OUR DAYS IN THE SOUTHWEST ARE WINDING DOWN

 

Today was a battery recharging day.  Human batteries that is.  Stayed around the rig doing some reading, snoozing, & computer stuff.  I did pull everything out of the car this morning to reorganize it for our long journey home soon.  I'll maybe start on some of the bins Friday morning.  The heat builds up very fast here so I like to get those kinds of jobs done in the earlier & cooler morning air.

OUR NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE SHADOW OF SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN (wide angle photo so the mountain is actually much closer)

Our neighbor with the big security light left a couple days ago & the park has been returned to glorious darkness at night again.

TEDDY BEAR CHOLLA (Checkers tangled with one again this morning)

I think one of my favorite things about this Lost Dutchman Park is the sounds of many birds all day long.  Many cactus wrens, hummingbirds, & others.  What a true shame it is that the State is closing the gates here in a few months.  We have noticed that urban sprawl has spread right up to the very fence lines of the park.  We look out our front window & see a housing development right up to the base of Superstition mountain complete with a restaurant.  I wonder if land developers with dollar signs in their eyes have their greedy little sights set on this valuable piece of desert property.  This urban sprawl comes out this way from Phoenix which is well over 50 miles away.  What will this Lost Dutchman State Park look like in another 5 years.  Are the bulldozers ready to roll with their massive blades to flatten this park into oblivion & make way for paved streets, row upon row of houses, malls, pizza joints, & convenience stores.  It seems nothing is sacred when it comes to man's greed!!  Maybe none of the above will happen but I'm just not very optimistic anymore when it comes to man vs nature.  Money rules:((

SUBURBIA STANDS POISED TO CLIMB SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN (there is actually a restaurant where you see the American flag)

When hiking up Superstition Mountain a few days ago I looked out over the valley below & wondered what this ageless old mountain thought about the encroaching human blight.  It has survived for millions of years.  Will it survive in it's present state for another hundred years.  Already, the pristine night sky has been destroyed by light pollution in this area.  Can the wandering deserts of the great American southwest be far behind..........:((

THE PARK IS IN THE FOREGROUND WITH HOUSES RIGHT UP AGAINST IT'S BORDER.....WONDER WHAT THIS PICTURE WILL LOOK LIKE IN A FEW YEARS:((

Not likely we will return to this area again once we leave.  Just waaaaay too populated for us folks & there are many beautiful areas of the southwest we have not seen yet.  This Apache Junction area & trail drive had been on my radar screen for about 3 years so now I can focus my thoughts elsewhere.  Northeastern Arizona comes to mind & if we can ever get away early enough in the Autumn (September) I'd like to spend some time there in the 4 Corners area.  I have been through a part of Monument Valley back in the early 90's but would like to do it again & do it right this time.  Sleeping in the back of an unheated Mazda pick-up truck on cold desert night's was not the best!!!!  And would you believe, I didn't even know where the Grand Canyon was at that time:((

LOST DUTCHMAN STATE PARK IN FOREGROUND & WITH THE CREEPING BLIGHT IN THE BACKGROUND

We have no idea which route we'll choose for heading home soon.  Will it be down through Tucson to pick up I-10 for our journey to Alamogordo & over the mountains at Apache Pass or will it be north through Scottsdale & up to I-40 before swinging eastward.  A tried & true route versus a new & challenging route.  I'm leaning a bit towards the northern route simply because it would allow us to see some new scenery along the way.  The weather of course will be a deciding factor as well.  But as usual, it will probably all boil down to whether we make a right or left turn somewhere in Apache Junction.  And, at this late blog writing we may even be going sooner than later.........

                    

THIS IS OUR SIDE YARD & PICNIC TABLE AREA...TO THE LEFT OF THE MOUNTAIN IN RIGHT SIDE PICTURE IS PHOENIX

SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN AT SUNSET

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Bill was short of money and was out looking for a job. Pastor Nelson offered Bill $500 to buy paint and paint the church. Well Bill went out bought some paint and started painting the church. He discovered that he was using more paint than he expected so he added some thinner to the paint.   It still covered but not as well as it did at first.  Bill was still using more paint than he wanted to use.  The paint was too thin to cover well but Bill still kept on painting.  All of a sudden there was a bolt of lighting and a loud voice from the sky proclaimed, "Bill!!"......."Repaint and thin no more."

BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

PEACEFULLY ASLEEP TONIGHT AT THE FOOT OF SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN

THERE ARE A LOT MORE FLOWERS IN BLOOM HERE THAN THERE WERE IN BORREGO SPRINGS

Despite a good night's sleep, the day did not start off well.  The gunfire started up about 8:30 a.m. & traumatized the dog's all over again.  I wasn't happy with our spot anyway because of all the usual garbage left scattered about by the locals.  I could launch into a huge rant about that right now but what's the point.   Kelly thought maybe we could change spots but I just wanted to get out of the whole area.......period!!

A group of ATV people rolled in & unloaded about half a dozen ATV's.  They told us the gunfire was coming from a gun club just up the road so that explained that, so the writing was on the wall.....we had to move!!

