Tag: Arizona

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Grand Canyon West, Arizona and Boulder City, Nevada

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Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon? If you have, chances are that you’ve been to the South Rim of the National Park. Grand Canyon National Park also includes the North Rim, which not as many people visit. It doesn’t usually open until mid-May and it’s harder to get to.

There is also Grand Canyon West, which is a commercial enterprise run by the Havasupai Indian Tribe on their reservation land. About fifteen years ago, they constructed a skywalk out over the Grand Canyon. We’ve been to the South Rim several times, so I thought this might be a different way to go. The distance from our RV at Nellis AFB to Grand Canyon West was 125 miles. Thinking that we might appreciate a little overnight road trip after spending so many weeks in Las Vegas, I booked us into one of their cabins for a night. It was to be our last night in Arizona for the 2024 winter and spring.

Driving out to Grand Canyon West, we drove though Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The lake shimmered in the sun. The lake level is still a little low, although not as bad as it had been.

A surprise treat was in store for us as we drove through Arizona. Joshua trees! Miles upon miles of them. We thought their height and sheer beauty rivaled what we had seen weeks earlier at Joshua Tree National Park. Some were in the desert or tucked into sloping mountain canyons. Some looked to be at least thirty to forty feet tall with trunks as large as regular trees.

As we drew closer to Grand Canyon West, the Joshua trees began to intersperse with juniper trees and pinon pines until, finally, they were gone. The juniper and pines, too, eventually gave way to a prairie-style desert with cacti and beautiful orange-blooming flowers.

When we arrived, we first stopped into the visitors center to pick up our tickets. A shuttle takes visitors to the first stop, Eagle Point. All of these places are very important to Hualapai culture.

Do you see the eagle in the rock with its wings in flight? It was spectacular to receive not only the first glimpse of the Grand Canyon here, but also to see the eagle.

The views of the canyon are no less grand for being on the west side.

Looking to our left from here, we could see the Skywalk.

When the Skywalk was completed in 2007, it was the world’s biggest glass cantilever bridge. It extends 70 feet over the Grand Canyon, has a glass bottom, and can hold 800 people at once. By now the length has been superseded by a bridge in China.

Here’s the thing: you have to pay, of course, to step out on the bridge. (The whole day is not a cheap proposition. We supported the Hualapai quite well.) But you cannot take any possessions out onto the bridge. That includes phones and cameras. The reason given is to protect the canyon from things dropped or intentionally thrown from above. There are folks right there on the bridge to take your picture, of course. It costs $50 to purchase the photo package.

Our photographer arranged us in several cheesy poses. Afterwards, I noticed people could ask their photographer to take pictures in poses of their choosing, and I wish we had done that. I would have liked a photo of our feet down through the glass floor.

After our photoshoot, there was plenty of time to look at the canyon below our feet and all around.

I purchased the photo package because it came with the scenic photos that I was not able to get from the bridge. When I first went out to the website for the photos, I glanced at them and figured I’d download them later. I did download the photos of us. But then as the days after our visit went on, we were busy and traveling, and I never quite got around to downloading the scenic photos. When I did, they were gone: they are only out there for 30 days. Live and learn. If you visit, and spring for the package, don’t be Julia: download your pictures immediately! Better yet, just enjoy the view and have a passing tourist take your picture in front of Eagle Point for free.

Outside of the bridge, we walked to the Native American Village. Here, we could see various types of Native housing and sweat lodges.

This “wikiup” is made of the juniper trees that are plentiful here and can come in many different sizes. There must be a native person (or many) skilled in making these here because I saw at least three of them like this in various places. They can be bare of the greenery or have animal skins on the ground, and can be large enough to house an entire family.

After a good lunch at Sky View Restaurant, we walked over to the shuttle stop for the ride to to Guano Point. As we waited, we listened to this gentleman chant. I was intrigued with his combination of native and current day dress. He has next to him on the bench burnt sage in a shell. For the people, the rising smoke has spiritual meaning, and the shell that the sage sits on does as well.

The Hualapai have always lived here and a small piece of their land includes the Grand Canyon. They are not subsidized by the US Government. Years ago, they started trying to generate revenue with a casino, but realized that what people really wanted was to see their land. They make a fine living off the tourism offered here.

Guano Point is so named for an enterprise that operated in the mid-century to extract what was supposed to be 100,000 tons of bat guano from a cave. The guano was used in that time for fertilizer, dynamite and (yikes!) makeup. A tramway was built over the canyon to ferry the workers over and bring the guano back. But there was actually only 1,000 tons to be mined and it played out quickly. A US Air Force jet crashed into the cable, damaging it, and it was never repaired.

Remains of the bat doo-doo cable system and extraction enterprise

More interestingly to me, this is also a sacred site for the Hualapai. There was a time when the US Government tried to round them up and place them in a central camp in La Paz. The Hualapai call this the “Long Walk”. Many Hualapai jumped off the canyon to escape, and the people call them “the lost souls”.

Just below the bat guano operation, the Grand Canyon offers an extraordinary view of the Colorado River far below. All around Grand Canyon West, there are no fences to keep anyone from going over the edge.

The day was getting on, so we rode back to the truck and drove to another GCW area where the Hualapai operate cabins, and checked in. It’s set up like a Western town, which is really weird considering this is reservation land. There’s not much here that’s open, save for a tourist shop and a place to purchase tickets for the zip-line. There is a restaurant, but we opted to save that for breakfast. Instead, we drove back down the road off-reservation, enjoying the view at “golden hour” with the canyons and hills bathed in a warm glow from the setting sun.

Grand Canyon Western Ranch has a variety of acommodations and also a restaurant. It’s small with less than a handful of tables, but the tables are large and different groups are expected to share it. Many evenings they have a guitar player singing songs. The restaurant closes at 8 PM and the resort does a campfire with s’mores, to which we were invited. We were fairly early and didn’t stay as we had other plans, but we ordered their barbeque ribs and the food was good. It would have been a great alternative to staying with the Hualapai on the reservation.

Returning to the reservation and cabin area, there are two trails that lead out onto the prairie. I wanted to do a sunset walk on the shorter, 1/2 mile trail. Arriving at the edge of the canyon, we had the view all to ourselves for a very long time, and it was magnificent. Like Red Rocks outside of Las Vegas that I wrote about in my previous blog, it was totally quiet. All was still except for some birds soaring over the canyon.

