April 30, 2002, Part 1
Well, another month behind us. Next month at this time it'll be 2 full years of fulltiming. Seems like forever. Seems like we've just begun.
The axle swap was a no-brainer for the most part. World-Wide RV in Mesa did the work, along with replacing a pipe leading into the gray water tank to keep it from overflowing into the insulation and then onto the ground when the tank was overfilled. Dexter Axle sent the axles at no charge to the shop, we paid to have them installed and for 8 new tires. YIKES! That put a dent in the budget. The labor cost was reasonable at $70 per hour, and the service manager, Frank, made some adjustments to compensate us for showing up at 8 AM and them not starting work until after noon the first day. Seems they needed to buy some really big jack stands to hold the trailer while it was wheel-less. I got a little huffy about it at first until I understood where he was coming from, and we'd go back there in a minute to get service again. The technicians who did the work were great fun and took care of the "little" things like replacing the wire tie I'd used to hold the filter system in place rather than just standing it in the compartment. Since the original tires were rated for 2150 pounds each and there were 8 of them, that gave the trailer wheels a total of 17,200 pounds of capacity. The sticker on the side of the trailer rates it at 18,000 pounds. I suppose the manufacturer took into account that the hitch was carrying part of the load. Still too slim a margin for us, and we bought tires that are rated for 2470 pounds each. Now while that totals 19,760, it's at 80 lbs of pressure. We only carry 60 pounds at the recommendation of the Aweigh We Go people who are supported by the insurance industry and several safety organizations if I recall correctly. Less pressure, less capacity. Still, we feel we should have been able to get more than 24,000 miles from a set of tires and will be sending letters to Newmar and to Dexter giving them the opportunity to participate in the purchase of the new tires.
We fell in love with Valle Del Oro, and have talked about possibly staying there for several months in the future. On the left one resident had what appeared to be a century plant with pink blossoms on the end of each leaf. We'd never seen that before and had to stop to take a picture. Then Barb went for a closeup and I could tell from her grin that something was up. Sure enough, the "blossoms" were plastic roses cleverly taped to the leaves. What a fun joke on us! Barb took something like 110 pictures of cactus blossoms while we were there doing some sightseeing, some of which you'll see later.
Did I mention that Barb likes cactus blossoms? Of any and all kinds? On the left, some prickly pear, and on the right a saguaro.
Nothing beats local knowledge.....and a pizza feed! We'd gone to the park's pizza party (all you can eat for $5 -- I get my money's worth on that one!) and when the people sitting across from us heard we were new to the area (they'd been coming to the park for 19 years straight!), they told us about the Apache Trail. Then a fellow from England who was among other things an ex-world class marathon runner, told us more details since he'd taken his "mum" on the road just the day before. What a wonderful loop it turned out to be! Great motorcycle road (there's a rider in the picture on the left, to the left of the utility pole) and lots of riders taking advantage of it. And on the right, some buds of blossoms on a saguaro.
A horizontal saguaro? Yup. That's me with strange arm position like the poor cactus. We're at one of the many recreation areas on the Salt River. This is the marina, restaurant, & RV park at Apache Lake. There are a series of dams on the river for irrigation and flood control along with hydroelectric production.
Canyon Lake on the left and an ocotillo in bloom on the right.
Better shot of the ocotillo bloom, and then an old fat guy standing alongside of an old skinny guy. The century plant really doesn't live for 100 years typically, they're just named that. Normal life before blooming is 8 to 50 years depending on the specie. They die after they bloom. I don't plan on blooming any time soon.
One of the more obvious critters around are lizards. This one kept an eye on me while I was using the pit toilet. There are a variety of lizards around here, and they're all fun to spot scurrying around. Now, on the right is another ocotillo bloom. These plants look absolutely dead, with their brown dry thin arms showing no sign of life at all....except for this beautiful bloom at the tip. Sometimes (it must have something to do with water) the arms will have little green clamshell shaped leaves about the size of Barb's little fingernail hiding among the thorns, but usually it's just the brown.
Same old fat guy, different old skinny guy. The blossoms in the picture on the right are all it's going to do before dying. By the way, these shoots grown about 4" a day--can almost watch it happen!
