Tuson March 2017

In Tucson we stayed at a huge RV resort, Rincon Country West RV Resort. Cost us as much to stay one night there as it does to stay 5-10 nights at other places.  National Forests are either $5 or $10 per night and well, Walmart is free!

We stayed 3 nights and enjoy showers, pools,  wifi and of course the city.  We needed to catch up on clean and communication!  I got my hair cut and we did some shopping.  

We weren't our best in Tucson...a bit tired of deciding where we were going and then going blind without the internet and no previous planning about Tucson. .. Came up with a couple of places to go see but we just decided to hang.
Places we didn't go:
The desert museum, Mission San Xavier, Saguaro National Park....

We will always cringe a bit when thinking or talking about Tucson.....We were trying to get out early and get a good jump on the drive to Joshua Tree NP.  We had forgot to dump our tanks the night before so that was a job for the early morning hours.  Usually there is a secluded area to do this at most campgrounds but in large RV parks there is a septic hookup at every site so at around 5 am we did our break camp routine and Jim was hooking up the septic line while I was putting loose items away and securing the bikes.  I heard some cursing (quietly of course, didn't want to wake anyone) and when I walked around to see what was up the smell just about knocked me over.  I don't know how Jim was still on his feet except that if he wasn't he'd be in poop.  He didn't get the connection quite right and "dumped on Tucson".  Needless to say we had a smelly clean up and not as early a start as we had wanted.  Sorry Tucson!

Gila National Forest

While we were trying to figure how far we would get and where we'd stay tonight, we saw signs for cave dwellings in Gila National Forest. So... that's where we headed. Our aim was to spend the night at Lower Scorpion Campground tonight and go up to the dwellings in the morning, but we found a campground about 30 mins closer and decided to take it because of the time - running out of daylight. 

We spent the night at Upper End Campground in the Gila National Forest. cost us $6.  The campground is beautiful, tall pines near the south(ish) end of lake Robert. There are signs saying that this area is a reintroducing area for the Mexican Wolf. Hmmm.

Had a dinner of tilapia, potatoes & onions.

The temperature this morning is 26 and we're at an elevation of 6010ft. Brrrrrr!!!!

Today we will go to the cliff dwellings and I found another interesting spot called the Catwalk" close by…I'll let you know what it's like!


Basking in the goodness of the Lord's creation. Jim ism

Just past our Campground was a picnic area and dock on Lake Robert and the Mesa Campground. 

Oh my goodness!!  This National Forest is beautiful!!  The drive up to the cliffs was incredible!! Winding our way through the mountains with dramatic panoramas, too close 
for comfort cliffs and gorgeous huge pines! 😳

Took us an hour to finally get to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, stopping at every pull off we saw, well it seemed like it. The cliff dwellings are amazing! Took us a couple of hours to get on our way. Had to chat with a volunteer from Newark, Delaware and stop at the visitors center.

We didn't make it to the cat walk Trail 😢 thought it was going to take us out of our way too much, more than we had already gone, but stopped in Silver City at Little Toad Brewery and Distillery. Nice little place, liked Silver City too. 

Guadalupe and Carlsbad

Ok, so I got way, way behind in posting...part of it is no internet to be found, part is moving right along and part is, well, just plain lazy!

Heading out of Big Bend today where to… we'll heading in the Marfa, Guadalupe Mountain NP but have no idea where we'll stay. 
Last night there was a lot of wind and lightening and thunder off in the distance. The lightening lit up the mountains, very "wow". The wind howling did wake us up. 

Plants learned:
Creosotebush
Prickly pear (many varieties)
Giant Dagger Yucca
Tarbush 
Sotol 
Honey Mesquite 
Ocotillo 
Harvard Agave
Lechuguilla 
Cane Cholla
Thompson' s Yucca

Between Alpine and Marfa we saw some kind of antelope (small antlers, brown with white patch) and just after Marfa we saw some kind of long horn sheep/goat.  We were moving along so missed the pictures.

The Prada store is really not in Marfa but just on the outskirts of Valentine. Valentine looks more like a ghost town then the ghost town in Terlingua. There looked to be about a handful of occupied very small homes and hundreds of abandoned ones. 

And then Jim said, " a cow is a chicken"!  Who knows.......





Made it to Guadalupe Mountain National Park, talked to the Ranger and drove through the campground. Found out we can sleep in the rest/picnic areas in Texas and there is a BLM area (bureau of land management) just into New Mexico. One entrance was too rough for this van to pass but the second was great for about 2 miles. There were several other campers out there when we 1st got there but by the time we had taken a bike ride down the road, climbed down into a ravine and biked back to the van, there were many many more. I counted 21 vehicles and at least 8-10 more came in a bit later. So much for seclusion. 

The wind rocked us in and out of sleep last night and the furnace came on several times. We have the furnace set to 62. The temp outside got down to about 45. 

 

Heading to the caverns. 
It was Awesome! Took the elevator down 750 feet and did the self tour… then walked up, 😮. Whole thing took us about two and 1/2 hours and put 3 miles on with 1 1/2 miles of it almost straight up hill!!!  Not bad for a couple old retirees.

We then went back to watch the bats 🦇 come out. Hope there's lots!!
While waiting for the bats there were small birds putting on a show coming and going from the cave entrance. 
The BATS WERE AWESOME!! The Ranger said they had a permanent colony of about 3000 bats over the winter and thought there might not be many more up for the spring and summer but when it was over he estimated there were around 10,000. They swirled counter clockwise around the entrance, some several times and some less, then out into the open. You could see a long trail of them black in the air, so cool. Everyone was very quiet and you could hear the rustling of their wings. 
Watched for about 20 minutes until the last one was out. 

Spent the night at the rest area. Pretty noisy, a semi did pull in within feet of us and I didn't know until I got up in the morning and looked out the window and just saw a wall of truck. 
Headed over to the Salt Basin Dunes. Thought we'd get breakfast at a cafe along the way but of course it was closed. By closed I mean it never opens anymore.  You'd think I should have figured that out......


We went across a large barren salt flats. It's amazing that people do live out there. 

We went 40 minutes off the main road down a road that was made of gypsum, all white with small drifts of sand, almost smooth! Still we drove slow. We got to the park parking lot and promptly backed into a fence and broke a post. After some debate we decided to call the park when we got cell coverage and go on the hike to the Dunes. We rode our bikes out about a mile until the sand got too much for our tires. We have what I guess is hybrid tires so not as skinny as road but skinny as compared to the big sand tires we saw on the coast. Anyway, we parked the bikes in the middle of salt flat desert and climbed up a dune with sparse vegetation. Once at the top, we could see what is called sand dunes…being from Michigan these dunes were pretty but nothing like the "Dunes" at Sleeping Bear Dunes or even anything like all the sand along the Michigan coast. Oh, well.....

Jim figures a satellite saw what happened and so he paid via satellite

We wondered a bit and then rode back and headed toward El Paso and Tucson - Joshua Tree! 

Stopped in El Paso and bought a polarizing lens and a National Park book, then had lunch at a little restaurant called Delight. Excellent food! Menu all looked very good! We then walked around the corner and got coffee at Coffee Box. This place had a train box car feel, and had three patios/decks, one out front, one out back with a walk up window and one on top.  We didn't stay to enjoy, had to keep moving!