Native Americans & Stuff Along The Way

January 21 – January 26, 2017.

When we left The Rubber Tramp Rendezvous we only had one small plan for what was next. It was January 20th and the next day marches were bring held in cities all over the country and world. Since this march was somewhat political and I know you have heard your fair share of politics lately, I’m not going to talk about it, other than to say we drove to Phoenix, spent the night in a Flying J Truck Stop, drove downtown, marched, learned a few things, and felt glad we could express ourselves in such a positive way with thousands of other people.

After the march I checked freecampsites.net and found a place to camp south of Phoenix in the Sonoran Desert National Monument. At the campsite I squeezed out a weak, but adequate Internet signal from our data plan, which I used to do some research on our next adventure. I found a National Park, Casa Grande National Monument, not too far from where we were boondocking, so we made a plan to check it out after a day of rest and catching up on the blog.

While we were in Phoenix doing that march thing (which we aren’t talking about), I made a post on Facebook talking about it. A friend commented that she would be in Phoenix the next day and that she’d love to see us. So while we were at Casa Grande I gave her a call. “Where are you,” she asked. “Well,” I said, “right now we’re at Casa Grande.” “Really,” she replied, “Me too!” What an interesting coincidence! Actually, though, we weren’t at the same Casa Grande – the National Monument and the town of Casa Grande being different places, but they are very close to each other and we would be driving right through the town of Casa Grande on our way back to our campsite. We made plans to meet our friend at Walmart where she was doing some shopping while her mother-in-law was having her hair done.

Back in the Sonoran Desert Monument we plotted our next move. At Casa Grande I had seen a map of petroglyph sites in Arizona and found one, The Painted Rocks Petroglyph Site, not far from where we were. “Want to go there?” I ask Greg. “Oh, yes! Petroglyphs!”

The petroglyphs were to the west. From there we could head straight south to another National Park, Organ Pipe National Monument, explore whatever else was down that way, and then eventually head back east and visit the Kitt Peak Observatory. A plan was starting to come together.

On our way from the petroglyphs to Organ Pipe we drove right through the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range. Every once in a while we are so stunned and surprised by so much beauty we just have to stop, get out, look around, and take some more pictures, before we head to the next stop.

This journey is based on a loose plan, but sometimes the surprises and people we meet along the way are the best part.

**** All pics are click to enlarge.