Tucson and Westward

Tuesday and Wednesday, February 21 and 22 were rather rainy and windy - early Wednesday morning there were wind gusts up to 51 mph and the camper shook!  We used the two days to do chores and errands. We fit in short hikes at the park between rain showers, even found a couple more geocaches, and one was a Curious Geo (George) cache aimed to get kids interested in the activity.

When it rains a lot at Catalina State Park, the washes fill up and to get to most of the hikes, it would be necessary to wade through over ankle deep water. Sometimes the road into the park gets flooded by the wash and sometimes people cannot get in or out of the park for several days. Luckily that did not happen to us. 

When the weather finally cleared up on Thursday, we drove to the east side of Tucson to visit the east Rincon Mountain District of Saguaro National Park. We took the scenic Nature Drive and hiked a couple of short trails. We found this section of the park to be greener than the west section which we visited earlier. We also noticed a lot of snow on the surrounding mountains. 

A couple different people on our trip suggested we visit Aqua Caliente  Metro Park which was nearby, so we did. The park was originally a ranch established in the 1870’s to grow fruits and vegetables and since it  had hot springs it was a small resort also. Now it has 3 ponds which are there to attract wildlife. We walked the trails around the park and also toured the old ranch house. Another surprise were all the palm trees which were planted a long time ago. Unfortunately many of the palms were struck by lightning last September.

Friday was another nice day and we bicycled 21 miles on the Oro/Canada bike trail, part of an extensive system of bike trails that loop around Tucson, The bike trail started near the state park and followed a wash. It was a very nice bike trail and very well used. We were also surprised to notice that probably 2/3 of the riders were seniors!  It was a very nice ride.

Saturday we did something very unusual for us - we went to the horse races at Rillito Park. Neither of  us could remember the last time we went to a horse race. It was an interesting experience.  We stayed for 6 of the 8 races. The races ranged between 250 yards to 5 1/2 furlongs.  There seemed to be a long time between races. Sometimes we went down to the paddock and looked at the horses in the next race or watched them parade on the racetrack before the race. They were quite spirited! Sometimes we watched the race from the fence along the track and sometimes from the grandstand.  Not knowing much about the horses, we chose who we cheered for by their appearance or name. My favorite name was “ High Rate Ginger” after my sister. We also tried some racetrack hotdogs and had a fun time people watching.

We left Tucson and Catalina State Park in another rain/snow storm and headed west to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument which is in the middle of nowhere on the Mexican Border and south of Ajo, AZ.  The Sonoran Desert is very lush here and much greener than you would expect. This is also the northernmost place that organ pipe cactus grow. One Arab prince is quoted as saying “ this is not a desert, this is a garden!” This is a very nice park.

We took several hikes including one to an old silver mine called Victoria Mine. It was fun seeing all the cactus and wildflowers along the way which are starting to bloom. We earned a pin for hiking at least 5 miles and also became “Desert Rangers” which is a program they have for people too old to be junior rangers.

One of the fun things we had to do for the program was go on the scenic Ajo Mt Loop Road and using our GPS find cristates ( abnormalities on cactus) and arches along the road.

Organ Pipe Cactus Cristate

Another day, we took the 15 mile drive to Quitobaquito pond and spring. The night before we had gone to an evening campfire program and learned all about how they have been restoring the pond due to the fact that its 100+ year old clay liner which old ranchers installed was leaking. They drained the pond and put in a new plastic liner. This was all done to save endangered pup fish that only live here and in 2 places in Mexico. We did see a lot of the little pup fish and also the endangered mud turtles that live there. The road to get there was along the Mexican border and we got to see the ugly new border wall the entire way.  The last time we were there in 2019, there was only a wooden fence and we remember seeing 2 men talking across the fence. We had one very windy (26 mph) and rainy afternoon here also.

Friday, March 3, we moved westward leaving Arizona and entering California. Our destination was Anza Borrego Desert State Park near Borrego Springs California. We left the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and moved  on to the Colorado Desert. It seems much drier than the Sonoran desert. We set up camp upon our arrival and someone pointed out to us a herd of mountain sheep on the slopes of the mountain surrounding our campsite. Mark counted 31 of them. Unfortunately, they were too far away to get any pictures.

The view from camp

The next day we went to the visitor center and got information about the park. Then we went off to explore. Our first stop was a slot canyon. This was a very neat 1/2 mile trail through a very narrow slot canyon in the badlands area of the park. Our next stop was the Cactus Loop Trail on which we saw lots of cactus including some blooming fishhook cactus, several different wildflowers and lots of great views of the countryside.

Another day we took a hike from our campsite to the Borrego Palm Canyon oasis. Because of the recent rain in the area, we had to cross the creek twice. The oasis at the end of the hike was really neat with lots of palms. The park was really neat and it was fun to see the wildflowers beginning to bloom.

One afternoon while we were there, we went to see the Galleta Meadows which are installations of several metal sculptures set over the dessert. It was really neat.

We left Anza Borrego on March 7, and with the suggestion of a park ranger went to Los Angeles via Palm Springs to avoid any possible snow in the mountains. We have been camping at Dockweiler Beach RV Park, a county park on the beach near Los Angeles International Airport since then. The view of the ocean is lovely, but the noise from all the airplanes landing and taking off is quite loud!  

We will tell you more about our LA adventures in our next blog….