A lot of time has passed since our “Garage Sale” at Pilot Knob, and a lot of miles have passed under our wheels. Right now we are sitting right in the middle of some spectacular cacti’s at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, but I want to do a little catch-up. While in Yuma and camped at Pilot Knob, we had a chance to get together with Mark and Susan for dinner a few times. We joined them at their new home for dinner one night and had a chance to see all the wonderful new landscaping they had just put in, and their “spool” (swimming pool/hot tub).
A lot of time has passed since our “Garage Sale” at Pilot Knob, and a lot of miles have passed under our wheels. Right now we are sitting right in the middle of some spectacular cacti’s at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, but I want to do a little catch-up. While in Yuma and camped at Pilot Knob, we had a chance to get together with Mark and Susan for dinner a few times. We joined them at their new home for dinner one night and had a chance to see all the wonderful new landscaping they had just put in, and their “spool” (swimming pool/hot tub). They have found out how to really live in Yuma… Louise and I also took a day to have our teeth cleaned in Algodones. We did find a new dentist and found that this was a good change for us as we were really impressed with our cleaning and the chair-side attention that was given. Of course we made sure that we were there for our shrimp tacos and cervasas… We also took advantage of the being here in Yuma to have our windshields replaced In getting here, we drove east on I-10 to Gila Bend and then took a right. AZ 85 took us all the way down to Organ Pipe and yesterday it took us another 5 miles Lukeville and the Mexican border. The storm that has hit the entire west coast has caught up with us as well. From the moment we hit the road out of Yuma, we were in the wind and rain and it continued throughout the rest of the day and the night. As we were driving through the National Monument we could see very little of the cacti that we knew were out there, but we were resigned to see as much as possible, rain or shine. Fortunately for us, when we awoke the next morning (yesterday) the sun was out and showed us what we had missed on our drive in. We are surrounded by mountains and in the slopes and valleys below we are seeing the reason we are here…CACTUI !!! We’re in the Sonoran Desert and right now, I’m happy we’re here in winter. The late spring to late summer temperatures are very hot, reaching 105 and higher a lot of the time, but the cacti that dominate this area thrive on this heat. Yesterday we took a 10am class on cacti, drove 21 miles on a dirt road to see some of the “out of the way” beauty of the park, and…took a 4 ½ mile hike to see a deserted mine. The Victoria Mine sits at the base of one of the mountains and straight across the desert plain from where we are camped. The narrow and rocky trail took us through a menagerie of cactus and other desert plants, over hills and down and out of the many “wash” (the areas were the rain water rushes through coming from the mountains). We thought this was going to be an easy 4 mile hike but we were totally surprised. The rocky and narrowness of the trail kept us off balance and if it weren’t for our Nautilus Walking Sticks…it would have been a bigger challenge yet. In a lot next to the museum sits a small observatory, that is, it used to be… Arizona University built this little building and used it for 10 years or so and then abruptly took the telescope and left town. Now all that is left is…
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