didn’t mention that one either.  

Here is our site:

There weren’t numbered sites, which meant it was free.  Our site was different from what we usually look for in that it was enclosed by a embankments instead of being in the open.  It was next to a small brook that provided a nice sound.  We were there for two nights, and no one else stayed in the campground those two nights  We had it all to ourselves.  

It also had this very modern feature, something that we remember from our distant past:  A bathroom:

 

We said to each other:  "So that's how civilized people do it when they are camping...pit toilets."

We took two hikes from the campground.  One was on something else from our past—a hiking trail!  With a map!  And signs!  We used to hike this way all of the time, until recent years where our hiking has been all off-trail, or on mountain/desert/mining roads.  Consequently we actually ran into other hikers, who took a photo of us:

The hiking trail went along the Little Maggie May Creek (cool name for a stream).  Because of recent rains, we turned back when the trail crossed the stream, as we didn’t think we could cross it without getting wet.

And then, true to form, we decided to leave the trail and see if we could find another way back to our camper.  In doing so, we came up on the administrative site for the CCC, and perhaps the old Ranger Station.  One easy way of knowing that one is in a CCC area is the characteristic walls that the men built.  They look alike all over the country:

We later saw a sign that showed we had been on the Great Western (Arizona) Trail.  We weren’t familiar with this trail, but will learn more about it.

The next day we decided to walk up the main dirt road to see if we could find another site, which we did, and moved.  Here it is.  It is much more like the kind of places we typically camp:

The next day we took a relatively strenuous hike on roads we had identified on our GPS devices and maps.  It was shorter than our typical hike, but had a lot of elevation gain.  We thought we could make a loop hike out of it, and we did.

Part of the hike was on a road that had obviously been closed by the park service many, many years ago.  No tracks of people or vehicles.  In fact, in some places it was difficult to see where the road used to be.  Wonderful.  Beautiful sights of the mountains.  And streams in all of the valleys, with a constant sounds of birds.

This photo shows an example of the old road.  You can hardly see it.

For our final hike we retraced our previous hike in reverse, so we could see the views again but from the other direction. We also saw on the previous hike that there was a road that extended further that we might enjoy.  We did.

What we found at the end of that road was a very old, small home that someone had built an unknown number of years ago--probably 70-80 years ago, maybe more.  We had seen evidence of a corral on this hike, and wondered why it was there when we found it.  Now we believe we know--it was built by the same person or persons who built this home.

Someone had a home there, or a place to live while tending their cattle.  Who?  How long ago?  For how long?  One of the many mysteries lost to time that we continually run into hiking.  We always hope when we run into an old home or structure that, whoever it was, they were happy scratching out an existence in the hard land of the southwest.  It must have been a very challenging life.

Our hikes  We did 1/2 mile of elevation gain in our four hikes (and the first hike, the marked one, had no elevation gain, so the 1/2 mile is actually on three hikes).  That's what desert mountain hiking is all about--up and down and then more up and down.  We love it.

Jules visits

and we had a great time.   Went for several walks and two bike rides.  One of the rides was on the Bush Highway, up to Saguaro Lake.  It was windy, but weather was nice.  For our other ride we did the Tour de Leisure World.

Cycling has been such an important part of our history and relationship with Jules over the past several years.  We have taken countless rides with him and, almost unbelievably, we have done 7 Seattle-to-Portland (STPs) with him.  That number is not a typo--SEVEN times we have done this 210 mile ride with him.  A set of memories that are irreplaceable.

So taking these rides was important to all of us.

It was terrific to see him!

 

 

Hiking and Camping in Peralta Canyon in the Turtle

The "Turtle" is our name for our slide-in camper/pickup.   The pickup carries its home on its back like a turtle does.

We had a great five nights at a site in Peralta Canyon.   We found a spot on a spur off of the main road, and in the five days had only two people drive by that spur.

We got the isolation, quiet, peacefulness, and connection with nature that we have sought and found so often over the past eight years.

We found a number of terrific hikes (seeing no other hikers on these trails since we generally don't follow "established" hiking trails).

And here is what is almost unbelievable:  We were a 45-minute drive from our home!  That's why we moved to Mesa.  

Here is our site:

An aerial view of our site.  (No, we don't have a drone)

Our camper is in the middle of this photo.  It is very difficult to see because it is in the distance.



Photos from our hikes