Sunset at Pilot Knob our second night.
Katie and I left Pilot Knob on Tuesday morning on our way to New Mexico. We stopped in Yuma to do some shopping at Wal-Mart. Another stop was made at PetSmart to get some food for Katie and have her nails clipped. Then on to Sam's Club. I was not a member and wanted to check it out. I belong to Costco, but I don't see many Costco stores when I'm on the road. There are many more Sam's Clubs. I decided to join Sam's and did a little shopping there and filled up the gas tank, too.
Then we took off toward New Mexico, and made it as far as Gila Bend, where I pulled over at a Love's gas station and parked in an end spot next to all the truckers. I was too tired to drive further after walking around all the stores for hours. Wednesday we hit the road again and drove for five hours, I think. We passed the Continental Divide - I always like that, for some reason.
We finally arrived at Rockhound State Park in the afternoon. I thought it was 3:30, but it was actually 4:30. (All those time changes.)
There are only six dry camping sites, and just two were taken, so I had a good choice. I decided on Site #4, which I haven't camped in before.
There was a BIG AWFUL THING that almost happened on Friday. Super scary! We had been here a couple of days and I wanted to get a different view and maybe get a little closer to level, so I moved The Palms. I slowly turned The Palms and kept getting out and checking the corner of the shade structure that you can see in the photo. I wanted to be parallel with that side, but didn't want to hit that corner. As I was slowly driving forward I heard a scraping noise and got out and looked - the corner of the structure was right on the side of The Palms.
WOW! That would have been really bad if I hadn't been driving really slow and immediately stopped at the sound. I got back in and drove slowly backwards, got out and checked for holes in the side of The Palms. Nope, only a slight colored line from the paint on the shade structure. Needless to say, I moved out a bit and decided I'd better be happy with the current view. Whew, that was a close one. Can you imagine if I had punctured the side of the motor home? I would not have been a happy camper. Even thought I have duct tape I could have used to cover the hole - Beverly Hillbillies, anyone? LOL
Anyway, when we arrived on Wednesday I pulled in, opened the door and was immediately bombarded with the sound of birds singing and the sight of birds everywhere. Sitting on the cactus, flying alone and in flocks, scratching in the dirt - it was so welcoming. I had forgotten about the birds here. Here are some of them - this bird is a Cactus Wren - they sing a lot and are very photogenic!
The bird below landed on the side mirror and startled Katie, who was sitting up front in her car seat. She didn't bark, but got very alert and watched the bird until it few away. We've had a few land on the hood of the truck and come up around the windshield wipers and hang out. They also land on the roof and sit on our antenna.
We also have Curved-bill thrashers:
and White-winged Doves with their "small black dash under their cheeks... bright red eyes and vivid blue eye rings," from my field guide. I don't remember noticing the blue eye-ring on these guys last year, isn't he beautiful?
And here's our beautiful sunset our first night here at Rockhound State Park:
It's always such a satisfying end to the day when we have a nice sunset. And guess what? I saw another "first" bird - I'll post his photos next time. I was pretty excited - and he's beautiful!
From me and Katie, have a great Monday, everybody! :)
