Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and Saguaro National Park

Hello again,

The morning was spent getting some things done* and packing for travel.

We were on route to the Desert Museum via downtown Tucson (which we had pretty much avoided, but it was mid-day and R2D1 thought it would be OK. R2D1 (we can converse and she helps me navigate, but she but can't actually pilot the ship) notified us that the 86 was closed and she would re-route. After a missed turn (sometimes her instructions take longer to relate than the time it takes to drive past the required manoeuvre) we toured some more of downtown. Finally outside of town we came upon a fire truck and were told there was a gas leak and we had to turn back. Another tour of Tucson suburbs: interesting because of the old growth saguaro in the backyards (they are protected) and the building style of this area.

Eventually we were out in the desert and on our way through the fantastic world of saguaro forests and desert landscapes. The connection to the All-Seeing Tower is weak tonight so I'm not going to attempt photos. I have the phone hanging on its charging cord outside the van towards the signal so I can have a hotspot that works. We are using a metallic insulating material to line the windows of the van for warmth and privacy. It's like wearing a tinfoil hat. Keeps those spying radio waves out. 

So I just deleted a whole bunch of stuff I wrote about what I learned about the desert and saguaro. That is not what we are here for. Go search Wikipedia. Or come see for yourself.

We spent a lot of time in the Desert Museum. Lots to see. Because of that, as usual, we arrived at our campsites late, when the office was closed, and we were setting up and making supper as it grew dark. We wasted a lot of precious sunshine finding our site (the signage in Arizona on the whole has a lot of room for improvement. You'll often find the much needed sign when you are already in sight of your destination.)  But the moon and Venus were with us, Orion was brilliant, and we are settled in Catalina State Park with the mountain range of that name at our back. Very nice.

Tomorrow we will head toward another State Park near Phoenix and we are going to try to get there early. Just to change it up a bit.

stay calm,
j
*Getting an appointment with an MD, to get replacement meds for Jane, and a getting a replacement window for the van because someone broke in and stole our cooler... Next weekend was an international gem show and several out of state vehicles in the hotel parking lot were looted that night.

Tucson Touch

Hello again my imaginary friend,

One night more in Tucson than ‘planned’. Things happen. Things need to be sorted out.

We met up with a friend from the area and had an excellent visit, a very nice lunch (bookmark Sweet Tomato) and tour of NE Tucson. And a great amount of insight into what to do next here and on the road to come. Nothing beats local knowledge.

I won’t ramble to fill space. I’m not being paid by the word. There is nothing better than a short report, I’m sure somebody somewhere said sometime. Anyway I’m saying it now. I should delete this whole paragraph.

Just one more thing. I got what I needed to get my photos from the Nikon, and of the countless pics I’ll post one I took just tonight. I like it. Venus has been treating us all week and from last night it has been joined by the new moon. Earlier in the evening the new moon held the old moon in her arms, but I missed capturing that.

Tomorrow we hit the road for a tour of Saguaro Natl Park, a desert museum, Catalina State Park (home for the night) and hopefully the Biosphere 2 Science Museum, which is not far from there.

stay calm,
j

“Do What Happens”

Hello from Tucson,

Over breakfast we were deciding (or trying) the course of the next few hours. A cavern tour of the Rotunda at Kartchner State Park (our campground) was on for me, but we didn’t know which tour I would get into since I hadn’t booked it. Other activities and when to meet up were fuzzy. “We’ll just go down there and do what happens” said my semi-caffeinated brain. That is now my motto for the next couple weeks.

Do What Happens. Can’t fail as a plan.

So what I did/happened was a very interesting cavern tour of a sealed pristine living cave. Recommended. No photography, rats. The cave bacon would have been a great photo to have. If you don’t know about it, fire up your favourite internet search engine.

What happened next was a run to:

We will come back to explore here. Today was getting our bearings.

Tonight after four nights camping we are in a hotel to clean up, do laundry, and organize. After five days of travel/camp food we lucked into The Parish just down the street. Great food and local beer, nice place.

