BIG Cactus, Feeling Like Death & Taxes, and Eight Months on the Road

We needed to park somewhere long enough to get mail, so opted for five nights in a private RV park – Justin’s Diamond J RV Park - on the outskirts of Tucson. We’ll use this as a base to visit Saguaro National Park and get some chores and maintenance done.  One of the real draws for this park was the miles of hiking and biking trails leaving right from the campground!

Great trails right from the RV park!

Hmmmm... maybe metal isn't a good fashion choice in the desert. :)

Desert sunset.

We arrived on Monday, 3/20, and made the first of several runs into Tucson. First stop was Camping World for a new sewer hose - some things just automatically go to the top of the priority list. Lol. 

Couldn't resist a quick stop at this rock shop on the way to Tucson.

On Tuesday, we visited Saguaro National Park and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.  The national park’s namesake is the giant saguaro cactus. There are no trees in the desert, but these cacti can grow over 50 feet tall. What is fascinating is how long that takes. I usually think of trees reaching maturity in 20 years or so, but the saguaros grow very slowly. At one year they may only be ¼ inch tall, at 15 years barely a foot, at 50 years maybe seven feet tall, after 75 years they start to sprout branches or arms, by 100 years they may reach 25 feet, and those that live 150-200 years can tower over 50 feet and weigh more than 16,000 pounds. It’s like the desert version of being in the redwoods. 😊

Miles of saguaro cactus.

A woody saguaro skeleton. 

It must suck to be 75 years old and just getting zits. Lol.

We drove the scenic loop in the west portion of the Saguaro National Park and stopped at Signal Hill to view the petroglyphs. Like many of the areas we’ve visited, evidence of ancient civilizations remains. These petroglyphs are from the Hohokam culture dating from 200 – 1400 A.D.  

Caught a glimpse of the webmaster, but he was too shy to come out.

A few cactus were blooming.

Petroglyphs at Signal Hill. 

We were warned.

We decided to hike a 3-mile loop trail from Signal Hill. It was hot, hitting 97°, so we weren’t tempted to try anything longer.  We were tramping along, Rog in the lead, when this incredibly loud HISSSSSSSSSSSSS erupts right between us. Curled up next to the trail was a rattler and he was giving us hell. A blood curdling scream may not be the most articulate way to indicate danger, but it’s what came naturally to me! Lol.

Rog ran forward and I backed up. Mr. Diamondback had been enjoying the shade of a dead saguaro and we must have startled him. He looked very displeased at the disturbance and starts heading my way. I back up some more – quickly. He was really just trying to stay out of the sun, but it sure felt like he was giving me the evil eye. Rog (from a safe distance mind you) yells at me to get a picture. Really?? Forget the camera, I wanted both eyes on the slytherin.  Once it was clear he was making for the shade and not me, I did try for a couple of photos. Although I was still shaking from the adrenaline rush so they turned out a little blurry. No worries, I wasn’t chasing him down for another photo op. Lol.

Once the pointy end was moving away from me, I got a picture. :)

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is just outside the national park and definitely worth a visit. If we had it to do over again, I’d make this a separate day trip. The museum is part exhibits, part zoo, part botanical garden, part aquarium and all together enjoyable. There are lots of trails to walk too, but we were pretty much done in by the heat and our earlier hike. We did participate in a 2-hour docent led tour which was very interesting.

The Gila Woodpecker makes a new nest in a Saguaro each year.
Other birds, including elf owls, take up residence in the abandoned nests.

This guy is making use of the available real estate.

He does not look happy. Lol.

Agave in bloom.

Endangered Turk's Head cactus.

By Wednesday, the scratchy throat that I’d been waking up with the past couple days had morphed into a full-on head cold. Oh joy! Well if I’m going to be miserable, I might as well be totally miserable, right? So let’s just leap into the dark abyss and do our taxes. Randi had sent us our tax documents in the mail and the cell service here was fairly decent, so I couldn’t come up with a single viable excuse to put it off. Ugh!  Rog went mountain biking while I wrestled with H&R Block and went through a box of Kleenex. That was mostly for the head cold, although I could have shed a few tears at our final tax bill. Let’s just say that we will be increasing our withholding significantly. Ouch.

Rog had a great time on the mountain bike trails, some areas were still steep and rocky, but there was more of the fun single track that he enjoys. Of course, the cacti create another kind of challenge, especially the cholla which is so well known for its ability to reach out grab you that one variety is known as “jumping cholla.”

Jumping Cholla - give it a wide berth!

Single track trail - Rog's idea of fun. :)

A new perspective. :)

Ok, so the steep rocky bits can get old even for Rog. Lol.

Even with my sniffles, we’ve been walking the trails near the campground and enjoying the Saguaro cactus which are everywhere! It is kind of fun to anthropomorphize the crazy cactus – they grow in such a wild array of all-too-human shapes that it’s easy to see that one as waving, that one as dancing, hey that one has a belly button… you get the picture. 😊

Bellybutton!

