November 23, 2015
We drove from Prescot at an elevation of about 5600 feet to Lost Dutchman State Park in Apache Junction with an elevation of about 2000 feet. We were on four lane roads most of the way and some of them were pretty steep and curvy. My knuckles turned white in a few places but Ted is a good driver and knows how to set the tow haul and cruise control so he doesn't have to ride the brake. It is a pretty ride down through the hills with periods of flat grassland. It took about three and a half hours to reach our destination and when we did, Kathy and Mary Lou were at the ranger station.
They weren't happy with their site which had no bathroom facilities anywhere near it and were there to see if there was anything else available. The ranger said there was a hundred foot pull-through site in another loop that was reserved for a volunteer who wouldn't be here until December and we could look at it if we wanted. We left the motorhome and our attached car and drove with them to check out the site which we was great. We were also able to get it through the weekend instead of having to move off the reserved site on Friday. Instead of being in the middle of a loop like being in a goldfish bowl, we were at the edge of the desert with almost no one near us. Both RVs and both cars fit easily on the site and we had enough extension cords and hoses so we could both hook up to the power and water. The views were spectacular with the Superstition Mountains on one side and the desert on the other.
November 25, 2014
It took us awhile to get going today. We just putzed around until afternoon when we went in to Apache Junction to a Fry's grocery store. We had planned to roast a turkey breast and leg for Thanksgiving but there were no legs available. Ted really likes the dark meat so we looked around and found the smallest fresh turkey we could find. At a little over thirteen and a half pounds, we hoped it would fit in the oven in our motorhome.
Back at the campground, I made a tortellini soup recipe that I had seen on Facebook. It said it was better to let it set so the plan was to save it for the next day. For dinner we went back into Apache Junction to the Handle Bar Pub and Grill that Mary Lou had found online. From the outside, it didn't look like much and there was only one car in front but we went in anyway. I'm not sure where all the people came from (I guess there was a parking lot out back), but there were a lot of people there and it just got busier as the evening went on.
They had a long list of beers and ales on tap, many of them local Arizona brews. They also had a wish list board which we had never seen before. I think that when one of the tanks of beer was emptied, they replaced it with the wish list beer that had the most votes. Between the rafters on the ceiling were dozens of tap handles from beers from all over the world. It was pretty interesting. We sat on high stools and after trying some samples, ordered our brews and some food. The food was good and the company great so we had a nice evening out on the town.
November 26, 2014
Today we drove back up to Canyon Lake that we had visited when we were in Apache Junction looking at perspective places to spend the winter. We launched our kayaks at the picnic area and crossed the slightly windy lake to the other side. We paddled along the opposite shore toward the dam and turned up into the Salt River. Once into the river, the water was calmer and the high cliffs on either side of us protected us from the wind and the sun.
Not far up the river, Kathy spotted a bald eagle enjoying lunch up on a cliff overlook. While we sat and watched it, we noticed another on sitting higher up on the cliffs. I had just got my camera zoomed and focused when they flew off but someone got a good picture of one of them.
We continued up the river a couple of miles poking into nooks and crannies and enjoying the plants that grow out of any little niche in the rocks. There were caves in the rocks that we could see from below and even some that we could paddle into. In one carved our area, the sun reflecting off the water made a great light show on the cave walls. For the most part, the cliffs towered straight up from the water but occasionally there would be an area where the tumbled rocks rose more gradually toward the beautiful, clear blue sky.
When we got to the final bend in the river that we had planned to reach, the Dolly, an old paddle wheel boat tour boat went by taking people further up the river than we planned to paddle. There was only one place all along the way that we could get out to stretch our legs so we headed back to that low spot to sit and eat our lunch. There was a primitive campsite there and lots of beach glass but most of it too fresh to keep.
On our way down the river and not far from where we had seen the eagles, Kathy again spotted the best of the day. There were what at first appeared to be two male longhorn sheep high up on the edge of the cliff. When Kathy let me use her binoculars to see, it appeared that one of the sheep had too many legs and before long another sheep stepped out from behind. In all we saw four sheep silhouetted against the sky hundreds of feet above our heads. What a treat to see these elusive animals in the wild.
