Spring and then Back on the Road

Life here on the ranch is pretty quiet over the chilly months.  We returned from AZ at the end of February to miserable weather:  cold, VERY windy (up to 40+ mph), rainy. Week after week.  

Every year someone organizes what is known as the Mad Heifer Ride in late March.  Last year it was cold and I didn't go.  This year my friend Jackie, who organized it, convinced me to go even though we had winds of 25 mph.  It is all the women at the park, permanent residents and anyone in the daily spots, who wants to have a fun ride.  Those without transportation hitch rides with those of us who have rigs.  It's a very easy run out Little China wash to Butterfield Road (it's on the same route as the old stage coach route to San Diego), and a stop for lunch at a place called Candy Rock.  

Someone this year brought bottles of soap bubbles and you can see in the photos that we are blowing bubbles.  With the shelter of Candy Rock, the bubbles actually floated up to the top of the rock.

We planned a trip across TX to New Orleans.  Stopped at a park in Fort Stockton, TX, then San Antonio, Beaumont and Abbeville, LA.  

And then there was Houston...

We were probably two-thirds of the way across the city, in the four-lanes-each-way part instead of the downtown six-lanes-in-each-way part, an hour or so before rush hour.  The left rear tire on the truck gave up the ghost, and, luckily, right at an exit ramp.  At the bottom of the ramp, across the parking lot, was a Discount Tire. I have always said I would rather be lucky than good.  

We were puzzled by the area in Beaumont:  what is all this green stuff?

After Beaumont, a run to Abbeville, LA to a small park.  

Abbeville is a very old town and an interesting one.  We tried to find the shrimp market in Delcambre, twenty miles or so from Abbeville but it was Good Friday and everything was closed.  However, the next morning, we drifted down to the local grocery store and got shrimp!!!!  $4.99/pound.  Wonderful...I may never eat shrimp anywhere again.  

Shrimp boat at Delcambre LA

We had seen what looked like crab pots in ponds around Abbeville. We stopped to buy ice and talked with guy next to us who was also buying ice.  He told us the fresh water pond traps were for crawfish; the marine pots were for crabs.  And he was kind enough to show us the blue crabs he had caught that day.

On to New Orleans!

We left Abbeville with a few boiled spiced shrimp left in the fridge. There are only a couple of parks in New Orleans and they are prohibitively expensive.  I found a park in Slidell, LA, which is about 40 minutes from the French Quarter on a good day.  We got settled into the park and took a quick run to the French Quarter.  No one in their right mind would take any kind of vehicle into the French Quarter on Easter Sunday.  There were two different parades and the people and vehicle traffic were ridiculous.  

We decided the next day to go out to Venice, LA, directly south of N.O.  Not much out there but the road parallels the Mississippi all the way out to the Gulf.  This area is interesting:  extremely narrow, with the Gulf on one side and the Mississippi on the other.  Levees keep the water from overrunning the land.  

Everything is built up from a couple of feet to probably 15-18 feet above the ground.  Even the schools are set up to accommodate being overrun by water during a storm surge. We stopped to walk the dogs at the Plaquemines Sheriff's Department park.  I had read about Spanish moss but had never seen it.  Well, here it is. And the Sheriff's Department has a serious bbq smoker!

So we returned to Slidell with a plan to go into the French Quarter on Monday after Easter Sunday.

The easiest way into the French Quarter is to park your vehicle and take the streetcars.  I had made an appointment at a Petco to have all three dogs groomed and the Petco was on St. Charles Avenue which is the route of one of the street cars.  We dropped off the dogs and drove down a mile or so where we coud park the truck and catch the streetcar.  And it started pouring.

The last stop for the St.Charles Avenue streetcar is Bourbon Street and Canal Street...perfect.  We hopped off and launched into the French Quarter.  

I had noticed as we came down Canal Street that there were Mardi Gras beads hanging in the trees.  (Mardi Gras was only about five weeks earlier.)  When we got into the French Quarter, we saw more beads on the balconies, on the signs on the buildings, etc.  

The ironwork on the balconies in the French Quarter looks like lace.  I doubt that today's foundries could re-create any of it.  It's beautiful.

We stopped for a light lunch at Felix's Oyster House.  Had Oysters Bienville, oysters on the half shell topped with chopped shrimp and a bunch of other stuff and then broiled.  Divine!  Then we began wandering around the French Quarter people-watching.  

