Days 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50,
51 Sunday to Sunday, March 13 to March 20 Cave Creek Regional Park Carefree, Arizona
After a morning walk at McDowell
Mountain, we headed to Cave Creek Regional Park, another new park for us. We had a great site, with lots of privacy and
views, but facing into the inside of the loop, so there were lots of critters,
especially rabbits, quail, and doves. We
went to the Nature Center to get hiking maps and looked around there a
bit. I bought a few more postcards, have
continued sending them to my grandsons every several days. The most difficult thing sometimes has been
to find a place to mail them!
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| A quilt in the Nature Center |
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| Sunset from our campsite |
Monday morning Jim went down
to Lake Pleasant Airport to check out the possibility of doing a glider
flight. He had got Gary Boggs’s name
from our friend Bob Weigant. When he got
back we drove 31 miles, up through Carefree, to Horseshoe Lake, with a rugged
dirt road the last 7 or 8 miles, down into the Salt River canyon. It is a pretty lake, with plenty of water in
it, and there was just one other group of kayakers there. We launched and paddled to the end of the
southwest arm of lake, about a mile each way.
There were ridges with beautiful yellow Brittlebush and lots of
saguaros. We saw a couple of cormorants
and some coots in the lake.
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| Peaceful Horseshoe Lake. Looked quite different on the way back! |
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| Southwest arm of the lake |
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| Brittlebush and Saguaro |
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| Horseshoe Dam |
As we headed
back, there was quite a headwind, quite a paddle to get back, even staying
close to shore! It seems the wind comes
up in the afternoon on these mountain lakes.
When we got back, the family that launched when we did were also
returning, towing a couple of inflatables with their canoe, as inflatable boats
are impossible to navigate in the wind.
The canoe was full of water – they just barely made it back to the
dock. The little kids sitting in the
cold water were shivering and crying. But safe!
Tuesday we rode our bikes out
of the park, then west on Cloud Road, zigging up to Joy Ranch Road, then Desert
Hills, until we came to the beginning of the Maricopa Trail by Anthem. But the signs said No Trespassing! It was a good ride, anyway, so we headed
back, rode 18 miles. There are lots of homes scattered about this area, at all
levels of affluence. Sometimes horses, or goats, or cows!
In the afternoon Jim’s friend Dave came out to
the park, and the guys hiked the GoJohn Trail in the park. I made homemade banana bread, baked beans,
and cole slaw. Sarah and I hung out and
also went for a walk. When the guys got
back from a great hike, Jim barbecued steaks and we treated Dave to
dinner. We did not get to see his wife,
Ellie, as she was working as a volunteer doing taxes for people.
Wednesday morning I met my
friend Rose from home, who is visiting her family in Arizona. We went to a wildflower walk at Spur Creek
Ranch Conservation Area. Unfortunately,
the walk leader volunteer did not show up, but a very knowledgeable fellow was
there, and he was able to lead our walk and name more plants than we could ever
remember! Afterward Rose and I had a
nice lunch at the Heart and Soul Café, in one of the big shopping centers along Carefree Highway.
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| Mural at Spur Creek Ranch |
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| An Oregon Rose in the desert |
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| Tidytips |
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| Buckhorn Cactus |
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| Desert Thistle |
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| Ancient pictographs we saw on Spur Creek Ranch walk |
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| Rose and Linda at the Heart and Soul Cafe in their 1958 Chevy Bel Air |
Jim did his glider ride in the afternoon, got
to solo for 20 minutes, and also got to experience a few spins. He had a great time doing this, took lots of
videos.
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| Runway at the airport |
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| Cockpit of the glider |
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| Schweizer Glider |
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Jim's Mobius camera on his hat
for recording videos |
Thursday we drove to Barlett
Lake to go kayaking, and found the best place to launch, Bartlett Flats, as far
north as we could drive. There were lots
of people camping on the lakeshore here, a few jet sleds and fishing boats, but
we were soon in the wake-free zone. This
lake was lower than Horseshoe Lake, but still pretty. We saw cormorants, a group of female Common
Mergansers, and some Western Grebes. On
the way back, the wind came up again! It
was afternoon!! We did not learn
anything from our previous experience.
We paddled a total of 4.2 miles, and it was a long 2.1 miles back!
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| Road to the Marina, a lot nicer than the one to Horseshoe Lake! |
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Tuzi by our launch site
Notice the slipped strata, which you can also also see in the above picture! |
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| Lots of families camping along the lake |
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| Peaceful water |
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| Skull Rock (We named it!) |
We had planned to go to
Sundial Park in Peoria, then Lake Pleasant.
But we could not get into either park.
Reservations must be made in advance in these days! So we were able to move to site 19 at Cave
Creek for Thursday night.
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| Sunset from our new campsite |
Then Friday
and Saturday nights we moved into the Cave Creek overflow area, which is a
gravel parking lot with some RV’s, no hookups, but only $20 a night. We set out on a hike on Friday, after moving,
up the Clay Mine trail. As we walked through the parking lot, we encountered a rattlesnake in the campground road. It quickly retreated to under a bush, and we continued on our hike, being extra watchful of the ground in front of us and around us!
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Can you see the Western Diamondback rattlesnake??
He can see you, smell you, and sense your heat! |
A woman made a
business of mining this clay and creating health and beauty products from
it. (We found out later the clay was
Kaolin, a pure white clay. Have you
heard of Kaopectate?) The hike was
uphill and rough, and difficult for Sarah.
After a while Jim went back, and I continued a loop, up around the
mountain, over a few ridges, back to the Nature Center area, where I walked along
the road back to the campground, hiking a little over 6 miles. In the afternoon we went to the grocery
store, again!
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| Hedgehog Cactus, again! |
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| Up on the Clay Mine Trail |
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| Interesting rocks and lichen |
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| On the trail |
Saturday morning we went to
hear a Geology Talk at Ramada 1 at the park, by Joe Ford, a retired Geology
professor. He did a great presentation,
speaking to folks who had no knowledge of a subject he knows in both breadth
and depth. He was intelligent,
good-humored, and altogether charming.
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| Professor Joe Ford and students, with rocks |
In the afternoon, Jim rode on some mountain bike trails in the park,
while I repeated our previous ride to Anthem, going a little farther this
time. I did ride on the Maricopa trail a
bit, as the ranger had assured me the No Trespassing signs were not a concern,
but it was sandy and slippery, so I was happier on the shoulder of the
road. I rode about 22 miles total.
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| Another trail. Who knows which one? At least it looks pretty flat and not rocky! |
