POST #21-19 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 

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 Wishing Everyone A Happy and Prosperous New Year!

2021 can't help to be a better year than 2020!

All the best from Mikey, Barbi, Bill And Ted!

Until Next Time!

 POST #21-18 

Deep Into The Outback  

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On Sunday, December 27^th, we left the Morenga Palms RV Park and headed north in to the Arizona Outback towards Alamo Lake State Park.  It was a short trip of 38 miles, with mostly cloudy skies and light winds…temps in the lower 60s.  We are there until Monday, January 4th.

A sped up video of that drive can be seen HERE.

We arrived and set up our camp at our favorite spot in the park.  We are way at the end of a peninsula....the view from our site is awesome!

Alamo Lake State Park is way out in the middle of the AZ outback...internet connection here is very poor, even with our WEBOOST. But using it we went from nothing to being able to work on and update publish this content!

WEBOOST Antenna

The peak in the photo below is Artillery Peak.  The whole area in the photo is the weathered remains of an ancient shield volcano.  The peak is what's left of the original lava conduit.  The contours of the original volcano are marked by the red lines.  Over the eons erosion by wind and rain has reduced it to what we see today.  The peak is the solidified "plug" of the lava conduit....Click the photo to enlarge... 

The area around artillery peak has vast resources of manganese, one of the largest deposits in the country.  Also found in this area are good deposits of uranium and also some gold.

We will be shooting some Drone videos here....Watch for them soon!

Until Next Time!

 

POST #21-17 

Pistachios! 

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We are leaving Morenga Palms RV Park tomorrow to head deeper into the Arizona Outback!

While driving around we saw huge fields of trees....

They are Pistachio Orchards!  Arizona hosts about 4,500 acres of pistachio trees, mostly grown in this part of the state.  As a tree, pistachios are hardy but take a lot of attention. Pistachio trees are alternate bearing, meaning they have strong production one year and little the next.  There was nothing on the trees, but it was easy to figure what they were by nuts found on the ground...

Anyway we head out in the morning...Destination Alamo Lake State Park...about 38 miles north of the tiny town of Wenden which  we are staying about 2 miles west of.  That state park is WAAYY out there!

Until Next Time!

POST #21-16

Christmas At Morenga Palms! 

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Today is Christmas Eve!  We are here at Morenga Palms RV Park form the Christmas week.  

The owners and guests are super nice and welcoming!  A lot of the guests here are from Montana…Billings, Thompson Falls, Livingston, Gardiner and more.  Parked right next to us are Jim and Marijane from Billings.  Just so happens Jim is a cousin to one of Barbi’s best friends back home.  Jim seems to know everyone I know, like my brother-in law Frank and a lot of other guys I know!  His sister and brother-in-law are also here, 2 spots down, also friends of Barbi.  The owner just retired from the Army, and also served on the USS Kitty Hawk in the Navy.  He has been deployed 4 times to Iraq and Afghanistan. Most recently he was one of the drivers of the BEAST, the limo for President Trump!  Very cool! 

Everyone here at the park gathers around the fire pit at dusk for fun, food and drink...

We all looked at the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on the evening of the 21^st.....This short video shows how it looked from here…   

Most folks put up Christmas decorations around their camp…this was us! 

And our Christmas tree inside!   

Some of the folks went out in the desert and picked up expired Century Plants (a type of Agave) and put lights on them...

It’s been quite chilly in the morning…low 30s most days, but warms up nicely later on.  Great mornings to sleep in and cuddle!  

We will be here at Morenga Palms until the 27^th, when we move on to Alamo Lake State Park, AZ... 

Until Next Time!

 

POST #21-15

Heading Into the Arizona Outback 

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On December 19th we got up and started packing up at Lake Pleasant Regional Park.  We only had 4 days here, but the weather was nice...about 10 to 15 degrees warmer than our last stop in Dead Horse Ranch State Park.  Our time here was spent riding our bikes around the area with the Boys in tow in their little trailer.  And enjoying our pet Roadrunner! 

