Escaped Doodles

Oct. 15, 2019 - New Mexico - Arizona

Not a lot of amazing adventures this installment. We spend a total of six days at Navajo Lake. With this stay our New Mexico annual camping pass easily paid for itself. We took a few walks around the campground and to the lake. Kids went swimming a few times but it wasn't great for them, steep drop-off and a lot of people. It's a very active lake for fishing, at least this time of year. We suspect it's more a water sports lake during the summer heat. It seemed busy but only one of the four campgrounds near the dam was open.

We didn't see any of them but by the tracks there are raccoons in the area.

We then made our way to Camp Verdi with a few stops. The first was at Red Rock Park just outside Gallup. It used to be a state park but now is a city park. We were just there overnight but it looked like there may be some good hiking. Could not find a host or office in the campground. Finally were directed to the main park office, closed, but the convention center knew what to do. They gave us a key to the bathrooms and said someone would be around to collect. No-one showed that night, and no-one showed up in the morning. Not a problem, a free night of camping. Found a second key on top of our electrical box and turned it in to the park office with ours. Interesting country, below is a picture of Church Rock taken from the campground.

Then one overnight stop at Homolovi State Park outside Winslow (standing on the corner) Arizona. We've stopped here before but didn't take the time to see the Anasazi ruins. This time we took a couple of hours to do this. It is impressive but hasn't been excavated as some of those at Chaco Canyon. It was well worth the stop though. Unlike Chaco there were pot sherds everywhere. Felt like you could put together the jigsaw puzzle and have an Anasazi pot. Probably not that easy though, more like a thousand jigsaw puzzles with the pieces all mixed up.

Driving from Winslow (standing on the corner) to Camp Verdi they were conducting extensive controlled burns, with many warning signs along the way. And yes, it was quite smokey for some distance. It amazed us because there were high wind warnings in the area. Would not have thought controlled burn and wind warning go together.

Finally to Clear Creek CG outside Camp Verdi, five days here. Not too active though we took one trip down to Fossil Creek. The road in is a maybe 20 miles of terrible washboard. Larry is not real good on these roads, rides like a truck. We really need Brutus for this, but no way to bring him along. We stopped at a few of the access parking areas. Lotsa parking in the lots but not too many cars. We suspect it gets more crowded in the summer. In fact, a permit is required April through September.

Also saw this fellow in the campground. Seems September/October is the time for the males to start a search for mates. Cute little fuzzy critters, but don't touch.

Finally a push on to White Spar CG in Prescott. We'll be in the Prescott area for a couple of weeks for doctors appointments and vets. Ruby hasn't been feeling well for a month or so. Took her and Cooper in for checkups. Cooper's fine, but Ruby has very high calcium levels pointing to a possible tumor on her para-thyroid. So another blood test is in the works for confirmation. Poor girl has had more than her share of medical problems. She may be headed for surgery soon, but the outcomes from this surgery are promising.

We're getting to know Sassy (Bigfoot) and she's getting to know us. It's a step up, for living in, from Dora (Escape). It'll just take some time and a few mods. By spring we'll be in sync.

It is getting cold up here at 5000'. Time to head to Brenda, but have to stay till the end of the month. Good time to look around Prescott & Prescott Valley a little more. Will likely be our home in a few years. Great retirement town, good shopping and medical but a little busier than we'd prefer. Can't have everything. But for now we'll just keep traveling.

Life is good. Thanks for coming along.

8645