Full-time Fun in Phoenix

We had to make some tough decisions while we were in the Phoenix area, because there's so much to see and do.  After getting parked at Usery Mountain Regional Park, north of Mesa, and doing some research about the area, we settled on our top four choices: the Musical Instrument Museum, the Desert Botanical Gardens, a scenic drive on the Apache Trail, and Taliesin West. (I managed to fill in any available interstices with hikes and bike rides around the campground as well.) I'll take each of these fantastic experiences one at a time.

Usery Mountain Regional Park

This park, just beyond the northeastern fringes of the Phoenix metropolitan area, is a real treasure. The campground has roomy sites with lots of desert scenery and vegetation around them; electric and water hook-ups with a convenient dump station; brand new, clean and roomy showers with lots of high pressure hot water; interesting hiking/biking and horse trails of many levels of difficulty; several nice playgrounds; and state of the art natural archery and shooting ranges. 

We had reserved one of several easy in and out pull-throughs more than a month ago. The park seemed to be full every night we were there.

It's very conveniently located in relation to commercial development of any kind you might want, but feels like it's much more remote than that. We found Phoenix very easy to navigate. We got to all the attractions we were interested in on the 202 Loop - a smooth, quick highway with beautiful landscaping and striking desert themed concrete art on the walls that separate it from the surrounding residential areas.  

By the way, while in Tucson and Phoenix I added nine birds to my life list: the curve billed thrasher, gilded flicker, Gila woodpecker, black-chinned sparrow, verdin, cactus wren, Chihuahuan raven, and two with the best names - the phainopepla and the pyrrhuloxia! Although these birds are very common around here - they are not found in other areas of the country at all. We were also revisited by many Gambel's quails and several greater roadrunners.  Not bad!

Musical Instrument Museum

I keep a list of peak experiences I've had since starting full-timing, (there are about 12 of them) and this museum just made the list. I'm an avid fan of musical instruments from around the world so I knew I was going to love it, but I had no idea how spectacular this museum was going to be.

This is the theme of the museum, and it truly conveys the message in so many ways. This banner is posted prominently in many languages throughout the exhibits.

The two floors of this large museum are divided into the major geographical areas of the world, and the large rooms are subdivided into countries. For each country there is a selection of instruments and videos depicting the music, and in many cases the dancing, of that country. It was fantastically interesting. When we entered the first room, I thought I might never be able to leave.  The videos alone were worth the price of admission and the time it took to view them.

Of course, after a couple of hours we were both totally saturated and staggering. The museum was closing, so thankfully we couldn't stay longer, or we would have been tempted. I will definitely come back if we're in the area again, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone. It is truly a world class museum.

Here is a quick selection of some of the most photogenic instruments.

And finally my personal favorite, the air guitar. Seriously.

Scenic Drive on the Apache Trail

We and Ms. Subaru tackled the scenic loop (or at least part of it) west of Phoenix, called the Apache Trail.

Our first stop was a scenic overlook of the Salt River. 

You can just see a fly fisherman in the middle of the picture.

Second stop, Saguaro Lake, where there is a scenic boat ride one can take, 

as well as a marina and restaurant. But we moved on.

Third stop was Roosevelt Reservoir where we had a scenic picnic lunch. 

Well here's where our plans changed. After lunch, Ms. Subaru wouldn't start back up again. I guess she wanted to stay a little longer. An hour and a half longer as it turned out, as we waited for AAA to come and give her a little extra encouragement in the form of a jump start.  Seems "someone" had left the lights on and the key in the ignition, and her battery was probably a little low already. It took a long time for the tow company to find us as you can imagine by our location below. How the heck do you explain where you are to a AAA dispatcher hundreds of miles away,  when you've never been where you are before and are on some dirt road in a remote recreation area? Google maps was not so helpful, as many readers may know. When in remote locations their identifying notations can be a little off.  NIce place to be stuck though.

While waiting for AAA I had plenty of time for photography.

  

I had hoped to take the most scenic dirt/paved Route 88 from Roosevelt Reservoir to Apache Junction, but we needed to drive over to Globe to get a new battery instead. The scenery was still wonderful. 

The last stretch of the drive, from Globe to Apache Junction skirted south of the Superstition Mountains and offered some dramatic desert scenery as a storm passed through. This is a drive-by shot. Yes, by the end of the long day it was a kind of a blur.

The Desert Botanical Gardens

No, this is not a desert bloom.

There was a Dale Chihuly exhibit at the Desert Botanical Gardens, so we had a great time taking pictures of his striking glass sculptures that we scattered throughout the landscape and gardens.

Chihuly really does a great job getting his work out there. We've seen him in the Garfield Conservatory in Chicago, and at the Tacoma Museum of Glass, and other places too. 

Some of it is gorgeous and seems to enhance its surroundings. Others…not so much.

The cactus blossoms and other flowering plants were the stars of the show though.

 Not even Chihuly could out shine them.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West

We've been to several other Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) buildings, and so were excited to add Taliesin West to our experiences. This was his home for the last part of his life and is still a school of architecture, as it was in his lifetime. We had a very informative and experienced docent guide us around the property and tell us stories of FLW and his family and apprentices who lived here.

