Picacho Peak State Park

Time to leave this area, we headed out a bit later at 10 am, from Tombstone RV Park as we only had a 2 hour drive today to Picacho Peak State Park.

We left after the morning showers quit. Ray and I were dressed for more rain further north with long sleeve shirts and pants. Imagine our surprise when blue skies appeared for the rest of the drive and when we arrived at the park it was 77F... hot, hot, hot. It did not take us long to get into our shorts and t-shirts and have a cold beverage in hand lol. I chose site B19 which was a nice pull-through with a view facing Picacho Peak, so we would not have to unhook the car.

For lunch I made personal pizzas and then we took Freya for a walk around our loop and that's all she wanted as it was too warm out for a black dog. The rest of the afternoon we sat in the shade of the coach watching all the traffic on the I-10 in the distance. Supper was left-overs so very little mess.to clean up before travel tomorrow.

Amazing there is new grass growing everywhere here. Must have had a lot of rain recently. Even the ocotillos are greening up instead of looking like dead trees.

Ray headed out for a walk at dusk to get some pictures, and even managed to find an arch in the hill behind us.

We had hoped for a better sunset, but too many clouds rolled in the last 15 minutes. He was trying to get a shot of all the saguaro's in the sunset.

The setting sun did manage to light up the rocks though.

A short visit here but we did enjoy the heat and sunny afternoon. On the road again tomorrow. I managed to snag a few extra days at the Lost Dutchman State Park.

Hard to believe that a year ago we were up to our necks with renovations ... glad to be down here this year for the winter.

Two years ago Ray took this picture of Freya and me. Love it.

Well we prepared the coach for moving and hooked up the car, unfortunately the DEF warning light came on and the coach would only go 5 mph .... Ray drove back around the loop and we parked back in our site. After phone calls to Cummins, Ray was told to phone a mobile diesel tech to get us on the road as it probably was the sensor. I went back to the park office and paid for another day. The tech arrived at 3:30 and hooked the the computer up and yes it is the sensor. He spoke to Tiffin earlier after Ray called him this morning and this part is made by a company called Shaw and needs to be shipped from Tiffin in Alabama... there is no local supplier. Arghhhhh. Anyways, he is trying to get the part shipped on the "Red Eye" and hopefully have it here tomorrow afternoon (Friday). Now I have to go back to the office again and hopefully book this site for another night as well. If there is trouble getting it here .... more days here I guess. We are expected at the Lost Dutchman on Saturday.

Turned out he couldn't get ahold of Tiffin today due to the time difference between here and Alabama, but will call them first thing tomorrow morning, which means the part won't get here until Saturday if we are lucky. Went back up to the park office and our site is taken for the weekend so I had to book a different one a few sites further up the loop. Ray will creep up the road hopefully tomorrow morning.

Friday morning, was a glorious sunrise. Ray walked around in his housecoat with his camera and tripod. Seemed like in every other unit the people were sound asleep as no one else was out. lol

Ray called the technician this morning and he was able to finally get ahold of Tiffin in Alabama. The part will be shipped today overnight and hopefully be installed sometime tomorrow. In case something goes wrong and it does not get here until the next day we decided to stay Sunday as well and fortunately the new site we moved to this morning is also available for Sunday. So we are actually in this site for 3 days before moving onto our reservation at the Lost Dutchman Park in Apache Junction for 14 days. Fingers crossed this will work out.

After getting our answers regarding the part and cancelling our reservation at Lost Dutchman for Saturday and Sunday it was off to Casa Grande to pick up some groceries. Needed more barbecued chicken for Freya and milk etc. Didn't expect to be here this long. Managed to stop in at High Chaparral RV Park in Arizona City to have a quick visit with our friends, Wayne and Karen. Our other friends Dave and Cheryl of ourawesomeviewfromhere.blogspot.com/ were out touring and not home at the park to say Hi. We will see them after the weekend at the Lost Dutchman. Up next was  lunch at the Golden Corral. It was OK and not as good as we remembered from several years ago.  Lots of items empty and not refilled during our meal

Back home after shopping, we sat outside and enjoyed the warm temps and visited with some park hosts camped behind us. I dealt with Tonya at the Visitor's Centre as I added more days to our stay 3 times. lol 

Dinner was left-over spaghetti. after our large lunch at the Golden Corral. lol I do have a ton of dishes to do though as I just put the day before's into my wash tubs for the short 3 site move... tomorrow's another day. :)

Saturday morning ... and I did not have to pack up again. Yeah! A very relaxing morning watching the sunrise. Not as spectacular as yesterday but still very nice. Today I spent just messing around  (dishes) and to make it feel like Christmas, Shortbread cookies. Fresh bread was also on the menu.

We got the call that the DEF sensor was in and Jacob was on his way to put it in. By 1 pm everything was good! He cleared out all the computer error codes so we should be good to go. Unbelievable that overnight express was only $70 ,,, We would recommend this company, of which Jacob is 1/2 owner of to anyone with diesel issues.

This afternoon I decided to try cooking a duck on charcoal outside on the parks grill. We shall see how it goes. I love a day outside to just barbecue and watch the birds. Freya always likes it when we are all outside with her. As the afternoon turned cold we had a campfire as well.

Meet Jack the duck! On his beer can perch.  lol

Jack moves onto the grill in his own sauna.

Here's Jack all done up with orange glaze.

I did have to finish him in the convection oven as he just did not come up to the temp he needed to, but the mesquite charcoal smoked him pretty good.

Dinner was excellent. Jack was very moist but took forever to cook. lol I will have to rethink this cooking method. 

While we sat down to dinner rain showers began so we did not go back out to the campfire so it quickly went out with the rain.

Sunday we woke to sprinkles and very grey skies. Not a very inspiring day. lol

Although the day stayed cloudy, Ray went for a drive to get some pictures of what he could see. Here are some pictures of Picacho Peak and the Hunter trail climb.

While he was out and about he was taking pictures of the acres and acres of saguaro.

While he was driving around he noticed another "arch" on the Black Hill. Ray came back and collected Freya and I and we walked to it checking it out.

We wondered why this sign was here so went to Wikipedia to find out.

Battle of Picacho Pass

The Battle of Picacho Pass or the Battle of Picacho Peak was an engagement of the American Civil War on April 15, 1862. The action occurred around Picacho Peak, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Tucson, Arizona. It was fought between a Union cavalry patrol from California and a party of Confederate pickets from Tucson, and marks the westernmost battle of the American Civil War.

Every March, Picacho Peak State Park hosts a re-enactment of the Civil War battles of Arizona and New Mexico, including the battle of Picacho Pass. The re-enactments now have grown so large that many more participants tend to be involved than took part in the actual engagements, and include infantry units and artillery as well as cavalry. The 2015 re-enactment, which was held March 22 and 23, also included re-enactments of the Battle of Valverde and the Battle of Glorieta Pass, both of which took place in relatively nearby New Mexico.^[

With all the rain the desert is greening up. There is even mushrooms growing under some bushes!

Look at all the lichen on the rocks ... New meaning for the Painted Rocks. lol

A nice walk about and then we spent the rest of the afternoon inside much to Freya's dismay.

 Hopefully when we leave tomorrow there are no more problems with a DEF error code!