Near the end of March we ended our winter hibernation at the Fountain of Youth (FOY) RV Park in Southern California and started heading east. We have always tended to travel in a very relaxed mode - only covering short distances and preferring week long or longer stays no matter where we park our home. These next one or two years will be interesting as we wander over to the east coast, visit parts of Canada, perhaps winter in Florida and take things as they come. Hopefully the weather will cooperate as that is the one thing that could make us reconsider.
When we left Yuma, AZ we headed to the Tucson, AZ area - we have been there before and absolutely love the area, but we missed a few of the sights last time and now we have friends there, which is always an attraction. We found an RV Park on the southwest side of Tucson backed up to 
the Tucson Mountain State Park and right down the road was the Saguaro National Park (West) – what a beautiful back yard! On our very first walk out on the desert paths near the park we ran into an Arizona Earthworm, also known as the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. He was happy as he had just eaten one of the local rodents and was sunning himself (to aide the digestion). So he didn’t mind me taking his picture (this time!). His name was Juan. He says Hi!
During our stay at Tucson we were able to get together with Duane & Debbie and Bill & Rena who are good friends from our Spearfish, SD days and volunteer efforts. We had a number of good visits and dinners with them as well as a robust game of miniature golf on a most challenging course. (Linda won!) Bill and Duane are 2 parts (I’m the third) of the original Mountain Bike group called the “GIBS” (Geezers in Biker Shorts) the fourth and premier member of our group (our mentor Tim) is currently in Fruita, CO at one of the Mecca’s of Mountain Biking. We miss him. Anyway – the three of us went on a bike ride through the desert just south and 
somewhat into the Tucson Mountain State Park. It was an incredible ride where you had to pay attention every second, every turn, because everything we were riding through wanted to hurt us or stick something into us (cactus – lots of very nasty cactus, and rocks, very sharp and large rocks) . Needless to say none of us came home without wounds, some more than others. Our DNA is now imbedded forever in the Arizona landscape!
While we were in the area we decided to visit a couple of the sites that we missed the last time we 
were here. The first being the Titan II Missile Site Museum just south of Tucson. Linda had never seen anything like this even though I had spent over twenty years in the Air Force and worked on systems very similar to this (one of those secret things the services do). The Titan II was the largest and the most powerful ICBM ever built by the United States. During the Cold War 54 of these things were hiding underground across the country. In 1987 the last of these Missiles were retired and dismantled with only this example and museum remaining. The tour brought us down into 
the launch control facility as well as the missile silo itself and provided reams of information that twenty years ago would have been highly classified. This is the last example of the extremes the US and Russia (that the normal person can visit) went to to obtain Nuclear dominance during the cold war. Well worth a visit.
We also took a trip up to Kitt Peak National Observatory and ended up taking all three tours that they offer. The Kitt Peak National Observatory is a United States astronomical observatory site located 
at 6,880 ft. on Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains about 55 miles southwest of Tucson. It’s located in the Sonoran desert on the Tohono O'odham Indian Nation. The agreement that was made for use of the land requires the Federal Government to return the land to its original condition once both parties agree to stop the use of the telescopes. (Which will probably cost quite a bit more than was spent to build the place) Right now there are problems with funding and the Federal Government may pull the plug fairly soon so if you get the chance it’s worth a visit before they shut it down. On top of the mountain there are 24 optical and two radio telescopes, which 
makes it the largest and most diverse gathering of astronomical instruments in the world.
While we were there (all day!) we took all three tours they had, the docents were very knowledgeable and made the tour fun as well. We were able to go into working innards of the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope which is huge! This thing extends into the ground many hundreds of feet with huge adjustable mirrors mounted on tracks - all computer controlled. Pretty Cool! The next two telescopes we were able to go into were the 2.1 meter (6.8 ft.) and the Mayall 4 meter (13.1 ft.) optical telescopes. That doesn’t mean the telescopes are that long – that means that the main 
mirror inside of these telescopes are that diameter! The entire telescopes are pretty large and contrary to what most folks think there are no eyepieces to look through anymore. Everything is done with digital imagers and the images are all brought up on computer screens. We had never been to something like this so it was definitely interesting to us but I would recommend brushing up on your astrophysics a bit before you go.
