Visiting Flame & Pyro in Texas

     Friday, March 1st, we hooked up the trailer, said good-bye to our fellow NOMADS, and headed east away from Phoenix around 8 am. We drove east on I-10 past Tucson and on in to New Mexico, stopping near Deming for the night.

We camped at Rockhound SP, which is nestled up against some jagged mountains.

Our campsite @ Monahan Sandhills SP in west Texas

    The next morning we headed down the road and rolled into Texas at El Paso. We drove until mid-afternoon when we arrived at Monahan Sandhills SP.

 Nearing sunset

People rent plastic saucers or sleds to slide down the dunes

    We got one of the few remaining sites that would fit our trailer and headed for a walk on the dunes after setting up camp. The next morning we were off to an early start and drove to about 60 miles south of Dallas where we camped at Lofer Bend Campground (a COE cmpgnd). In the morning we drove to Pyro & Flame's home near Edgewood where we would enjoy the next 3 days visiting our friends from the AT. We went to visit an old estate of Mrs. Lee who had planted a boxcar load of Daffodils around the property years ago. Late afternoon we went for a nice walk on the trails around Flame & Tom's land. That evening we were pleased to meet Flame's sister Norma, niece Carla and her 2 children. They came all the way over from Tyler to meet us. Thank you.

Flame spent most of last summer painting their house a new color scheme.

The carport they had installed last year was a valuable addition.

 Tberry & Flame in front of Mrs. Lee's cabin

Monday afternoon Flame took us to Mrs. Lee's Daffodil ranch.

Dozens of acres of yellow beauty. Very nice!

 Salt Palace Museum

     Tuesday Flame took us to visit the Salt Palace museum in nearby Grand Saline. After that we visited the Southwest Dairy Farmers Museum near Sulphur  Springs. Very interesting time at both places.

When saw this fellow and immediately thought of our long distance hiking/biking friends Snake Hips and Spud from the AT

     Wednesday morning we headed to Mineral Wells SP to meet Jeriatric, who lives near Fort Worth. The 5 of us went out for a 6 mile hike thru the park. On the way home that afternoon we drove by the stadiums that the Rangers and Cowboys play in. We stopped at Mr. Biggs Smokehouse for some great Texas BBQ. Yum, yum! The next morning we headed east again to begin the trek to Alabama for our next NOMADS project at Blue Lake Assembly camp near Andalusia. It was hard to leave Flame and Tom's after having such a nice time seeing them again. Thank you again for the wonderful hospitality you showed "the Yoopers". We hope it works out for us to host you at our place in the not to distant future.

Our campsite in Roosevelt SP near Jackson, MS Thursday night

Glendale UMC - NOMADS Project

     We recently completed 2 weeks of volunteer work with a NOMADS team at Glendale UMC in Arizona. Our team leaders were Gary & Phyllis Prichard from the local Phoenix area. Gary & Linda Williams from Missouri and Lois & Wayne Babcock from Michigan were the remaining team members. Pastor Kim is pictured on the right. We did a wide variety of projects while at Glendale UMC:
Painting doors, replaced 3 doors, painting conduit and exterior walls, painted playground equipment, repair ceiling and countertop backsplash, etc.

Joyce painting exterior doors

 Wayne working on repairs to barrier free ramp

Lois painting stucco wall

The 2 Gary's it appears are having way too much fun!

Linda painting playground equipment

     Gary and Phyllis invited us over to their home for dinner one Friday evening.

The meal was great and the time together was enjoyed by all. 

Gary made an amazing desert

We camped at Calvary UMC and drove to Glendale to work everyday

Epworth UMC Phoenix - NOMADS Project

The NOMADS Crew @ Epworth UMC

Donna, Bobby, Jeff, Joyce, Lois, Wayne, Pastor Bev, Jan & Bob

Removing a fence around an acre or so of playground

     We arrived to begin our 3 week project on January 26 at Epworth UMC on the west side of Phoenix. Our NOMADS crew consists of 2 couples from Michigan and 2 couples from Arkansas. We joked that we are well covered for medical emergencies due to having 2 nurses, a retired doctor along with a retired minister. We have had a lot of fun with this group of NOMADS both on the job and during off hours activities. We are keeping busy with several projects that were requested by the church, including; remove fencing around a playground, build new storage cabinets along the back wall of the fellowship hall, painting the fellowship hall and kitchen, removing a pond and making improvements in the memorial gardens area, relocating some electrical in the sanctuary, changing over 60 bulbs in light fixtures, power washing the building exteriors, etc.

                            

     During our off hours we had game nights (Mexican train Dominos), went out to eat together several times, and went hiking in the mountains twice.

     Today we head to UMOM to meet with other NOMADS who are on projects in the area for a potluck lunch. It has been an enjoyable, rewarding time these first 2 weeks on our project.

Sunrise from our RV spot

Saturday morning we headed to Phoenix to spend the day with my parents and sister. Around 11:30 we headed over to Texas Roadhouse to celebrate Mom's 90th birthday, quite an amazing thing! We relaxed and caught up the rest of the day and evening. First thing in the morning we headed back to the campground due to the 24 hour rule, (don't leave your campsite unoccupied more than 24 hours.)

