Lake Pleasant, Phoenix Arizona

Roadrunner Campground, Lake Pleasant near Phoenix Arizona

We had reservations for two days at the Roadrunner Campground at Lake Pleasant Regional Park, one of the Maricopa County parks in the Phoenix area.  Previously we had stayed at Cave Creek Regional Park and McDowell Mountain Regional Park.  I like all three parks, and all three have a different feel, and a different view.  Lake Pleasant and Cave Creek are closer to where Laurie, and her mother when she was living, than the other parks.  All of the Maricopa County Parks take reservations, and cost $30 for electric and water…although this looks like it is going up to $32 in the spring/summer of 2018.

This is the lake view we get from our camping site.  Since it is nearly New Years, the campground is nearly full.  It was the only campground within the County Parks System that I could get in for two days.  At Lake Pleasant there are two campgrounds, Roadrunner and Desert Tortoise Campgrounds…the latter of which has Semi-Developed (no electric or water) and Primitive Camping (just a fire ring) at $20 and $12 each, but I think the Primitive is for tents.

A number of folks have Christmas lights going on, including these two sites across from us.  One even played a movie outside in a large canopy tent, but thank goodness the movie ended fairly early.

And with the darkness (outside of Christmas lights), it was a good time to get a picture of the moon.

Laurie gave Marcia this nice picture of her and her mother Joyce, who passed away earlier this year while we were in Indiana and Michigan area…that changed our entire summer plans, and that was good with us.  Marcia and Joyce were friends for over 40 years.  We had a nice visit with Laurie on Thursday when we met at Cracker Barrel, and today when she came to the motorhome for awhile, and then we went to Logan’s Roadhouse for dinner.  It has been a challenge being the Executor of her mother and father’s trust, but she has done a great job handling it, has already sold her mother’s house, and things are starting to calm down in her life. 

As a follow up to last night’s post, I did call AAA to let them know about this scammer in Kingman City.  The hardest part was trying to decide which phone number to call, so I called the Internet Hoax Report line…and they transferred me to the proper person, who took down my report and thanked me for calling.  He said, “If he is not a true representative of AAA, our legal team will be getting in touch with him…if he is, my boss will be getting in touch with him.”  I assured him that I did not think he was a legitimate AAA representative, and that I did not expect to hear back at all…I just thought they should know.  He again thanked me.

From Mead Lake to a Kansas Fishing Lake

Since leaving Mead Lake near Boulder City on Monday the 26th we have driven over 1,200 miles, stayed in two RV parks, one Cracker Barrel parking lot, and tonight are in a WONDERFUL, secluded, FREE, Kansas Fishing Lake along joint highways US 54/400 just east of Pratt, Kansas.  Last night we stayed in Cactus RV Park in Tucumcari, New Mexico.  A Passport America Park, we had to pay full price ($24.50) because it is the week of the balloon festival in New Mexico, and they anticipate more $$$ from those traveling to this special event.  The Cracker Barrel was in Gallup New Mexico, and we grabbed the last spot available when we pulled in.  Before that (Monday) we stayed in Surprise Arizona at the Sunflower RV Resort, which was Passport America, for $30 per night.  Tuesday we met our friends Joyce and her daughter Laurie at the Cracker Barrel in North Phoenix for a too quick of a visit, but we anticipate being back in Phoenix next March on our way back out to California.  So here is a re-cap of the past few days…

Our stay at Lake Mead was very nice…$10 for the night, the park was quiet and not full, only complaint was a neighbor whose fire put smoke right at our windows on a night when windows needed to be open.  That was about an hour of inconvenience, so not too bad. 

  

Marcia tried very hard to get a picture of the Colorado River from the bridge which one travels over now instead of traveling over Hoover Dam.  She finally got a small glimpse of it in the picture to the right, middle just this side of the mountains.  The bridge sure cuts off time, but also cuts off camera opportunities too (although you can stop and walk and take some shots…but time was not on our side for that.)

Here is a second, a more panoramic shot, which also shows the Colorado River.

A view out my side of the motorhome…

And this one out the front window (hence, the tinted color of the sky).  We need to stay here for a few days and really explore the area more, and visit the dam.  But one must plan this when the weather is not too hot, which means others will be flocking to the area too!

As we got closer to Phoenix, Marcia knew that the saguaro cactus would be showing up soon.  Here was one of the first batches of them…soon they were all over the place.

She knows the names off all the various cactus and desert plants…but alas…

…even the desert gets tiring to look at.  This is actually a shot after our breakfast at Cracker Barrel with Joyce and Laurie. Dreaming about being another year older tomorrow I'll bet...

After a short nap, she was back at it with the camera.

    

As we got closer to Flagstaff, it was time for a quick stop…where Marcia got these two fall colors shots.

