Back to Arizona again

Well, it's been some time since the rains and cold of southern California. Now that spring is upon us in the Sonoran desert, it's easy to see why we needed to get out some and travel to our "places of the heart" again. In our many years traveling we've coined this term to note as special some of the places we've been and connected, with the people, the land or the activity. As we've begin to slow and limit our trajectory, we try to maintain these special visits and hope to maintain them as long as we can...and still find time and energy for discovering new friends and places. Even though we've landed in a wonderful place like Glen Eden, we still love this RVing life and the opportunities it affords us. Seems, too, whenever we encounter settled folks, it's hard to avoid becoming territorial and getting involved in the daily politics of living. This lifestyle affords us a better balance.

We missed the annual RV gatherings at Quartzsite again this year due to illness...ours. The crud we contracted from Las Vegas came back again with a vengeance. We did get to Yuma for a few weeks of desert peace and quiet and warmer temps. We also managed our annual dental checkups in Los Algodones, Baja CA, Mexico...and we're happy to report that the teeth are holding up better than the rest of us. We met up with old RVing friends (and they are getting older, too:) and enjoyed catching up on life over the past year, our travels and trials, along with the requisite visit to favorite restaurants, flea markets and sights around the Yuma area. Great place to spend the winter as many snow birds in their RVs from Canada and the US have found. I believe there are over 50 RV parks just in the Yuma area alone. All types of new services and traffic have been added, along with the regular agricultural schedule. Yuma this time of year is the lettuce bowl for much of the country, and also grows broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower. All kinds of citrus and dates are grown in the area, as well. And you can't beat a date milk shake...alas, I must limit myself to only 1 per season, as I could easily get out of control.

We've since moved on to another favorite area in the Sonoran desert near the former copper mining town of Ajo, on the road from Phoenix to Puerto Penasco, Mexico and the Gulf of California. We're actually less than 20 miles from the border here, just north of Organ Pipe National Monument, and just south of the Barry Goldwater live fire gunnery range! It's a quiet place of saguaro cactus, creosote bushes and wide open skies. We've been coming here for years and never seem to tire of it's calmness and beauty. That, in spite of the active border crossing and smuggling route this continues to be, but we've been fortunate to not have any adverse consequences in all our time here. Homeland Security in the form of US Border Service is very visible in town and on the many dirt roads in this wide open area. Since the closure of the open pit copper mine here in the 1980s Ajo has had a hard row to hoe, but renewed interest in "national security" along with continuation of the war on drugs, the low cost housing which has encouraged new migrants from the north in the form of "Q" tips (senior citizens) and artists to take up residence. A more recent boon to the area is a 4.5megawatt solar electric generating array located on mining property on the southside of town. This grid enhancement will provide power to over 1000 homes throughout the region, and a few more jobs in Ajo. "Where", according to the latest promotional brochure for the area, the "summer spends the winter".

Looking to move along to the Desert Rain Cafe in Sells, AZ for a lunch of homemade TohonoO'Odam (Pima) treats and on to Tucson and southeast Arizona... Happy trails...

Welcome to our new year!

We arrived back at our lot amidst a 7 day rain cycle that finally broke at Christmas. And they say it never rains in sunny California. Not that we're complaining because it's a desert here and water is a real necessity and a treat, too, and not the daily gray grind of NE PA that we left so many years ago. But enough rain is a few inches. Nearly 20 inches in fewer days is more than this parched SoCal could well accommodate! In fact, here's a few pics. The traditional channel/creek through the park became clogged with debris and it remembered it's own pre-RV park route, through our yard and our neighbors'. We didn't have any memory, but nature and a few of our older neighbors did and now,so do we! Little actual damage occurred, but a lot of mud and debris went where it wasn't wanted, and had to be removed, replaced and refilled. So for the next weeks that became the order of the day. Add to this the return of the "Vegas Crud" we had picked up while enjoying the Penn & Teller, the bright lights and food in Las Vegas and another couple of weeks were lost to misery and a sore head, nose, chest etc. But we made it through Christmas and New Years!

One of the benefits of settling somewhere with a few square feet of dirt is that Tom has rekindled his gardening interest. Since October he is a "Master Gardener in Training" with UC Riverside Cooperative Extension. While in town he attends classes in person, and when not, he reads and follows classes online via our satellite internet connection. This training will now be added to his already distinct title of "Master Composter" that he earned in 2008 with the Riverside County Waste Management. He even has a T-Shirt that says so!


He's already enjoyed getting pricked and cut learning to prune roses at the UCR Botanical gardens. By the way, the first rule is never where shorts, sandals and a Tshirt to a full scale rose pruning!

