Our main reason for making this stop in the Arizona desert is to visit another national monument--Chiricahua National Monument. We first had to learn to pronounce its name--Cheer-i-cow-wah. It was not named just to confuse us, instead it is the tribe of Indians that lived in these mountains many years ago. As we pulled into the Chiricahua National Monument parking lot, we got our first glimpse of some of the special rocks in this park.
Denisa had read that there is a hiker shuttle that runs once a day at 9:00 a.m. So we set the alarm early this morning to make the hour-long drive to the park to sign up when the office opened at 8:30. It was a full shuttle, as the ranger took us to the top of the mountain that morning. Our first glimpse at the area below Massai Point was breath-taking. The valley below us was filled with an army of stone columns.
The trail took us immediately downwards. It is a great service to have a shuttle drop-off at the highest point, allowing us to walk down-hill most of the day.
The Chiricahua Indians called this the "land of standing up rocks."
This area fell victim to a fire in 2011, so many of the trees in this section are now charred sticks among those standing up rocks.
We continued deeper into Echo Canyon, filled with more unusual rock formations. We couldn't begin to understand how this see-saw rock was formed, but it was perfectly balanced on the huge boulder beneath it.
During the shuttle ride, we had struck up a conversation with our new friend, Doug. He was on a road-trip from his home-state of Kansas, and he had just hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (and of course back to the top). Since we made that hike two years ago, we had lots of hiking adventures in common. We had also planned to hike the same 10-mile route here at Chiricahua, so we gladly invited him to walk with us today. He took this picture of us together beside another unusual rock.
We all agreed that some of the views across Echo Canyon reminded us of Bryce Canyon National Park--another place that we all had hiked. The endless sea of columns here were much like the number of hoodoos at Bryce Canyon.
By the time we hiked to the grotto section, we were shedding our jackets and rolling up sleeves. It was going to be another perfect-temperature hiking day for us!
Like he often does, Mark was climbing on top of the grotto, taking this picture of the large rock formations around us.
It's hard to describe the grandeur of the scene, and the size of these columns. Mark is standing beside one, and you can barely see him at the base.
This area was part of a volcanic explosion, that settled many layers of ash that cooled and hardened. Over thousands of years, cracks formed and weathering separated these cracked rocks into columns. Some of those large columns were leaning heavily on each other.
We enjoyed hiking with Doug, telling stories of our favorite trails and giving each other travel advice. We could seldom finish a story, however, before we were interrupted with more exclamations of "Wow!" as we turned another curve into another field of beautiful rock formations.
Our hike today actually took us on 8 different trails. Now we are on the Mushroom Rock Trail, named after that rock high atop the stone columns at the cliff edges.
Occasionally we found ourselves in shaded areas, where the snow had turned into slippery ice on the trail.
At one point we were on the ridge. Looking one direction, we saw a normal high desert valley below us.
On the other side of the ridge was a very abnormal valley filled with stone columns as far as we could see. That's because this area is called a sky island--an isolated mountain range that rises above the usual grassland.
The rock formations began to have more personalities as we hiked further down the Balanced Rock Trail.
This was one of our favorite formations--"The Big Balanced Rock." It seems that a more superlative word should be used as a descriptor than "big." You can barely see Mark's silhouette at the base of the pedestal rock, so that entire formation must be over 50 feet tall. The signpost said the stone balanced on such a tiny point weighed 100 tons, and was 22 feet in diameter.
The view from another angle of the Big Balanced Rock reminds us that we have wandered into many of His wonders today!
Named "The Pinnacle Balanced Rock," this unusual formation shows up on postcards and park t-shirts. Mark certainly looks handsome standing beside such a handsome stone.
Believe it or not, we are just now entering the "Heart of Rocks Loop" where some of the most-photographed formations can be seen. Between the beautiful skies and perfect temperatures, all three of us feel like we have been richly blessed this day.
This loop is filled with massive columns that just happen to have some unique shapes. We'll run through some of them, such as the "Camel's Head" in the center of the picture below.
There's also the "Duck on a Rock",
and the "Kissing Rocks."
While Mark is good at scrambling onto rocks, Denisa is only good at crawling under them. It's a good thing she was holding up these boulders so no one was hurt.
From the top of the "Heart of Rocks" loop, we could look down into the valley and view rock columns as far as our eyes could see. Our conversations with Doug were peppered with words like, "blessed" and "so pretty!" and it was a joy sharing this hike with him. We knew we had a lot in common when he brought out his home-made energy cookies--and they were made from the exact same recipe as the ones we had packed as well! But we could tell that our picture-taking pace was slowing him down. He was on vacation, instead of on retirement, and he was planning to make another stop today.