If you have driven up to Flagstaff from Phoenix, then you are familiar with this view…the San Francisco Peaks.

   

As we got close to Winslow, the clouds darkened, the skies darkened, and lightening and thunder abound…

Which brings the little girl up on Marcia’s lap, scared as can be.  When she was rescued nearly 8 years ago now in Arkansas, she had gone through some intense storms that October as she lived and hid among the large dump trucks and after one of these huge storms blew through, she jumped into one of the workers vehicles and that is how they captured her…

Well, we missed the sand storm in Phoenix, but this little outburst got us…but after 5 or 10 miles it was behind us too.  Our stay in the Cracker Barrel was good, and we enjoyed our breakfast there before hitting road at 8 am.

     

On Wednesday morning we drive on through New Mexico after our Birthday Breakfast at Cracker Barrel…yes, Marcia turned another year older…  Saw a burned out old house which I failed to get a picture of…so just use your imagination for a moment.  Told her, “I bought this house for you, but when I lit your Birthday Cake, it burned the old home down!”   Well, my shoulder will heal from the bruising I got one of these days…

    

    

The trip between Gallup and Albuquerque is a real enjoyable one.  After climbing out of the mountains an on to Santa Rosa and then Tucumcari, I was just beat by 2 pm…so we pulled into the Cactus RV Park on Old Route 66.  That evening we walked (she rode the GoGo) to Del's Restaurant just a couple buildings down.  It has been in operation since the mid-50’s, and was clean, very friendly, and we enjoyed our dinner.  The waiter even sang “Happy Birthday” to Marcia when he found out it was her birthday. 

 

Which brings us to our travels today…through the final 50 miles of New Mexico, 100 miles of Texas,  60 miles through Oklahoma…and 160 miles through Kansas.  Tomorrow we have about 240 miles to get to the RV park near Kansas City where we will have some time with my son Ryan before moving on down to Arkansas.   Why no pictures of today's drive?  As Marcia said to me…all I need to do is snap one photo and it will cover nearly all the trip today since it was all basically farm/ranch land.

Well, not all of it looks like farm land…as the view out of our front door shows tonight.

Cave Creek Regional Park

Maricopa County Parks & Recreation has five county parks which have RV camping spots with water and electric and a wonderful desert view. Cave Creek has 38 such camping sites, and although the website says all can accommodate a 45’ RV, I would say that most do, a few would be tight.  But if you reserve a site, they will tell you just how large the site is, and offer three pictures of the site so you can get an idea of if your RV will fit or not.

   

We selected a “drive through”, which is more like a large pul-out along the road.  You can see it is wide enough to park the HHR next to the motorhome so it shortens the walk for Marcia.  On the other side is the large camping site….they do allow for a tent or two to be set up along with an RV, but there is a surcharge for having more than two people.  There is water and electric, and they don’t care if you park the way we did, or the other way so that your door opens up to the camping site.  For us, we would rather have an easier in and out since we rarely use the camping site anyways. 

Last time we stayed at McDowell Mountain Regional Park during the month of December and into the new year…the link above is to the first of many postings we did from McDowell.  But now it is spring….and the desert is full of vibrant colors right now. 

There are many Palo Verde in the park, and they are yellow with a very green trunk.  The Palo Verde is the state tree of Arizona, and the official name is Parkinsonia florida.  Its name means "green pole or stick" in Spanish, referring to the green trunk and branches, that perform photosynthesis.

The Teddy Bear Cholla are in bloom.

They are very pretty up close…but not too close because those stickers will hurt like the dickens.   Marcia says that if you walk close they seem to jump on you, and you will know it when it happens.

But you have to get close to see the pretty little flower...just not too close.

The Buckhorn Cholla are also in bloom, although some are coming out of bloom.

They too have a small flower…

...I think they are small to lure one in closer for an easier attack on the unsuspecting photographer.

    

This Purple Prickly Pear was on the access road to the park…we saw very few Prickly Pears.

And this one above is one of the few regular Prickly Pear bushes that we saw, and it was behind a fence.

    

There are many blooming plants….it is nice to be here this time of the year.

And of course, there is the every looming Saguaro is all over the place.  I am always amazed that as you drive down from Flagstaff toward Phoenix, that the Saguaro magically appear at the 3,000 foot elevation mark.  And once they show up, they are everywhere…and you never get tired of looking at them. As Marcia said, it looks like the Saguaro have their arms raised praising God….couldn’t agree with her more.

 

We had a nice visit with Joyce for most of the day, eating lunch at the Greektown Restaurant named the best Greek food in Phoenix 15 times now.  We liked this place so much we are eating there again Tuesday night!  For dinner Laurie joined us and we back to Chompie’s, which we reviewed previously, and you can read that here.