Off in the distance you can see the cabins at Grand Canyon West, strung out like a wagon train

We rose early the next morning to hike on the longer, 1.75 mile trail. Needing to get on with our day, we only walked about a mile through the prairie before turning around. At our turnaround point we finally reached the start of the canyon, but this part of it was green with hills folded into hills.

The prior evening we noted that there was a whole warren of rabbits running around. This morning, we watched a coyote unsuccessfully on the hunt for one of them. Those are wily rabbits.

Returning toward Las Vegas, we stopped just below the Lake Mead Visitors Center in Boulder, Nevada to ride our bikes on the Historic Rails to Trails. As the title implies, this is an old rail line which leads 3.7 miles to Hoover Dam. Many people were hiking it but they seemed mostly to be going the other way. It was a good thing they started early because the day was getting hot. It wasn’t too bad on e-bikes.

There are five old train tunnels on this trail. Each one is very exciting to ride through.

Looking ahead to one train tunnel while inside another

When the trail ended, we jumped on the state route for just a bit and stopped at a turnoff to view Hoover Dam.

This was a novel view for us. We have been on this road many times in years past; it used to be the only way to get from Arizona to Nevada. Cal remembers us touring Hoover Dam for $1.00. Having visited the dam in earlier times, we did not feel the need to go any closer.

From here, we could turn around and see the new bridge that bypasses this whole area. It was built between 2005 and 2010. When we drove on the bridge, we would have never have known that Hoover Dam was below. It’s not possible to see anything with the concrete barriers. I really think it’s too bad they’ve “lost the view” in the construction of the bridge, as wonderful as it may be for safety and bypassing a congested area.

With our added little side trip to Hoover Dam, we logged in 11 miles on this ride, plus had a great chat with a young German couple at a rest stop.

This trip completed our time in Las Vegas; we left just a few days later with a whole lot of great memories.

Next time: on the road and back in to California

USTravel

Burro-ing Around in Oatman, Arizona

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The old mining town of Oatman lies in the northwest corner of Arizona and is around fifty miles from Lake Havasu City. With that distance, it’s a little far for a day trip, but after a few days around Lake Havasu we were ready for something different to do.

An unexpected bonus to the trip to Oatman is that it is on old Route 66, and the desert vistas are gorgeous.

Oatman began, as many Southwest towns did, by the discovery of gold in 1915. It is named after a little Illinois girl named Olive Oatman who was captured by Indians. It was a big story that everyone knew about at the time.

Millions of dollars in gold were mined here, and the remains of those mines dot the hillsides.

A sign on a board in Oatman stated that the town furnished gold for World War I, and copper for World War II.

There was a bit of a renaissance as a destination with a Western theme for tourists when the Mother Road, Route 66, was built.

Abandoned homes tell the story of Oatman’s booms and busts.

Route 66 was bypassed after Interstate 40 was constructed. The town may have died but for the thing that keeps it on the map: the burros that wander around town. When the mines closed, the workers turned their hardworking burros into the hills. The burros became feral, and burros did what burros do – they multiplied. They were used to being fed, so they wandered through town looking for handouts. Now, of course, everyone wants to feed them, and the shops sell mule food.

We came into Oatman in the morning, and nary a burro was to be seen. It was a cool morning, and I was told that they like to laze about when it’s cool and come into town when it warms up. So we walked through the craft and trinket shops, and looked at all the varied items that an antique store had sitting outside.

The town had a huge fire in 1921 which burned down many of the buildings in existence at the time. This wall is the site of one of the hotels, and the doorway is the entrance to a mine that was constructed later.

Nearby, there is a jail cell that was used for temporary incarceration of prisoners.

The Oatman Hotel survived the fire of 1912. Built in 1902, it is the county’s oldest two-story adobe structure. We went in for lunch. The walls were plastered with dollar bills and, as I waited for my food, I gazed at a large picture of Willie (in his younger days) on the stage.

I enjoyed a most delicious lunch here. It was the special of the day and called “Greek Shepherd’s Pie”. I can’t pass up anything with “Greek” in the name. After taking a few bites, I realized it was moussaka, but I’d never had moussaka like this before. Maybe it was the melted cheese in it, warm and tasty. I’m still thinking about that lunch. Cal had his usual burger and fries.

After that extremely satisfying meal, we went into what I think was formerly the lobby but now has a soda counter selling ice cream. Despite all that moussaka, there was room for ice cream. A precocious little girl sat on one of the stools, swinging her legs as she chatted us up. She told us that it’s not possible to stay overnight in the hotel any longer. But we could go upstairs and look in the room where Clark Gable and Carole Lombard spent their honeymoon night after being married in Kingman. Of course we had to take a look after receiving her excellent tourist information.

It’s not a great picture, and there is a bit of a glare with the plexiglass barring the entrance to the room. I thought I’d post the picture anyway because, interestingly, this story is rooted more in myth than in reality. I read later that they returned to Hollywood directly after the wedding. Their supposed room wasn’t the only one to see, though. Other rooms were open and set up to show us the things that early travelers might have brought with them when they stayed in the hotel.

When we emerged from upstairs, the little girl was gone, and there was a shootout on the street. A large crowd gathered. As if on cue, the burros arrived and were soon swamped with tourists. I didn’t buy any feed for them, but that didn’t stop them from checking to make sure.

Cal’s new pet burro

It was hard to get a picture of them without other tourists in the picture. We soon began work on an idea we’d gotten from the little post office here. We purchased cute burro postcards for our grandchildren and mailed them from Oatman. They were cancelled with a special stamp.

Our time in Oatman was over. On the way back to the truck, I wished I had enough energy to hike over to get a closer look at this gorgeous work of sandstone art by Mother Nature.

We had one last treat in store. As we began to drive out, a burro was standing all by itself in the road. No tourists were anywhere in sight so I had this burro all to myself.

You know everything there is to know about photographing wildlife. We’ve all seen the pictures of crazy tourists approaching buffalo in Yellowstone. These burros are wild but they are used to people. There are cautions, though, that they can bite and this one was not in town. I kept my distance and stepped out of the truck to take a picture from across the road. The burro, probably hoping for a handout, came over to me. I retreated and slowly walked back to the truck. It followed and clearly wanted a cuddle.

I made an exception for my wildlife rule. This burro was probably used to being in Oatman anyway.