At 1:30, he finally decided that he needed to speed to the park exit if he was going to make it to another park before he ran out of daylight. So we bid him safe travels, and stopped to eat our picnic lunch among these massive stone faces. We get to eat with some of the best views on our lunch breaks, with tables and chairs sculpted by the Maker's hand.
By now we had hiked for over 4 hours, and we were on sensory-overload. We'll remember this zig-zag path through Chiricahua National Monument for many years.
As we hiked the last three miles of the hike, we were just a tad bit bored. The standing columns on the opposite cliffs were bathed in sunlight, but they weren't as grand and impressive as the giants we had just walked through. The good news is we were continuing to walk downhill, and our side of the canyon was in the shade.
By the end of the hike, Denisa's Vivo-smart recorded that we had hiked over 11 miles, and walked up the equivalent of 95 flights of stairs. We felt like most of the hike was downhill after our shuttle ride to the top, but there was obviously some positive elevation change in those 11 miles. We were tired and hungry by the end of our day, and we decided that cooking sounded like too much work. So we stopped at a little place in Willcox, Arizona, that served barbecue in a railroad car.
After a great hike and a big platter of barbecue, we have to admit that we are spoiled and blessed beyond our retirement dreams.
As we leave Las Cruces, New Mexico, we pulled back onto Interstate 10, ready for the three-hour drive to our next destination. We are surrounded by flat desert sand, with scraggly mesquite and cactus to entertain us on our drive.
We are blessed with a calm wind day, but that seems to be unusal for this stretch of I-10. Signs warning about dust storms show up frequently along the highway.
Those incessant winds pick up the desert sand, and can make this stretch of road quite treacherous. There was a constant barrage of signs that warned us of the impending doom of a windy day. We won't include all the signs, but they also included, "Zero Visibility Possible" and "Don't Stop During Wind Storms." This can be a frightening stretch of road during winds that cause white-out visibility.
Because we were blessed with a wind-less day, we could just smile at the wind warning signs that were our constant companions. Another constant in this part of New Mexico are signs advertising "The Thing." They have 184 miles to plant billboards that will cause such intrigue that carloads of people will be forced to stop at exit 322. The good news is if "The Thing" is disappointing, you can find solace with ice cream at DQ.
We also took pictures of the Arizona sign as we crossed another state border in the motor home.
It was interesting to see that Arizona is not quite as frightening with their highway signs. Their "Limited Visibility" warnings are only in effect when the light is flashing, and for some reason we felt less prone to death by wind storm in our new state.
We rolled into our new RV park home--Dwayne's Mountain View RV Park--just west of Bowie, Arizona. We are here to visit a national monument and a national historic park. Like with many RV Parks, we are situated between a busy highway (I-10), and the railroad tracks. Denisa took a picture of one of the many trains that zipped by at 50 mph every day (and night).
We are now much smarter about railroads, as our camp host, Tommy, worked on the railroad for 30 years before retiring. He explained the different cars, the different tracks, the machines that do maintenance on the tracks, etc. When he needed a visual example, a train rolled by like it was on cue. Notice how close those train cars are to the RV at the end of the campground. We have found many times RV parks are built on the cheapest land, that happens to be situated right next to the tracks.
We also discovered that we were in the middle of pistachio country.
After seeing many pecan trees at our last stop, we are now surrounded by the smaller and whiter pistachio trees. Harvest was in September, and these groves that stretch on for miles will soon be leafing out again and producing the 2017 crop.
Even though most of the trees were completely bare, we saw a few nuts hanging on this tree.
The trees are shaken and the nuts are collected on conveyor belt pads that catch them before they hit the ground. The few nuts still on the tree were ones that didn't split open naturally, and their protective membrane has now adhered tightly to the shell. So these pistachio nuts weren't any good, but it was interesting to us to see how pistachios are grown.
Our campground is a few miles outside of Bowie, Arizona. After driving around the village, our only description is that Bowie is a sad little town. All of the businesses are boarded up except for the mini-mart that specializes in beer and ice. There are three churches in town, and we chose to attend the only one that had their Sunday worship time posted outside. We arrived at the Bowie United Methodist Church to find it was a bi-lingual service. The bulletin was longer than usual, as the left hand side was printed in English, and the right hand side was in Spanish.
