Breaking Wind

What a great day out. We're staying on Snowflake AZ at Putters Paradise RV park, about 50 miles from this park. It was a great day trip, although the weather quite unpredictable. Some hail, thunderstorms etc. But it did make for some very cool pictures.

There were several hiking trails varying from a couple to several miles, and some smallish under a mile. The weather made us rethink the longer ones after already being caught in a hail storm on one of the shorter ones, so we were content with sticking close to the road. I was a bit disappointed about this as the ranger lady really talked up the beauty of a couple of them. But we did see quite a bit anyway, thunder rolling in the distance almost constantly. God willing we'll be back.

There was a place called "Newspaper Rock", some petroglyphs they estimate to be as old as 2000 years. Cool. Can you spot them?

The north side of the park across highway 40 is where the painted desert is, spectacular. It is also where historic route 66 went through, there are old telephone poles marking where it used to be.

The Painted Desert:

Another park on our trails collection from thousand trails was Valley Vista RV Resort in Benson AZ. We're making our way east, then north so we can see Petrified Forest National Park on the way up. We also want to go this way back to WA to avoid CA at all costs. Fuel prices are bad enough without paying that states exorbitant fuel taxes for them. Enough taxes already thanks.

On this stay we didn't move much, due to the skyrocketing fuel prices, but we did visit a couple things. And we met a nice couple, Terry and Marci, who invited us over to their site to chat. They were from Colorado, and had 5 acres of property at elevation. They don't like how cold it gets so they were at this park from September through April. It was their first time being "snow birds", so we had that in common. I asked some things about their property, because that is exactly the size of acreage we are thinking of getting soon, to make it possible to rest a bit and not consume fuel for a while until they become manageable again. That will probably not be until the next administration.

This was a nice park and we met some friendly people. I even got to help out a neighbor, his wife asked the right person for help. We were just walking by taking the dog for a walk, and this lady comes rushing out, "do you know anything about 5th wheels?". Why yes, we have one. It turns out this is their maiden voyage, and they are a bit confused as to the unhook process, which admittedly is rather stressful the first time. But it turns our he had the exact same hitch and trailer lift system we have. He was confused about at what level the trailer needs to get the mechanism to let go. I told him when you "drop front jacks" on the lippert leveling system, it never lifts enough to relieve all pressure from the truck suspension, you have to manually operate the front jacks until you see daylight in between the trailer and jack, until all weight is off the jack, then the mechanism will release easily. Boom, that was all he needed. I felt good about being able to help him out.

Tombstone AZ

We took a day trip south to Tombstone, the historic site of Wyatt Earp and other outlaws. They have preserved the main street for tourist purposes, lots of shops to peruse. My wife and I have decided we want a western theme to any future cabin we will build, and one shop in particular had some really cool items. We had a nice afternoon visit.

While we were here we explored a few things.

Arizona Market Place

This was a pretty cool afternoon. Lots of unique things being sold, food was a little steep though. It was on somebodies list of things to do while we were here, it was a worthy stop. We didn't get any pictures.

Yuma SKP Coop

We went to check out this potential wintering destination. We are members of escapees, and these parks offer spots to lease, which you get back when you relinquish the spot. There are however maintenance charges per month. We're not sure yet whether we want to go this route or just pay $300/year to get the trails collection through thousand trails, which opens up a multitude of parks in AZ and Florida, however 2 week max stay at a time. We're leaning towards the latter, because it's cheaper, and it allows us to travel and see different areas. I can see how one would like to just plant and relax in a single spot every year as well, a plus being you have a better sense of community, and if you're at a stage in life where you don't feel like traveling a lot that could be a good option. We're not at that stage yet, we enjoy the anticipation of seeing something new and exploring new areas. When that wanes we may buy in to one of these coop parks.

The Peanut Patch

In between RV park visits, we like to shake things up with some dispersed BLM camping. It is very peaceful, we've come to love it. Our 5th wheel holds 80 gallons, we have no trouble going about 10 days, and if we're more conscious of water usage, about 2 weeks. A tip from our neighbor in Yuma led us to this place about 15 miles north. I could even pull in some data with my newly acquired directional "binoculars" antenna I bought from InstyConnect at the Quartzsite RV show.

A nice relaxing week before heading to the Fortuna Foothills prior to heading east to Benson.

Our neighbor in Suni Sands RV Resort recommended we see the Yuma Territorial Prison, a popular tourist attraction. I must say it was worth the time and money, which was I think $8 each. It was very reminiscent of seeing Alcatraz, lots of stories of escapes, the prisoners themselves, and the history of the prison. You could actually walk in to the cells as well. It was interesting.

Kathy and I needed some teeth cleaning, and we'd heard about people using dentists in Los Algodones, aka Molar City. So why not, let's give it a shot. We got a recommendation from our neighbor at Suni Sands Resort on a dentist. Unfortunately, the normal dentist that usually was there was using a substitute, and let's just say the appointment was an interesting ride. Worth every penny of the $30 cleaning fee, but not a penny more. In other words, you get what you pay for. Don't get me wrong, he did a thorough job, but it was a bit like Steve Martin in the "Little Shop of Horrors" movie. I might be exaggerating a little, but just a little.