The roadrunner generally ranges in size from 22 to 24 in from tail to beak. The average weight is about 8–15 oz.  The roadrunner is a large, slender, black-brown and white-streaked ground bird with a distinctive head crest. It has long legs, strong feet, and an oversized dark bill. The tail is broad with white tips on the three outer tail feathers. Roadrunners are members of the cuckoo family. The roadrunner can run at speeds of up to 20 mph and prefers sprinting to flying. The roadrunner has a slow and descending dove-like "coo". It also makes a rapid, vocalized clattering sound with its beak.  Their calls can be heard HERE.  Our little buddy was so trusting she would eat from our hands...

Every time we came outside she would wander over for a handout!  A bit of hamburger would keep her happy!  We were sad to leave her, but we will be back on January 4th...

So we packed up and headed out for our next stop at Wenden, in the Arizona Outback.  It was a short trip of about 80 miles...

The weather was sunny, about 65 with light winds...a sped up video of the drive can be seen HERE.  Wenden is in the The Arizona Outback (McMullen Valley) which encompasses the vast Hwy 60 corridor that lies between the Harcuvar and Harquahala Mountain Ranges, traveling west  from Wickenburg through McMullen Valley across to the Kofas, and on to Ehrenberg, AZ on the Colorado River.  The area is rich in history, gold mines, agriculture, cowboys and cattle drives, old miners and new enterprises. Vast open lands, mild winters, and the irresistible desert vistas make the area a favorite spot for winter snowbirds and off-road enthusiasts.  A lot of hobby gold  mining goes on here still to this day.

Our final destination in the Wenden area is Morenga Palms RV Park.  We have stayed here before, the owners and other campers are very nice and welcoming!  We plan to stay here through Christmas week..8 days... we got our camp set up and enjoyed a great AZ Sunset!

Watch for more on this area!

Until Next Time!

 

POST #21-14

South To The Valley Of The Sun 

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On December 15th we packed up and continued on our journey south...We really liked our campsite at Dead Horse Ranch State Park here in AZ!

But it was quite cold here...got down to 24 degrees on our last night!  All the hoses froze up!  As cold as it was you can see, by looking at this picture of our backyard captured at about the same time,  why we leave Montana in the winter and head south!

Or when it really gets bad like this video... 

We DON'T like the cold!  Anyway on the 15th we made our way south to our next stop at Lake Pleasant Regional Park, just a short distance NW of Phoenix.  A sped up video of the drive can be seen HERE...  Its interesting to watch the landscape on the drive suddenly transition from high desert plants and terrain to a Sonoran Desert landscape with Saguaro Cactus.  They suddenly appeared as we descended below about 2500 feet... 

Lake Pleasant Regional Park, Lake Pleasant Regional Park, within the area controlled by the Northeastern Yavapai during the historic period, was inhabited by Hohokam peoples during the prehistoric era. Five archeological sites were located during an archeological study of the Lake Pleasant area. Included in these five archeological sites were a defensive site, a stone workshop, a farmhouse, and two small villages. The five sites located during the study were occupied during the period A.D. 700 to 1450.

The Lake Pleasant area, while historically part of the mining and range industries of Central Arizona, had no significant influence upon either. Prospectors met only with frustration. The few mines that did exist in the Lake Pleasant area were short-term projects.

It is a ruggedly beautiful place! And about 20 degrees warmer than we have been experiencing lately!

The Boys (Bill and Ted) were totally unconcerned about anything...hot, cold, sunny, cloudy... whatever!

We are only here for 4 nights, but are coming back in early January...AND we are getting ready for Christmas!...

Until Next Time!!

 

POST #21-13

The Birthday Of A Princess! 

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Today is the 8th birthday of our Little Princess Ivy Redman!

Born 12-12-12!....She is incredibly cute!!  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

 

POST #21-12

A Climb To Jerome 

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It's been cool and rainy here at Dead Horse Ranch State Park the last few days...

