2002-03 . . . Episode 6 - Ole'

We stayed at Tombstone Territories through the holidays until after New Years and then went down to Benson, AZ to join Fred (Jan & Fred) while Jan went off to Florida for two weeks.

Each RV Park has its own attractions and drawbacks. While Tombstone Territories was new and trying to get established and facilities-wise had a lot of work to do, Pato Blanco Lakes (Benson) has been going for a few years and the property and facilities are well established. The lakes attract the birds and animals, as well as the people.

In the more established RV parks and resorts (as many of them call themselves resorts), there is often a group of permanents (RV'ers who return each year for a period of time or have permanent trailers set up). They seem to set the tone and activities for the place and also tend to resist others trying to do something different. One couple (who actually live full time in their 5th wheel) offered to set up a Fun dog trial afternoon. They certainly weren't encouraged. Most times the transient RV'ers are expected to participate and volunteer but certainly not initiate. From Benson we moved onto Ajo AZ via Hwy 86 and our last stop before going into Mexico and Rocky Point.

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Mexico

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We have been in Mexico before but never took the 5th wheel so we were feeling concerned and vulnerable (kind of scary and exciting at the same time). We had no problems at all, although we got more insurance than we needed ( we've chalked that up to a learning expense). Actually, crossing the border was nothing!! The Customs guy didn't even get off his chair when we drove through. Lukeville (where we crossed the border) is a typical border town . . . busy, vendors, narrow streets and dirty. It takes a little while to change your mind set to try and read and understand the signs (it has become my job to read all the signs as we go down the road).

Again, the terrain changes!! The road down to Rocky Point continues through the Sonora Dessert for about 90 kms and you see even more Organ Pipe, Saguaro and Cholla Cacti. There tends to be more and bigger growth here because of the more moderate night temperatures, lower altitude and more precipitation, so the desert is covered with a blanket of vegetation. There seems to be less Organ Pipe Cacti on the US side than across the border in Mexico.

Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) is a fishing village cum winter haven for northern tourists. In town there is one R.V. Park after another all bunched together close to the centre of town. The sites are so close, you can open your window and ask the people next to you to butter your toast. We did manage to find a park about 5 km away right on the beach. It seems not too many people had discovered it (it had only been open for about a month) and the services were limited but had everything we needed ( water, power & sewer ), ocean and beach. There were four other R.V.'s in the park when we arrived, one pulled out another one came in and we literally had a whole sandy beach to ourselves for almost the entire first week.

Our backyard was the ocean (actually it is the Sea of Cortez) beach and each morning we woke up to a more exquisite sunrise than the day before and listened to hundreds of sea birds to the background of the water rushing in. Besides watching the tides go in and out, we took daily walks along the beach . . . it changes and stays the same every day. A good size pod of dolphins joined us almost every morning fishing and playing right in the water off our beach while we sat out with our morning coffee and watched them.

We are about 5 kms from the actual town site of Puerto Penasco (or Rocky Point) and only went into town when we need to (usually every two or three days). The back way into town goes through (what the Gringos call) Shacks Fifth Avenue. It runs for about two or three blocks and is lined on both sides by vendors and shops - all the trinkets, T-shirts, blankets, etc for the Gringos to buy. The road is narrow, washboardy, with pot holes we could lose the truck in.

The Fish Market in town is (of course) right along the water. On one side of the street is one fish market stall after another selling shrimp, scallops and all kinds of fish. There are big restaurants and small outdoor cafes or locals selling burritos and tacos right out of the trunks if their cars. Most of the clothing and souvenir type places are on the other side of the street. Each stall displays its wares out front so the street is a blast of colour and BUSY - people everywhere. As you enter the street there are usually uniformed restaurant people waving menus and inviting you to come eat at their place. Then there are fish hawkers waving shrimp and every time you stop (which is about two or three feet) some one will come up offering to sell you something - best prices in town; almost for nothing. It is an experience!

We went on a tour of CEDO (the International Center for the Studies of Deserts and Oceans) on Tuesday. Oceans and Deserts are not something I've paid a lot of attention to in the past, but being here, you start to appreciate just how much of the earth is ocean and desert and how Man has effected the ecology even though they both seem so vast and endless.