The lake was calmer that in the morning when we paddled back across. We loaded up and then drove the two miles further up the road to Tortilla Flat where we each had an ice cream cone to hold up off until we returned to the state park and got cleaned up. Happy hour outside again and then before dinner. I made rolls for dinner tomorrow which seemed a little heavy. I can't quite get used to cooking in the varying altitudes, I guess. The tortellini soup I had made, which had lots of veggies and a chicken stock base, was delicious and a recipe I will keep for future use. We chatted awhile after dinner and made an early night of it. Not to be redundant but the sunset is gorgeous every night here. We will miss that when we are in the middle of a park with over a thousand park models and RVs around us this winter.
November 27, 2014 Happy Thanksgiving!!
Ted and I got up and stuffed the turkey and put it in about eight thirty hoping to eat about one. We sat outside and visited and late morning came in to peel potatoes and squash. I kept checking the turkey to see if it was ready but it was taking longer than we had expected to cook. My thermometer didn't seem to be getting any higher and the things that are supposed to pop up in the turkey didn't look like they were budging so I finally turned up the oven and got out a second meat thermometer that registered twenty degrees hotter in the same place in the bird. I don't use my gas oven that much so decided the temperature wasn't very accurate and will need to check it out and that the first thermometer needed to go.
While waiting for the turkey to finally be done, Kathy and Mary Lou brought out a bottle of champagne. I only have two champagne glasses but wine glasses sufficed for us to celebrate a great friendship of forty-five years and the opportunity to share this holiday together. Also we talked about what we were thankful for on this holiday. When the turkey was finally done about two hours late, we prepared the veggies and gravy while Ted carved the bird. Kathy had made cranberry sauce and we decided except for the homemade sour pickles and stuffed celery we had everything that a New England Thanksgiving dinner consisted of.
Kathy and Mary Lou did the dishes for us which was a welcome relief and I put away the leftovers for another day. If we couldn't be with family, what a great way to spend this day that was always my favorite holiday.
November 28, 2014
When Kathy and Mary Lou were almost packed and ready to go, we drove over to Goldfields, an old ghost town that was once the second largest town in Arizona. It was only surpassed by Prescott which was the capital city at the time. This area was one of the richest mining areas in the country with a higher concentration of gold per ton of ore than almost anywhere else. We can see the buildings from our campsite and could hear the old train as well as hear the shootouts that they have in the street every hour in the afternoons.
The buildings are all original to the old town but have been commercialized with various shops, and a restaurant. It is free to enter the town which in one street extending up a hill with the train station at the bottom and a church at the far end. The fanciest building is the bordello. We wandered around looking into various shops. There were lots of things to spend money on such as a buggy ride, horse ride, tour of the bordello, a zip line, and a tour down into the old mine shaft. Kathy had done the mine shaft years ago in an mine elevator and said they turn out all the lights once down there to show how dark it is. I have been in caves where they do that and don't need to be hanging in a vertical mine shaft to get the same effect. They bought a ceramic wind chime and we bought a big pot of small cacti to put out as decoration at our soon to be winter home.
November 29, 2014
Ted rode his bicycle around all the loops in the campground this morning and then drove in to Fry's for some milk. While he was gone, I hiked in the other direction on Siphon Draw from where went the other day and then around the campground. It is one of the most confusing campgrounds I have been in. One would think that out in the desert without many trees, it wouldn't be easy to lose your way. The mesquite and paloverdes are just tall enough along with the contours of the land so you can't see from site to site to tell what loop you are in. I was listening to the audiobook "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed and wasn't paying much attention but wasn't worried that I would never see my home again since I was on paved roads. When I returned, I sat outside most of the afternoon listening to the book that I wanted to finish before the movie comes out. Ted sat inside to watch football on TV and when I came in, he went out and watched on the outside TV. Sometimes we just need a little separation.
November 30, 2014
I spent most of the day typing this blog. We talked about kayaking but it is fairly windy so we decided to continue catching up on things we needed to do and stayed around instead. Most of the weekend campers have gone and it is quiet and peaceful here. When I am finished adding pictures, it will be time for happy hour and then more turkey leftovers. Yum again!
