Author: sandcastle

Casa Grande

When we left Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument we headed for Casa Grande, Arizona. But we stopped so many places along the way we only made it to Gila Bend. We stayed there at Augie’s Quail Trail RV Park which had been recommended to us by one of our SKP Class of ’08 members. I can now recommend it myself. Here’s a couple of pictures from there.

 

As we drove, I looked mainly at Saguaro cacti we passed. These are the ones I think of as bandit cacti because I so often see pictures of them looking like they are holding their hands up in the air. Now I know they have lots of other poses too. I saw a couple with their hands on their hips, one hugging itself, one looking like Medusa on a typical for her hair day, and one giving a thumbs up.

I also saw my first tumbleweeds of this trip. There were a couple of them crossing the road. They made me remember a resurrection plant I once had. When the plant arrived in the mail, it looked very dead. But when I put it in water, it uncurled and turned green. It did that several times before I left it without water too long and it truly did die.

Our first stop in Casa Grande was the post office to pick up mail waiting for us there. This post office must get a lot of RVers. Their parking lot had spaces long enough for our RV.

We had lunch at Wendy’s. It’s been a long time since we’d done that.  I had a chicken sandwich and a baked potato.  It’s been a long time since I did that, too.

Then we headed to the Pinal County Fairgrounds where they offer water & electric hookups for $12 a night. It’s just a large gravel parking lot but it made a good place to sit for a couple of days to do monthly maintenance and a major housecleaning. Nick and Terry Russell were parked there, too, but we didn’t visit with them. One of the effects of writing a newspaper for travelers and a daily blog is much of the RV world feel like Nick and Terry are good friends even though they may have never met. I felt like we would be intruding on their quiet time as they get ready to host the Gypsy Gathering at the fairgrounds next week. So, I sent them an email saying we were there then left them alone. I figured if they wanted company, they’d come to us. As it turned out, they had almost more company than they could handle come knocking on their door.  

We enjoyed their Gypsy Gathering in Ohio last September but we don’t plan to stay here for this one. We’ve been in Arizona for more than a month. It’s time to move on.

When we left the fairgrounds it was not even 8:30 a.m. That’s because we decided to go to Denny’s for breakfast. Along the way we met a too helpful cop. We knew Denny’s was on the left side of the road but not how far down it was. There was no traffic going our way so we drove in the left lane of the five lane road. (Two lanes each direction with a turning lane down the middle.) Until a cop did a U-turn to get behind us and hit his siren once. We pulled right and he passed us. Then we moved left again. The cop turned on a side road, did another U-turn, waited until we passed him, pulled in behind us and turned on his lights. So we pulled over. He said the siren was meant to be a warning that we were blocking traffic. HE was the only traffic! So, I explained we were looking for Denny’s and didn’t want to be in the right lane when we got there. We could now see Denny’s about a block ahead. He said, “My error. Enjoy your breakfast,” and let us go. Except now there was traffic and we had to wait awhile before we could cross back to the left lane. It was a good breakfast, though.

After breakfast we went next door to WalMart to pick up groceries and another prescription refill. It’s become quite an adventure to pick up my prescriptions because we never know what we are going to get. One time they sent them to the wrong pharmacy and we had to wait while they corrected that. The last batch came in bubble dispensers that are a real pain in the neck. This batch came in three bottles of 30 each instead of one bottle of 90. At least, they finally got all my prescriptions on one web page so it’s easier to reorder them. I keep wondering if Target would do this better than WalMart does.

Our RV is a nag. We were 50 miles overdue for an oil change. We were on our way to Phoenix for our appointment to do that and some other vehicle things when the bonging started. Every time we started the car, it bonged at us to remind us we need to change the oil. Dave finally told it, “Yes, dear.” But now we have fresh oil, a straightened alignment, a very worn spare tire, a horn that works, and parking lights that work. We didn’t get the ESP thing fixed, though, because they needed to order a part from Texas. Since we are headed to Texas, we decided to wait and do that there.

Next to the car dealer there was an implement dealer that had a most unusual fence. It was very short but very effective. What they did was plant lots of prickly pear cactus very close to one another. I wouldn’t want to try to walk through those!

We left the car dealer shortly after 5 p.m. so we headed straight for our planned campground. We are now at Usery Mountain Regional Park, just east of Phoenix. This is a nice park with water and electric hookups for $20 a night. Out of 75 sites they had five left when we arrived. We are in site #8. For another hour or so. Then we’ll head east trying to get through New Mexico during a good weather time as we head for San Antonio, Texas. 

TTYL,

Linda

Cactus

We took the Puerto Blanco drive through the park to see what we could learn about the various types of cactus here.

This is the organ pipe cactus for which Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is named. The white flower blooms only one night a year. Bats propagate them.

 

The bean tree shades the cactus seeds so they have a chance to grow. Once they do so, the new cactus steals all the water causing the bean tree to die.