The burro followed me over to the truck as I started to get in. I’m sure it was looking for a handout.

It finally gave up on me, and checked to see if maybe Cal had some treats in the truck.

If you visit Oatman, you may want to not miss the jail museum. The jail has been preserved from Oatman’s heyday and most of it is original. I didn’t even know about it until we came home and came across it when looking up information about Carol Lombard and Clark Gable’s wedding. If we are ever back in the area, that will be a good excuse to visit the burros again. Maybe the Oatman hotel will have “Greek Shepherd’s Pie” on the menu!

Next time – another national park

USTravel

London Bridge is Not Falling Down – Lake Havasu City, Arizona

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Here’s a fun bit of trivia for you. When you think of the London Bridge, what do you think of?

Is it this?

No, that’s Tower Bridge, in London, England.

Is it the bridge that you see to the left of this picture?

Wrong again! No, that’s Westminster Bridge, also in London.

London Bridge is in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Like the two bridges above, it once spanned the River Thames in London, England.

In its original home, London Bridge was in bad shape. The city determined to sell it, and in 1968 an entrepreneur and developer named Robert P. McCulloch from Missouri placed the winning bid of $2.4 million dollars for reconstruction in Arizona. He had already built the planned community of Lake Havasu City in 1964, but this would really put it on the map.

He didn’t purchase the insides of the bridge, though. This bridge is reinforced concrete. He only purchased the exterior granite blocks of the original structure. It was completed in 1971.

The city of London, England rebuilt their London Bridge in the 1970’s, but it is built for function and not decoration. Hundreds of thousands of cars drive over that bridge over the Thames daily.

Robert Mccullough also built “English Village” next to the bridge, with British-themed shops and facades made to look like old London. Those are mostly gone now, replaced with shopping, dining, and entertainment venues. But we still got a little taste of the English Village as we walked in for a look. The bridge is behind it.

This London Bridge was not London’s first. The Visitor Center has a nice video which discusses the older London Bridges which go back in time to the 1200’s. In those days, London Bridge had multi-level houses, shops and pubs on it. The current bridge was built in 1729.

When tearing down the bridge in London, 10,276 pieces were numbered for shipment to Arizona. The latter part of the video details the preparation of the site for the bridge, and the reconstruction in putting those numbered pieces back together in Lake Havasu City.

Who besides Robert McCullough would think about putting a bridge in the desert? This bridge did go over nothing but desert land, so he built Bridgewater Channel to divert water from Lake Havasu.

Looking down at the Channel from London Bridge

There are paths along both sides of the channel which lead to Lake Havasu. On an early morning it was an enjoyable place for a walk.

The actual walking path is to the left of this picture

A fun thing about Lake Havasu is that there are 28 lighthouses all around the lake. They are working small replicas of lighthouses around the United States. A group of concerned citizens formed the Lake Havasu Lighthouse Club to improve night-time navigation for boaters on the lake. Besides being decorative, they serve an important function with their lights.

At the end of the canal path, we found our first one.

This is Currituck Beach Lighthouse. The original is on the Outer Banks in Corolla, North Carolina. This lighthouse is one eighth the size of that one, which stands at 168 feet.

The lighthouses on the east, or Arizona side, are replicas of East Coast lighthouses. The ones on the west side of the lake in California are replicas of West Coast lighthouses.

When the canal was built under the London Bridge, an island was created on what was formerly a peninsula. We had heard there is a bike trail around the island, so we rode it on one of our days here.

I was excited to see this lighthouse on the far west side of the island. The lighthouses on the island are Great Lakes lighthouses and this one is Split Rock. The beautiful original overlooks Lake Superior in Two Harbors, Minnesota, and it is one we have visited often.

From this viewpoint, we could see over to California.

There are RV parks on the island and I would have liked to have stayed at one of them, but they come with long waiting lists. We would have had to put our names on a list now in order to hope for someone to call us for a stay next year, or maybe the following year. We circled around one of the parks and down along to the beach to one of its corners to find this gem.

It is so close to the mainland here that I guess they figured they’d put an East Coast lighthouse in this spot. This is West Quoddy Lighthouse in Maine. I liked this one because it came with the little lightkeeper’s cabin. It’s the first lighthouse the club built.

You could make an expedition to find all the lighthouses. There are boat excursions on the lake designed to see most, or all of them. I thought it was fun just to find them at random.

Lake Havasu has beautiful sunsets.

Here’s something fun. These signs were all over this part of Arizona. We thought they were pretty humorous, although probably they weren’t meant to be. Whenever Cal had a momentary confusion about which way to go, I’d say “Just DRIVE!” and we would have a good chuckle all over again.

If you think this might be a nice place to visit, just know that it is very busy. We did both the channel stroll and the bike ride in the morning, and the large parking lot was almost empty. By the time we returned, it was full and traffic was clogged. This is headquarters for every outdoor and water activity you could think of. We wish there would have been easier access to the bridge to get up and around the traffic for bikes. While I’m assembling my dream list, a bike trail along the road to our RV park would also have been nice, because it goes right past a nature preserve on one side and dunes on the other. But maybe they just need to finish the bike trail on the island first, with paved bike access to the lighthouses.

Next time – burros!

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California’s Highways to Arizona’s Lake Havasu City

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Along state route 95

The highways that we have traveled on in southern California have been endlessly interesting to me. I’ve ridden on a lot of America’s roads in my life, but the state was mostly a mystery before this winter. I often toss my stitching or a book in the truck on travel day, but not here. I’m normally not able to get pictures since we are usually zipping down the highway.

To me, just seeing America’s roadways is a big part of the RV life.

I was so eager to dive into the San Diego blogs that I didn’t mention the incredible landscape that we had had on I-8 going from Yuma to San Diego. We started out traveling at sea level through windy sand dunes, with sand visibly swirling in the air. Later, we went through mountains of rocks.

Toward the end, there was a larger mountain to cross over, which we summitted at 4,100 feet in a snow squall. Cal said he felt as if he’d driven through four seasons all in one day.

I wrote in my last blog about our entrance to the Coachella Valley, which was short but no less dramatic. From Desert Hot Springs, we continued on I-10 through the valley floor to its eastern end near Desert Center. And I really don’t know if Desert Center is a town, because I never saw it.

We had an adjustment to make with our RV reservation in Lake Havasu City and, as a consequence, I’d needed to find us a park for one night before our arrival there. I found one on Lake Tamarisk, two miles north of the highway. It lay in the middle of the desert.

