The real Spring has not arrived in Minnesota just yet so we are going to hang out here in Arizona a bit longer before heading north. We have moved south of Phoenix to Las Colinas RV Park in Casa Grande. We’ll be visiting with relatives here for a few days.
Las Colinas RV Park, #27
There were six hot-air balloons rising over the horizon early this morning. I got a picture of one of them.
Good Morning Balloon
The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix is a pretty cool place to visit. With the recent rains and the latest heat wave we hoped to see some flowers blooming. It’s still too early for most of it. But we enjoyed our visit anyway.
Philip Haas: The Four Seasons
Whispers of a New World: Sculptures by Carolina Escobar
This is a crazy cactus
The Yuccas are blooming
It’s a Start
Desert Botanical Garden
The Grand Canyon was pretty awesome and we enjoyed our time there, but now we’re slowly heading back to the Phoenix area. Hopefully the heat wave is over and the temps are a bit more to our tolerance.
We spent last night in the parking lot of the Cliff Castle Casino in Camp Verde, the same place we were earlier this week. It’s free…why not?
Today we are at Pioneer RV Park in Anthem, just north of Phoenix.
Pioneer RV Park
It’s not free here, but it’s a good stop. We’ll be here for two nights before heading further south.
Just before dark last night we were greeted by two Mule Deer out our front window.
Mule Deer
This morning we drove the Jeep farther east along the South Rim, beyond the bus route to Desert View near the East Entrance Station where there is a historic watchtower.
Desert View Watchtower
The tower was built in 1930. We were able to climb up to the top and look out over the canyon. Gift shop on the ground floor.
Desert View Overlook
There are several Pueblo ruins in the Grand Canyon, most are not accessible. We stopped to see the Tusayan Ruins and Museum before going home.
Tusayan Ruins
The east route of the South Rim is just as beautiful as the west route was. I’ve taken nearly 100 pictures these last two days, but I don’t know why. Not to minimize the awesomeness of the Grand Canyon, but it’s like mountains…so incredibly beautiful and awesome to see but after a while they all look the same. “Hey look, another beautiful mountain.” “Hey look, another angle of the Grand Canyon.”
Us
Way back in 1983 we actually hiked the Bright Angel Trail the whole 8 miles to the Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon and back up the next day. It was a very memorable experience. We would have loved to have done it again but, um, we’re not up to it now. However, for old time’s sake we did walk down a ways. And, yes, going back up is harder than going down…that did not change.
Grand Canyon Bright Angel Trail
One option is to take a guided Mule Trip down that same trail. Guides lead some obviously well-fed mules to the bottom of the canyon, so watch your step!
Share The Trail
There are lots of elk around here and we had the pleasure of seeing several. The bus driver said in the summer you can see lots more. The bulls are dropping their antlers right now so they have bare heads. One walked between us and our motor home when we got off the bus.
Elk
Frost met us this morning. We’re somewhere around 7,000′ elevation so it’s way cooler than it is back in Phoenix. The high today was 66F, not like the 95F happening in Phoenix. I do prefer this.
Frosty Morning in the Forest
After breakfast we drove north to the Grand Canyon National Park. As a rule, we don’t like to be tied down by reservations, so we knew we were taking a chance by just driving up there cold. As it worked out we’re staying at an RV park there called Trailer Village. The rate is about $37 per night and includes full hookups.
Trailer Village, A3
Driving your car here is really not necessary. Free busses every 15 minutes shuttle everyone around to all the view points and the visitor center and other places. The bus stops about 300 feet from our spot so as soon as we got all hooked up we got on the bus and went to visit the west side of the South Rim. Tomorrow we’ll visit the east side.
Grand Canyon National Park
Even though I’ve been here before, the first view took my breath away. It’s just so beautiful.
Early this morning we went to visit Montezuma Castle National Monument cliff dwellings before leaving town. It really has nothing to do with Montezuma. Early settlers assumed that it was Aztec in origin and named it that.
Montezuma Castle
The rest of the day was spent driving north and looking for a free place to park. A few possibilities failed, either they were closed or just not suitable for our 35′ motor home. In the hills near Flagstaff we were finding piles of snow in the road ditches but the roads have all been clean and dry. Bernie made a 12″ snowman.
