April 2 – 15, 2018
Wickenburg • Safford • Campbell's RV, Gila Wilderness • Glenwood Catwalk • Apache Creek (Reserve, NM) Boondocking • Pie Town! • Santa Fe Ranchero RV • Homol'ovi SP (Winslow). 2 weeks.
Monday, April 2
Wickenburg, drove out to see Vulture Mine, but just a driveway, as it was late in the afternoon. Found some shopping in the old downtown areas, but a pretty quiet place.
Tuesday, April 3
Safford for one night, on the lake, good birding area.
Wednesday, April 4
Skipped Silver City and Robert's Lake for deeper into the mountains for the Gila Hot Springs at the Campbell RV park among the sheep 4 miles from Gila Cliff Dwellings. Toured ruins, last time I saw these was 1975. Nice cool weather, beautiful wilderness. At the site of the hot springs is a working ranch with horses, and tons of goats, and nutty 'kids', jumping off things. But sadly, they are meat goats, awwww, Same for the sheep.
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| Today's cliff dweller. |
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| Inside looking out |
Thursday, April 5
Back toward the visitor center for a hike to some hot springs, but they were very shallow so back to camp where, across the street, were three developed hot spring pools. Bill soaked. I got a Mimbres colter mug at the visitor center. Finally.
Friday, April 6
New territory driving north from Silver City along west side wilderness to Reserve (former location of Scientology youth 'school' back in the 90s) and beyond. Stopped in Glenwood to walk the "Catwalk" built in an old mining area in a canyon, using the old pipeline path.
Lucked out to find Apache Creek forest service campground, free and boondocking. Nice spot, super windy but managed to get a bike ride in -- had to know what was further on down the road. Well, so glad I wondered, turns out there was a trail leading to petroglyphs on the other side of the rock-capped ridge. very cool discovery. Had we not rode around on bikes, we never would have known -- no signal to research. Actually sat out with a campfire.
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| Apache Creek. We soon found out that the caprock in the background was full of petryglyphs. |
Drove rather than biked over to interpretive trail not knowing what was up there yet… so excited to see on the trailhead sign that it is a quarter mile of rock art. And guess who didn't have a phone or a camera. Oh well, got to enjoy with no distractions. Long drive, 4 hours to Santa Fe, but first a stop at Pie Town, finally after two other tries -- we never check the dates and times first. Got to meet Kathy, the owner, who was great and has found her calling. Fabulous pie too, chocolate chess for me and chocolate cream for Bill -- with one to go for later. Arrived late in the day at Rancheros RV outside Santa Fe on the east side and stayed in, enough time in the truck for one day.
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| Pie Town at last! |
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| Bill with owner Kathy Knapp |
Sunday, April 8
Starting to drive around and get the lay of the land in Eldorado, check out neighborhoods. While checking out the shopping in Eldorado I chatted up a woman at random who suggested a realtor for us, and so glad she did, that worked out well. But besides that, she moved here from Steamboat Springs, against her wishes (hmm), her retired Army husband is a photographer hobbyist, she weaves, wants to learn how to spin AND they have a 2011 Airstream! Do I have some sort of mystic powers??? Yes, once I get OUT of the vortex! Made it over to the outlet mall, etc. So after that we HAD to have dinner at Maria's. Heavenly.
Monday, April 9
Made contact with the Realtor, Ginger with Barker Realty, who works out of the most interesting Railyard office, an old railroad warehouse. She will take us around tomorrow. yahoo! Had an early big lunch-dinner at Cowgirls for the Mother of all Cheeseburgers, and walked over to the Plaza for some jewelry eyeballing.
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| 2.5 lbs and $22,000. Should he get it? |
Met Ginger at Eldorado and visited several homes there, none too exciting. Had no idea what a huge place this area is. Schools and everything. Got some shopping in on Cerrillos. Dinner, yes, again at Maria's. This time we ate in the bar again, but out in a table and man was it loud. Just some rude loud talking ladies, sheesh, just turn it down a tad.
Wednesday, April 11
Met Ginger at 9:30 at her office to see several more homes in a wide range of neighborhoods, some duds some interesting, namely 96 Seton Village Road (WAY up on a south-facing mountain with 180 degree view and cool construction), and 7 Capital Peak in Rancho Viejo. Covered the NE and SW areas this time. Had lunch at an Asian restaurant in De Vargas, then back out for some broker open houses. Ginger invited us to dinner so at 6pm we drove to their house off the Santa Fe Trail way up a mountain on Happy Trails Road, which they got to name about 30 years ago. Beautiful custom home her husband Larry designed on an OLD Mac! Delightful evening sharing way too much info.
Thursday, April 12
On our own today, checking more deeply into 7 Capital Peak, problem is, it has an HOA and allows no trailers or outbuildings. Too bad, beautiful place, well built. and yes, too much anyway. Had dinner in Eldorado at La Plancha, pretty darn good, Salvadoran-Mexican. Sadly we must leave tomorrow. It is SO windy out so we stayed an extra day so as not to drive in 50 mph winds.
Friday, the 13th
Left Santa Fe heading into the strong winds, destination either McHood boondocking outside Winslow or Homol'ovi, where there is water and electric. As it turned out the McHood was packed and miserably windy so we made the wise choice of moving to Homo. Stayed inside it was SO windy. This should be the last day of it.
Saturday, April 14
Winslow. Rock Art Ranch today. Called Brantly, the 81 year old owner who answers all the calls, and reserved a few days before and were supposed to be there at 10 am but of course we were 35 minutes late. No big deal, just missed the inside barn tour, where all the POT ARTIFACTS were. Got to see them at least. About 7 cars of people were on the tour, which then consisted of driving way out on the ranch land to a pueblo ruin, kiva, hogan and sweat lodge, then to a VERY UNIQUE flat stone map of the area showing permanent water, then to the canyon of more than 3,000 petroglyphs, all just about 25 miles outside and southeast of Winslow. $35 a person, but you can then return for free as many times as you wish. Apparently many archaeologists have studied this area thru the university and say that the remnants go back to 500 BC, wow, that's way before "anasazi". The Hopi seem to lay claim to the area and still use it for ceremonies, etc. Carbon dating has been done on the petroglyphs as well, claiming it goes way way back. So there must be so many layers upon layers of civilization. Pretty amazing place. PS, the granddaughter who lead the end of the tour, says the black on some of the rocks in the area is from the meteor blast 20 minutes up the road at Meteor Crater. Makes sense. Meanwhile, this is a working ranch, cows are strolling over it all, and the dogs walk over the pueblo ruins as Brantly explains, pretty neat.
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| Black and white walking among the black on white. |
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| This is a Kokopelli. |
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| The canyon with more than 3,000 petroglyphs. |
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| Dogs get away with everything in an excavated ruin. |
Sunday, April 15
One last drive up to see the ruins of Homol'ovi there in camp, still there are potsherds all over, good to see. Only a two hour drive to Sedona from Winslow, so took time to wash off the truck in Windslow, that ranch ride did a number of it. Dust on everything.
RIP: Art Bell
