Arizona to Colorado

 

Monday we left Tubac and went North on I-19, went east on a regular highway, and picked up I-10 east. We continued to the Hatch cutoff, and stopped in Hatch for lunch at B & E Burritos. We stopped into one of dozens of chili shops in Hatch, and bought some powdered chile. The Clerk told us that most people in Hatch are Mexicans, who work in the fields up and down the Rio Grande. We continued north on I-25 to Bosque Birdwatchers RV park, which was almost a 400 mile day. We dropped the rig and drove over to the viewing area, but did not see the thousands of Sandill Cranes that we had hoped for. The next morning we were there at dawn, and watched hundreds of snow geese, including some “blue morph” geese, who have dark bodies instead of the white of snow geese.

Sunset at Bosque de Apache National Wildlife Refuge

Tuesday we headed to nearby Socorro, where we visited the New Mexico Tech mineral museum, which had a bewildering collection of rocks, meteorites, petrified wood, and mining paraphernalia. The lady in the gift shop helped Sandi buy some rock books and small rocks for Jack. We stopped by the mission church, which recently celebrated their 400^th year anniversary, but it was locked. 

 We continued on to Albuquerque, where we enjoyed the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Richard had been there years before, but the exhibits had been totally redesigned. Richard had a lengthy conversation with Jon Ghahate, who answered the “tribe or pueblo” question in a very roundabout way. He pointed out that the concept of nation states really dates from the 1700s, and the US was arguably the first nation state, as opposed to kingdom or city-state. The Spaniards referred to the indian villages as “Pueblos”, which is the Spanish word for cities. The Indians did not refer to themselves that way; each tribe had its own name for itself, in their native language. The Indian languages did not have a word that referred to all the Indians.  Sandi bought some earrings from an indian from Santo Domingo Pueblo.

We continued on to Santa Fe, where we camped at the Rancheros de Santa Fe, which is open in a very limited way during the winter months, but does have excellent wifi.  Sandi had work to do and needed good wifi.

Wednesday we drove to Las Vegas, New Mexico, where we visited the Plaza hotel on the main plaza.  When we stopped in the World Treasures Travelers Cafe, we found many weavings hanging, and a couple of looms; we spoke at length to Teresa, whose mother had run a weaving co-operative.  We saw her later on the street, speaking to another lady about a filming that was to be done that day.   Las Vegas is better preserved than most towns, and is often used as a setting for movies. At one point it was a railroad hub, and the largest town in New Mexico.

 We then went to visit the Castaneda Hotel, next to the railroad, which was a Harvey House hotel.  A developer had bought the Plaza and Castaneda Hotels and brought them back to their former glory.

We stopped in Raton, where Sandi took a business call.   I walked around and visited the local museum.  Raton seemed very run down, mostly empty storefronts, quite different than Las Vegas. We continued over Raton Pass to Trinidad Lake State Park, where we had a camping reservation.  The news from Northern Colorado was about an ice storm that hit Wednesday AM, so we wanted to let the ice melt before we headed home.   

Thursday we drove home, stopping in Colorado Springs for lunch and gas.  We arrived home mid-afternoon.   

Tubac, San Xavier de Bac, Saguaros

On Wednesday, after a little birdwatching, we left the campground around 10 am. We drove to Nogales, where we got propane at Tractor Supply, and continued north to Pilot, where we bought gas. We followed the directions to our campground; there were a lot of turns. The campground, Sunflower Camp, is as funky as we had expected, with the owner living in a geodesic dome, and the laundry a single washer and dryer, with an honor pay box. After getting set up, we drove to town, and had lunch at Shelly's, where there was a cowboy with a guitar singing. We then started visiting the art and craft stores. Some were more fine art, some were imports from Mexico, and many were mixed. Sandi bought at a couple of stores, including Mexican pottery from the Country Shop, and a kind of tile from Cobalt Fine Arts Gallery. We visited around twelve stores, perhaps visiting one third of the many shops. I was looking at the kinetic wind art, thinking about making a piece of my own. We shopped at the Tubac Market, and headed back to camp for dinner.

On Thursday, Sandi had a couple of business calls; I dropped her off at the library so that she had a good internet connection for a zoom call. After that we went to the Presidio at Tubac, where we again saw “Pixie”, who we spoke to at the Cobalt gallery. It was worth the time to see the complicated history of Tubac. The history of Tubac goes back to around 1750; De Anza left from Tubac when he went cross country to establish San Francisco. Apache raids were an ongoing problem. We had dinner at Wisdom restaurant in Tumacaccori. We came back to try to bird near the Santa Cruz River, but there were almost no birds to see or even hear. Sandi did laundry at the campground in the evening.

Friday, we headed for the Desert Museum in Tucson, where we saw more different cactus plants than we knew existed. We also saw Mexican gray wolves. We had lunch there, and enjoyed just walking around the grounds. We also learned that Saguaro cactus grow between 1000 and 4000 ft elevation, and do not like the bottom of valleys, as it can get too cold at night. There are four kinds of Desert in the US, the Sonoran, the Great Basin, the Mojave, and the Chihuahuan. The Saguaro cactus is the mark of the Sonoran desert.  We also saw their Javelina, which we had not seen before. All in all, a very worthwhile visit. 