We did find a free spot to park in National Forest land by Williams, AZ, which is about 30 miles west of Flagstaff. This area doesn’t open for camping until May, but hopefully nobody will come chase us out. We’ll be leaving in the morning.
Williams, Arizona
By the way, the high temp for today was only around 72F 🙂 but the low should be 28.
Just north of Black Canyon City is Agua Fria National Monument. We were hoping to find a free place to camp in the desert but the roads into the area were way too rough to drive the motor home on. We took the Jeep over some really rocky roads, very slow going. Then a hike down Badger Springs Trail to the Agua Fria River.
Agua Fria River
Agua Fria National Monument is rich with Indian ruins and petroglyphs.
Petroglyphs
Next we took another long drive down Bloody Basin Road over some very rough, narrow, winding roads in search of Pueblo Ruins. We finally found them. At first they looked like just a big pile of rocks, but once you get to them you can see that they are collapsed walls of what used to be rooms.
Pueblo la Plata Archaeological Site
There are lots of broken pieces of pottery around.
Pottery Pieces
On the road back we came upon some horseback riders so we stopped and let them pass.
Horses!
Then we moved on up to Camp Verde on I-17. Once again we were driving narrow winding very rocky roads. Good thing we have this Jeep, these were no roads for a regular car.
Verde River near Montezuma’s Castle.
Exploring Desert Roads
It was fun doing all that exploring today. The Jeep did well, but I think these roads were really meant for the off-road 4-wheelers which are very popular in the desert.
Cliff Castle Casino, Camp Verde, Arizona
Cliff Castle Casino in Camp Verde allows RV’s to park in their parking lot for one night so that is where we are tonight.
Our time in Mesa was spent visiting with the relatives and helping my step-mother, Shirley, get ready to move back to Minnesota. Her home here has been sold and we will be transporting some of her things for her. She left Monday morning.
Closed Up
High temperatures predicted for tomorrow through Sunday for Phoenix/Mesa are in the 90+’s, too hot for us! So we have moved north a little and a bit higher elevation. Tonight we are in Black Canyon City, Arizona, about 70 miles north of Mesa. The high temp forecast here Thursday and Friday here is only 81F. We may need to go higher yet.
Rock Springs Cafe in Black Canyon City has a large parking lot where RV’s can park. We will be spending the night here. Right now there is one other RV in the lot with us. They have a Ford Bronco that is set up for off-road use. They said there is going to be a big Bronco Off-Road Rally here in this parking lot this weekend and they arrived early for it. There are 100 people registered for the event. A few more have arrived since we got here.
There we are in the center of the picture, in that parking lot below.
High Desert Park at the top of a hill just north of us has a beautiful Nature Loop. It was a beautiful desert walk with great scenic views. As we walked along it got more narrow and more rugged. The trail was longer than we thought it was and the sun was beating on us so we were happy when we completed the loop and got back to the car.
Rock Springs Cafe is famous for its Pies, so of course we just had to see for ourselves. Bernie had The Official Arizona Centennial Pie – triple berry crumb, and I had the Jack Daniels Pecan pie. Yes, Jack Daniels! Why didn’t I think of that? It was awesome.
The storms are over. The clouds are still with us, and just a sprinkle of rain, so we drove the 90 minutes east to Mesa, Arizona, this morning.
Mesa Regal Resort, #1777
Mesa Regal Resort is where we stayed when we were here at Christmas time, just over two months ago. This resort is next door to Towerpoint Resort where my step-mother is and we went to visit her this afternoon. We paid for the next three nights here.
Daylight Saving Time begins tomorrow morning. Turn your clocks ahead one hour, unless you live in Arizona, then forget it.
The weather forecast was for a passing storm and we could see the clouds rolling in so we are staying put here at Saddle Mountain RV Park in Tonopah for another day. We did take a drive to the nearby town of Buckeye for supplies.
Clouds Rolling In
HAIL !!
That’s right, you heard me. Hail. The winds picked up and there was thunder and lightning on the way home from the store, and a few minutes of small hail.
Storming on Saddle Mountain RV Park
The rain continued on and off all day long. Not much we could do but stay home. Hopefully we will be on our way to the Phoenix and Mesa tomorrow.
