Missile Range

White Sands Missile Range is immense (almost 3200 square miles).  No missile testing where we were today but we did see their museum.  They have a rocket park with 50 different types of rockets, missiles, and aircraft.

This one is cool.  The sign says "This spacecraft was a section of the Voyager Balloon System which was launched near Roswell and landed on White Sands Missile Range.  These bright, shiny aeroshells projected an illusion of flying saucer.  Aeroshell was designed for slowing down a missile for a landing on Mars.  This display is believed to be the only one "in captivity"."  Interesting.

The museum has unsettling things like discussion of the Trinity Site (first place where a nuclear device was detonated) and bomb shelters, interesting things like lots of different minerals and crystals found on the range and equipment to film missile tests, and cool things like this.  It's a Darth Vader helmet given to the range to thank them for help obtaining sounds used in the Star Wars movies.  They recorded the sounds of various missiles taking off along with the sounds of a guy wire on a tower.  I'd heard that the sound had been used for laser blasts but didn't know it was recorded here.  Very cool!

Different and Unique

Travel is all about seeing new and different things.  Today we've stopped at a couple of unique places.  The first is the World's Largest Pistachio Nut.  Now how can you miss something like that!  The nuts in the store (actual nuts, not people) were unique too.  We got a bag of garlic and green chili pistachios.  Excellent!

To make it better, we met a young couple that just started out full-timing.  Their blog is bebravebebold.com, which has some amazing pictures.  I love the idea they are doing their traveling while they are still young.  BTW, I swear the guy looked like Dr. Hodgins from Bones.  Cute couple.  Great to talk to them and compare stories.  

Our next stop was a scrap metal roadrunner.  Again, very cool.  Just something that was along the road.

Finally, I noticed this sign near our RV park. Makes me want to join a group like this that takes care of the environment by cleaning up a highway.

Copper Mining

We’ve seen the remains of several older underground copper mines.  You can tell by the color of the ground along with rocks on the ground such as malachite.  For instance, the only mine we found in the Superstition Mountains wasn’t gold but copper.  This one was near Tucson.

We’ve seen quite a few open pit copper mines in both Arizona and New Mexico.  These are ones that are still active.  The colors of the hills are neat.  I’m amazed at how large they are and the amount of work that goes into them.  For instance, there is a large mine near Silver City.  It’s one of the largest and oldest in the world. Native Americans and Spanish explorers have mined copper here.  Now you can see massive open pits where the ore is being removed (9000 acres and 1.75 miles across).  Several miles away you can see large hills of trailings (what is left after the copper is removed).  Essentially, they are moving mountains to find copper!

Cliff Dwellings

We’re in New Mexico now.  We visited the Gila (hee-la) Cliff Dwellings.  These were home to Mogollon people back around 1280. They think 30-40 people built and lived in the multiple rooms and caves.  Love this park.  You can walk around on your own or take a tour with a guide.  We did both so we could learn more plus have time to see the things we wanted to see.

The most interesting part for me was that it was only used for about 30 years or one generation.  They think something like a drought caused nomadic people to live here since it’s close to a spring.  This also occurred at the same time in other nearby places like Mesa Verde.  But the part I thought was interesting was that after this time the natives went back to being more nomadic with no permanent home.  They saw no benefit of living in one place.  Sort of like full-timers.

The road to the cliff dwellings is pretty wild.  It’s mostly a windy mountain road with sharp turns, even 180 degree curves.  Plus, on the way home we had to wait for a very large steer (about as large as a buffalo) cross the street.  It was just ambling home.  All the cattle were in a fenced in area but the gates were wide open.  We weren’t going to argue with him!

Arizona State Parks

It’s weird going to state parks in Arizona in February.  Ohio state parks are either closed or with only a few hardy souls camping.  Here the parks are full, especially on weekends.  We can hear the laughter of kids playing all around us.  We got one of the last campsites available at the last two parks.

The other thing that’s different here are mineral springs.  Several of the parks have hot tubs using mineral springs.  Wonderful!  (sorry, no picture of us in the tub!)

One thing that amazes me is how much the desert is full of life.  Between all the green, the spring flowers, and the animals, it just doesn’t seem like a desert.  We’ve seen a roadrunner a few times.  They really do that hop thing like in the cartoon.  But no “beep beep”.  Plus, I finally got a picture of the Gimbel’s quail.  They are pretty fast too.

We’re heading east and hope to see most of the places we skipped when it was so cold and snowy in January.  This is the view of Mt. Graham from Roper Lake State Park.