 We continued on to the adjacent Saguaro National Park, where we did some hiking and saw more saguaros than we could count. We also hiked to some petroglyphs that were dated by style to the Hohokam culture of about 1000 AD. In most cases, petroglyphs are difficult to date, let alone interpret. We got back to our campground after dark.

Acorn Woodpecker

Saturday, we headed for Madera Canyon. We stopped at Santa Rita Lodge, where there is a bird watching area with many feeders. The Mexican Jays and the lesser goldfinches were there in force. We drove to the top, decided that the trails there were too steep, and drove down to the bottom, where we hiked next to the creek. There was another group with an birding instructor; she managed to see interesting birds in the trees, but we did not get a clear look at many of them. We came back to the lodge, where we were amused by a dozen turkeys, who had learned to jump up and bump the feeders to get food to drop on the ground. We also were able to see a pair of Hepatic Tanagers, a brightly colored bird which is relatively rare. We had a picnic lunch in the canyon, and then headed to the San Xavier del Bac mission, which was founded in 1692 by Father Kino. The current church was built in the late 1700s, and is the oldest European structure in Arizona. It is still an active parish, serving the O'odham tribe. .We finished the day visiting a few more shops in Tubac.

San Xavier de Bac

Sunday, we started at the cemetery, where we again saw many homemade monuments. We were surprised to see many graves just covered with a pile of rock, but we learned later that was the custom of the O'odham people. 

 Then we went to Tumacacori, another of the missions founded by Father Kino. This is a National Historical Park, declared so by Teddy Roosevelt. The buildings are partially restored; the grounds include an orchard of heirloom trees, a lime kiln, and a cemetery. The village was abandoned in the 1700 due to Apache raids. We chatted with Vincente, a potter connected to Mata Ortiz, who was at the park demonstrating; Sandi bought a couple of small dishes. 

 We returned to Tubac, where we again had lunch at Shelly's restaurant. We finished the day by wandering around Tubac; Sandi bought some yarn, and we stopped at a copper art studio, where Richard learned a few things.

Patagonia Arizona

After breakfast on Friday, we headed for the birding trail at Patagonia Lake State Park. We ran into a group of people with binoculars, who asked if we were joining the bird hike; we did not know that the hike was happening, but we joined. Mary was our guide; she is a volunteer who gets a free campsite for volunteering. The birders kept calling out birds that they saw; we probably did not see half of the birds named, but we did see some. We saw both a Northern Cardinal and a Pyrruloxia, a kind of desert Cardinal. We learned to identify the Scaup; distinguishing between the lesser and greater scaup was beyond our abilities. ;-) Sandi enjoyed seeing the Great Blue Heron, but the guide was disappointed not to see the less common Green Heron. We learned that there were birding boat tours in the morning, and decided to sign up.

We started listening to Patagonia KPUF, a real community radio station. The town also has a monthly newspaper, the Patagonia Regional Times, supported by donations and advertising.

We headed for the Patagonia Library, which we were told had the best free internet signal in town. Sandi had a business Zoom call, while Richard did internet research. Then we went to Gathering Grounds for lunch; they were short -handed, so service seemed slow, although the food was good. We had an outside table, and the people watching was interesting. Sandi noted that people around us seemed like us, older and educated. Patagonia is an old mining town, which is now more of an ecotourism destination, with birding the big draw. We also visited a couple of arts & crafts stores, and picked up beer and lettuce from the Patagonia Market. We came back to the campground, where we went to the visitor center and bought our tickets for the boat birding tour Saturday morning. We talked to a couple from Quebec, who had founded an organization dedicated to clean up of outdoor recreation areas, partnering with businesses. We talked to some other Canadians as well. There are more Coloradoans and Canadians at the campground than we might have expected. The campground was noisier and busier than the previous night, due to the weekend.

Saturday morning we went on the boat birding tour, led by Mary, with Roth driving. Mary pointed out many ducks, including Merganzers and Shovelbills. We had a mystery in that there was an animal in a tree that no one could identify. Our best guess is that he was a Coati, a kind of Racoon more common in Mexico, but we cannot be sure. 

 After the tour, we headed for town, stopping at the very interesting cemetery, with some graves decorated with seemingly random artifacts, such as rotary dial phones. Sandi thought that some of the graves must have been cosmic tolks. One grave was covered with mirror glass. There we many Hispanic names, and some graves with homemade markers; the photo is of a marker that includes horseshoes.

We visited the Paton Hummingbird center, where we saw a violet capped hummingbird, a rare bird indeed. We had “burros” at Pancho Villa's restaurant, and started walking. We stopped at Dia de los Muertos, where we heard about the woman artist who had created the store, and her remarkable son, focused on going good in the world. We stopped at the bakery and bought fudge, a bottle of wine, and some ice cream. They only had one loaf of bread left, but we learned that we could call and order bread. We have been very impressed with the local businesses. The bartender told us that a singer-songwriter would start playing in a few minutes, but we kept walking. We picked up some vegetables at Red Mountain grocery store, a cash only place, and headed back to the campground, where we picked up a permit to hike on Sunday.

