Phoenix and Tucson

February 7, 2023

We had a very nice stay for 9 nights at Lost Dutchman State Park in Apache Junction, AZ east of Phoenix. The weather has been very nice during the day, getting up in the mid 60’s mostly, but once the sun goes down at night it gets cold quickly. The lowest we had at night was 29 degrees. The water in our hose froze, but our little furnace keeps us nice and toasty,

We did lots of fun things during our stay here. We went to the Superstition Mts Museum and learned all about the history and lore of the area. The lost Dutchman, in the name of our state park, is Jacob Waltz who in the 1870s supposedly found a very rich gold mine in the mountains. Unfortunately he died before he could mine it and as the story goes that on his death bed he mentions the mine is in the Superstitions and people have been searching for it ever since. This part of Arizona was also famous for movie sets for western films from the late 1940’s to late 1960’s  and Apacheland was one of these movie sets. Elvis Presley was in a movie called Charro that was filmed here.

Apacheland Studio

Church of Elvis

Another day we went to Boyce Thompson Arboretum, a little ways east of Apache Junction in Superior. We have been here several times in the past and really like it. They have cactus from all over North and South America and desert plants from Asia, Africa and Australia. They have really nice trails and we walked all over. Mark was pleased to see 13 species of birds including a Vermillion Flycatcher and our first Northern Cardinals of the trip!

Barrel Cacti

Northern Cardinal

Hiking at Boyce Thompson Arboretum

One windy day, we went to the Musical Instrument Museum. This was our first time here and it was a wonderful find.The museum has over 10,000 musical instruments from all over the world. When you enter, they give you head phones and almost every display has audio visual information about the instrument or in some case the artist that you can see and hear. I never knew there were so many different types of instruments! We spent over 4 hours here and did not see it all. We visited  the Asian, North American and Europe areas as well as the Mechanical Music Gallery and the Artist Gallery. I guess we will just have to come back another time! 

Instruments from NW China

Instruments from S Korea

Orchestrion

Guitar Collection

We also enjoyed a 1 and 1/2 hour cruise on the Steamship Dolly on Canyon Lake, a short 15 minutes east of our campground.  Besides seeing beautiful scenery, we saw bald eagles and mountain bighorn sheep. Afterwards, we drove the additional 2 miles to Tortilla Flats, a little touristy Western town for lunch. Most times that we have been there the place in packed. That evening, we went to a music program at the state park with cowboy singer, Steve Jones. He sang lots of fun songs.

Big Horn Sheep

Steamship Dolly

Canyon Lake

We also enjoyed hiking in our state park. They have lots of very nice trails. Many of the trails continue into Tonto National Forest Wilderness, giving you lots of options for nice hikes.

We left Lost Dutchman State Park on Monday, January 30 and headed south to Tucson. We made a stop at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument near Coolidge, AZ. This is quite an impressive ruin. Archeologists think that in its highpoint in the 14th century about 2,000 people lived in the area. The ancient people were farmers and built many miles of canals to irrigate their crops. No one knows for sure why the people left the area, but it is thought that a series of droughts and floods and possibly overpopulation caused the people to disperse into smaller groups.

Our next stop for a week was at Gilbert Ray Campground in Tucson Mountain Park, on the west side of Tucson. The view from our campsite is lovely with mountains and lots of cactus. On our first full day in Tucson, we visited Mission San Xavier Del Bac, in southern Tucson. The church was completed in 1797 and is still being  used. It is very beautiful. We visited Saguaro National Park- West Tucson Mountain District. We went to the Visitor Center and took the Bajada Scenic Loop Road. We took some short nature walks. One of the walks was at Signal Hill to see some petroglyphs and another was called the Desert Discovery Nature Trail. The area is really stunning.

Mission  San Xavier del Bac

Saguaro National Park

Petroglyphs at Saguaro National Park

On Wednesday we went to Sabino Canyon Recreation Area in NE Tucson in the Coronado National Forest. The road to the top of the canyon follows the stream and crosses it several times. We usually take the tram to the last stop and then walk back down to the parking lot.It is beautiful walk with one lovely view after another. The stream was kind of high this trip and it went over two of the bridges. We had to cross these bridges and our feet got pretty wet. The water actually went over our boots crossing one of the bridges! It was a lot of fun and luckily, we brought other shoes along. After our nice walk we treated ourselves to lunch out a a nearby Mexican restaurant.