 Monday we did a local hike here in the basin along a 2 track, then we followed a wash for a couple of miles back out to the lake to follow the shoreline home. Tuesday we decided to drive out to hwy 288 towards Young. The road goes around the east end of the lake and over above the north side. We found the Parker Creek trail head at an elevation of 5060' and hiked upward in a tight canyon where very little sunlight shines. The trail was beautiful, with lots of tall pine trees, some balsams, yet we still saw occasional prickly pear cactus as we climbed. As we climbed higher we encountered snow along the trail in various areas. Finally around 6000' we were hiking through a foot of wet snow up the narrow trail. After around an hour and 40 minutes of hiking up the trail at around 6160' I felt we may as well turn back due to the snow depths and still having 900' of elevation to climb. The views in the canyon were great, both directions on the trail. Around noon we finally found a sunny out cropping and stopping for a quick lunch. The warm sunshine felt wonderful on our backs as we ate lunch. 

As we drove home we found several great canyon views along the north side of the lake. We also found some nice stealth campsites that we may utilize in the future.

 

       Wednesday we got up and after breakfast drove to a trailhead a few miles away and hiked the Thompson trail which was a nice trail up in the mountains on the south side of Lake Roosevelt. We had views of the lake on our left and the 4 Peaks on the right as we hiked it to the end 3 miles away. Joyce returned by the same trail and I decide to make it somewhat of a loop by hiking the roadway along the lake back to an old cemetery and back up the mountain to the trail and back to our truck. It was a nice sunny day in the 60's.

 Stormy weather across the lake

Thursday was supposed to usher in a winter storm with windy, cloudy weather that would bring much lower temps and snow at elevations above 3000'. (we camp around 2200' thank goodness) 

 Snowy mountains up by the Pigeon Trail

 Ready to go on the Pigeon Trail

 This is a mountain round-about due to the very tight turn

 Thought we left the snow back in the UP

We decided to try a new trail called the Pigeon trail down towards Tonto Basin. We drove on a challenging forest road about 11 miles (45 minutes) to reach the trail head. The road twisted and climbed it's way to about 5600 feet elevation and consisted of some ice and snow covered areas maybe 3 to 500 feet long just to make matters interesting. The trail was a nice change with hiking thru some tall pines and juniper trees. The trail was about 50% snow covered to start with and after a mile or so it became mostly snow as we climbed in elevation. After an hour or so we came to an area that we could not determine where the trail was. The wind had picked up and the clouds were coming a bit lower over the mountains, so we decided it was time to make a u-turn and head back to the truck. 

That evening and overnight the winds blew with strong gusts as the storm front passed thru. In the morning we awoke to nice sunshine, but very cold temperatures. The cold temps remained for the next 5 days with daily highs only in the 40's and nights in the 20's. Needless to say we went thru a bit more propane than we normally do. Even though it was chilly we had nice sunshine every day and we were able to hike in the lower elevations. Most afternoons we could sit out in the sun and read and relax. Hard to complain about that!

 Along the Cottonwood Trail

 These folks were from Kentucky & Illinois

 An Arizona forest

On the Pigeon Trail

After arriving at Windy Hill campground we spent Monday and Tuesday doing chores around camp mostly. Joyce unpacked all the boxed goods that we had been carrying in the truck to keep them from freezing and found places to store them in the trailer. She also swept the trailer out and washed the windows inside and out. 

I washed all the road salt and grime off the exterior of the trailer on Monday. Tuesday I gave the same treatment to the truck. 

Before we left Michigan, I removed around a foot of snow that had accumulated on top off the trailer. In doing so I put too much pressure on the vent cover to the bathroom. Over time the sun causes these vinyl covers to become brittle and easy to break. We have never liked the fan in the bath vent, as it was always noisy (one speed only) and often rubbed on the screen making even more noise. We have a "Fantastic Fan", which is a 3 speed, in our pick-up camper and love it. So I ordered up a new Fantastic Fan and brought it with us. I spent a couple of hours Tuesday removing the old duct taped unit and installing our new FF. It was easy to install and it works so much better.

Starting Wednesday we were to get out into the mountains and do a daily hike, usually somewhere between 4 to 8 miles. I write more on that next time.

Our campsite overlooks Tonto National Monument 

(ancient cliff / cave dwellings on the mountain side)

We were out of bed by 6 on Friday morning of the 4th. After a quick breakfast, loading the truck with items that we didn't want to freeze overnight, draining the waterlines down, locking all doors, and turning the stat down to 46 we headed out the driveway with the Sunset Creek following behind. It was just a few minutes before 8 and we were headed to the Southwest, Arizona to be specific. We took US 2 across the UP and went thru Wisconsin passing by Green Bay (where the Packers would be playing the following evening), Oshkosh, and over through Madison. We continued into Iowa at Dubuque, over thru Des Moines and south to Missouri. Sometime around midnight we found a nice Wal-Mart a hour or 2 north of Kansas City to catch 5 or 6 hours sleep. 

Day 2 we continued on thru KC and on into Kansas. We crossed the state from NE to SW on mostly 2 lane highways and ended up cutting thru the panhandle of Oklahoma, followed by a couple of hours in Texas and on into New Mexico. We were getting tired and found a nice state park near Santa Rosa to settle in for the night around 8. After taking nice hot showers we were ready to read a bit and hit the sack. 

Day 3 we headed out before daylight, fueled up, and drove mostly hwy 60 across NM to AZ. We went thru Show Low down to Globe, where we stopped at Walmart to buy some supplies before heading out to Roosevelt Lake here in Tonto NF. We ended up finding the same campsite we used last winter and were all settled in by mid afternoon. 

Suset from our campsite at Windy Hill CG

Saw this guy near our campsite

A Super Cub flying by our campsite with the 4 Peaks Wilderness in the background