The Road to El Paso (06-22-22)

 

We know we are headed to El Paso to check on Paul’s mom, but we looked at a map to find a new way to get there.  We chose Rte 191- The Coronado Trail Scenic Highway.

On our way there, we saw signs for Canyon De Chelly National Monument.  That started a brief conversation about whether we had been there before. We quickly decided that we had.  But it started bugging me, so instead of relying on our memories, I did a search on my blog.  No Canyon De Chelly

 ( pronounced De SHAY).

Well, that meant we should stop and check it out. It turned out, that was easy, and fast. We stopped at the visitor center and she assured us we could drive the free, scenic drive and look at the sights, with our camper towing the Jeep.  So, off we went.

There were about 6 stops along the road. We stopped at the first one, and saw…..nothing. Hmm.. we moved on to the second one, and saw….nothing.  We weren’t sure what we were supposed to be seeing because there were no signs with information, nothing that told us what we should be looking for, or where, and the museum is closed.

I think the best way to see this area is by guided tour, which is the only way you can actually go down inside the canyon. After the third stop we turned around and left.  And now it’s crossed off our list.

Its hard to believe we are headed towards late June and have not yet left the state of Arizona. Everyone thinks of the desert when they think of our state, but we arrived in Springerville, elevation 7500 ft, and it was too chilly to sit outside. It has also rained on us 3 times in the last two days.

We parked ourselves for two days to explore what we consider to be the upper end of the Coronado Trail Scenic highway. Our plan is to spend 4 days exploring 100 miles of this road.

The first thing we did was drive to the small town of Show Low. We've been hearing about Show Low from friends for years but had never been there. Well, now we can say we have. It sits at a high elevation which makes it popular for desert dwellers, and has a couple of grocery stores. Pretty much just a town.

The town does have an interesting legend about it’s name.  Supposedly two men were partners in a ranch but soon discovered it wouldn’t support two families, so they agreed to a poker game- winner takes the ranch, the loser leaves.  The game was running so evenly finally one said to the other “If you can show low, you win”  (he was holding a 3) the partner showed him a deuce- and took the ranch.  In deference to the story, Main Street is actually named “Deuce of Clubs" Avenue.

Wanting to hike, the next day we drove up in elevation, to about 8600 feet, in the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest. The scenery up here is gorgeous, with pine forests, meadows and lakes.

The trail we chose to hike is the Thompson trail. It gets great reviews and we did enjoy the trail. It starts out following a creek. We had the choice of staying above it, or on a trail right next to it. We chose above it, and really enjoyed the views. It would have been 6.5 miles if we could have finished the trail, but we couldn't.

At lower elevations its the heat that gets us off the trail early in the day. Here, its the afternoon thunderstorms. Almost two miles into the hike we started hearing consistent rumbles, and the sky started looking more ominous. With no cell signal, we decided not to mess around, so we turned around and headed back.

 I did pause long enough along the way to get pictures of the wildlife.

The next day we moved on down the road to a new destination, stopping along the way whenever we saw something of interest.  We were now driving through Apache National Forest.  We decided to drop the camper in a parking lot and explore in the Jeep. We were also looking for a good place to spend the night, and it’s much easier to do without the camper.

The road itself had some harrowing (for me) areas with steep drop offs into deep canyons.  The speed limit is 25 mph in many places, for good reason. 

 Luckily the road is not very well traveled (Sometimes we asked...why is this road even here??).

We tried to hike again but the sky kept spitting out raindrops, so we were left to drive around looking at stuff.

We did find a really nice camp spot the first night and totally enjoyed the quiet.

Up and moving the next day, we started talking about wildlife we had seen. Our count?

4 wild turkeys

too many deer to count

1 bear- we saw him along the road while we were driving, so, no picture.

When we had cell signal, we looked up hikes that might be of interest, and decided on Rose Peak.  We knew there was a parking lot that would fit us, which made it easy.  We parked and headed up the hill. Turns out its really a “road” that leads to a fire lookout (you can see it in this picture). 

 

Once we got to the peak, we realized the fire lookout was inhabited- by a guy named Jim. He invited us up into the tower, and we had an awesome chat. He has been here for 4 months, with another two weeks to go until monsoon season is in full swing, and he will not be needed.

He stays in the cabin for 2 weeks at a time and then heads to town for supplies.   We had a bunch of questions for him- one was “when was the fire “ we could see evidence of a recent fire on the trail- the answer was it was last year, and he had less than 5 minutes to get out after calling it in.

I asked him how often he sees bears (since we had just seen one). He said its a funny story- apparently the Forest Service uses the parking lot we parked in to dump “problem bears”.  4 bears had been dumped in the last few weeks.  One day Jim was in the tower and saw a bear exploring around his cabin.  The bear even stood on hind legs and put his nose up against the window.  Obviously dumped because he was habituated to people.

Once we left Jim we discussed our plans for a spot that night. With the country in a heat wave, our options were to be hot at night or find a spot with electricity.  We decided to drive south to Roper Lake State Park, instead of boondocking in the forest again.

The southern terminus of the scenic drive dumped us in the town of Morenci. In the picture you can see the arrow that is our GPS position. The strange swirl of colors is actually a mining operation.

This is a huge mine-so huge, its hard to grasp the enormity of this operation. At 80 square miles, its the biggest producer of copper in North America, and one of the largest pit mines in the world. 