But today, December 11th, it stopped for awhile so we took a short trip to nearby Jerome, AZ.   a short trip of about 10 miles....

  

We gained about 2500 feet in altitude on that short and winding drive....a video of the drive can be seen HERE.  Watch and see!  It was quite the drive to a very interesting place!

Jerome is a town in the Black Hills of Yavapai County, Arizona. 

Founded in the late 19th century on Cleopatra Hill overlooking the Verde Valley, Jerome is located more than 5,000 feet above sea level. It is about 100 miles north of Phoenix along State Route 89A between Sedona and Prescott. Supported in its heyday by rich copper mines, it was home to more than 10,000 people in the 1920s...

The small adjacent mining camp on Cleopatra Hill was named Jerome in honor of Eugene Jerome, who became the company secretary.  United Verde built a small smelter at Jerome and constructed wagon roads from it to Prescott, the Verde Valley, and the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad depot at Ash Fork. However, transport by wagon was expensive, and in late 1884 after the price of copper had fallen by 50 percent, the company ceased all operations at the site.  Four years later, William A. Clark (one of the Butte and Anaconda Copper Kings), who had made a fortune in mining and commercial ventures in Montana, bought the United Verde properties and, among other improvements, enlarged the smelter, and expanded the mining. 

Meanwhile, a subsidence problem that had irreparably damaged at least 10 downtown buildings by 1928 worsened through the 1930s. Dozens of buildings, including the post office and jail, were lost as the earth beneath them sank away. Contributing causes were geologic faulting in the area, blast vibrations from the mines, and erosion.  One of the more famous buildings, The Sliding Jail, was rendered unusable but not completely destroyed by earth movements since the 1930s, the jail is about 200 feet downhill from where it was originally built.

 

Mining continued at a reduced level in the Verde District until 1953, when Phelps Dodge shut down the United Verde Mine and related operations. 

Jerome's population subsequently fell below 100.  To prevent the town from disappearing completely, its remaining residents turned to tourism and retail sales. They organized the Jerome Historical Society in 1953 and opened a museum and gift shop.  As of the 2010 census, its population was 444. It is now known for its tourist attractions, such as its Gold King Mine and Ghost Town and local wineries.

Jerome is cool and we want to go back before we leave if it clears up a bit.  The Wikipedia Page about it is very interesting!

As we were heading back down we got pulled over!  The Police Officer, you see him in the black SUV on the left, thought we should have stopped to let the Dodge pickup (who also happened to be from Montana) back out into the street...Video below...

We didn't get a citation, we thanked him for his service and went on our way back to the RV!

Hope we can get back up there before we move further south on the 15th!

Until Next Time!

POST #21-11

Continuing South To Warmer Territory 

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On December 1st, we left the Flagstaff KOA after a couple of nights in the Teens.  That's  WAY to cold!  Its warmer back home!  But we were able to re-stock, and do some laundry as well as the trip to see the Volcanos.  We headed out on I-40 (old Route 66) and merged on to 1-17... Destination...Cottonwood AZ.

It was a short drive of about 70 miles with sunny skies, light winds and about 30 degrees when we started out.  Our elevation started out about 6960 feet and steadily lost elevation.  We started out in a Ponderosa Pine Forest, and went to a cedar and juniper landscape...The elevation ant the end of the drive was about 3300 feet.  There was a 16 mile stretch towards the end of 5 to 6 percent downgrade!   A sped up video of the trip can be seen HERE.  

Our campsite is at Dead Horse Ranch State Park, AZ.  How did a park get a name like that??  In 1950, Calvin “Cap” Ireys purchased Dead Horse Ranch. The first time his family looked at the property, they saw a dead horse lying in the field, and after looking at a number of properties “Cap” asked his kids which one they liked the best. The answer was the one with the dead horse. After they acquired the property, they named it Dead Horse Ranch.  By 1971, “Cap” Ireys was ready to sell his ranch. In 1973, when Arizona State Parks acquired the Park, the Ireys made retaining the name a condition of sale!  More info on the Park HERE.  

