Civilization

Saturday we traveled to Buckeye, 114 miles away to one of the nearest Walmarts and shopping centers.  After RX, food and other items we traveled right back to our desert home.  It was over a 2 hour drive one way.  Things we packed, frozen and cold stuff, traveled back well.  Once a month I will plan an all day trip for shopping,  Gas is so much cheaper there - $3.14 in Buckeye and $3.47 in Why.  Ajo IGA will do for in between every other week fresh items.  We're glad we have the Scion because it gets 40 miles a gallon - the price we pay for the privilege of living in this desert!

Alamo Canyon & Victoria Mine

Imagine having a cattle station here!

Victoria Mine ruins of a home

One of the mines at Victoria

John finding partial shade

Today was hiking day.  In the am we hiked to ruins of a corral and adobe brick line shack.  I was so interested in the ruins I forgot to take pictures.  It was in a remote canyon with beautiful views.  After lunch we hiked 4.5 miles round trip to an abandoned mine.  That trail was deep wash upon deep wash up and down ending at the base of a mountain very near the border.  I remembered the pictures there.  You could see the Mexican town of Sonoyta in the distance.  I came home begging for dinner out in the border crossing of Lukeville, 4 miles away.  I just could not face cooking after the walking.  John even ate Mexican cuisine.  The end of another interesting day in the desert!

Thanksgiving

The table set before the big feast.  The far end is our pot luck dinner table.



We are thankful our family is always with us everywhere we go.

 Yesterday 5 couples got together at the VIP building to have a turkey dinner together.  We gathered in good fellowship to enjoy a great pot luck turkey dinner with all the trimmings.  It is amazing what everyone can come up with to make it a festive and complete affair.  The table decor was thanks to yours truly, all 10 coordinated napkins provided by a full timer - amazing she packed away enough for a dinner party that large.  I had only 4 and I thought I was good!  Today we hike and tomorrow go to civilization to shop.  It will take all day. Sunday is back to our work schedule.

Goaty neighbor

Metal sculpture next door

Our campground neighbor owns 3 goats outside of Portland, OR so this was sent to Organ Pipe as a joke.  It is quite an eye catcher in this desert.  As you can see it eats cactus or like Emma he put his nose where it should not be.  Emma met a Desert Tarantula when we were walking.  I read they are quite calm but it reared up and Emma was about to sniff it when I pulled her away.  It was walking right on the road in the campground.  I did not have my camera at the time!

Tohono O'odham Nation Cultural Center & Museum



Where we will be working 2 days each - Organ Pipe Visitor Center



Views of the trailhead of Alamo Canyon

John looking at maps

Walk outside of Visitor Center showing the Organ Pipe and Saguaro

Still no picture of John and I in uniform!  I can show the visitor center.  Today we traveled roundtrip 190 long desert miles on AZ 85 and 86 to the heart of the reservation, Sells, AZ. There is a very nice place in Sells that has excellent lunch fare, native style.  We both enjoyed lunch.  The salsa was fantastic in the prickly pear cactus chicken wrap plate and John had a bean soup with a corn/chili muffin.  He never eats beans or chilis but he did and it was great.  After a full meal we found the museum and cultural center of the Tohono O'odham Nation.  It is a very modern building in the center of nowhere.  There was a free museum and other buildings. Great find!!!  We shopped in the reservation food store which I found to be quite good.  We can now wait until after Thanksgiving to shop in civilization.  After traveling back onto ORPI land we went 3 miles offroad on a washed gravel road to the start of Alamo Canyon hiking trailhead and campground, a primitive 4 spot campground.  It is very beautiful and pictures just cannot capture the beauty.  I can see why people use these sites.  It is only for tents and has no water and only one modern out house but the view!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We will be hiking this great trail to old ranch ruins in the canyon soon.

Visitor Center Day in ORPI

Our campsite in the VIP(volunteers in parks) campground



The VIP center with laundry, freezers, showers, ironing board, etc.
  Note the beautiful mountains in the early morning hours.




Early morning fog in the desert

 This morning when walking Emma I expected to hear fog horns.  It was so foggy you could not see the next campsite but it cleared to be a beautiful day in the Sonoran Desert. John worked the morning shift and I the afternoon.  I learned to use the cash register and even checked a "Not so Jr. Ranger" book of a woman who had earned a badge which I presented to her.  I completed the workbook myself yesterday so I was familiar with the answers.  Tomorrow John and I, along with a new volunteer couple who arrived today, are traveling the 20 mile Ajo Drive loop within the park.  It is one of the most traveled routes.  We will get familar with the views, plants, etc. so we can talk intellegently about the drive with visitors. (maybe!!!) I hope to show the visitor center and our uniforms with next pictures.

