AZ Day 23

Thursday -- San Xavier del Bac Mission (aka the White Dove of the Desert)

Going through one of the border patrol stops. See the guards playing with the dog instead of inspecting cars:

I forgot the name of this hill. It is next to the mission, but not part of the mission's property

San Xavier del Bac Mission

                                                                                          Altar

                                                                                    The ceiling

Robes worn by the priests

This bench caught my attention because San Xavier del Bac is a Jesuit mission, yet Koch is typically a Jewish name

Three window coverings

AZ Day 22

Day 22 -- Patagonia State Park

Lots of pictures. Brain dead regarding events except:

I did not catch that we were going to a state park. I thought we were going to the town of Patagonia. I had visions of walking around town streets and shops and leaving Hope in the van. I figured if I had to leave her in a strange van in Patagonia, she could just as easily stay in her own van back at the campground. Well, as it turned out, we went to Patagonia State Park and went on a hike. My poor, poor Hopey.

Patagonia Lake

The Walking Bridge

A view towards the lake from the top of the bridge:

Looking down the other side of the bridge:

A building in the town of Patagonia. Doesn't it look just like the motels you see in western movies (except for the sliding glass doors) where they have the gunfight and the someone is shooting off the balcony?

AZ Day 21

Tuesday – Sonoran Hot Dogs and The Non-Judgemental Progressive Rig Viewing


This morning during our continental breakfast meeting, I found out how famous I was. Immediately after I purchased my Roadtrek, I joined a Yahoo Social Group for Roadtrek owners. The name of my van is “The Van of Discovery.” Most of us name our vans. Some that I can remember are LabMobile (a woman who travels to canine agility meets with her three labs), VanGo, Toadrek, Sally Su (who tows a Smartcar named Daisy Du). So, during various conversations this morning, I heard, “Ooh, are you Di? I really wanted to meet you.” Or “Oh, the Van of Discovery. Is that you? I read all of your posts.” Or “Di? Or is it Dee.” It felt good to be so “well known” and a touch embarrassing, as well. I don’t do well in the spotlight.

The schedule for today was to have Sonoran Hot Dogs for lunch, prepared by Karen Lee. After lunch, we had The Non-Judgemental Progressive Rig Viewing.

Sonoran hot dogs are regular grilled hot dogs wrapped in bacon topped with freshly-chopped tomatoes, onions, shredded cheese, chili sauce, pinto beans and your preferred condiment of ketchup, mayo, or mustard. They were really good, but then, any hot dog is really good as far as I am concerned.

After lunch, we spent a couple of hours touring many of the vans. You would think that a Roadtrek is a Roadtrek is a Roadtrek, but they are not. Each year Roadtrek made subtle-to-drastic changes within models and every model also has its basic differences. There are three models which are Dodge or Chevy van conversions and two Dodge Sprinter models.

I have the 170, which is the smallest model Roadtrek makes. Unfortunately, we never toured any of the other 170’s, so I didn’t get to see what people do for storage. Because the van is so small, real estate for storage is at a premium. The middle and most common model is the 190 and the largest is the 210. The 170 and 190 are the original van with the floor dropped and the roof raised. The 210 is only the Dodge or Chevy chassis with a fiberglass shell installed on it. The 210 is approximately a foot wider than the 170 and 190. The two models on the Dodge Sprinter are the SS Agile, which I really wanted to see, but there wasn’t any, and the RS Adventurous. The Adventurous is absolutely gorgeous with cherry cabinetry, leather seats, and full bathrooms -- no more showering in the hallway.

We discovered that the newer the van, the more gadgets were installed which took away storage space. If inverters and coffee pots and larger refrigerators were installed, they used up what would have been storage space. The oldest van was a 1994. The newest was a brand new 2010.

I got some good ideas about storage such as hanging baskets and over-the-door hooks. What amazed me the most was how much STUFF people STUFF into their Roadtreks. There were some vans where I couldn’t see where the owners slept. People had stuff piled on the beds, hanging over doors, flowing out of cabinets, packed into cubby holes, and strewn all over the floor. After two hours of touring vans stuffed by pack rats, I walked back into mine and it looked absolutely barren. As small as mine is and as few storage compartments I have relative to the other models, I still forget where I put things or I forget what I packed. I’ll pull out a basket and find something behind it and say to myself, “I didn’t know I had that in here!”