Lots of roads and paths to ride our new Lectric Bikes here!  We took a quick ride down to the Lagoons here at the park...Wonderful day!  Its 15 to 20 degrees warmer here than our last two spots!

We are here at Dead Horse until December 15th...Will provide updates on the area later!

Until Next Time!

POST #21-10

Exploring The Volcanic Field

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Today, November 30th, we drove the 10 miles back north from our campsite at the Flagstaff KOA to the Sunset Peak Volcanic Field, an area of volcanoes just north of Flagstaff. The field covers 1,800 square miles of the southern boundary of the Colorado Plateau, and contains 600 volcanoes ranging in age from nearly 6 million years old to less than 1,000 years, of which Sunset Crater is the youngest. The highest peak in the field is Humphreys Peak, Arizona's highest at 12,633 feet and is a part of the San Francisco Peaks, an extinct stratovolcano complex.

The San Francisco Peaks are the remains of an eroded stratovolcano.  Prior to its collapse due to a lateral eruption (similar to the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980) to the northeast (around 200,000 years ago) and subsequent glacial erosion, the San Francisco Peaks is estimated to have been around 16,000 feet.  You can visualize the original mountain by continuing the line of the west and east sides of the peaks to where the lines meet on the above photo.  It's easy to see where the mountain blew out in this graphic...

We then drove on through the Volcanic Cinder Cones towards Sunset Crater.  On the way we passed the Bonita Lava Flow.  This lava flow, shown below, erupted from the west base of the cone. The absence of cinders on the flow suggests this occurred late in the eruptive life of Sunset Crater.  All of the hills seen in the background are more Cinder Cones. Watch this short video of a lava flow.  You can see how it looks identical to what we see here! (sorry about CNN😒)

We carefully picked our way into the flow...

You could easily damage yourself trying to walk around in this jumble of lava...

Here is a sign to help explain Lava Flows...Sorry about the shadow...

Here is where the lava flow came out of the base of the Sunset Crater Cinder Cone...The lava flow appears very recent...the plants are just now starting to take hold after 1000 years!  Sunset Peak in the background...

Here's a great aerial photo showing Sunset Peak and surrounding cinder cones and lava flows...

Here is a short clip from the 1969 movie "Easy Rider" where they are riding through the area!  I've watched that movie many times but never made the connection till I watched it again a couple nights ago!

We walked a bit up the side of the hill you see in the lower right of the photo above.  It's a loose gritty coarse sand like I have seen in photos of the Marine landing at Iwo Jima during WWII.  I wanted to get a feeling of what it was like when my Dad came ashore there on Iwo, trying to climb that loose grit.  Imagine climbing a steep hill like that with a heavy gear and your gun while under fire from above!!  It was very difficult to climb that hill!!

By the time we were finished exploring the Volcano Area it was nearly sundown.  We headed back to the KOA for dinner and to prepare for heading out in the morning to continue south...

Until Next Time!

  

POST #21-9

Flagstaff...Cold Country....Volcanos

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Today, November 29th, we left the Lee's Ferry Campground and headed south.  We will miss this place!  The weather is clear, about 40 degrees and light wind. Our destination today is Flagstaff, AZ and the KOA Campground..not too far...123 miles...

A sped up video of most of the drive can be found HERE.  On this drive we go up from a desert type landscape to a Ponderosa Pine forest area.  Towards the end of the drive we go through a Volcanic area.  

The San Francisco Peaks are on the right in the video.  The San Francisco Peaks are a remnant of the former San Francisco Mountain.

The highest summit in the range, Humphreys Peak, is the highest point in the state of Arizona at 12,633 feet. The San Francisco Peaks are the remains of an eroded stratovolcano.  Prior to its collapse due to a lateral eruption (similar to the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980) to the northeast (around 200,000 years ago) and subsequent glacial erosion, the San Francisco Peaks is estimated to have been around 16,000 feet.  You can visualize the original mountain by continuing the line of the west and east sides of the peaks to where the lines meet on the above photo.  It's easy to see where the mountain blew out in this graphic...

