Time to set our course for home… sigh

 

While this winter hasn’t been exactly the ‘fun in the sun’ we had expected, our time in the desert has not been disappointing. It’s true; we have had some spectacularly windy days and nights… enough to make you ask what we’re doing here. We’ve also had many beautiful, sunny, blue sky kind of days… the kind that keep you coming back for more.

We’ve had the pleasure of catching up with old friends from our cruising days and we’ve made new friends to share the delights of the desert with.  We’ve travelled tried and true routes and we’ve explored new routes (some more enjoyable than others :-)

One thing is certain. We are wanderers at heart; not nomads, but definitely people who enjoy exploring new places and meeting folks as we go along.  We have really enjoyed our longer stays at Rio Bend (seen in the photo above, half empty as folks are leaving for home).  The staff are welcoming and friendly and the activities are many; as much or as little as you wish.  We will miss our days here. Even  Maddie will miss her friends at the dog park and Esperanza, our neighbour, has taken over guardianship of our garden.

 We’ve also enjoyed rambling about between various State Parks and we hope to create a blend of the two (with a few more longer than shorter stops) for next year.

So, all that being said, it is time for us to leave and point our noses home.  The drive will be trickier this year as a result of the extra-ordinary weather slamming the US west coast and interior.  Rest assured we will be monitoring weather and road conditions as we go and will adjust our course and timing as required for peace of mind and safety.  We hope to be home on April 9.   We may be delayed by one or two days.

Unless you hear otherwise, assume we are travelling north, at our own pace, and will be home when we get there.  🥸. Stay well my friends… and live every single day.

A quick up-date…

 Hello all.  As some of you know, we are not on our way to the west coast as we had initially planned. The unfortunate weather-related devastation to the coastal areas of CA and OR have given us ‘cause to pause’ and, after due consideration of several factors, we decided to abort that portion of our plan.  

We have had the pleasure of meeting up with old friends (not like aged seniors 😊….but dear friends we have known for years).  Anyway, after we left our long time sailing buddies who now live in a magnificent home atop a gorgeous mountain (and in the ‘back of beyond’) we headed north again to Casa Grande to a very posh RV Park and spent two fun days with friends… and then didn’t we finally head west and catch up with two more for an evening.

Today, instead of heading for the coast, we have returned to one of our favourite haunts, good old Rio Bend RV and Golf Resort just outside El Centro. We will lounge about here for 12 days and then begin to wind our way north and to home.  I have booked the Coho Ferry for April 9th and, all going well, we’ll be on it.  So for now, know we are sitting still and just going to relax and enjoy the warm weather. It is indeed warm but it is also very windy; gusts of 50 MPH expected tonight and, hopefully, they will abate in time for the rain on Wednesday 😄  Fear not; we have books, and cards, and rum. We shall survive.

Wishing you all safe travels, fair winds, no snow and soothing smiles and hugs.  CJ

Mother Nature’s wild elegance… and living at peace within it

 

Imagine if you will; towing a smallish trailer with a reasonable sized pickup truck and driving for about 45 minutes through very southern Arizona ranch land. The road is packed dirt and gravel interspersed with small to mid sized rocks and pot holes. Our path curves and dips like a skilled trapeze artist as we slowly gain elevation. On several occasions, we pick up speed to grind our way up a steep hill only to get to the top and not be able to see the road at all as it falls away into another steep and long curving dip. One such dip is complete with running water (a wash in desert terms) immediately followed by a tight curve leading up yet another hill. TRUST is a huge factor as we follow our friend Jeanne in her truck (and not towing a trailer) through the twists and turns of the rather long approach to their new home. Heart in mouth?  A few times. Holding breath while cresting those hills?  Several times. Ricky and Lucy as dirty and dusty as they’ve  ever been?  Yup.

Now let me tell you that, having succeeded in making it to their new digs and settling Lucy into our own personal little camping site, we were blown away by the ‘over the top’ beauty of the new to them home and property. Tom was not exaggerating when he said 360 degree mountain top views. Their home (a work of art and their skilled craftsmanship) is stunning. The thought and planning they have put into every room and each service needed to exist this far from civilization is amazing. From back up water systems to self generated power grids and from bare walled rooms (some only framed in) to beautifully appointed masterpieces…. well, I’m left (almost :-) speechless. 