Sabino Canyon

"Wet Feet" Bridge

The Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum is another of our favorite places in Tucson. It is kind of a combination of zoo, aviary, botanical garden and museum. We always make sure we get there in time for the raptor free flight program. The birds we saw this time were a Chihuahuan Raven, a Great Horned Owl, a Crested Caracara and 5 Harris Hawks. It is quite surprising the first time they fly less than a foot over your head. We also went to an animal show and saw a Military Macaw, a Porcupine and a Barn Owl. We walked all the trails and saw lots of native animals including a wolf, coyotes, javelinas, an otter, a mountain lion and lots more. We also enjoy the hummingbird aviary and the native birds aviary. They have very nice cactus garden too.

Porcupine

3 Harris Hawks

Crested Caracara

Great Horned Owl

The weather was getting warmer, so on Friday, we went to Madera Canyon Recreation Area in the Santa Rita Mountains of Coronado Nations Forest.  It is south of Tucson near Green Valley and is known to be a great birding spot. Because of its elevation and the creek running through it, the landscape is totally different than in Tucson. We parked at a picnic area at 5400 feet and walked down on the nature trail to a picnic area at 5000 feet. We returned to our truck by walking on the road. Afterwards we went to a bird feeding station and saw even more birds: WildTurkeys, Acorn Woodpeckers, Yellow Eyed Juncos, Redstarts and Inca Doves. We saw 14 species in all!

Redstart

wild turkey

Acorn Woodpecker

Nature trail at Madera Canyon

Santa Rita Mts from Nature Trail

Yesterday and today have gotten into the mid 70’s and we even had shorts on for awhile in the afternoon. We have stayed a bit closer to our campground. Yesterday, we took a hike in Saguaro National Park. It was a nice 3.7 mile loop with cactus everywhere. Today we took a nice trail from our campground also, with many cactus. We finished the day off by going to the National Park Visitor Center for a program on the Full Moon. A ranger talked al little about the full moon and then a volunteer played his handmade wooden flutes, which are copies of Native American flutes. We were out on the visitor center porch facing east and it was so cool listening to the flute music as we watched the moon rise.

Hiking in Saguaro Nt Park

Sunset

Full Moon Rising with flutist

Yesterday, we moved on to Patagonia Lake State Park. More about that next time!

 ON THE ROAD AGAIN!

January 23, 2023

We left Portland at 10 am on Sunday, January 8, and headed south on I 5 into a 15 MPH headwind to our stop that night at a Harvest Host site - Harvest Host is an organization that you join, and then can stay at farms, wineries, breweries and even some museums all across the U.S.and Canada - we stayed at Eden Vale Winery just south of Medford Oregon. We did a wine tasting there and had a fun time talking to the hostess and the 2 other camping groups

Harvest Host Eden Vale Winery

We left Medford the next morning and headed into California. We passed lots of flooded fields all along the way south from all the recent rains here, but did not run into much rain while we were driving. Our Harvest Host Monday night canceled our stay because their parking lot was flooded but we found an RV park south of Stockton to stay in. The next day we continued south to another Harvest Host farm near Hanford California called Rancho Notso Grande. They grow berries and fruit and raise chickens and lambs. The owner, gave us a tour of the property on a golf cart and we also spent a lot of time playing with their dog Luna. Our fourth night, we spent at Kern River County Park near Bakersfield. We stayed there a couple of times before and it is a nice quiet place. We walked along the river and part way around the little lake and spotted 30 different bird species.

Juvenile Black Crowned Night Heron at Kern River 

Our first major destination was Death Valley National Park taking us five hours to get from Bakersfield to our campground  at the Furnace Creek area of Death Valley and our trip took us as high as 4,956 ft and as low as -200 ft. Death Valley is the largest National Park in the lower 48 states, is in the middle of nowhere, and you can go for miles and miles without seeing any signs of life. There was a big rain storm last summer which washed out many of the roads and many of them are still closed. We were there for 5 nights and saw all of the highlights that we could. We went to Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America at -282 feet.