Food can be very reasonable. Fred's fishing trip netted us about five good feeds, some flounder and some other fish we're not sure what they are called. We went clamming with a couple from Missouri and we I made a big batch of clam chowder for all of us. We dug a whole bucketful of clams and by the time we got them all shelled there was barely enough meat to make enough chowder for 6 people. It was fun, though - both the digging and trying to co-ordinate three cooks to get the chowder together. After the first week, we managed to find the markets, bakeries and cafes frequented by the local people frequent, which made things more fun as well as reasonable. I think we could easily have stayed for a couple more weeks but adding the extra insurance makes it very expensive.

Reluctantly, we left Mexico and started our journey north and west - destination Yuma (after visiting the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and the ruins at the Casa Grande National Monument).

2002-03 . . . Episode 5 - Biosphere2

Bioshpere2 is about 30 miles NE of Tucson on Hwy 77. They call it a living laboratory for the earth and the environment. It is a 3 acre enclosed environment covered with glass and steel (like a green house). They brought in untreated plants, air, soil and water to emulate the various ecological systems . . . the ocean . . . the desert . . . the rainforest . . . and use different types of technology to control the atmosphere, rainfall and wind, as well as, test how these systems respond when exposed to various levels of carbon dioxide and other atmosphere-modifying elements. The whole thing is fascinating ! !

The lungs are particularly interesting. Each consists of a large aluminum disc which has a rubber membrane connected to it and then connected to the side of the dome. When looked at from above it would resemble the surface of a drum with a metal plate surrounded by rubber (to make sure that the air pressure inside the glass structure stays at a safe level). In the daytime when the temperature inside of Biosphere2 increases, expanded air rushes in to the two "lungs" via large tunnels and then at night when the structure cools and contracts, air in the lungs flows back in to Biosphere2.

The original design included The Human Habitat (to house 10 people) and eight people did manage to survive in there for two years BUT the initial problems they ran into included insufficient levels of oxygen and an inability to produce as much food as they thought they could. Apparently, they had not accounted for the amount of oxygen it would take to cure the concrete they used - that accounted for the tower levels of oxygen - and rather than rely on their gardens, they utilized the various other biome's to produce food. For example, the planted additional bananas and papayas in the rainforest.

They actually hauled a million gallons of water right from the ocean to develop the Ocean Biome.

One of the present experiments includes how an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would effect the coral in the ocean. The coral exhibits are spectacular. The experiments tend to indicate that the increase carbon dioxide is destroying the coral. I would like to get back there sometime.

We're hoping to get to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Forest next (around Why and Ajo) and then down to Rocky Point in Mexico.

2002-03 . . . Episode 4 - SE Arizona . . . Oh, the Damn Truck!

Tombstone Territories RV Park lies exactly halfway between Hwy 80 and Hwy 90 on Hwy 82 and has no railroad nearby, which is very unusual for an RV park. It is fairly isolated and sits in a large desert canyon surrounded by mountains (hills) - the Mules, the Dragoons, the Whetstones and the Huachucas. The terrain here is different again, mesquite trees have taken over from the creosote shrubs and there is more undergrowth grass. The sites are large, there is great bird watching (a family of quail visit every morning), and there are the most incredible sunrises and sunsets! We weren't planning to stay here that long, but truck troubles and wanting to avoid the holiday traffic has resulted in our staying here for a month.

Hwy 80 (to the east and south) leads to the infamous Tombstone, then onto an interesting old mining town cum Artist/Hippie community by the name of Bisbee and finally ends up at the Mexican border at Douglas, AZ/Auga Prieta, Sonora, Mexico.

Arizona's economy seems worse this year and, like so many of the places in Arizona, Tombstone has interesting history and old characters in costumer wander the streets but has evolved into a place that chases and depends on the tourist dollar . This can sometimes make it very uncomfortable. We tend to check into the Visitor Centres first and try to stick to the Museums and non-commercial settings. The place we liked best in Tombstone was the old Courthouse (a State park). It was filled with pictures of the old town with its gunfighters and memorabilia. There is a reproduction of the courtroom and the yard houses the original hanging gallows. Boot hill is still there but they seemed to have re-stoned and lined up all the old graves. I don't think any of them are the originals. In fact, we were even told that the site had been changed so it was more convenient for the tourists.

