Tag: hiking

Day 2380

Tuesday, April 9th, 2024

Day 1 of our trek north

Dear Journal:

Lets start by saying today is going to be a busy day. Our planned departure time was eight o’clock and let me just quickly say that we failed to meet that first objective. It looked like I was in good shape for meeting our departure time but everything just seemed to take longer than I had anticipated. This happening doesn’t change our destination plan, it just means that we will be a wee bit later.

Because of tightness in maneuvering around the host camp area we have to pull into the RV lanes of the Arboretum parking lot to hook up our towed. This will be the first time I get to try all the improvements that I made to the towbar, the new safety cables seem great, the new power cord connector and having the power cord ran through the towbar is a real game changer. The chance of damaging anything has all but been eliminated, in the past I have cut up the power cord when it got out of position and I had damaged the safety cables a number of time probably to the stage of compromising their integrity.

With a quick check of lights we are pulling out of the Arboretum parking lot and heading east on highway US-60, this is the most direct route back east and although the Salt River Canyon is a challenge for any large vehicle. You work your way down into the canyon bottom with numerous switch backs and with lots of “Jake Brake” operation to cross the Salt River and start the climb back up the north face of the canyon. A terrifying yet beautiful journey, as we climb the north face we are reaching higher elevations and the temperature is dropping as we are climbing and the first town we pass through is Show Low and as we look north the clouds look as if they could be snow clouds.

This group of photos was from the Salt River Canyon as seen from the drivers seat, the decent and climb back up the northern face, there were even some Mexican poppies in bloom.

We will be east bound on US-60 until we have crossed the New Mexico state line. Our first time change as we move from Arizona Standard time to Mountain Daylight Saving time. We had driven US-60 last spring but we had taking it all the way to Interstate I-25, this spring we are going to head north on State Highway NM-36 to NM-117 which will meet up with Interstate I-40 west of Albuquerque. Our destination is a RV park at a casino in an area called Casa Blanca. We had stayed there way back in November of 2019, a small park with 5 pull through sites, full hook-ups for around $20 American. We are at around 6000 feet of elevation and expect the temperature to be low enough that a heater may be required.

As we move on eastward on US-60, the weather is turning a wee bit nasty with a shower with some snow flakes. it just happens that there is a rest stop a few miles up the road and we decide to have a late lunch and give this storm a little while to blow through. Lunch today was some left over pizza warmed up in the microwave. The temperature has dropped off as we have lost the sun and the temperature is now 48ºF (8.8ºC), after lunch I tried to laydown for a nap, but I was unsuccessful, so we started Thunder and continued east to NM-36. We have never been on this stretch of road before so it is a new adventure, and while NM-36 didn’t offer much when we hooked up with NM-117 that all changed, this had to be one of the most pleasant surprises that we have had for a while.

The photos above were pulled from the dashcam that is mounted on the windshield of our coach, the data line on the bottom records date, time, speed of the coach, and the last numbers are the coordinates from each photo. This camera is ten years old so not the best picture quality, but it is reassuring to have documentation is any issue should occur.

We made it to the Dancing Eagle Casino RV campground by five o’clock, and managed to get one of the pull through sites, I only connected the power cable as we had no need of the water or sewer connection tonight. We watched television and Miss Laurie made a curry shrimp dish on rice for dinner, there was a lot of light from the casino, truck stop and the grocery store, but overall the noise level was good and we were able to operate the heater overnight.

Day 1 Stats: 305 miles (491 kilometers) and the solar harvest was 132 amp / hours the cost of camping was $20.40 US or $27.90 CDN.

Day 2317

Tuesday February 7th 2024

Dear Journal:

We woke up to more rain falling this morning, and a forecast of rain for the next couple of days, the cloud cover was still blocking many of the mountain views but as we sat enjoying a cup of coffee watching the Phoenix area news in another time zone. Yes we when we crossed into California we moved from the Mountain time zone into the Pacific time zone which had us up very early for the day. This morning we are walking over to Mary & Julie’s where Miss Laurie has volunteered to prepare omelets for everyone, so here we are carrying two shopping bags full of equipment and supplies walking through the park. Bagels, omelets and coffee of course with a wee Irish blessing was enjoyed by all, the main topic of discussion this morning was about the sex life of a date or something similar. Miss Julie has been talking about this since we first started to plan our California excursion.

The plan is after breakfast we will walk back to the coach and prepare for an adventure to a date farm in Palm Springs, followed by an adventure to the Salton Sea, and a early dinner at another favorite spot in Palm Springs. We walked back to Thunder and changed in preparation for todays adventures, and there were even a few peaks of the sun through the cloud cover and we got the opportunity to see some of the surrounding snow covered mountains. A few moments later our ride had arrived and we were headed back into Palm Springs.

First stop on our list was “Shields Date Garden” and of course the movie of the theater “The Romance & Sex life of the Date“, the title even today make raise an eye brow or two, but imagine the talk back in 1951 when the movie first started to play. Oh the movie has had some revisions since it first started but I have to admit it was educational for someone like myself that had no idea that producing dates was such a labour intense task. And while the dates that were for sale would not fall into the inexpensive category the quality was excellent from the few that we did purchase.

The next adventure was kind of a last minute choice, but the Salton Sea is a very unique spot, located in Southern California, and has a history that just leaves your head spinning as you read it. First and foremost the Salton Sea is at an elevation of -236 feet , it is only 43 feet deep and today is slowly drying up, just as it had centuries ago. The history is both amazing and sad, a story of so many mistakes over decades the worst of which happened in the early 1900’s when the Colorado River broke through an irrigation canal and flowed into the valley unrestricted for two years, flooding everything in the valley, like a salt mine, train station and and multiple other businesses. Then since the flood in the early 1900’s, mid century the lake became a tourist destination with resorts and boating until it became toxic from farm runoff killing birds and fish. Now it is a salty toxic cesspool that is surrounded by defunct businesses and some fertile farmland. We only drove to the Northern end of Salton Sea and parked in a parking lot of a abandon boat launch which is now hundreds of yards from the sea, we walked down to the edge of the water (some of us closer than others) but found the dried lake bottom to be covered with barnacles and of course it has become a dumping ground for what ever junk was too expensive for people to have removed. So desks, mattresses. tires and the like are now part of the aura that is the Salton Sea, kind of a smelly place to visit.

After our excursion to the Salton Sea we headed back into Rancho Mirage to our dinner spot, Enzo’s Bar & Bistro for Happy Hour, authentic Italian fare prepared fresh daily, with a nice wine selection and creme Brule for desert

As we were making our way back to the resort someone suggested going to a Mexican Bakery in which was just a few miles from the resort, a good time to go to a bakery when everyone is full from dinner, but there were still a number of purchases made even with a full tummy.

We were dropped off at our coach and the plan was that we would walk over for a glass of wine after we got cleaned up. The issue of this evenings get together was that we sampled some of the items that we purchased at the Mexican bakery is that it left us wanting more.

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