Whitewater Draw, Wildlife Refuge, McNeil, AZ

November 23rd

Saturday morning we left the Benson I-10 RV park by 9:30 am. A little later than usual, but we had showers and I did a big vacuum from all of the dirt before leaving as we would not be plugged in for the next 3 days. We only had a short little over an hour's drive today so no problem.

Arrived by 11 am and spoke with the other campers. They suggested we squeeze in as Jamie and Eli who had just a tent, would be leaving the next day anyways and squeeze in between them and Josh and Nash, the guides. Took no time to get set-up and we sat outside to enjoy the day. Our view off the passenger side of the coach. These pictures are from my cell phone ... not up to Ray's quality. lol

It is a good thing we did not get here until today. With the rains we had for several days the road in was a mucky mess. In fact, the guy behind us skidded off the road with this truck and trailer and had to be pulled out. The road was dry when we came.

Later in the afternoon Ray and I got our "campfire in a can" out so the 6 of us sat around it for a couple of hours. By 4pm it cools right down outside. I also brought out some antipasto and crackers that were well received. A great day.

Todd and his dog Charlie. His hunting partner, Ed, had already left to go back to Phoenix.

Currently Crane Season is on with limited entry tags. Had no idea that you could hunt these. Apparently they call them the "ribeye of the skies". They taste like beef. You can get 4 large 1" thick by 7" steaks out of the breast and you stew the legs and thighs as they are tough. You can only get a tag for 3 days during the 4 weeks that it is open and can only take 3 birds. This is to keep the population in check as there are thousands of the birds here and only so much space. At the same time hunters are going after ducks and grouse. A busy place, more than normal as the rains washed out a lot of areas that the hunters usually camp. 

Freya enjoying being part of a pack again. Ranger and Zeke are both 2 1/2 year old Brittany Spaniel bird dogs. Ray is sitting next to Jamie. Her and her husband Eli are avid hunters from Flagstaff. They gave us a taste of their Elk Steaks they cooked. I actually liked it. The only other time I have had Elk I didn't like it at all ... must have been due to the handling of the meat, I think.

Nash and Josh, the professional guides.

Nash gave us some crane wings so we could harvest some feathers for our son-in-law Jason who fly ties.

Sunday we went for a walk and then I spent a good part of the day cooking. Today was our "Turkey Day"  A good day with Jamie and Eli leaving and Todd who had been here for the past few days with no new people arriving. The 3 units besides us, the people were all out hunting so not here to hear my "noise". I started cooking the turkey at 2 pm and by 2:30 the little parking lot filled up with 3 camper vans, 2 pop-up campers, a trailer and an a motorhome on top of the 4 units already here. 2 more tent trailers also tried to come here but had to leave with no more space. Yikes. I had started the turkey so needed to keep the generator on to cook it in the convection oven. The people were none too happy, but I told them no one had been here when I started as they did not get here until later on in the afternoon otherwise I would be able to shut it off. I don't blame them from being perturbed, I would not have liked it being them either.

This area was all empty until 2:30 pm. There was one other pop-up in front of the one you can see.

Fortunately they all went out birding at 4 pm and I had the generator off by 5:30 before they returned. The turkey was not a 100% cooked but we were able to take enough off to have dinner. This whole thing kinda took the "happy" out of my day of cooking. Oh well lots of leftovers for the next 2 days. Lesson learned ... only cook a large meal plugged in or way out in the desert by yourself. Ray came in at 4 pm and started watching the Grey Cup on TV while I messed with our dinner. No pictures... I was too upset. Tomorrow I will have to finish cooking the bird and bake the apple pie that was ready to be cooked but didn't.

Monday morning Ray was out the door by 6:30 to get some pictures of the "mass exodus" of cranes heading out to feed. Pretty cold out at 39F. Apparently they did not all take off at once so he will have another chance tomorrow am before we move on to Tombstone for several days. Freya and I stayed hunkered down next to our Big Buddy Heater inside the rig. lol

A few Snow Geese thrown in.

The morning started out well ... I waited  until most people had left with their vans before starting the generator at 8:30 am.  Ray got back  and I put the apple pie into the convection oven as I was unable to bake it last night while making us breakfast. After about 20 minutes the whole power system shut down. The generator was running but nothing was working????? WTF not again. We finished our breakfast and then Ray went out to see if he could figure it out. He swapped out the big fuse again but that was not it. The transfer switch seemed ok. The generator stopped on it's own!! WTF again.

Ray was able to call a repair place about 20 minutes past Tombstone and they were able to take us in right away to diagnose the problem. I  packed up everything, stowing the food in the shower lol as I did not want to open the fridge and off we went.