We sang half the songs in English, and half in Spanish. The one song we sang from the hymnal had both languages printed. We're working on our Spanish pronunciation this weekend!
The preacher gave his sermon in English first, then it seemed like he did an abbreviated Spanish version. It was certainly an interesting service, and a new cultural experience for us. There were only 8 of us in the congregation, and afterwards we were invited to stay for breakfast. The preacher headed straight for the kitchen to prepare a dish from his native Spain. He used potato chips and eggs in an omelet-style dish that was served with picante sauce.
Because we have no cable or satellite dish, we wondered how we would watch the Super Bowl at our new location. We were graciously invited by Tommy and Kim to a party at their place. They had a television set up outside, and we enjoyed a feast of football food while 8 of us watched the suspenseful game together. One couple left during the third quarter when the winner had obviously been determined, only to return for the overtime!
We feel welcomed to Arizona, and we're already learning more interesting things and meeting more interestering people in our new home in the desert. And the desert sunsets are some of the best we have enjoyed this year!
Just like living in a sticks and bricks house, things in a motor home break or need to be replaced. We have an extended warranty that covers the big stuff, but we have learned that it's easier and sometimes even cheaper to fix the little stuff without using that warranty. Denisa is proud that Mark is a handy-man with the skills and talent to fix almost anything!
Our kitchen faucet has been leaking, and he had already done everything possible to tighten and stop the leak. But the hard water deposits over the last several years had taken its toll on the faucet.
So we purchased a new one at Lowe's. We decided to go with brushed stainless steel instead of the oil-rubbed bronze finish. Even though it won't match the cabinet handles, it will match the sink and the refrigerator.
Just for our own information in case we ever have to do this again, we also had to buy adapter pieces to transform this regular sink into our motor home plumbing.
The first step was unloading the amazing amount of stuff that we store under the sink. Now Mark could fit there instead.
He got the old faucet pieces disconnected and removed relatively easily. Then Mark found the first kink in the plan. The holes in our counter top weren't big enough for the new faucet. The holes would have to be enlarged somehow. The idea of drilling holes in the counter caused Denisa to have the same expression as Mark is displaying.
The good news is that Mark saved his nice set of drill bits, which included a bit specifically made to drill the size hole we would need.
The bad news is that Mark didn't keep his old (worn-out) drill. But we have found fellow campers to be very friendly, and our neighbor was happy to lend his. Now the problem is the drill bit is designed to drill a hole in a solid piece--not to enlarge a current hole. It needed a solid surface to hold the bit in place. Mark thought a sturdy, but thin piece of wood could be put over the hole to provide a solid surface. That would be no problem in our old house with a shop full of scrap wood. But what would we have on board the motor home? Mark is certainly resourceful! He thought of those sturdy, but thin mouse traps we had bought during our mouse-hunting fiasco.
He used gorilla tape to adhere it to the perfect spot on the counter, and drilled through the wood and counter top layers smoothly.
This was the little donut-shaped piece of counter that was removed to make way for the faucet's larger water lines.
That's a pretty professional job of lining up and making a nice smooth hole! Denisa is feeling much better about this project now.
Mark had to go through the same process to enlarge the sprayer hole a little as well. So this quick project took a little more resourceful handy-man skills than we thought. But the finished project looks and works great, and Denisa is so proud of her plumber!
Those same plumbing skills were also needed in the wet bay of the motor home. The wet bay is the area where all the sewer and water connections come in and out of the RV.
When we have water hook-ups, there is a water hose connected where it says, "city water connection." That is where the check valve failed. That meant that there was no valve to hold the water in when we were using water out of our holding tanks (when a water hose wasn't attached). Yeah, I know, Denisa doesn't really understand all that either. But it was a big problem those nights of freezing temperatures when we had to disconnect the hose.
So Mark removed the broken piece. This sounds easy enough until you realize that all this took place behind the big white shield that covers all the working parts in that wet bay. Mark slipped his hand and phone behind the panel to see where the pipes and connectors were so he could find them by blind feel. It was a contortion exercise to get the bad piece unscrewed from behind that panel.
A trip to the RV parts store, and some major gyrations to get everything reconnected behind that panel, and we were back in business again. That could have been an expensive repair job--if we could have found a good RV shop that would fit us into their busy schedule.
Two plumbing jobs completed! Denisa can't even express how much she appreciates Mark's ability to determine the problem and then fix it. Those skills served him well in his professional work life, and they're still important in this crazy retirement on the road!
