WALKING THROUGH THE PHOENIX DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN

 

Sometimes we get caught in loving our time at campground parks so much that we don’t get out and see what else we haven’t seen in the area. 

While Dean was playing railroad, friend Cyndy and I took a walk-through the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden for free! on Community Day. 

Cardon Grande Saguaro from Argentina - moved here 1930's

One of the first desert plants brought into this garden was the Cardon Grande also known as the Argentine Saguaro.  It’s trunk is massive compared to the saguaro we find in the Phoenix area.  This plant was brought here in the 1930’s.

Guess you could call these "lit cigarettes"?

Hard to get a picture of these tentacles but they are neon and will light up and night.
Maybe I can get Dean to make me some of these.  Ya think?

Flock of storks? 

No real titles but kind of looks like a bunch of odd octopi trying to leave the boat!

What do you have to pay for a person to set each one of these into the ground? 
What happens if he breaks one of them?  Does it become shorter?  Does he get fired?

 All decorated for Christmas and with desert plants interspersed glasswork from the Dale Chihuly studio’s team.  Cyndy remembered much of the same displays were shown here about 5 years ago.  The glass is fascinating.   

With enough dough ($40+) and time and wanting to drive around Phoenix after dark, the Christmas luminary display with special lights on the glasswork would be terrific to see.  Don’t worry about tripping on the paths, we understand there is over 3500!!! lit luminaries around the grounds.  There is a team that starts out at 4pm to light all the candles – wow!

Luminary's along the trails

Luminaries atop the buildings

Having just toured the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, I was disappointed in the plant presentation in Phoenix.  Very very few plant identifiers and an overabundance of “special” Ramadas, Arbors, Plazas, Terraces, Galleries, and Gardens named for benefactors.  Few plant ID’s but no problem with benefactor names and brick donor engraved walls. Harrumph! 

But now I’ve seen the gardens and will recommend the Tucson Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

 

WE FOUND THE HEAT IN ARIZONA

We decided to leave early this year as we both felt somewhat depressed with the world in general, and needed a change.  

We planned to revert to our earlier travel strategy, and simply go a few hours each day and stop wherever we were at that time.  Alas, forecasted snow in parts of the planned route re-routed us down I-5 in the early parts.  

As usual, we got rained on before we got out of town, and for most of the second day.  Highlight of that day was the fellow straddling the bridge rail over I-5 in Oregon, directly over our lane.  Lots of cars pulled off or changed lanes quickly to get out of that lane, but we were so focused on them that we didn’t see the guy until we were virtually under him.  He didn’t jump, and we never heard if he ever did.  Could have been a bad scene, for sure.

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Many of the RV parks (including Elks lodge RV parking) were unmanned.  Park yourself and find a place to pay.  Many homeless folks in tents under overpasses and other places along the freeway in Washington and Oregon.  

Arrived in California to 80 degree weather - probably to be expected in mid-October.  We camped and ate tacos at the Redding California Elks RV Park.  Got a thrill watching some folks summoning their Tesla from the parking lot with a hand remote.  It came to them by itself --- nobody inside!  Oh, my --- guess we didn’t know they could do that!

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On the way home last spring, we joined an organization called “Harvest Host”, wherein wineries, golf courses, museums and others allow you to camp overnight for free, and hope that you buy something at their restaurant , tasting room or gift shop.  In Roseville, CA, we stayed at a very nice golf course.  Our contribution was to have an early dinner of wonderful tri-tip sandwiches, and eat them outside watching three fellows practicing 70 or 80 foot putts on the (very big) putting green.   They were pretty good.  (Both the sandwiches and the putters.)

Turkey Tee Time Coming Up - gobble gobble

 

As usual, something on the RV broke as we went along.  In this case, it was the automatic step.  Dean could see no way to repair it, and other owners on the internet said you just had to replace the motor, so we ordered one too be delivered to the Indio Elks.  It was there when we got there, and it solved the problem.  Dean later took the old one apart and discovered what he said was a dumb-ass way of building it, and predicts that the new one will fail in time for the same reason.  Guess we gotta order a spare.

 

As we got into AZ, we began to remember why we don’t come south this early.  Too hot!  Even the natives were complaining that temps in the high 90’s were unusual this late in the year.  Kinda kept us close to the air-conditioned RV and car.   (Life is tough sometimes).

 

Beautiful lake from our campsite at Rio Bend RV

We arrived in Tucson and stayed at the Catalina State Park.  They had had  “several” rain events that led to the road into the park being closed several times, with much evidence around the park of high water.  

Mountains from our campsite

Our time in Tucson we were able to visit Laurie’s sister, Irene, and her husband, Richard, who moved there from Florida last year.  

We spent three days visiting. 

We all visited the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.  

