We had the most amazing tour guide by the name of Bob. Bob was a wealth of information that made this tour so great.
A few displays set up of the Tuscan History.
They have quite the collection of saddles.
We even got to tour their tac room.
This Museum has over 100 horse drawn vehicles on display. Even a few that appeared in the Antique Road Show!
Here are a few pictures
This is a working wagon, it spends it winters here at the museum and then on the trails for the summers.
A fully functional mini steam model locomotive track, along with everything you could think of what Tucson would have looked like after the train station arrived.
Now that we are back in the land of fast internet, I thought It was time to play catch-up with some of our winter adventures.
Friends of ours, Mike & Geri recommended we camp at Corvina Beach in the Salton Sea State Park on our way to the Palm Springs area.
We have passed this place a few times on our travels west, but never stopped. As always, their recommendations were correct, very cool place to spend a few nights.
Since it’s a state park, we had to pay to camp……Still a great price for a great view.
Location: California Hwy 111
COST: $10/night or $8.00 for over age 62
Note: self registration, need cash
A little foggy, but we still enjoyed our morning coffee view!
You can park right along the sea
The beach of the Sea has increased with all the water loss over the years. From a distance, the beach just looks like ordinary sand, until you start getting closer to it.
This was not sand we were see, but a beach made barnacles and bones!
Barnacles and bits of bone
Part of a fish skeletons
I found it very neat to walk down to the water and investigate the beach, Myron on the other hand said ‘No way”!
Since we were on the North East shore, and it was still cool in January there was no smell of decay. I don’t think I would want to stay there when the temp were high!
If you don’t know the history of the Salton Sea you can click here.
We even got to watch a few of these pass by.
Since we were there for a few days, we decided to do a little tour and check out Dos Palmas Reserve not far from our camp.
This is the coldest winter, and the most rain we have seen since we became snowbirds.
It rained for about 1-1/2 days, and walking the dogs was quite the messy situation, thankfully our friend Amy gave us some Pawz Rubber Boots to try out.
It does take two of us to put them on, but I must say they are amazing and do not fall off, thanks again Amy!
Even with all the rain and wind, we still enjoyed our time near Ajo.
A day trip down to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, with a stop at Why. AZ!
Why you ask? Why not! 😝
Spent a morning in Ajo at their 6th Annual Food Festival and Flea Market. The black bean brownie with mesquite flour was a hit with Myron, and we even came away with a few bargains from a garage sale. 😜
We had a couple of great hikes, and welcomed our daily visits from a group of hummingbirds that always kept us entertained.
It wasn’t always cloudy and rainy, we only had to run our generator 1 day as most days we were pulling in some great solar and were fully charged by 10 Am.
Hey, we even had a few relatives come out for a visit!
A crazy family pic would not be complete without some crazy faces.
What a great day for a hike. We are getting our hiking legs back and today we did the North Ajo Peak Hike 9.2 km, and we even beat the forecasters call for rain!
Baby cactus
Myron is still loving his new binoculars.
Garry taking the led, I had to run to catch up with him to grab this photo!
Desert flower
Came across these jugs of water in the desert.
We took a slight detour and found two little caves.
Crazy selfie time
We made it back to camp just in time for wine time!
Being back here in Ajo (pronounced Ah-ho) means hiking time now that the weather has warmed up. Today was a great day to hit the trails and get our legs back.
First hike 5.5 km
Sunny with a slight breeze
Saguaro cactus country
Selfie time
Can you spot our campsite? Hint, zoom in and look for the red Dodge!
Group selfie with our hiking partners Garry and Karen.
We are back at another one of our favourite places to boondock just outside of Ajo, Arizona, and of course it’s Free to stay here on BLM land for 14 days!
Here is our view for the next couple of weeks!
There is just something about nature and the sounds of the birds chirping that make us love this place.
We are looking forward to some hiking and site seeing!
I think we have these Canadians hooked on snowbirding! 😉
We don’t always bask in the sun when we are south, in fact it gets quite cool as soon as the sun goes down. Off goes the shorts, t-shirt’s and flip flops and on goes the long pants, bunny hugs, socks and shoes.
We have even been known to put on our winter jackets and a toque to watch the Super Bowl outside while we were in California a few years back.
This morning our phones were buzzing away, we have a weather freeze warning here in Yuma.
Guess today would be a good day for a pot of stew and fresh biscuits!
Even with these temps we can’t complain. Holy heck Batman, at least it’s not as cold as back home in Saskatchewan.
