Mazatlan to California…

After I left Maz, I spent two days on roads I’d been on the previous year so there is nothing new to report as the trip to the border was uneventful. So, I didn’t take any pictures so as to not bore you guys. Also, my attention was distracted by the new propane injection system I’d just permanently installed and I was concentrating on learning the best way to use it. Read more in the ‘RV Repair’ section of my blog.

It took two days to get to the border from Mazatlan and I arrived Nogales near 2 pm on a weekday. The US border guard directed me to a parking area and soon another guard knocked on my door and while I waited in the drivers seat, he looked around. I’d timed my food purchases in such a way that I didn’t have anything the guy could complain about and in less then 10 minutes he was done. I have my bedroom door closed while I travel with a bungie cord holding it shut and he didn’t even open it. Didn’t look under the couch, or any of the basement compartments either. So, off I went into Arizona. I spent the night at the same RV park I stayed at last year and relaxed a bit for the evening. Only difference was that this year I wasn’t fighting food poisoning. The next morning, I decided to take a ‘short cut’ because I wanted to visit the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. My brother has been mentioning the Monument as a cool place to visit for years so I thought I’d check it out. I turned onto my shortcut route at Amado, Arizona, and headed west.

I passed through a couple small towns but this area of Arizona is not very populated and I went for miles at a time without passing a vehicle. The two lane road here is a little like a roller coaster, but the area has it’s charm. When I arrived in Arivaca, I noticed a small grocery store and since I was out of nearly everything, I stopped to shop. Turns out that this little town is an artist colony and the store had large selections of wine and cheese. They even had my favorite cheese, Tillimook Cheddar, at the same price that I paid for it in Portland. I grabbed a brick of cheese, found several packages of meat that were on sale and grabbed those too. Then on to the Monument.

When I turned south at Why, Arizona, the flora and fauna had changed a little from just 50 miles back. It was more of a desert with shorter scrub bushes and few trees. And there were many more cactus, larger and taller then what I had been seeing. Heading south to the Monument, I began to see many of those towering cactus along the road.

Just inside the boundary of the Monument, I thought this was an interesting view:

Can’t remember why this caught my attention:

Here’s the best pipe cactus I found along the road where I could actually pull over and park to get a picture, they are actually very tall:

There’s my rig, over there along the road, note that on the other side of the road are several cactus that are taller then my rig (13 feet):

Just an example of the area:

Another view of the area as I drove north:

I stopped at the park office and toured the building looking at all the stuff they sell, also perused the information about the geologic history and such. It was pretty quiet there that day with just a few tourists, for a while I was the only visitor. I checked on the campground prices and facilities and wasn’t impressed. And I have been in many deserts where there are both better views and more interesting flora. But the final straw was, NO WIFI. So, I just left and headed north. I had planned on spending the night, but couldn’t come up with a compelling reason to do so.