As I mentioned before, we had so much food left over from last night’s pot luck dinner that we pulled out most of it again and had it again for tonight’s supper. There were some really unusual dishes such as a cous-cous/quenwah (sp?) side dish, hash browned potatoes with real hash, and a delicious broccoli casserole.

Unbeknownst to me, many campers stayed in the Rec hall after dinner and had folk dancing lessons. As much fun as I had this week, I missed out on a few things because communication didn’t get passed through to everyone. So far, I missed going to Tubac and I missed the folk dance lessons. I liked the fact that this was a very informal and a sometimes impromptu gathering, but with informality comes miscommunication and some events happened that I would have liked to join in on.

AZ Day 19-20

The Amado SoloTrekker’s Rendezvous Thing

The majority of us SoloTrekkers. There are three or four missing.

I am so far behind that I am not sure how I will post anything that has happened. I need a week with good Wi-Fi service to catch up. Every morning we met in the Rec Hall for breakfast/coffee at 9:00 and each evening again at 4:00 for Happy Hour.

Sunday – Hung around most of the day. I was thinking of going to Tubac to the Arts Festival. That is the reason Sandy and I decided to arrive on the 12th instead of the 15th. After driving for two full days, though, I just couldn’t get my act together.

I spent a good part of the morning meeting Marie who is from Syracuse, NY. She has two dogs, Grover and Sahara. Marie left Syracuse in September (?). After this week, she will head up to Utah and visit an animal sanctuary up there. Her hopes are to stay for a couple of weeks and volunteer. Unfortunately, Marie fell ill and hid in her van for most of the week. She came down with viral pneumonia. She eventually did go to a doctor and was feeling much better by the following Saturday.

During the afternoon, I hung out with Nikki and a few of the other women. Then, immediately after lunch, I received a call from Jan (I think) who was at the Tubac Festival of the Arts with two of the other SoloTrekkers. She called to see if I was at Tuback and to tell me where they were meeting up for lunch. Drat! I eventually did get back to Tubac, twice even, but I did miss the Arts Festival.

Monday – The official day of arrival for the SoloTrekker’s Rendezvous Thing. During our morning breakfast meeting, we strategize about what to do for the week. This was a very relaxed, sort of off-the-cuff kind of gathering; it wasn’t a structured, organized event. Within a couple of hours, we had the following schedule set:

Monday: Official arrival day, crash day, meet-and-greet everyone with a pot-luck dinner day

Tuesday: Sonoran Hot Dog Luncheon, Open House rigs (or what we officially called The Non-Judgemental Progressive Rig Viewing) and the buffet at the Desert Diamond Casino for dinner

Wednesday: An all-day hike with Cara or a trip to Patagonia State Park

Thursday: San Xavier del Bac Mission (aka the White Dove of the Desert)

Friday: A half-day hike with Cara or a trip to Karchner Caverns, Bisbee, and Tombstone

Saturday: Whipple Observatory

Sunday: Departure day for those who did not leave on Saturday

After breakfast and getting our schedule set, Nikki said she had to go to the grocery store to pick up food for tonight’s pot luck. I told her that since I had to unhook to dump my tanks and I needed eggs that I would drive her to the grocery store, which thrilled her because she really didn’t want to drive. We were gone about two hours between shopping and grabbing a bite to eat for lunch. When we got back, I prepared my contribution to the pot luck which was what I called Grilled Chicken-a-la-King.

I grilled chicken strips on my Weber grill and, wouldn’t you know it, ran out of gas when the first side of the chicken strips were half cooked. I hoped to God that the campground store had propane tanks. (Yes, they did – one!) The grilled chicken went into the crockpot along with mushrooms, peas, carrots, celery, and herb-flavored cream of chicken soup. It didn’t all go the first night, but 99.9% of it disappeared the next time I put it out for dinner.

Because we had approximately 20 SoloTrekkers and because those 20 SoloTrekkers brought food, we had enough for dinner the next night and also two nights later.

