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| Fog shrouded Inland Empire |
After a short visit to San Juan Capistrano we said goodbye to Bob and Peggy and headed over the Ortega Highway #74 to see the super bloom in Elsinore. Sadly, as we stopped at the view point over looking Lake Elsinore only a distant view was visible through the fog.
Once to Julian we stopped to peruse the town and share a piece of pie at Granny's Kitchen.
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| Super Bloom in Borrego Springs |
The flowers in Anza Borrego State Park were not disappointing.
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| Scads of Painted Lady Butterflies |
Their were also scads of Painted Lady Butterflies.
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| Campsite 108 Palm Canyon Campground |
Campsite 108 was at the far reaches of Palm Canyon Campground.
March 25, 2019
We made a stop at the visitor center in Anza Borrego State Park before heading towards Arizona. We made what we thought would be a lunch stop at History of the World in Felicity and decided not to pay $5.00 to walk around and look at the cement signs.
We ended up having a picnic at The Colorado River Historic Park along side the Colorado River in Yuma. A lovely location when in Yuma.
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| Sunset from our campsite in Twin Peaks Campground at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument |
We arrived at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument at 5:00, after a long day of driving.
March 26, 2019
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| Ajo Trail |
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| Arch Canyon Trail |
We hiked up the Arch Canyon Trail for a ways and picnicked at Bull Pasture Trail Head.
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| Arch Canyon Trail |
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| Wildflowers along Ajo Trail |
We then drove down to Lukeville just to see what the little border town was like. It consisted of a gas station and the border control station. We did get a peak at the infamous border wall.
March 27, 2019
Sadly our short stay at Organ Pipe Cactus was over.
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| Why fountain |
We left at 7:45 and made a stop in Why for gas.
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| Why, Arizona |
Once in the Tuscon vicinity we made a detour to Ramsey Canyon Audubon Preserve and enjoyed a wonderful walk along a stream complete with birds and butterflies.
Our home for the next 3 nights was Kartchner Caverns State Park.
March 28, 2019
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| Bisbee street |
Our destination today was Bisbee, Arizona where we strolled the streets and had a wonderful lunch at the Cornicopia Cafe.
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| Bisbee Theater |
We really liked this little town and hope to do a Lavendar Jeep Tour next trip.
Driving out of town we made a stop at what we thought was more of Bisbee, but it was another deserted small town that served the miners, Lowell.
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| Lowell, Arizona |
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| Lowell, Arizona |
March 29, 2019
This morning we toured the Big Room at Kartchner Caverns, a cave that discovery began with a sink hole found in 1967 leading to the cave's discovery in1974. Usually caves are cold and damp, this one is warm and humid. It closes from April 15 to October 15 when 1000 bats inhabit the cavern.
We drove an hour south to Patagonia Lake State Park for lunch and a walk. We ended up sitting on a bench early in on the trail and watching the birds come and go. While watching birds I saw my first pair of Cardinals! This campground is a wonderful location to watch a variety of birds.
March 30, 2019
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| Tombstone Tourist |
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| Another Tombstone Tourist |
By 8:50 we were on our way to Tombstone, a stop on our way to Chiricahua National Monument.
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| Stage Coach Ride |
Little did we know that Tombstone was a Theme Park where gunfights are hawked, the four most famous gunfights in Arizona History were reenacted.
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| The Sheriff |
Western Madams and gun slingers tried to lure passers by into their respective shows
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| Tombstone |
The streets were lined with restaurants,photo galleries and novelty shops of all kinds.
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We toured the streets for about an hour.
We decided to extend our drive to Chiricahua by getting there by way of Portal, a town in the very southeastern corner of Arizona. via Forest Road 42. Portal is popular with birders about 60 miles from Douglas, Arizona. Highway 80 to Portal passes through a piece of New Mexico.
The valley surrounded by the portals was incredibly beautiful, Sunny Flat Campground would be a great place to stay.
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| Above Portal, Arizona looking toward New Mexico |
The drive over the mountain to Chiricahua National Monument on Forest Road 42, a well graded dirt road, taking about and hour and a half.
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| Campsite in Bonita Canyon Campground |
March 31, 2019
Joan, Terri and I were up early on this chilly morning to attend a ranger lead bird walk where we spotted 14 different species of birds and learned a bit of the history of the Chiricahua Valley. in the 1800's it was a farm which grew a variety of fruits until an earthquake caused the warm spring to dry up. During the early 1900's it became a dude ranch.
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| Chiricahua Nature Trail |
After lunch back at the campground we drove up to the nature trail and hiked it along with about a half mile of Echo Trail, up to the grotto.
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| Gotto Trail |
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| Grotto Trail |
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| Grotto Trail |
It was a beautiful hike and made me wish we had started out earlier in the day so we could hike the 4 miles back to Bonita Canyon Campground.
April 1, 2019
Today was a travel day. We left Bonita Canyon Campground about 9:15 en route to Catalina State Park which is a bit north of Tuscon.