And here we are back at Saddle Mountain RV Park in Tonopah, AZ. We stopped here because we have been here before and it’s a Passport America member park. It’s also a very nice well-groomed park with big level pull-through spaces. The only disappointment is there is no Verizon LTE (4G) Internet available here and the Verizon 3G is very slow, which is not their fault. They do offer a pay-for-WiFi service but I’m already paying for my own, I’m not paying again. We will be leaving in the morning anyway.
Saddle Mountain RV Park, #60
I always said I didn’t want to re-trace our steps and repeat places we’ve been, but here we go again. We moved across town to Scaddan Wash, one of the free dispersed camping areas provided by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) where we were in January during the big RV show. It just works out for us.
Scaddan Wash, Quartzsite BLM
Things have changed dramatically since we were here in January. There is just a handful of RV’s out here with us this time, nowhere near the big numbers here before. And the big tent where the RV show was is gone as well as all the RV’s that were for sale there. There are still a few swap meet vendors here, although we see signs stating they will be closing soon too.
Where there had been bumper to bumper cars and parking was a challenge is now empty space.
Tyson Wells Swap Meet
The high today was a bright sunny 78F. I have acorn squash in the solar cooker tonight, it should be done soon.
Here we are back in Quartzsite. After boondocking for the last several days it’s good to have full hookups again and be able to spoil ourselves with electricity and plumbing. We are spending one night at Kofa Mt. R.V. Park on the north edge of town. I can’t say for sure where we will be tomorrow night as we only plan one day at a time.
Kofa Mt. R.V. Park, #39
This is so cool. I’m having such fun experimenting with this home-made solar cooker.
Our neighbor, Sharon, is a great bread maker, something that has never been one of my strong points. She brought over a small ball of her bread dough for us to cook in the solar cooker. Will it work? You betcha!
mmmm, If Only You Could Smell This. It’s the bread dough ready to bake.
I assembled the pot and placed it in the oven outside. It took about 15 minutes for the pot to get up to 200F. During that time the dough continued to rise and began to pop the top off. I was concerned it might cause a problem but it did not. Once it was at 200F the rising stopped and all was well.
Lid beginning to slide off.
The sun is out, not a cloud in sight, and it’s 78F. I had strapped an oven thermometer to the knob on the lid. Once the 200F was reached I let it cook for about 80 minutes more. Again, I had no idea how long this would take. The temp kept rising slowly until it reached almost 250F. Between Sharon and I we took a somewhat educated guess. We were so amazed and excited when I took the pot out of the cooking bag and removed the lid. OMG…it browned! What a beauty 🙂
It Browned!!
I flipped it out on the cooling rack and we all ooo’d and ahhhh’d in admiration.
Golden Treasure
Sharon and her husband joined us for a little bread party! It was perfectly cooked. The texture is only slightly more moist than usual but it was not soggy or gooey at all. And the taste was wonderful 🙂 . We ate the whole thing.
Delicious! Almost gone!
But I’m not done yet! I’m on a roll. Sharon and John went back to their RV and I went to the refrigerator to see what I could cook next. I know… eggs! ok, well ONE egg. This is an experiment and I didn’t want to spoil more than I needed to if it didn’t turn out.
1 Egg Ready to be Solarized!
I took a cold egg straight from the refrigerator (no cracks) and placed it dry on two folded paper towels to keep it off the floor of the pot and keep it stable. No water. But when I took it outside to place it in the solar cooker I heard the egg roll off the paper towels and roll around inside. Oh well, live and learn. I left it. I started counting the time from the moment I placed it into the cooker. 45 minutes later I brought it in and cracked it open. Look at this!! :
A Solar Cooked Egg
Almost perfect. I prefer my egg yolks runnier than this, but this is good. It would probably take a whole hour to get it to the hard-cooked stage. It was not cooked evenly, a small part of the white was a bit undercooked, but not seriously.
Woo Hoo!
Clouds rolled in over night, blah.
Every Sunday September through May is a Swap Meet in the London Bridge Shopping Center parking lot in Lake Havasu City. I always enjoy these things, but seldom actually buy anything. We spent last summer getting rid of all of our “stuff” so I try not to buy “stuff” these days. But I do enjoy looking.
