Apache Junction, AZ (2-7-12)

  The last week has been busy. I got my cast off on Monday-and am now sporting a brace for the next month or so.  The wrist hasn’t fully healed yet, so I can’t use the hand for much for a while.  Paul and I also had our annual physicals Tuesday, so we got that out of the way.

   I said we were going to try and find Table Mesa trail again before leaving Lake Pleasant, and I am happy to say we were successful on our second attempt.  A lot of the trail was along an old road, but once we started gaining elevation, the views of Lake Pleasant were awesome.

 

At the top of this mesa were the ruins of some Indian dwellings. You can see what’s left of one of the walls in this picture.  Unfortunately for me, the last 10 feet were a killer, so this is as close as I got.  I’m not up for rock scrambling yet.  We didn’t see anyone else on the 6.5 mile trail- I don’t think many people hike this one. It was nice to have the solitude especially since our next hike was on one of the most crowded trails we’ve been on!

We hiked with Elaine and Robert (and about 200 other people) on the Wind Cave trail.  It was a 6 mile hike with a fair amount of elevation gain. Elaine had hurt her ankle, so we decided we would both have a good excuse if we didn’t make it all the way up, but we had no problems and enjoyed our lunch once we made it to the top.

I often debate with myself how much information to put in the blog about the trails we hike.  Sometimes I want to put information/data in so I will be reminded later how difficult or long a trail was and how much elevation gain it had.  I don’t track the information anywhere else, but the other day Paul was buying new hiking boots and we were saying that we had no idea how many miles I have hiked in my boots, so we’ve decided to keep a spreadsheet of our hikes with all the pertinent details.  Don’t worry, I won’t post the spreadsheet here!

Between Elaine and Robert and Paul and I, we have spent time in quite a few different Phoenix area RV parks in the last week or so.  The other day they finally caught up to us at Lost Dutchman State Park.  There are a lot of programs and activities here, and the other night we all attended the Moonlight and Music program.

Yesterday was adventure day- we set out early and followed the Apache Trail. The trail follows an ancient Indian migration route through the Superstition Mountains, and most of it is a twisty, windy, very narrow dirt road. It’s an all day adventure because there are so many things to stop and see along the way. 

Our first stop was at the bar in Tortilla Flats, (population: 6).  Since it was our first stop of the day, we opted for coffee instead of an “adult beverage”.  The seats at the bar are saddles, and the walls are papered with one dollar bills, most of which contain a message written by the donator.

 

There were numerous places to pull off the road to enjoy the views, and more campgrounds along the way than we expected to see.  There are also 3 lakes- this one is Apache Lake.

 

Roosevelt Lake is the largest lake along the trail, and the road we were on was originally built to bring in supplies to build the Roosevelt Dam.

After passing the dam, we soon came upon the Tonto National Monument, which consists of the remains of some ancient cliff dwellings.  They were inhabited by the Salado Indians from about 1050 to 1450 A.D.  It’s always amazing to me that these ruins still exist today, and even more surprising that we are allowed to walk through them.


Our final stop of the day was at a Mexican restaurant for dinner. None of us felt like going home to cook, so we enjoyed this particular stop a lot.  Plus the food and company were great!  Elaine and Robert have left today for their next stop, which is Picacho Peak, one of my favorite hikes.  We plan on meeting up with them again in a few weeks as we all make our way towards California.

Hiking again (01-29-12)

                                                                          I’ve finally reached the point where I feel somewhat comfortable hiking again, although not the trails we originally intended to hike.  I had to do more research to find trails that are less difficult and don’t involve boulder scrambling.

We started off slowly with a 3.5 mile trail in Lost Dutchman State Park.  There was a fair amount of elevation gain, so it was still a work out.

Everywhere you look around here, there is another pretty view. 

That hike went well, so we tackled a more difficult hike the next day-the Ballentine Trail. It was more of a challenge, to say the least.

We started off among the Saguaro Cacti.  When most of us think desert, we think barren, but the Sonoran Desert is full of life and is very green at certain times.  The beautiful Saguaro (pronounced Sah-wah-row) can live to be about 200 years old and doesn’t start growing arms until it’s about 70 years old. Their root system is just beneath the surface and extends out up to 70 feet, to collect what little moisture there is in the ground.

