Saguaro Sunrise

November 21, 2014: A sunrise worth rolling out of bed for.

What a glorious way to start the day – a fabulous sunrise over Theodore Roosevelt Lake.

Mid-morning we take a drive down to the visitor center a few miles south of the campground where we are staying.

We need to purchase a few more daily Tonto Passes to get us through Wednesday morning when we head for the Phoenix area.  At $3/night for seniors it’s a real bargain, to say the least. 

Soup’s on!

Stepping through the front door we are greeted by the aroma of home cooking.  At the visitor center?  Who woulda thunk?  Come to find out a lovely lady, Jean Groen, is giving a talk on plants of the Sonoran Desert.  She will be discussing how the native tribes cooked with them and used them for medicinal purposes.  With the anticipation of sampling the yummy-smelling foods after the talk, Jean’s got us hooked.  (Great marketing ploy, Jean!)  We walk into the room where she is ready to start her Power Point presentation and take a seat.

Jean has extensive knowledge on plants of the Sonoran Desert.  Here’s a few of the more entertaining items that stuck in my head after we walk away.

 Prickly Pear without its “Yellow Roses”.

 Prickly Pear.  There are many uses for Prickly Pear.  The only tidbit I actually retain is the song, “Yellow Rose of Texas”, is about the Prickly Pear cactus, not a rose. 

Creosote Bush.  Great for getting rid of stinky foot odor.  Okay, now here’s some information we can us at our house.  Jack’s got a pair of shoes that I toss out the door on a pretty frequent basis.  In a 25’ house, the odor can become overwhelming very quickly.  So, before I pitch them in a dumpster on our way out of a campground, I guess we should try shoving a branch of Creosote Bush in his shoes for a few days and see what happens.  Do you think he would notice a branch of Creosote tucked under the covers at the foot of the bed?  (Note: I find no Creosote Bushes to photograph today, but I’ll keep a lookout for use in the future.)       

 

Girl Jojoba with nuts

Boy Jojoba with no nuts

Jojoba.   Jean explains that this species has male and female plants.  Jean is discussing the uses of the plant when a gentleman speaks up and with a completely straight face says, “Yeah, there are girl plants and boy plants.  The girl plants are the one with the nuts.”

Jack and I look at one another with smirking faces.  We glance around the room.  Nope.  No one else saw any humor in the comment at all.  What does that say about us?  Let’s not go there.

A few pods remain on this Mesquite tree.  There are a few varieties of Mesquite, so this is possibly what Jean is talking about.

Mesquite.  “The pods are edible”, Jean tells us.  Yes, we know that.  We learned that helpful piece of information last February at the Desert Museum near Tucson.  As a matter of fact, just the other day Jack pulled a pod off a Mesquite tree, stripped out the seeds, ate them, tossing the pod.

Jean continues, “Now, what you do is open the pod and run your finger through it to get rid of the seeds retaining only the pod.  The pods are ground into flour and used in the preparation of foods.”  (Like that wonderful cake waiting for us in the lobby.)

I lean over and whisper to Jack, “Didn’t you do just the opposite?  Eat the seeds and toss the pod?  Lucky for you the seeds aren’t poisonous.”

Wolfberry.  Oh yes, wolfberry, the Viagra of the desert.  As Jean puts it, “It makes young bucks out of old men.”  Our campground loop has a high percentage of old dudes.  Maybe they’re berry gatherers by day and young bucks by night.  Note: No picture of Wolfberry as I don’t recall what the plant looks like.  If they’re around, the berries are probably all picked off by now.

After the presentation, it’s time to sample Jean’s luscious desert foods. 

She has prepared “Three Sister’s Soup” (butternut squash, pinto beans, and corn).  There’s a very moist cake made with mesquite pod flour (and other desert ingredients that I can’t remember), and Ocotillo blossom tea that’s been brewing.  Everything is absolutely delicious!  Jean is the lady in pink.   