I don’t remember which night it was, but one night, Olly got out. I had set up my screen room and was sitting in it while attempting to catch up on my blog. The door to the van was open and I saw the little bat-eared silhouetted shadowed against the door. If he jumped out, I expected him to come over near me so I could grab him, plus, there was that BIG DENIAL – Oh, no. He won’t jump out the door! Not my good Olly. Yeah, right. Not only did he slink out the door, he immediately turned and slunk under the van. Because I was in the screen room, I had to unzip it first to get out and then run around to the other side of the van. By the time I got there, he was long gone.

I knew he would be back. He never goes far. I was worried about the wild animals, specifically coyotes. Within an hour, I was frantic. I went back to the Rec hall to see if anyone was there and to tell them to watch for my cat. Those who were there told me to put some of my clothing outside, leave the door open, and put food out for him; so that’s what I did. I put his favorite Texas Tech Snuggie blanket outside, kept the door open three or four inches, and left a bowl of canned food inside on the passenger seat. At 1:00 in the morning, Olly bopped back into the van like nothing was ever wrong. Little Turd!

Pictures of Arizona Flora. I forgot to take a picture of the barrel cactus. All of these plants are on the Mountain View RV Park property:
 

AZ Day 18

Day 18 – I Have Arrived

I am so far behind I don’t remember what day is what. I left off at the evening session of my Rock Hound State Park stay. The next morning, I took a walk with Hope on one of the trails and also took a few pictures of the mountains and valley.

The view of the mountains from my campsite                            The view of the valley from my campsite

From the half mile hike up to the top of one of the hills, these are views of the Florida Mountains and of the campground and mountain range to the back

I only had 250 miles to go – about four hours according to Google Maps, which, of course, I turned into six or more. There really isn’t too much I remember about the trip. I finished my book-on-tape but never came upon another Cracker Barrel to return it. I went through my first Border Patrol stop today. Being from Connecticut, I sailed through with no problems. In conversation with some of the women here at the campground, the Border Patrol usually does random checking. Some women have been stopped, some haven’t.

The terrain between New Mexico and Arizona is very much the same, yet very different. The rock formations in New Mexico seemed to be more jagged, as Arizona’s are rounder.

A rock formation at a rest area in AZ

I stopped in Tucson at a grocery store to stock up on some needed food and to also get something for our pot luck dinner that would be held on Monday evening. Not knowing the area and thinking that Amado was off in the never-never land of the Arizona desert, Tucson seemed to be the most likely place to grab a grocery store. You can see signs of every other kind of store from the highway, but not grocery stores. That excursion added another hour to my four-hour trip. I think it was the day before, I stopped in another major city to get cat food for Olly. I saw the PetSmart sign from the highway, but by the time I made my way through traffic around the city's one-way streets and around massive shopping centers and back roads and alleys behind the buildings -- not to mention the actual shopping -- I probably lost another hour and a half of travel time. And I wonder why it takes me twice as long to get anywhere as it should!

For about the second time ever, my GPS failed me in finding the Mountain View RV Park. It had the correct street, but was off by about a mile. If it wasn’t for the large sign, partially hidden by trees, I would have had a harder time finding the park.

Checking in took quite awhile. The Tubac Arts Festival was on and the campground was full with artisans’ rigs. Us Roadtrekkers were doubling up on sites, many of us to be moved on Monday after the artisans left. I was to share a site with Tom, one of our three males among 25 women, who wasn’t arriving until the next day.

The view from the "Dog Walk" at the RV Park. Oh look, a stray dog!

The rest of the evening was spent setting up and getting to meet everyone that was there so far. The evening ritual is to gather somewhere in the park for Happy Hour at 4:00. Everyone had their dogs with them, so when I went back to the van to grab my chair, I brought Hope with me. My mistake was walking right past Nikki who had her cat on her lap. What a bad introduction and bad first impression. Sam freaked out and dug his claws into Nikki’s lap. Poor Hope could care less what was going on, but I was embarrassed to the hilt. I later apologized to Nikki telling her that I was road weary and just wasn’t thinking. DUH! I have my own cat; I know how Olly freaks out in large crowds and when dogs are around.

I honestly do not remember the rest of the evening. I don’t remember what/when/where dinner was or what activities happened after Happy Hour.

