This week we reached the end of an historic first chapter in the story of our overlandish odyssey. We said goodbye to our little piece of paradise on South Padre Island, and the wonderful friends we made while there. After leaving Winnipeg on Dec. 26, this was the first destination where we settled in for just over six weeks, representing a much longer period than the traditional vacation prior to retirement – the end of the beginning of our full-time adventure!
In the past we’ve always experienced a sadness in leaving the sun, sand, and
sea of SPI. But this time it was not to return to work, but to press on to new vistas in New Mexico and Arizona. What new encounters await?
All the same, saying goodbye elicited all the emotions normally evoked by Robert Burns’ poem “Auld Lang Syne”, which is often sung to bid farewell to the past year, and welcome the new. We said goodbye to the waves, the dunes, and the seagulls, although the sand was another matter – I think it will still be with us in our carpets, clothes, and car for many months to come! LOL
We attended our final church service at Chapel By The Sea, with another chuckle as a choir paraded to the front for another anthem. Yes, I had a-choir-ed a taste for that! LOL
We made our final trip across the Queen Isabella causeway, which as always 
was in the curb lane so that Betty could watch for dolphins in Laguna Madre, and I could watch out for pelicans landing on the bridge. At its highest point, the span always provides a wonderful view of either SPI, or Port Isabel.
We said goodbye with a final meal at Joe’s Oyster Bar in Port Isabel, with the 
bestest, freshest, most delicious seafood in the area! The flounder, shrimp, oysters, and stuffed crab cake are fabulous, as is the fresh cole slaw that accompanies “Joey’s Deluxe Seafood”. Can’t wait to go back there again!
But maybe the most conflicting emotions came in saying farewell to our new friends at Isla Blanca Park. We experienced a great sense of community in our section of the park, with neighbours reaching out to greet us on arrival, and bidding us safe travels as we closed our slideouts, lifted our levelers, and pulled out. And in between were many acts of kindness: From the fresh pecan pie brought over by a neighbor, to an invitation for Betty to join a crafters’ club while at SPI.
It turned out that some had not only been coming to Isla Blanca for the past 
20 years, they have been coming to the same site, reserving it for the next year’s season with a $100. deposit on arrival. Many sites have been customized, including ours, with the addition of stone patios, indoor/ outdoor carpeting and flower beds. Neighbours were able to point to mature palm trees that had been planted by camper friends many years before, a unique tradition for a public park. (BTW, this was the final year for this tradition, as the park is about to undergo a complete upgrade.)
Before we made our day trip to Mexico, as mentioned in a prior post, one of our neighbours appeared at our door saying “If you leave your motorhome unlocked while you are away, I can take Charlie for walks and make sure he’s OK.” We had already observed that bikes and other possessions were left unlocked, not out of carelessness, but out of an awareness that people looked out for each other – a most wonderful characteristic. We returned to find that Charlie had enjoyed his day as much as we had!
Adding all this to our package of memories, we are convinced that these new auld acquaintances won’t soon be forgot, and never brought to mind!
“We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne…”
Cheers!
way to Big Bend National Park, at the other southern tip of Texas. Our first stop was a quiet night at a rural home in Zapata, Texas for our first Boondockers Welcome stay. As we sat outside for the evening, the warm air was filled with the beautiful fragrance of local trees, which we were never able to identify. A peaceful night.
decided to look for a rest area or truck stop for our next stay. The previous town we drove through appeared totally abandoned, with nearly all of the buildings falling down, or having been burned down – not an appealing campsite — so we didn’t know what to expect in Sanderson. As we entered the town we saw two motorhomes pulling into a vacant lot by the highway, across from a gas station. We pulled up beside them, and they confirmed that the gas station attendant had told them it was ok to park there, and they said we were welcome to join them.
Both couples had just come from Big Bend, so they were able to tell us what to expect. But they also shared about White Sands National Monument, east of Las Cruces, New Mexico (State #9), which wasn’t on our itinerary, but we were assured was worth the divergence. Before departing in the morning, we exchanged future travel plans with the hope of reconnecting on the east coast this fall.
Attached to this post are some pictures from Big Bend and White Sands, 
along with the spectacular views from our Oliver Lee Memorial State Park campsite in the Sacramento Mountains and the Chihuahuan Desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, adjacent to the Lincoln National Forest.
We have now arrived in Tucson, Arizona (State #10). Our first night was at the Pima County Fairgrounds on the eastern outskirts. Nothing more than a large, full-service gravel parking lot with excellent wifi, we stayed here so we could consider options in this unfamiliar city. This leads to our 
final serendipitous occurrence so far this week! We have found a fantastic site at the Gilbert Ray campground, in Tucson Mountain Park, overlooking the Sonoran desert and Brown Mountain. The park is also adjacent to Saguaro National Park. While we are not sure if we will have Internet or cell access for the next week, we hope to be able to post about this amazing landscape soon.