This place contained a mix of mostly permanent trailers but also some RV’s. There are 150 sites at this resort, and if you buy into it, you therefore own 1/150th of the entire park. It’s governed by a park committee, all owners. They maintain a handful of sites for us folks passing through.

A new and pretty cactus garden built by the women of the park

There was a trail around the lake, which was smaller than I thought it would be, but beautiful nonetheless with ducks and a crane, and an occasional fish jumping.

Blue waters out in the desert. Is this a mirage?

A trail also wound in and around the park. It was not fancy, but had very homey feeling not unlike Andy Griffith’s Mayberry. On our walk, we passed by one of the trailers, and the owners were out having a late afternoon beer and popcorn on their patio. We’d seen them earlier in the day, so they invited us over. Gene and Dawn are from Oregon and, visiting from next door, Ken and his adult daughter are from Vancouver, Canada. We had a lovely visit and they told us the park is mostly owned by 50% golfers and 50% ATV owners. The whole desert is right out there to be hiked or ridden in. But, the nearest grocery store is fifty miles away. Most folks return to homes up North during the summer.

The whole experience was so far “out there” that we wondered if we’d stumbled into some sort of desert mirage. Was this Shangri-La? Being neither golfers nor ATV drivers, would we enjoy staying here for a week or two? For the entire winter? Would we get bored? We weren’t sure, but these were all things to ponder as we drove away the next morning.

From I-10, we had two choices in our route north to Lake Havasu City: state route 95 in California, or the same-numbered road in Arizona. We opted for the California route, because I could see on the map that the Colorado River went right alongside it after some miles. The scenery was stunning. Cal found a turnoff where we could have one of our lawn chair picnics.

Across the river and once again heading north, but this time on Arizona Route 95, there were more rocky hills to see. This is where I took the picture at the top of the blog. We landed at Lake Havasu City to find our next RV park.

It was a very small park for very large RV’s, mostly those big Class A “diesel pushers”. Our 34-foot 5th wheel was at the lowest limit for size. The park road was one small oval inside a cinder block wall, and one thing I had neglected to note while reserving: absolutely no amenities, which meant no laundry. We 5th wheels were allotted just a handful of sites together, humbly grateful just to be allowed to the party. There was not a shred of anything green, but we had a huge paved site with plenty of room, along with an extra spot for our ATV, if we’d had one. The on-line pictures had made it look a lot greener. Open RV sites are hard to come by in this town.

There was some fine entertainment to be had at this park, though. The weather was so nice that we were eating dinner out at our picnic table. Every evening around 5:30 or 6:00 PM, we’d start to see many birds flying in our direction from far in the distance. More would arrive, and, after much circling, they would fly over our heads to the top of a tree on the other side of the fence. We would marvel at their wing spans as they soared over us. They were turkey buzzards! By the end of the evening, there was much jockeying for the best perches, and invariably one or two would get knocked off, but finally they would all settle down. And in the morning, they opened their wings to stretch for awhile, and they’d all be off again.

It may not look like it, but this tree is full of turkey buzzards doing their morning wing stretches. We could figure no reason why they were attracted to this particular tree.

Later, we rode our bikes over to another RV park to visit a couple that we’d met in Desert Hot Springs. Their sites were so close that there was no room side to side. We had to visit in front of their RV, in the park road. And the RV park was sitting on the busy state route. Suddenly our spot looked great, with all of our space and those turkey buzzards to provide our evening entertainment.

So, we dipped our toes back into Arizona for a six night stay. This is a boating, ATVing, and weekend partying area. That’s why it’s very hard to get a spot in any RV park here, even during the week. What is there to see in Lake Havasu City? That will be the subject of my next post, but here’s a little bit of a sneak preview:

Lake Havasu City as seen from Lake Havasu
Sunset on Lake Havasu, looking over to California

Next time – what’s to see in Lake Havasu City?

USTravel

Yuma, Arizona – What’s in Your Salad Bowl?

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When we arrived in Yuma, trucks were suddenly everywhere. Several were lined up at an intersection, we were following one or two more, and we thought perhaps our next RV stay was going to be in an industrial park. Happily, not so. But what was up with these trucks?

It wasn’t long before we figured it out: lettuce! Most of the lettuce you’ve been eating this winter comes from Yuma. We’d follow trucks filled with boxes of romaine and iceberg lettuce. We saw fields of broccoli and cauliflower too. The fields are fertile, the weather warm, and there is an ample supply of pickers just over the border in Mexico. Dole and Sunkist are major employers.

During our first days in the town, we visited the Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park. It is the main tourist attraction in this town and a very interesting place. It dates back to the days before Arizona was a state.

The guard house at Yuma Territorial Prison

A few days later, we saw the prison again from the bike trail, which runs for three and a half miles along the Colorado River. On the bike trail, we were able to see the Ocean to Ocean Highway Bridge. It was built in 1915 and was the last link in the “new” interstate highway system. Previously, a ferry shuttled travelers across the river. Now it is only used for local traffic and a massive highway bridge serves for drivers on I-8.

The Colorado River had been dammed up in the early days of the city’s growth. The fertile valley and wetlands that the natives had enjoyed into prehistory was destroyed. I’m glad to see the wetlands brought back with native trees and grasses.

The bike trail wasn’t long, and eventually it went on to a country road. We rode it for some miles and eventually ended up in an iceberg lettuce field.

Across the road, another field was being harvested.

The bus with the porta-potties behind, which carries the pickers, is also a common sight around town.

It’s not just lettuce, though. Our RV park was miles down a country road. Getting to town, we would pass many orange and lemon groves. It seemed like they had mostly been picked earlier in the month. I took a longer-than-usual walk one afternoon and wandered through rows of lemon trees. There was a soft whisper of lemon scent in the air.

Inexplicably, there was one loaded orange tree in this orchard. Is anyone going to come and pick them?

Dates are also grown in Yuma. It’s not the season for harvesting dates so I’m not sure how it is that this palm tree has some hanging down. But I wouldn’t know; we tried unsuccessfully twice to tour Martha’s Gardens Date Farm. If you ever show up there, know that they do not do tours on Monday, even though they are open.

We settled for a date shake in their little cafe while watching a video about the farm. It was delicious!