AZ Day 17

Day 17 -- Texas, New Mexico, and Rock Hound State Park

I made it as far as Deming, New Mexico. Between Fort Stockton and Deming, I bet I stopped every half hour for a food break, a potty break, I forgot to shut something or turn the fridge to DC, or something caught my eye and I wanted a picture of it.

Traveling through west Texas after the Hill Country looks like this. Miles and miles and miles and miles of nothing. The view was better from inside the van than from down on the ground.

Many of the bridges in New Mexico had paintings

Between days 17 and 18, I saw many animals: a lone sheep climbing a rock ledge, a herd of painted ponies, two javelinas crossing a side frontage road, and a jack rabbit. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the animals because it would have meant even more stops on the side of the highway. Of course, I also saw lots of steer grazing on the range.

This is an overlook I stopped at. The left picture is

looking out over the parking lot and highway. I had to climb up this hill for the view. You might be able to judge how high up I was by looking at the Van of Discovery which is nearly dead center of the picture. You can barely see the roof. The picture on the right is looking off the other side of the hill.

I don’t remember what state I was in when I saw the Holsteins. I have a tendency to site-see out the right side of the van, so I barely ever know what is going on out the left side. I was listening to a book-on-tape while driving and was pretty much immersed in the story when I smelled this horrid stench. There was nothing out in front of the van or to the right, so I looked off to the left. Across the highway, as far as I could see, were Holsteins – milking cows. Acres and acres and acres of cows on top of each other – in feed stalls, in milking stalls, in pens. The farm was immense and, as I traveled, determined that there were three farms altogether. I wouldn’t doubt if there were a trillion cows between these three farms. OK, maybe a couple of billion, but certainly far, far more than a thousand. The average New England farm has a few hundred cows. I was quite surprised to even see milking cows out here. The west is known for beef steer, not milking cows.

The book-on-tape I was listening to I picked up at Cracker Barrel. I had wanted some crackers to eat cheese with and figured I could pick up some kind of fancy crackers in the food section of the Cracker Barrel. When I couldn’t find any, I asked one of the clerks. He couldn’t find any either, so he asked someone of higher authority. He said he might have some in the back, but when he returned, he said, “I guess we’re going to have to change the name of the store. This Cracker Barrel has no crackers.”

Because I made so many stops this day, I barely got to a campground before the sun set. Tonight’s stay was at the Rock Hound State Park in Deming, New Mexico. The exit before I had to get off, there was a tourist shop that had billboards for miles along the highway. One billboard said that they had fresh, homemade cookies. That caught my interest which is why I decided to stop and take a look. It was a typical western tourist shop and I really wasn’t interested in anything except the cookies, of which I purchased eight.

Rock Hound State Park was about five miles off the highway exit. Below are lots of pictures. The rest of the evening was spent setting up, walking Hope, having dinner, and then crashing.

                                                                The Florida Mountains

 
                                               Isn't this the cutest little house you've ever seen?

 

Sunset at Rock Hound State Park

AZ Day 16

Day 16 – The Day of Hell


The continuing story as to why Diane does not like to borrow things from other people … she is a klutz

I spoke to Sandy just after finishing breakfast. There was no change in her condition and she wasn’t sure weather she would need to go in for surgery or not. Whatever the prognosis, Sandy definitely wasn’t hitting the road today and continuing on to Arizona.

We made plans for me to drop her van off at the hospital parking lot and take a taxi back to the campground. So, once again, I have to drive her beast through the streets of San Antonio.

The girls who greeted me as I stepped out of the van this morning:

I got a later start than I wanted to, possibly with a large factor being that I did not want to drive this van again. I did not want to be in this horrid state one more day. I wanted to be left alone. At the same time, I was deeply worried about Sandy. This makes about 48 hours now of my emotions being all over the board. On top of it, it was raining. Just what I need – to be driving a van I am terrified of in the pouring rain.

I get in the van and can’t figure out how the windshield wipers work. It’s not that I couldn’t figure out how they work, I mean, windshield wipers are windshield wipers, right? Hers made a weird motor sound like the window washer fluid motor was running but there was no window washer fluid squirting out onto the windshield. The motor made noises in some settings but not others. The intermittent feature didn’t intermittent and I finally ended up turning the wipers off and then only making one sweep with them as I needed.

