Life at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

The Organ Pipe Cactus is common in the Sonoran Desert in Mexico, but this park is the only natural habitat within the United States.

A street view of our campground.

Last winter we spent four nights at Organ Pipe National Monument, so we decided to extend that to six nights this time. The campground is divided into three sections, tenting only, no generators (where we stayed) and the generator section where they were allowed to run generators twice a day for two hours. There are no power and water hookups. Our aim was to use a limited amount of water because our rig has two waste water tanks, each being 150 litres. We started with our 150 Litre fresh water tank full and were able to refill it easily because a water supply faucet was next to our site.

With a little onsite modification we could use a hose instead of the manual bucket way.

Temperatures ranged from 20C during the day and down to 5C at night. An extra quilt kept us warm without using any extra heat. In the morning we turned on our gas hot water heater for warm water. To heat the RV we had two options, either run the furnace for a short time or use our Mr Buddy catalytic heater. The furnace fan can use our limited battery power quickly, so the other way is to use the Mr Buddy heater. This requires being careful about ventilation so as not to be overcome by carbon monoxide.

To maintain our two 6 volt batteries we charged them with a solar panel which we had purchased last year. We have had ample sunshine each day to do that. Then our cell phone, mifi and the computer had to be charged with a power inverter so we could occasionally check or send emails.

We were made aware of the Desert Packrat which is fond of using material found under the hoods of vehicles so the strategy to avoid damage is to raise the hood making it less appealing to them. We have seen packrat nests in the desert with its burrow around a dead tree littered with cholla (CHOY-yah) cactus seed heads. These very prickly spines help to keep off the coyote or other predators.

The desert is a place of waiting. Plants and animals here are almost always waiting. They wait for rain, wait for night, wait for transportation, wait for spring or wait for conditions to be just right so that they can live life in a hurry and then return to waiting.

We enjoyed some hiking and drove the Ajo Mountain Loop by truck which was 21 mi. and was a 2 hour round trip on mostly gravel washboard but very scenic road.

Part of the Ajo (AH-hoe) Mountain Range.

A dead Saguaro Cactus. They flower for the first time at approximately 65 years of age and produce their first arms at around 90.

The Teddy Bear Cholla looks cuddly, but beware of their bite.

We have taken in several amphitheatre presentations by the park rangers. We have learned how this Sonoran Desert comes alive at night and how the creation works together to survive. During the summer nights the Saguaro (sa-WAH-row) and the Organ Pipe Cactus blossom and rely on the migrating Mexican bats to pollinate the flowers as they feed on the nectar. The dark night sky is critical for this to happen. Light pollution from a town and city is a real growing problem. The light from Phoenix and Tucson about 200 kim away is noticeable. We marvelled at the awesome night sky that we could see and heard from one of the rangers that 2/3 of the nation's population cannot see the Milky Way and many of the distant stars because of light pollution.

We arrived in Tucson on Saturday and look forward to our volunteering here.

Travelling through the "Wueste Laund" (Desert Lands)

Another week has passed and it is time to update our blog readers on our travel adventures. As we left our chilly 4000' elevation campground in Tehachapi CA. we realized the importance of researching the elevation of a place. We were near the snow line in the mountains.

It is Saturday morning as we head eastward we see hundreds of windmills producing power for the area. The land flattened out as we head across the Mojave Desert.

As we approached our days destination of Needles CA we again came to a mountainous area. Got a picturesque shot over the Colorado River.

The next day we drove across the river to the Arizona side and south through Lake Havasu City area and headed to Cattail Cove State Park. Arrived in time for lunch, and with the warmer temps we had our first picnic table lunch :)

Hiking along the shoreline of Lake Havasu at Cattail Cove SP.

These VW vans were driven by some guys who looked like they were trying to relive their hippie years. VW vans were numerous in the Lake Havasu area, some "original" and others nicely redone.

On Monday we headed to Buckskin Mountain State Park which is only about 20 miles further south where we had a two day reservation and by moving to another site we were able to extend our stay at this park.

Since we had not been able to connect to the internet for the last two days and here at Buckskin we found a weak signal it required some extra effort to get results. It was a 1/2 mile hike up Lightening Bolt trail to reach the bench, hundreds of feet above the campground and in range of the cell towers at the town of Parker only a few miles to the South. (Note the person sitting on the bench)

This trail joined up with the 1 mile Buckskin Trail which was a good workout with many rewarding views. Thankfully the snakes are "sleeping" in winter.

Saw this Greater Roadrunner, who was not willing to pose for us.

As we passed through Quartzite we saw many RVer's camped in the desert, and then seeing the long lineups for the water supply and sewage dump locations our thoughts of desert camping vanished. We opted for a traditional campground in Yuma AZ instead.

Yuma's river front walk at sunset showing the historic "Ocean to Ocean Bridge" with the rail bridge beyond it.

We arrived in Yuma Thursday afternoon and found a place near downtown along the bank of the Colorado River. The campgrounds rustic club house - just missing a row of Harley's.

Travels Along the West Coast

Welcome back to the Meanderings of Jim and Annette. We flew back to our truck and trailer in Abbotsford, BC on Jan. 7th. Our flight as we understood it would be a direct flight, but life has its surprises; it went via Edmonton.

We still arrived 15 minutes early and Elaine from the Gleaners was there to pick us up. Our RV and truck faired well at its stored location. So after gathering up our freezable items which we had left indoors at the gleaners, filling water jugs, doing our trailer hookups and our goodbye's we were off. We crossed at the Sumas WA border crossing without any issues in only five minutes. We made a quick stop for groceries and an early lunch in Bellingham. Our aim was to get through Seattle before rush hour started. The I-405 bypass was a good choice.

Our Friday destination was Albany OR. Here we had an invitation from friends we made several years ago in Louisiana where we volunteered with Bob and Jan with MDS. We enjoyed meeting their grandchildren. One of the grandsons asked us if we could teach him to speak Canadian. The use of "Eh" was what he wanted to hear.

Sunday morning we headed to the Oregon coast upon Bob's recommendation and had a gorgeous sunny day. The Coast Highway #101 was a pleasant drive with its many overlooks of the ocean.

This area had a beautiful sand beach and high dunes.

For one nights stop we had a site overlooking the ocean. It was a stormy night so we could hear the pounding surf on the rocks.

 

We saw many Tsunamis signs like this one. We passed through Crescent City CA where they have recorded more than 34 tsunamis since 1933 - more than any other city on the Pacific Coast of the United States.

Entering the Redwood National Forest.

The low hanging moss covered branches made for an eerie mystical feeling.

We drove through the Redwoods National Forest with their many impressive big trees and then headed inland again on the scenic route highway #299. It was a three hour drive of everything except straight and level stretches.
At Reedley CA we were back to the busy highways crossing the flat lands of the Sacramento Valley and the San Joachim Valley passing through Sacramento, Fresno and Bakersfield. We enjoyed seeing the large farming areas of grapes, pistachio, almonds, walnuts, olives, oranges and many other kinds. After that we headed East and were surprised to be heading up into the mountains again to find our next planned campground. At the higher elevation the temperatures only reached 5C and since we had a high wind advisory for Friday we decided to stay an extra night before entering the Mojave Desert on our way to Arizona.