After our appoinment, we decided to go make our teeth dirty again and go have lunch at one of the local restaurants.

I will say, you will get bombarded with every sales pitch imaginable just walking down the street. It was a bit over the top. After a while you just kind of ignore it. I was a bit surprised a sales pitch was made at our very dining table. That is when a kind person told us the trick of turning over the sign to say "NO". It was peaceful after that.

The street was loaded with shops, that were all either selling pharmaceuticals, vision, dentistry, or leather goods. And every single one would try and pressure sell you walking down the street. Every one. There were actually some good deals, we picked up a leather backpack for Kathy.

And we got to see the big beautiful wall in person while waiting in line to get back to the good old USA.

We bought in to the Trails Collection through Thousand Trails and used this resort to full advantage.

This park was right across the street from the Marine Corp Air Station. We got to witness what was basically an air show daily right out of our back door. It was noisy, but fascinating watching some of the newer fighter jets do their flybys, and my wife got to witness a whole fleet of V-22 Ospreys one morning taking the dog out for a pee.

From the Parker area we headed straight to some boondocking BLM in the middle of Kofa NWR and stayed a week in this relaxing area, right in front of some beautiful mountains, on King Rd near the entrance. In fact the sign for the entrance was right across the road.

We took off on a drive one day to the interior of the area, what beautiful mountain ranges and wide open spaces, jaw dropping. We drove for probably at least 10 miles to explore.

During the trip we came across what looked to be a feature like you'd see in Yellowstone, like some sulfur deposits or such from an ancient bubbling forth from the earth right out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by desert. Very interesting find.

Another day we took off on a hike into the desert off trail just to explore the beauty of the desert and all the species of plants and cactus, basically our front yard for the week.

After dome rock, we made it a point to head to this unique bar in the desert. This place is only open from noon to 6 on the weekend, so we took off one Saturday morning on an adventure down a 5 mile dirt road about 5 miles north of Parker.

We stayed on some BLM land for about 5 days, called "Parker to Nettles Road".

We had a fun time just walking around the area, where my wife and I strangely enough found quite a bit of petrified wood laying around, some big, some small. I don't know why this area had so much but it was really cool. We kept a souvenir.

What a great place to boondock. Even with the number of RVs that show up here, there was plenty of unused space for some relative privacy.

And the stars at night were fantastic.

There was a place called the HiJolly monument, a story about some camels and a dude.

Mocha enjoyed every minute of our stay.

There was also and escapees funded event called "Party on Plomosa" where they served beer, wine and some hot dogs. I was too late for the alcohol, and we were only about 30 minutes late for the activities. The festivities included a live band, "The Status Crowes", the same band that was at the rally in Rock Springs Wyoming. They were just as entertaining this time around. We talked for about an hour with a nice couple, Jonathan and Alice, and I walked away with some information on where to upgrade our solar. I need another few hundred watts.

One of the things about the desert so far are the unbelievable sunsets.

Some drone footage:

Wow, what an event. We rolled in about 11am, and it turns out a damn good thing we did, as those trying later were denied due to the sheer volume of attendees. Estimates were approximately 55,000, parking limited it appeared to me, because as many people as there were, about a football field, there was still standing room behind. It was very high energy, upbeat, hopeful, and awesome. And what a sunset.

We bought some merch and gifts. It took us 2 hours to get out afterward! Amazing turnout. Here's some random snapshots of the event.

We took off up highway 88 to check out the little town of tortilla flat, a tourist attraction type of town. According to a sign, the place was bought by a group of 4 people and they have renovated the place since 2019. It was a nice afternoon with my wife seeing something new.

We took a day and drove to Tonto National Memorial, rather uneventful other than a few pictures, as they had a couple of mask Nazis patrolling the visitor center and kicked us out for not having a diaper on our faces. But we wandered around outside and got a couple nice pictures, and my wife got her stamp in her passport book.

Then we stopped in Superior at a recommended place. It was a very interesting old Indian site that has been excavated and preserved called Besh Be Gawah. We like exploring old relics like this, being the old relics we are.

We went to state farm stadium to see the last game of the season between the cardinals and Seahawks. I loved the freedom of mask choice, it's a different world than WA. We're liking the freedom down here.

We went here trying to find the legendary salt river wild horses.

We ended up on a trail that took us through some quite beautiful Arizona landscape that borders the river. There were interpretive signs along the whole way to teach the topography and some descriptions of the terrain, and what plants live where. Was about 2.2 miles round trip.

We had to get some supplies and food from the local Home Depot and Walmart our first day. We got to chatting with an employee, told her we're brand new here, and she rattled off some things to do in town which I recorded in my note app. One of them was this place, so the very next day we got up and headed about 8 miles north of town. It does not take long to go from city to very rural around here.

They claim this is an actual old ghost town, and to watch out for hazzards.

An old saloon. It looks to me like things have been spruced up for tourism, obviously. This looks like a full fledged restaurant.

A neat church.

It looks to me like this church has regular services.