Our next travel day brought us to Deming, New Mexico which is about 230 miles east of Tucson, AZ and about 110 miles west of El Paso, TX. Some of the 
highlights of the area include Rock Hound State Park, City of Rocks State Park, many rock shops, our next door neighbor was even a real prospector – kinda get the drift here? Yep! Lots of rocks. Anyway we have been here before and came back to visit June, at one time Linda’s babysitter (yes a long time ago!) and close friend. We had a number of good visits and one fabulous dinner as one of June’s many professions included being an incredible professional chef for a while. That dinner and of course June’s company, made this stop worth while. We did take the time to do a bit of Geocaching in the area and to visit one incredible little 
museum in town called the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum. It was much more than what it first appeared to be, it went on and on with high quality displays. We did not expect that in a town this size. One display did not surprise me though, rocks, minerals, and gemstones. Yep! Lots of rocks. We took a day and went to visit the City of Rocks State Park, some of the reasons being that our friends, Tim and Lynn, have volunteered there the last couple of winters. Tim maintained and developed some of the bike trails there (which I was able to ride) and there were geocaches there. As you can see Linda was able to play mountain goat here and loved 
every minute of it. The formations of the rocks by a very old (some estimates are 35 million years ago) volcanic eruption and subsequent erosion left some incredible sights. It’s not a real large area but it is very unique!
We have ended up staying a bit longer in the Deming area because of the high winds. Of the almost 2 weeks we have been here I think there has been one or two calm days – that is with the wind at less than 25 to 30 mph. There has been 3 major dust storms where you lose sight of the mountains and even the blue sky – there were no clouds! We have had to delay because of these winds so once the winds died down it was off to Albuquerque! It was a pretty uneventful trip up I-25 with a couple of rest stops and geocaches along the way. We had an interesting time getting settled into Kirtland Air Force Base because the instructions (and recommendations from the Park Manager) were not very good and the fact that they changed street names on us complicated matters a bit. But we made it and are settled now for a few weeks and maybe a few more adventures.
With a few suggestions I have added a link to this Blog to another one that I have started which highlight my hobby of making walking sticks. If you click on the link over on the right hand side it should bring you right to it. It’s called “Walking the Sticks” and includes a beer review as well. Hope you enjoy.
Oreo - our 17 pound Tom Cat, who has lived and traveled with us for quite a few years, decided he likes being part of the Blog and will continue to provide a few purr-fect bits of wisdom and observations for all the blog readers out there as well as a few comments about the antics of his pride members and life on the road. I told him he now has a number of fans for his part of the Blog and got his typical response of “It’s about time – I am pleased’
“My pride members are pretty strange at times. For example, this last moving day they were soooo wired and upset by the time we stopped that I thought that maybe they had forgotten to clean their cat (or in their case people) box! Nothing should be that upsetting – they need to learn to lick themselves – then they would feel much better!”
With all of that you now have an idea of what we have been up to over the last few weeks as we travel across the country and occupy ourselves with whatever comes to mind or presents itself. We will sign off with this Blog now and go in search of further adventures and leave you with a sunset from Tuscan, AZ.
Home is where we park it!
Lee & Linda
Our winter stay at the Fountain of Youth RV Park, (FOY for short) went by so fast this year. With all of our activities, hobbies, friends and family we decided (with a bit of encouragement) to write/develop a web blog to keep everyone updated on our adventures and whereabouts. So with a little help from our computer, blog literate friends and the "Geezer Grapevine" let the saga begin.
One of Linda's favorite past times is hiking to, over, or through the multitude of interesting and beautiful places our lifestyle has to offer. She has truly become part mountain goat and very few obstacles seem to deter her, the higher the better. I have seen her climb along sheer cliffs in Utah with only a rope and toe holds to support her, I've seen her walk up to a cliff edge in Colorado, dangle her feet over the edge and take pictures straight down of the Colorado River (over 1000 ft. straight down) - she has exceeded my small tolerance for heights many times over. She has also helped me get out of height situations when I've exceeded my limits so to 
speak. So when you see pictures of her hiking and I'm nowhere to be seen it’s not because I'm taking the picture – it’s because I did not go!
This season Linda hooked up with a weekly hiking group that over the season went out to various locations in the area to explore the local mountains and canyons. There were hikes to places called the First and Second Grottos, The Crevice and Ridges, Burnt Sienna, Thousand Palms and the Painted Canyon and Ladders and last but not least the Box Canyon area, which by the way Lee did go on.
The hikes were all very challenging as well as beautiful in their own way. The multicolored rock layers, various plants and the ever present critters to look out for kept her very focused and eager for the next turn in the trail or the next outing.
Since my heart surgery two years ago, I have taken up bike riding with a passion. While Linda’s forte is hiking, mine is mountain and trail biking. (Rather ironic isn’t it, to have height issues and love mountain biking.) We both hooked up with a biking group called the Foykers and Lee rode with another group of guys (a bit more extreme) called the Old Spokes. All were an absolute blast to ride with and talk to as we rode through the various parts of the nearby
desert and mountains. We did many weekly rides, sometimes two or three in a weeks time. Some of the rides were rather technical mountain bike trails, others were rides through the desert on various 4-wheel drive type of trails and some were strictly road rides. The rides ended up with names like Shoe Tree, Paul's trail, Phil's ride, Rockhenge, Bombay Beach, the Fig and Lemon orchard, and the ultimate ones in my mind were the Box Canyon, Joshua Tree, and Chiraco Summit rides – they were awesome!
