This post will be interesting to a few readers who want to find interesting camp sites in the SW states. These were spots we found on our way to Baja in late February and returning in late March. We stayed in Tucson a few days so the first stop was Picacho Peak. (Picacho means peak in Spanish, so it’s redundant…like Table Mesa). It’s about half way between Tucson and the Phoenix sprawl, just off I10. We have camped here before, but this time the park was in bloom. Apparently it’s famous for those blooms from mid-February to the end of March.  Not a single camping slot was left. So we hiked and looked at the beautiful poppies, lupine, and others before heading west.

 

What we found was a real treat: Painted Rock Petroglyph State Park not far west of Gila Bend. Exit north off I8 at mile marker 102. The campground is enormous and there were very few people camping. During WWII Patton trained tank drivers here. The BLM manages the site now. It’s situated along the Gila River which used to be free flowing when the indigenous Hohokam people lived and farmed along its banks from at least 350AD. Now with all the agricultural demands, there is little to no water left in the Gila.

There are many petroglyph sites in the surrounding mountains, but this is the largest with some 800 glyphs. (Petroglyphs are chipped into rock while pictographs are painted on). These glyphs are pecked into basalt boulders. The dry climate has kept them well preserved, although vandalism is a continuing problem.

Since next stop was Yuma and the border with Baja beyond, I’ll skip now to the return journey.

North of Yuma, east of Highway 95 lies the enormous Kofa National Wildlife Refuge and wilderness area. We’d camped before at Palm Canyon so headed there again. However, with more time it would be a great area to explore with free, off-the-grid camping (aka boondocking) on thousands of acres. 85% of the reserve is designated wilderness, but that leaves a lot of open space with old mining, ranching, and military artifacts to be found. The refuge is known for its Desert bighorn sheep population, but we didn’t see any. (We didn’t try very hard.) The Kofa Mountains are named after a shorthand version of what was the largest mine in the area, the King of Arizona mine. (KofA) The Palm Canyon site has a trail to the only native palms in Arizona, a relic of cooler and wetter times. These are California fan palms.

 

We tried to drive the scenic loop to Roosevelt Reservoir just east of Apache Junction (east of Phoenix). It’s an absolutely lovely drive, but unfortunately the road had been washed out by spring floods so we were stopped nearTortilla Flat CG. Don’t stop there…too crowded; drive farther into Forest Service land and find much nicer and quieter camping possibilities.

Heading toward New Mexico we were stunned to see a sea of yellow flowers along I10 between Tucson and the NM border.

With the Covid19 virus in full swing when we got back to the states, many campgrounds and parks were closed. Including White Sands NP where we’d planned to stop. Ended up boondocking outside the Oliver Lee Memorial state park which was also closed.

We chose a little traveled road north through NM from Alamogordo to Logan’s Ute Lake SP…also closed. Along Hwy. 54 we stopped for lunch at the tiny, high elevation town of Corona. Restaurants were no longer open…except with luck one might find one for take out. Things had changed dramatically since we left in February! But luck out we did. We took our delicious Mexican lunch out to a bench along the empty sidewalk in scenic Corona.

From Logan north on Hwy. 39 one passes through the towns of Mosquero, Solano, and Roy. All seem preserved in amber. Much like Corona, there hasn’t been enough money in these little towns to tear down the Old West buildings and replace them with newer, ugly ones. They are little slices of life, dating from the dust bowl days. They never really recovered, but limp gamely along . We were heading for the Kiowa national grasslands to find camping when we were stopped in our tracks at Mills by a sign along the road pointing to a campground, 10 miles.

Well, what a discovery! A campground on the rim of a hidden canyon for RVs and low clearance vehicles, and a twisting, challenging road down into an amazing canyon hidden from view from the dry, grassy plains above.

From the grassland level on the rim, one descends 1000′ to the river’s edge. The rocks are sandstone deposited 200 to 90 million years ago…the age of dinosaurs.

Melvin Mills, a swashbuckling young lawyer came to the Territory of New Mexico in 1868. After too many near death experiences he retired in 1881 to manage his properties. He had planted a huge orchard covering many miles along the Canadian River growing apples, plums, cherries, peaches, apricots, walnuts, chestnuts, and almonds. Things were going well. He built a cable to carry his produce to the rim. He built a 2-story native-rock house for himself and a bunkhouse nearby for the help. He also owned the stage line that entered the valley down the entrance road and exited out the other end. A quote from the interpretive sign says “the stage shaved 100 miles off the old Sante Fe Trail, but must have scared 10 years of life out of its passengers”.

Then in 1904 came a devastating flood. It wiped out the ranch and several nearby towns. He borrowed heavily to get the orchard up and producing again, but by 1912 it barely had a crop at all and by 1916 the place was abandoned. He died penniless in nearby Springer. There’s a lesson there somewhere.

Back to the highway we detoured through the town of Mills as it is now. It’s obviously seen better days.