We walked back to Canal Street/Bourbon Street and caught the street car going back toward the Petco.  The Charles Avenue streetcar passes through the famous Garden District, home of the rich, the super rich, and the famous.  Here are a few shots of homes on the streetcar line.  I am sure the really extravagant homes are a couple of blocks away, to keep out the riff-raff like us.

When we stepped off the streetcar, we saw a cop and asked him about somewhere to get more Oysters Bienville.  He pointed in the direction of the French Quarter and said "Try the Blind Pelican.  It's that way."  So we drove and drove and finally gave up.  Turned in at Superior Seafood and had outstanding Bienvilles and entertainment at the bar to boot.  The bartender was shucking oysters.  He made it look sooooo easy (and I know it's not).  He didn't wear one of those metal gloves to protect his hand, either.

We returned to Slidell with our recently-groomed dogs and packed up to go to Vicksburg the next morning.  I had toured the Civil War battlefield there probably 25 years ago, before I had the information on Henry Lingle Waldrip's Indiana unit.  A stop at the visitor center gave me a map marked with the location of the 24th Indiana.  

We drove the route around the battlefield, admiring the beautiful monuments dedicated to units on both sides.  The 24th Indiana monument was just before the end of the route.  Some of the most devastating fighting in the entire war took place at this location, Champion's Hill.  Henry was captured here and then returned to Union lines a week or so later in a prisoner exchange.

How did they fight their way through this dense vegetation?

The stone above marks where the 24th Indiana was positioned at the end of the siege in July.  Vicksburg is on a bluff with a bayou to the north and ravines and rough territory on the east and south.  It couldn't be taken by direct assault so the Union Army laid siege to it from early May until the first of July.

The monument dedicated to the 24th Indiana.  Company B's plaque is on the right side.

Every time I visit one of these battlefields, I reflect on what a crushing failure of our country resulted in such a waste.  For those of you unfamiliar with the War Between the States (as it is called in the South), there were 600,000 casualties at a time when the population of the US was far smaller.  Many towns, both north and south, lost all of their young men.  

The cemetery here in the park has 17,000 graves and 13,000 of the dead are unidentified.  I can imagine parents, wives, children, friends at home, waiting and waiting and waiting for news that never came.  

Henry Lingle Waldrip, Company B, 24th Indiana Infantry.

Three years ago I ran across a Louisiana State Park called  Poverty Point.  We took a morning and drove over (about 50 miles from Vicksburg).  Not much there but it is a World Heritage Site.  We agreed that it was not worth the amount of time it took to get there.

The next morning we started home, making stops at Abilene, TX, Carlsbad, NM, and Cornudas, TX.  

It always surprises me what dogs RV'ers choose.  At Abilene, we saw a couple walking what has to be the biggest dog I have ever seen, an English mastiff.  Mike was outside and called to me to come out.  Muppet slipped out the door with me.

Both dogs appear confused.

Mike had seen Carlsbad Caverns years ago so he stayed at the trailer while I toured the cavern.  It is immense.  We got there early so we found a place to park and no line for me to get a ticket or get on the elevator.  By the time I returned to the visitor center, there were 20-deep lines at each of the three ticket booths and an even longer one for the elevator.  Timing is everything.

I took a lot more photos but most of them did not turn out, as the lighting in the cavern is quite dim and my little Fuji camera couldn't deal with both the dim light and the distances. We left Carlsbad Caverns and wound our way down Highway 62 toward El Paso.  This run was the only place in thousands of miles where there was no Verizon signal at all, nothing.

At Cornudas, TX, there is a small, old diner with an equally small, old RV park behind it.  We learned last year that it's nice to get home mid-day and, if we didn't stop at Cornudas, we would have gotten into Deming late.  The other advantage is that it gave us a chance to clean up the Lance, since we are leaving again in four weeks.

Mary's was worth stopping.  The lady who apparently owns it had flaming RED hair and appears to be in her 70's.  The whole place is for sale by owner, but I'd say chances are very slim it will sell.  She told us the cafe was probably built around 1923 and it appears nothing has changed since then.  

The owner told us that Highway 62 was part of Butterfield Stage route and that there was a stage station at the back of the property. Loyal blog readers know that the park in Deming is also adjacent to part of the Butterfield Stage route.  

Here is our space in the "park."  After we got settled, we went into the diner and I had one of the best cheeseburgers I've ever had.

We left the next morning for Deming and fought heavy winds the whole way.  The first full day we were home we had 30 mph winds the whole day and into the night.  Spring in the West.

Preview of coming attractions:

The Great Western Trail

We leave May 25 for four months in Utah.  I will pick up a new side-by-side (automatic transmission, power steering!) and trade the Honda in Richfield, UT.  