He's also had a day at an olive ranch where they are growing olives and pressing oil. Actually the RV park where we have the lot, Glen Eden, used to be an Olive ranch where there are still many huge, shapely and prolific olive trees. (and olives smushed all around....next year some curing and pressing is going to happen!)


Well, it's almost 1 February and should be time to be in Quartzsite, but looks like we'll stick around here to help with community garden, our site projects including finishing irrigation for our new apple, plum, pluot and nectarine trees and 2 grape vines, along with helping out and visiting mother in a not too distant nursing home. It's comfortable here, but really time to be moving along. Yuma and the desert are calling. Happy trails until real soon (we hope)

And to the other side of Death Valley

We've now arrived back at our lot in SoCal, just south of Corona and are "enjoying" the rains, 4 days and it's still coming down. A wonderful treat for the dry southwestern deserts, but not too great for areas scarred by the summer wildfires. Fortunately, we're only inconvenienced by a few roads closed by seasonal high water.

Before we came south last Friday, we managed another side trip 180 miles across Death Valley National Park to the Owen's Valley and to the Lone Pine and Independence areas along the eastern Sierra mountains. We enjoyed sunny and cold weather, snow on the peaks but none of the notorious winds usually so prevalent. One of our interests was to visit the Mazanar Internment/Concentration Camp which was now a national park. This camp was one of 10 that was used to "intern" Japanese-Americans during WWII. At it's peak Mazanar was designed to hold 10,000 men, women and children from the coastal areas of southern and central CA. The exhibits and buildings showed a stark world brought to life by the internees on this windswept valley. It also showed an hysterical and prejudiced nation which felt it necessary to "protect" itself from these people, many fellow US citizens. It also showed examples of many Americans who supported their Nissei friends and looked after their properties until the internment was over. Overall it was a very sobering experience. And quite chilling as well to read newspaper columns and opinions from then which can almost be seen today by simply substituting "Muslim" for "Japanese". But we have come some way since then, there are no more Mazanars being built, though Guantamo Bay may come close.

Later we went on up to Independence and the Museum of the Eastern Sierras. There we enjoyed the excellent collections of the historical society on the history and peoples of the Owens Valley, the controversial takeover/theft of the Owens River and Lake systems by the LosAngeles
Power and Water District in the early part of the 20th century and an incredible collection of over 400 baskets by the Piute and Shoshone. All manner of burden, storage and fancy baskets were on display. Very definitely worth the visit. ( (Monument Inscription at Mazanar cemetery: the "Soul Consoling Tower")

Our last stop in the area for this trip, was the Alabama Hills. A wide open geological tumble of granite at the base of the sierras which was the site of over 300 films, and most all of the early westerns from Republic Studios. You know, the ones we watched faithfully on Saturdays with Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and the rest. A lot of the early John Wayne movies, along with classics like High Sierra with Bogart and Gungha Din with Cary Grant were also set there. A relatively close 4 hours from Hollywood and a world apart it made for a great backdrop...and we enjoyed the views. Happy trails and Happy Holidays wherever you roam.

Las Vegas side trip

We've had a wonderful stay here in Tecopa, as you've probably noted by our absence from these pages. Not only have we enjoyed the hot baths, the quiet sounds of the desert, the deep, dark night skies, but also a few diversions to other places. We spent a couple of days haunting thrift stores, Ethiopian restaurants, the Rio Night Club and Casino and even a pawn shop in LasVegas. It was the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop on Las Vegas Blvd. made famous by the History Channel show, Pawn Stars. The only "stars" we noticed were on the door along with the hundreds of other gawkers like us seeking a view of Chumley and the crew. We also managed a genuine LasVegas "magic show" with Penn and Teller at the Rio. Amazing! is all I can say. Sleight of hand and mind taken to incredible ends. We also enjoyed a photo op at the Belagio as a Christmas treat while they assembled the Conservatory Christmas themed show. More interesting to see how they build the set, assemble the props and maneuver the materials around. In spite of the wonderful time, we also managed to bring back our first serious cold in over 5 years. Laid us both right out with cough, head and chest congestion and just plain yuk. We're finally on the mend, but it's slow and brings back the old meaning of the word "hacking".


That's it for tonight. Hope you're enjoying the season wherever you are.