When we purchased our trailer, our intentions where to purchase a 5th wheel that we could head south where we could bask in the sun for the winter months. Staying in campgrounds or rv parks every-night was not on our priority list. We love to travel and see new places, some would say we get itchy feet! So dry camping only made sense to us. In order to drycamp/boondock for extended period of time, we would need to invest in Solar. We wanted to be self-sufficient and not rely on rv parks, campgrounds or a generator, so we invested in ourselves.
We did a lot of research and called everyone we knew with any knowledge on the subject, and Myron and I came up with our present system of: 690 watts of solar and 440 amp hours of battery.
This allows us to use our Instant Pot, Induction cook top, bread maker, coffee pot, basically everything with the exception of our A/C and Microwave (we do not use the microwave, it’s become our bread storage compartment)
Solar Panels
12v 38.14 Amps 690 Watts wired in parallel.
2- 12v 9.37 Amp 170 Watts each
2- 12v 9.7 Amps 175 Watts each
Each panel is wired in parallel with #8 PV- Solar Wire (Sunlight and weather resistant), ran to a junction box.
(Prices have dropped lots since we purchased our first set of panels. You can now purchase high quality 200 watt panels, made in the USA, for $185.00 USD/ $240.00 CAD. So if you open your local weekly flyer and see solar panels from Canadian Tire or Harbour Freight don’t waste your money, they are a ripoff, more than 3x the price per watt and they do not compare.)
Installing roof junction box and drilling hole in our roof for the wire drop. This required precise measuring as we needed to make the drop directly into the wall between the kitchen and bathroom.
Myron had perfect alignment from the roof, directly in the wall, straight down to the electrical panel compartment.
# 4 Pv-Solar Wire was used to run from Junction box to Charge Controller. (Over kill? Maybe, but we didn’t want any voltage loss, and room for expansion)
This required team work, as this #4 PV (Solar) wire was heavy and very tricky to pull. Thanks for the help Tom!
Front storage compartment houses our 40 Amp Blue Sky MPPT charge controller with a 500 Amp Shunt that send a signal back to our Blue Sky IPN Pro-Remote.
Our battery bank is 440 AH, wired in series & parallel with 1/0 cable
4- 6v Golf Cart Batteries
2- Costco Interstate- 210 AH ea
2 – NAPA -230 AH ea
We installed a 1000 Watt pure Sine inverter with a remote and dedicated solar plugs.
I must say, I have one talented husband! Having solar has worked out great for us, as we invested in ourselves instead of the Rv parks and campgrounds!
We will have an update coming this winter, as we will are making a few changes to our system to make it more efficient.
After leaving Quartzite, we made our way south about 20 miles to the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge to spend a few days taking in the view, and hiking to Palm Canyon.
Location – Kofa National Wildlife Refuge
Cost $- Free 14 days in a 12 month period.
GPS:
Notes: coming from the north (Quartzite) heading south on US 95, turn left just past Mile marker 86 onto Palm Canyon Road.
Our view from our patio
We heard about the California Palm that are growing in the Palm Canyon, so of course we had to hike in to check it out.
2 km/ 1.2 Miles in and out with a 90 meter/301 ft climb in elevation.
Some pictures from our hike.
A few signs posted at the beginning of the trails.
This past summer we had an unexpected visitor move into our Rv! We got the surprise one morning when we open up our cutlery drawer and surprise, something left us a turd!!
Yes, you guessed it, a fricken mouse!!
Grrr, now everything has to be completely cleaned and sanitized. These things creep me right out! Ok truth be told, I am scared shitless of them. Yes I know they are smaller than me, but nope not happening. I will scream like a little school girl, and I am not afraid to admit it.
Any plans Myron had that day were now put on the hold, as he now was on a search and destroy mission!
Aha, a section of our underbelly had come lose and allowed for a perfect entry point for the mouse to get in.
With traps set, it didn’t take long and snap…….. we caught the bugger!!!
We always knew it wasn’t a matter of if we would get a mouse, but a matter of when! We thought we had mouse proof our rig, but sometimes they just get in!
Not wanting them to ever get near our cutlery again. Myron came up with these sweet drawer covers.
He already had this clear heavy plastic material similiar to Lexan in his mobile shop, so he figured it would work perfect for the job.
Strong enough to hold my glass of wine!!
He used Velcro to temporarily hold them securely in place until we find the right fasteners.
