Kofa, Picacho, and the Main Event!

On Sunday, 3/12, we arrived for four nights at Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, a favorite camping spot on last year’s trip. Named for the nearby King of Arizona mine, Kofa NWR was established in 1939 for the protection of desert bighorn sheep. Over 80 percent of the 666,641-acre refuge is wilderness and much of the adjacent land is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and both are open for boondocking! Woohoo!

 

We just love boondocking at Kofa!

We got set up at a site close to where we parked last year and Carole and I walked to the Spiral. The Spiral is a 60 feet in diameter perfect spiral labyrinth that you can see from Google Earth view. Who and when it was created is a mystery. We had a fairly good idea (or so we thought) of where it was located, so took off across the desert hardpack. We overshot our mark by quite a bit and had to backtrack and it turned out the Spiral was nearly directly across from our campsite. 🙄 Oh well, we needed the steps. Lol.

 

Pretty amazing view from our campsite.

The origins of the Spiral remain a mystery.

We had a very relaxing stay at Kofa, enjoying fireside happy hours and beautiful sunrises (compliments of Raney) and sunsets. This is getting to be one of our favorite camping spots. It's a great place to just chill for a bit.

 

Raney and Riley - camping bookends. Lol. 

This sunrise is brought to you by... Raney!

Sunrise over Kofa. 

Sunset - these I don't mind so much. Lol. 

We did the Palm Canyon hike with the puppers on Tuesday to see the only native palm trees in Arizona. These California Fan Palms are remnants from an earlier age, probably descendants of palms that grew here after the last ice age. As the climate warmed to desert conditions, the palms only survived in the favorable microclimates of a few very narrow ravines; fewer than 100 trees remain today.

Carole, Bob and Ruby on the hike to Palm Canyon.

Rog, Raney and Riley on the short, but rocky hike to the Palms.

Loved the wildflowers along the trail.

Palm Canyon viewpoint.

Wednesday was laundry day. Carole and I completely filled the huge cargo area of the Pupwagon (our Honda Element) with a couple weeks’ worth of washing and headed to Quartzsite in search of a laundromat. The first two were super busy, but third time was the charm and we managed to snag enough machines to get everything going at once. With that chore out of the way, we walked around the flea market area. It was a bit of a let down after the huge array of vendors that we saw last year during the big RV Rally, but we still managed to pick up a few things. Then we met Rog and Bob at Silly Al’s for pizza and more of our favorite Big Blue Van!

 

No day is a bust that ends with Big Blue Van. Lol.

We picked a good day for an indoor dinner because we had some very interesting weather that day. Huge storm clouds and a lightning show that lasted for hours! Lucky for us it was off in the distance, so we had great entertainment without getting drenched. Lol. Note that this next sequence of photos were taken in just over an hour - that's how fast the weather and light changed. I wasn't able to capture the lightning but it lasted well into the night.

 

Loved the drama in black and white.

And now, finally, we get to share a new campground! We pulled into Picacho State Park near Picacho, AZ on Thursday, 3/16. We’d read great things about the park trails, and it was a perfect place to stage for the “big event”. Yes, I’ll tell you about that in a minute. Promise! Picacho, which I very much wanted to pronounce like the Pokémon character, but sadly it is not. It’s actually from a Spanish word meaning “a large pointed isolated hill” and is pronounced pi·​ca·​cho - pə̇ˈkä(ˌ)chō. Sigh. It’s more fun my way!

Picacho Peak State Park, a great place to stay any way you say it.

Tiny lightning-attack Pokémon creature or tall isolated hill – either way, Picacho State Park was a winner! We were glad we’d made reservations because the campground was completely full when we arrived. The spaces were spread out with lots of vegetation between and the trails did not disappoint. You can hike to the top of Picacho Peak, but we saved that for another time. Earlier this year, Rog redid the wet bay on the coach and installed a new faucet with a mixer valve and longer hose. We tested it out by giving both Raney and Riley a bath. It worked great, but they weren’t as thrilled with it as we were. Lol.

Picacho Peak is in the middle.

Bath time for the babies!
Not sure who was wetter, them or us. Lol.