Christmas Setup at the Belagio Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada

On the road to Tecopa

Well we finally moved along from the lot and projects at Glen Eden after a month plus of delays and just "one more project". It wasn't until a week before Thanksgiving that we actually started the engine and turned our gazes to I-15 and 4 hours north to Tecopa, CA, just 50 miles north of Baker along a scenic secondary backroad route to Las Vegas and also Death Vally National Park. This is a favorite desert hot spring village we've been visiting regularly since our first trip here in 1995. We spent Thanksgiving with other desert dwellers at the local Community center and managed to soak daily in the famous Tecopa hot baths. Weather has been cooler than normal and winds have been more prevalent than we remember...something that gets your attention when the RV is rocked and buffeted by 25 mph winds first from the southwest, then from the north. But, it's part of the experience.
Tom managed a couple of hikes with the local Conservancy. One to an old gold mining area at Salt Creek and another was along the Amargosa River, recently granted a Wild and Scenic River designation. For those of us from the east, our picture of a wild river is a lot different than here in the desert southwest, though in times of heavy summer rains, wild is a mild term, torrential is often more appropriate. But for the most part this "river" is more like a small creek by our eastern experience. Yet, it is a lifeline for desert flora and fauna. But like much of the west, it's being choked by the invasion of the Salt Cedar or Tamarisk, a bush like tree imported from the Near East at the turn of the 20th century for erosion control. The dark side of this salt tolerant plant is that it outcompetes and displaces native plants such as the willow and cottonwood and draws a lot more of the precious water, many times drying up riparian areas. Efforts are underway in many areas including the Amargosa to eradicate the plant, but it is wildly successful adapter, tenacious and expensive to accomplish. Many local groups such as the Conservancy are working with and "pushing" the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) to continue the eradication efforts before it is too late or too overwelming. Hope to be here for a few more weeks. Will post some more from Las Vegas and elsewhere in the region. Sunshine and warmer temps have returned. Even some rain last night! Great...until next time.

All's well in SoCal still...

(Our first project: an urbanite (broken up concrete) drive extension for parking the rig and staining the entire patio area-a lot more work than originally thought!)
Greetings!
Well, we're still sitting and building out our first bit of homespace after 18 years traveling. It's been surprising to sit this long but it's been mild summer here at Glen Eden near Corona, CA and the price is right. It's also to make up for our carbon kharma from last year's cross country jaunt. Plus, it's fun to build and garden again after so many years.
Below is our 2nd major project, a 40' redwood fence complete with 2 coats of water-based stain! Another project easier designed than built. Engineering, technical and construction help provided by our good friend Mike Nash from Arizona. Plan is to use the fence as support for CA natives and espaliered fruit trees while adding raised beds in front and round the back. Compost pile is working overtime with the over 40 pounds weekly of cafe contributions (vege trimmings from the on grounds restaurant). To date we've processed, composted and diverted over 800 pounds of green waste and made some good organic matter to amend the DG (decomposed granite) "soil". We've also been working with the club to distribute the many years' accumulation of mulch around to the many landscaped areas on grounds.


Nancy continues her routine with the pool every morning as she can find quiet and space. Weekends are especially busy, but the weekdays bring her calm and a meditative pace. Have enjoyed weekly visits with my mother at her nursing home in Loma Linda. We usually find time to go out to her favorite restaurants, like the IHOP or Marie Callendars. And of recent we've been enjoying old movies from the 30's...the Thin Man series was a popular one for both of us.

It's hard to believe we've past Labor Day already. I even got around to tilting our solar modules recently realizing that the sun is heading south (metaphorically speaking). The temps are still pretty warm here and the SantaAna winds haven't arrived yet (the annual hot winds from the desert); nor has any rain since April. Luckily the native plants have adapted to this condition. Not sure we have yet. Fresh water is still a commodity too often taken for granted, here and probably everywhere. Happy trails for now. Keep in touch...

Southern California again and at long last...

Blame it on Facebook or blame it on the sunshine, blue skies and "the weather", but in any case, we've been absent from these pages for over a month. Nancy says it should be a little update more often. For me, it's a grand narrative when the spirit moves or when times change. But now, after 3 weeks settled in on our lot at Glen Eden near Corona, CA it's time to provide the "little update". After Tucson it was Phoenix/Scottsdale and friends. Then we moved the show on to Prescott for another week of reconnecting, hikes in the Ponderosa pines of the central highlands. Then, it was across the western desert and the Colorado to the familiar and the family in Southern California.

Tom's mom is doing well and was anxious and relieved to have the wanderers back in the area. Same for sister who values the backup and extra help with visits, doctor's appointments and just being here.

As for activities, it's fun to get reconnected here with lot projects here on our new site, backyard composting with Riverside County, gardening next door at Glen Ivy Farms while Nancy finds relief and strengthening from daily "hydrotherapy sessions" at the heated pool.

No pictures today...the blog isn't uploading. More next time...Happy trails!