Moving day......

Our Location: Superstition Mountain BLM, Apache Junction, AZ

 

 

I was awake this morning before 6:30 am and managed to haul myself out and get the day started just around that witching hour. Riley was up shortly after and together we had things all ready to head out at 8 am. We had discussed with Doug (Miss Adventure Travels) that we'd leave around 9 am but we sent him a text saying anytime he was ready we were too. We agreed to meet at the motel in Tonopah within the half hour. Riley and I headed out and arrived in time to stretch our legs and just do a walk around to check things over before our 100 mile drive. It wasn't too long until Doug & Yuma were coming down the road.  They pulled in and we agreed to caravan to Love's for the dump station, water, propane and of course we dumped our trash as well. 

 

Doug heading back to climb into his rig at Tonopah, AZ

 

Love's was very busy, Riley and I used the facilities while Doug & Yuma headed off to find propane. We had just about finished when they pulled in behind us. Bit of a mix up with keys and locks but after they used the facilities eventually we were back on I-10 East heading toward Apache Junction. Riley and I led the way in the Big Dog and the Igloo moving right along with Doug & Yuma keeping pace behind. It was a pretty straight shot  through  Buckeye, Goodyear, Phoenix, Tolleson, Tempe, Mesa and finally we arrived at Walmart in Apache Junction. In that mess of cities we slipped onto the AZ 202 Loop East (although Pheobe - our RV GPS- wanted us to take the 202 HOV road which I thought wasn't a good idea and so ignored her and took the regular loop instead) getting off at University Dr, and making our way to Apache Trail. 

 

Heading into the tunnel....

 

 

Riley really enjoyed the tunnel....

 

Into the Walmart parking lot we made it, shut 'em down and let out a sigh of relief. We were much closer to our destination now. We all headed off in our own direction agreeing to meet when we were all finished and deciding what to do from there. About 45 minutes later we were all outside comparing notes and discussion Lorne's (A Place Called Away) GPS coordinates. My GPS didn't agree with his coordinates and had it somewhere around Scottsdale, but Doug's phone agreed with Lorne ( I smell a male conspiracy here, don't you?) and so I lead to N Hackamore Road, and then Doug took over. 

 

City skyline...I think this might be Tempe...but I'm not sure, I can't remember.

 

When we pulled onto this road the first part was paved and looked pretty good. Pretty soon I pulled over and we decided Doug would go ahead solo and check things out as he's much smaller than we are and could turn around in a much smaller spot. So we stayed put while we watched Doug & Yuma driving away. It wasn't long until Doug sent a text saying to come on slowly as the road was 'rufffffffffff'. Well we started off slowly and soon were going even slower, at one point I thought Riley might have to get out and push and we'd have to hook HRH Miss Kitty to harness in front of the Big Dog to help pull but we made it without resorting to those extremes. 

I have no idea what kind of fake tree this is, or what it's purpose is..but hmmmmm......interesting, don't you think?

We pulled in to where I'm pretty sure that other crew had parked, Doug and I went off in the jeep to check a few more options and didn't go far until we came to the end of the trail. Turning around we headed the short distance back to the where we'd left Riley, Kitty and Yuma but found a perfect spot just before getting back. Long story short, we are parked, leveled, and enjoying the views by around 3 pm.

Decorative overpass and sound barrier displays add an accent of beauty, whimsy and humour to the drive...

We invited Doug over a cold lunch, we were all pretty hungry and the food was good. Thanks again Miss Riley for all your hard work making salads yesterday, and getting lunch out and ready while we set up outside. Macaroni Salad, Bean Salad, meatloaf, bologna, bread, wraps, pickles, cheese, lettuce, a few condiments made up lunch. We sat around outside our door munching away and enjoying the conversation and the views. 

These beautiful touches add character to the roadsides and certainly offer an interesting view....

After lunch Doug headed home, and we came inside to do a few things more in the setting up process. I called my dad again and we chatted for a while before I headed out to catch the sunset. Not spectacular but pretty nice all the same. 

Doesn't that just look so inviting? 

 

Tomorrow may be a short walk here or there but I think we'll take the day off. I'm exhausted, so is Riley and I think Miss Kitty may be pretty tired as well. 

This is the view out our doorway....

Our spot is beautiful, we are literally surrounded by various forms of cacti, tall, short, round, skinny, living, dead and dying. Care must be taken to ensure we don't bring any into the Igloo for little paws to step on. They stick into tires, shoes, skin, etc. 

Just a bit different view...

The view out the door is spectacular with Superstition Mountain looking back at us. It is tall, striking, imposing, inviting, and greenish. The sprawl of human kind at it's feet is interesting, not distracting, not unattractive but also not expected. It appears as if humans have encroached right to the very edges of the upward slopes. However tomorrow I'll have a better look and give you a much better idea of what I see.

Some of the things we noticed today.....

Mr. Green, I can see why you spent so much time here. It is indeed a very special place. We've seen one horse rider going past our campsite, and one red trolley which stopped just past our roadway and pointed while I'm sure I heard the tour guide saying," I thought we were rid of those Canadians and now look what's here, MORE." 

We are parked in among all cacti.....

So there you  have it, our moving day from Saddle Mountain to Superstition Mountain. A good day, a nice spot, not far from a good friend. Life is pretty good!!! 

Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed your visit. Feel free to leave a comment if you like. 

Until next time.... take care, be safe, 

Goodnight from Superstition Mountain BLM, Apache Junction, AZ

Deb

Browsing, back tracking, and missed sunset......

Our Location: Saddle Mountain BLM, Tonopah, Arizona


A cooler night for sleeping last night, even with the vents closed. I woke up around 3 am and just couldn’t get back to sleep for some reason. I tossed and turned, finally giving up on sleep and played a few games on my iPad. On the bad news front, I didn’t get any more sleep, on the good news front I’m up around 4 million points on my crazy quilt card score. 

