Southern Arizona – Dan Leeth

Dead Horse Ranch

From Bluff, we headed across the Navajo Nation to the Verde Valley of Arizona, stopping along the way for more Navajo tacos at the Cameron Trading Post.

Our destination for the next four nights is Dead Horse Ranch State Park. It offers some nice campsites for RVs, which we enjoyed on a previous trip with our old A-frame trailer.

This time, we were tent camping, so we chose the Blackhawk “rustic” loop. And rustic it was.

The campsite loop has only two water spigots, both of which are inaccessibly located behind other campers’ sites. To fill our seven-gallon jug, we have to find an empty RV site with a water hookup in another loop and fill up there. And the only restrooms for all of us tent campers are down in a neighboring RV loop, several hundred yards away. Bio-breaks require advance planning.

The sites have canopies over the tent platforms, but no shade over the picnic tables and no windbreaks. We set up our tent in a gusting breeze, which allowed me a chance to use numerous expletives.

For two days, we hiked around the park, and one night drove into town for dinner one night at a winery famous for their wines named after a mythical vampire creature that sucks blood out of livestock.

Taking a break from treading trails, one day Dianne and I drove up to Crown King – an old mining camp high in the Bradshaw Mountains. Decades ago, a neighbor friend of my Dad’s had a cabin up there, and during hunting season, they would load up guns, beer and whiskey and head up there to hunt deer. No animal was ever harmed.

I occasionally got to up with them. Every night, we’d head for the Crown King Saloon for burgers. While the adults enjoyed even more adult beverages, I wandered around the place, carefully studying the saloon’s artwork.

Among other things hanging on the wall of the saloon back then was a life-size, self-painted portrait of an attractive lady, naked from the waist up. I was maybe a dozen years old back then, so naturally this caught my interest.

Now, 60+ years later, the painting no longer hangs inside the saloon, but they do still serve a pretty good burger.

Blanding to Bluff

Monday morning, we drove to Edge of the Cedars State Park where I would research a story for Utah Life Magazine.

The park consists of some small ruins and a fabulous museum of Anasazi (Ancestral Puebloan) artifacts. Here are a few photos of what’s there.

While I was interviewing folks at the museum, Dianne found a mechanic who put the truck up on a lift, removed the dangling plastic, and tightened up some other bolts that were loose.

Our business in Blanding completed, we headed on to Bluff where we had Navajo tacos at the Twin Rocks Trading Post…

…and spent the night at the Recapture Lodge where one fellow guest was a Tesla owner who is apparently not too happy with Musk.

Fruita to Blanding

Dianne and I each have our personal list of things to bring for a four-week camping trip to southern Arizona. Combined, we pack food, tent, food, air mattress, food, hiking boots, food, packs, food, cameras, food, clothes, food, laptops and more food.

Did I mention food?

My favorite wife grew up at the base of Donner Pass and was greatly influenced by the tragedy that ensued there. She always packs enough food to make sure that we don’t end up like those pioneers who in 1846 found themselves trapped in the mountains with only each other to eat.

Instead of resorting to cannibalism as they did, Dianne always packs enough sustenance to survive weeks away from a Kroger’s. We had two 30-liter food crates and a pair of ultra-light coolers stuffed with edibles in boxes, cans, bottles and plastic wrap.

There was no way we could carry all that and still have room for our beer and wine supplies.

We spent all Sunday morning and half the afternoon whittling stuff down until it would finally fit into the space available. Around mid-afternoon, we were off, motoring down I-70 and into Utah.

As always, we stopped at one of our favorite rest areas just east of Crescent Junction. As I backed out of our parking space, I heard an ugly grinding sound coming from under the truck.

I stopped, took a look and discovered there was a large protective piece of the truck dangling down, scraping along the pavement. It was a plastic cover that bolts beneath the transmission and transfer case. Along with new blinker fluid, I had just had the transmission and transfer case oil changed at the local Nissan dealership. I guess the high school dropout who did the work didn’t tighten the bolts when he replaced the cover.

I hope he remembered to put in the oil.

Rather than trying to crawl under the truck in the rest area parking lot, I figured we’d just continue on. If it was still attached when we got to Blanding, we’d deal with it there.

The plastic part was still dangling when we got to our lodging in Blanding. Tomorrow, while I was researching a story about Edge of the Cedars State Park, Dianne would find a mechanic to either take the dangling cover off or bolt it back on.