The American Southwest

Since December 26 I've been traveling all over the southwest. I've been fitting in all the sight-seeing I can, and it seems like the only times I've had a lot of spare time to post an update have been when I don't have an internet connection. (Warning: This post is much longer than most.)

From Los Angeles I stayed a couple nights in Indio in the greater Palm Springs area. From there, I went to the Joshua Tree National Park to stay a couple nights. I had heard it was a great place to view sunrises and sunsets, and indeed, it was. I got up early, made coffee, climbed up onto a big rock with the dog zipped into my jacket and enjoyed the view.

As soon as the sun fully broke over the horizon, the dog growled and I looked around. Out of the campground came the three biggest coyotes I've ever seen. Clearly they were experienced campground raiders. Suddenly my choice to "corner" myself on top of a big rock didn't seem so smart, since the only way I could safely get down was in their direction. I'm sure they wouldn't have come for me, but I wondered if Charley would look like a tasty morsel or a fun, furry toy. Luckily they left us alone.

I went to Lake Havasu where it was nothing but cold and windy. It even snowed some, but not enough to stick. Here's where the weather caused me to modify my plans. I had planned to go up to Laughlin and over to spend a few days at the Grand Canyon. However, the overnight temperatures were forecast to be so low I would have been afraid of doing some damage to the RV, and I certainly didn't want to drive in hazardous weather. So I'm going to try to catch the canyon in the spring when I come back through.

I spent a couple nights with family - first my brother-in-law Rick in Florence, outside of Phoenix. He and his son's family took me to dinner at a fun steakhouse called San Tan Flat.

They have regular indoor seating and a couple bar areas, but the best place to sit is at one of the outside tables. There's a stage, a circular dance area, and surrounding the dance floor are picnic tables, many with their own barrel fire pit. We got there early to get a fire pit table, collected up some wood, had a fire, drinks and steak dinner. The place filled up quickly - we had hit the timing just right. There aren't many places that seem both family-friendly and fun for going out dancing or hanging out, but this definitely was.

I went down towards Tucson, stopping at the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument and driving through Saguaro National Park. In Green Valley I spent a night visiting my uncle Ray and his wife, then headed to Tombstone.

 

I finished Arizona with the Chiricahua National Monument to see the rock formations there, crossed a section of New Mexico, and got the courage to try staying at another rest area overnight outside of El Paso to try to save money. This was a whole different experience than the first rest area I'd tried along I-5 in Oregon. It was nice and quiet, and I won't be afraid to try it again now if I'm just looking for a place to break after a long travel day.

One of the nicest surprises was the Big Bend Ranch State Park in Texas. I was already planning to go to Big Bend National Park (gotta get my money's worth from the annual pass I bought last spring), but I read that the state park was lesser known and included a beautiful drive along the Rio Grande. I saw mountain goats, a javelina (well, it was roadkill), and a couple of the trails were okay to take dogs onto, which Charley fully appreciated. The best trail was Closed Canyon, which was a narrow rock slot of a dry creek. It narrowed down to areas you had to hold onto the walls on both sides to climb down and back up. Unfortunately I was just wearing sneakers that didn't have a good enough grip for climbing the rocks, so we didn't make it all the way down to the river, but we got close. I hadn't seen anyone on the trail at all, and I didn't want to get myself down into an area I couldn't climb out of. It wasn't until after I had headed back that I thought I could have just taken my shoes off to get a better grip with my feet.

After the state park, I actually found the national park a little disappointing. But then that might have been because the wind came up so hard that night I wondered at what windspeed my little RV would blow apart. Early in the evening they told me it was gusts of 50 when I got to the campground, but there was no internet, no radio, no NOAA weather radio, nothing for me to check. Fortunately I made it through the night fine.

Now I'm in San Antonio until Monday, then to Austin. For those who liked pictures of Charley airborne with his ears flying in Bend, OR, here are some of him running through Closed Canyon.
GO HAWKS!



"Um...I'm going to need some help here."
On his first try up, he got wedged into the rocks on the left side.
At least he didn't get into any areas that I couldn't get in and out of!