One of the challenges of living in the desert, is creating a safe place for your kids to play. I never thought of that! But of course, all the plants are prickly and there are poisonous biting creatures lurking under rocks and bushes. 

FLW created this soft, contained, lush place, complete with a shallow pool, for his children's safe enjoyment, where he and his wife could oversee their play from many vantage points. 

Taliesin was created by FLW and his apprentices out of very rough concrete and local rocks. Maybe the look grows on you, but it seemed harsh and "Frankly" kind of ugly to us. This perspective shows how the house echoed the colors, shapes and textures of the surrounding hills.  In this picture the patterns of stone walls remind me of a Kandinsky watercolor and I begin to appreciate them more.

Anyway, when FLW and his family lived here, there was no glass in the doors and windows - it was all open air. He felt that was THE way to live in the desert.  He also used lots of rough and raw materials, like the concrete, and rough hewn wood surfaces on furniture and wood trim throughout the interior.  Other typical FLW architectural features included low ceilings and the "squeeze and pop" treatment as you transition between spaces.

There seemed to be more irregular and repeated angles than in other FLW buildings we've seen. Above, the sculpture in the foreground accentuates those angles. The property was sprinkled with sculptures by apprentices gone by and other artists, and with pieces of FLW's extensive Asian art collection.  We especially liked the collection of Heloise Crista, who was also a dancer. This one is called "In the Present Moment," a sentiment we try to embrace in our lives. 

So, on to the next present moment, as we move north toward Utah. 

Gliding Across the Southwest

The jacks in the DRV are definitely holding now, so apart from some erratic reports from both the truck's and Ms. Subaru's dash lights, we're hauling pretty quickly (for us) to get to Zion National Park by April 11.  My son Mark has been traveling with us since we returned from our quick side trip to Illinois.  Here are some of the highlights of the past couple of weeks.

Balmorhea State Park, Texas

Balmorhea SP is home to the world's largest spring-fed swimming pool! 

22-28 million gallons of water flow through it every day.

It was too chilly for any of us to swim, but we were happy just to gaze at all that beautiful clear water in the middle of the desert. The pool is 25 ft. deep in the center.

 There are lots of little fish and turtles living in the pool. Maybe some bigger ones too.

Balmorhea also has a nice campground where we had planned to stay before we had the trouble with our pesky computerized warning lights act up. That delayed us a few days, so we just visited as we drove west toward New Mexico.

Guadalupe Mountains and Carlsbad Caverns National Parks

For our overnight we stopped at Mountain View RV Park in Van Horn, TX so that we could spend the next day visiting two great national parks nearby. I didn't really know too much about Guadalupe Mountains National Park, but it's one of the more remote parks in the lower 48 states.  

There are almost no services near the park. Van Horn is about an hour south on I-10. It doesn't have a lot going for it, but we were happy with the RV park that backed up to the desert and sported this nifty vintage neon sign.

The drive from Van Horn to the southern edge of the park was a gorgeous, peaceful stretch of high desert with rolling hills, mountains, rock formations and valleys. Not terribly colorful, but wide open, wild and unique. Once  at the Guadalupe Mountains National Park we realized how cold and windy it actually was. We needed ear muffs! So we opted to go on to Carlsbad Caverns and do the day's hike underground rather than in the mountains.

This was Mark's firsts time at Carlsbad Caverns, and he's a real cave guy, so it was fun to share his excitement. Rick and I had visited not long ago and posted this, so I'll only share a couple of pictures.  In the Big Room we saw a spelunking tour heading down to a lower cavern. 

Next day we travelled on to New Mexico, and made a stop at this scenic rest area for our lunch. 

(On travel days we usually pack a lunch and take a break midday.) 

El Paso, TX, La Mesilla and Las Cruces, NM

We drove right through El Paso and a bit further north on I-10 to Las Cruces and the Hacienda RV Resort. It's a very nice park, but right on I-10. This is what happens when you're trying to get somewhere fast. For dinner the second night we went to a local tourist favorite in the little historic town of La Mesilla. 

Outside, La Posta de Mesilla is a simple traditional adobe, but inside it's a regular fiesta! The place was chock full of beautiful art, crafts and decorations. The Mexican culture is so appreciative of beauty and we so rarely get to see that side of it in the US. Thank you La Posta for reminded me. 

El Paso however was not looking so beautiful. While we were there a cloud of dust (from Colorado and Kansas according to the papers) hung over the area, so we didn't get to see El Paso at its best. 

Aside from the dust, if I had to make a guess about what was going on here, based on our very short visit, I'd say El Paso is booming. It is encroaching on the Franklin Mountains on three sides, tearing the landscape all apart and building like crazy. Below is one of the more attractive views of the city, on the east side of the mountains. It's a little older and more settled than the west and south sides of the city. 

The stretch from El Paso to Las Cruces is still somewhat agricultural, with dairy farms and pecan groves.  It seems they use flood irrigation in the pecan groves, maybe just in the spring.  This one was close to our RV park. 