If we had toured the farm, I was hoping to find out why there are groves of palm trees planted in many areas around Yuma. It’s still a mystery to me.

A crop of something we couldn’t identify was being newly grown in the fields behind our RV, with green shoots just peeking out of the ground. The irrigator made for some great sunset pictures.

Yuma has a huge winter snowbird population. I wanted to see what it was all about, and the produce production was pretty interesting aspect of our stay. I’m not sure that I would want to stay much longer than the two weeks that we were here, though. Many RVers have their special winter spot, but we are still looking for ours!

Next time – moving further west to the big city!

USTravel

Castle Dome Ghost Town, Arizona

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In our continuing futile search for warmer weather, we moved our home just as far as we could go and still stay in the United States – to Yuma, Arizona. If we had gone any further south we would have been in Mexico. Our RV park was only fourteen miles away from the border.

While in Yuma, we had an incredibly interesting and fun day at Castle Dome Ghost Town.

The town takes its name from the mountain range behind it. Castle Dome is the peak that looks a bit like a knob on top of the peak on the left. We could always see it clear back to Yuma. And I say “clear back” because it is a bit of a drive to get here. After the forty mile or so trip, there is a three mile stretch of pavement on the turnoff, and then about seven miles on a rough dirt road through Kofa Wildlife Preserve. A good ghost town is never easy to get to – at least not the ones we have seen.

The actual name of this place, Castle Dome Mine Museum, is owned by a couple by the name of Stephanie and Allan Armstrong. They salvaged original town artifacts from the desert and the surrounding abandoned mines. Around 60 buildings have been resurrected and furnished. What I liked is that everything is open – no peering through dusty windowpanes here – and for the most part there are no display cases or ropes to stand behind.

Inside one of the many saloons, where a good card game has seemingly just been abandoned. I could almost hear the piano playing some old-time tunes.

Cal found a bigger saloon to hang out in. This one belonged to the hotel and stagecoach stop. Is that a ghostly apparition in the mirror behind him?

Meanwhile, I tried to work the cash register in the general store.

There were once over three hundred mines here, and this is the longest worked mining district in Arizona. Both silver and lead were mined as late as 1979. Galena was the primary ore and the minerals were extracted from the rock, but when silver prices plummeted the mines finally closed. There are other minerals too, including gold, but the gold mostly played out before the 1900’s. The late 19th century was the heydey of mining in Castle Dome.

The town of Castle Dome was once larger than Yuma, and its main drag stretched for miles.

During and after the civil war, people came here in search of a better life. Other people were disillusioned by the California Gold Rush and came back east a bit to stake a claim. They would set up some cactus or tree branches from the desert, throw a blanket over the top, and call it home until their fortunes turned.

Tools of the trade

There were some areas that are restored back to the eras of the 50’s to the 70’s, since people were living here then, too. But I liked wandering a little further out from the restored town and looking at remains that are still sitting the way they were left.

In case the sign is hard to read, this is the encampment of Rita, who came here in 1883 looking for “the right man”. She built the stone steps to her cabin and the rock pillar with which to do her cooking. She always had a pot of beans and cup of coffee at the ready, and all were welcome.

There are actually four mines in this picture. Can you find them all?

It’s possible to tour one of the mines in Castle Dome. I will admit that, to us, it is outrageously expensive at $70 per head, but we are on the road to see and do all we can. We decided ahead of time that we’d plunk down the money and not look back!

We were in a large golf cart with only three other people plus the guide for the mine tour, and he was a fount of information. And this is where it got a little weird. Turns out Alan, the owner, has come into the treasure of someone who is liquidating their metal sculpture business. It’s not something that is advertised, but they are being set up everywhere out back. In between listening to the bits of information our guide was giving us, there was this to look at:

The pre-teen in our group was very impressed. I decided that this would really make the tour fun for kids (or adults) who might need a bit of a diversion from rocks and mining. And to be fair, there is more to the metalwork than just dinosaurs: there are animals and birds of the desert, a miners camp, and other scenes. Another adult in our group took picture after picture of the sculptures, so I guess she enjoyed them too.

We finally arrived at the mine and discussed mining equipment. While our guide was talking, I took a picture of the view. Just ignore the little coyote on the far right. It was impossible to take pictures without these things popping up.

Our golf cart went right into the mine, 100 feet down. We stayed on this level, but there are actually seven levels to the Castle Dome mines, and all mines feed into the main passageways. Out of the seven levels, five are under water. When the mines were in operation, the water was being continually pumped out.

Once down in the mine, we were out of the golf cart.

The mines are no longer in use because prices have dropped and the cost of extraction and production would erase any profit. We looked at this chunk of galena. It contains about 60% lead and 40% silver, and there is fluorite wrapped around it. Its value is estimated at about $5,400, but there would really be no value in processing it.

Our guide highlighted a vein of silver, which shows up more easily with his blue light.

Besides the minerals, there is a treasure trove of items left behind by generations of miners. The climate of the mine preserves them perfectly. Outlaws hid their plunder down here, and there was once a blacksmith shop. Miners wore out their jeans quickly and needed replacements on the job, and many pairs have been found. We looked at some Levi’s that were over a hundred years old:

To us, the thing that made this mine absolutely worth what we paid for the tour was the view we received with the lights off and the high-powered black lights on. The mine is full of fluorescent minerals and these lights cause them to glow.

The reds are calcite or halite. Chalcedony, hyalite, or opalite causes the greens. The blues are mostly fluorite, but could also be hydrozinite. It is literally a feast for the eyes, each picture that I took a work of art. With the lights, the mine becomes a wonderland.

When our guide turned the lights off and we entered a totality of darkness, the rocks still glowed. They would continue to do so, he said, for about an hour.

This naturally-occurring “Karaoke Cat” was still glowing after the lights went out.

Our tour was done soon after that, because of course, the phosphorescence was the highlight. The tour lasted an hour and a half.

Inside the mine, our guide had discussed the shifting rocks that are pushing upward under the surface. Mountains were caused eons ago by this shifting rock. We could see the shape of the rocks that come together underground, and once above ground on the way back, could see the effect of those same rocks on the small hill in the picture below. Yes, the one the dinosaur is standing on.

Our guide stopped so we could have a little fun, too. He compared this to one of those tourist places where a picture can be taken with a fake background. Let me assure you, the background here is absolutely the real thing.