On the left side is a field of Volcanic Cinder Cones and Lava Flows.  The youngest cinder Cone in this field is the Sunset Crater Volcano...

This Cinder Cone, is estimated to be less than 1000 years old and is about 1120 feet high.  Given that Sunset Crater is such a young volcanic feature of this area and that eruptions have occurred every several thousands of years, it is likely that there will be a future eruption in the San Francisco Volcanic field. However, it is impossible to predict when and exactly where a new eruption might occur.  Again, a sped up video of most of the drive can be found HERE.

We pulled into the Flagstaff KOA about 3:30 PM.  It's a nice campground but kind of a letdown after where we just left.  We plan to stay here two nights, to do laundry, restock the pantry and use their electricity to help stay warm.  They are expecting temps in the low 20's to the mid teens so we will need it!  We will be going back the 10 miles tomorrow to better explore the Sunset Crater Volcanic area!

Until Next Time!

 

 POST #21-8

The Old Lee's Ferry Ghost Town....

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Today, November 28th, we drove over and checked out the old buildings and mining equipment at the actual site of the Lee's Ferry.  This is the only place within Glen Canyon where visitors can drive to the Colorado River in over 700 miles of canyon country, right up to the first rapid in the Grand Canyon. Lee's Ferry was important in the exploration and settlement of northern Arizona, as a natural corridor between Utah and Arizona.  Here are some historic photos...

Charles H. Spencer came with his American Placer Corporation in 1910 and set up operations at Lee’s Ferry... 

He hoped to use high pressure hoses utilizing water pumped from the river to sluice the gold from the Chinle shale, sending that sluiced material by flume to an amalgamator set up to attempt to remove the gold. This historic photo shows a boiler used by Spencer, in a failed try at gold mining from 1910-1912, at Lee's Ferry....

The remains of the boiler today...

And the remains of the steam engine that was fed by that boiler...

Spencer even built a steamboat, dubbed the “Charles H. Spencer,” to transport coal along the river as fuel for his equipment. The boat, designed for much tamer rivers was not very successful in navigating the more powerful Colorado and was eventually beached and never operated again, succumbing to the unforgiving river over the years...

This is all that's left of the steamer...

This is what's left of Spencer's old office...

The Mormon church built what became known as Lee’s Fort in 1874, and it still stands today. The building served as a home, trading post and school for ferry operators’ families.

Here's all that's left of the fort today...

Then we went a short distance to the Lonely Dell Ranch....John D. Lee, for whom the Ferry is named, was a practicing polygamist who built cabins for two of his families at Lees Ferry. His wife Emma named the ranch at Lees Ferry "Lonely Dell" due to its austere remoteness.  In 1877 Lee was executed for his role in the Mountain Meadows massacre. In 1879, the LDS Church bought the ferry rights from Emma Lee, granting the ferry service to Warren Marshall Johnson and his families. A number of structures remain from the ranch from the polygamist period of the Lee and Johnson families.  This is the entryway to Lonely Dell Ranch, where the ferrymen's families lived and farmed during the ferry's heyday...

Some old buildings at the Lonely Dell Ranch....

The LDS Church eventually sold the property and it wen through several owners until it was purchased by the National Park Service in the '60s...The original orchard was restored by the NPS and they maintain the old buildings..  You can harvest various fruit and nuts from the orchard when it is producing!

Today Lee's Ferry is officially Mile Zero where the rafting trips down the Grand Canyon begin, for a weeklong trip down the Colorado River...A lot of boats were leaving the while time we were here.  That would be quite the adventure!

This was an interesting day of exploring!  And our last day here at the Lee's Ferry area.   Tomorrow we head further south...Destination Flagstaff, AZ...

Until Next Time!