Trail Survey Day

Today was my first day on the “job” and I spent the morning surveying the trails of Buckskin Mountain State Park.  Buster got to go with me.  He was curious about the old mines and not sure why dad was more interested in the trail.  In my defense, it was important to me to check to see how my work in previous years was holding up.  All in all I was pretty pleased with what I found. The changes and improvements that I had made have held up well in our absence of 20 months. I’ll be spending some days working on the trail, some days leading hikes on the trail, and some days leading bird walks in the campground along the river.

 

Busksin Mountain State Park

This is a shaded picnic area in Buckskin Mountain State Park that I took when we arrived today. Readers of this blog could easily be getting confused with all the parks that we have been staying at, but this is the one to pay close attention to because this is the one we will be staying at for the next two months. This is a real oasis of a park right on the Colorado River, and although we have volunteered here in the past we were still struck with its beauty today. We spent some time walking around and reconnecting with hosts we have volunteered with in the past and that felt good too.  We are moved into our site and have been busy settling in.  We are in site 68 which is the same site where we stayed in 2009.

 

 

Lake Havasu State Park

Today was a free day so we decided to drive to Lake Havasu City and do laundry, see some friends and make some contacts at Lake Havasu State Park.  It looks like we will be there for sure in January and February.  They are busy with major improvements at the park and today we got to see how nice Windsor Beach 4 is coming along.  It is one of several beaches at the park which occupies many miles of lake shore right in Lake Havasu City.

 

 

 

 

River Island State Park

Here we are relaxing in the shade of a Mesquite tree in a host site at River Island State Park. We are here temporarily until our official site at Buckskin Mountain State Park becomes available on Wednesday. Both of these are Arizona State Parks and are located only a mile apart right on the Colorado River.  River Island is a smaller park, but has some charm all of its own, and already we are enjoying identifying some new birds like the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.

Lake Pleasant Regional Park

We have spent several nights at Lake Pleasant Regional Park, just north of the Phoenix area in order to visit my sister Kathy and her husband Gary who live in Sun City and Jeanette’s sister Patty and her husband Kordell who have a house in Surprise. We have been camped in the Roadrunner Campground where we have enjoyed good views of Lake Pleasant, but with daily temps reaching the 90 area we’ve discovered it’s best to get in our hiking early in the day. In the evenings we are also enjoying the sunsets and moon rises.

 

 



This is our last stay in our “visiting circuit” and tomorrow we will journey on to Buckskin Mountain State Park to begin our volunteer position.

 

Set Up at Wal-Mart

High winds kind of took the joy out of travel this morning, so after getting groceries and diesel at Safeway in Kingman we decided to stay put and selected the Wal-Mart parking lot for our overnight stay.  Tonight there are a half dozen other RVs park here also. Wal-Mart parking lots are well known in the RV world as a free place to park for the night.  They are free as long as you don’t go in the store.  The last time we spent the night at a Wal-Mart, I think it cost me seventy dollars in merchandise.  That being said, I think I will still venture into the store in the morning to treat my bride to breakfast at the Golden Arches.

Desert View RV Resort

Desert View RV Resort, just outside of Needles, is another favorite of ours and a standard stop on our route to and from Arizona.  Their service is superb; they escort to your site and then register you at your site.  Sort, of like a drive up window at a bank or fast food, except in reverse, they come to your window.  Jeanette didn’t even have to get out of the motor home! The park is very clean and well landscaped. This afternoon it’s 80 degrees with a nice breeze.  This will be our last stop in California, tomorrow we cross the Colorado River into Arizona.  At this point I think tomorrow’s stop may be in Wikieup, about half way between here and the Phoenix area.