This is the size of the tires used on the trucks that haul the rock. The trucks are 25 feet wide, weigh 80,000 lbs. and require 150 gallons of coolant.

The fact that they look so small gives an indication of the size of the operation here.

Our last stop before El Paso was Chiricahua National Monument. We have been here many times, partly because we love the hikes here, but its also at a higher elevation, so its cooler than the surrounding area.  This is the first time we were in a rig small enough to fit in the campground in the park.

The trail we chose was an 8 mile loop with 1600 ft of elevation gain. It was, perhaps, a little more than we were comfortable handling, but we knew we wouldn’t be hiking for a while so we wanted to push it.

One section is a smaller loop that contains “named” rocks such as…

   Camel’s head

and Kissing Rocks

We survived the hike, but we sure were beat.

Payson and Phoenix (09-07-15)

Labor Day Weekend.  What to do.  Many full time RVers know to avoid moving on this weekend if at all possible.  When we were boaters, we parked ourselves before the weekend, and didn’t move until it was over.  But these days, we travel in a truck camper, so theoretically, its easier to find places to park.

We started the weekend by heading to Phoenix. No One heads to Phoenix on Labor Day weekend, so finding a place to park was easy (Thanks for the tip, Sandie!)  Our goal was to window shop at MSI, a major supplier of tile, stone and  granite, etc. More on that later.

We are easily entertained when driving 300 miles in one day.  The shine on this tanker was quite impressive, and we enjoyed watching our reflection in the mirror like finish.






















Once our errands were complete, we headed for the hills of Payson, looking for relief from the heat.
Tonto Natural Bridge State Park was our first destination.  This park is so popular, we had to wait about 30 minutes just to enter, because the parking lots were full.  Once there, it was a fairly short hike down the trail to the base of the bridge.


This is one of the world’s largest travertine bridges, standing 150 feet wide, and 183 feet tall.  It’s a great hike for kids, with tons of exploring, and even the opportunity to swim. 





Back up on top, there were several viewpoints available to check out the bridge.  After an hour or so, the crowds got to us so we took off to find a place to spend the night.






Nearby Apache Sitgreaves National Forest has quite a bit of boon docking available, but again the crowds were quite amazing, even considering that it was a holiday weekend.

We did find a secluded spot to spend the night , but our hiking plans for the next day were abandoned when we couldn’t find a parking spot any where near a trail head. Soooooo, we headed back to Phoenix.

Doesn’t Dozer look like he’s a little nervous walking on a high shelf?

In reality, he was on the floor, stalking imaginary mice.

Since we knew we were headed to Phoenix, we had checked the inventory of the Phoenix Sears Outlet, and lo and behold, they had something we wanted. The oven we want is a GE Profile series 5000- but we had noted that if the 7050 model was on sale at a great price, we would really prefer that one.  Well, this Sears had the 9050 model on sale for less than the 5000 model. This store is a “scratch and dent” store so there is one small scratch on the bottom and that was it.

The main obstacle would be transport back to Havasu, but we’d had the foresight to put the hitch on the truck.  So, we rented the smallest U-Haul available. (although that sounds simple, its a whole other story…..)

We wracked our brains trying to think of something else we could buy, but in the end, the oven was the only cargo in the trailer.

We had an uneventful trek back to Lake Havasu with our treasure, and saved over $1000 on the oven!

House Update

Phoenix is where MS International is located, and MS International is where everyone in Havasu gets their stone and tile.  We’ve been struggling to come up with a back splash that we really like for the kitchen, and stonework we like for the exterior, and had decided a trip to Phoenix was warranted.   As a bonus, we got to check out the granite we want.

Blue Pearl is a little different, since it’s more in the gray tones than brown, but we already have a table made with blue pearl and we know we like it.

We arrived at MSI late in the day Friday, but we thought we’d have all day Saturday to wander around.  We didn’t realize they were closed all weekend. Thank goodness we decided to get a head start by taking a peek on Friday!

Luckily we saw a backsplash we liked right away.

There is a corresponding stone pattern that we can use as an accent on the front exterior of the house ( this picture really doesn’t do it justice) and to tie it all together, we will also use this stone on the spa surround.

We have very few decisions left to make.  I hope we don’t get bored, with no shopping to do.  Just kidding- once the septic is in, (hopefully next week) we can start our own projects on the exterior of the house.  The first one will be to build a small (30’ high) stacked wall along the side of the property.

Back at the house, the drywall is coming along.

The Sheetrock is all up, and the taping is done. They have started the sanding, but that will go fast because the  walls will be textured.   Wes says they will paint the interior next week!

The stilts look like fun- I can just picture myself landing gracefully on the floor if I try them!

As if the progress on the interior wasn’t enough, they are simultaneously working on the exterior.

“Brown coat” is what they call the first layer of stucco. They literally spray on the cement and then smooth it out to the texture they want.

It took a full two days to do the entire house. 

There was quite a good sized crew working on the stucco…

It kind of looks nice, until it starts to dry….then it looks blotchy.  They have to water it for 30 days so that the cement doesn’t dry too fast, and crack.

The final color, a light sandy color,  as seen here, won’t be added until close to the very end, so that it doesn’t get damaged.

Speaking of the very end, we had a short conversation with Wes about an estimated move in day.  Although he wouldn’t commit, he did say we were about a “long two months” away, which means we might be in the house by Thanksgiving!