Linda took up the hobby of Geocaching about a year ago (with the strong and persistent encouragement of Dick and Annie) and has taken to it like a slinky on an escalator. We had found most of the caches around the FOY park last year so we had to go a bit further afield this year. We went to a couple of Geocaching events, one being the Ocotillo Wells event, the other being the Yuma Mega Event (“Mega Event” meaning there were way too many people there).
We went with Dick to the Ocotillo Wells Geocaching event which was out on the west side of the Salton Sea in the Ocotillo Wells off rode vehicle recreation area. We met with all the appropriate people, got the required 
paperwork and maps and off we went to find as many caches as we could during the day. We walked one area and then climbed into Dick’s Jeep and off we went into the desert bouncing around like a pinball machine – great fun! Dick and Linda turned me into their spotter and map reader since I was the only one without a GPS unit. So while they were looking at and studying their little electronic gizmos I was telling them where to go and finding the caches for them (I only got lost once and I think I found the majority of the caches). The Yuma Mega Event was just that – large! From what we heard there were over 1,200 geocachers there and seemed to go quite well. We did run into a number of friends and did do some caching there but we were
on a limited schedule and moved on fairly early. We are gradually learning to combine our hiking and biking with geocaching – after a couple of false starts so to speak it seems to be working quite well. We did make a trip over to Borrego Springs this winter, we thought we could do a day trip with bit of touristing, geocaching and a lunch. It turned out much better than expected as the metal sculptures we had heard about were amazing! Borrego Springs has become
known for its menagerie of freestanding life–size (and larger) sculptures of creatures that roamed the Borrego Valley millions of years ago as well as historical incidents and characters and even some imaginary creatures. All of these sculptures were crafted by artist Ricardo Breceda of Temecula, California and set on land donated by Dennis Avery. There are over 25 sculptures with camels, sloths, llamas, wild horses,
saber-tooth cats,
mammoths, giant birds, and dragons to name a few. We had quite the day exploring all the sculptures and even did a bit of geocaching (the scorpion had one in a very interesting place).
Over the season we celebrated with family and friends a number of occasions such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, our 40th Wedding Anniversary and Linda’s birthday. All were events to be remembered because of all the friends and family that attended – some drove many hundreds of miles to attend which made us feel very “special”. We received lots of help putting together these events and we want to put out a very heart felt thank you to some very special friends and family members. In addition to the special events we spent quite a bit of time in Rancho Mirage at my sister, Kathy’s and our MFBL (Most Favorite Brother-in-Law) Leo’s place. There we spent many hours just relaxing
and attended a number of Palm Springs type events such as the Light Parade where we saw the Marilyn Monroe statue, some very interesting people and a wonderful Christmas themed parade. We went to see a very bizarre yard display at some artist’s home in the movie district of Palm Springs called Robo Christmas. And we went to the Date Festival to watch the Ostrich and Zebra races (yes – that really was the main attraction!)
Beginning our 2013 adventure – the first stop was Yuma. Outside of Yuma is an old silver mining town called Castle Dome, and is now a ghost town. Silver was discovered there in 1862 and miners and all the various opportunists of the time flocked to the area and built the town. The town was occupied by up to 3,000 people between 1871 and 1919 – after that the population slowly declined as the silver ran out. The very last
miner – gave up mining in 1979, it was just too expensive to extract the silver anymore. If you get a chance and like old ghost towns this is a good one. With all the mining artifacts and memorabilia dating from 1870’s to 1919, it is quite interesting. The stories and notes written by the people of Castle Dome were fascinating, fun, and heart rending, life was tough for those folks. You can walk by the cabins that were built with three sides into a hill to give the Indians less to shoot arrows at, and gravesites piled high with rocks to keep the coyotes out (they were only two feet deep). You can visit a saloon and brothel started up by a pretty young widow of a miner that “had poor judgment” which lead to his death. Definitely an interesting way to spend an afternoon in early spring. We also did a bit of geocaching on our way to the ghost town and found quite a number of them along the road there. Did have to watch out for the cactus though, Linda was punctured by a few 
Cholla cactus spines in places she really did not care for as she was recovering her geocaches. (and I do mean OUCH!!!)
Linda also has a hobby/past time of tracing family ties and history through Genealogy. She started a couple of years ago and has discovered or (recovered if you will) history and links about family and all the interesting tidbits that accompany that information. She has traced her adopted father’s side back to the revolutionary war period and the ships that brought them to the “New World”. Investigated draft records for the Civil War, World Wars I and II and all the various conflicts of the time periods. She ran into name changes, slave ownership, land issues and records of moving to many different places on both sides of the family. I guess the fact that we are full time RVer’s and move constantly is not all that unique. The ancestors only used a bit different mode of transportation.
