Kit and Carol on the Road

We spent a night in Cathereral City visiting our friends Virginia and Ernie, and then (today) took a little side trip to visit Hemet. We've heard about this town as a destination for snow birds, but have not been here before. I don't think we'll be back again. The RV park we chose is nothing special. The spots are small, the pool is cold and the hot tub was luke warm. We checked out the park that wouldn't let us in because of the age of our rigs. It was just the same as this one. The town consists of all the usual chain stores and restaurants--nothing unique that we could find. Nor can we see any opportunites for hiking/biking here. So we're still looking for a winter "home". Meanwhile we are heading to our true home.

The long ago (early 60's) portended real estate boom for the Salton Sea seems to be finally happening though not as a regional resort area. All the cheap land and existing streets are being developed into housing for folks priced out of the market in Indio. Cheap housing here is $200,000 and up. Houses are cheaply built and yards are just chain linked fences around a bit of unattractive desert. The RV park we like now has new owners with new plans for it's future so will see what we find next year.

We are now resting up in Salton City for the long trip. On Friday we go to Cathedral City. On Saturday we have reservations in Hemet (just because we've never been there). Then we head home. Should be in Oregon in a week, give or take. Plan to visit friends in Eugene and then stop to see my mom. Home in two weeks perhaps.

Sorry the postcards have stopped. The US government upped the rates but can't seem to come up with the stamps. I stop at a post office every few days and ask.

Paul, Charlotte, and I in a stained glass display at the Carefree Art Fest. 

Our homeless day in Florence was pretty awful—didn’t get our home back until after dark. We were glad to be on the road the next day but took much of the morning locating a place to go. Lake Pleasant, where we’d plan to stay, was booked except the overflow. The place where Arby and Eleanor live wouldn’t let us in because Alice is “too old”. Luckily we found plenty of spots at Pioneer RV, close to the freeway and close to Carefree. We spent Saturday with Paul and Charlotte—hiking in Cave Creek Rec. Area (which has a wonderful campground on our list for next year) and visiting the Carefree Art Show (All the art was much too expensive for us but great browsing). Sunday we went down to Surprise to visit Arby and Eleanor—and Trader Joe. The park where they live (in a park model mobile home) has an awesome rec. center but the RV parking was nothing special. This morning (Monday) we were up early and almost all day on the road. We arrived at Salton City which is in a new time zone (Pacific) so it’s earlier than we think. It’s also under new ownership and new management. The price has gone up, but we’ll wait and see whether there are any other changes. The spa is still lovely. The wind has been blowing incesantly for the last 24 hours.

We are virtually homeless today as Alice is in the shop for some brake work and Wayne the truck is also in the shop (a different shop). So we are hanging out in the clubhouse this morning. I have my sewing project but poor Kit has no hobbies. We had a great day yesterday. Our friend Susan took us on a mountain goat trail up a mountain near Tuscon--great views of the dusty valley. Then we stayed on for supper and drove home in the dark. All is still well and we are thinking about home.

Sonoran Desert (ORPI) 

Cactus Country
We’ve been off the e-mail grid for almost a week now. I won’t bother to write much about the 3 days in Tuscon. We stayed at a mobil home park which has some RV spots; mostly hung around the hot tub and tried to get over our colds, but also had some errands to do—including getting Kit’s bike fixed. Then we headed southwest to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument which we think is one of the most beautiful places in the US. There are no hookups in the campground there but managed to stretch our batteries to 3 nights in the park. We ran into our new friends Richard and Christine (we met them in Tombstone) and enjoyed some hiking and visiting with them. We even met some people from Sweet Home who know my mom. Next year if we don’t get on as volunteers, we’ll get a generator so we can stay 2 weeks. Last year we were there in the winter of rain and there was plenty of green and lots of wildflowers. This year, it’s drought again there—no rain since October, and not much last summer either. As for now—we’ve back tracked east to Florence (AZ) to get some work done on our brakes before we head to the mountains. Plan to visit some friends north of Phoenix so it’ll probably be a week before we’re out of Arizona. All we hear from home is Rain, rain, rain. The temperature in Arizona has gone from 78 to 58 in just two days and it’s supposed to hit 28 tonight.

