Arizona CatchUp

 

I realized that my blog is two states behind which is a sorry state of affairs. In an effort to catch up, Arizona 2022 will have to do with one whirlwind post. Hang on girls and boys!

Spelunking The Most Beautiful Cave In The World

 

All roads in Arizona lead to Tucson – at least for me. I lucked out again and got a site at Catalina State Park which is nestled up against the Catalina Mountains. I had been hearing for years about the Mt Lemon scenic drive which goes up the backside of the Catalinas. Scenic drive is right. You start off in the desert and within an hour you have ascended almost 8000 feet into pine country. In fact, at the top of Mt Lemon, there is a ski resort. The ski resort and the restaurants were all closed up on top, but the drive itself was worth it. Half of the time you are driving along, looking down out of the passenger side at certain death , the cliffs are so high. The other half of the drive, you are nestled up tight against the cliff walls that rise up hundreds of feet. I must mention that I also got to see my Cousin Ann one more time which was, as always, most enjoyable.

Those gorgeous Catalinas

See the road way down there wrapping around the HooDoo?

I must mention that I also got to see my Cousin Ann one more time which was, as always, most enjoyable.

The first night after I left Tucson, I made it as far as Deming, New Mexico. I spent the night at a rest stop along the interstate. This rest stop was rather unique in that they had places for campers to spend the night that were pullouts away from the general rest stop busyness that rest stops are. Not only that, but each pullout had a little shelter that housed a picnic table. It felt like having an extra room.

Boy, Texas is big. My son told me that if you drive from El Paso, the westernmost city in Texas to the Pacific Ocean, crossing three states and ending up at the Pacific Ocean that it will take about the same amount of time as driving straight across the great state of Texas from El Paso to Houston in the east. Crazy.

After driving for several days (it seemed longer than that), I ended up at the Caverns of Sonora in Sonora Texas. It is a National Natural Landmark and they had RV sites where we could camp. It was literally a five minute walk from my campsite to the cave's entrance. I had to laugh when I read a quote about the cave - “This is the most indescribably beautiful cave in the world, its beauty cannot be exaggerated, not even by a Texan” It might not be the most beautiful cave in the world, but it comes pretty darn close. Of course my pictures do not do it justice. 

Peafowl Krewe

Bossman and his Minions
It was so windy there that he had trouble walking with that big tail of his.
It kept blowing him off course.

Bacon Ribbons
Seriously that is what they called these types of formations

This was sort of spooky - coming around a corner and having a face leering at you.

This is a clear pool of water with a green bottom.  
Before the cave was protected,people would throw pennies in the pool
which turned the pool bottom green

Cowboys and Cars

 

By the time I got to Phoenix, I had evidently spaced out the fact that I had spent a couple of nights in Kingman, Arizona. I feel that I have to add a post about Kingman because this blog is now mostly written for me. I definitely need it to remember where I've been and what I did. I would have no past without this blog.

Kingman has a few items of note – it has a Route 66 Museum which is situated right on the old Route 66. Imagine that. Of course, Old Historic Route 66 in Kingman is also called Andy Devine Avenue because Andy Devine was one of the town's most famous residents. Andy Devine was a western movie actor probably most famous for being the white hat hero's sidekick. He was Cookie, Roy Rogers sidekick and Jingles, Wild Bill Hickok's sidekick.

Speaking of Route 66:

In 1857, Lt. Beale was commissioned to survey and develop a “winter-proof” route to the West. In addition to all the men, mules and dogs, the caravan included 25 camels fresh from Egypt. Part of Beale's assignment to build the road included testing the success of camels in the southwest for future military use. If you remember in my post about Quartzsite, I visited the tomb of Hi Jolly, one of the camel herders on this expedition. Route 66 was also made famous by John Steinbeck when he wrote the “Grapes of Wrath' which told the tale of the Great Depression when many families took to the Mother Road in search of better fortune.

Inside the Route 66 Museum, there was also a whole floor dedicated to Electric Cars.

Waylon Jennings Electric golf cart was there

Of course Willie Nelson had to one-up Waylon and put a large bar on his golf cart

This car was a Ohio State student built car. 
It set a record of 303.025 mph in 2009 at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

And then this one was built in 1909.  