Lost Dutchman Mine

We’re camping at the Lost Dutchman State Park where supposedly there is a major gold mine in the nearby Superstition Mountains.  The story is that Jacob “Dutchman” Waltz came out of the hills with gold.  He returned several times to the mine for more gold, but never told anyone where it was.  Prospectors searched the mountains for years trying to find the mine but never found it.  Maybe it’s been waiting for us!

We stopped at a museum in the area.  One section was maps from the various treasure hunters including a Wagner map.  Maybe I’m related!  There is an area outside where several old Westerns were filmed including one with Elvis (he was in a Western?).  This is the ‘Elvis’ chapel that was in the film.

We happened to show up during Lost Dutchman Days.  So we went to a Bratwurst and Beer party at the Elks lodge.  Most of the attendees to these festivals are snowbirds.  At one point I realized the young’uns (60’s) were outside drinking beer, the older ones (70’s and 80’s) were inside dancing, while there were people with oxygen tanks on the porch.  I’m not sure if I’m feeling young or old.

We took several hikes.  Gorgeous views (and difficult hiking).

Oh, and it’s a tough life.  Here’s the view from our RV.

Big House

Casa Grande was a building built around 1350 AD using basically mud.  It's 3 stories high.  Pretty amazing building something like this plus having it last so long. Surrounding it is a compound with several single story rooms.  They think this was a central area for common activities, not a place to live.  There's a ball court nearby (the Super Bowl for the Hohokam?).  Also, some of the windows mark both solar and lunar dates.

The abandoned building was found by Europeans in 1697.  Over the years many people have visited.  Some of those people scratched graffitti into the wall.  Now they call this "historical graffitti" if it is over 50 years like this one from 1870.

Pictures and Sun

Near Gila Bend Arizona is a site with lots of petroglyphs.  LOTS!  There were so many on some rocks it was hard/impossible to separate them to understand what they were picturing.  Make sure you click on the 2nd picture to see this better.

On the way to the site we saw a solar plant that is being built.  It's supposed to be one of the largest in the world when it's done in 2013.  It's a parabolic trough plant, meaning it has long curved mirrors.  It is huge covering acres.  Some of the workers are living in the RV park where we stayed.  The website says there are over 1,600 people working to construct this plant.  I wish they had a visitors center or something.  Right now things are partially hidden behind a fence.  But it's pretty cool!

Organ Pipe National Monument

Organ pipe cactus are mostly found in Mexico, but this area is one of the few places where they are found in the U.S.  Actually, the park has lots of types of cactus (28 species according to the brochures).  I can see where organ pipe cactus got its name.

We took two hikes.  The short one was 2+ miles to Arch Canyon.  It’s definitely spring here.  Hiking along the trail we heard bird singing, bees buzzing, and saw lots of wildflowers.  Birds included humming birds and Gambel’s quail.  No pictures of these…they move too fast!  By the way, there are warnings about the bees here.  Some are regular bees, but some are the African “killer bees”.  They actually tell you if you get stung by one of these, the hive is probably going to swarm to sting you.  You should run ¼ - ½ mile to get away from the hive.  Then immediately go to the emergency room to get your stings treated.  Wow!

Our 2^nd hike was on a more mountainous 4 mile trail.  It was tough, but absolutely gorgeous!  By the end of the two hikes, we were proud, but ready for the shower!!

We were stopped by border patrol as we headed north from the park.  The border patrol agent looked in the window and jokingly said to John “I know you got a midget in there.”  John looked over to me and said “Right here.”  Me, “Yes, I’m a midget!”  Officially 4’10” and under is a midget so I am a midget.  The agent laughed, shook his head, and was a bit embarrassed.

Kitt Peak Observatory

We’re heading south and stopped at Kitt Peak for a quick visit.  The observatory is way up on a mountain (elevation 6875 feet).  While it’s in the upper 60’s below, there’s snow on the ground at the peak.  Plus, it’s very windy; the type of windy where you lean against the wind to move.  It was very “bracing” to walk around between the different buildings.  However, in this picture we’re relatively warm.  It’s an infrared picture from the visitor’s center.

There are 25 optical telescopes and 2 radio telescopes here and is sponsored by NSF and a bunch of universities (even Ohio State and Case Western).  I love astronomy, so it was great to see all these telescopes.  It hits you though that astronomers don’t really look through telescopes anymore.  The cameras and spectrographs take the data.  Astronomers look at the data and the modified pictures.  Well, at least there are still backyard astronomers.

Interesting things included dorms with signs to be quiet for the day sleepers.  There’s a book where it’s recorded when early astronauts came here to observe the moon.  Signatures in the book include the astronauts from the early Mercury program along with guys like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. 

The last picture is a solar telescope.  Most of the mechanism is underground along the angle.  Neat!