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| Saguaro National Park |
We drove through the Rincon Mountain District of Seguaro National Park stopping for lunch touring the beautiful garden at the visitor center.
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| Up the Saguaro |
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| View from Saguaro Visitor Center window. |
This is the part of the park where Kaci lived for 6 weeks while in Americorp.
We stopped in the Catalina Hills area to do laundry and grocery shop.
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| Catalina State Park |
April 2, 2019
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| Desert Museum Coyote |
This morning we drove across Tuscon to the Arizona Desert Museum in Tuscon Mountain Park. It was an incredible zoo and botanical garden.
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| Nice kitty |
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| Destroying property... |
We stopped in at The Red Hills Mountain District of Saguaro National Park to picnic and drove through the Tuscon Mountain Park, a spectacular drive.
We drove home via Biosphere 2, north of our campground. I was pretty tired and waited in the car while Mark explored.
April 3, 2019
After a slow morning around the campground, we drove into Tuscon to visit the Tuscon Botanical Garden.
It was listed as one of the 10 best botanical gardens in the country, how could we pass it up?
The gardens were quite diverse and the artwork lovely.
I really enjoyed the time I spendt in the butterfly house. Try as I might I couldn't catch the Blue Morpho Butterfly still long enough to take a picture.
We enjoyed a lovely lunch on the patio of the Tuscon Art Museum at Cafe A La Carte. Mark and I shared a delicious Salmon BLT. They made Arnold Palmers with a delicious berry lemonaide. We took a slice of their blackberry buttermilk cake back to camp for later. It was so good I tried to copy it for Easter Dinner, I was close, but it didn't taste as good as the piece we had back at camp that night.
The Presidio area had shops in some of the historic buildings and an open air market which we explored.
Next we moved our car near the Forth Avenue District and walked around Fifth Avenue looking at the eclectic collection of shops.
On Fifth Avenue we were able to hop on a street car which took us on a tour of the U of A campus and downtown Tuscon.
April 4, 2019
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| Prescott Courthouse |
Leaving Catalina State Park around 8:15 we fought the traffic through Phoenix and arrived at the Courthouse in Prescott where we had lunch and explored the downtown area.
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| Downtown Prescott |
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| Mark found an alleyway! |
Our home for the night was at Point of Rocks RV Park in Prescott, and ok place for one night, but the other RV park in this area appears to be nearer a lake.
This evening Mary and John shared their lovely home and a nice dinner with us.
April 5, 2019
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| Lilo's in Seligman |
Mark had a hankering to return to Seligman,
so we left Prescott around 8 and stopped in at Lilo's Cafe for a hearty breakfast.
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| Huge breakfast! |
We continued on Highway 66 to Highway 93 which took us to Sam's Town RV Park in North Las Vegas.
The RV park is very nice even though we were packed into an urban area.
After relaxing in the camper a bit, we walked over to Sam's Town Casino where we had dinner at Panda Express. This was our first time ever at Panda Express and we enjoyed our dinner.
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| Las Vegas Strip |
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| Las Vegas from the Bellagio |
At the casino we were able to hop a free shuttle which dropped us on the strip at Harrahs.
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| Bellagio water show. |
We found our way to the Bellagio where we watched the water show and walked around with the multitudes until jumping back on the shuttle out of the madness.
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| Mark in shopping are attached to the Bellagio |
We were back in our camper by 10:00.
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| Friday night traffic on Las Vegas Blvd. |
We found Sam's Town RV Park to be a great place to stay while exploring Las Vegas. It was very quiet. For out entire stay in Vegas we spent a total of $70.00.
April 6, 2019.
On our way to Highway 395 we drove through Death Valley, stopping at Ryolite Ghost Town for lunch.
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| Bottle House, Ryolite, Nevada |
I've don't remember ever seeing so many people in the town, there were about 20 cars!
We made our first visit to the Goldwell Open Air Museum.
Because we were afraid it would be too cold in Lone Pine we spent the night in the Frontier Lodge on Highway 395. We had dinner at The Grill, basically a mediocre coffee shop.
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| Whitney Portals from Lone Pine |
April 7, 2019
By 8:30 we were on our way up to Northern California on Highway 395.
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| Manzanar Guard House |
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| Manzanar Cemetery with the Sierra Nevadas |
All the trips on 395 we had not driven the driving tour of Manzinar Internment Camp, I was surprised at how large the camp was.
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| Along Virginia Lakes Road |
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| Lake Crowley |
We made a stop at Mono Lake Visitor's Center and were surprised to find it closed.
Tonight was spent at the Best Western Topaz Lake, our usual stop.
April 8, 2019
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| Topaz Lake |
The morning at Topaz Lake was beautiful as our sojourn comes to a close.
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| Highway 50 |
Driving towards home, I was amazed by the height of the snow banks along the road sides as we drove over the Sierra's
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| Highway 50 |
As I write this blog a month after arriving home I'm struck by how much we packed into our time. Hopefully, next trip we'll slow down a bit!