On Friday, we walked the Calloway Trail to see the wildflowers. With the wet spring the desert is in full bloom, and it is bringing the tourists and photographers out in droves. When we pulled out of the park around 9am on Saturday, the trailhead parking lots were already full and the line to get in the gate was easily over a half mile long!

The wildflowers were gorgeous!
These are California poppies and Coulter's Lupine.

 

Spikey cactus and delicate blossoms.
The birds apparently like both!

Purple Mat, Ocotillo, and Globemallow

A saguaro cactus stands sentinel in a field of flowers. 

Brittlebush glows in the sunshine.

We decided to hit the Costco in Tucson on the way to our next stop. Yes, yes I’ll tell you about it in a minute. Hold your horses. Lol. Anyway, while Carole and I went inside to do the shopping, Rog and Bob unhooked the toads. (Fun fact, Carole and Bob bought the CRV that we had on the big trip, so it may look familiar!) Then, in the Costco parking lot, Ruby made her great escape! She is a darter and loves nothing more than to run away and dance just out of reach. Bob and Carole are working hard on her recall, but Ruby can be… shall we say… a bit mischievous. She charged out the door of their motorhome and around the parking lot with Bob in hot pursuit. Rog joined in the chase, but Ruby was determined to flaunt her newfound freedom. The scary thing was she was racing through the parking lot, dodging under cars and then ran right across the road leading into Costco. Finally, Bob got close enough to get her to sit (she does listen, sometimes!) and was able to get a leash on her. After putting her back in the RV, Bob realized that he’d lost his keys in the mad dash after Ruby. He was looking around the parking lot when one of the guys who gathers up the shopping carts asked if he’d lost something. Bob said he'd dropped his keys and the guy held them up. But what was totally crazy, was that we were all loading up to leave when Rog glanced out and saw something laying on the road near our coach. He went over and it was Bob’s wallet! Dog, keys, wallet – talk about disaster narrowly averted! Bob agrees he was one lucky guy. Whew!

 

Does this angel face look like she could
cause so much trouble?

It was a short drive from the Costco to the Pima County Fairgrounds in Tucson…drum roll, please…the venue for the 62^nd Escapees Escapade! Huh? What's the big deal, you may ask. Well, let me tell you why we’re so excited to be here. I’ve mentioned the Escapees RV Club before, founded in 1978 by Joe and Kay Peterson who were traveling with their children full-time in an RV and wanted to keep in touch with others like them. To fill this need, they started the Escapees RV Club. The first official publication was a five-page newsletter, written on a portable typewriter, copied and distributed to 164 members. The first Escapade, with just 24 RV’s, was held in Bakersfield, CA in 1979. Fast forward to 2023, this is the 45^th anniversary of the club and the 62^nd Escapade and there were 951 RV’s and 1621 registered attendees! Wow!

 

1978 - Escapee founders Joe and Kay Peterson.
1979 - The very first Escapade.

The club has evolved into a total support network for any type of RV’er with over 180,000 members. The club’s focus is on support, education and community. They also support the CARE center that assists RV’ers who are sick/injured or aging out of the lifestyle. The Escapade was a 5-day event with over 60 seminars, live music and entertainment every evening, a market place for shopping, RV show, fund-raisers for CARE, a huge variety of social gatherings, and so much more!

We arrived on Saturday, 3/18, and were directed by the parking team to our spot for the week. Since we wanted to park next to Bob and Carole, we arrived together and the parking team set us up so we could share a patio space. Perfect for the puppers! The event didn’t officially begin until Sunday, but we were able to register and wander around the fairgrounds. At every single Escapees event we’ve attended or location we’ve visited we have been super impressed by the welcoming inclusive spirit and that certainly held true for this Escapade.

 

We loved being parked nose to tail so we could share a patio space.

We're thrilled to be here!

We had a jam packed week which is why I am sooooo far behind on the blog. I apologize for that, but when the choice is between doing something new and fun or writing about something we already did, you all are just going to have to wait a bit. Lol.  The next post will recap the highlights of the Escapade and our time in Tucson. Have you ever heard of Silent Disco? Would you be interested in finding out if Rog beat me at a shooting match, or if I beat him? Did I suddenly go silver? Tucson Spring Street Fair, Thunder & Lightning Over Arizona Air Show – did I mention we’ve been busy? That’ll all be in the next post!