We’re only here for another three days before heading north to Phoenix, but the forecast makes me want to stay:

We do want to go further south near the border and visit some interesting sites of early human habitation. We’ll see what happens.

stay warm,
j

Sunrise, a walk, sunset

Hello,

It’s easy to get up before sunrise when there is a big hunk of rock in the way.

I could see the sun warming the nearby town long before it reached our campground. I hiked a trail around the base of the rock (I should look up its name, so rude of me), which made a loop above the campground. I encountered a rabbit hopping through the desert garden. After some careful pursuit I finally caught the wascally fellow (on silicon). The trail gained enough elevation that I could watch as the sunlight crept into our camp. I had my French press travel mug in my left hand, my camera (or at this moment phone) in my right hand, and my gloves on when I could. When I descended and emerged into the sunlight the gloves and down jacket came off pretty quickly. Desert extremes.

I’ve taken a lot of photos on our Nikon. They may or may not be good, better than these taken on the phone, or spectacular. I hope for option three but it’s hard to know till you get them up on a good screen. When that time comes I may post them separately from this timeline blog. Organization is hard work. When I was thinking about this it occurred to me that not long ago (on my scale) I wouldn’t know if anything showed up on film till days or weeks after taking a photo. My first SLR did not have a light meter built in. It came with a palm sized device. You read the level, dialled in the estimated shutter and aperture needed, and hoped for the best. If it was important, bracket!

We packed up and moved on. Desert, vineyards and pecan (that’s ‘peh-kahn’) orchards by the mile-acre. I need to come up with a unit of measure that reflects the acreage depth off the road and miles travelled that some of these operations cover. It is impressive. Wait, maybe I just did that. Mile-acre. Just let me convert that to metric...

Our day ended at another state park, in time to enjoy the sunshine, 19C temp, and, what else, another satisfying sunset. This photo was taken from our campsite:

This was day seven. It seems like we just set out. We will start slowing down now that we are in our destination region. The van needs a rest.

stay calm,
j

Ranges and the Sun

Hello again,

We woke to a red-orange sun halfway into our sky.

Frost outside, about plus 10-11C inside on our second morning of camping in the van. A chilly firing up of the stove to heat water, a quick breakfast and on the road by eight. Suprised three mule deer who thought they were camouflaged among the cattle grazing near the road.

A very pleasant and peaceful climb through winding roads, past horse and cattle ranches, settlements where level ground is precious, and we were in Cloudcroft. A quick stop for essentials (coffee) and we were through the Guadalupe range. As we came through we could see our main destination for the day - White Sands National Monument.

This area is home to a number of missile ranges, but we took our chances and headed in. I only have the photos from my phone at this time. It was balmy for us but some found it chilly enough for a warm hat:

After touring, walking, and admiring this rare landscape we broke out the solar cooker to make lunch (on the sand to the right). The sand dune is shaded in the photo but it is really brilliant white. It is so fine they move and manage it like snow.

The sand was 14C but in 20 min. the eggs and veg were 90C and nicely cooked. The tortillas heated up in minutes.

Heading on we passed another missile range and through the Sacramento range. Then on through flat desert with dust storm warning signs posted regularly along the road. Just in time for another great sunset we arrived at Rock Hound State Park near the Little Florida Mountain range.

Next Tucson and Saguaro National Park.

stay calm,
j

Other worlds

I’ve seen things some people wouldn’t believe.

Hydrocarbon flares above the horizon curve of tilled red earth off the shoulder of Mushaway. I watched countless robot donkeys in sea-fields of remnant wisps of cotton draw up power from the very Earth.

Endless miles of desert land scattered with cactus, shrubs, and lonely cattle near the shoulder of the highway. I ate habanero pork tamales, and some other ones, from Donny’s Tamale stand near the Lamesa System.

Speleothems in all their fascinating variations in the vast Caverns near Carlsbad. I walked the bowels of an ancient reef carved by acid into wondrous channels and chasms 750 feet below the planet’s surface, and thought “Tolkien would have liked this.”