Bisbee was built up the sides of a narrow canyon. Historically, it grew with around copper mining but when the quality and quantity of copper ran out, Bisbee apparently was invaded by hippies in the 60's and 70's and is now considered a major art center.

The main attraction in Douglas is the Gadsden Hotel and at the border crossing, Auga Prieta has some interesting murals and cigarettes for $9.00 a carton. AND then it happened!! The truck started hic-upping and missing. We made it back to the RV park and the resident mechanics were all very helpful and suggested this and that. So they changed a switch and fuel filter and it ran fine for a few miles and then started again. No choice but to take it into the dealer. Well, this was Wednesday and they couldn't work on it til Monday. So we were park-bound til we took it in and then park-bound til they got it fixed on Friday. Fortunately, the $3000.00 fuel injector pump they replaced was under warranty so it cost us less than $100.00.

We really needed to get out and on the road so we decided to take advantage of a package offer to stay overnight and tour Biosphere2 . . . something we wanted to do anyway . . . and give us the chance to try out the truck without the trailer.

2002-03 . . . Episode 3b - New Mexico - Out from Las Cruces

The longer we stayed in New Mexico, the more we liked it - the history, the colour, the people - BUT - we realize you can't do everything so it looks like this will not be our last trip here. Doing short trips from Las Cruces offered us the opportunity to explore just some of the flavour around there.

Las Cruces is now the largest and central city in the area but, during the Civil War, Mesilla was name the capital of both New Mexico and Arizona. It was the home of a lot of the "Old West" characters and where Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced. They have managed to preserve many of the buildings dating back into the mid 1800's and much of the feeling. It's now heavily dependent on tourism. There is a market in the Plaza twice a week and a fascinating collection of refurbished houses, store and streets.

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The Missile Museum, the While Sands National Monument and the White Sands Missile Range are east of Las Cruces. The public is not allowed on the Missile Range at all (there are some great stories about gold treasures hidden in the Range area that they expect will never be found) but the Museum has a exhibition park where they show off their misses of destruction.

The White Sands National Monument is a vast gypsum dune field that, on first encounter looks like the snow on the prairies (except it's a lot warmer). They actually close the park when they launch a missile but we missed that. It was fun crawling around the dunes.

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We started to travel west and north in hopes that we would get to the Gila Cliff Dwelling National Monument. We got as far as Silver City and discovered that it took a full day to get up there and tour the cliffs and we just didn't leave ourselves enough time. Our alternate plan was to stay at Deming after we left Las Cruces and travel to the cliffs then . . . never made it . . . we have to leave somethings for next year, eh (Deming is famous for the duck races it has in September)!

Truth or Consequences is a small town north of Las Cruces. It used to be called Hot Springs because of the

 

 

 

 

 

healing mineral baths but became TorC after the program offered to pay a town to change it's name to Truth or Consequences to mark the show's 10th Anniversary. It actually has a great little museum that houses mining artifacts and a rather extensive collection of pottery from five or six different tribes and Fred did find the hat he'd been looking for since Arizona.

To get to TorC from Las Cruces, we took the back road through the chili growing areas. Now, there are red chilis and green chilis. Actually they are the same thing, except the green chilis are picked early and roasted. The red chilis are left to dry on the vines and then ground for powder or put into sauces. The red chilis tend to be hotter but the heat depends more on the variety. I didn't know this, but the heat comes from the veins rather than the seed. The red dried chilis are also used a lot for decorations, woven and hung on doors or made into wreaths.

We travelled up the Geronimo trail to an old stagecoach stop Cuchillo and would have travelled further but we ran into some snowflakes - not something we wanted to see.

We left New Mexico on December 7th with Jan and Fred (our neighbours from Las Cruces), travelled to an isolated RV Park (Tombstone Territories RV Park - Hwy 82) in the desert just outside of Tombstone, Arizona.