March 25^th marked eight months on the road!  Wow. Is anyone else having trouble believing it’s been that long??  I sure am. We’ve been thoroughly enjoying the more leisurely pace of travel with only “jello” plans. However, we did decide to do a little forward thinking so we could pick a route that would get us to Fruita, Colorado by April 27^th for their Fat Tire Mountain Bike Festival. Rog is thinking about a new full suspension bike (something about being old and beat to death on these rocky trails. Lol). At the festival many of the bike companies will have demo bikes available for participants to ride and he is itching to try some out before making a final decision.

Anyhow, just a few days after we laid out our plan Rian mentioned that it had been five months since she’d seen us. ☹  Having an itinerary made it possible to look at dates and airports and it took just a week and a flurry of emails to get Rian booked for a visit in April. She’ll come out to see Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado with us. Nice to know she still enjoys hanging out with the old folks.

We put in a little more time on the road this month, traveling 1056 miles. So far we’ve driven the RV a total of 10,966 miles (and hey, I drove 84 of those!), pumped 1320 gallons of diesel and stayed at 70 different places. We added three national parks to our list this month (Guadalupe Mountains, Carlsbad Caverns and Saguaro), so our totals stand at: 18 National Parks/Monuments, many state/local parks plus Disney and Universal Studios. And we finally made it out of Texas, so the number of states we’ve been to has jumped to 31. 

It turned out that our 8-month anniversary fell on a travel day, so we left Tucson to head north toward the Petrified Forest National Park. I love trees. I love rocks. But I really love trees that are rocks!! Lol. Looking forward to this one!

Got Me Some Bling in Bisbee, Arizona!

Several of the full-time RV'ers whose blogs we follow have sung the praises of Bisbee, so Rog wanted to check it out. Bisbee is one of those fun little towns that has had to reinvent itself. The first mining claims in the area were staked in 1877. The city of Bisbee incorporated in 1902 and by 1910 it was the largest city in the territory with over 25,000 people. During the next century, the mines produced 8 billion pounds of copper, 102 million ounces of silver and 2.8 million ounces of gold along with millions of pounds of zinc, lead and manganese. By 1974 the ore reserves had been depleted and mining operations in Bisbee ceased.

Absent the mining industry, the local housing market collapsed and hundreds of homes went on the market. The cheap real estate attracted retirees (Yes, we old folks are always looking for a bargain in the Sunshine State.) and “hippies”. Today, Bisbee is a well-known artist's community whose well preserved architectural and historic heritage also attracts tourists. That and the sunshine. 😊

Bisbee viewed from Chihuahua Hill above town.

The town reminds me of a mini San Francisco, with colorful houses situated on steep hillsides. There are super narrow, windy streets and stairs, stairs, stairs. They do an annual run called “The Bisbee 1000 – The Great Stair Climb” that winds through the city and UP (only up!) over 1000 stairs. You won’t see me signing up for that! Lol. In addition to galleries and a vibrant music scene, street art abounds – murals, sculpture and informal, funky artistic expression is encouraged.

Stairs, stairs, stairs!

Colorful houses perch on the steep hillside. Notice the painted van. Lol.

Murals decorate even more stairs, 813 to be exact.

Driving into town you can’t miss the huge open pit copper mine. Standing at the rim is an experience. It has a harsh kind of beauty and, while I know that the copper and other metals were needed, especially during the wars, it is scary to see the devastation that man can wreak on the environment.  The “pit” is 4000 feet long, 5000 feet wide and 850 feet deep. Mind boggling.

Wow.  Kind of leaves you speechless.

On Sunday, 3/19, we hiked up Chihuahua Hill above the town and visited the hilltop shrine. It started with just one shrine built in 1980 but has since grown and evolved as others add interesting statues & offerings. There is even a Buddhist corner and a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. The views are outstanding too!

Hilltop shrines.

You can see the copper mine on the left and the city of Bisbee on the right.

Since we stayed just two nights in Bisbee, we mostly walked the town and poked into the shops. Tours are offered of the underground Queen Mine, but we didn’t get a chance to do that this trip. We both enjoyed the local craft beer at the Old Bisbee Brewery. I did manage to find some Bisbee bling to bring home – a lovely necklace and earrings made out of tiny polished geodes. It was a splurge, but so unique I decided to go for it. Rog wanted to bring home some bling too, but luckily the Jaguar he found wasn’t for sale. Lol. 

Caught Rog leaving the Brothel - the Bisbee Bicycle Brothel!

I got to bring my bling home....

... Rog was not so lucky. Lol. 

Civilization Sucks and Rockhounds Rejoice!

