On the Way to Portal
After a few days, we needed to empty and fill ourselves (sewage management is part of RV living) so we drove over to Patagonia Lake State Park. I took no photos there because it was basically wall-to-wall people, but I enjoyed it SO MUCH, and it’s hard to explain why. There was a beach, and a swimming area, and trails, and boat-in campsites, and families everywhere enjoying playing ball and swimming and having campfires and making popcorn and so on. A lot of the people we encounter on the road are blue-heads like ourselves. We don’t see all that many families, and here they were abundant. Next door to us was a family of about 11 people with two enormous tents and all kinds of kids running around having a blast. It made me feel all sentimental.
Alas, though, it cost actual money to stay there, which we are philosophically opposed to (or else we are just extremely cheap…no comment), so we only stayed two nights and then headed on over to Tombstone (as last year, pretty much a giant yawn) and then to highway 191, and then toward the Chiricahua National Monument. We camped in the national forest between there and Portal.
This is the place that I wanted to camp, but could not because I would have had to drive through low tree branches in order to get there.
After our horrid experience last year, when I drove too close to the trees and practically took my entire roof off, I have learned some degree of caution about tree branches, so we settled for this campsite instead.
Whilst there, my Associate Navigator tried to interest me in a game of fetch with this petite, delicate stick which I couldn’t even pick up, much less throw.
So he plunged into the wash, which showed signs of recent activity. This might actually be a creek. In Arizona, if there’s even a mud puddle at the bottom, it’s likely to be an active river.
Horrifyingly, we observed Chem Trails here. You would think that the government would have something better to do with its time and money than attempt to obliterate all life forms in southeastern Arizona with deadly, indiscoverable chemicals dropped from the sky. At least they could focus on a more populated area where they could get more bang for their buck. But no. We immediately donned our gas masks and full radiation suits, and in that way survived. IN YOUR FACE, Trilateral Commission.