What a time we had here! If I’d loaded up all the pictures I took or enlightened you with all the other things I learned, we’d be here all day. So I’ll stop for now, and maybe do one more post about our stay in Yuma later.

Next time – what’s in your salad bowl?

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A Quartzsite Day

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An RV sits on BLM land near Quartzsite, Arizona

Boondocking in the desert with nothing but the stars all around! Isn’t that the great RVer’s dream? 

Except that three and a half years into RV ownership, we know now that we are not boondockers. So no, that is not our RV in the picture at the top of the page. We may boondock (stay self-contained in an RV or van with no connection to electric, water or sewer) for an occasional night at a winery or other such idyllic enterprise, and even that throws Cal into a frenzy of planning: checking out the generator, filling up with fresh water, and whatever else might have to be prepared. Having hookups for our RV home makes life easier and everyone happier. I booked us into an RV park thirteen miles down the road in Brenda, Arizona.

In the months of January and February, Quartzsite, Arizona is a boondocker’s mecca. It is a little town with a population of 2,413 which swells during these months. The place attracts all types of RVers, drawn by the warm weather and sunny skies. The area is surrounded by miles of government Bureau of Land Management desert, which is free and open for people to set up camp if they are willing to tent or boondock . It is also called “dispersed camping”.  

It’s not just the boondocking experience here that draws everyone. At various times throughout these months, the town hosts a large RV show, several rock and gem shows and the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous, which is an annual gathering for van dwellers.

Our first stop for our day in Quartzsite was to pay homage to Hi Jolly. One hundred and twenty two years after his death, he is still a larger-than-life personality.

Hi Jolly originally had two names: Philip Tedro and Hadji Ali. He was brought here from the Middle East with a group of camels as part of a failed US Army experiment to use camels for cargo transport across the southwest desert. The camels terrified the accompanying burros and horses, the Civil War broke out, and funding for the project dried up. Hi Jolly had several other enterprises throughout his life and made his home in Quartzsite.

If you didn’t know this story, you would wonder why so many businesses in Quartzsite are named “Hi Jolly” and why there are camels decorating everything in town, including the welcome sign.

The reason why we were in Quartzsite this particular week was for the RV show. While many RV shows are understandably only about the RV’s, Quartzsite’s is more about the “stuff”. We wanted to see what it was all about.

The show is free, and right away when coming in, there is a huge vendor tent. 

There area vendors for RV accessories, RV parks and resorts, and all kinds of other stuff both RV and not RV related. It reminded me just a bit of the vendor tents I’ve seen at state fairs. Cal was a little disappointed to not see vendors with more useful stuff for the RV or people to answer particular questions that he had. 

We were taken in by this vendor. You can make toasty grilled cheese sandwiches in only three minutes in the microwave!

We purchased it, and have since tried it, and–it’s great! I think it will be handy when we have the grandkids over for lunch this summer.

Outside of the tent, there are around 200 RV’s to be seen. Of course, we are most interested in the Montanas, because that is what we own.

There is a new 2024 Montana with an ebike compartment that we’ve heard about, and would have liked to see it. But that RV is too new for this show. We did enjoy looking at the various Montana models, including a newer version of our own.

It was also interesting going into some of the RVs that we’ve seen in RV parks. The Voltage at right in the picture below is called a “toy hauler”. The back flips down, and there is space to store a motorcycle or an ATV. Many people convert these to an extra bedroom or office. The RVs where Cal is standing are all 5th wheels.

We stepped into many, many RVs. In the end, we concluded that we still like ours best.

After we finished with the RV area, we walked across the street and discovered acres more of vendors, mostly selling crafts but also related RV supplies. We’d been at the show for four and a half hours, including a break back in the truck for lunch. Enough! Our feet were tired.

We were here on this particular day not only for the RV show but also to go to a party. We are members of an RV club called Escapees. There are many good aspects to having a membership with them, the most important for us being a mail center which holds and sends us our mail. On this day, they were having a gathering far out in the desert. 

There was music, free hotdogs, and some information tables. After awhile, though, I got up to take a walk down the BLM road to further check out the boondocking scene.

Many boondockers huddle in groups like this. Some are organizations that are having a gathering, and some are just people who know each other. And maybe some people feel that there’s safety in numbers. It looks too much like being in an RV park to me. Boondockers also tend to converge close to a main road.

I took this picture because the RV is a Montana. But you can see another boondocker close by. Do they know each other? If I was boondocking, I would not want someone even this close to me unless I knew them. To me, that is the magic of boondocking – to be out there all on your own.

As much as I’m attracted to the idea of boondocking, I think that the reality might not be quite so fun. So we headed back to our RV park in Brenda where the desert and mountain views were every bit as spectacular. We just had to walk behind the park to get to them.

Next time – we visit a ghost town

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Life in the Phoenix area

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We spent a total of about two and a half months in the Phoenix area this winter, save the ten days that we returned to Denver for Christmas. Although I’m acclimated to desert living by now, I think once in awhile about how different life is here compared to life in the Midwest.

Everyday, mundane things, such as how it’s not unusual to find the parking lot at the grocery store with a covering over it. 

It’s not any covering, either. Those are solar panels. So the cars stay nice and shaded while they’re parked in the hot summers, and the panels help provide energy. The birds love it, as evidenced by all the tweeting coming from above. By the way, the grocery store is a Fry’s, a brand of Kroger’s, which is the main option here.

The highway berms are completely finished off with beautiful desert landscaping. The barrier walls and exit tunnels are decorated with desert or native designs. Two enormous lizards playfully climb up a column on an overpass near Goodyear, and a large cute bug graces a tunnel entrance nearby. Near where we were staying in Gold Canyon, a quail family marches along an exit berm in colored gravel, and a roadrunner is on the opposite side.

Of course, when we are on the highway, I can’t very well yell at my husband to stop so I can take a picture. But on an ambitious walk from our park in Goodyear one day I was able to photograph one of these.

The design on this particular exit bridge and tunnel is of cotton. That is because it is right next to Cotton Road, or because cotton has been traditionally grown around here. Or perhaps for both reasons.

Development is booming here. Subdivisions are going up everywhere. They bring in the road crew to add more lanes to an existing old desert road, then add sidewalks, desert landscaping, and a five-foot high decorative cement brick wall around the subdivision. I don’t know why every one has to have a wall. A new subdivision is going in kitty-corner from our park, and the empty stretch of land across from it will also be developed at some point soon, I’m sure. Signs from home builders about new developments are on every corner.

