On to Amado…

I could have stayed a couple days in Truth or Consequences but there wasn’t much there or nearby that I was interested in. There’s the Elephant Butte Reservoir and the Geronimo Springs Museum but that’s about it. I can’t recall now why I was in such an all fired hurry to leave, but I was. Probably because I wanted to get down to Mazatlan for some fun in the sun.

Anyway, the next morning, I headed south and when I got to the fork in the road at Hatch that would lead me to Big Bend NP, I took the right fork towards Tucson and Amado instead. Hey, look, water.

And then I passed this solar farm. I don’t think these giant solar arrays are very popular because I don’t see many of them.

Here’s what I usually see, windmills and small, ground hugging solar arrays.

And soon, I’m traveling though some pretty dry desert areas. But note the brush. It must get some rain here.

  I did stop at this interesting rest area next to a giant jumble of huge rocks in the middle of a desert like valley.

After some refreshments and a bit of a rest, back on the road.

And then I arrived at the RV park in Amado that I’ve stayed at many times before. But something was wrong. The door to the office was locked and here is was 3 PM. Wuh? Anyway, I start wandering around on foot and notice that the 1st two rows of transient RV spaces was all torn up and empty. Deeper into the park, the spaces I’d usually park at were filled. And then some young guy sees me and wanders over. Says there’s no spaces left. Can’t squeeze me in anywhere. He’s the grandson of the new owner. He’ll be running the place for his grandfather. Where’s the office staff? He let them all go. Everyone here staying in the park are grandfathered in and they’ll be remodeling extensively over the next few years so they’ll likely close each row, work on it, then close the next. So kinda a mess.

I know enough about new owners to know that the rates will jump. So my favorite place to stay outside of the border crossing at Nogales is now likely going cost more. Sigh. I did ask the guy to let me know if he had an opening.

Anyway, it was such a mess there, that I wanted to warn people so that night when I was in the RV park next door (very expensive), I wrote an RV site review about what I thought of the place NOW, not what it was and not what it might turn into, but right now. So my fellow RV’ers wouldn’t drive there, only to find there was no room for them. Note that I had tried contacting the office several times without response before getting to Amado. Emails, text messages went unanswered. And the young man must have been monitoring that particular site where I’d posted the review because he immediately came online with a “you won’t be allowed here if you come back” directed at me type message. Wut? Just for being honest? Apparently, he doesn’t take kindly to constructive criticism meant for a different audience.

Anyway, I went to the RV park next door because by then it was ~4 PM and I didn’t want to try to find another, economical RV park in the dark. Stayed at the DeAnza RV park. I only stayed one night because it is sooooo expensive. Gravel spaces, little shade, WE&S were okay, but the place was not worth $60/night. I used my time there to try to find an RV park nearby (but there wasn’t anything that wasn’t way off into the hills miles away, on 2 lane roads or wasn’t filled to the brim already). I even drove my car to the nearest interesting looking economical RV park in the Amado foothills but the road was so difficult and so far from everything that I scratched that idea. So I checked further afield, up into Tucson. And found that EVERY park in this area has joined the overpriced bandwagon so the only economical place I found was the Pima County Fairgrounds east of Tucson.  They don’t have a monthly rate so I paid $180 weekly. It’s a dry, dusty, rustic type of RV park with little shade. But of course it’s in the middle of a desert soooooo.

One day, I was out roaming around and went quite a few miles the wrong way. And by that I mean wrong because I was unaware. Bumped into Tucson’s biggest, world renown, bike race. Tens of thousands of bike riders all riding in/out/around the Tucson area. I went the wrong way because it cost me an hour waiting here and there for the traffic cops to let me pass. Jeese, my luck. And guess what? When I got to the Pina Fairgrounds, the only entrance I knew about was blocked off. So I asked the nearby cop and he directed me to a 5 mile detour I’d have to take to get 100 yards past where he was. GAH! Here’s just one picture of the many many times I had to get out of the way for bikes. This one way still had one lane open but many times the road was totally blocked while hundreds of bikers in a group passed while those of us in cars waited for that particular group to pass. Then they’d let a few of us across the road.

I didn’t know the area but the directions were good enough that I was back to the RV park soon enough. Now I had the backdoor route in my memory bank too. Anyway, here’s my RV spot. Not the greatest but worth every penny considering. Across the street you can see the other RV park…not as nice as this side.

So that’s the RV campground. NO trees in the other section. They gave me this spot because I asked about staying for a month and where they put me is the long term area.

So from this home base, I was able to spend the next week or so exploring the area, finding the best places to eat and shop, even found that the fairground pub was open that first weekend I was there…which turned into a mirage as it was never open again during my entire 16 day stay.

Wanted to visit downtown and here it is…

So while I was wandering the streets looking around one day, spotted a brew pub…the Hub, so stopped in for a beer.

Good beer, very friendly people, one even ran out and put money in the parking meter for me. Had a Flatiron steak salad but unfortunately, the steak was tough, but the salad was excellent.

While there in Tucson, my Pahrump friend John, who had bought property here in Tucson, contacted me so I went over to visit. Here he is walking back up his steep driveway towards the house. This property is just off the Ajo Highway which is in the hills west of Tucson. Close to town, but semi-remote.

Here’s the back yard. It borders park land so there will be no development on this hill. 

Very nice. I’m impressed. He’d previously owned property up in Pahrump but sold that one and bought this one. I’ve visited both and this one is better.

And here is his RV parked in the nice flat area made for an RV by the previous land owner. And there was room for another RV just beyond. Between that RV and the building.

I mentioned the difficulty I was having with my favorite RV park basically closed for remodeling and the lack of an economical place to stay and he offered to let me park right next to his RV on his property. We’d need to install a 50 amp receptacle but the site was so close to the power pole breakout box that it really wasn’t much of a problem. The site was already set up for an RV with a sewer connection and a water spigot, it only lacked the 50 amp receptacle. So of course I jumped at the offer. Even paying the amount per month that I offered I’d be saving $$ off what those other nearby RV parks were asking.

I helped dig the trench for the new wiring, wired it all up (since that’s one of my skills), tested it. And here’s the trench going over to the power pole. Dug half of that myself…so see, I do sometimes work in the dirt.

Sewer and water already there, just needed a new 50 amp receptacle to be a real RV parking site. The other one is 30 amp, which is all that’s needed for an RV just sitting there.

So there we are, a brand new shore power setup for any RV. I guesstimated that the job would have been $1400 by an electrician. As it was, it cost probably $300 in parts?

Couple days after that, left the fairgrounds, drove my RV up John’s unmaintained 1/2 mile long tortuous, bumpy, hilly, gravel and rock strewn road to his property. The gravel road ends and cement takes over the last few yards. Disconnected my car and left it down on the main road apron because the unpaved section I had to travel wouldn’t have been good for it towing it behind the RV.

So anyway, that’s all for this article. That only brings us up to December 2021 though so there’s more to tell. Like the trolley trip around downtown Tucson. That’ll be in the next article, along with other adventures.

Thanks for reading!

Jim