Yesterday (Friday) we moved from Lake Pleasant to our favorite winter haunt, Cottonwood. Prior to leaving Lake Pleasant (which had non-functional wifi at our RV spot) we did a few things that we can now report. We had originally planned to see our niece Stacey for some quality time but she had several unexpected diversions so we have postponed that until later. We did however have a chance to meet up with Dennis and Hollie Kirkland who were our next door neighbors for a few years in Pinehaven.

We went out to lunch at a BBQ restaurant on a pier in Scorpion Bay at Lake Pleasant.

We had a nice lunch and a wonderful time catching up on our personal lives.

We also visited the Deer Valley Rock Art Center located in the city of Phoenix. There are reported to be more than 1500 glyphs scattered among the boulders but we could only see a few, and usually from a great distance.

Looking at the petroglyphs really made us realize how well preserved and interesting the Painted Rock Petroglyph Site was that we visited a week earlier when we were in Gila Bend (see the March 16 post). Mentioned then and probably very meaningful is that all the glyphs are on the south side of the boulders.

Back at our RV park we see lots of retired folks walking around and pedaling around in their tricycles. We guess the Seahawks fans must be the trike bunch (this is for you Chris).

When driving around Phoenix we really get a kick out of the not-so-clever attempts to disguise cell phone towers.

Today (Saturday) we are set up in the Rio Verde RV Park in Cottonwood, AZ. We have the same site as we did last year with the same issues. Namely the site slopes side-to-side so leveling the trailer is a little bit of a challenge. The low side is the entry side to our trailer so we have to add a step to make it navigable. A quick trip to Home Depot to purchase four cinder blocks at $1.09 each solves the problem. We did this last year and left the cinder blocks tucked under some bushes across the road, but they are gone so we made another purchase. Since we are going to be here for up to six weeks it's definitely worth the effort.

One last note, we have the best wifi here of any place we have stayed. But they are having some issues which we discovered when we arrived yesterday (apparently due to the age of the cable that brings it in). Sometimes it simply goes down as it was when we got here, but it soon came back up and hopefully it will be up for most of the time we are here so we can do a better job keeping up this blog.

On Friday we moved from Gila Bend to Lake Pleasant (a little northwest of Phoenix). We are staying in the Pleasant Harbor RV Park located on the southern shore of a reservoir created by damming the Agua Fria River (apparently it is the major supply of domestic water for the greater Phoenix area. Sailboats greatly outnumber the speed boats on the lake so noise is not a problem.

It is an oasis in the desert but the RV park is rather unusual. Each site is individually fenced on three sides and are large (especially for our relatively little trailer - this photo was taken right after our neighbor pulled out).

There are many big rigs here but they, for the most part, are older and many don't appear to have been moved in years (they are completely fenced in and have outside activity areas that couldn't be easily disassembled and moved). It looks like many of these RVs are either permanent residences or are permanent vacation homes for folks living elsewhere. Plus we are back into the overweight, loud, smoking crowd which we don't relate to (makes our stay in Palm Desert seem worth the extra cost).

But the amenities are nice.

We enjoyed the pool yesterday afternoon when the temperature was above 80 degrees (today is a scorcher with a high around 86). I'm sure Sharon will be back at the pool this afternoon.
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We originally planned our visit here so we could spend the weekend with our niece Stacey, but a very close friend of hers experienced a family tragedy and Stacey went to help. She will be back and available tomorrow so we will see her a few times before we head up to our favorite haunt, Cottonwood. In the meantime, Sharon has been creative and has been painting gifts for undisclosed family and friends (with Abby at her side - as usual).

We plan to visit some nearby petroglyph sites and a museum tomorrow morning so we might have some interesting photos to share - so check back soon.

Yesterday (Wednesday) we spent the day touring Organ Pipe Cactus National  Monument which is about an hour south of our RV park. It is a beautiful place that  makes the point that the Sonoran Desert environment is the most diverse and lush of all the world's deserts - it actually looks green at this time of year but we learned that it is greener during the monsoon season in August and September.

This is also the only place where the Organ Pipe cactus grows (so it gets it own national monument).

Looks like a giant squid about to attack Sharon. But she is looking at a rare and beautiful abnormality that apparently can happen to most cactus species:

The diversity in vegetation cannot be captured in a single photo.

In the image above are the ocotillo with the bright red  blossoms at the ends of its stems, an organ pipe behind, some young saguaro (they don't start growing arms until they are about 100 years old), and creosote bushes (and a few others).

The geology is also interesting such as the natural arch in the left of the picture (and some teddy-bear cholla in the foreground).

There is also the jumping cholla - the fruit hanging down are covered with small hooked spines so that anything the brushes against them will help disperse and propagate the next generation.

