Viva Las Vegas

We stopped in dusty Phoenix to check the weather and make a final decision on the North (to Grand Canyon) or West (to California) question. Forecast lows for the Canyon were all perishingly cold, so a unanimous decision was made to head West.

First stop was the Joshua Tree National Park, where we spent a couple of days scrambling amongst the huge granite rocks and namesake trees, further feeding Francesca's career aim to be "a rockclimber and a mummy"

We crossed a few more miles of desert to visit another National Park - the Mojave Desert Preserve and, in particular, the Kelso Dunes.  The impressive 700ft dunes should have given us a clue to the nature to the terrain....but apparently not.   We set off 4 miles down a dirt road and followed some tracks to a camping spot but ground to a halt in soft sand. We spent the late afternoon digging out with a toy dustpan!  Oh how we laughed...After an hour and a half, we successfully extracted ourselves (with the aid of some rusted iron sheeting) and promptly tasked ourselves with extracting the cork from a bottle of wine.  Evening guests included a kit fox and a cute little kangaroo rat who seemed particularly interested in the wine bottle.

Having clambered up the dunes and run down to make them "sing" we left the Mojave and headed for the bright lights of Vegas.  Friends from Ottawa, Steve and Debbie, made us very welcome at their new home, where we had a lovely evening, plus a night in real beds!  The following afternoon we tramped the length of the Strip watching circus acts, dancing fountains and snoozing lions.

Having seen just about all that Las Vegas Boulevard had to offer under 7s, we took a trip back to Arizona and the Hoover Dam, before taking up Debbie and Steve's great recommendation to visit Red Rock Canyon.

We are now in Parhump, NV - not a tourist destination in itself, but only 50 miles from Death Valley. Slave drivers that we are, we haven't broken up from school for the Christmas holidays yet...

Cowboys and Indians, and Cacti

Heading into Apache territory, we took a 3 mile hike to visit Fort Bowie, built in the 1860s to defend settlers against the Indians, and site of Geronimo's surrender. 

These Southern Arizona mountains are also home to the Chiracahua National Park, where the girls were surprisingly enthusiastic about yet another trek in the hills. 

 

South towards the Mexican border we visited the Victorian mining town of Bisbee. By now, we were paying the price of the "big freeze" in Gila, with a broken loo. However, a trip down the old copper mines gave us cause to be grateful for what we have...

As we arrived in Tombstone, the stiffening breeze lent authenticity to the Wild West atmosphere, rolling tumbleweed down the streets. The picture was completed by locals dressed in period costumes, complete with six-shooters, chatting on the boardwalks.  We all felt as if we were on a movie set and that at any moment John Wayne would step through the saloon doors and gallop off into the sunset.

We spent a couple of nights on the air base in Tucson, getting the various ailments of the van sorted out.  The thousands of old aircraft lined up there, in retirement, were quite a sight - as were the hundreds of RV Parks in the vicinity, seemingly home to half of America's retired population.

We bypassed the bright city lights and set out for the Saguaro National Park and Ironwood Forest, where we thoroughly enjoyed a couple of nights camping alone in the midst of these giant cacti.

The highlight for the girls was an enforced second night in the back country after 20 miles of dirt road ended in an unfordable ford. Thankfully there was still beer in the fridge!

White Snow and White Sands

Last Tuesday, we awoke in Alamogordo to the worst snow they have had for twenty years.

There was much excitement, not least because we decided to stay put for an extra night, and the campsite had a television!

Having waited out the snow for three nights, swimming, visiting the library, schooling etc, we drove 30 miles to the White Sands National Park, a small corner of the gypsum desert used for testing the first atomic bombs.  The miles of white sand were the best playground we have yet found. We spent the whole afternoon, running, rolling and sliding down the dunes.

Heading West again, we stopped off at the old Hispanic town of Messilla, where we stopped for coffee and cakes in the jailhouse where Billy the Kid was held for trial. In the afternoon we drove on to the City of Rocks State Park - everyone's favourite campsite so far...

The girls couldn't get enough of scrambling over, around and up the boulders, but eventually we dragged them away to head on up into the Gila Wilderness.  We spent some time exploring the 13th Century Mongollon Indian cave dwellings and then had another memorable night, as the only campers in any of the 7 National Forest campgrounds in the area. By 2 am we realised that we were the only visitors for a reason - the temperature had dropped to -13C and everything was frozen. On top of that our battery was flat and so we had no heating....eventually we stole the duvets from the children, forcing them to share our bed!

Today, we have pretty much defrosted everything and are warming up slightly in Bowie, Arizona at the base of the Apache Mountains. We are heading towards Fort Bowie, Bisbee and Tombstone - gunfights at the OK Corral apparently take place at 2pm every day!

Southern Snow

Our run of good weather has finally come to an end and we are holed up in Alamogordo, New Mexico waiting out a winter storm. The first signs of cooler weather arrived just after our last blog entry, when we drove up to Fort Davis and stayed at a Texan ranch. We awoke in the morning with ice inside the van! However, it was such a great place that we stayed two nights, pottering around the old frontier town, visiting the McDonald Observatory and taking the girls horse riding.

On Thanksgiving Day, we drove across more desert to the Guadalupe National Park, a chain of mountains that rise high above the desert and hold Texas’s highest point, at nearly 9,000ft. The stupendous views inspired us to set off on the long walk to the summit the next morning, not knowing whether the girls would manage the 8.5 miles and 3000ft ascent. Happily, stubborn determination, multiple snacks and the promise of ice cream got everyone to the top, making for a memorable day out. Francesca and Liberty were rightly proud of themselves and are forming plans to explore the world on horseback, conquering mountains as they go.

From the top of Texas we took a trip into the depths of New Mexico – the Carlsbad Caverns. These amazing caves, and their rock formations, totally surpassed our expectations with chambers that could swallow cathedrals.

Late in the day, we arrived in Carlsbad, a rather drab town, expecting a brief, functional overnight stay. First things first, we found a decent ice-cream parlour to fulfill our promise. The friendly staff directed us to “Christmas on the Pecos”, an annual tradition of boat rides to view the riverside holiday lights. We duly acquiesced to the children’s pleading and took a premature dose of American Christmas cheer!

The next day saw us heading across the Sacramento Mountains towards White Sands. We stopped off at the Living Desert Zoo, the only visitors in the unusually chill air. We set off along the obvious route, naively unaware that the road climbed to 8,600ft – even the name of the only village on the map, Cloudcroft, didn’t click! We climbed higher, the clouds sank lower and soon it started snowing. Contingency plans for were formed for a roadside stopover, but thankfully the snowploughs were out in force and the pass proved passable!