Early morning in Sunny Flats. 

We have finally arrived at a place we have been before. Surely, this is the sign of being "almost home". It is quite exciting to us. We had an idyllic one day stay at the national forest campground in the Chiricahuas. Very cold at night but 68 in the daytime. Alas we had to move on --ever heading home. We've settled for a night (or maybe two) in the desert near Tombstone. It's still high altitude so no doubt the night will be cold again. There is a nice hot tub here. We met some interesting people from England/France. I am trying to recover from a niggling cold.

The Chiricahua Mountains at night--from our campsite in the desert.(Kit took this one) 

The west coast is definitely more civilized than the east. :) Traveling on the east coast we went days without e-mail/ internet and now we are finding free WiFi everywhere we go--even at this small RV resort in the middle of nowhere. We are truly back of beyond--looking out at the back of the Chiricahua Mountains. Oh, by the way, we are not in Pancho Villa State Park. We planned to stay there but the park turned out to be a campground and nothing more--no room to roam--not much to do there. So we continued on to this remote location on the blue highways. Awesome views and a thousand acres to explore--but no bathrooms here and too many barking dogs.

My back has been really hurting me lately so our second day here Kit went biking and I sat and sewed. Then we took off mid afternoon to explore Portal and the Chiricahuas. We discovered a really nice campground--much better than the one in the National Park--so we hope to move up there tomorrow--if someone didn't get the spot we picked out.

Just a quick note from New Mexico. We enjoyed the small village of Mesilla, a bit of Mexico transported. Roaming the back streets we were surprised to see chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, or whatever in people's backyards--plus any amount of "stuff" imaginable. Mesilla is also the tourist hotspot in the area so there were lots of shops. Had a good Mexican lunch. We are staying at the KOA here in Las Cruces. We have an amazing view out of our back windows--mountains in the day and city lights at night. Tomorrow we are heading south to Pancho Villa State Park. (Out of range of e-mail for awhile-- but we still love getting it.)

WHite Sands National Monument. (yucca) 

We actually had a good morning in Carlsbad Caverns. Hiked down the 800 feet into the cave. The trail down was paved with lots of switchbacks. The first cave visitors were dropped in a guano bucket. LAter visitors had to hike down lots of stairs. Most of the people now go down in the elevator. The lighting is awesome and there are lots of amazing formations. However, this cave is mostly "dead". Not much water gets in. The cave we visited in France had water dripping everywhere and even Kartchner caverns are wetter. Not to say we didn't love Carlsbad. In the afternoon we went to the Living Desert State Park which is a desert zoo--nice, but doesn't compare to the one in Tuscon. Tomorrow we head to Roswell and if we don't get abducted by UFO's we continue on to Alamagordo and White Sands.

The Mouth of the Whale: Carlsbad Caverns. 

New Year in New Mexico. What a forsaken place. The wind was blowing 30mph plus today. At least it's still warm. We are in the red zone here. Very dry conditions. The current wild fires are well to the east of us. It's hard for us to relate to stories of flooding in the west. We are camped at a KOA well to the north of Carlsbad. I am not keen on caves but we are driving an hour southwest tomorrow to see the Caverns.

In west Texas there is a triangle of tiny towns. Alpine, where we've decided to spend an extra day, is 26 miles from Fort Davis and 26 miles from Marfa. Alpine, with population of 5,000 is the shopping mecca for the area. (There is a fabric shop and several book shops—and a True Value Hardware which could give Wal*Mart a run for the money). Fort Davis has a national park, a state park, and the Observatory. Marfa (where we haven't been) is famous for its mysterious lights, James Dean and Giant, and lots of artists. There is no NPR which grieves us--but Marfa Public Radio goes on line on Feb. 14. Dan Rather is coming to throw the switch and Willie Nelson is going to be giving a benefit concert. Too bad we'll be long gone. Tonight there was a party in the campground (6:30--we're all old here). We had a great time visiting with some interesting people and playing Mexican train until the late hour of 9:30. We plan to start the new year by heading to New Mexico.