roadquill1

Friday, March 30, 2012

Prepare yourselves, dear family, friends and neighbours! This is going to be a long one! I have been “internet voiceless” for too long!

It was overcast on Saturday, March 17, and when we biked up to get internet access, we overheard someone saying high winds were predicted shortly. We cycled back to Squaw Lake, and had several hours of quiet waiting, so we paddled across the lake while the breezes gathered strength.

Saturday just after supper, the wind storm suddenly hit, and a nearby tenting family – Miguel, with wife and 3 boys, scrambled to pack up in high winds. Mike and I rushed to their assistance and were able to get them safely into their vehicle in about 10 minutes. As their vehicle drove away, the winds promptly died – for an hour or so before picking up again, and providing a very shaky overnighter.

We met Dick Kocan and Laura Bolles-Kocan from Suqualmie, WA. Dick is (or was) a parasitologist, and Laura was a medical researcher. Dick’s hobby is making stone aboriginal artifacts – like spearheads and arrowheads. These artifacts are remarkable in quality!

Dick and Laura

March 18, Sunday – more overcast and strong winds continued, so we began our packing. By Sunday night we were ready for the rains that came sporadically followed by much cooler temperatures with close to freezing on Sunday night.

High winds         Squaw Lake “camping” after Canadians start heading out.

We all left for Yuma on Monday. We stopped for a date shake at a date farm, and I called Onstar to once again point out to them that we had been unable to use our phone while at Squaw Lake. After 10 minutes of the now familiar tweets, and bings and buzzes that signify that my Onstar system is being updated, the young man announced that, because of my troubles, “3 months of service have been added to your plan.” (You may remember that last year on 4 separate occasions each Customer Support agent had added another 100 minutes to my Onstar telephone minutes.)

Eventually, we found side-by-side campsites at Rivers Edge. After locating our site, Sandy and I left to go into town going at the posted 15 mph as we left. We passed a cyclist who suddenly accelerated to pass us. “Your stairs are dragging,” he said. Neither he, nor Sandy said anything further, but the words  “You’re stupid.” hung in the air – unspoken! (Perhaps I am getting a bit sensitive about that!)

Apparently, Flagstaff had 29 inches of snow last night, and snow even fell on Tucson, and at Patagonia Lake (near the southeastern AZ border with Mexico).

Tuesday, March 20 was still rather cool in the morning so I started off our bike ride with a jacket, which I ditched before 11:00 as the temperatures got to a very temperate 74 or so. We cycled to the south of town, and then back to the Fort Yuma and over to the Yuma Palms shopping Center where we scoped out restaurants for a birthday dinner tomorrow. All in all, our ride today was 42 km – a record for this year’s endeavours.

March 21 – Wednesday. I spent much of the day hanging out on the internet, answering emails, and engaging in other communications. One communication that I wanted to do was denied to me since Onstar was not getting through to a 1-800 number that I needed to call. Once again, I called the Customer Support, and though all “upgrading” processes were repeated, I was still unable to make the call.  “We are sorry for your inconvenience, Mr. Dobson, and we will be adding 100 minutes to your telephone minutes with Onstar.” This is bizarre, but sort of profitable! I now have close to 500 minutes of Onstar time to be used up before May, 2013.

It was actually warm enough in the afternoon to have some pool time. Supper at the Olive Garden was a wonderful treat, and we brought enough home in doggy bags for another meal down the road. Back at the Truck House, we were delighted when granddaughter, Hannah made a connection with us on Skype, and Paula, Doug and Hannah extended well-wishes.             

Mike and Marlene help me celebrate at the Olive Garden     The Quilter and the Quill (I’m NOT stupid!)

March 22 – Thursday. It is time, once again to leave Yuma, and we head east in convoy towards Tucson. Our destination is Gilbert Ray State Park, which has been highly recommended to us by a number of our friends.

On our way east out of Yuma, we stopped for re-provisioning – a rather chaotic event where the two vehicles with the two males went in different directions while the two females were left to buy some small amounts of groceries. One of my stops was propane, but I was now clear that the 3.6 printed on the delivery slip was “gallons” – not “dollars”! We finally managed to rendez-vous again, gather up the women and groceries and headed east. Some miles out of Yuma, as we looked for a rest stop, a sudden flash thought rattled me – I HAD NOT PAID FOR THE PROPANE! Appropriately, signs cautioning us to slow down appeared, and warned us of a border patrol inspection. INCANTATIONS! (Altogether now… “You’re stupid.”) Sandy envisioned me in the lockup box in the back of one of the BP pickups! However, I guess that news of my pilfering had not reached them, for we were waved through – to our next stop – the Rest Stop, where I hastily used my new Onstar minutes to place a call to the garage and to pay my bill by Visa.