We spent two nights in El Paso and while we managed to get done what needed done it was a bit of a culture shock after so many awesome weeks in the pristine wilderness. There are so many people there. And they’re all driving on the roads at the same time. And then there was the disgusting thick brown smog – the air quality was horrendous. Yeah, I’m thinking slashing the EPA’s budget and eliminating environmental protections is the way to go. Ugh! Two days was enough. I see it’s going to take me a while to readjust to “civilization.”  (Ahem, will a certain someone please note the proper placement of the punctuation. The grammar police can untighten their tushie now. 😊)  

So just to follow up on the haircut I mentioned. I checked Yelp and found a salon with decent ratings not too far from our campground. And here’s the kicker, they serve you a free adult beverage while you get your hair done. I didn’t know that was a thing!  My Chocotini (chocolate martini) was delicious. Couldn’t care less what my hair looked like after one of those. Gotta talk to my regular hairdresser about steppin’ up her game. Lol.

From El Paso, we made our way to Rockhound State Park. When I checked on-line all the reservable spots were full, but they have several first/come first serve sites so we decided to give it a try. And we got lucky! We arrived without reservations at 11:30am on Wednesday, 3/15, the week of Spring Break and were delighted to snag the next to last site with water/electric hookups. The incredibly helpful and friendly camp host met us as we entered the park, let us know which spaces were available, and steered us towards site #16, at “the top of the world”. She certainly steered us right! The space was huge! I actually had to ask, “Is this all for us?” Yep. Wow. We were at the top of the loop facing west with gorgeous views of the Little Florida Mountains and a sunset show every evening. We quickly decided to add a night to our original plan.

Rockhound - Yessssss!

Huge spaces ...

...  lovely views (That's Dragon Ridge across the valley) ...

... and a sunset show every evening.

Rockhound State Park is known for its unique rocks and minerals. You can find quartz, agates, opal, jasper and best of all – thundereggs and geodes. AND you are allowed to take some home. Whoohoo!  There are several trails through the park and the camp host let us know that, unlike most parks, we were welcome to get off the beaten path to explore the hillsides and hunt for rocks. Oh, you are singing my song. 

So Rog and I settle in and hit the trial. Cool rocks everywhere! Hmmmmm… is this a geode? What about this?  We quickly discovered that we really had no clue what we were looking for! Lol.

Combing the hillside for treasure.

Very cool rock, not sure what it is, but I'm entranced.

Wildflowers are starting to bloom.

To remedy, or at least slightly mitigate, our ignorance we visited a local rock shop and the exhibits at the visitor’s center. Both had me in a state of rock lust.

Examples of local rocks at the visitors center. I want them all! Lol.

In case you are interested, a geode is spherical rock with a hollow cavity lined with crystals/agate. A thunderegg is a spherical rock that is filled (no hollow space) with crystal/agate. You can’t tell them apart until you break them open. Both are formed in rhyolitic volcanic ash layers. I could geek out and talk about exactly how they are formed, but let’s just say it’s really cool and they are beautiful and fascinating. At least I think so!

The proprietor of the rock shop was a delightful character. He is part owner of a mine that produces some of the most amazing agate geodes, he is now 82 and regaled us with stories of his very interesting life.  I purchased some small polished geodes, just in case we don’t find any of our own.

Geode on the left, Thundereggs on the right.

On Friday, Rog tackled a mountain bike trail in the Little Florida Mountains close to the campground. The trail turned out to be another steep, rocky climb but he enjoyed the views and, more importantly, found the MOTHER LODE of geodes!  They were just laying all over the place! He was miles from camp so he stuffed his pockets, ate his lunch and stuffed his beltpack, wore his spare tire like a bandolier and stuffed his tool pouch, and then emptied his water bottle and filled it with rocks! Yes, this man loves me. Lol. Not sure exactly how we’re going to get them cut and polished (even used, the lapidary equipment is extremely expensive), but we’ll come up with something. Dedication like that must be rewarded. 😊

Little Florida Mountains.

A long way up! The campground is on the right.

View from the top.

Amazing haul! I am so excited!!

We also did a hike at the nearby Spring Canyon State Park – lovely views, but we were unsuccessful in our search for the elusive ibex. These exotic goats were introduced to the area but sightings are rare. We did however, mistake one of the goat paths for the trail and ended up on the wrong side of the canyon. Oops. We backtracked and made it to our destination – Lover’s Leap. Regardless of the name, neither of us was the least bit tempted to jump. Lol. 

Spring Canyon.

Loved the bright green lichen on the rocks.

Almost to the top.

View into the next valley.

Lovers Leap? I don't think so.

Looking back toward Spring Canyon.

The cholla fruit is bright yellow. Yes, it's edible but you have disarm it first. Lol. 

We definitely enjoyed our stay at Rockhound State Park, although the mule may be riding a little lower after we stowed all of our rocky treasures.  Our next stop is Bisbee, AZ – a funky little artist town situated next to an old copper strip mine. Should be interesting.