Octotillo in bloom.

(Photo taken February 2013 at Saguaro National Park - Rincon Mountain District.)

Jean has some cookbooks on hand – “Even Cowboys Like Prickly Pear” and “Grazing the Sonoran Desert”.  Her entire selection of books can be found on her website – Wells/Groen Publishing Co.  She also serves up a good stock of home canned goodies to choose from – wild jellies (rhubarb and jalapeno are a couple of my favorites), salsas, pickles, and much more.  We purchase a jar of Roasted Salsa and one of Jalapeno Bread and Butter Pickles.  We can hardly wait to try them.    

While we’re snacking and chatting with the other folks, one gentleman brings up the topic of driving the Apache Trail from here to Apache Junction.

 (Photo taken December 19, 2013)

Last December, we drove the Apache Trail from Apache Junction to Tortilla Flats for lunch, followed by a drive up to the View Point where the paved road turns to dirt.  This is the vista looking across the canyon at the dirt road winding down toward Roosevelt Lake – another 20-plus miles to the northeast.

My ears perk up.  Apache Trail?  I listen more closely as he and his wife talk about their escapades from Roosevelt Dam to Apache Junction (Highway 88/Road 88/OHV Trail 88 – take your choice).  The husband drove a 40’ MOTOR HOME – TRAILERING AN 18’ PONTOON BOAT BEHIND HIM with his wife followed in their truck.  The wife tells us the truck is usually mounted on a double-decker trailer with the aforementioned boat.  She was happy that was not the case on this particular day.  Hubby says that he was creeping around one of the tight curves (canyon below with no guard rail!!!) when the trailer slipped into the soft dirt shoulder and the soil began breaking away.  I can only imagine his wife’s stabbing fear as she watched from the vehicle behind with nothing to do but pray.  Moral to the story: Short cuts are not for the faint of heart.

 And before I go, one more look at the dramatic sunrise this morning. 

As for us, when we leave Roosevelt Lake in a couple of days we’ll take the more traveled, less scenic, longer route to our next destination – south on State Highway 188 and catch US60 into Apache Junction.  Until next time – be safe.  We are!

Room with a view.

November 17, 2014: Tonto National Monument Cliff Dwellings.

(Photo taken Nov. 16, 2014)

Arriving too late in the day, we are unable to take the hike up to the lower cliff dwellings.  A photo from the visitor center down through the shadowed canyon walls of Cholla Canyon frame the Tonto Basin, Theodore Roosevelt Lake and the mountains beyond.  We’ll be back tomorrow for a better look at the monument.

The next morning we take the short drive back to the monument. 

Thanks to Jack’s Senior Parks Pass we have free admission to national parks and monuments.  We're going to hike up to the lower cliff dwellings this morning.  The upper cliff dwellings are on a reservation basis and are a ranger guided tour over the weekend.  We're usually do-it-yourself folks so we opt for a self-guided tour. 

We can see the shallow cave from the observation deck.  It’s a little over a half mile hike up and about 350 feet elevation change.  The trail is paved with an overcoat of skid-resistant material.  No sliding off into prickly cacti.

We begin our trek up the incline and look back across Tonto Basin and the lake.  No shadows impede the view of the mountain across Cholla Canyon this morning.

Saguaros soar above us on the mountainside. 

With only a little ways left to go, the cliff dwelling is in clear view.  Someone standing at the edge of the cliff.

We arrive at the entrance and are greeted by Davis, an intern here at the monument.   

He paints a vivid picture of the Salado culture – the people that inhabited these dwellings for 300 years during the 1200 – 1400s.  How it is believed they lived, worked, and interacted as a bustling society.  The Salado are known for their exquisite and intricate weaving of cotton, and the beautifully decorated Salado polychrome ceramics found in the ruins of the dwellings.    

Sitting 2,000 feet above the valley floor, these folks had a room with a view.

 We head back down the trail and through the forest of saguaros.