We drove from Prescot at an elevation of about 5600 feet to Lost Dutchman State Park in Apache Junction with an elevation of about 2000 feet. We were on four lane roads most of the way and some of them were pretty steep and curvy. My knuckles turned white in a few places but Ted is a good driver and knows how to set the tow haul and cruise control so he doesn't have to ride the brake. It is a pretty ride down through the hills with periods of flat grassland. It took about three and a half hours to reach our destination and when we did, Kathy and Mary Lou were at the ranger station.
They weren't happy with their site which had no bathroom facilities anywhere near it and were there to see if there was anything else available. The ranger said there was a hundred foot pull-through site in another loop that was reserved for a volunteer who wouldn't be here until December and we could look at it if we wanted. We left the motorhome and our attached car and drove with them to check out the site which we was great. We were also able to get it through the weekend instead of having to move off the reserved site on Friday. Instead of being in the middle of a loop like being in a goldfish bowl, we were at the edge of the desert with almost no one near us. Both RVs and both cars fit easily on the site and we had enough extension cords and hoses so we could both hook up to the power and water. The views were spectacular with the Superstition Mountains on one side and the desert on the other.
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| View of the Mountains From Our Site |
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Four Vehicles on One Site
After we got set up we visited for awhile before a great meal of Mary Lou's chili and Kathy's cornbread. The nights are cold but the sunsets are spectacular. Years ago we had orange and black curtains with a desert and mountain motif to go with our orange shag carpet (I can hear people laughing as they read this!) and that is what the sunsets look like. Once the sunset died away to dark, we could see the twinkling city lights of Phoenix in the distance across the desert. It is amazing how far we can see here.
November 24, 2014
Kathy said she was watching people walk and drive by this morning and the looks we were getting with the big and little RVs on the same site. There is quite a size difference but their little Casita is cozy and fine for the two of them as well as being much easier to manage than a bigger rig.
Mid morning we started up the Siphon Draw Trail toward the Basin. The trail is pretty much uphill all the way and rises a little over a thousand feet in two miles. It was a beautiful hike but Ted and I were both puffing compared to Kathy and Mary Lou as we don't do nearly as much hiking as they do. Kathy is like a mountain goat climbing without a hiking stick and would have been way ahead if she hadn't stopped to wait for us. It was good to stop and rest, though, as it gave us the opportunity to look around at the amazing view and to take photos to remember it by.
Once we reached the overlook into the basin, we started back down until we found a spot to stop and eat lunch. We sat and watched a couple of hawks spiral up on the thermals. The hike back down was much easier than the uphill climb and my new hiking shoes gripped the rocky ledges and gravelly terrain without crunching my toes in the process. They are so comfortable and my feet were happy the whole way.
Back at the campsite, it was time for an early happy hour to replenish our fluids. We sat out until it was time to make the dough for pizza. I laid out a bunch of ingredients and each person made their own quarter of the pizza to their liking. We sat at the table for quite awhile again enjoying the spectacular sunset.
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| Mary Lou, Kathy and Ted |
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| Looking Back at the Campground |
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| We Were Going Up Between the Peaks |
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| When the Mountains are Pink, Its Time to Drink |
It took us awhile to get going today. We just putzed around until afternoon when we went in to Apache Junction to a Fry's grocery store. We had planned to roast a turkey breast and leg for Thanksgiving but there were no legs available. Ted really likes the dark meat so we looked around and found the smallest fresh turkey we could find. At a little over thirteen and a half pounds, we hoped it would fit in the oven in our motorhome.
Back at the campground, I made a tortellini soup recipe that I had seen on Facebook. It said it was better to let it set so the plan was to save it for the next day. For dinner we went back into Apache Junction to the Handle Bar Pub and Grill that Mary Lou had found online. From the outside, it didn't look like much and there was only one car in front but we went in anyway. I'm not sure where all the people came from (I guess there was a parking lot out back), but there were a lot of people there and it just got busier as the evening went on.