They spent a good 45 minutes going through the electrical system with their tester. The generator did power up ok and the electrical was working inside again, the fridge and microwave. Apparently the "block" that the fuse is attached to is the problem. The opposite side of the fuse that the guy tried to fix in Flagstaff.  They ordered a new block and it should be there tomorrow. This is the fourth time we have had a problem with that part of the inverting system over the last 6 years.

We drove back the 20 minutes to Tombstone and they were able to fit us in a day early. The guy at Desert RV said we should be able to have power plugged in. Well we plugged in and everything seemed okay. Went out for a late lunch  at Big Nose Kate's and came back and the fridge was off. I ended up cooking the turkey in a roasting pan with broth to finish it on top of the stove, taking a page out of my Dad's book. Later Ray managed to locate a couple of extension cords so the fridge is directly plugged into the power pole and ran another one to the microwave convection ... needed to finish cooking the apple pie and cook off the dressing again to make sure it was okay ... no bacteria. What a day! Fortunately our batteries are fully charged so we will have lights and I hooked up our big buddy heater again so we will be warm tonight. Now we will move the extension cord over to the front TV so we we have something to do tonight as our computers will be dead shortly. (TV did not work either ... maybe there was a loose cord). We were too tired to bother so we just used the extension cord to power down the dish and called it a night! We were in bed at 7:30 thoroughly disgusted.

Hopefully tomorrow goes well ... I was almost ready to take the next plane home to our nice house where everything is fixed and works!!!

Kartchner Caverns and Benson, AZ

Tuesday, November 19th

After another cool night, we had the jacks up and were on our way by 8:30 am. We drove back to Silver City and then down Highway 90 to the I-10 to Benson, AZ. There is a cut over highway called Highway 78 that is only a short ways down from Glenwood, but it is a very windy, steep road according to Bucky so we opted to bypass that route and take the more gentle route. The whole way down to the I-10 we only saw a few other vehicles, a great drive. Of course the I-10 was busy as usual with all of the truckers. We stopped at a rest area called Texas Canyon, 16 miles outside of the town of Benson to walk Freya and give Ray a stretch. Wanted to get that in before the rain began. What fabulous rock formations.

These formations are very similar to Chiricahua National Monument not too far away.

We pulled into the Benson I-10 RV Park. They have great reviews and the owners are really nice and welcoming. I chose this park because it is a Passport America park so $25/night for 50 amp and full hookup. Also it is on nice gravel and with the rain coming, up to 2 inches in 3 days I wanted to be "high and dry" off the desert dirt. The downside is it is close to the I-10 and rail line so very noisy. Ear plugs solved that problem lol

We hurried to get set up as we could see the black clouds and knew the forecasted rain was imminent. Ray just managed to get everything outside down when the rain and thunder began. It was well past lunch time so I put Freya's Thunder Jacket on her and we left for lunch at the Horseshoe Diner 2 miles away.  They had great margaritas (in a big water glass for $3.50) and also great burgers. No pictures ... we were in a big hurry to get food in our stomach as we did not have breakfast and we were hungry.

Back to the rig and listened to the rain for the rest of the afternoon. Fortunately the thunder cells had passed so Freya was not too worried.

Wednesday morning we woke to clearing skies although still black against the mountains. The temps were considerably warmer at 50F outside. Today is supposed to be quite windy and it has already started with our toppers flapping.  Had a slow relaxing morning and then went to a couple of stores for a few items. Back home for a "Ploughman's Lunch" (meat and cheeses and rustic bread) Started sprinkling again off and on. As we were close to the laundromat here, I put on two more loads of laundry, mostly towels. What an exciting day. lol Checked out the washrooms too and they are spotless with very clean showers as well. So another pro for this park. Otherwise a very quiet, much needed day for Ray.

Starting to get cold at Lake Cowichan. The "S" word is in the forecast!

I spent 5 hours trying to get a hold of Camping World in Tucson to see about a service appointment for the washing machine and furnace ... They don't have an appointment to just check it out until Dec 3rd. The service guy is going to try their Avondale location as we will be up that way soon anyways. When I get some sort of answer we will plan the next two weeks before we move into the Lost Dutchman State Park for two weeks. So for now we will visit the Kartchner Caverns tomorrow and Friday so we can do both tours and then to ???? don't know. TBA

UPDATE After finally talking with Avondale Camping World late this afternoon ... they cannot get us in either. They suggested a mobile RV tech and gave me a number but as we won't be in that area very long I decided to call a place in Apache Junction instead. They have a mobile service with great reviews so they are coming to the Lost Dutchman SP on the morning of December 9th to see what needs to be ordered or can be fixed right away. They promised to have everything done by the 22 of December when we leave for Casa Grande. Fingers Crossed it all works out.)

Thursday morning we woke up to a brief no rain so I could let Freya out to pee. 10 minutes later the skies opened up and boy did it pour. Came with the wind too. Good thing we are seeing the Cavern today as everything else would be a bust.