I could live with this out my back door

I started opening blinds around 7:30 am, and turning on the water for hot chocolate, as well as the heater. The Igloo was cold this morning. Left it on for a while and it took the chill away pretty quickly. Riley stirred around 8:30 am and was up and moving before 9 am. She’s feeling better but still under the weather. She wanted to get out of the house and so we opted for a day of ‘browsing’. 

 

I like the way they finish off the on/off ramps to the interstate.

In the Dogsled by 9:30 am we let the Big Dog run free along I-10 East into Phoenix, well actually the west side of Phoenix. We stopped into Camping World in Avondale, and didn’t find anything we liked there so we back tracked to Goodyear, checked out a couple of places there but didn’t see anything to strike our fancy.  We are looking to replace our love seat with either individual recliners or a theatre seating type recliner with a storage/beverage holder in between the seats. We don’t want any that have to be plugged in for any reason. We of course are limited in space and so we’re just in the looking stage at this point. We don’t want leather as it’s too cold or too hot, we have to be able to get it in the door, which is also a big challenge. If the back comes off that’s very helpful. We want something that is firm and not too plush, I find it too hard on the back if I sink into it. So as you can see we have a long list of wants and we’ll just keep looking until the wants and needs match. We struck out of course but did see some interesting pieces that we will definitely think about.

 

That's eastbound I-10.

 We finally climbed back into the Dogsled and turned his nose homeward along I-10 West, toward Los Angeles. Of course we weren’t going that far but I loved the sign anyway. We veered off the interstate to stop at Buckeye’s Wally World for a few groceries and some water. We managed to chase down a few items that we wanted along with the groceries and before we knew it we were loading up the Dogsled looking forward to getting home. 

 

Interesting finish on the sound barrier isn't it?

Actually Riley was loading the Dogsled, I was taking pictures of the car that parked behind us. Have you ever noticed that people will park near you even if the whole rest of the lot is empty? And not just ‘near’ they will park RIGHT beside, behind or in front. Not even leave ONE empty space when there are 10 more empties all around. I have no idea why people do that. I’m a far parker, as my girls say. I never park close to the door, I always park far away. I like my vehicles to be as ding free as possible and so I never invite dings by getting close to the store. Anyway, I digress, as we walked to the Dogsled I noticed this guy right up behind us. I realized after wards that he was looking for some shade for his car. I had to actually look at the chrome to figure out what kind of car it was. An old Studebaker. Not sure of the year but it’s in original condition with some paint missing, the soft top needs some work and the car is a definitely a driver, not a show room piece. How neat is that? However he parked right behind us, with only enough leg room between his bumper and my bumper to squeeze through. He could have parked  a dozen spots over and had the same amount shade. People are strange aren’t we?

 

Black Bear Restaurant, but the strangest black bear's I've ever seen.

On my solo journey the other day I noticed that Lower Buckeye Road came right out of Watson Road, and I also noticed that Broadway also came right out of Watson Road. Both of those roads also run into Salome Hwy, not far from Saddle Mountain. What a nice simple way home, back roads, hardly any traffic, and it’ll bring us out pretty close to where we want to be. Simple right? Wrong. Neither road actually goes straight through to Salome Hwy but dead ends before Salome Hwy, and Lower Buckeye actually dead ends in at least 2 places. I know you’ve figured out we didn’t have the GPS turned on, and truly we weren’t worried as I knew the general direction we needed to go. I can tell you that we viewed some country on our way home. Some of it twice as we had to back track from dead ends that weren’t signed. It was an interesting ride home. We did however enjoy it a great deal. We even managed to be home shortly after 2 pm. 

 

Pretty good shape, this old Studebaker.

As Riley put away the groceries I started the Weber to BBQ lunch. No salad today, but we did have two veggie side dishes so I was happy with that. We did spaghetti squash with butter/Italian/Parmesan cheese, as well as fresh green beans and mushrooms with orange zest. I then tossed a big loin chop on the grill when the sides were about finished. Just before taking it off I brushed it with Dijon Mustard and let it glaze a bit before turning it over and doing the other side. I didn’t go too heavy on the Dijon as I was worried it would be too strong. I covered the entire chop with a thin layer and it was excellent. We’ll do that again. That was lunch!

 

It looks original with an every day tag.

After that we stacked the dishes and grabbed our walking sticks, heading off to see how some guy managed to get his motor home part way up on the mountains way in the back. It was much further than we thought and I kept waiting for Riley to say she’s had enough but she didn’t. We were gone about an hour and forty five minutes, the roads we were walking were pretty rugged and I gave her my walking stick to help her steady herself better. We cut across country for a bit and that was tough for her but she’s a trooper she kept slogging away and finally we made it back to the road in a spot much closer to home. She was pretty happy to see the Igloo. I must admit I was pretty happy my self.

 

See the paint chips on the front fender?

No sunset pics tonight as we didn’t get home until after the sunset, it wasn’t dark but if we’d have been another 20 minutes we would have been strolling home in the dark. We don’t normally go that long or that late
and I’ll be more aware of the time next time. However it was a great walk and we both enjoyed it. 

 

Some pretty flowers where Lower Buckeye Road dead ended at a school.

So there you have it, our day’s adventure. As you can tell Riley is feeling a bit better and I think the walk and the fresh air may have helped her a great deal more than resting too much. We’ll know tomorrow for sure.

 

Pretty nice green space between the street and the sound barrier on Lower Buckeye Road where it dead ends at a school.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed your visit. Feel free to leave a comment.

 

Broadway, who wouldn't want to drive on this one? See the Helicopter?

Until next time…take care, be safe,


Deb