The white on Barb's cheeks are the string that comes with a Tilly hat to keep it on your head, no matter from which direction the wind is blowing. The rock she's resting on is covered with that light green color, which looks for all the world like a kind of lichen, and on the right is a picture of the string behind the head that Tilly hats have. And also a good shot of some of the 22 miles of dirt road we got to enjoy on this Apache Trail Loop. Did I mention it's a wonderful road? Or that the Jeep is wonderful? Great views, lots of curves, sharp drop-offs.....great fun!
More shots of the road and terrain. On the left, it's that line dropping from right to left and on the right it's that squiggle running down the floor of the canyon. Did I mention it's a great road? The brown band in the foreground on the right is a make believe guard rail. It's about 1/16th of an inch thick, and wouldn't slow anything down that was heading off the road. Did give a visual (false) feeling of security though.
At the bottom (on the left) is a small one-way bridge with some tempting caves in the background. The scenery on this trip was awesome. And then there's always a surprise if you keep your eyes open. We have no idea at all why these fish are all lined up along the edge of the road. It's a long ways from the lake. All kinds of speculation as to what happened here. Vulture food?
I did mention that Barb likes cactus blossoms, didn't I? I think it's because of the contrast of new life and near death. The desert isn't any more gentle with its occupants today than it was when the Native Americans first came to this land.
We learned that algae is the reason this lake, upper end of Apache Lake, is so green. These two pictures are looking upstream and downstream. It's the middle of the three lakes. And yes, to the rights of the picture on the left, you can see a bit of this great road we're on.
There's more of that yellow lichen, and some green as well. How this stuff grows and thrives here is a secret. I guess God knows. And then the first and biggest of the dams, Roosevelt. And drat the luck, we're back on pavement again. Sure was fun while it lasted!
While the water looks blue out there under the bridge, it's really still kind of green up here by the dam. Beautiful Roosevelt Lake, and being this close to Phoenix, we guess that more than a few people enjoy it on the weekends.
AHA! Native American ruins! I'm a sucker for these kinds of things, and Barb isn't hard to talk into joining me. Of course, there's a cactus that needs it's picture taken on the 1/2 mile 350 foot elevation change hike to the ruins. This was the first time we've ever been to anything like this, and it was kind of bitter-sweet. Glad we're able to see it first hand, but sorry so much vandalism has taken place (from what guide books tell us). I'm a bit of a skeptic naturally, and usually wonder about the veracity of stuff I read in books.
On the left is an example of the two story configuration, and on the right is another room. As you can see, the doors were small. Barb's 5'2" tall; small because the people were small and they wanted to keep the heat in during the winter. I had to really scrunch down to poke around. The walls were built of stone with a mud plaster. The fires were inside, and the smoke made the walls black. Apparently the walls were re-coated with this plaster/mud on a regular basis, but nobody today really knows why. The speculation is that the lighter walls made it lighter inside.
On the left is what is believed to have been the main entrance. I'm standing in the entrance looking at the point of entry which is at the point of the "V". The little door on the right is thought to have been an entrance into a storage room. The wall to the left is the inside wall of that structure in the picture directly above this one. On the right is the view of the valley and Roosevelt Lake where it's thought that these people grew their crops. Looks like a long ways to walk to work to me, to say nothing of hauling water and everything else up to here. Not hard for me to understand why eventually they got up and left; of course, nobody knows for sure why they did.
The King surveying his domain.... or more accurately, a pooped out walker taking a break. Not sure why Barb wanted this picture on the right. There aren't any blossoms on that saguaro, but that's me getting ready to walk back down. Fascinating place.
The path back down to the Jeep, and the saguaro keeping watch. The bush (cactus) in the middle of the picture on the right is one of the more complete ocotillos we'd seen. Most have suffered some kind of damage from the elements or critters or both. It was in full bloom, as well.
On the left is a close-up of that ocotillo. And on the right is where we saved $7 each. We didn't bother to go in. This castle was built by a father for his daughter because she loved sand castles, and he had to leave their home because of health reasons and come live here. He finished it, but then died before he could give it to her. Sad story. Sits up on a hill overlooking the valley, and if it had been $5 each we might have ventured it. As it is, we decided to go visit the Phoenix Botanical Gardens instead which, as you will see, was a very good choice.