All those moments would be lost in time, like tears in a desert.

But here they will remain.

stay human,
j

With respect to Rutger Hauer

Sulphur Springs to Lake Colorado City State Park

Hello again,

We had a morning of driving in light rain and headwinds as we searched for the sun promised in the forecast. We found it west of Abilene. The thermometer finally reached a lovely 20C. The night of rain and the drive finally rinsed the van of the whitish road grime we had been collecting since the winter highways of Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, and which drew comments at a gas station in Arkansas. I’m glad the van got a rinse. I was not having any luck finding a car wash.

At one point we reached the end of a long ascent and I gradually realized that in front of us was a dense bank of wind turbines spanning to the horizon, left and right, as far as I could see. As we drove on they formed a great horseshoe that surrounded us except directly behind. I had to stop to look at them but it was impossible to get a photo that captured the scale of the installation and the number of turbines.

We moved on to our first camping spot for the van, in Lake Colorado City State Park. Driving in we passed cotton fields with huge plastic wrapped bales surrounded by short, mostly barren stalks, but there were wisps of cotton here and there.

Here is a view from the back of our campsite:

The prickly pear is everywhere and is edible... but this is a State Park. I’m not sure anyone would notice if we took a lobe. If you look carefully at the photo below you will see a red van. We’re the only people in this whole section of the campground:

We made and ate dinner watching a very nice sunset, and look forward to some stargazing.

Tomorrow’s destination is New Mexico and the Carlsbad Caverns. 

stay calm,

j

Hot Springs, AR

Hello my imaginary friend,

Today we took our longest visit en route so far and still travelled 585 km on this journey.

Our detour, Hot Springs, Arkansas was an important site for people since they discovered it thousands of years ago, and for the new Americans it developed into a booming bath town and a travel destination for decades from the early 1800s. It was the first government reserve in fact, to protect and preserve it.

Now it’s a national park. Now there is one old style bathhouse, which we planned to visit but is CLOSED ON TUESDAYS?! There is nice spa type place but after some debate, while it was inviting, we decided to pass on that option. we did explore and found hot spring water steaming everywhere:

And decorative fountains, pools where you could sit, and water bottle filling stations where we saw people filling multiple large bottles (4-5 gal) to take home and drink for the health benefits. It doesn’t taste of much but does have a high mineral content. Yeah, we took some.

So hot springs bathing experience: fail.
Mexican restaurant lunch experience: win.

At the end of Bathhouse Row is Diablos.
Guacamole has a short half life and to make sure you know it’s fresh it is prepared table side while you watch and try to unnerve the waiter (it’s his second day on the job).

It was Taco Tuesday so what else? Choose three from, I dunno, two dozen options? The grilled onion  garnish was brilliant and I don’t care what they say I am going to try that at home. And all sauces you could want.

I am not a food blogger. I like food, and this was good food, and yes I guess technically this is a blog but I’m not blogging about food. It’s all about me.

Then we toured up the scenic mountain drive, were delayed some time while the park guys removed a large pine tree, then hit the scenic roads back to the interstate to head on to Sulphur Springs, Texas.

On entering Texas there is a large scrolling red lettered sign: “65 traffic fatalities so far this year - End the streak of Texas road fatalities”.  It’s January 21st. I noticed already that the further south we travelled, the less people seemed concerned about posted speed limits. In Indiana the enforcement is obvious and people rarely exceed the limit. In Texas it’s a suggestion. Drivers are slow, exceedingly fast, or up and down, but nobody seems on the mark. The transport trucks for the most are ok but a few go as fast as can whip those horses to go - don’t get in their way.

We made it. It’s plus 6C. We may get rain but it’s not -20.

Notable roadkill: deer, coyote, hawk. Notably absent: raccoon. Maybe just don’t notice anymore?

stay safe,
J

Indianapolis to West Memphis

Hello again,

8:30 am: Indianapolis, Indiana
4:30 pm: West Memphis, Arkansas

Observations:

• Today a bobcat crossed the road ahead of us, very close, in Indiana. That was cool.