Salt Flats Badwater Basin

It is very flat and lifeless with vast salt flats as far as you can see. We took a nice walk to see a natural bridge. Twice we took the beautiful Artist Drive with hills of many different shades of colors including pink and green.

Natural Bridge

Artist Palette Drive

Saturday morning we took a nice hike on the Golden Canyon trail to the Red Cathedra with lots of beautiful rock formations. That afternoon we actually had rain for awhile! We went to the Harmony Borax Works interpretive area and the Borax Museum and learned about the borax mining industry in the area.

Borax Mine Site

20 mule team borax wagons

Red Cathedral 

Golden Canyon Hike

Another day we took a ride to the Rhyolite Ghost Town, a prominent gold mining town, was in its heyday from 1906 -1910 and during that time had 5,000 to 8,000 people living there. Many large concrete skeletons of some of its major buildings remain as well as the ruins of a rather large train station. It was very interesting. We stopped briefly at the neighboring Goldwell Open Air Museum. Their motto is “Art where it seemingly shouldn’t be”  One of the strangest pieces was a ghostly interpretation of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. 

The Last Supper

Rhyolite Train Station

Bank at Rhyolite

Zabriskie Point was another beautiful overlook we went to in the park. The point overlooked beautiful badland like mountains in many different hues. Monday, our last full day in the park was very windy. We went to the Devils Golf Course with its huge jagged salt crystals. The wind was blowing so strong I felt like it would blow us down on the salt crystals and we would get all cut up. We watched a young couple across from us in the campground try to put up their tent in all this wind. When they finally got it up, a big wind gust came and broke one of the tent poles and the tent collapsed. They rolled it all up and drove away! We mostly had our fleece jackets on while we were there, but one day it got up to 72 degrees for a couple of hours.

Zabriskie Point

Zabriskie Point

Devils Golf Course

We left Death Valley on Tuesday, January 17 and headed toward Las Vegas. We made a stop at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada.  Ash Meadows is home to a very endangered pupfish which is about 1 inch long and only lives in this area and the refuge has some very nice boardwalks which take you past the very clear springs that the fish live in. 

Pup Fish

Board Walk at Ash Meadows

Our first 2 nights in Las Vegas we spent at a KOA campground 7 miles east of the Las Vegas Strip. We drove to the strip that first night and saw it all lit up. The next day we spent six  hours walking up and down the strip. We walked through tons of shopping areas and saw the grand canal of Venice and the fountains of Rome, the Eiffel Tower and much more. We finished off our walk by seeing the fountains in front of the Bellagio do their thing. Talk about tired feet and sensory overload! That night we saw Cirque du Soleil’s  “Ka” . It was amazing! The auditorium and set (with four moveable stages) were amazing and the performers were excellent. We really enjoyed ourselves!

Bellagio Fountains

KA Auditorium

New York New York at night

Chihuly Glass in Belligio

Las Vegas Hotels

The next day we left our KOA campground and moved 15 miles west of Las Vegas to Red Rocks Canyon National Conservation Area campground. Only 15 miles away from the city and it seemed like a whole other world. However, it was at @ 4,500 ft and we even had snow flurries that afternoon. The next day we took the 13 mile scenic drive through Red Rock Canyon and took 3 different hikes. The area is very beautiful! On one short hike, we saw petroglyphs and a frozen waterfall - yes it was that cold. We were very glad we brought our heavy winter coats. 

Willow Creek Loop Hike

Red Rocks

Petroglyphs

Agave Roasting Pit at Red Rocks

Frozen Water Falls

Campground at Red Rocks 

Now we are at Lost Dutchman State Park, east of Phoenix. It is very beautiful and quiet here. Yesterday we went to the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. It is a lovely place with all kinds of cactus. We walked all the trails in the park. There was even one that explained how native people used all the plants in the desert to survive. There was a very nice display throughout the garden of sculptures by Rotraut.  We were thrilled that it got up to 58 degrees and we were warm enough in just sweatshirts.

Sculpture by Rotraut

On the way back to the campground, we had supper at Organ Stop Pizza which features the largest Wurlitzer organ in the world. You can watch the organist play and see all the pipes and other musical instruments that the organist controls. It is very cool!

That brings us up to date. Keep tuned for future entries!