  This picture shows a little bit of why this trail was challenging.  Paul is standing near the top of the rise. It was a 7.5 mile trail, with 2000 ft of elevation gain.

The views from the top made it worth it.  This area is appropriately called Boulder Flats, since it was strewn with huge boulders.  Paul climbed around them, I didn’t. 

The other day we moved from Mesa, where we had been staying in a “4 star” RV Resort, to Lake Pleasant Regional Park. The best part about the resort was that we had a grapefruit tree on our site, and could pick as many as we wanted. YUM! Our trailer is the one in the middle of the picture. This is the kind of place we really like to stay.

We debated trying to get the boat out to take advantage of this beautiful lake, but the coolish (it hits the low 70s but only for an hour or so, then it gets cool) weather and the fact that its a two person job to “deploy” it, changed our minds.

We tried another hike at Lake Pleasant, but not every hike turns out the way we want it.  After driving 7 miles down a primitive “road” to get to the trailhead, the road dead ended at the water’s edge, with no way to get across.  The road was an interesting trip, making us glad our truck has 4 wheel drive, and very high clearance!

We haven’t given up on that hike- we have better directions and we’ll try it again tomorrow.

In the meantime we are enjoying visiting with friends and family.  Yesterday we visited with Elaine and Robert, our friends from England.  Since they are hikers too, we combined the visit with a 7 mile hike.  As usual, when with friends, I don’t take many pictures.  I’ll try to do better with that in the next week or so.  We have plans to see Robert and Elaine several more times in the next week or so, as we are all staying in and around the Phoenix area.  Tonight we are having dinner with my cousin Linda and her husband. Looking forward to that- we don’t see each other very often!

The other night we had one of the most spectacular sunsets we’ve seen in a very long time, and we see some great ones!

the last of Quartzsite (01-22-12)

We’ve left Quartzsite behind, and have moved to Mesa, AZ.  At least, we left most of Quartzsite behind.  It took me 4 hours to vacuum and wipe down every exposed surface, to get most of the dust out of the trailer. Not a fun task when you are doing it one handed.
   One of the sort of “rules” about blogging is that you can’t wait too long between posts.  Partly because readers get tired of checking to see if there is a new post and not finding one, but also because after a few days, you forget what you did, and whatever you did do, doesn’t seem blog worthy anymore.  Makes you start to question why you are bothering to blog at all.
Anyway, let’s see, what has happened in the last week or so….

We had a bulletin board where we could post anything we wanted other people to know about.  It was a great idea- that way no one could fall through the cracks and get left out of a field trip.

We took a group photo, which took longer than you would think, since we had to wait for the sun to be in the right spot.  We have a professional photographer in our group (thanks, Carol!!)

We went to the Desert bar with about 14 other people last Saturday.  The Desert Bar is a unique place.  We went there last year too, but there were lots of people who hadn‘t been, so we went again this year. This bar is only open on weekends, and you have to drive down a very long, windy, dusty, dirt road to get to it. 

                                                              Because of that, it opens at “high noon” and closes at sunset.

It’s mostly outdoors, although there is an interior part as well.  There is live music most days, and you can get some basic food.  The entire place runs on solar (as you can see from the picture above, they have tons of solar panels).  It’s just a unique place to go and hang out for a while.

     We went to the ghost town of Castle Dome with a bunch of people from our group. It was a small mining town, established in the mid 1800s,  A few of the buildings are in their original spot, but some were moved in from further away, and others were re-built.  It was a fun day that falls into the category of “we are easily entertained.”

   

We went to dinner on Monday with 4 other couples, all of whom own a Mobile Suites, the brand of 5th wheel that we have.  I didn’t get a picture of that because I was too busy talking.  

   One of the main attractions in Quartzsite in January is the BIG TENT, which is a huge RV show with every conceivable RV accessory you could want .  Paul and I walked most of the show and only bought some LED lights!  Wow!

We left Quartzsite to head to Mesa because we had to get new axles put on the trailer (again).  We are going to take it to an alignment shop next week to make Sure the axles are correct this time before we drive too far.

There’s one more thing of importance that has happened in the last week- my son turned 25!