Utah is an off-road friendly state.  There are trails north, south, central, everywhere.  We stayed at a couple of parks last year that had good access to the trail system but we didn't have the side-by-sides with us.  

Arizona, Winter 2017

We arrived at Brenda, Arizona, after an overnight stop at the Buckeye Walmart Hilton.  Brenda is on the opposite side of the mountains from where we stayed for five weeks last year.  (Some of you who read the posts may remember the Grand Canyon of Bouse, the highlight of the five weeks.)

A day or two after we arrived, we were invited to join a group ride to an area south of I-10.  Although we had a book of maps I bought last year, we thought it would be good at least once to go with people who know the trails.  Well, at Hidden Valley Road, a big group ride might be 8-10 rigs.  This one had 20 and a couple of folks who were supposed to go stayed home.  TOO MANY RIGS.  However, it did show us how to get to the area south of I-10 for future reference.   It took most of the day to do a ride which we could have done in a couple of hours but we needed to start somewhere.  

We made a couple of peculiar stops.  This is is just a big hole in the ground but the leader stopped here for probably twenty minutes.  It seems there used to be owls who nested in this hole.  They disappeared a couple of years ago but we stopped to admire where they used to be.  

Crossing under I-10 was an interesting experience.  You can hear the massive 18-wheelers going right over your head.  Shortly after clearing the interstate, the leader took us to a small shrine.  No one seemed to know who built it or who it honors.  Another twenty minute stop.

The next stop on the grand tour was at a wildlife guzzler.  Saw one of these out here last year as well.  Each one is different, built specifically to the individual site.  For those of you who may have forgotten, these are rainwater catchment basins built by Arizona Fish & Game to provide additional water for wildlife. 

The next day, we took off by ourselves and just wandered around.  We came up on a small mesa and saw two beautiful big horn sheep.  Unfortunately, my little camera's telephoto wasn't good enough to get a photo with mostly the sheep.  The sheep weren't particularly concerned by our sudden appearance in their domain.  They just watched us for a couple of minutes and then disappeared down a canyon.

These are beautiful animals.  Hard to understand the whole concept of "trophy hunting."

Our friends, Ron and Sally Niemann, left Arivaca and met us here at Brenda.  For two weeks we ran trails with them.  Ron is a geologist and we could get our questions about what we were seeing answered at last!  

We spent one day looking for the location of banded rhyolite, a rather uncommon formation.  On our travels, we found the Apache Chief Mine cabin.  There's a sign on it that says, "If you can't take out your trash, don't stop."  

Banded Rhyolite

We did finally locate the right trail to get to the banded rhyolite deposits.  And the trail was narrow, steep, tilty, with lots of loose rock and a 300 foot drop to the canyon bottom if you made a mistake.  Hhhmmmm....

Ron and rhyolite.

Mike's dog, Indy, is very particular about his friends.  Sally somehow became Indy's very favorite person.  She came over nearly every night, picked Indy up and plopped him in her lap, and he was content.  Not an everyday occurrence with him.  

Sally and Sleepy Indy

Many weeks later:

We finished our time in Arizona and headed to the trailer dealership in Phoenix to fix some warranty problems.  Pulling the 22 foot flatbed trailer loaded with two off-road vehicles through Phoenix traffic is not an experience I want to repeat any time soon.  After several boring hours waiting for the repairs, we got started towards home again.  Phoenix is too far from Deming to make it in one day, even if we hadn't stopped in the trailer dealership.  Safford has a Walmart and we spent the night there.  

The problem with being gone for weeks (or months) at a time is that there is so much work when we get home.  The trailers have to be unloaded and items laundered, cleaned, etc.  And groceries must be bought almost immediately for the trailer in the park if we want to continue to eat regularly.  Usually have at least a grocery bag full of mail,, mostly junk, but it all has to be opened and reviewed.  Just to make things interesting, I started having problems with a tooth.  (Root canal this morning, 3/13.)

The weather has FINALLY started to warm up here and be beautiful.  Deming has had uncharacteristically cold and wet and windy weather the past two winters.  Hope next winter is better.  Today it should be in the high 70's and it's brilliantly clear. 

We will be here in Deming for another 4 weeks and then head out east to visit New Orleans, Vicksburg, and a few other spots before returning to Deming.  After a month or so here, we'll load up and head out to Utah to run off-road trails for four months.  Should have lots of good photos and good stories.

Until then...

