Steve's & Ellen's 50th Anniversary Trip

Chapter 7                                                                                                                       10 March 2017

It's been a long time since my last post, so here's an update.
We stayed at Green Valley, Az until the end of January.  During Jan, we did a lot of birding, eating out, and socializing.  While I was in the Rec room one day, I found out there was a ping-pong group playing every morning at 8 am.  Now I haven't played ping-pong since sometime back in the 60's but thought I'd go and watch and maybe make a fool out of myself.  Ellen razzed me a bit of my getting up and being ready by 8 am.  Monday morning, I'm up and at the game room.  I couldn't just sit and watch, no, they insisted I also play.  It wasn't pretty but I did manage to return the ball a lot of the time.  I know they were taking it easy on me at the beginning.  After a couple of mornings, there was no mercy and I showed my inability.  By the second week, I had been telling Ellen how much exercise it was, so she decided to join me.  I didn't tell her most of the exercise was picking the ball up from the floor after I missed it.  Anyway, she also participated and the group was very patient and understanding on our inexperience and we made some great friends.
One day we travelled to Casa Grande and spent the day with Tom & Terry, friends from B.C. Canada.  We visited the Casa Grande National Monument Ruins. It was an extra large community of ancient people of the Hohokam period who farmed the area during the 13th century.

Close Quarters since our move in Jan.  The building next to us is a garage.

Grand Lodge at Casa Grande National Monument 

On February 1st, we moved south to Patagonia State Park. We had high hopes of finding the Elegant Trogon which had eluded us the last 2 times we visited there.  Things were not to be different and we left 3 days later saying "Maybe next time".  From there it was on to Fort Huachuca to do a little birding.  Didn't find any unusual birds but there is a good restaurant there named "The Landmark".  The prime rib sandwich for $11.00 included two sides and was a huge piece of meat and not the shaved kind. 

After a short stay it was eastward with stops at Bisbee and Whitewater Draw then on to Portal Az.  We went to Portal to find the rare streak-backed oriole that been hanging around there all winter.  Our first morning out, we found the house where he was seen and about an hour later, sure enough we got a good view and a bunch of pictures.  While in the area we also found an uncommon Violet-Crowned Hummingbird.  At Portal, we stayed at a small intown campground with 6 spaces. The town has a general store/cafe, which didn't have much for groceries and I don't think I would want to eat there. It also has a bar/food Tavern, open only on weekends, which did have good food. There was not a gas station for 35 miles or a school to my knowledge. We didn't have phone service or internet, so we were isolated for the 3 days.  Sometimes that is a good thing.

 Streak-backed Oriole.

Some kind of ground squirrel in Arizona. 

Next was a stop at Las Cruces to visit Dale & Betty, friends from Wisconsin, we met at Mission, Texas in 2007.  While in Las Cruces I got a picture of the biggest red chili in New Mexico.

A 47 foot,  2 1/2ton red chili.

Next stop Alamogordo.  If you haven't been to Alamogordo and like petroglyphs, go and you'll be in utopia.  A short drive up Rt 54 to Three Rivers is the mother lode of petroglyphs.  There is over 20,000 on rocks along a 2 to 3 mile ridge. Some examples are as follows.

While in New Mexico, be sure to visit Roswell.  This is where the little green men from outer space crash landed in the desert.  The town has capitalized on its uniqueness and you see spaceships and little green men on corners, in stores and all around town.  

Local attractions. 

The last stop in New Mexico was Carlsbad Caverns.  We had been there in the year 2000 and had walked down into the caverns via the natural entrance. It's 800 feet down to the cave rooms.  The winding path down is over a mile long and quite dark.  Seventeen years ago we thought it wasn't that bad going down.  Funny how your memory plays tricks with you and forgets the hard things you do. We knew the next day we had overdone it and recommend taking the elevator down and up if you're over fifty.  

 Natural Entrance of Cave.

Sitting Bull Falls, west of Carlsbad Caverns.  

We were soon on our way to Texas, the Panhandle and Central Standard Time.  An overnight stay in Levelland, a free stay for up to three nights with Elec, Water and Dump available. Other towns that allow free overnight stays include Brownfield and Littlefield.  

That's it for now, we are now in Oklahoma, but more on that next time.

Cheers, Spring is coming.    Steve