Arrival

We arrived yesterday in our desert winter home, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.  It is about 4 miles from the border of Mexico.  We start volunteering tomorrow.  We like our spot in the desert and are anxious to meet all the new people.  Our refrigerator door fell off near Tuscon and we spent 2 days getting it fixed.  We had a chance to get last minute hair cuts and stock up for now groceries are 45 miles away. And that is limited for there is only one food store in Ajo.  I will post pictures next post.

Karchner Caverns St Pk & Picacho Peak St. Pk, AZ

Our first us close and personal Saguaro in Picacho Peak



Emma enjoying her view.  Note the reflections!




Site in Picacho Peak St. Pk, AZ



The Saguaro & its nurse plant, a Palo Verde

We arrived Saturday at Karchner Caverns State Park, southeast of Tucson.  It is a newer park with a great view of surrounding mountains and cavern tours, one of which we took on Sunday morning.  The cavern was discovered by 2 young graduate students who fought for 14 years to preserve the cave and make it a state park.  The cave is a living cave still changing.  We have been to Lawrey in VA, Mammoth in KY and Calsbad in NM and all are so different.  This is not large.  It is kept at 100% humidity and preserved as living. The park is prestine.  My battery went so there are no pictures.  We are now in Picacho Peak State Park between Tucson and Casa Grande.  Having been here before, we wanted to stop.  This is right off the highway but the peak and desert scenery make you feel you are right in the Sonoran Desert, which you are.  The Saguaro are up close and personal all around the campsites.  This park is also a modern, clean park and both are $25 a night with electricity.  There is no water at each campsite in this park but we do not care.  By Thursday we will be in our new home for the next few months.

Roper State Park, Safford, AZ

The Gila River in the Gila Box



Dot is bird flying over the lake




Roper Lake



He dislikes Mexican food but with our friends how can you not smile

We arrived in Roper State Park Thursday to discover our good friends were also here so we parked next to them and spent 3 more days visiting.  We planned to meet in Texas but this was unexpected.  They took us to Gila Box, a BLM canyon, near here.  The roads were amazing for without a jeep or truck you cannot enter the canyon.  The grades are sometimes in the teens with switchbacks on washed gravel roads.  There is a campground with hosts there out in the desert but I cannot imagine how a 5th wheel and class c managed to get into the canyon!  It must be an hour to anything like gas, laundry and groceries.  This is an easterner amazed and talking about being rural!

We rocked and rolled last night as a storm with high wind gusts passed leaving snow high in the mountians but dry here at the campgournd..  We took in everything including our slide.  But just before the storm there was a beautiful sunset over the mountains reflecting in the lake. Next Friday we will be in Organ Pipe National Monument and begin out volunteer duties.

City of Rocks

Campsites in City of Rocks State Park, NM



Sunset at the park




Path between the rocks

 We arrived at City of Rocks State Park between Deming and Silver City, NM on Halloween two days ago. We were going to travel to the Gila Cliff Dwellings at the National Monument but the monument was closed until December because of road closings.  The Gila National Forest is high in the mountans and we traveled over the continental divide around Silver City which is about 7,000 feet above sea level.

City of Rocks State Park is on a plain.  It is a small park that has wonderful hiking with lots of campsites up close and personal to huge boulders.  Being the wimps we are, we stayed in the electrical/water sites not as close to the rocks.  We visited Silver City where "Billy The Kid" lived as a teen. Silver City is known for mining in the past and strip mining in the present.  We climbed between and around the rocks at the park with Emma, our 18 month Peekapoo.  She does not like the southwest dry and pricky ground.  She was chewing out picky things in her paws.  I have clipped her paws which help but she is missing the green grass of the east.

We traveled to Roper State Park in Arizona today to meet up with the Trouts again.  We did not plan this but just crossed paths.  We are camped next to them so we went to dinner at a Mexican Restaurant. It is amazing how small this world is!  In City of Rocks we talked to a host couple who were about to move to their next position in southern Arizona.  They had applied to Organ Pipe after we had and not gotten chosen so they teasingly said we took their spots.  They will be in another place close by and said they would look us up when they visited Organ Pipe.  So new friends and old crossed paths with us in the last few days.