Prescott, Arizona: Point of Rocks RV Campground

We are at Point of Rocks RV Campground four miles north of Prescott, Arizona.  What a lovely surprise.

Neither Jim nor I had been to Prescott before.  We are heading back to our home in Salt Lake City for a few weeks, Prescott is practically on the way, and we thought “why not?”

Now we are thinking “why didn’t we visit Prescott before?” 

We originally booked three days here. After we saw our campground, the nearby hiking and kayaking opportunities, and funky downtown Prescott, we paid for another three days.

More posts to come, I'm sure.

Our camping spot at Point of Rocks Campground in Prescott. We have a rock wall on one side of us, no one is directly behind us, and there are plenty of trees and shrubs between us and our neighbors on the drivers side. Not all camping sites are as private as ours, but we recommend this place.

The campground has two hiking paths.  One leads to nearby Watson Lake; the other is a hike through the rocks with a view of Watson Lake.  Here is Jim on path number 2.

The view of Watson Lake from the top of the rocks not far behind our campsite.

Friends, baseball, brews, hiking, kayaking..

We came to the Phoenix area to see friends from Yakima, Pat and Cindy.

Jim and Pat graduated from the same high school class, and Pat and Cindy (who just celebrated their 42nd wedding anniversary) traveled to Phoenix to watch baseball spring training. Since we're on our way north after several months in Tucson, we decided to meet up. Pat and Cindy came over to see us one night at our campsite, we met them at an afternoon game, and we had dinner with them and their friend, John (from Zillah, Washington, south of Yakima) who hosted us all at his motor home. As a side note, when I looked up Zillah on line because I wanted to see exactly where it is, I learned that there is a church in the town named the Church of God Zillah. But I digress. 

We did a lot in the few days we were in Phoenix.  Besides spending time with Pat and Cindy, we also visited Old Town Scottsdale, kayaked on Arizona's Lake Pleasant, went to two brew pubs, and hiked the Apache Wash Loop trail in Phoenix's beautiful Sonoran Desert Preserve.

Jim, Bev, Cindy, Pat (who graduated from Davis High School in Yakima with Jim) and John in John's roomy motor home. John grilled steaks and even had lobster bisque for us -- thanks, John!  (And we missed you, Buddy and Nancy!)

At the Mariners v. Giants spring training baseball game, from top left clockwise:  Mariner at bat; Giants talking it out at the pitcher's mound; the pretty Peoria Stadium; and the view from our seats when the huge-hatted fan in front of us decided to lean back and cheer.  The Peoria Sports Complex  in Peoria, AZ, is the spring training home field of the Seattle Mariners and the San Diego Padres.

Bev on theApache Wash Loop trail in the Phoenix Sonoran Desert Preserve,  which has great views of the north Phoenix desert. Phoenix has several desert preserves in and near the city.

The cactus are starting to bloom big time.

Also in bloom at the Sonoran Preserve and all over the Phoenix Valley are the Palo Verde trees. 

These cactus looked appropriate for a Palm Sunday hike.

Jim on the trail in Phoenix's Sonoran Preserve imitating Lawrence of Arabia -- if Lawrence wore an Oregon Beavers baseball cap. 

Scottsdale:  I read where the NY Times once called Scottsdale "the desert version of Miami's South Beach," which I guess means it has lots of night life. We are more early afternoon people, so we didn't see that.  But we did see jewelry shops, souvenir shops, jewelry shops, restaurants, more jewelry shops, plus lots of beautiful landscaping, flowers and fountains.  As odd as they look, someday we've got to take one of those Segway tours.

When we pulled in to the Lake Pleasant Regional Park northwest of Phoenix, the ranger told us we could "drive right up to the water."  And how --as you can see in the photo of Jim kayaking on the correct side of a double yellow line.  Supposedly the lake is only 93 percent full. The man-made lake was created when the Waddell Dam was finished in 1927 across the Aqua Fria River.  

At the Papago Brewery in Scottsdale. We also visited Fate Brewery, also in Scottsdale, and both were good. 

These cactus are not far from the Desert Edge RV Park in north Phoenix where we stayed.  That's Jim's hand to the right.  I've never seen such large cactus blooms.

It could have been even more confusing

We almost went to the wrong campground this week. It was my (Bev’s) bad.

Jim is the big picture guy who says things like “Hey, here’s a campground we could go to.” I’m the detail person who makes the arrangements and says things like “That campground you suggested is closed.”

When we decided to go to the Phoenix area, Jim did an Internet search and found four campgrounds he liked. I checked them out. One was full, one allowed only small dogs (Cooper is in the big category), and another was expensive. The fourth campground was on a lake. Since we have our kayaks with us but haven't used then since November, I booked a spot at the lake.  