It’s not only homes, but also shopping centers. Of course, everyone needs a grocery store, but all the chain stores and restaurants are being built too.

We rode bikes one Sunday afternoon and tried without a lot of success to push past all the development. Our ride went like this: we were on the narrow edge of road pavement, then a new sidewalk, then a dirt path, then a stretch of prettily landscaped walkway between the walls of two communities, then a new subdivision road, then a path again, then a busy rural road. 

I’m afraid that, at some point not long in the future, family farms like this one will go the way of the dinosaur. 

How can this lush green field exist in the desert?

The answer lies in irrigation from the canal system that crisscrosses this city. In antiquity, the Hohokam peoples cultivated the Salt River valley with a system of hand-dug canals for farming. Centuries later, the European settlers noticed the old canals, and began digging them up themselves. I’ve learned that there are 180 miles of canals in the Phoenix area. 

It’s not only for irrigation, of course. These canals provide drinking water, and the city could not survive without them. Water rights, preservation and distribution are an ongoing struggle here.

Roosevelt Canal lies next to our park. In one subdivision farther down the canal, they’ve built a sidewalk next to it that goes on for about a quarter mile.

The city of Tempe, Phoenix’s first suburb, calls a wide spot in the canal “Tempe Lake”. They have built a park, complete with a bike trail, next to their stretch of canal. This part of it dams up the Salt River.

Although the valley that Phoenix is in is very flat, it is also surrounded by a mountain range, and every now and then an individual mountain pops up. The city has simply built around them, as evidenced by this mountain popping up behind the sparkly buildings on Tempe Lake.

We rode the bike trails around Tempe Lake, but only one of them really went anywhere. It took us to the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale. The trail followed the canal for awhile, but then closer to Scottsdale it went through a series of parks and golf courses. We greatly enjoyed this ride.

Speaking of Scottsdale, the Arizona Canal goes through the Old Town area. At Christmas time, the lights are very pretty on the canal.

Another suburb with water is Fountain Hills. Their water is not a canal, but Fountain Lake. A beautiful paved walking path goes around the whole of it. The lake is effluent, meaning that it receives its water from a groundwater flow system. That’s about all I understand about that.

The centerpiece of this lake is a fountain. And not just any fountain, but the world’s fourth-tallest at 560 feet, and the second-tallest in the United States. It only goes off for 15 minutes on the hour.

Flying back in to Phoenix from our Christmas in Denver, we were able to see the fountain from the air. It rose up from the lake like a great white feather.

There are many fascinating sculptures along the path.

We went up to another suburb, Sun City West. There was no water to be seen here, but something much better: an afternoon spent with my brother and sister-in-law Marcus and Heidi, while they were visiting their son-in-law’s mother Joy. Their mutual family lives in Hawaii, and Marcus and Heidi had just returned from there. Joy graciously invited us to her home for lunch and we all had a lovely afternoon visit. 

From left to right: Heidi, Joy and Marcus
Marcus, Cal, Julia (that’s me), and Heidi

While we visited, we watched hummingbirds repeatedly visit at Joy’s feeder, and a family of Gambel’s quail playing around on the golf course behind her patio. Just before that visit, I was delighted to see a covey of them walking around our RV. It’s very hard for me to get pictures of them; they skitter around so fast. This time, they didn’t know I was watching them from inside.

At our RV, Cal would often see a roadrunner making its way to somewhere further into the park. Later in the day, it would make its way back through our site again.

The thing I really liked about our stay in Goodyear was that there were citrus trees in our park, and the fruit was ours for the picking as residents. At any time, I would help myself to oranges, tangerines, lemons and grapefruit. This was my favorite grapefruit tree:

There are two regional Maricopa County Parks near Goodyear: Estrella Mountain, and White Tanks. We got in a couple of hikes when the weather warmed.

Estrella Mountain Regional Park
Yours truly in the rocks at White Tanks
Cal at White Tanks between the cholla cactus

A winter in Arizona is certainly different from the Midwest, especially when I think about the landscape there in January. We’ve done our share of complaining about the chilly temperatures, but we know we have nothing to complain about when everyone up north is shivering with snow and ice.

Next time – Quartzsite!

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A Visit to the Capitol of Arizona

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Just over a week before Christmas, we moved to Goodyear, on the west side of Phoenix. Two days later, we were on a plane to spend the holidays with our family in Denver. We were back in our RV for the New Year, ready to go and find out just what’s on this side of the city.

Except…we came back to Goodyear with long lingering colds, and Arizona was having its winter. It was chilly, and we spent a lot of time in the RV. One day, I was ready to get out, but we needed to go somewhere indoors. We hadn’t yet visited Arizona’s capitol building, so we headed back east to downtown Phoenix.

This may seem like an odd choice, but we have visited many capitol buildings, and they are usually pretty interesting. There is something different about each one. 


Right away, I spotted the difference in Arizona’s capitol building. It’s a museum. The state grew out of its building pretty quickly, and in 1960 constructed both a house and a senate building. 

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From where I was standing to take the Capitol building picture, the House of Representatives and the Senate buildings were on my right and left.

A Capitol docent was on hand as we stepped into the building. He made sure we knew that there is no fancy architecture here or impressive sculptures as in other state capitols. During the time of its construction in 1900, money was tight and the entire cost of the construction was a mere $135,000.00. Arizona was only a territory until statehood came in 1912. Even the copper dome on top was just painted on for its first 75 years, until the Arizona Mining Association donated the material for the real deal. This was a low budget build.

We walked through the original senate room, where the statue of a man presided over an empty room. Empty, that is, except for Cal over there on the right. Together, they look like they’re studying something up on the balcony.

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I thought this was a little strange, but a small plaque on his desk told me who he was: none other than George W.P. Hunt, first governor of Arizona. He also served in both houses of the Arizona Territorial Legislature. Interesting piece of trivia – his burial spot is in a gleaming pyramid on a hill in Papago Park overlooking the Phoenix Airport. Jets are flying right over him in perpetuity.

Other than the legislature, the rooms on all four floors are for exhibits now. The first one we came to was a room dedicated to the USS Arizona, a battleship that was sunk during the attack at Pearl Harbor. Although it is now at the bottom of the sea and part of the memorial there, a piece of it is right here in the capitol building.