• The vast expanses of agricultural land we have passed through in the last two days is astounding.

• The distance between red-tailed hawks watching the verges for prey never seems to less than one kilometre.

• Ranking of roadkill noted today: Racoon (8); possum (5); skunk (3); coyote (2, we think...may have been other canids); fox, deer and red-tailed hawk (tied, 1 each).

• After we started out at 8:30am the air temperature tended to rise about 1 Celsius degree for every hour of travel further southwest. (For fun: What's the potential for misunderstanding with that observation as stated?)

• The headwind we fought almost all of yesterday cost about an additional 2 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres travelled compared to today's fuel consumption.

That's all I've got.

Tomorrow we are heading to Little Rock and Hot Springs. That should be relaxing, I hope.

stay calm,
j

Departure

Hello,

This is going to sound familiar- sweep off the van, pack some stuff...

And, no, this not the photo from yesterday:

But eventually we got most of the stuff into the van (only needed to the turn the van around once to go back to get more stuff that I forgot, not bad) and departed at 9:47am. Less than an hour later than planned - must be a new record. I spent more than that much time clearing snow (ours, that neighbour, this neighbour over here, next door’s visitor was parked on the street and the plow made sure that car wasn’t going anywhere soon, let’s deal with that...).

Eight hours and twenty minutes later we parked in Indianapolis.
Check that box. And I found a local craft beer:

Bonus.

And in case you were wondering because of my comment yesterday, it is not 0C it’s -11. I hope that improves with another day of southbound travel.

stay warm,
j

Minus 1

Hello again,

I like how the blog title is matching up with the outdoor temperature. I hope that continues as we move into the positives.

Not much to report except sweep off the van, pack some stuff, sweep off the van, pack some stuff....

Which machine do you think I would rather be driving today?

I enjoyed some of my recently made fermented hot pepper sauce (from this summer's harvest) with dinner and I thought- I'm going to miss this (it's pretty hot). Then- I'm going to New Mexico. I bet if I look hard I can find hot peppers there?

I'll let you know what I find. I'm looking forward to it.

stay calm,
j

Minus 2

Hello Dear Reader,

This blog is intended to be a way to share our Big Adventure with friends and family. Photos, comments about where we go and what we see, experiences. We have never attempted such an epic driving tour. Ontario to New Mexico, Arizona, points in between, and back again.

What could go wrong? I'll let you know here.

We were maybe (isn't that the best way to start a vacation? No plane to catch, no particular place to be) going to leave tomorrow but winter weather put that off a day. I'm happy about that because for me another day to prep and pack was needed, really. I was ill a couple weeks over the holidays and that set me back a lot.

Two days to departure. Van is prepped. Cargo storage on the roof partially loaded (picnic shelter, tent, sleeping pads, solar cooking thingy (I plan to write more on this as we travel).

The van has a Thule Ascent 1500 cargo bin. New winter tires (I know, I resisted at first: heading to desert country, winter tires wtf? But we have Ontario, several northern states, and sometimes destinations at altitude down south too. Why not. In January they are on sale.

Most of our regular camping gear has been heavily pared down since it's just just the two of us this time (not four people and two dogs). We want to be self sufficient when needed. We won't be far from conveniences most of the time, but sometimes we will, and sometimes we just want to be!

Prepping for a month away from work has been a challenge. Colleagues have stepped up and I am not worried. If disaster strikes, well, a couple more southern borders to cross and we're in Costa Rica, which we like very much. No problem. This blog will probably be deleted then, and I think my phone might fall out the window. These things happen.

We are playing the go with the flow game, with a few determined set points. If we make Indianapolis for our first stopover, that's a win. Depends on traffic, weather, roadworks.... Another day or and two we might be able to camp, using either the tent or the bed I've built into the rear of the Grand Caravan. The bed is untested technology I made up as I went along - and that will be another story for sure.

If you made it this far, thanks for tuning in. Starting with the next post I will try to include photos of where we are and what's happening.

stay calm,
j