Casino Life

We’re camping overnight at a casino.  Apparently Walmarts, rest areas, and casinos are among the best places for RV’s to camp for free.  No electricity or water, but that’s not an issue with an RV.  The parking lot is full of RV’s (50?).  People have their slides out, chairs out, and are camping like you would anywhere else. 

We walked around the casino figuring we’d spend some money to compensate for the free camping.  It was different from what I expected.  Television shows casinos full of beautiful people in slinky dresses. I’m not saying they weren’t beautiful (in their own way), but no one dresses up.  The last time I was in a casino was years ago.  Slot machines took nickels or quarters back then.  These only took a credit card.  I’m not sure how to work one of these machines and make sure I wouldn’t accidently spend thousands.

Instead we drove to an open pit copper mine.  This mine is huge.  We saw it along the road when we first got to the area and wondered what it was.  It can be seen on Google Earth covering acres and acres.   

They have a small visitor’s center with a film and displays explaining the process, equipment from the mine, and lots of mineral samples for sale (most found right at the mine). The pyrite in the picture is about a foot square! I loved this stuff, but I have to tell you the coolest part was in the parking lot.  We’ve seen information on kangaroo rats, but never saw one.  We saw quite a few outside the center.  They sort of look like a chipmunk, but have a long skinny tail.

We also returned to the mission.  The inside art is incredible.  I’ve been churches with gold leaf decoration and there was very little of that.  But the colors of the paintings and sculptures were amazing!

No internet for several days, so I’m posting several days’ worth of sightseeing.

Short Hike

After several days of long hikes or vertical hikes, today we did a short 2-1/2 mile hike at one of the nearby parks.  This one had a bigger mine but it was fenced off.  We found a few artifacts (just took pictures!) like this tin can.  Pretty cool!

Over the last week the spring wild flowers have really come out.  The purple flowers are desert lupine.  We've been hearing all kinds of birds and saw several jack rabbits and road runners.  Very cool!

We're leaving our current RV park tomorrow heading a bit west and south.  I'm not sure when we'll have internet service next. 

Climbing and spandex sightings

Arizona is big for bicyclists.  Everyday we see bicyclists riding up and down mountains roads.  Yesterday we saw a team of adult men racing up a mountain road with everyone in the same white spandex outfit with a van following them.  We're wondering if there's a law in Arizona that you have to wear spandex if you ride a bicycle. Aren't shorts and a t-shirt allowed anymore?

Gates Pass is a place we heard about and saw on our way to a nearby park, so we decided to stop in for a short stop. The short stop turned out to be a couple of hours.  The pass itself is OK with a great view.  The fun is the climb up the mountains on both sides.  The paths were really only paths for short sections, then it was a scramble up the rocks.  I am absolutely petrified of heights.  But I like to put myself in some dangerous situations.   My heart was beating fast between my fear of heights, the high elevation, and the actual climbing.  Coming down is the worse part.  There was a lot of loose stones so it was easy to slip.  To be honest, if you're a climber these mountains were easy to climb.  But we're hikers so it was a challenge.  We first climbed the peaks in the front and we're taking the picture from the peak on the other side.

We also went the the Saguaro National Park West (the park is split into 2 parts).  The best part was a section of petroglyphs made somewhere between 200 and 1400 AD.  I love that they said they might be ceremonial, religious, or maybe just ancient graffiti.  Unfortunately there was some modern graffiti added to it.  One spot was marked as 1950.  You may have to double click on the pictures to see the markings better.

Cold Weather and Long Hikes

Watching TV in Tucson is funny.  Yesterday it snowed for a little while in the area.  They showed pictures of the snow over and over on the news.  Plus, the weather man was demonstrating how you can scrape a car window using a credit card.  Is snow and frost that rare?  I've used a credit card before when my rented car didn't have a scraper, but using a credit card isn't really a good idea.  You should use a card that you don't use often.  I wonder how many people damaged their credit card because of this hint.

Today we walked in our 'back yard'.  The RV park has long paths that connect to a county park.  We just kept walking and walking.  We ended up hiking for 3-1/2 hours.  I love seeing the saguaros.  Each of them have a different personality depending on the shape.  This one looks like a conductor leading the orchestra or maybe an orchestra of just John.

Back in the hills we found an abandoned mine.  Some of the rocks in the area looked like they have copper in them, so I think that's what they were mining.  The mine was closed off, but I could put the camera past the bars to take this picture.

Even though it is cold at night, it's spring out in the desert.  Here's two wildflowers we saw.  The pink one is called Fairy Duster.  Pretty cool name!

Brittlebush

Fairy Duster