Finally Arizona!

Our new campsite at Sunny Flat Campground near Portal, AZ, isn’t it gorgeous! I’m in love with Arizona!

I had planned to go to a rodeo grounds campground in Douglas, AZ for $13 a night with electric hookups, as it was supposed to go down to 15 degrees at night!  But right on the way was Sunny Flats Campground in the Coronado National Forest, where I originally planned to stay.  So I took a little detour to check it out, and it was so beautiful, no rodeo grounds could possibly compare.  So I told myself to quit being a wimp, suck it up and put on my Big Girl Panties. I checked in for 4 nights here. They tell me it’s a great place for birdwatching, especially in the spring.  Cell signals are nonexistent but I don’t mind.

I’m very happy to finally get out of the flat land (at least for awhile) and be in the mountains.  It is kind of on the back side (not backside!) of the Chiricahua National Monument, and reachable by a teeny one-lane twisty-turny road from the campground, but I tried it and ran into too much snow & ice on the road as the elevation increased.  I’ll have to go around on the paved roads to see it.  There are sharp high peaks all around the campground, which has vault toilets, drinking water and is only $5 a night with the Geezer Pass.

Here’s the little teeny creek that runs through the campground.  It becomes HUGE in heavy rains, and they have signs posted that they’ll evacuate the campground if there’s more than 1.5″ of rain predicted in a 24 hour period.  They just reopened the campground after a huge flood.

It was calm before I left Deming so I tried to light my fridge again and I was so happy to hear that “whomp” of the pilot light!  So I didn’t need to spend money on a repair guy for that.  Maybe it was just too windy the last time I tried it.

I was shocked to see this guy and his wife along the road…I didn’t know there were any longhorns left!  He gave me a real hard look as I went by.

It’s been quite cold at night, but not as cold as they predicted. The first night was 30 and I used my small 1500 btu propane heater, waking up to only 45 degrees inside in the morning. I tried to run the bigger 3000 btu ProCat heater but the new line is not getting propane through it.  Last night it went down to 23 and I did use the ProCat on a 1# propane bottle, but was very disappointed that it only last 3 hours!  It’s supposed to last 6 hrs.  This won’t do!  The rest of the night I ran the propane stove on low with a fan over it, and it stayed around 55 degrees.  Yes, I had the window open for ventilation, which sometimes seems to defeat the purpose of running heat, but I know I have to.

I get frustrated with the photos I am taking with my little Nikon S8100 point and shoot.  I wish I had a good digital SLR camera so I could really capture the beauty of this place.

Today I’m visiting Douglas, AZ, right on the Mexico border. Need to get more wing-nuts for the bracket that holds the propane tank down; they keep falling off!   This desert museum is at the turn for the campground.  It was very nice, lots of local snakes, spiders, scorpions….makes me NOT want to do much exploring off the pavement!  They also had lots of ancient pottery and indian arrowheads, etc.  I spent a pleasant half hour there. And on the way to Douglas, I saw a roadrunner cross the road in front of me!  It went too fast to get a photo but I was thrilled!