Still Gravity

Our campsite in Saddleback RV Park. It was site 13 but brought us good luck. :) After a long drive from New Mexico, we stopped overnight in this RV park of western Texas - it was conveniently close to the Interstate 10.   The place was great for a night. It has sites with full hookups at excellent prices. Better to say: at prices from the past.  Kudos to the owners for keeping overnight camping affordable in these times when a simple campsite has become an expensive luxury at hotel prices from two decades ago.  If you pass by and need to rest, go there and support this business - link to location in Google Maps .  (Posted from the phone.)

The Little Florida Mountains behind the campground.  We arrived without reservation and got lucky thanks to the awesome host in the campground that drove up to the entrance kiosk to help us. Someone canceled and he arranged for our stay.  The kiosk at the park entrance.  This state park camp is on a slope of the Little Florida Mountains of New Mexico.  All around is cactus galore and rocks. There are so many that this became the first park in the US to allow people to collect rocks and minerals for personal use.  Trail on the slope of the mountain.  Barrel cactus. This plant is endemic to the deserts of Southwestern North America. The colors of the desert.  We hiked the trail nearby and got some rock specimens.  Left: quartz crystal embedded in a rock. On the right: a yellow jasper.  And then I got this big rock.  We had a great view of the Florida Mountains with the highest point: Florida Peak at 7,295 feet elevation - 2,224 meters...

Entrance to the stronghold.  We camped a night in this remote historical place of Coronado National Forest, Arizona.  The camper covered by trees, but the wind ran free and strong through this canyon.  At 5,000 feet elevation in the Dragoon Mountains, these canyons were the base and refuge of the Chiricahua Apache Chief Cochise in the 19th century.  Interesting rock formation on one of the walls of the canyon. We hiked the short and easy trails. They have some informative signs about the plants of this region.  Bridge over the dry creek by the campground that gives access to the trails.  Small campground at the end of a dirt road crisscrossed by dry creeks. A nice and quiet place with beautiful night skies.   (Posted from the phone.)

We went to Quartzsite for supplies and water and decided to return to a previous campsite north of the town in La Posa plains.  Back to the lower ground.  We ended picking a different spot.  The new camping spot wasn't far from the previous one.  The idea was to check a couple of places in the Plomosa Mountains - the name is for "lead-colored" in Spanish.  The Plomosa Mountains.  There was mining here since the 19th century.  Many rocks look volcanic.  We checked the historic Quartzsite Rock Alignment. Letters and arrows on the desert floor.  These are rock signs for pilots created in the 1930s.  Arrow pointing North.  One signals the North and the other points to the direction of Quartzsite with the name of the city written with rocks on the ground.  The camper at the Quartzsite Rock Alignment.  We also stopped by the nearby Bouse Fisherman Intaglio - estimated dating between 900 BCE to 1200 CE. Trail entrance.  This...

La Cholla Mountain near Quartzsite, Arizona, is part of Dome Rock Mountains.  One of the days of camping in BLM land by the Sugarloaf Peak west of Quartzsite, Arizona, we did a hike through the old roads that reach one of the slopes of La Cholla Mountain.  The road up is terrible.  View of Sugarloaf Peak from the south.  We found signs of mining up there - gold and silver were mined here since the 1860s. We even saw a superficial vein of quartz - no way to miss quartz camping near a city named Quartzsite.  Closed shaft number 1.  Closed shaft number 2.  Whole wall mined.  Quartz vein.  A lot of quartz crystals here.  Most of the quartz is of the white milk type, but C found a small piece of transparent quartz.  Small clear quartz crystal.  We saw this interesting formation that looks volcanic, but didn't find a way to reach it without descending from the mountain.  (Posted from the phone.) Check this page  to lic...

The cabins of Joseph Cone.  The builder of the two cabins was an artist that moved to Quartzsite in the 1940s.  The small stone cabin.  He lived in the small one and the big one was his workplace.  The big one is falling in pieces.  The cabins are fenced, but who knows how long they will last.   Another view of the big cabin.  (Posted from the phone.) Check this page  to license our photos.

Our free campsite.  This is another camping spot in BLM land west of Quartzsite, Arizona - the Dome Rock West.  We selected a site facing the Sugarloaf Peak.  Good privacy and views.  Plus someone created an artistic fire ring.  And an elegant entrance - we improved the original design. It wasn't perfectly leveled, but a couple of stones fixed the issue.  Primitive leveling system.  Nearby, there were many small trees of Palo Verde - green stick in Spanish.  They are found throughout the Sonoran Desert. They can live over 100 years.  The curious green bark of Palo Verde.  Wind was harsh the first day here, but the sunset didn't disappoint. Sunset on Sugarloaf Peak.  (Posted from the phone.)  Check this page  to license our photos.