Sunday we went for a hike on the Blackhawk trail, which took us across the spillway, down to the old railroad grade, and then back up the Sonoita creek trail, about 3 miles. Pretty but very dry, except near the creek. We had lunch at Common Grounds, where many of the customers were bicyclists. We spoke to the lady in the next campsite, who retired, sold her house, and is now full timing with a pickup truck and an Airstream trailer. She let me borrow her Oru folding kayak, which I found surprisingly light. I enjoyed paddling around the upper end of the lake. There were hundreds of blackbirds in the reeds, and a Great Blue Heron on a stump.

On Monday, we went on the bird hike with Suska, followed by a bird boat tour with Mary. The boat tour was windy, but we saw a flotila of Merganzers,, a couple of blue herons, a turkey vulture, a Phainopepla, a Pyrrholoxia, and some Ruddy Ducks and Northern Shovelers. After the boat tour, we headed for the Paton Hummingbird center, and again saw the rare violet crowned Hummingbird. We walked in The Nature Conservancy property, but did not see many birds, as it was the middle of the day. We had ice cream at Gathering Grounds, and bought some groceries at Red Mountain foods, where we talked to the manager, soon to be owner. We drove up to the old school, now a museum, and the office for Borderlands Restoration Network, which collects seeds.  There is a roadside shrine cut into the rock by the side of the road by the Telles family, fulfilling a vow from when their sons were in WWII.  People continue to leave offerings.

On Tuesday we headed for Nogales, AZ, and started with lunch at La Ley, a funky restaurant located on a side street between two auto shops. The reviews on Yelp and Trip Advisor were very good, but we were not impressed with the tacos that we had ordered. Perhaps if we had ordered something different we would have enjoyed it. We parked on the street near the old courthouse, and walked towards the border. There were many empty storefronts, perhaps due to the border closures. All the signs on the shops were in Spanish, no surprise. There was a binational hazardous material exercise on the railroad. Lots of banners, but not something open to the public. 

 At the border we talked to a border patrol agent, who told us that we could cross the border without a passport, just an ID and our vaccination cards. We had already decided that we were not going to cross. He took our photo, with the border wall in the background.   Note the razor wire.  We visited the museum in the old firehouse, but it was not as good as most local museums. The attendant told us that Nogales was created by the Santa Fe railroad, who built a line to the port of Guaymas, Mexico. We found some ice cream, and then tried to reach the border from the road to Patagonia. We got close, and our phones welcomed us to Mexico, but we did not reach the actual border.

Heading South

 Tuesday we started our trip by driving south on I-25 towards New Mexico. We stopped for fuel at Costco in Colorado Springs. It was a windy day, and the highway department had posted wind advisories. We decided to get off the highway, and wandered around Pueblo, visiting Pueblo Lake State park; the campground was on a point, so very windy. We stopped at the Steelworks museum, but found that it was closed for a new exhibit. We then looked at the weather forecast, and saw that the wind was going down, so we got back on the highway. We headed over Raton Pass into New Mexico, and stopped at the very funky Santa Fe Trail campground in Springer, right as it was getting dark. I was beat, and headed for bed about 7 PM! It is work to drive an RV with high winds.

I felt better on Wednesday morning, and we continued to head south. We stopped in Albuquerque for gas at Costco, and then picked up a good lunch at Vic's Daily Cafe, which the gas attendant had recommended. We stopped in Truth or Consequences, looked at the veteran's memorial, and took a hike down to the river. Like many towns in New Mexico, it had seen better days, when its hot springs were more popular. 

 We continued south to Caballo Lake State Park, where the campground host was nice enough to show us where we should go, and explain the reservation system. In New Mexico, the camping fee includes park admission, which is different from Colorado. Like Colorado, you have to make a reservation even if you are already in the campsite, and no one else is there. As Sandi was on the phone to the reservation desk, we heard and saw Sandhill Cranes flying overhead, probably headed to one of the wildlife refuges on the Rio Grande. Sandi was really happy and grateful to see the Sandhills. Our campground was pleasant and quiet; we took a brief stroll to a point overlooking the lake, which was glassy, reflecting the mountains.

Thursday morning, we heard the Sandhills again, and got on the road about 8. We bought gas in Demming, a truck stop at Road Forks, and then at the Love's gas station in Benson. Sandi had a business call, and we knew that cell coverage south of I-10 would not be great, so we stayed at Love's; I bought propane, ate lunch, and when her call was over we headed for Patagonia Lake State Park. We arrived at the lake about 3 PM, and were pleased with the campground and our campsite. It was shirtsleeve weather, very nice, at least until the sun went down. We met Bill Cotton, a retired CSU professor from Fort Collins, when Richard asked him about his wooden kayaks. Several other campers had brought kayaks. Richard kind of wished he had brought a boat. The WIFI at the visitor center is not working, but we have a couple of bars on our cell phones. We ate grilled salmon at the picnic table at our campsite.