From the Deserts of Texas to the Deserts of New Mexico and Arizona

 

September 28, 2024

Our report date to Furnace Creek, Death Valley is drawing near.  Just eight days to go.  But we've got some miles to go and sites to see first.  Number one after exiting Texas is Alamogordo, NM, the town adjacent to White Sands National Park.  Our last time in Alamogordo was about eight years ago and it was just a quick pass through on our way to White Sands.  This time we are staying in town at Boot Hill RV.  It's a pretty nice setup for a desert town.  It's flat, although roads and RV pads are dirt and gravel, nice landscaping, an onsite general store (strangely not open on weekends), and key coded entrance gate.

Across the street, actually the highway, are two large pistachio farms.  Both have tourist attracting stores with trinkets and everything pistachio.  The pistachio ice cream was excellent!
Worlds largest pistachio.
September 29, 2024

White Sands is another park that has been some years since we last visited and it too has had some changes.  The most dramatic being my favorite boardwalk is closed.  It seems an F-16 crashed into it a few months ago and they haven't been able to clear all the wreckage yet.  Though I'm told the pilot survived.

Another less dramatic change is that the park has transitioned from being a National Monument to a National Park.  It became a monument in 1933 and achieved National Park status in 2019.  Can't tell anything in the park has changed except the signage.  And there is a bit of a problem there.

The old National Monument sign was literally carved in stone.  More than likely hand crafted by CCC workers.
The new sign is a commercially produced "graphic" and stuck in the ground with a couple of posts on the opposite side of the walk from the original.










We got a break in the super high temperatures which made for a much more enjoyable visit to the dunes.  I walked out into the dunes and tried to capture what my eyes were seeing photographically.  But two dimensional photographs just can't get there.  Nor can they capture the hush normally associated with a new fallen snow.
Photographs just can't do the actual sight justice.

Cyndee was catching my return from the peaks of the nearby dunes.
Our day ended with returning to Boot Hill RV and taking both vehicles to get them fueled up for tomorrow's travel to Arizona.  A nice plus about getting this far west is that Maverik fuel stations are in abundance.  We are putting our Nitro fuel card back in service and getting a ten cent per gallon discount on gasoline and diesel.  And when you are buying 80 or 90 gallons of diesel at a time it makes a difference.

September 30, 2024

Our drive today is one of the longer ones at just about five hours.  We're bound for Benson, AZ where we are going to base camp for four nights.  Getting an early start didn't do much for helping us escape the heat.  It was almost 90 degrees at seven in the morning.  I don't like putting our vehicles in the position of having to tow in that kind of heat but today it can't be avoided.

We dropped anchor at Pato Blanco Lakes RV in Benson.  It's a private campground but pleasantly priced, no pretenses of being a "resort", although they certainly have the amenities to be one.  I only did the bare minimum of hooking up, just power, to get the A/Cs running.  I'll do the rest after the sun goes down.  It's just too hot with the sun beating down on my utilities side.

October 1, 2024

We chose Benson for its proximity to Saguaro National Park.  It's not exactly nearby but it had the combination of driving distance from Alamogordo and reasonably priced campgrounds that made it a good choice.  Not to mention the easy access to I-10.

Our adventure for the day is in the east side section of Saguaro.  The park is broken into two sections.  One on the east side of Tucson and the other to the west of Tucson.
Today - Saguaro East (Rincon Mountains District)
Like everybody, we "know" saguaros.  They are the backdrop to countless Westerns and sometimes play a feature role in the Roadrunner cartoons.  But like I have said about my own photographs, seeing them two-dimensionally just whets the appetite.  Seeing them live is a whole different ballgame.  And knowing a little about their life cycle left us just saying "wow" at each turn and overlook.  There are so many.  Hard to believe they are considered threatened and just a mere shadow of their former population.  It takes six to eight years just to achieve their first inch or so of growth.  They don't put on their first branch until about 70 years old and the ones that make it to full maturity are about 150 years old.
A stand of old-timers with the suburbs of Tucson in the distance. 
I got out of the car and waded in amongst some 
middle-agers for a visit.

Cyndee was also taken with the large barrel cacti.

We were maybe a couple of days early to see the blossoms in full bloom.

If you click on this image and enlarge, you may be
able to see the saguaros all along the ridge of the mountain. 
After spending a good part of the day in the park we drove into Tucson for a meal and brief look around.  Then it was back to Benson to restock our drink cooler for tomorrow's dive into the west side of Saguaro National Park.

October 2, 2024

Up and at it early this day.  We'll be in the car about an hour and a half getting to the west section of Saguaro National Park, what they call the Tucson Mountain District.
Entrance to the Tucson Mountain District of Saguaro NP.
We didn't really expect there to be much difference between the two parks.  In some ways that was true, I mean it was a park featuring saguaro cacti.  But then again, it was noticeably different.  The terrain was a little different and there seemed to be more vegetation but more importantly the cacti were much denser.  Obviously more cacti per acre and, I'm not for sure, but the cacti seemed healthier.
Saguaro are more densely populated in the Tucson Mountain District
Desert apartments
We saw lots of evidence of desert wildlife but just not the wildlife itself.  The saguaro provide habitat for a variety of animals with a predominance being birds.  Their nests have have the entrance hole and then there is vertical passage down to a burrowed out nesting chamber.  Many of these birds are owls and are night dwellers, leaving us to only imagine their comings and goings.

We had to pass through Tucson to get to the west side of the park so on the way back we exited the interstate and found the local Sam's Club to stock up on non-perishables for our Death Valley gig.  And there was a quick stop in Camping World to acquire a new water pump for the camper.  The new one I put on in North Carolina just weeks ago has quit.  I'm going to do something I RARELY do and buy the extended warranty for this one.

October 3, 2024

We've been going non-stop for several days now.  Today we're taking a break and hanging out at the campground.  We'll get fuel in the vehicles and prep the camper for moving but otherwise a quiet day.  The sight-seeing is done for the rest of the trip.  From tomorrow on it will be about getting from point A to point B until we arrive in Death Valley.

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