New Mexico and Arizona May 2010

As the iris and peony buds were fattening we left Nevada City on May 4, 2010, headed to the desert. After a long cold winter, the lure of warmer places was too much to resist. Over the passes, Donner and Spooner, past beautiful, if low, Lake Tahoe we moseyed down 395, going over so many 7,000 foot rises that they are not even calling them passes.

The rugged eastern side of the Sierras still had much snow. Passed Topaz Lake, Mono Lake with its tufas, dropping down into Round Valley and down to 4200 feet at Bishop. Browns Town RV campsite under bird nesting cottonwood trees, next to a lush golf course was a welcome overnight stop. The backdrop of purple folded granite frosted with powdered sugar was breathtaking. The town of Bishop always calls for a stop at Schat's Bakkery and we added the smoked meat place this time for pork chops. Bishop has a lovely little in-town park with flowing water and ducks. This greenery prepared us for the next trek...

We drove through Desert Gold covered Death Valley at 103 F to Pahrump (Paiute word for water from rock). Looked as if this outpost of Las Vegas had begun to boom before the recent bust, with some unrealized development dreams and a brand new post office. Indian casinos, gas station, several casino rv parks. We chose the lakeside resort where they allowed us to stay overnight but didn't invite us to the members only party, damn.

Skirting Las Vegas on May 6 we were boarded but not delayed at Hoover Dam. Awesome tower cranes finishing the flyover, which will eliminate the mandatory inspection for terrorists trying to cross the dam. The wonderful art deco pillars, elevator, sculptures and still in place and there were lots of people taking the tour of the dam. A newish visitor center, which we passed by, looks like a modern hillside pueblo. Numerous pull-out areas made it fun to stop and view the old and the new ways of crossing the dam.

Old Route 66 is available to travelers in bits and pieces; we passed Kingman and detoured to Seligman on 66, stopping for a cold frosty night on the high windy plateau. A newly hired couple at the KOA told us they found their jobs here through workingcouples.com....in case anyone is interested.

Seligman is all tricked up to look the tacky part of a Route 66 stop, having no authenticity at all, but drawing the tour buses. Mannequins, signs, colorful buildings, hokey this and that line the two blocks.

High desert turns to forest at Williams, one of the gateways to the Grand Canyon. I40 is truck heaven and the 75 mph speed limit makes us shudder and shake as they roar past. With the railroad paralleling the road, we can see how America moves its stuff, from containers to cars to huge tires, liquids of all kinds, mainly oil, to cattle,pigs, and suppliers of chain and big box stores.

Walnut Canyon National Monument in AZ shows how the Sinagua (without water) lived in pueblo and pithouse dwellings from 1125 to 1250 AD. We have forgotten that life used to be physical, with climbs up and down steep canyon walls to gather water and tend crops. We opted for the view from the first observation platform instead of the multiple hour round trip down and back. We never would have made it as pueblo dwelling native Americans.

The Petrified Forest NP and the painted desert are unfailingly beautiful with their many colors and rock formations. Visitors in heavy New York accents were stunned at the sights and heavily vocal about it all.

Heading for Silver City NM and a visit with Gail's brother Lee, we stopped for the night in a dusty little town whose name I'll remember eventually. Traveling down Hwy 180 to Silver City was beautiful, and took us over the Continental Divide. On Saturday afternoon we pulled into Lee and Chris' house in a development of very nice modular homes, theirs is 2300 sq. ft., so no small new home this! We had a good visit, good Mexican food, a very nice Mother's Day dinner at the Masonic Lodge (Chris is an active Eastern Star member), and a lovely drive up toward Gila Wilderness cliff dwellings. The 'closed' copper mine, is being reclaimed, they say, but some sites are still open with skeleton crews to avoid having to reclaim the land. They say more copper is extractable with new methods from the old tailings, so there could be a resurgence of activity there. These mines are mind-blowing, they are sooooooo large, terraced, and deep.

We stopped at a beautiful couple of campgrounds, and if the wind hadn't been so bad the next day we would have returned to stay at Mesa campground for a while, near Lake Roberts. Lee has been a host here in the past and I can see the attraction of this serenely beautiful spot. We had planned to go to the cliff dwellings the next day, but again the winds stopped us from making it to the end of the road.

Monday 5/10 we were off to Lordsburg and lunch at the Kranberry Kafe (no, it was really the Kranberry Family Restaurant, which was the only game in town. Through miles of flat sandy desert with green pastures, green brush, wildflowers, occasional trees, the 180 took us through Road Forks, Douglas, and Bisbee AZ. We passed abandoned and occupied buildings out in the middle of nowhere, a lone museum, closed, rv parks, a failed airpark with lots for sale. All looked pretty desolate to me.

Bisbee is a 'new town' (late 1870's) in the middle of an open pit copper mine and the pile of tailings which buried the original town. Old stone and stucco buildings, art galleries, B&Bs coffee shops, restaurants, and lots of steps. There is a theater, defunct, a grand old post office. The Queen Mine rv park on the edge of town allowed us to walk several blocks of this charming town.

A visit to Tombstone is said to be a must, but this fake touristy town is anything but authentic, although it could be fun for those less jaded than we are. The 'shoot out' at the OK Corral takes place in several places, and you pay to see the action. We found a quiet saloon, the 4 Deuces, where they sent across the street for Buffalo burgers for our lunch while drafting beers for the locals.

Moving along toward Benson and Tucson, we were stopped by the Border Patrol at the intersection of 80 and 82, the road from Nogales. They hardly bothered us, but the bus was there to round up the illegals and take them back when they get that far. In the 4 Deuces we were told that illeglas are easily spotted by their heavy long sleeved shirts and carpet on the bottoms of their tennis shoes. Lee and Chris told us the new AZ law requires probable cause to stop anyone and then ask for ID; it's not as random as it was made to sound on the national news and in California.

Benson has an rv resort complete with swimming pool and observatory, very near a WalMart and a Safeway. I think this is a place people come to spend the winter...While I would not like to do that, we are very happy to be stable and quiet while the wind howls across I10 and when it quiets down, we'll trek our way to Tucson.

Hugs from Gail and Gene and Lucy (whose new name will be Dusty if we don't get her bathed soon)