Tag Archives: Arizona

Arizona Part VII

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Last installment for the Arizona trip so it might be a bit long.  I will make up for the previous no photo post also.

We are westward bound since home is calling.  However the only real paths out of Green Valley are north to Tucson or south to Mexico.  So north we go to do a bit of backtracking (not too much).  We weren’t sure if we wanted to head back toward Phoenix maybe with stop at Picacho Peak State Park.  We didn’t do that.  I remembered a place that I went to as a child and it was pretty much on the way.  Organ Pipe Cactus National Park.

So we go up to Tucson and then head west on AZ86 from there.  The vast majority of the drive until the Why cutoff were in the Tohono O’odham nation.  It was pretty barren with one or two minor population areas.  Along the way we drove past Kitt Peak observatory which is one place I would like to go to, without the trailer.  The drive was enjoyable and we stopped for lunch at Why (yes that is the name of the town).  From there we headed south to the park.

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This was one of the locales my father loved coming to.  Of course pretty much anything in the desert was where he liked.  He loved the smell of sagebrush, the dark nights with the stars.  It is good to be able to take my wife to these places that she has never been.  Organ Pipe is right on the Mexico border and there are some trails and roads that are closed to the public due to illegal activities.  We were only there for one night so we did not do much exploring, just resting.

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Above is our spot in the campground.  As usual I like to see what other Airstreams are in the campground.  There were about 4 but no one was out so I couldn’t converse with anyone <sigh>.  However when I was sitting there an Airstream motorhome drove through, we waved at each other but that was the extent of the contact.  That evening after a steak dinner we went to the evening ranger program and then came back to the total darkness.

The next AM we went to the visitors center and I got a pin for my hat.  We walked around their cactus garden and I took two of what I feel are my favorite shots of the trip.  Both are cactus shots.

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The above is an Ocotillo cactus.  What is odd about this one is there are leaves on it.  Leaves only happen once or twice a year at best.

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This one is an Organ Pipe cactus I do believe.  I love the pattern that the spines create.

As I was talking to the rangers at the visitors center I mentioned that it was over 40 years since I had been to the park but I had some photos of my parents trailer in the campground.  I wondered if they might be interested in copies of them for research (I had them on my thumbdrive).  They agreed and I gave them the electronic versions.  Here they are:

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and

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The first one was probably around 1967 and the second around 1963.

We left Organ Pipe and headed north to join I-8 and head to our next stop for the evening, Yuma.  However on the way we stopped to visit some relatives of my mother’s boyfriend who happened to be in Ajo and had an Airstream motorhome.  We contacted them, found out where they were staying and stopped.  As we met them and I started thinking about it, this was the same motorhome that I saw in the park!  I had no clue until now.  It seems they have a favorite spot but it was unavailable so they did not stay at Organ Pipe that night.  We visited for a bit and then continued one.

We stopped in Gila Bend for lunch and Roxie shopped around to add to her collection of metal fence art.  We trucked on down to Yuma to spend the night.  The next day we headed back to Sam’s Spa in Desert Hot Springs and finished at home the next day.

We thoroughly enjoyed our trips through southern Arizona and look forward to a trip through the northern part soon.

Arizona Part VI

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As I may have mentioned previously this trip was a bit different for us.  Normally I will plan out things to the day and any variation is verbotten!  This trip was vastly different for me and us.  We would pretty much just plan out the next stop and not any further.  So one of the things we were thinking about while at Kartchner Caverns was where next?  We had heard from Rich Luhr about some southern Arizona things to do.  But the weather was clearing up so should we head back north?  Unfortunately we did not have unlimited time (not yet) so we could not do a north detour so it was stay south.  So we decided on Green Valley.

We had to head north on AZ90, west on I10 (ugh, backtracking), south on AZ83 then take the cut off to Sahuarita.  On the way there  we were trying to find out where we were going to stay.  Little did we know that Green Valley is a HUGE retirement area for Snowbirds.  There weren’t may RV parks.  One that was listed was actually in a mobile home park.  There was one slight drawback, it was 55 and older park.  We called and I explained that we were planning on staying only one night but we had not reached their minimum age yet, just 7 more years!  They were willing to let us stay, so this was a double first for us, a mobile home park and a 55 and older park.  We dropped the trailer and immediately took off to see what we came there for.

The Titan Missile Museum.  This is the only remaining missile silo left over from the cold war, all the others were destroyed as part of arms agreements.  It was impressive to see the level of technology (or lack of it) that protected our country during that time.  It shows how paranoid the world was and also how thoroughly all the aspects of the defense were thought out.  Things like when the replacement shift came in, they had 30 seconds to get from one point to another or the site would lock down.  The fact that it required two people to fire the missile, each turning a key that were so far apart that you could not do it with one person.  Certain areas required two people at all times to avoid sabotage.  Wow!  Everything was still looked like it did then, some things were even still functional.  If you ever get near Green Valley, by all means take the tour!!  I even bought some canned emergency ration water from the late ’50s.  I have not, and probably will not open it.  I am not sure how close to water it really is.

Our trip is winding down now since we unfortunately do have to get back home is some semblance of the future.  So we will continue heading west (homeward) but we are still going to have to stop some more.  Part VII coming next (sorry about the lack of photos in this post).