I can't imagine this one quite caught on, but the solar panels are rather impressive

They say Studebaker is the only car company to 'span the time from settlers' wagons to high performance automobiles in it's 114 year history. '  1852-1966
(Disclosure: This one is not an electric car)

Getting It Fixed in Phoenix

 

I had to head down to Phoenix as I had an appointment at D&R's Family RV. My solar install was not working as efficiently as it should be. My friend Jon and I had spent many hours trying to figure out what was the issue but in the end, we decided we needed a solar professional to diagnose the issue. It took Ron about five minutes to figure out the issue. It turns out that I had an inverter installed that was not the correct inverter. Ron ordered one, but seeing as how it was the weekend, it would not be delivered until the following week. So I spent four nights in the RV lot, behind chain link fencing with that circular barb wire all along the top of the fence. They gave me a key so I could come and go. When the new inverter came in, it took them about an hour and a half to do the install and I was on my way. The solar is now working like a charm.

Since I had the whole weekend to myself in Phoenix, I did hit a few museums. In fact, one of the museums ranks right up there with being one of the best museums I have ever been in. This is the Museum of Musical Instruments (MIM). It was fascinating in how they presented the instruments. The galleries were laid out geographical by country within continent. So you would go into the Africa gallery and then there would be a section for each country within Africa displaying the instruments that were indigenous to that country. Each of these instruments were labeled as to what they were but what made this so great was that in each of these sections there was a TV screen that played videos of these instruments being played. You are wearing headphones so whenever you approached the TV screen, the video would start playing. Photo challenged alert: My brother is very musical and I thought it would be great to take my own videos of these videos playing on the TV screens and text him with them so he could be as wowed as I was. I took a zillion videos and sent them off forgetting that all the sound was coming through my headphones. So he got a zillion videos of people playing instruments that he could not hear. Wonderful.

The Harmonica Section (which I had to pay homage to)

A closeup of the harmonicas

This gives new meaning to the words 'Piano Accordion'.  The accordions were right next to the bagpipes which some folks think are rather irritating.  What is MIM trying to say here, anyway?

There was also a special exhibition called Congo Masks and Music where they added the masks and outfits into the mix.

The Phoenix Art Museum had some nice exhibits also. I particularly liked the Throne Miniatures. I've always been enthralled with miniature rooms. People create these rooms or even whole houses and the attention to detail is amazing. They weave tiny little rugs, they paint tiny little pictures to hang on the walls of their rooms. Inconceivable the amount of time and patience that must go into this past time.

This exhibit would take an item from the museum's collection and pair it with Fashion.

One of the exhibits was the Firefly room. You walk into a tiny dark little area and you are surrounded by thousands of tiny little lights that change colors. It does give you an almost magical feeling. It is all, of course, done with mirrors. They hung the lights from the ceiling on strings and then added mirrors all the way around the lights. It is sort of like being in a fun house, but since this is the Phoenix Art Museum, it is way more classy.

I have spent almost four months out in the desert in Arizona and New Mexico.  I'm a Minnesota girl deep down and I'm longing for some real trees and green grass.  While I have seen some wonderful sights, I am tired of desert dust that infiltrates everything, no matter how much you try to keep on top of it.  I decided that I need to take care of my inner needs.  I was going to head up to Oregan and Washington state, but it is still too cold to head up there.  So I've decided to head east.  Not too sure where in the east yet, but just as long as it is sort of green and warm - that is where I am going.  

London Bridge Is Not Falling Down

 I was feeling the need to see some me some water after spending a week in Quartzsite so it was onward to Lake Havasu City nestled fortunately on the shore of Lake Havasu. In the olden days, this was nothing but solid desert and then in 1958, Robert McCulloch came along and bought 3,353 acres transforming it into a mecca for off-roaders and boaters. Lake Havasu City did not even become a town until 1963.

McCulloch had big dreams for Lake Havasu City and decided that he should bring the London Bridge to Havasu. I mean it is the actual London Bridge, built in 1831. By 1968, the bridge was badly in need of repair and London decided to remove the bridge and build a new bridge. Along comes McCulloch who buys the bridge from the City of London for US$2.5 millon.

