18 December ‘08 Thursday
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
and pick-up our reverse-osmosis system. After having some on-coming trucks drop gravel in front of us, which took out our windshields, we chose George and Son Glass and RV Connections because of their knowledge, stock, and as it turned out, their price. We are using it to fill all of our water needs. It fills directly into our 100 gallon fresh water tank so that we can have pure and soft water no matter what we are doing, having a glass of drinking water, showering, or even washing the clothes in our washer/dryer. It installed easily but took a couple of days to fill the tank. Prior to installing the system we decided to drive up to Ehrenburg (Quartzite) and I could take 4 or 5 days there to get everything done. It would also give us a chance to hit the “deals” at Quartzite or just to see what was going on prior to the “big tent” on the 16th of January. As it was, we did find a couple of places to spend a couple of dollars prior to heading back to Yuma. We wanted to spend at least one more day in Yuma so we headed back and spent the night in the parking lot of RV Connection. Early Tuesday morning we pulled out of RV Connection and stopped to top off the fuel tank. Diesel prices were $1.94 !!! I really don’t expect that price to last too long so we pumped as much into the tanks and filler tube as possible and hope that we will continue to find good deals as we move east. As I mentioned, we are now in a campground at Arizona’s Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
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.
Today took us on another adventure. Our first stop (after 8 miles on a dirt road) and short hike took us to Alamo Canyon. In the late 1800’s there was a small cattle ranch that was located at the end of one of the many canyons here in the park. After hiking a mile further into the canyon, we came upon the remains of the “ranch house”.
It was not the sprawling ranch house of today but given then time and the location…it was more than comfortable (for someone else I’m sure, but not for wimpy me…). We had driven through a small town on our way to the park. It looked really interesting so we wanted to make the drive back to explore. Ajo became a lively little town in 1906 when it became the first copper mine in the state. We drove through town, stopped at the visitor center, enjoyed lunch, and then drove up to the top of the hill to look down into the mine. They told us that it is a little over a mile in length and width and drops over 800 feet. Sitting just off the edge of the pit we found the local museum. The museum is located in what used to be a mission church and a school for the local Native American/Mexican children.
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…