There’s also the wild and untamed wilderness surrounding them. While their property (40 acres) is surrounded by mountainous ranch land, the ranch is so large it is literally a desert wilderness. Wild life abounds in the form of deer, cougars, skunks, reptiles, javelinas, a  huge number of birds (Tom’s special passion) and many more creatures all living within a stones throw - as evidenced by the images captured by Tom’s collection of ‘game cameras’. I should clarify; this ‘desert’ land is not what you’ve seen on the old movies… we’re not talking Sahara Desert here; but it is land that is largely rock and sand with scrub/bushes, tall grasses, interspersed with wisened and thorny (scraggly) trees. It’s the same landscape you’ve seen in many of our photos. It’s not particularly easy for humans to traverse but the creatures who live here (including Tom and Jeanne) have adapted very well. The photo on this post is of the view we woke up to this morning and the mountains in the distance are, in fact, Mexico.

We’re here for three more days, after which (if we make it out :-) we’ll be on our way to Casa Grande to catch up with friends.  If we don’t make it out we shall have to stay put and live here forever… sigh.

Hope you are each enjoying your own commune with Mother Nature.  
PS: Madison Mulhaley   🐶 turns four tomorrow!
Adios for now… CJ

 

www.cjdaley.ca
www.ruddyduckpress.ca
www.svshannon.blogspot.com

Temps finally warming up!

 We are pleased to report the temperatures are rising…by night and by day.  Phew!

The sunsets are fantastic, the hikes are rocky, the coyotes are in full song every evening and early morning and the bike rides are fun (except when you wipe out… which I’ve only done once…so far). The days seem to rush by and we’ve made friends and said ‘see you again’  to friends… that’s the way it is when you’re camping in the parks. We even met up with folks we first met a couple years ago…great fun! Maddie has also made many friends (canine and human) and continues to amaze us with her intelligence and dog savvy when meeting up with strangers in the parks. Don’t get me wrong… she still has ‘attitude’ (can’t imagine where she got that from :-) but she’s getting much better and she turns four next week!  

Oh, I must tell you, as I’m writing this the sun has gone down, it’s very dark outside and the coyotes are yipping and yapping in chorus groups from a couple different directions.  There’ll be no sneaking out tonight!

These have been good days and we’ll be sad to say goodby to Lost Dutchman SP but Monday is moving day.  We’ll be heading back south to the Tubac/Patagonia area to visit dear friends from our cruising days. They’ve ‘swallowed the hook’ and are now developing a beautiful piece of property. We’re really looking forward to seeing them and having a good catch-up.   Speaking of pickle-ball (which I wasn’t :-) we’ve been playing a bit during the week with folks we know who belong to a PBall group in town.  It’s been fun and our skills are slowly improving (particularly Kathys). As you’ll see in the photos, there has also been some pretty major hikes.  I’ll bid you adieu for now. Hope you enjoy the pics. CJ

First of all… a follow up to “Snow Falling on Cacti” (from our last post from Kartchner Caverns)

Beautiful sunset and red rocks of the Superstition Mountains.

Kathy and friends hiking up to the Praying Hands and Slot Rock.

Amazing and very unusual cloud formations (baby Atmospheric River??)

A nicer day…

Worm Moon

More hiking landscapes.

CJ & Donna having a bbq cook off, Jenga at the campsite, Maddie in her “cooling vest”, horses on the trail and, last but not least…..

…. the “rattler” the surprised us the other day!!  

Welcome to Arizona… and ‘snow falling on cacti’…

 No, we have not dropped off the face of the earth 😊. With the best of intentions, I started the following post… and then lost connectivity again.  The combination of ‘zero to not much’ wifi or ability to open, write, transfer photos, etc., has created some stress around the concept of ‘staying in touch’. But, we shall persevere, all the while reminiscing about the ‘good old days’. You remember them, right?  The day before you left on a trip you would phone a friend (via a hard wired rotary phone) tell them you were leaving, approximately where you were going, and when you expected to be back.  You’d also promise to write if you could find a post office (and rarely did) and then carried on your merry way. Things have certainly changed; and I’m not complaining… I’m just sayin’.  Today we enjoy instant contact, everlasting memory, the ability to research, review and lookup - all sorts of communications and their results, links. sources, etc. The list is exhausting.  Oh for the infamous tin can and string- my personal favourite form of communication.  

Now then, after that wee rant, I shall carry on with saying howdy, how are you, and we are fine.

