Our last pit stop in Texas was an overnighter return trip to the Wild West RV Park in lovely Van Horn. The last time we stayed there we got hit with about 3” of snow, but this time we survived without extreme weather. Continuing, apprehensively, it was westward ho’ on I-10 through the belly of the beast, aka: El Paso. We were pleasantly surprised, despite all the current issues at the border, we made it through without a hitch. We took it all the way to Deming, NM for another overnighter return stay at the Escapee’s RV Club, Dream Catcher RV Park. Then it was on to a few days at the Apache Junction Elk’s Lodge in Apache Junction, AZ. They have a couple of areas around the lodge for RV’s, one containing designated camp sites, the other just an open field area, both strictly dry camping, with a minimal fee of $10/night for the designated sites.
We hit a couple of the Indian casinos in the area, but the highlight of that stop was a hike we took into the Superstition Mountains. Jeanne found the Siphon Draw trail in the Lost Dutchman State Park and we hit it on a crisp but clear morning. The trail is about 5 miles, round trip, with a 1,000’ elevation gain (according to the ranger) in the last half mile to the top. I would classify the trail as moderate; there is some minor rock scrambling, some surface areas similar to slick rock surfaces, and definitely a good elevation gain at the peak. The trail was busy, almost “crowded”, and well defined with little signage. The views were very nice as evidenced in the following pix.
Moving on, next stop was, again, a return stay at the Escapee’s RV Club, North Ranch RV Park in Congress, AZ. We made good use of the stop to get thawed out (hook-ups, Yippee!), laundry chores (hook-ups, Yippee!), and a general respite from all the one-night stay traveling (hook-ups, Yippee!). While at North Ranch, one of the locals mentioned he knew of a few crested saguaro cacti along the dirt road to Stanton just a few miles from Congress. Always on the lookout to find those anomalies of nature, we took a drive out to Stanton. I don’t know about “several”, but we found (1) crestie about midway on the road to Stanton. The area of Stanton is definitely nothing to write home about, no real vestiges of civilization other than a “rustic” looking RV park and several scattered homes/trailers. The (6) mile dirt road to get to Stanton is a little rough as far as several “washboard” stretches, I personally would not want to drive Rosie down it.
Being sufficiently thawed out, we backtracked to Sun City for a few days of dry camping at the Sun City Elk’s Lodge. The lodge has a few RV parking spaces out in the back of their paved parking lot for which they garner a $10/night fee for the no-hookup enjoyment. The extra added benefit for our stay here was frequent fighter jet fly-overs, day AND night, courtesy of our friendly neighborhood military installation, Luke AFB. We found out quickly that this is one very busy Elk’s Lodge, evidenced by the packed parking lot every day we were there and the near standing room only condition of the lounge.
In between shopping chores at the plethora of opportunities we had while here in the big city we found the New River Trail which winds its way through the heart of the beast alongside a “river” that was a typical desert river…dry as a bone. Nevertheless, out came the bicycles for about a 20 mile excursion along the well maintained, paved, well used trail. Not one of the more scenic trails we have been on, I have to say…
Laughlin, NV was next on our westward itinerary. We did a couple of nights at the KOA just outside of the “downtown” area, across the street from the Avi Casino/Resort. Laughlin does not offer much other than several large casinos, or you can cross the river back into Bullhead City, AZ for any shopping needs (they DO have a Walmart, for Pete’s sake!)
From Laughlin it was on to Pahrump, NV and another return stay at the Pair-a-Dice Escapee RV Park. We wanted to get some business done (aka: stay put to receive some Amazon deliveries, send for our mail, etc.), so we decided to stay for at least a couple or three weeks. Pahrump is about 45 minutes from Vegas, so we also wanted the access to civilization (aka: Costco & Trader Joe’s).
Red Rock Canyon National Conservation area sits just outside on the west side of Las Vegas. We took Woodrow Wilson on a sightseeing drive through the canyon, along the approximate 10 miles long scenic drive. It was mildly scenic at best, comparatively speaking, since we happen to be here amidst REAL scenery like Death Valley to the west and Grand Canyon to the east (just to name a couple), those are pretty hard to beat. But, Red Rock Canyon is still a very busy park, numerous hiking and horse trails everywhere.
As is my custom, we got treated to the usual weather events in Pahrump. After checking the weather forecast (by the “expert”, well educated meteorologists at “WeatherBug”, who, as it so happens all must have failed the courses on “Accuracy 101”), seeing no rain in the future, I gave Rosie a bath and got her all shined up. That back-breaking endeavor got me a whole day of enjoying the shine before, not only did we get rained on, but we earned the simultaneous added bonus of extreme winds with a massive dust storm (dust storm during a rain storm?) I can’t help but feel like Charlie Brown after Lucy pulled the football…
After fighting the goofy weather swings and having water hoses freeze (again, the genius meteorologists did not forecast sub-freezing temps), we were happy to raise jacks and hit the road from Pahrump. Our destination? Stay tuned, until next post…