San Antonio has I-410 as a loop around the city. When I looked at the map, I noticed that SOUTHeast Baptist Hospital was only three miles from the campground. Apparently, I drove three-quarters of the way around the I-410 loop yesterday when I only needed to drive one quarter in the other direction. This morning, as I headed out to the hospital, did I listen to what the GPS was telling me? NOOOO! I decided to follow the map. Apparently, there are TWO Baptist Hospitals in San Antonio and I wasted 15 minutes driving to the wrong one; which meant I wasted 15 minutes driving back to the campground to start over again.

By now, my stress for the last 48 hours, plus the accumulated stress of the last two weeks, reached its breaking point. I started sobbing, screaming, and slamming my hands into the steering wheel while screaming at the top of my lungs at the GPS. I had no business being behind the wheel of a vehicle, never mind one that wasn’t mine that I was not familiar with and driving in a strange city.

I finally reached the NORTHeast Baptist Hospital an hour after I left the campground. When I tell you that I tried five different parking spaces before I could maneuver the van into one, that is no exaggeration. I bet I spent another half an hour in the parking lot pulling in and out of parking spots before I finally found one that I could get into. The van was not level and I was worried about it being level enough for the refrigerator to work properly. My van has to be nearly 100% level or the fridge doesn’t cool as well as it should.

I tried to dry the tears before going in to see Sandy, but that was a useless attempt. There was just no stopping the water works. Add to all this, I got to the reception desk and they told me they had no record of a Sandra Hinze being admitted. When they finally did find her, they directed me to room 70 on the second floor. I got off the elevator at room 1.

By the time I reached Sandy’s room, I think I needed admitting, too. I did not want Sandy to see me in this condition, but I had no choice. When I got in her room, I blurt out that I could not do any more for her. I didn’t want to say it, but the words came out involuntarily. I absolutely could not and did not want to do any more. I wanted to get out. I wanted to be left alone. I wanted peace.

At the same time, I felt ashamed for my feelings. I was not the one who had a flat tire. I was not the one who was sick. I was not the one who ended up in a hospital. I was not the one who was stranded alone in a strange city.

After I calmed down, I told Sandy that I would be OK. I had my hissy fit and I was now renewed and ready to conquer the world. I did not want to leave her, but I did not want to stay, either. She assured me that she would be OK, too, and she gave me money to grab a taxi back to the campground. She said that if she needed surgery, she would call her son in California to come be with her.

One of the nurses who drew her blood in the Emergency room yesterday offered to take care of Cody for her. She said her parents had a Chihuahua and she really wanted to do this for her. When I spoke to Sandy later in the day, she told me that the nurse and her husband came and picked up the van and brought Cody home with them. I may hate Texas, but Texans are the most generous, giving people on earth.

By the time I got back to the campground and on the road, it was nearly 1:00. I packed up as fast as I could and headed out. Man, did it feel good to be back in my own van. I only had four hours of daylight left to travel. We had originally planned to go to Van Horn, but I knew I wouldn’t make it one quarter of the way. I found a Passport America campground in Fort Stockton. As usual, I got in after dark, so it was difficult to see anything around me. Luckily, I got a pull-through site, so I didn’t need to back up the van in the dark.

This is a picture of the sunset against a plateau I took along the highway. You can't see them unless you enlarge and zoom in the pictures, but that whole plateau from the lump on the left side to the drop on the right side is lined with wind generators. What I found ironic was that on the left side of the highway, the fields were littered with oil rigs and on the right side of the highway, there were hundreds of wind generators.

Much of west Texas has these hills that jut up out of nowhere in miles and miles of flat plains. All of the hills, whether they are nothing but a little bump or a long stretch of rock, are topped with flat plateaus.

Once camp was set up, I walked Hope around the campground. This was a mobile home park with the front two or three “streets” set up for campers. A structure fire was a block or two away, so I walked over in that direction and watched the flames for a bit.

What started as a very stressful day ended up being far more relaxing, although it would have been nice if I made it to my destination while the sun was still up. Someday ….