CAMP FIRE FOR TWO: I'VE GOT SPURS THAT JINGLE JANGLE HURT

Tombstone, Arizona

Sah-Wah-Row Cactus

Howdy partners! I'll bet a lot of you blog fans have been bitting your nails wondering where ole Juan and Nancia are, and so are we. Whew..it's been a hard ride, and we are really behind in telling our tales. It's been over 20 days, and I finally had to tell this guy to pull over so I could get my thoughts together after seeing Doc and Wyatt and write everything down. .. so now you know where we've been. Tombstone was OK. Actually it was great and OK was there! Nancy and I rode the old stagecoach (153 yrs old) through town and stopped and had a cold one at the saloon. On our way out of town we stopped and kicked off our boots at Boot Hill, where by the way most of the characters we've come to know and hear about are actually buried. (Even old sheriff Fred shot by Curley Bill!) Tombstone was a great place to stop for a couple of hours on our way to Catalina State Park in Tucson, Arizona. This part of Arizona is where the Saguaro Cactus grow, and it is the only area where they grow. By the time they get their first arms we start having trouble raising ours (60 and 70 years old). Now while I'm
talking about cactus, you'll have to ask Nancy about her experiences with her latest endeavors on protecting the little guys on trail. I won't go into details here, but I will leave you with one of Juan's proverbs. "She Who Touches Cactus Hair, Will Turn Into A Prickly Pear"! Needles to say...she has a story.
The picture here of our little hiker was taken on the Romero Ruins Trail in Catalina State Park. We then drove over to the Saguaro National Park for the day and hiked through the desert museum trails. While we were in the area we visited Old Tuscon Studios. The studio is an active movie set where over 173 movies have been filmed. The movies Joe Kidd, Tombstone, Rio Lobo, Rio Bravo and Judge Roy Bean just to mention a few. Also, numerous TV series have been filmed here and most of the westerns with John Wayne. Who knows...maybe 'where in the world is Juan' could be filmed here? That'll be the day...eh Duke?
Catalina State Park is a nice area with hiking and biking and lots to do but, hey..Forward Ho as there's a lot of
catch up for you to do.

Old Tucson

Tuzigoot

We broke camp and headed up the trail to our next destination which was Cottonwood, Arizona and Dead Horse State Park. This was another great pick on Nancy's part as we again had a ton of things to do and see in the area. You could see the town of Jerome on the side of a mountain from our campsite. For all you hippies of the 60's, you know that Jerome was your kind of town. This was a unique place, to say the least, and the road getting there was unique too! Needless to say, I only saw the yellow line on the road and the missing guardrails! Not for the faint of heart or me....

One of the nice things about this park was again the biking and hiking areas and the fact that it was 20 miles south of Sedona. If you ever have a chance to visit Arizona be sure Sedona is one of your stops. The scenery is phenomenal! We spent a few days in Sedona, and it would be a favorite pick for a place to live. With Tuzigoot, Montazuma's Castle ruins and Camp Verde you just can't get enough pictures. I know, because Nancy has her own camera!

Montazuma Castle

After 7 days we packed up and headed to Las Vegas, Nevada for 6 nights, and put the RV in storage for a little R and R. I had to have a slide canopy replaced, and they just happened to have free storage for us so it worked out great while we spent time with our GREAT FRIENDS, Jim and Stu. Now, we don't have to do anything to have a good time with these two, but we did everything, everyday. After arriving I had to rework some of Jim's technical settings for Stu's new tablet. I guess I have to mention (for those who don't know Stu) that HER name is Sue and not the Boy Named Sue either! It's a long story and would need a blog of it's own so I'll leave it there.

Our Friends Jim & Stu

While visiting we went to 2 shows, gambled, watch Stu win, gambled some more and watched Stu win...You get the picture? Jim and I also shared a great day golfing and as usual, I kept him working on his game... While the time flew by we enjoyed every minute, but destiny calls and we had to pick up our wagon train and continue west.

Our next destination....Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon. We stayed in Three Rivers, CA just outside the southwest entrance to the park. Going into the park, ahh, remember I mentioned the road in Jerome, Arizona right? Weeellllll... let me tell ya...can you say switchback? When it comes to great heights...I've never been a great achiever as some of you already know. This place is unbeliveable as long as you don't look down! (I did miss some of the scenery, but that's ok.) Driving up from 3,000 ft to, oh, 8,000 ft on a narrow, two-lane, straight-up road and then one lane due to construction with Juan is an experience you should all be a part of (can you believe it?). Mother Nature was not afraid of heights for sure! I already have a sore left wrist, and now I am back to wearing my brace! Why? Steerage neurosis...
I must say that seeing the giant sequoias was worth the fear. The place is amazing and again another must see if you haven't yet. The old General Sherman is the world's largest living thing. The largest

SSGT Juan salutes the General

sequoias reach 270 ft tall and are over 2,300 years old. AMAZING! A majority of the large trees are named after presidents and generals.

We continued with our usual hiking in the great outdoors on the Middle Fork Trail with bear bells and snakebite kits...well at least in my pack.. and enjoyed the great outdoors. It seems we timed it just right with the bears and snakes coming out of hibernation in the mountains, but so far so sad we've missed seeing any :) One day Nancy and I were alone on a mountain trail for 5.5 miles and all you could hear was the rippling water and my bell. How nice. Nancy thinks I am getting better at heights, but time will tell. (As long as I look down at her at 5 ft and me at 5 ft 10, I'm fine.)

When going to Sequoia from our campground, you drive up the mountains into the park to get among the giant trees. Now it's off again to our next great adventure, and it's Yosemite! Heading into Yosemite we found ourselves back tracking from where our GPS was telling us to go. Reason why.. when pulling a trailer you don't like switchbacks and narrow roads so we took the longer route to Yosemite and entered from the west. Now the thing about Yosemite National Park versus Sequoia is that it's located in a valley. Valleys are good! Well, now think about this. How do you get into a valley? Well, gee, you have to climb a mountain first! Our campground is again outside the park entrance but.....at the top of the mountain. Ya see where I'm going with this. Now I know the old saying "there's gold in them there hills", but it wasn't gold in the back of my pants getting up there! I am writing this while in camp outside of Yosemite, and we have to go back down that mountain tomorrow! Nancy is washing as we speak!

All kidding aside (except I'm not really kidding), Yosemite is the most beautiful park we've seen yet for majestic beauty. The waterfalls this time of the year are at their peak, and we have enjoyed beautiful weather. We spent our first day in the park driving to all the sites, and taking way too many pictures. Our second day we hiked about 5.5 miles round trip up to Vernal Falls. The brochure told us it was a 400 ft climb, but found out it was actually 1,000 ft. Whew! When safely back at the camper, we discovered the majority of deaths in Yosemite are at Vernal Falls with drownings and falls into the Merced
River. Scratch these parks from our bucket list.