Picacho State Recreation Area, CA (Not to be confused with Picacho Peak, AZ)

   What do Hueco Tanks (State Park) and Picacho Peak (State Park) have in common?  Hueco means Tank, and Picacho means Peak.  Interesting redundency in the names.





18 mile road into Picacho Rec. Area, CA

 Anyway, Picacho State Rec Area has nothing to do with Picacho Peak State Park, except they both were named for the "picachos" within the park.  To access Picacho Recreation Area, we had to drive down an 18 mile, twisty, gravel road.  It was kind of like driving in snow for 18 miles.  Luckily we didn't need 4 wheel drive, because we don't have it!  Obviously this park is very remote, and had the typical "self-registration" booth where you put the money in an envelope to pay the park access fee. 



Colorado River from the trail

    In the 1800s there was a small town located here, and a lot of gold has been taken out of these hills.  Access was by way of the Colorado River which runs through the park.  Once the river was dammed, there was no more access for large vessels, and the town slowly dwindled away, like so many others.
   We did two hikes here-The Stewart Lake trail, and the Stamp Mill Trail, for a total of about 5 miles.





wild burros



Coyote along the trail



 The Stamp Mill trail was a dissapointment to Paul, since the ruins have not been cared for and are pretty much gone, including all of the remains of the small town.    We did see a fair amount of wildlife, including hawks, jackrabbits, several coyotes, and some wild burros.  In between hikes we came back to the truck to have lunch, and found a note on our windshield.  When I saw it I thought we had parked somewhere we weren't supposed to, but it was actually a thank you note from the ranger, thanking us for paying the entrance fee, and helping to support the state parks. 







     Once we had skated back down the 18 mile road, we headed home for dinner.

The RV Park we are staying in this week is pretty amazing- but I'll save that information for another day.

El Paso, TX

Paul and I were lucky to be able to get reservations at Hueco Tanks State Park.  Essentially, admission to the entire park is by advance reservation only, and is limited to 70 people at any given time.  Even so, we were only able to get reservations for a guided tour, and were not able to do a self guided one.
Hueco Tanks,which basically means Hollows/Tanks, is named for the basins that are hollowed out of the rocks, which fill  with rain water, and  have been used as a source of water by people for thousands of years.
The reason for the severe limit on the number of people allowed into the park is to control access to the pictographs on the rocks.  There are hundreds of rock paintings, some of which are 2000 years old.  Unfortunately, some of them have been ruined by graffiti already.  A lot of the pictures are of masks, some are of animals, and some are of people dancing. There used to be a stage coach stop in this area years ago, and there is a huge boulder that has the passenger list for one trip engraved in the stone.  Apparently that was done so that any friends or family following behind would know that those are the people who made it this far, since so many people died along the way.
Our tour was 3 hours of climbing in and around the rocks and caves looking at the ancient paintings.  Its amazing that they are still there and haven't faded completely away. Most of them  are in small caves and never get rained on, and are always in the shade. After our outing we headed to Paul's parents for dinner.
We have spent the last couple of days doing some hiking at Franklin State Park, and eating.  Paul helped his dad pull out a couple of small trees in the yard, and I have been doing some research on Arizona, our next stop on our trip. We have cooked dinner a couple of times for his parents,and they have cooked a few times for us.  In general we have just been hanging out and relaxing.
Yesterday Jess flew out from Indiana.  She's only here for 3 days, but still it feels great to have her here. It also helps knowing that in another 3 weeks she'll be flying out at the end of the semester to meet up with us in San Diego for a few weeks.
She  had called from Chicago, between flights, from a stranger's cell phone, to let me know that her phone broke and she can't turn it on.  When she got here at 10:30 pm, Paul looked at it and sure enough, it's toast.  We immediately started researching options for her.
So this morning was the hunt for a new phone.  I think Jess almost jumped out of her skin when we agreed  that maybe she could get an iphone, if her current phone was not under warranty.  We were planning on getting her an itouch for Christmas anyway,and its the same price, so really it makes sense to get her the iphone.  We spent about 2 hours at the AT&T store and in the end, she got the iphone, and has been glued to it ever since.  We went shopping at the outlet stores this afternoon and didn't buy ANYthing, so I think the "new phone distraction" actually saved me some money.
Paul picked up our truck finally from the dealership.  The fix for the air conditioning was very expensive, but we don't feel like we have much choice.  Since it's a known issue for this truck, Paul is hoping that Ford will help with the cost of it.
Tomorrow we head to his parents for Thanksgiving.....