  

The ocotillo puts out leaves when it rains but drops them when the rain is done so as to not loose moisture through the leaves.

Other types of cactus found here include the Englemann prickly pear, the Teddybear cholla, and others I was not able to identify by their pictures.

  

According to the signs there are lots of animals living around here as well but they had enough sense to stay hiding from us during the heat of the day.

 

Once upon a time…

The above sign says people should not have been able to live here but they did. They even had vegetable gardens. And they weren’t the movie cowboys we tend to think of when seeing vistas like this one of Tillotson Peak

I’ll leave you to ponder this quote from former President Lyndon B. Johnson.

TTYL,

Linda

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument Campground

The campground here is huge.  Google Maps shows it is bell shaped.  

The clapper is the dump. The two rows closest to it are for tent camping and have tent pads.

The next two rows are for small RVs that have no generator. The rest of the campground is for whoever wants it up to 40′ motorhomes.  

We parked in the first of the generator rows so as to be as near as possible to the amphitheater. That’s the line on the map leading off to the left toward a green belt. Unfortunately, we never went to a program because Dave didn’t think I should try to negotiate that path in the dark on my Segway. Also, it got really cold as soon as the sun set and there would be no warming campfire at the ranger program.

Here’s the view of the campground’s cactus forest from our windows.

 

The RV sites have concrete parking pads. In the handicapped sites, the concrete pads extend under the picnic table and grill. Both are metal. Ground fires are not allowed. Generator hours are 8-10 a.m. and 4-6 p.m. Water spigots are placed throughout the campground but there are no hookups per se. Our Internet reception was the best we’ve had in a long time and our cell reception was good enough that I was able to talk to our daughter until we lost the signal because the train she was riding went into a tunnel.

More later about the cactus themselves since I’m not sure how long it will take to upload this.

TTYL,

Linda

Misc. Notes

Here’s some bits and pieces that didn’t get included before.

We pulled up to a diesel pump and it said “low-sulphur” instead of “ultra-low sulphur” with a warning it was not to be used in vehicles built since 2007. So we went across the road to a different gas station while wondering if we’d ever put the wrong diesel in our tank.

Another funny street name: Sore Finger Road. I wonder how sore your finger has to be to get a road named after it?

Business name on a truck: Church Chair Industries. Do church’s really buy enough chairs to support them?

Billboard on truck: ad for Carl’s Jr with a picture of a burger and the slogan “It’s rude to stare.”

Warning sign on truck: “Long vehicle” with a picture of a dachshund.

Sign on a church: “Where will you be seated in Eternity–smoking or non-smoking?”

You’ve probably all been to a mall food court but have you ever been to a parking lot food court? We parked between Panda Express and McDonald’s and met back at the rig with our food.

Gated communities can take a long time to enter. We were almost late to the GNC operating session because of the time it took to get our pass. And that guard already knew we were coming.

The BLM Yuma Field Office has color coded maps of public lands in their filing cabinets. If you ask, they will give them to you. They gave us one for Arizona and one for the U.S. They also gave us a handout providing information on popular Yuma area places to camp including directions to them. We stayed in a free area across a pond from a members only park.  (For the Lavins:  read as Yuma Lakes)

On AZ Highway 85 just south of Gila Ben there is an aircraft gunnery range.  They have viewing areas with interpretive signs.  I was surprised to come across a border guard checkpoint near there.  I sure wouldn’t want to be trying to sneak through a place where airplanes practice shooting things on the ground.

We’ve discovered we can use our generator to charge my Segway.  I needed to do that to be able to get around the Yuma Quartermaster’s Depot.  We are doing it again right now in preparation for exploring Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.  More about that place some other time.

TTYL,

Linda

Quartermaster

A Quartermaster is the person responsible for supplying the military with all their goods. Back in 1864, when Arizona was still a territory, a Quartermaster Depot was established in Yuma. The site is now a State Historic Park and we spent the afternoon there today.

The building on the left in the above photo is the place where goods were stored. Behind it is the Colorado River. The goods came upriver by steamship and left by wagons. The building on the right was the Quartermaster’s Office. It also housed a telegraph office and a weather station.

Above is where the Quartermaster, his wife, and their daughter lived. In the main house, there’s a breezeway through the middle with the parlor and dining room on one side and two bedrooms on the other. Each of those four rooms is, I would guess, about 10 feet square and each has a fireplace across one corner. The smaller building to the right and in front of it housed the kitchen and laundry and the soldier who provided those services for the family. A veranda connects the two but there’s enough space to allow any breezes from the river to help keep the kitchen heat away from the main house.

Up to 900 mules were quartered here at any one time. The teamsters who handled them lived in small rooms behind the building below.

In the twentieth century, many other organizations have had offices here. Those offices now host displays about water and various attempt to manage it over the years.  Here’s some of the items in those displays.

  

The Yuma Quartermaster Depot Historic State Park is still under development. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend spending some time here learning lots of interesting stuff.

TTYL,

Linda