Hanging out in the cactus
boulevards, license plates and whole mountains are covered in this unique 
plant. On the one hand it is readily identifiable by its covering in sharp spikes, but we have found that there are so many variations in our campground alone, that we had to stop by a downtown 4th Avenue bookstore after dinner last night to pick up a primer on the perfectly prickly plant.
So here are some of the variations in Gilbert Ray Campground, our current Reddoch Retreat Centre, as identified in Cacti, other Succulents, and Unusual Xerophytes of Southern Arizona:
When we visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum yesterday, just a few minutes away from our campsite at Gilbert Ray, I expected to find a more traditional museum, filled with old dead stuff. It turned out to be more of a beautiful botanical garden, crossed with a zoo, crossed with desert hiking trails, crossed with caves, crossed with a museum. Possibly 90% of it is outside, and the place is very much alive!
I wasn’t initially planning to post about a museum tour, but ended up taking so many pictures that I wanted to share a little of this experience. From the many dozens of pictures taken – just a small fraction of the possibilities – I have chosen a few to add to this blog. I am hoping to learn how to add captions to pictures, but in the meantime will put a short note beside each.
The park included a reptiles, invertebrates, and amphibians live exhibit, a cave and mineral gallery, a mountain woodland, desert grassland, desert loop trail, cat canyon, riparian corridor, walk-in aviary, art gallery, and hummingbird aviary, among other attractions. Here is one of the hummingbirds.
We are east of Yuma, Arizona, at a rock formation covered in graffiti that is thousands of years old! On a whim, we pulled off the highway at a sign directing us to the Painted Rock Petroglyph Site, and not only found these amazing historic renderings, but a beautiful BLM (Bureau of Land Management) campground as well.
Our unserviced site has at least 150’ of frontage, with a large circular drive in front. The back(age?) goes on forever, as there is nothing behind us but a dried up river, desert, and mountains beyond. Included is a level parking area, a sturdy cement picnic table, a fire pit, and all the firewood you can gather from the surrounding deadfall. All of this for $6.! 
Because we have our America The Beautiful pass, our visit to the petroglyphs is free.
12) that are some distance away, although because it is so absolutely quiet here, you can hear their voices quite clearly — an interesting experience when the city and traffic noises are reduced to zero. As we have come to expect, the nightly sunsets are so spectacular, I’m glad I don’t have to pay to develop all the film I take, like back in the day! LOL.
of eloquence…
Hi everyone. As you can see we have arrived in beautiful warm Quartzsite. I have to post two of Gavin’s pictures because I couldn’t fit the whole sign in and be able to identify that he was there! 
Take good care and hope you are all cozy in your nice homes.
brain just now. LOL) Dry camping, or boondocking, means that we are not hooked up to a water supply, and we do not have a sewer outlet, so we do our best to conserve our fresh, black & grey tanks. And of course there is nothing to plug an electrical cord into. There is evidence of former rivers and streams in the desert, but at this point they are bone dry. Needless to say, I haven’t seen car, truck, or RV washes for a long time, and everything gets a generous coating of desert dust/ sand.
Anyway, to the main focus of this post: the sun. Our little Smart car cover does a good job of reducing Shake-n-bake, and our Home Depot purchase of a 4’ x 10’ sheet of foil insulation greatly reduces sun heat gain through our motorhome’s large windshield (when parked, of course…LOL). But the big deal this week is our new solar system!
Everywhere we look on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) properties, RVs are covered in solar panels. We have been considering solar power for some time now, and what better time than in the sun-soaked desert! Unlike northern dealers who may install 1 or 2 systems a year, Solar Bill specializes in RV solar installation, installing up to 8 systems a day. Solar Bill’s our man!
We chose 2 250w solar panels for our roof, for a total of 500w of power. They are attached to a 2000w pure sine inverter-charger, an MPPT solar system controller, with remote digital meters for both, and 4 coach batteries. Tilt arms allow the panels to be adjusted to catch the most sun each day.
Of course yesterday Murphy’s Law took effect: It was the first day after our system was added, and while it didn’t really rain, we had the first overcast day since arriving in Arizona. Augghhh! Well the double rainbow was pretty anyway!
brew coffee in the morning. All of our interior and exterior plugs are now activated, and we can charge our phones, computers, ipad, digital camera batteries, gps. etc., etc., etc. all day, whether we are parked or driving. Yeah!!
The sun is a marvelous thing, and we continue to be amazed by the sky around us, particularly as the sun sets over the mountains. We now have literally dozens of sunset pictures, and while we are still extremely limited in our control over that big ball in the sky, a few more shots we have captured at our campsite this week are hereby attached. Unlike 
Icarus, we’ll try not to fly too close, but appreciate the warmth just the same…