There are even frogs in the desert - their cage was decorated for Halloween

Dean and Richard went to the Pima Air museum and aircraft boneyard.   

Irene sings professionally and the week we were there she had a singing engagement at a memory-care facility.  She planned the songs to spark their memories with songs they would remember from their youth.  They did and they sang along.  So good to see.

 

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Then north to Mesa, and our favorite county park, Usery Mountain, where we are spending six weeks feeding bird seed and peanuts to the lovebirds and squirrels and touring around to get re-oriented to the local area.  That’s necessary because new housing developments --- by the hundreds --- spring up every year.  It’s been that way since the first time we came here 20 years ago or more.  Sheesh!

Pass Mountain from our campsite

PHOENIX sign - <-- Thataway

And guess what?  More global warming.  For the whole month of November, the temperature in the Phoenix area was 10-15 degrees over their normal November average of 76. 

Beautiful sunsets

The birds, squirrels, and bunnies were very happy that we had 4 bowls of water out.  

This squirrel we named "mama" - she had been beat up pretty good
Her tail had a V in it and her left hip had a big scar
She always got extra peanuts

Warm weather meant that the snakes hadn't burrowed for the winter as we found out when one slithered across our camp.

He was hot too - he stayed in the shade

He is indicating that he's not appreciative of me following
GET LOST!

We love watching birds.  And the green, red, orange, and blue peach-faced lovebirds are a special thrill.  Here the lovebirds are hitting the feeder and knocking the seed they don't like to the ground and the quail and doves are thankful!

Green lovebirds atop the pole - 

throwing seed over the side for the quail and doves

Do enjoy this park.  

So what do people do while awaiting everybody to get their COVID vaccine?

 In June, we felt we were going to get out of this COVID crap, but then came Covid Delta and more and more people got sick or died each day. 

So what do people do while awaiting everybody to get their COVID vaccine? 

You visit with all your protected friends and picnic at a social distance with those not willing to help protect themselves, us and others. 

Visited doctors – they all wore masks and made sure we did too. 

We recorded book readings for children.  Normally done in person but not with Covid. 

We helped to distribute for the schools during the summer for the low-income families.  Dean displayed his truck at the Elks Car Show - fun day with many specially maintained vehicles.

We’ve got our vaccines and even the booster, and feel we can probably travel among the unvaccinated without getting sick enough to require hospitalization. 

Hated not going shopping every other day or even out to eat.  We gardened and watered and worked on all kinds of house/maintenance/business stuff.  Dean even oiled the RV garage floor…twice.  (Ask him for his technique) 

Good weather for growing plums

Dean trimming - er - was trimming the tree
Now he was just "resting"

Global warming?  You betcha.  Officially 106 at our neighbor’s weather station.  Certainly glad we put A/C in the house when we built! 

Loved meeting our granddaughter Ashleigh and her family at a picnic in a park.  There we realized how much fun great-grandson Kolden was having on the swing and knew we just had to get him and his brother a swing for home!  Unfortunately, it took a L-O-N-G time to get the kit to them but by Labor Day there were swings for the boys. And a slide!

The grandkids will really enjoy this in their backyard!

Laurie took a few days to go visit Kolden and Kashton.  With ferries overloading, the traveling was 3 hours each way.  Didn't do that too much.

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Found out Argosy Cruises would take us to Blake Island for a visit – and it was a wonderful day.  Lots of boats.  Checking out what has changed since we last were there in the TROUBADOUR.  The natives do not serve the salmon meal any longer.  Argosy provides meals at the remodeled restaurant.  Didn’t see any deer.  But saw lots of signs to not feed them.  Many campers took the Argosy Cruise carrying all their gear.  Blake Island is a true treasure so close to Seattle.  

Blake Island Dock

And a real treat this summer was the invitation to see the old TROUBADOUR and meet the new owner.  He's treating her real nice!

Troubadour looking great

-- Sad -- 

Lost our friend Caroline as she passed on at the long-life age of 107.  We had so many nice visits with her over the years.  She had such a diversified life.  We were always agog at hearing about her travels….she traveled to nearly 100 different countries.  We miss her. 

We also lost our poor dear crabby dog, Miss Lily.  Her heart gave out.  So sudden and shocking for us.  Many friendly dogs got left-over treats, food, toys and beds.  Including distributions on a special day for homeless veterans.

Miss Lily when she was alive (really)

Grandson Jeff dropped over in his new conversion van.  Called “Remotely”.  Set up for people who are working away from the office and want to get out in the wilderness and still access the internet.  Jeff and a friend are setting up a van conversion/rental business.  They now have 1 out on the road with back-to-back rental reservations.  We saw 3 more vans in the works when we visited their factory.  Check it out at http://outdoorsy.com/pro/remotely

Want to go camping?  The Remotely van is ready!