On The Road Again

We  wound up leaving Tombstone Territories RV Park after only four days.  Our understanding was we could ride the side-by-sides right out of the park and hit the trails.  Well, not quite.  It's a 12 mile ride, partly on a  busy highway, to get to the trail head. Nothing like being on a long bridge (no shoulder) with a car coming toward you and an 18-wheeler coming up fast behind you.  

We are now in the booming metropolis of Arivaca, Arizona.  The clerk at the grocery store told Mike that during the 1960's, this was a destination for hippies.  (Clerk was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, with his long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail.)  He said most of them drifted back to wherever they came from but a few have stayed.  He says they are now the old farts in town.

Arivaca is in a area known as a sky island.  You will see from photos that this area gets a lot more moisture than Deming.  There are stubby trees and grass everywhere.  There are HUGE mud puddles on the dirt roads.

This is what the rigs looked like after cruising around Arivaca.

We spent a couple hours yesterday running some desert trails.  They look quite a bit like Deming.  There are trails to the south which appear to lead up into the mountains.  This was a mining area 100 years ago so the trails probably lead to abandoned mines.  We will explore those trails tomorrow when our friends Ron and Sally are in the park.

We took a short ride (for us) to reconnoiter.  As we were wandering around, we encountered three guys who were prospecting for gold (or just spending time away from home).  We asked if there was a way to get to the top of the mountains and across.  They thought and talked for a couple of minutes and told us how to get to the trail.

Prospectors and Mike discuss the trail over the pass.

Thanks to their directions, we found where the trail starts up and across the mountain pass.  They said there is one spot that is "tilty" and another where someone had hauled a trailer up (???) and abandoned it and it partially blocks the trail.  We turned around, as it was getting late in the day, and figured we would try it with Sally and Ron the next day.  

A couple of other interesting items from this ride:  I had always associated mistletoe with oak trees.  We rode down into a wash and saw what were clearly NOT oak trees but had what looked like mistletoe.  And it was.  Several days later, we found a local who told us that mistletoe also appears on mesquite trees.  

We also stumbled onto a humane border station.  Local churches place these barrels of water with a tall flag to assist border jumpers. Running out of water here can be a fatal mistake.

Later:

Sally and Ron arrived and we had dinner together and discussed trying to run the mountain pass road.  They were game.  The trail was as advertised and there was indeed an old trailer which blocked part of the trail.  I should have taken a photo.  How someone got it up there is a mystery.  We passed another abandoned structure on the other side of the mountain pass(see below).  

The next day the four of us took off to run another trail someone had recommended.  It was white-knuckle in some parts but a really good ride.  Best of all, it was only 1.5 miles down the highway to hit the trail.  

Sally, Ron, and Mike

The last day, we headed south from the park down to the Coronado National Forest.  After a fairly long run, we located the old mining town of Ruby.  It must be privately owned now, as it is open to visitors only 4 days a week and it costs $12 per person.  

We went back to a turn marked California Gulch and found a lady who said we could take a long ride through California Gulch and connect to Warsaw Gulch which then would wind back to Ruby Road.  Okay, then, off we go.  Beautiful scenery but not very challenging riding (National Forest Service roads).  We stopped to have a beer and discuss what to do next and a caravan of 7 or 8 Jeeps came along.  We asked them the best way to return to Ruby Road.



The guy in the lead Jeep seemed to have spent a lot of time in this area and said they were going to a couple of interesting places before they headed back.  We were welcome to join them if we wanted to make a couple of stops first.  

The first stop was a very obscure military cemetery.  The leader said he had talked with an Arizona historian who said these were members of the 10th Cavalry Regiment stationed out here on the border.  He said all the graves in the cemetery were from 1917 and these soldiers  may have been early victims of the worldwide flu epidemic.  It was nice to see that someone is taking care of the cemetery.  There was a new American flag and the signs were in good repair.

This is what is visible from the road.  If you didn't know this cemetery was there, you would never stumble on it.

We then followed the Jeeps over a spectacular mountain trail and down the back side to the Mexican border.  There was once a ranch here.  When the border was settled, the line went right through this ranch.  On the Mexican side, there are still cattle.  Doesn't look like there is much still operational on the US side.

Mike in the blue jacket at the border.

We nearly had a catastrophe as we left this area.  It required passing through a gate and going up a steep hill.  Fortunately, Mike was ahead of me and I saw the beer cooler fall off the back of Mike's rig.  One of the Jeepsters hopped out and grabbed it for us.  Whew!

Note to Omar:  no town too small.  See below.

Moving on to Brenda, Arizona, for six weeks to ride trails here.  More adventures to come!