Saturday, from Gila Bend we drove out to Margie's Cove hike in the Sonoran Desert NM. We had to take the 5 mile road in pretty slow, as it crosses many little washes with fairly sharp drops across them. We found out there is camping at the trail-head, with one truck camper there when we arrived, and a t@b trailer just coming in as we left. Margie's Cove is a large flat area surrounded by a circle of hills.
 |
| Cactus Country |
There was one other couple who were heading out on the hike as we came in. About a half mile from the trailhead, we came to a water tank, with a windmill tower laying on its side, and a corral.
 |
| Windmill | |
 |
| Rain Barrel? |
From there the trail head out towards the southeast corner of the cove. We stopped at the 3.3 mi point, and had lunch on the side of a little hill. While we were there, the couple came back, accompanied by their blue heeler, which came over to see if we had anything for it. It wasn't enjoying the trip as much as it might like because it kept getting thorns in its paws, which had to be removed. They said they had turned around at 4 miles, and still hadn't arrived at the junction with the Brittle Brush trail. We turned around at that point, and headed back to the trail-head. A nice little hike with minimal elevation gain. We saw a few little ground squirrels, one lizard and a few birds.
 |
| Gecko |
 |
| There were lots of ground squirrels in this area |
Back at the trailhead, another couple was arriving. I told them I was glad that they had come in before we left, so we didn't have to find a spot on the road with enough room for our trucks to go by one another. It turned out that they are new full-timers, whose daughter lives in Cochrane. What a co-incidence.
Sunday, we did another short walk from the RV park. Later in the afternoon, the people from Cochrane that we met at Margie's Cove rode in on their bikes We had a longer chat with them and exchanged e-mail contacts.
Monday, we packed up and headed a bit north on AZ85 to Buckeye Hills Regional Park that we had checked out last week. We drove around the County Circle loop, and back close to the entrance of the park where there were 5 RVs parked, 3 close to the road and 2 further back. We parked the trailer on the road while we walked around to see if there was a spot for us there. We talked to one fellow who said we were welcome to park fairly close to his trailer. When we walked to the back area, we asked a fellow there whether the road past his unit went anywhere, thinking if it was a dead end, we could just back onto the road. He was impressed with that idea as he liked to drive his jeep down that way. We walked to few hundred yards to where the road ended, but decided not to take the trailer down that way. Back near the main road, we discussed things and picked a spot angled past the back of one of the units, and got set up.
Tuesday morning, the closest unit set up to leave and then drove their car into town for groceries. We went for a nice walk around the hill across the road, and then followed a nice wash down to one of the lower roads in the park, then back up to the trailer.
 |
| View over the valley from Buckeye Hills |
 |
| Woodpecker | |
 |
| Wee little flower |
 |
| Hawk |
We got thinking it would be nice to turn the trailer so the windows faced east, to warm us up faster in the morning, and be cooler in the afternoon. The folks had left by then, so we did just enough to bring in the slides and move the trailer over to where the other unit had been. After we got settled, John chatted quite bit about solar power with our neighbour Don, who has an RV service. Joan also checked out the meat loaf he was cooking in his Sun Oven. It even has temperature control.
 |
|
Wednesday morning, we headed into Buckeye for breakfast at Cracker Barrel, a first for us. The food was okay, but not enough to attract us back. We set the GPS to the nearest Safeway, (we had stopped at Safeway and used our card for a fuel discount last week), when we arrived, over 6 miles away, it was a different Safeway, and didn't have fuel. Fortunately, we still had the other Safeway in the Recently Found, so headed there. At least some of the previous route got us closer to this one, so it wasn't totally wasted distance. After fueling up, we then went hunting for a little battery operated clock for boon-docking, since the bedroom clock doesn't work unless we are on 'shore' power. After checking a few stores without any luck, we headed for Walmart, where we get their decadent fudge tracks ice cream, our favourite south of the border. We also found a little battery-powered clock, with a back light, a simple knife-sharpener, since a few of our knives are getting dull, and some distilled water for our RV batteries.
Back at the trailer, we invited Don for dinner, as he has been very helpful. By this time, the other two RV's further up our area had left, leaving only 3 units. When the other fellow who was still there came by, we invited him to join us as well. We had a nice evening chatting about our different experiences.
On Thursday, John checked out the batteries, which definitely needed some water. He couldn't tell how high to fill them, so he called the phone number listed on the batteries. They told him that they should be filled to bottom of a plastic sleeve, which he hadn't seen when checking them. However, a flashlight made the sleeves visible. A while ago we had bought a Measu-Funnel, which has a nice foot-long tube below the measuring container. Joan discovered that by turning the tube, it opened and closed the flow. This worked perfectly, filling the container with about 200 ml of water for each cell. With Joan held the flashlight at the right angle, we were able to fill the cells to the bottom of the plastic sleeves. A little awkward, but definitely easier than taking the batteries out of the cabinet to fill them. Hard to believe (but maybe not for us) that it took us this long to figure this out.
After getting this all done, we did a 5 mi return walk down to the end of the road in the park. There were a few units parked at the tables at the end, and we chatted with a fellow from Maryland. They had been considering retiring to Panama, which is a very cheap place to live. Their concern was that they might have trouble returning, and have to adjust to a more expensive environment again.
No comments:
Post a Comment