Gilbert Ray turned out to be as expected – a beautiful desert hillside with virtually no “lights” around, and thus a fantastic array of stars. In trying to get close up photo of a “cholla” cactus, I stood on a rock nearby. When I stepped off, something painful stabbed me in the toes. I guess I had discovered why it is called the “jumping cholla”. A very thorny end had fallen off and caught me on my bare toes – and actually penetrated through the rubber on the sandal sole! Tough stuff! However, I am made of tough stuff too, and I barely whimpered as I tweezered the very painful thorns out of my toes. (They have barbs, like fish-hooks!) (I won’t mention the two-word phrase that leaps all too easily to Sandy’s mind – or the other single words that are similar to the incantations necessary to catch bass!)

Sunset at Gilbert Ray                                                                  “Jumping Cholla”

On Friday, the four of us all piled into Truck House (2 in the Truck; 2 in the House) and prepared to drive off the blocks and the 3 miles to the Desert Natural Museum. As Truck House dropped off the blocks, Sandy went around to pick them up. (They are just plastic leveling blocks.) But, as she gathered them up, she uttered one of those fishy incantations, and showed me the latest mishap – I had left the sink drain hose hanging over the side of the truck and into our modified “porta-potty” – modified for catching our “gray” water from the kitchen. As the truck rolled off the plastic blocks, it rolled onto the “gray water porta-potty” and crushed it, while pulling the hose right off its mounting on the camper. Once more… with feeling… “You’re stupid.” (Will it never end???) The museum was awesome, and the day heated up dramatically to the point where we were glad to be back in the shade of our campers in the early afternoon.

We decided to leave for Patagonia Lake State Park on Saturday March 24, and we had a beautiful drive down Hwy 83 through Sonoita and Patagonia. The sign at the turnoff to Patagonia Lake stated “Campsite Full” but we ignored that and went on down. Luckily, there was a double site left, and we rejoiced! The place was very full with the last weekend of Spring Break, however everybody was well-behaved and I don’t think that I did anything stupid. We also booked a better location for 5 days starting Sunday after the crowds leave.

       
Entrance to Patagonia Lake                                                   “Bird Watching”?                                                                   Patagonia Lake shore

Sunday, March 25: as the crowds packed up to leave, the four of us went on trail walk that features many species of birds – and bird-watchers. So, we watched the bird-watchers watching the birds, and tried to avoid stepping in the cow bundles – in abundance. At one point, I pulled out my iPhone, and opened an App that I purchased called “iBirdPro”. I looked up the “Vermillion Fly Catcher”, as pointed out to us by one B-W’er, and hit the recorded sound button. As the recorded call sounded over and over, a confused Vermillion Fly Catcher circled us, and tried to figure out who to attack (or perhaps mate with, I am not sure what was being said on the recording.) I was very impressed and pointed out my App capabilities to a nearby B-W’er and his wife. They were NOT impressed, and walked away! A few minutes later we encountered another B-W’er pair, and I asked them about the ethics of using my recording. She gently explained that it was probably a no-no. I stand corrected, and am less stupid that I was earlier today.

  Bird watching from our campsite – a Cardinal.  Osprey with fish; jealous vulture waits turn.

After our walk, we moved our rigs to our new parking spots – on the lakeshore. A nice young couple with THREE dogs – two young yellow labs, and a small glass-biter – moved in right next to us. Beautiful dogs, but ill-disciplined and the throaty bark of the labs carried on into the evening, and then started again about 5:00 in the morning: this, for two whole days. We were not too unhappy to see them finally pack up.

For the 6 whole days that we were at Patagonia Lake, our life consisted of bird and squirrel watching from our anti-gravity chairs as we faced the trees and shrubs along the shore, kayaking daily – sometimes just touring, and other times with more focus on fishing (very successfully, as far as the fish were concerned!), and reading, reading, reading. What a crazy relief to not be distracted by chores, TV and internet! I am pretty sure that my grandchildren, nieces and nephews would not “like” this place, and would always be like looking sadly at their useless tech communication links, and going like… “like…when can we leave?”

Mike fishes the late shift

In any case, today we gave up our spots to the weekend crowd from Tucson, and headed east to Tombstone, stopping at Tombstone Territory RV Park to book a spot for this evening. This place is typical RV site with open, large, pull-through sites, and lots of “recreational” stuff for folks who hang around most of the winter. It has lots of rules, and a sign letting us know that the rattlers are active again. Thanks!

Tomorrow, we will head northeast towards Safford, AZ and the nearby State Park of “Roper Lake”. It is a small area, but we will try to catch some trout in the stocked lake. On Monday, we will head for Phoenix for our annual visit with our young cousins, the Judd family, and Tracey’s parents, (Sandy’s cousins) Shirley and Rich Henderson. We will have two nights in Phoenix, and then take indeterminate routes towards home. I will try to get one more posting up while in Arizona, and answer any emails that arrive before we leave from Phoenix.

As always, we are thinking of you all, and are now beginning to look forward to our returning home and seeing many of you – even though we will miss the cloudless warm days and cool nights to which we have become accustomed! (In Tombstone today, I figured the shoot-out at OK Corral was because the eight or so shooters, all dressed in long coats and high boots couldn’t stand the unwashed smell of each other after long days on horse-back under the hot sun – a little known fact of history!)

Love to all!