“The bridge was disassembled …. and the marked stones were shipped to Lake Havasu City and reassembled ...for another US$7 million. The construction took three years to complete.” Wikipedia

As you enter, you are greeted by a fountain guarded by lions dressed appropriately for the season

Here she is - THE LONDON BRIDGE

Love Locks on the bridge.
Couples represent their love by putting a lock on a bridge and it will stay there for all eternity. 
They then dramatically hurl the keys to the lock into the body of water under the bridge. 

Here is a poor soul who is making snow by the bridge.  Sort of a Sisyphus task, me thinks

I did not realize how much I was missing green until I saw this gorgeous plant

Supposedly this light poles on top of the bridge were made from Napoleon's cannons

Fun Fact: Lake Havasu City is home to more working lighthouses than any other city in the entire country. They were originally started for safety purposes. The Lake Havasu Lighthouse Club wanted to make the lake a safe place for night boating. They decided to pay homage to the famous lighthouses in the U.S. by making smaller replica lighthouses. All of the lighthouses on the west side of Lake Havasu are replicas of famous lighthouses on the west Coast, while the east side consists of East Coast replicas. On the island are the replicas of lighthouses from the Great Lakes. We visited several of the lighthouses but a definite stop had to be the Split Rock Lighthouse, the lighthouse near and dear to any Minnesotan's heart. The real Split Rock Lighthouse is located north of Duluth on Lake Superior.

A fellow Minnesotan enjoying a moment of solidarity with Split Rock

A must see while in the Parker, AZ area is the Nellie E Saloon aka The Desert Bar. You have to travel five miles down one of the worst roads I've ever been on, thru a winding narrow desert road, best suited actually for 4X4s, although I did see a few regular cars braving the journey. The place is only open Saturday and Sundays from high noon until 6:00 pm, October thru April. Part of the reason for the limited hours is that the whole establishment is powered solely by solar power. The roofs are massive solar panels. There was a band playing when I was there which I found rather amazing considering all the power a rock band must consume. I had my first Tri-Tip steak sandwich here, I think it might be one of the best sandwiches ever.

Nellie's started doing business in that little shack on the right hand side of the photo

The entrance

Everybody socially distancing

Tables were also behind the band.  Check out the solar panels

The women's bathroom was lovely.  Open air sinks, stalls carved into the rock. 
The stall doors were rusted out heavy steel.  Maybe I should say unique instead of lovely.

I camped at Lone Tree Dispersed Campground on BLM land. It was on top of a mesa, north of the city with million dollar views and zero cash outlay.

My view out my front door

Quirky Quartzsite

Quartzsite is quirky. There are several little places that many folks might think strange. I admire people who have an inspiration and actually follow through with it – the ones with a passion who say “Full Steam Ahead” and follow their own drummer.

There is a RV park in town called Hassler's RV Park. The man, Mr. Hassler, who used to own it took old metal and turns them into sculptures with which he decorated his RV park. He used a lot of horseshoes for many of the sculptures. They were funny and/or interesting.

Joanne's sister started collecting gum wrappers in the late forties and Joanne, a current resident of Quartzsite has continued the family tradition. You have to call and make an appointment to come to her house to see the Gum Museum. It is located in a residential neighborhood, behind Joanne's house in a building about the size of a two car garage. It is really quite amazing, aisle after aisle of gum wrappers most arranged in year order. Not only are there domestic gum wrappers, but quite an extensive international gum wrapper section. You will also find a few gum-related collectibles such as gum ball machines, gum pillows - basically anything that has to do with gum. Joanne was a lovely older woman who absolutely glowed with pride as she showed off her collection.

If you look at websites and periodicals to find what there is to see in Quartzsite, the Number One attraction is the Hi Jolly tombstone located in the Quartzsite cemetery. I'm not sure why it is such a big deal but I dutifully went to visit Mr. Hi Jolly.

Life in Quartzsite was rather Jolly (see what I did there?).

A friend gave me this t-shirt.
 I thought it was very appropriate and I'm sure that all who know me will agree.

Our little campsite

I must end with some sunsets taken from the campsite because Arizona definitely has their sunsets going on.