Week 8

 

Monday, May 20, 2002

 

I left White City and Carlsbad Caverns this morning for the drive to El Paso.  I had the road to myself most of the morning.  It was a long straight road and no one in front of me or behind me as far as the eye could see.  I stopped at the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  It was a beautiful place, but most of it I could see just driving down the highway toward El Paso.  I did stop at the visitor’s center and enjoyed a chat with the park rangers there.  I got to El Paso earlier than I expected, so I decided to pass up the campground that I had picked and continue on into New Mexico.  Between my own resources and the information obtained at the New Mexico visitor’s center, I decided to stop at a place called RV Docs in Las Cruces.  It was a fairly nice campground, although it was all gravel with no trees.  This is kind of typical for this part of the country.  They did have cable TV and telephone connections, so I was entertained for the evening.  They didn’t have a swimming pool, but did have a nice hot tub which turned out to be quite a sociable gathering place.

 

 

 

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

I left RV Docs this morning and headed West on I-10 across New Mexico which was interesting even though it was very desolate.  I went through the towns of Deming and Lordsburg, both very small towns.  I finally arrived at Willcox, Arizona and the Lifestyles RV Resort.  This was on my original plan, and I planned to spend a couple of days here.  It also has full connections with cable TV and phone service.  In addition, they have a large indoor pool and hot tub as well as a large exercise room.  It is actually a health club that is available to the townspeople for a fee, but is included in the campground fee.  There is also a pretty good restaurant attached to all of this.  I had a great Bar-B-Que Chicken, ribs and brisket dinner.  This campground is also the Greyhound bus station for Willcox, so there was always people coming and going.  I enjoyed talking with the manager.  There is a weird thing about the time here.  When I left Texas and entered New Mexico, I went from Central time to Mountain Time, and moved my clock back an hour.  I know that the next time change is at the Arizona/California border.  However, when I got to Willcox, I found that I was an hour off.  It seems that Arizona is in the Mountain Time zone, but they do not observe daylight savings time, except for the Northeast corner of the state which is the Navajo Indian Reservation.  They observe daylight savings time.   So, bottom line is that Arizona is on the same time as California from April to October, and on the same time as New Mexico October through April. 

Another fascinating fact is that I have not seen rain since I was in South Carolina.  I have been blessed with beautiful weather every day since the middle of April.  In fact, even the Arizona desert, which is notorious for its hot weather, is currently experiencing record lows.  Today’s high was 76 and the low tonight is expected in the 50s.

 

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

Today I went to the Chiricahua National Monument which is about 30 miles from the campground.  It is located in the Coronado National Forrest.  It was a very scenic drive up into the mountains and they had a very nice visitor’s center all about the wildlife of the area including birds, squirrels and fox that are different from the ones that I am used to.  These are Mexican squirrels and fox.  They also had a lot of displays about the Apache Indians who used to inhabit this land.  I spent most of the day up here, and left around 6:00.  I went into the town of Willcox, where I had a nice dinner at a truck stop.  I enjoyed browsing through the trucker’s store and listening to the conversations of some of the truckers.

 

Thursday, May 23, 2002

I left Willcox this morning and drove about 30 miles on I-10 before turning off for a side trip to Tombstone, AZ., which is about another 30 miles South toward Mexico.  Tombstone is one of these towns that take every advantage of the tourist dollar.  They advertise heavily, but the town really is worth seeing.  And the drive down there is very scenic.  First I stopped at Boot Hill Cemetery, where tourists actually walk around gawking at the grave markers of people who died in the 1880s.  I didn’t see any names that I recognized, but some of the markers had funny epitaphs like:

Here lies Leslie Moore

Four slugs from a 44

No Les, No More

After leaving the cemetery, I went into town.  The town is about six blocks long and is filled with gift shops and saloons all with architecture reminiscent of the 1880s.

I paid to see a re-enactment of the gun-fight at OK Corral.  The actors were pretty good, but I question the authenticity of the script.  But it was fun anyway.  After that show, I decided that I better hit the road.  I returned to I-10 and headed West to Tuscon.  I picked a campground near downtown Tucson, and checked in for two nights before realizing that they had neither cable TV or telephone.  [GASP!!].  I figured I would survive anyway since it is in town I am able to get good reception on the TV with my antenna.  There was also a modem connection in the lounge where I could connect to the internet, so I guess I will survive.

 

 

Friday, May 24, 2002

 

 

 

 

Today was another great day.  I set out this morning for Saguaro (pronounced Sa-Wa-Ro) National Park which was 15 miles East of my campground.  I read about this place before I left home.  The Saguaro cactus is the one that most people think of when they think of cactus.  Although there are many different types of cactus, this one is the giant.  These plants live 150-200 years and can grow as high as 50 feet.  There were thousands of them in the park.  After stopping at the visitor’s center, I took the 8 mile drive along a narrow single lane windy, hilly road.  This was a lot of fun maneuvering the RV around the circuit.  The scenery was fantastic.  I spent most of the day in the park, but left around 4:00.  I figured that I would like to do something else, so I drove through downtown Tucson and then down to the Mission San Xavier Del Bac which was located on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation about 10 miles South of Tucson.  This old Catholic church was built in 1783 and is beautiful inside and out, even though it is in the middle of extreme poverty ridden Indian Reservation. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday, May 25, 2002 

This was a tavel day.  I left Tucson this morning and traveled the 200 miles to Yuma, Arizona.  It was mostly a desolate drive.  I started out on I-10 in Tucson, and then I-8 at Casa Grande.  Even though there is mostly desert, the mountain ranges in the distance make for beautiful ever changing scenery.  When I arrived at Yuma, I found a city that caters to the RVer.  Many, many RV parks one after another, billboards advertising RV sales and services all over the place, but one thing was missing…..PEOPLE.  The place looked like a ghost town.  Many of the RV parks were near empty and the streets were deserted.  When I checked into the Caravan Oasis RV park, I commented that I didn’t see anyone.  I was told that Yuma was a winter community for Northern snowbirds.  They all head North in March.  I found it difficult to understand, because the weather was great.  I saw an electronic sign that said the temperature was 87 degrees, but because there is no humidity, it was very comfortable.  The campground did not have cable TV or telephone hook-up, but instead they had satellite TV connected to every site.  This is the first time I’ve had satellite TV, and I was really impressed.  It was very clear and good selection of channels.  I did have to go to the recreation building  to get on the internet, but that was no problem since there were pool tables and lots of other activities at the recreation building, including a very nice pool and hot tub.

 

Sunday, May 26, 2002

 

 

 

Today I went to the Yuma Territorial Prison state park.  This was much more interesting than I thought it would be.  Arizona only has 3 state parks, Tombstone, Picacho and Yuma Prison.  I’ve been to all three of them.  Yuma Prison was actually the original Arizona state prison from 1876 to 1909.  It is amazing how they can take a hell-hole like this place and turn it into a very interesting state park.  Not exactly beautiful, but it was nicely landscaped for Arizona.  I toured the cell blocks and the “dark hole” and spent a lot of time in the “air conditioned” museum.  I took a lot of pictures there especially from the guard tower.  I went to a nearby grocery store and bought some things, then went back to the park picnic area and had a nice shady lunch.  Spent the rest of the day driving around Yuma, including a side trip to a place called the “Peanut Patch”.  When I finally found it, it was closed until October.  I returned to the RV park, went for a swim, ate dinner and watched TV for the remainder of the evening.