Early October at the Elks Old-Timers Night, Dean was honored at the Bremerton Elks for his 65 years of membership in the Order.  65!  And there was one more fellow who had more years than Dean.  Good for the Elks and good for them!

Dean's speaking about the good the Elks do for the community

Hacked Cash

Finally, just before we headed south we found that 3 of our investment accounts had been hacked and a lot of cash removed.  Thankfully, our broker was able to replace the cash back into our accounts in two days (at his expense).  We don’t know who or how, and guess that is up to the broker to find out, but it was a real eye-opener.  We have to take more precautions, and hope it doesn’t ever happen again.  Was not fun. 

Glad to get the RV on the road.

 

Trekking North

Lagging behind describing our wonderful trip home from Mesa.  Here goes.

Our first stop was in California at Rancho Jurupa County Park in Riverside where Laurie's brother Glen met us.  Still in masks.  He had had only one vaccine shot while we were happy that we had both.  Weather was great and we were able to sit and eat outside.  Wonderful keeping in touch with him.  Ended up spending 3 days there when heavy winds were forecast in the Mojave desert.

Somehow in transferring to a new computer, I've lost the original disk for my favorite route planner: Streets and Trips.  It's probably at home.  Figured a great course was to follow US395 north to Washington.  More than one winter return to home has required us to use a different route due to heavy winter weather, closed passes, and closed campgrounds.  Not this year.  

US395 CHANNELIZERS

Our first day on US395 was through 40 miles +/- of 12' apart channelizers - what a project by DOT California.  US395 is a very dangerous road through the Mojave Valley because of poor choices by drivers mostly passing where they shouldn't.  So among other things like rumble strips and wider shoulders they added "channelizers" plastic reflectorized thin fiberglass paddles— that will help deter crossing the double-yellow lines.

The Eastern Sierra mountains and Us

We've traveled 395 before but this year, with less snow, the Californian Eastern Sierras were more beautiful than we had remembered.

Up and over a few passes with just some snow patches along side.

Entered Nevada near Topaz Lake county park just over the southern border with California.  A nice new-for-us overnight stop.  Beautiful weather and views.

Next stop was a return to a very nice park called Sparks Marina RV Park with their "everly" nice fake grass sites.  The planning was to drive directly to the park.  But for some reason in the 9 years since we traveled through the Reno-Sparks area they have added freeways and roads with names we didn't recognize.  Finally we found Interstate 80 going E and we knew we could find Sparks.  Harrumph. 

Fake grass sites at Sparks Marina RV Park

You get paid to have your RV painted to advertise a product.
Big Ham Oink Clothing wouldn't have been our first choice

We stayed two days there and took a masked walk-thru again (4/5/2012) through Scheel's sports.  Yes, the Ferris wheel is still there but due to COVID regulations, not running.

Merchandizing - brings some interesting items to mind

Half of a VW Bus....ok

Onward north and back into California.  In Alturas, we enjoyed watching through our front window deer travel through the campground.

Overnight in Tule Lake.  Great flyway for migrating birds fields and lakes.  Saw birds...that's all.

Into Oregon and read something about Train Mountain.  Never had heard of it.  But, hey, we were close.  Gotta stop.

Train Mountain Railroad Museum is fascinating.  As advertised: World's Longest Miniature Railroad.  37 miles of track.  7 1/2"gauge.  1/8"scale.  Between COVID close downs and visiting early in the season, not much was running but we were welcome to explore their grounds and stay overnight courtesy of our membership in Harvest Host.  

This is called the Crisp Yard where train owners set their trains up

 on the track from their own vehicles

Ellingson Turntable - room for 78 locomotives  

The garden railway route sign

The garden railway - same scale as at Valle Del Oro

Garden Railway - covered with pine needles

Ok, ok, just because we think we know where we are going doesn't mean that we stay the course.  

Heading north through Oregon toward the Columbia River we found a few roads WE'D NEVER BEEN ON!  We chose US197 The Dalles-California Highway.  "Highway" was stretching the term a bit.  Nice road and many hairpin turns through the Oregon High Desert. 

And along the way found a wonderful city campground in the town of Maupin (bet YOU haven't been there) and enjoyed watching the river rafters along the Deschutes River.

Group Effort

Getting closer to home and found out SUMMER! was there and we weren't.  So we put the pedal to the metal and drove 206 miles IN ONE DAY.  What a pleasure to see the gardens coming alive.  The birds and squirrels were just waiting for us.  Home Sweet Home.

And there are some things that just need an explanation....

California Shell Egg Food Safety Compliant - a law for everything

And as of January 2015, in a landmark move, California has mandated that all eggs produced or sold in the state come from hens that have enough room to flap their wings without bumping feathers.