They had a long list of beers and ales on tap, many of them local Arizona brews. They also had a wish list board which we had never seen before. I think that when one of the tanks of beer was emptied, they replaced it with the wish list beer that had the most votes. Between the rafters on the ceiling were dozens of tap handles from beers from all over the world. It was pretty interesting. We sat on high stools and after trying some samples, ordered our brews and some food. The food was good and the company great so we had a nice evening out on the town.
November 26, 2014
Today we drove back up to Canyon Lake that we had visited when we were in Apache Junction looking at perspective places to spend the winter. We launched our kayaks at the picnic area and crossed the slightly windy lake to the other side. We paddled along the opposite shore toward the dam and turned up into the Salt River. Once into the river, the water was calmer and the high cliffs on either side of us protected us from the wind and the sun.
Not far up the river, Kathy spotted a bald eagle enjoying lunch up on a cliff overlook. While we sat and watched it, we noticed another on sitting higher up on the cliffs. I had just got my camera zoomed and focused when they flew off but someone got a good picture of one of them.
We continued up the river a couple of miles poking into nooks and crannies and enjoying the plants that grow out of any little niche in the rocks. There were caves in the rocks that we could see from below and even some that we could paddle into. In one carved our area, the sun reflecting off the water made a great light show on the cave walls. For the most part, the cliffs towered straight up from the water but occasionally there would be an area where the tumbled rocks rose more gradually toward the beautiful, clear blue sky.
When we got to the final bend in the river that we had planned to reach, the Dolly, an old paddle wheel boat tour boat went by taking people further up the river than we planned to paddle. There was only one place all along the way that we could get out to stretch our legs so we headed back to that low spot to sit and eat our lunch. There was a primitive campsite there and lots of beach glass but most of it too fresh to keep.
On our way down the river and not far from where we had seen the eagles, Kathy again spotted the best of the day. There were what at first appeared to be two male longhorn sheep high up on the edge of the cliff. When Kathy let me use her binoculars to see, it appeared that one of the sheep had too many legs and before long another sheep stepped out from behind. In all we saw four sheep silhouetted against the sky hundreds of feet above our heads. What a treat to see these elusive animals in the wild.
The lake was calmer that in the morning when we paddled back across. We loaded up and then drove the two miles further up the road to Tortilla Flat where we each had an ice cream cone to hold up off until we returned to the state park and got cleaned up. Happy hour outside again and then before dinner. I made rolls for dinner tomorrow which seemed a little heavy. I can't quite get used to cooking in the varying altitudes, I guess. The tortellini soup I had made, which had lots of veggies and a chicken stock base, was delicious and a recipe I will keep for future use. We chatted awhile after dinner and made an early night of it. Not to be redundant but the sunset is gorgeous every night here. We will miss that when we are in the middle of a park with over a thousand park models and RVs around us this winter.
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| Canyon Lake Overlook |
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| Launching at Canyon Lake |
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| A Little Rough But No Problem |
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| Looking Toward the Dam |
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| There were 2 Bald Eagles, This One Sentry, the Other Was Eating |
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| Another Paddler in Front of Massive Cliff Wall |
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| Kathy and Mary Lou Look Pretty Small Next to the Cliffs |
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| Some of the Caves |
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| Ted in a Hole |
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| Looks Like a Hanging Basket |
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| Sun's Reflection Off the Water |
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| Ted in the Light Show |
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| Many Saguaros |
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| Cactus Garden on the Cliffs |
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| The Dolly Heading Upriver |
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| Captain Talking About Folklore |
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| Sometimes Difficult to See the Opening |
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| Burst of Bright Green |
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| Big Horn Sheep |
Ted and I got up and stuffed the turkey and put it in about eight thirty hoping to eat about one. We sat outside and visited and late morning came in to peel potatoes and squash. I kept checking the turkey to see if it was ready but it was taking longer than we had expected to cook. My thermometer didn't seem to be getting any higher and the things that are supposed to pop up in the turkey didn't look like they were budging so I finally turned up the oven and got out a second meat thermometer that registered twenty degrees hotter in the same place in the bird. I don't use my gas oven that much so decided the temperature wasn't very accurate and will need to check it out and that the first thermometer needed to go.