Written on Wednesday, March 1st:

It’s 2000 hrs. (8 PM) and Lucy the trailer is rockin’ and rollin’, and not to music!!  The rain is pelting down and the gusts of wind are hitting us like waves of heavy surf.  Luckily we got home from a happy hour visit just as the rain began to fall.  The wind had been blowing and gusting most of the afternoon but has picked up and is making its presence felt in all quarters. This is one of those ‘camping’ days when, armed with the weather forecast (for rain), we planned to spend half the day in a laundromat.  Turns out, every other camper had the same notion and the laundromat was jam packed for the whole day.  BUT, we got it done and were home in time for a walk and happy hour…Phew! 

What we hadn’t prepared for was the  SNOW that followed the rain. Yes, it’s beautiful on the mountain tops, but waking up to snow on our doorstep, truck, trailer and campsite?  That wasn’t quite so ‘beautiful’.  This trip has indeed been a unique visit to ‘sunny’ Arizona.  We have yet to put away our cold weather clothing and most of the warm weather shorts and T’s are still packed at the back of the cupboard… waiting their turn which may never come (before end of trip) at this rate.

It’s now Sunday, March 5th, and to do a quick catch up, the days have been filled with more wind, sun, rain and clouds… along with walking, pickle ball, BBQing in the cold, card games, happy hours AND hiking (eg: 5 miles up First Water-Hackleberry trail around the Garden Valley Loop;  complete with fellow hikers, beautiful scenery,  scrambling across four streams, stepping aside for several groups of trail riders, and narrowly avoiding the ire of what looked like a huge rattle snake.  Turns out it was a medium sized blunt-nosed rattler… still looked huge to me and the rattle was certainly clear as a bell).  

Anyway, suffice to say the adventure continues.  I will post this shortly and with some disappointment as I’d written a much better version but lost it to the wireless gods. I’ve recovered from my tantrum and done my best to recreate the original post.

Hopefully photos will follow, with short explanations.  Stay well.   CJ

www.cjdaley.ca

www.ruddyduckpress.ca

www.svshannon.blogspot.com

Kartchner Caverns… the State Park and the tours

 Wowed by the grandeur of Mother Nature and a sight not to be missed.

Thursday, Feb 23rd we sloshed our way out of Catalina SP and headed to Kartchner Caverns SP, a mere 70 miles down the road.  The drive should have taken less than 2 hours. Ha! Between attempting to avoid Tucson rush hour traffic, the entanglements of driving on secondary roads, and a canine crew member who wasn’t all that happy about any of this benign excitement and needed a couple of breaks along the way…well it was several hours later before we finally made it to our destination. We are so glad we bested the challenges; this place is beautiful!

Kartchner Caverns State Park is small by comparison to many and has well spaced, mostly flat, paved sites with the usual power and water.  The scenery is striking in all directions and the walk to the adjacent Visitor Welcoming Centre and the cavern tours and gift shop is short.  There are also several walking trails around and near to the park. Almost every site had from 1-3, mostly large and some with attitude, dogs. The constant dog walkers and their companions made for good watching material. Our Maddie (there was another Maddie there too) was well behaved and enjoyed the ‘watching’ as much as we did. Paula, the Park Host was delightful and welcoming - much more so than any other Park Host we’ve met.  

The weather continued to confound.  The sun was warm when you could find a place out of the wind. The wind was cold…no other way to describe it. This year has been quite unique, weather wise (read that cold, wet and windy); and so it continues. I’ll stop whining now but suffice to say the weather gods are demanding a strong sense of humour this season! While here we experienced strong winds, driving hail, blowing snow, and brilliant sun.  

It’s time to apologize for the timing of the blog posts. Along with weather frustrations we have had poor connectivity which delays not only sending the posts but also writing and preparing them.  Hence the delays and my apologies.  Some have expressed concern when they don’t hear from us.  Don’t.  We are fine and making the most of our destinations and activities.

Now to the amazing caverns.  We toured them both, one per day. Each cavern has its own attributes and the story of the two men who discovered them (just a few years ago in the late 1960’s) is very interesting.  The tour guides are super knowledgeable and dedicated to the care and maintenance of the fragile cavern eco system. We heard a joke being told and I’ll share it with you.  “What’s the difference between a cave and a cavern? Answer: You have to pay to see the cavern.”  Well these caverns were worth the cost. Do see them if you’re ever in the area. Sorry, no photos. Cameras not allowed.

Must go now… we are in the  #&!?#! ‘New’ Arizona State Park reservation system trying to book for next year.  Do not try this alone! Or without some form of numbing agent (eg Rum)… it’s awful and I think we’re about to give up.  Hope all is well with each of you.  Signing off now and hitting ‘ Send’. CJ