The Rambler

Tucson, AZ

After staying at Kartchner, we moved on to Catalina State Park just at the northern edge of the Tucson metro area. This put us in the Sonoran Desert, which is notable for its Saguaro Cactus. We mostly stayed at this very nice park, where we just relaxed, enjoyed the space and walked the trails.

We did make a couple outings though, one to visit with David, Kristin's former manager, and his wife Amalia, and another to see Saguaro National Park. On these trips we observed that the outskirts of Tucson are terribly afflicted by what we call "suburb hell", where newly developed neighborhoods exhibiting depressingly stultifying stylistic uniformity are periodically punctuated by shopping hubs that are also depressingly uniform, and where new developments are continually pushing out the boundaries of the metro area. We don't like that.

Catalina State Park

There are lots of Saguaros here, lots of nice hiking trails, and the campground is very clean and spacious. A great place to hang out for a few days!

Saguaro National Park

In addition to the Saguaros, many of which were sporting very pretty flowers, we also saw native petroglyphs and did some hiking. It's a cool park worth visiting, but frankly, we think it's really only worth a day's visit at the most.

Phoenix, AZ

From Catalina we made our way further north (closer to the Grand Canyon!) to stay at Lake Pleasant Regional Park just northwest of the Phoenix metro area. We had a nice campsite overlooking Lake Pleasant, which is major water reservoir for Phoenix and a recreational hub. Here again, we mostly hung out and relaxed, except for a trip into the 'burbs to do laundry and a bit of shopping, and a trip to Wickenburg to participate in the May Day protest. We had our Friday burgers and beer at Wild Horse West, just a few miles from the park.

Lake Pleasant Regional Park

May Day Protest in Wickenburg, AZ

Cottonwood, AZ

From Lake Pleasant, we moved further north to Cottonwood, AZ and Dead Horse Ranch State Park. We really liked this park a lot, and were disappointed that we couldn't stay longer. The park is beautiful, and we found Cottonwood to be a pretty nice town too, even contemplating what it might be like to live there. We were pleasantly surprised to find a really nice natural food store, Mount Hope Foods, where we stocked up on things we hadn't been able to find for some time. We had the good fortune to be in Cottonwood as the desert plants were blooming, and to even experience rain; and Oh! what a delightful treat to smell the Creosote Bush fragrance after a rain!

While in Cottonwood we picked up a generator that I'd ordered, and I took time to get it broken in and successfully tested it with our camper. This completed all my preparations to make the camper boondockable, so we were ready for our next stay at the Grand Canyon, where we would need it.

We took a day trip up to Jerome, a super cool little town that we had visited back in 2014 - it hasn't changed much - and had a yummy burger & beer lunch at The Haunted Hamburger, which we also visited in 2014. It was fun to be in Jerome again! We also visited the Tuzigoot National Monument, adding to our growing knowledge of the history of indigenous peoples in pre-colonization North America.

Dead Horse Ranch State Park

Jerome, AZ

Tuzigoot National Monument

Grand Canyon National Park

There can hardly be bad pictures of the Grand Canyon, and it was difficult to limit this posting to those I chose below. All I can say is, if they inspire you and you haven't been to the Grand Canyon, I encourage you to make the trip and see it for yourself. Words and pictures just can't capture the awe that is experienced by being there.

Our visit was divided into three parts, with Audrey and Paul coming to visit us in the middle of the trip. They were able to spend a couple nights with us while we were camping inside the park, and a few more nights while we camped outside Tusayan. During that time, Audrey and I backpacked the Hermit Trail down to the bottom and back. The following is a summary:

First Few Days

We spent our first five nights at the canyon in Trailer Village within the national park. This gave us convenient shuttle and walking-distance access to the main attractions on the south rim. Our first day there we were fortunate to be able to attend a Havasupai Ram Dance hosted by the park service on the canyon rim. This was surprisingly emotional, particularly the speech given by a tribal elder prior to the dance, who connected themes from tribal history and current events to promote a compassionate humanity and a subtle opposition to the 47 regime. I did not capture any pictures of this dance, but I did find this YouTube video, which is pretty close to what we saw:

And a couple additional interesting links about this:

• Indigenous People's Day
• Havasupai Ram Dancers

Here are some scenes from our first couple days at the GC:

Audrey and Paul Arrive

After the first couple days, Audrey and Paul came. The first day after they arrived, we had lunch at El Tovar, which is the first time any of us has had a meal there. It was quite nice!

Backpacking Hermit Trail

A big part of our plan for Audrey and Paul to visit was for Audrey and I to do some backpacking to the bottom of the canyon. We tried to get permits to camp at Bright Angel camp but were not successful. Instead, we got permits for two nights of camping at Monument Creek and Hermit Creek, down the Hermit Trail and part of the Tonto Trail. I was concerned about my knee, but decided I could make the trip, so we went, and my knee was mostly fine - fine enough anyway. The scenery was spectacular, as expected. The lizards at the bottom were amazing: They are beautifully colorful and extremely docile, coming right up to us to check us out, and hanging out on rocks and trees as if begging to get photographed, which I obviously obliged.