Speaking of propagation, it appears that saguaro have a more human-like way (at least with flirting). The taller one must be 30 to 40 feet tall therefore it is over 200 years old.

More and more cactus are blooming - here are a couple from Organ Pipe NM.

Also back at our RV park more cactus continue to bloom.

The town of Gila Bend is hardly a destination resort for snowbirds like us. However, it does have its positive side. In our RV park (which is less than half full) we have the best wifi and cell phone signal we have had this winter. As for the weather, the following image speaks for itself:

Plus there is some humor:

Before the interstate was built, everyone driving from Tucson to Los Angeles had to drive down main street, and we still see the left overs from that time.

There is an Air Force base a few miles south and a massive training range so there are fighter jets and helicopters flying around much of the time. A local pizza place advertises that it is "the only Arizona restaurant Prince Harry of England ate at and he exclaimed 'it's the best pizza in the world!!!'." He was here training as a helicopter pilot.

Tomorrow we pack up and head to Lake Pleasant which is a little northwest of Phoenix. We hope to see some family and friends who live in the area when we are there.

This morning we drove about a half hour to the Painted Rock Petroglyph Site. It is a natural mound of rocks that is completely covered with petroglyphs but only on the south side (didn't see any explanation why but we're sure some anthropologist probably has a pretty good understanding - today even at noon all the north side was in the shade and this may have something to do with it).

Symbols of all kinds cover almost every square inch of the rocks including humans, lizards, bighorn sheep and spirals:

We weren't allowed to climb around in the rocks so all the glyphs away from the trail we didn't see. Regardless, we took dozens and dozens of photos including a lot of closeups but we won't bore you with all.

Looking at all the designs is much like a Rorschach Test (the psychological inkblot test). Sharon thinks this is a touching image of a father and son holding hands, and Rick thinks it's a man being attacked by a giant spider - hmm, what does this tells us.

The glyphs are remarkably free of modern graffiti although there are some historic additions.

We don't know why they call the place "Painted Rock" because we saw no painted glyphs, only glyphs created by pecking away the rock's weathered surface.

This afternoon we visited the nearby Sonoran Desert National Monument. It is completely undeveloped with no visitors center or anything - just a few trail heads. But we love this kind of place because the less developed the facilities, the less developed the rules. Therefore dogs are allowed anywhere we wanted to go so we took a hike into the Saguaro cactus foothills. Sharon and Abby had a rockin' good time dancing the Saguaro Swing this this giant.

And, like everywhere around here, some of the cactus are blooming.

While driving around today we drove by the Solana Generating Station which is 2000 acres of parabolic solar panels generating enough energy to power 70,000 homes (Arizona has mandated that by 2025 15% of household electricity will be generated by renewable sources).

Even our quirky little RV park is powered by solar. These panels are just behind the laundromat.

Tomorrow we are thinking about hanging around the trailer and doing some laundry while cooking a corned beef for St. Patrick's Day. The weather continues to be spectacular with highs in the low 80s and lows in the 50s. A month ago when we first entered this climate it felt hot to us - but not any more. We have acclimated and have enjoyed every moment of the process.

Yesterday we departed luxury and headed to normality for us. We are now at Augie's Quail Trail RV Park in Gila Bend, AZ, which is a town of about 2000 people (as opposed to the 600,000 of the greater Palm Springs area). Before we left Palm Desert we packed in a few more site seeing trips and shopping trips (both Costco and Petco were essential visits to stock up for more remote camping).

Rick and Abby at Petco 

Plus another wonderful dinner with Bill and Nancy Goodman. They were phenomenally generous with their time and as always extremely gracious hosts (Nancy's step mother passed away early in the week and they were trying to figure out how to get to Texas by last Friday - which they did but flights were difficult to find because of the Indian Wells tennis tournament). They insisted we pick some grapefruit from their tree to take with us on the next leg of our trip, and we complied.

Last Wednesday we toured Joshua Tree National Park.

The Joshua Trees were interesting but the geology was even more impressive (remember you can double click on the pictures to see them larger).

Palm Desert, where we were staying, is about 225 feet above sea level. One overlook in Joshua Tree NP is over 5000 feet in elevation and it was actually cold and windy.

Visible traversing about a third of the way down in the picture is the San Andreas fault (and yes there is actually a little snow on the very top of the far mountain).

Many of the cactus are blooming: below is a Mojave yucca.

And a Joshua Tree:

Other cacti like the Ocotillo are also in bloom:

Leaving Palm Desert we encountered a traffic jam:

Rather than stay on the interstate we took the first exit and wound our way through Indio to a highway that went by the Salton Sea and the Imperial Valley (all a couple of hundred feet below sea level).

We drove through Yuma and then to Gila Bend.

There is a reasonable amount of archaeology to explore from here so that's what we will be doing over the next week. And the cactus are blooming here too so we should get lots of pretty pictures.