Lake Havasu Swap Meet
However, I DID find something to purchase for the motor home:
Happiness is a Level Spot
It just seemed so appropriate and I had just the spot for it.
We had no plans for today. The sun was out and yesterday’s solar oven cornbread cooking was so successful we decided to be a little more adventurous today and try dried beans. You know, the kind you usually soak overnight and cook the next day. These Anasazi Beans are supposed to be faster cooking and sweeter tasting, but I dunno…beans are beans aren’t they?
Anasazi Beans
I rinsed off one cup of the beans and put them in the pot with some onion, garlic, seasonings, three cups of water and then set up the solar oven like I did yesterday.
The Beginning
Solar Cooking
While that was cooking we hiked around the hills by us. There was some nice views and we got our exercise for the day. We are in this picture below, front and center, with our awning out.
Home Sweet Home
In the hills in Arizona, overlooking the mountains in California
The high temp today was 85F and we never saw a cloud. The highest temperature I noted on the solar oven was just under 250F. I put the oven out at 9 this morning and left it cook in the sun for nine hours. They were perfect! The beans were fully cooked and very soft. Nine hours may have been longer than necessary, but I didn’t know.
Done!
Yummy!
Although we’ve been to see the London Bridge at Lake Havasu City, Arizona, a few times we went for another visit today. Um..I should mention that it was 80F and sunny and just a beautiful day.
London Bridge at Lake Havasu City, Arizona
On both sides of the canal that runs under the bridge is a nice paved riverwalk so we walked up and down both sides and enjoyed the views. The Lake Havasu Lighthouse Club is a group of citizens dedicated to improving the navigational lighting on Lake Havasu. They have placed small-scale replicas of actual American lighthouses along the canal and on the lake shore. We saw a few of them today.
Replica of Main Buffalo Lighthouse from Buffalo, New York
Replica of Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla, North Carolina
After all that walking we returned to Craggy Wash for the rest of the day. Since the sun was so cooperative today I prepared a package of cornbread mix to cook in my home-made solar oven that I had made a few months ago. I have cooked vegetables a few times with great success but I wanted to see how cornbread would work, so this is my experiment.
Mix According to Directions on Package
Did I mention it was 80 degrees? Oh, yes, I did.
Cook, Cook, Cook
I stuck an oven thermometer next to the covered pot and it read 200F while it cooked. I wasn’t sure of the time required, so I let it go two hours. That was generous; I think 1.5 hours may have been enough today. I was surprised to see how nice it looked! It even browned!
Finished Cornbread
People in the RV beside us were curious about the solar oven and came to see it when I set it up. I was so excited about how well it turned out that I took some over to them. I will do this again. Maybe next time I’ll try something like banana bread…maybe even cake!
Perfect!
We have left Laughlin, NV, and Bullhead City, AZ, and moved on down the road about an hour to the Lake Havasu City area.
Craggy Wash is a free dispersed primitive camping area provided by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) where we stayed when we were in this area last year. There are several others here with us but room for lots more.
Craggy Wash
The road goes into the hills about three miles with plenty of level parking on both sides of the road all the way to the end. There are a few people here with off-road vehicles running around in the hills, but it’s mostly quiet here. Big-horn sheep are said to be in the area, so we keep our eyes open for them too. And wild burros.
Craggy Wash
We are parked about one mile in, and then went for a walk and met some other Minnesotans, which is not unusual at all. It’s been a beaultiful day, about 75F and sunny.
Desert Flowers
Spring has sprung, almost. The desert floor, which has been brown all winter, is beginning to turn green and wild flowers are beginning to pop up. It seems early for that, but what do I know? I’m from frozen Minnesota.
What to do…what to do… Road trip!
Route 66
The longest continuous stretch of the old “Mother Road”, Historic Route 66, still in use today, runs near here. We drove to Kingman, Arizona, where we could get on it. Kingman has an excellent Route 66 museum at its Visitor Center inside the 100-year-old former powerhouse.
Route 66 Museum
A sign near the door indicates the exact spot of 3,333.33 feet above sea level. Just so you know.
3,333.33 Feet Above Sea Level
Hackberry General Store
Hackberry General Store
Lunch at Mr. D’s. Good food, and the inside is a blast from the past.
Mr. D’s Restaurant, Kingman
I saw Elvis.
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