We gaze up the mountainside at the home inhabited by those who lived here hundreds of years before our visit, contemplating how they lived and thrived in such an arid environment, and what caused them to leave this region.  It may be a mystery that is never unraveled.   

Davis made this a very fun and educational morning with all his thoughtful insight and input about the Salado culture.  Pamphlets with a few vague facts just aren’t the same as an enthusiastic young person ready to pour out all the knowledge he has gained on the subject at hand.  We really enjoyed our time with him at the dwellings.      

Until next time - y'all be safe now - ya hear!

More NM State Parks!

November 2 - 12, 2014: Photo Journal.

Recurring muscle spasms have kept me from updating my blog this month, but I’m feeling darn good the last few days.  As they say, “You can’t keep a good woman down – for more than a couple of weeks at a time anyway”.  I’m doing a quick catch up with a photo journal.  Enjoy.

November 2, 2014: White Sands Missile Range.

We leave Oliver Lee State Park.  A stop at White Sands Missile Range is a nice break between Alamagordo and Las Cruces. 

HOUND DOG

“Named for the Elvis Presley song, “You Ain’t Nothing but a Hound Dog”, the Hound Dog was Strategic Air Command’s first air-launched missile.  A forerunner of the cruise missile, this jet-propelled, supersonic missile was launched from a B-52 bomber and then flew to its target carrying a nuclear warhead.” ~ 94.039

 REDSTONE

“Redstone was the Army’s largest surface-to-surface ballistic missile.  Modified Redstone rockets launched America’s first satellite and first human into space.” ~ 94.084   

ORGAN MOUNTAINS … AND MISSILES

No photos are allowed at WSMR except at the missile park.  Therefore, the only way to photograph the beautiful Organ Mountains is to include them as the backdrop to missiles.  Sneaky, huh?  Do you think there’s a chance anyone else before me ever came up with this brilliant idea? 

November 2 – 5, 2014: Leasburg Dam State Park.

Our home for the next four nights is about 15 miles north of Las Cruces at Leasburg Dam State Park.  There are several hiking trails and the Rio Grande River is below our campsite.  I think we can keep busy for a few days.

Hiking along the river bed we meet up with a couple of young men heading for their favorite fishing hole.  This trail looks like a fairyland with all the overhanging tree limbs creating a tunnel effect.  Just up the hill, our campsite sits in an arid landscape.   

A rainbow appears after a light rain shower.  The fishing hole is an isolated pond from the springs farther up the river bed.

We take a trail down to the Leasburg Diversion Dam.  Absolutely no water is running in the Rio Grande River above the dam.  We’re told at the ranger station that water is released from dams farther to the north during the spring and summer.  When the flowing river arrives at Leasburg Dam, water is diverted to irrigate crops in the valley.  The water you see at the base of the dam is hot springs rising to the surface.

The hot springs meander down through the river bed.  You can see the dam face in the background.

View toward the south from the middle of the Rio Grande River bed.  The water temperature is like bath water.

 

One of the lovely sunsets at Leasburg we enjoyed before moving westward.

November 6 – 12, 2013: City of Rocks State Park. 

The Mini-Moose and Caboose hiding out at City of Rocks State Park.

We hike through the rock formations.  This is a great park!

The sun recedes in the late afternoon.

 Passageways through the formations create a kids’ paradise.

The Alaskan cold front that brought sub-zero temperatures into Colorado reaches into southwestern New Mexico.

We wake to 28 freezing degrees.  Our plan was to leave this morning and drive down to Rock Hound State Park south of Deming for a week, but not in this cold weather.  We decide to turn on our “heat-seeking device” and head for Arizona.  Jack watches the outside temperature gauge as we move westward, updating me as the temp ticks its way upward the farther west we drive.  

Adios Amigos and New Mexico.  Hello Arizona - our home for the next 2 or 3 months.   Ahhh!  Warmth at last.  Until next time – be safe.