While waiting for the turkey to finally be done, Kathy and Mary Lou brought out a bottle of champagne. I only have two champagne glasses but wine glasses sufficed for us to celebrate a great friendship of forty-five years and the opportunity to share this holiday together. Also we talked about what we were thankful for on this holiday. When the turkey was finally done about two hours late, we prepared the veggies and gravy while Ted carved the bird. Kathy had made cranberry sauce and we decided except for the homemade sour pickles and stuffed celery we had everything that a New England Thanksgiving dinner consisted of.
Kathy and Mary Lou did the dishes for us which was a welcome relief and I put away the leftovers for another day. If we couldn't be with family, what a great way to spend this day that was always my favorite holiday.
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| Before the Turkey Was Added |
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| Ted Carving the Turkey |
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| Patiently Waiting |
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| Looks Good Enough to Eat |
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| Got This Idea From John Wakeman |
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| Thanksgiving Sunset |
When Kathy and Mary Lou were almost packed and ready to go, we drove over to Goldfields, an old ghost town that was once the second largest town in Arizona. It was only surpassed by Prescott which was the capital city at the time. This area was one of the richest mining areas in the country with a higher concentration of gold per ton of ore than almost anywhere else. We can see the buildings from our campsite and could hear the old train as well as hear the shootouts that they have in the street every hour in the afternoons.
The buildings are all original to the old town but have been commercialized with various shops, and a restaurant. It is free to enter the town which in one street extending up a hill with the train station at the bottom and a church at the far end. The fanciest building is the bordello. We wandered around looking into various shops. There were lots of things to spend money on such as a buggy ride, horse ride, tour of the bordello, a zip line, and a tour down into the old mine shaft. Kathy had done the mine shaft years ago in an mine elevator and said they turn out all the lights once down there to show how dark it is. I have been in caves where they do that and don't need to be hanging in a vertical mine shaft to get the same effect. They bought a ceramic wind chime and we bought a big pot of small cacti to put out as decoration at our soon to be winter home.
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| We Can See Goldfields from the Campground |
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| Great Seats and Comfortable |
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| Kathy, MaryLou, and Ted |
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| Caged |
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| Main Street |
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| Upstairs Establishment |
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| Casita Pulling Out |
When we got back to the campground, I heated up turkey and gravy which we put over left over mashed potatoes and had with the rest of the left overs. Yum!! My favorite meal, I think. Once they finished eating, they had to leave. We had such a great time with them, we hated to have them go but we are close enough that we will see them again this winter. Once they were gone, we settled down to catch up on email and Facebook. We even watched some TV which we haven't done much of since leaving Florida in April. Another cold evening with spectacular sunset.
November 29, 2014
Ted rode his bicycle around all the loops in the campground this morning and then drove in to Fry's for some milk. While he was gone, I hiked in the other direction on Siphon Draw from where went the other day and then around the campground. It is one of the most confusing campgrounds I have been in. One would think that out in the desert without many trees, it wouldn't be easy to lose your way. The mesquite and paloverdes are just tall enough along with the contours of the land so you can't see from site to site to tell what loop you are in. I was listening to the audiobook "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed and wasn't paying much attention but wasn't worried that I would never see my home again since I was on paved roads. When I returned, I sat outside most of the afternoon listening to the book that I wanted to finish before the movie comes out. Ted sat inside to watch football on TV and when I came in, he went out and watched on the outside TV. Sometimes we just need a little separation.
November 30, 2014
I spent most of the day typing this blog. We talked about kayaking but it is fairly windy so we decided to continue catching up on things we needed to do and stayed around instead. Most of the weekend campers have gone and it is quiet and peaceful here. When I am finished adding pictures, it will be time for happy hour and then more turkey leftovers. Yum again!
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| Nasty Looking Guy Along the Trail |
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| Looking At the Mountains From a Different Angle |
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| I Found My Way Home |
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| Cactus Garden From Goldfields Ghost Town |
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