Across the hall is an exhibit dedicated to Buffalo Soldiers. They were the first African American soldiers to serve at Fort Huachuca back in the late 1800’s. Having spent time at that military post both when Cal was in the Army and at the RV park there two years ago, it was like greeting old friends. 

We looked at the exhibit, and then went into a room where they detailed the lives of some of the soldiers. I was interested in one in particular: Private Cathay Williams. It turns out that Cathay was a woman, although her picture is a fictionalized version of what she was thought to look like.

Born into slavery, Cathay experienced great discrimination and oppression in her life. Only being able to cook and clean after emancipation, she joined the military to be able to make her own way. Being 5’9″ tall, she was able to conceal her identity for a full two years, until a smallpox outbreak put her in the hospital. She was then discharged. The military denied her a pension even though she suffered ill health for the rest of her life as a result of her service. If she didn’t receive the honor she deserved in life, I’m glad her story is here in the Capitol for all to learn about.

A model railroad is set up in another room. The train runs the length of the state of Arizona in the exhibit. One of the engineers was on hand to point out the points of interest in various “towns” and natural features – including the Grand Canyon – that the train passes.

The life of Sandra Day O’Connor is also highlighted in the capitol building. She was the first female Supreme Court justice, and she grew up on a family cattle ranch near Duncan, Arizona.

When we visited, there was also an art exhibit of paintings solely by Arizona women artists. I liked this painting, called “Laughter in Creases”, by Christina Carmel.

The results of the 1912 election are written on the wall on the first floor. It was the first election after statehood, and in this election, women were given the right to vote. Nationally, this did not happen until 1920.

When we reached the top floor, we could look all the way down to the first floor and the mosaic of the state seal.

There were many other items of interest here which I haven’t covered. We found this to be a great way to pass a dreary and cool winter morning.

Next time – wrapping up our Phoenix-area stay

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Saguaro Lake and the Wild Horses of the Salt River, Arizona

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The distance from our abode at Lost Dutchman State Park to our next stay at Gold Canyon RV Park was a grand total of eight miles away. For all that, our forty-day stay there might have been a world away in comparison. We enjoyed happy-hour music on the bistro patio while watching the Superstition mountains turn red, a golf-cart Christmas parade and a choir concert, and watching folks playing (or trying to play) glow-in-the-dark golf one evening as we took in our evening walk. It is a fun and welcoming place, which is why we returned. We’d stayed here two years ago.

We are already gone from there, though. Joe Friday from Dragnet comes to mind with the quote: “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” In this case, “just the highlights”. When I think of the highlights from our Gold Canyon stay, it is the the wild horses of the Salt River that I think of first.

During our last stay at Gold Canyon, I’d heard about the horses and wanted to see them, but didn’t know where to find them. This time, I received information on two possibilities. 

We headed east a little bit before driving north of Mesa into the Tonto National Forest, leaving the Superstitions behind us and going into the Four Peaks mountain area. This was new territory to us and we enjoyed the drive. 

Our first stop this day was Coon Bluff Rec Area. It is a pretty spot with mesquite trees lining the high banks of the Salt River. Many bird watchers were out on this sunny day. I don’t know if they were successful in their bird sightings, but we didn’t have luck seeing the horses here. Still, it was pretty enough for a picture, horses or no.

Our second lead for possible horse sightings was Blue Point Rec area. We continued down the road, and just as we were on the bridge before the turnoff I saw them: several beautiful horses in the river! We turned into the Pebble Beach area across the road from Blue Point.

Except for one thirsty horse, they came up from the river soon after our arrival. We discovered there was a group of about eight, although they didn’t stay together.

They seemed aware of us but not afraid, moving not too far away as they munched their way up into the desert.

The horses are descendants of those brought here by the Spanish missionaries in the 1600’s when they were establishing their new churches. They are wild, but of course not indigenous. As such, they have had a long and fraught history. Their numbers multiplied more than local ranchers and the government would have liked, so they have been hunted and their numbers culled. Because of the dense vegetation along the river where horses could hide, however, many survived.

Several of them came up from the riverbank and I sat down on a rock to watch the show. They were unafraid of us but I did not want to come too close.

Today, the horses of the Salt River are protected and managed. It is thought that there are around three hundred of them, maybe more. There is an effort, through birth control, to reduce the herd down to one hundred. The horses do have predators: I was briefly a member of their Facebook group, and one of the new colts had just fallen prey to a mountain lion.

As we walked back to the car, the horses seemed to follow us.

We weren’t ready to head home yet after all that excitement, so we moved up the road a short way to Saguaro Lake. We turned into the marina and drove around to a fishing dock where a blue heron was perched.

I usually can never, ever get a shot of a heron from this distance. They are aware of me long before I can focus my phone. I soon discovered the reason why this one was sticking around. A fisherman was throwing his small unwanted catch over to the heron.

We watched as he did this. A hopeful crow fluttered down next to the fish, but waited for the heron first. Snap! That fish was gone quick as a flash!

We returned to Saguaro Lake a few weeks later to ride its tour boat, the Desert Belle. For an hour and a half, we were treated to pretty mountain and desert views as we circled the lake.

A forest of saguaros grows on a hillside on one corner of the lake, where the sun and moisture are most favorable.

As the boat rounded the back of the lake, we found one of those most elusive of saguaros: the crested saguaro. For every 200,000 saguaros that there are, there is only one that is crested. We saw two or three during our last winter in Arizona, so now we can add this one to our list.

At the beginning of this blog, I noted that we were in the Four Peaks region of the Tonto National Forest. From the lake, we could see those peaks off in the distance.

The captain told us that there is an amethyst mine nestled below the peaks.

Bighorn sheep live here, but there were none to be seen today. We did, however, see eagles, and I switched my phone out for my camera to get this shot of one high on the rocks.

He also told us that there are actually four lakes created by damming the Salt River. From where we were, at Saguaro Lake, they go off to the east. If you think of the dams as a “scar” on the land, you can remember the names of the lakes that way: Saguaro, Canyon (in the Superstition Mountains), Apache, and Roosevelt.

One last shot of the lake for you – if you can see it, there is a rock formation that looks like an elephant. Appropriately, it is called Elephant Rock.

There were other adventures during our Gold Canyon stay, but I’ll save them for another time, perhaps. We’re on the move!

Next time – visiting Arizona’s Capitol Museum