    (click on pics to enlarge)

Drove the rig back out the bumpy & dust covered road to the pavement.  Found a place to pull over & leave the Motorhome while we took the car & scouted out highway 60 towards Superior, Arizona.   Our 'Free Camp Grounds' book by Don Wright told us there were some spots along the highway for boondocking but we only saw a couple & they were full of ATV trailers.  We continued into the mountains & eventually came to the town of  Superior.  Continued on about 10 miles towards Globe.  Very scenic with steep mountain grades & a tunnel.  Fair bit of traffic on this road but fortunately they had many passing lanes & one run-away road in case of brake failure.  We would have continued to Globe but we knew we had to find a place to stay Monday night & turned back for the rig.

SOME MOUNTAIN SCENERY EAST OF SUPERIOR, ARIZONA

We returned to the area about noon & drove around looking for boondocking spots but just didn't like anything we saw.  Drove through the picturesque little town of Queen Valley.    Finally decided to leave Florence Junction & move on to Apache Junction.  We knew of a State Park up that way.   Figured we would take a long shot & drive up & see if we could find it.  State Parks are our second choice to boondocking & we knew because of our proximity to the large megapolis of Phoenix it was unlikely we would ever find any respectable boondocking sites.  Kelly led the way in the car & I followed in the Motorhome.  

IT'S KELLY WAITING FOR THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL TO COME THROUGH

Traffic was heavy & I kept thinking, how the hell did we get ourselves into this.  Not my idea of RVing that's for sure.  Urban sprawl everywhere.  Just south of Apache Junction Kelly spotted a mall in a place called Gold Canyon.  We had agreed to find a spot to park the rig before getting into Apache Junction & take the car to find the Lost Dutchman.  Luckily for us we pulled into a basically brand new & almost totally abandoned spacious mall.  Lots of room to leave the Motorhome.  The mall looked like another multi-million dollar business venture gone bust.  Left the doggy guys in the rig & off we went with the car.

Didn't take us long to get ourselves tangled up in Apache Junction.  And why didn't we use our Garmin GPS to find the State Park??  Because we never thought to bring it along.  OK, lets check our map.  Never brought that either!!  At one point stopped for a traffic light Kelly hollered over to the next driver, "are we on the road to the Lost Dutchman?"  The driver hollered back some directions & off we went totally lost all over again.  Another stop at a convenience store got us turned around & pointed in the right direction again & finally after about half an hour of floundering around we were on the road to the Lost Dutchman State Park.

SNAPPED A FEW QUICK PICS OF SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN AT THE PARK'S MAIN GATE FIGURING IT WAS THE ONLY ONE'S I WOULD GET

It was about this point when a very real & practical thought occurred to me.  I knew there were only 35 sites at this Park.  It was Spring Break & we were in a condensed area with millions of people.  What were the chances of finding a vacancy.  Zero to none I figured.  In fact when we pulled into the Park office parking lot I got out of the car with my camera figuring I might as well grab a few shots of Superstition Mountain before we have to turn around & leave in a few minutes.  Meanwhile, Kelly, ever the optimist headed into the office.  She was at the counter with one lady ahead of her who was renewing her stay.  Kelly asked the Ranger over the woman's shoulder if there were any sites available.  Yes, he said, one site left.  A big Class A rolled up to the window at the exact same time & the driver asked the Ranger if there were any sites open.  Kelly quickly hollered over the ladies shoulder to the Ranger...."we'll take that site!!  Had Kelly walked in that office 30 seconds later we would have been sleeping in  a parking lot somewhere tonight.  Yaaaaaaay Kelly:))  But you know what.....I still felt kinda bad for that guy in the Class A.  I knew the disappointment he was feeling as he had to get his rigged turned around & headed back out of the Park.

The Ranger suggested before we go pick up our rig we should drive to our RV site & put something there to give it the appearance it has been spoken for so that's what we did.  Had a couple lawn chairs in the car so placed them on the site before leaving.

                            

Next problem we had was to find our way back to wherever it was we left the rig.  We had been so messed up coming through Apache Junction that we didn't have a hope of finding our way back through there.  Luckily the Ranger came to our rescue & told us off a short cut that avoided Apache Junction altogether so we happily hopped into the car & headed back to the Gold Canyon area, retrieved the rig, & followed the shortcut back to the State Park.  Yaaaaaay Ranger:))

This park has no water or electricity at the sites but that's fine with us.  Only $15 a night & we totally lucked out getting a pull through site on an outside loop.  For having to be in a Park we couldn't have a better spot.  Superstition Mountain towers over us with it's 3,000 foot spires.  Saguraro Cactus, Palo Verde Trees, & all kinds of assorted greenery surround us.

So, that brings me up to right now.  It's 8 o'clock Monday night, I've got my eyelids pinned to my eyebrows with a cactus needles trying to keep them open.  I am about 3.2 nano-seconds away from complete unconsciousness, I'm behind on my email correspondence, behind on my blog reading, & just so plum cranky right now I could eat a big ugly rock!!  But you know what...... despite a frustrating start to the day we sure lucked out by the end of the day & for that, we truly are Happy Campers tonight..........:))

OUR DIGS AT THE FOOT OF SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN, ARIZONA

GROANER'S CORNER:(( 

BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.