Week ending Nov 30, 2017 Casa Grande to Safford

Friday, we did the Casa Grande Mtn Radio Tower walk. It is a steep climb up the road that leads from the valley to tower.

Our objective for the day

About a third of the way up, the road gets steeper, and to give vehicles traction, they laid  thick textured concrete base, which made walking a bit easier than the gravel and loose rocks at the beginning.

Concrete road up to the tower

Casa Grande Mountain is one of the 'Islands in the Sky' that we described last year in the Tucson area.  There is a huge area of 'level' gravel for miles around it, so the views from the tower are extensive. 

View of Casa Grande

Saturday, we walked a loop at the south end of Casa Grande Mtn Park.  Much quieter today.

View of Picacho Peak 

Sunday morning, we did two mile walk in a square around the vicinity of the campground.  We couldn't believe how much trash was scattered in the area.   Later we watched Toronto steal the Grey Cup from Calgary with an interception in the end-zone. 

Monday, went to a store to get Joan an extra pair of eye glasses.  It turns out here prescription expired last month, so they couldn't use it.   In the afternoon we tried to put another 30 days on our Verizon phone using their app, but got blocked because it wouldn't let us enter a Canadian MC billing address.   We also noticed that our US Mastercard expires in February, before we head back.  A bit inconvenient.    It never occurred to us, since we got these cards in the summer a few years ago.

Tuesday, we had a nice breakfast at IHOP, with lots left for lunch.  Then we went to the Verizon store and bought the 30 days.  Then we went to the Casa Grande 'Farmers Market'.   We were tempted to ask where their farms are, since the thing that might have had anything related to 'farming' was jam.   Only about 4 little tables.  Very disappointing.  Then we walked through the historic area of town.   It was underwhelming.   Then we checked out the Museum,  but it is only open on Thurs thru Sun from 12:00 to 4:00.    Once we got back to the RV Park, we did 4 mile walk around a crop across the road from the RV park.  We couldn't tell what they were growing.   We were surprised at how green the crop is, since all of the irrigation canals around it were dry.
 

Crop across the road from the RV park

The plants

Along the side of the road, bits of cotton were caught on plants.

Bits of cotton along the edge of the road

While we chatted with a couple back at the park, a roadrunner posed for us.

 

Roadrunner

Wednesday, we parked at the north end of Casa Grande Mountain Park, and walked a loop from almost to the loop we did the first day we were here.  It was interesting to see the lichen on the rocks even in dry area like this.

Lichen

We had a chat with a couple of guys we met on the trail, one who is a full time RVer.  He uses his ex-military privileges at many of the RV parks that are available on bases for service people.  In the afternoon, we did some cleaning to get ready for moving on to Safford tomorrow.   We paid for our electricity for 10 days, only $14.  We were a bit frugal with it, using propane for heating and hot water. 

Thursday morning we drove 200 miles east along I-10, then up Arizona Highway 191 to Safford.  This is in a historic mining area at an elevation of about 3000 ft.  We got set up in Lexington Pines Resort, which is primarily a Mobile Home Park with about 40 RV sites.  We paid for a week, and found out that the site is available until after Christmas if we decide we want to stay longer.