The campground sent an email confirmation. Jim called the phone number listed to ask about getting a package delivered and was told the campground had a new mailing address. I’d already planned our driving route, but when I heard Jim repeat the words “new address” I thought I’d better double check. So I typed the new mailing address into the iPhone ap we use to plan our drives.

Turns out new address is about 20 miles south of where I thought we were going. Also turns out that instead of Lake Campground I’d booked Expensive Campground.

Anyway. On Tuesday we arrived Desert Edge campground in north Phoenix. I don't think we'll be kayaking here but they do have a swimming pool. And I'll be taking a refresher course in paying attention to details.

On our way to Phoenix not far from Casa Grande, AZ: Picacho Peak in the background and blooming brittle bush in the foreground.  A hike to the top of Picacho Peak has an elevation gain of 1780 feet. 

Many of the camping spots at Desert's Edge Campground have two rigs parked "foot to foot" in a single, long parking spot.  We have a wide corner space instead, with lots of room. 

See you next year, Tucson

We've been at Tucson's Davis Monthan Air Force Base since January 5. We like Tucson -- a lot -- but it's time to move, so today we're headed north. Before we go we wanted to post pics of a few more things we've done lately:

 Visited the Tucson Museum of Art

The spring exhibit we saw included "The Figure Examined," (self explanatory) "The WPA Connection," (creations of artists who were part of the Works Progress Administration's depression-era public art project); "La Vida Fantastica,"(folk art); and "Shadow Play," (works that highlight light and shadow).  We also visited Tucson's very interesting Desert Art Museum, but photos of most of the exhibits were prohibited.

Ate lunch at Davis Mothan's Food Trucks

Twice a month food trucks offer lunch at the Air Force Base.  We ate there last week and nine trucks offered Indian cuisine, burgers, pizza, barbecue, Mexican, Italian, Canadian (poutine, anyone?) and apparently two more I can't remember but I'm sure were great.  I had chicken tandoori; Jim had a turkey avocado sandwich on Texas toast.  I noticed the sign in the second photo above and asked the server about it.  He said because the trucks were from off base they all had to post a buyer-beware-type sign.  The food was good; no food poisoning to be had.

Enjoyed the spring flowers

Tucson had a record-breaking-almost-an-inch of rain January 30 and in the first 45 days of 2015 had about 2.5 inches.  That last number is about an inch more than normal and a lot more than the .01 inch Tucson had last year in the same time frame, per a local TV station. That small amount of rain makes the desert bloom. Above are few plants blooming right now here at Davis Monthan. The yellow spiky one on the right is an aloe vera flower-- the same aloe vera used in sun burn lotions.  

Ocotillo -- which before it blooms looks like a pile of spiny sticks -- are in heavy flower all over town.  Some ocotillo are thick and full like the one above, others are thin and wavy, others are pretty bare except for a few red flowers.  Supposedly they can bloom several times a year if they get enough rain.  Without much rain, the plants usually green up and bloom in the spring.  Locals have long made fences from the sticks, which sometimes bloom and turn into living barriers.

Made return trips to a few brew pubs.

From top to bottom:  Jim at Sentinel Brewing; dark beer big sampler at Dragoon Brewing; Jim at the the bottle store of a pub called 1702 -- we'd only been there once before about six weeks ago and the server remembered Jim. Not sure if that's good or bad.

Tucson's Rattlesnake Bridge

Tucson has interesting art on walls, overpasses and underpasses along its streets. But one of the coolest pieces of street art is a bike and pedestrian bridge in the shape of a diamondback rattlesnake that crosses Tucson's Broadway Boulevard 

At one end is a huge rattlesnake head. At the other is a winding tail complete with large rattle. To get from one end to the other you amble through a long snake belly.

The body is made of a metal mesh that shimmers in the sunlight. Fortunately the snake is more artsy-looking than scary. But it is a little scary.

The snake head at one end of a 280-foot bridge that crosses six lanes of traffic on downtown Tucson's Broadway Boulevard.

Once you cross Broadway via the bridge, you exit by the snakes tail.  The bridge was designed by a Tucson artist, paid for with public art funds, and competed in 2002.

More shots of Tucson's rattlesnake bridge. Clockwise from top left:  A close up of a snake eye; bicyclists riding through the snake body; a view of the snake as it crosses Broadway Boulevard; and Jim standing between snake fangs at the entrance to the bridge .

Just a few photos of other "road art" we've seen along I-10 and on Tucson city streets.  At the top is another pedestrian bridge not far from the rattlesnake. Third from the top is part of one of several large "face collages"along Tucson's Fourth Avenue.