Out the door at 8:30 am for the 15 minute drive to Kartchner Caverns. We managed to get on an earlier tour so off we went. What an amazing place. We took the Rotunda and Throne Room tour and will take the Big Room Tour tomorrow.

The most interesting thing about these caves is that since discovery, only 20% of the floor has ever been touched by anyone. The original explorers who helped get it designated as a State Park, were very careful not to disturb any of the formations that are 100's of thousand of years old. These formations are still mostly forming and are "alive". These caves are one of a few in the world that are totally wheelchair accessible. All the walkways were made by hand by people and buckets. No power tools were used at all in the cave system to protect the environment.

You cannot take any pictures in the cave except on a photographic cave tour that they only offer once a month. Apparently the photo tour isn't popular, shuts down all the other tours for two hours, and require all lights to be turned up to 90%.  All this brings the price to $125 per person.So here are some from Google.















The Throne Room and the biggest formation in this part of the cave.



Tomorrow Ray and I will tour the Big Room. It is closed from April 15 to October 15 due to the migration of the bats.

"Kartchner Caverns is home to approximately 1000-2000 cave myotis (Myotis velifer), a species of insectivorous bat, from May to mid-September of each year. These bats, primarily pregnant females (Fig. 1), return each summer to Kartchner Caverns to give birth and rear their young. The bats are an integral part of the cave ecosystem. Bat excrement (guano) below bat roosts is the primary source of food for other organisms in the cave and is an unusually rich source of nutrients for obligate invertebrate residents (Welbourn 1999). The various cave-adapted organisms utilize the bat guano in different ways but all depend upon it for their survival (Harris 1970; Horst 1972; Poulson 1972). Loss of the roosting bats could cause a collapse of a healthy cave environment and the destruction of the entire cave ecosystem."

We read on Dave and Cheryl McMechan's blog (www.ourawesomeviewfromhere.blogspot.ca) and found they are also in Benson. Apparently Dave does not check his facebook messages very often, so after their email address from Dianne, I sent them a gmail.   We got together for a great lunch together at The Horseshoe Cafe. We were blabbing so much that they came back to the coach so we could continue our "catching up". Dave even had his notebook out again. :) Our paths will cross again at the Lost Dutchman SP for a few days in a couple of weeks.... dinner at the Organ Stop Pizza and on to the Mormon Tabernacle for the Christmas Lights??

Dave, Cheryl, Ray and I

Friday morning was relaxing as our tour today was not until 2:45pm At 10:30 we headed out to do a little shopping and get our Verizon Jetpack up and running ... using too much data on our phone. lol We also slipped into Safeway and received this year's flu shot. After that, we took a quick visit to the Benson Visitor Centre. Dave and Cheryl encouraged Ray to see it due to their train display. What a interesting little place. They have a simulator controls for an aerial train around the ceiling.

 Ray managed a "derailment" running the train. lol

They are having difficulty with the train hesitating near the power source.  The guy on the ladder tried giving it a push with their specially designed tool for such a purpose .... a broom.  It kicked off one of the cars, left the rest of the cars behind and the engine and one car took off down the track now that is was a little lighter.  Ray still got his "Train Engineer" certificate.  Funny, Ray's cousin who worked with CNR used to investigate train derailments.

The gentlemen is very into his trains and when he realized Ray'd worked on the railroad and interested in trains, he really opened up.  All the models are G scale and very large.  Many of his cars are on display.  He'd just been given a bunch of new cars and locomotives by a old gentleman.  He had to show us his prize "steam" locomotive.   Thanks for the suggestion Dave!

Here is me displaying the certificate so Ray could get a picture of the front of the old train station.

Back home for a while with Freya, had lunch and then we were off to Kartchner Caverns again. The Big Room Tour is fabulous. The park guy that took us was a fountain of information, a real science guy. Both Ray and I thoroughly enjoyed this tour. Yesterday's tour was great, today's was fabulous. Ray took a few pictures outside of the Discovery Centre with his phone before we went on the tour.

Hummingbird garden:

That hill is "swiss cheese"

As we were early for our tour we sat outside and shared a Prickly Pear Lemonade. This huge raven named "Leroy", has been hanging around the Discovery Centre for over 4 years. His kids hang out at the campsite apparently. He will steal your food if you are not careful. The lady is an employee at the cafe and got Leroy to talk.  Then a customer came from the cafe with some food.  She came around the corner and came to a complete stop when she saw Leroy.   I'd say she was a little nervous.  The other lady said no problem just eat.  Well... after a while Leroy started making his way over to here, hopping from table to table. In the meantime you can see the ladies eyes get bigger and bigger and bringing her food closer to herself.  Leroy finally hopped on to her table... The lady squawked, grabbed her food and ran off lol!

Back home we had a quiet evening. We leave tomorrow for Whitewater Draw for 3 days to watch the birds and do some relaxing.