For most of you who know me, you know that I have a hobby of creating interesting and unique walking sticks I will try to keep you updated on what I’m working on as my next project, as well as a few pictures of what I have completed.
Oreo - our 17 pound Tom Cat, who has lived and traveled with us for quite a few years, (and will be 13 years old in July!) decided he would like to put in a few purr-fect bits of wisdom and observations for all the blog readers out there as well as a few comments about the antics of his pride members and life on the road.
Thousands of years ago people used to worship my kind as Gods, and although they seem to have forgotten that – I have not! My pride, or people, treat me rather well and have honored me by expending considerable resources to bring me on a tour of the country. We have traveled great distances over wondrous terrain, seen more delectable birds and critters than even I knew existed, the menu is endless.
As we travel I will be passing on bits of wisdom, advice and tidbits of life on the road. The first being “Enjoy your treats and find a good sunbeam, they are wonderful things".
Oreo
With all of that you now have the jest of what we have been up to, not only over the past few months but of our hobby’s and interests that have spanned the last few years. I do hope you enjoy our running commentary of our adventures as we travel to familiar and not so familiar places and look forward to future blogs. With that I leave you with a sunset from our winter home at FOY, there is no place like it!
Home is where we park it!
Lee & Linda
the Tucson Mountain State Park and right down the road was the Saguaro National Park (West) – what a beautiful back yard! On our very first walk out on the desert paths near the park we ran into an Arizona Earthworm, also known as the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. He was happy as he had just eaten one of the local rodents and was sunning himself (to aide the digestion). So he didn’t mind me taking his picture (this time!). His name was Juan. He says Hi!
somewhat into the Tucson Mountain State Park. It was an incredible ride where you had to pay attention every second, every turn, because everything we were riding through wanted to hurt us or stick something into us (cactus – lots of very nasty cactus, and rocks, very sharp and large rocks) . Needless to say none of us came home without wounds, some more than others. Our DNA is now imbedded forever in the Arizona landscape!
were here. The first being the Titan II Missile Site Museum just south of Tucson. Linda had never seen anything like this even though I had spent over twenty years in the Air Force and worked on systems very similar to this (one of those secret things the services do). The Titan II was the largest and the most powerful ICBM ever built by the United States. During the Cold War 54 of these things were hiding underground across the country. In 1987 the last of these Missiles were retired and dismantled with only this example and museum remaining. The tour brought us down into 
the launch control facility as well as the missile silo itself and provided reams of information that twenty years ago would have been highly classified. This is the last example of the extremes the US and Russia (that the normal person can visit) went to to obtain Nuclear dominance during the cold war. Well worth a visit.
at 6,880 ft. on Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains about 55 miles southwest of Tucson. It’s located in the Sonoran desert on the Tohono O'odham Indian Nation. The agreement that was made for use of the land requires the Federal Government to return the land to its original condition once both parties agree to stop the use of the telescopes. (Which will probably cost quite a bit more than was spent to build the place) Right now there are problems with funding and the Federal Government may pull the plug fairly soon so if you get the chance it’s worth a visit before they shut it down. On top of the mountain there are 24 optical and two radio telescopes, which 
makes it the largest and most diverse gathering of astronomical instruments in the world.
mirror inside of these telescopes are that diameter! The entire telescopes are pretty large and contrary to what most folks think there are no eyepieces to look through anymore. Everything is done with digital imagers and the images are all brought up on computer screens. We had never been to something like this so it was definitely interesting to us but I would recommend brushing up on your astrophysics a bit before you go.
highlights of the area include Rock Hound State Park, City of Rocks State Park, many rock shops, our next door neighbor was even a real prospector – kinda get the drift here? Yep! Lots of rocks. Anyway we have been here before and came back to visit June, at one time Linda’s babysitter (yes a long time ago!) and close friend. We had a number of good visits and one fabulous dinner as one of June’s many professions included being an incredible professional chef for a while. That dinner and of course June’s company, made this stop worth while. We did take the time to do a bit of Geocaching in the area and to visit one incredible little 
museum in town called the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum. It was much more than what it first appeared to be, it went on and on with high quality displays. We did not expect that in a town this size. One display did not surprise me though, rocks, minerals, and gemstones. Yep! Lots of rocks. We took a day and went to visit the City of Rocks State Park, some of the reasons being that our friends, Tim and Lynn, have volunteered there the last couple of winters. Tim maintained and developed some of the bike trails there (which I was able to ride) and there were geocaches there. As you can see Linda was able to play mountain goat here and loved 
every minute of it. The formations of the rocks by a very old (some estimates are 35 million years ago) volcanic eruption and subsequent erosion left some incredible sights. It’s not a real large area but it is very unique! 