Rusty's RV Resort, Rodeo, NM

A two night stop here was definitely a high point of our forced march westward. Rusty's is in a less-than-small dot on the map of southeast New Mexico, right on the Arizona border, in the eastern foothills of the Chiricahua Mountains. What an incredible spot!

We took a day to explore by driving a scenic loop through Portal, AZ and into the mountains. We took a few short hikes to look for the elegant trogon (no luck) and take in the spectacular scenery. 

It was something like Zion National Park, but with more vegetation in the valley, and no people! The rocks are not as red as in Zion, but rather are colored yellow in many places by lichen. 

Ms. Subaru met the challenge of fording several streams.

After all that hard work, we ended the day in Rusty's olympic sized swim spa. 

 It was big enough for Ms. Subaru, but lucky for us she passed up the opportunity.

And on to Arizona!

Kartchner Caverns State Park, AZ

Another beautiful spot.  Our main reason to stop here was to explore the cave. This time Mark and I took a helmet and headlamps tour.  There are no photos allowed in the cave, so I've got a few shots of the area over the caverns for you to look at while I tell you about what's underground.  Here's a link to some underground photos and a nice story.

The cave was discovered in 1974, and only opened to the public about 12 years ago, if I'm remembering correctly. That means it is very fresh and untrammeled compared to most caves in the US that have been open for much, much longer. Kartchner Caverns uses cutting edge cave preservation technology to keep it pristine while allowing visitors to appreciate it as well. 

We passed through SIX air locked doors to get into the cave and were misted down in one manmade tunnel to keep down the lint and dust visitors bring in with them. The tour we took was completely without lights except for those on our helmets. This gave us a very different view of the cave and all its formations. While it's not as large as Carlsbad, the headlamps let you see more in some ways, because you can choose to look anywhere you want, not just where the preset artificial lighting displays allow you to.

Above ground there were lots of well marked hikes and I took the 2 1/2 mile Foothills Loop early the next morning before we left for our next destination.

 Justin's Diamond J RV Park

Next we were in Tucson for a whole week.  Whew!

Mark left us for his home in New Hampshire.  : (   It was great having him with us for awhile. Plus he was SO helpful with RV repair and maintenance and with the quickest set ups and break downs ever!  But we miss him already.

We spent the week catching up on some tasks around the RV. We needed to replace the cords on several of our accordion blinds - a never-ending chore.  But we still had time to do some sight-seeing and lots of hiking in the desert in our back yard.

Phew! Now I'm caught up and can move on to current events. Next post will be about Phoenix.

Update on Drifting Jacks

I forgot to relate that we think we've finally fixed our drifting jacks problem. For the past year we've been having trouble with the two driver's side jacks drifting down while we're driving. Not good. We've had them "fixed" several times and have been advised by Lippert as to various ways to bleed, purge, tighten the valves, etc. At our last repair stop in San Antonio, we got the diagnosis that it wasn't the valves but the jacks themselves that were the problem.  OK...

So, because we were going to be in Kerrville, TX for awhile, we took the RV to LeMeilleur's Truck and RV to have the two faulty jacks replaced. It was not a huge job, and shouldn't have taken too long but... just after we pulled into one of their bays, the Level Up system wouldn't work. We all puzzled over that for awhile, with no results...because the solenoid was broken. That was a new problem. We had just used the system not 15 minutes before. So the jacks and slides were not moving until that was fixed, and of course they didn't have that solenoid in stock. And because the slides wouldn't open, we were unable to live in the RV while waiting for the part and the repair.

Off to the local motel with no clothes and no toiletries. Luckily the part was able to ship overnight and the repairs were all done by the following afternoon. We were very impressed with LeMeilleur's. They were efficient and communicative all along the way. Their shop was large, clean and orderly, with a very comfortable, well equipped waiting room.

Although we haven't had the chance to test the jacks on a long drive, they did stay up on the ride home from the shop, and haven't collapsed at all since we've been parked. So we're hopeful that it's finally fixed. We travel again soon, so we'll know for sure then.  Oh, and our extended warranty covered much of our costs. That was good news.

Although this all sounds like a giant pain-in-the-neck, we've gotten used to these unpredictable events and have learned to roll with what comes our way. It's all part of this full-time lifestyle, and it's all worth it (though we sure wouldn't miss this part).

Keep on Dancing!

I am revisiting a post from awhile ago, for a couple of reasons. It popped up on the sidebar of this blog as a post that people are reading now, so I reread it too, and loved it again. Embedded in it is a beautiful video created by the Ontario Arts Council that captures a truly universal sentiment that has been central to my personal and professional life.

People sometimes ask why our blog is called "Dancing 'Cross the Country" and this video will help explain it. Although we may not be literally dancing all that often, we try to keep the spirit of dance alive in our adventures, as individuals and in our relationship. There are aspects of dancing, like mutual respect, alertness to the other person, cooperation, timing, going with the flow and small space negotiation that all contribute to the success of our lives on the road.

Finally, I want to honor my community of friends and colleagues in the dance/movement therapy world. This weekend I attended the Alumni Concert of the Creative Arts Therapy Department, Columbia College Chicago. It was wonderful to see my friends and to witness again the commitment and passion they have for dance.