Usery Mountain Camp

During the next week jagger and I found ourselves living at our home, site #56 at Usery Park once again. During our six day stay, we had a few visitors.  One day we even managed to squeeze in a short hike to the Nature Center at the park entrance with several of the grandchildren.  This turned out to be quite an adventure.

During this time my Son continued to improve and I made daily visits to his ICU room at the hospital.

Hiking Buddies

Did they pet it?

Checking out the Tarantula

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake

King Snake

MORE Photos: Usery Regional Park

Moving Again Due to Changing Events

My Home – Apache Wells RV Resort

The next week I moved to Apache Wells RV Resort in Mesa, Az. It has a less expensive daily rate and I found it using Passport America, which has really paid off for me.  You do need to watch the reviews though.  I use RV Park Reviews and I am a contributor there.

I decided to move to Apache Wells RV Resort not only to save a little money, but due to the hospitalization of my Son, knowing it would be some time before I would want to leave and head East.  Usually I don’t choose to stay in the more structured parks, some with “Park Models”, prefabricated housing with all the amenities.  I found it to be a very nice place to hang out long term.

Upper Salt Creek River

It’s out in the desert.  A place as dry as you could ever imagine except for the shallow valley of Salt Creek River, Arizona. Filled with greenery, including some nice size trees, It’s only a thirty minute drive from where I am staying in Mesa, Arizona.

Upper Salt Creek River

My Daughter and Daughter-in-law invited me to go for a hike there today with four of my Grandchildren.  We took two vehicles again as we had Jax the Blue Heeler and Phoebe the German Shepherd, along with the spoiled one…Jagger the Australian Shepherd 😉  What a mix of energy.

We arrived early and I recognized the parking area right away.  Jagger and I had been exploring here last year.  We were the only ones and the place looked very desolate so we moved on.  Little did I know only a few hundred yards away was the Salt Creek River.  Boy did I miss a call here.  I wondered why the parking lot was so huge, and unusual for Arizona, not in very good repair.  I forgot this was federal land and managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Since we were early and at the end of a holiday weekend, there wasn’t very many people here, a few though.  By the end of the day it was considerable more than there was room for at the river.

Upper Salt Creek River Hike

We gathered our items for the hike and off we went.  The dogs were very excited to be out and with their family and friends.  Of course the children were excited too and off they went as I gave them the mantra of the day, watch for snakes.

After completing our hike we headed down to the river to relax for a while.  There the kids went crazy, they loved floating down the river.  We did require they stay in a side branch of the river and watched them like hawks, as the main part of the river was deep and quite swift.  A wrong choice and they would be irrigating the fields down in Mesa.  Actually I exaggerate a little, it was fast, but reasonable safe.  Still we watched carefully.

Exploring

Getting their toes wet

Upper Salt Creek River

Some don’t care

While exploring some coves myself I found this disgusting mess.  Probably the worse I have seen recently.  I must say again that it was the end of a three day holiday and in general there was a lot of trash around.  I can’t believe how disrespectful some can be.  Just no excuse for this.

BTW: I went back by this area and it had been cleaned up by a couple of guys waiting for their family to arrive.  They had brought extra trash bags needed to remove the mess.  I thanked them for their efforts.  They mentioned how disgusting it was, including dirty diapers!  You do find a lot of good people along the way too.

Preparing to Leave

As the time there was coming to a close I told my Daughters I was starting back to the truck with Jagger.  When we arrived at the Workhorse, a couple of ladies approached Jagger and I.  Apparently they were canoeing down the Salt Creek River from about five or six miles northwest of our location and had a problem.  They had left one of their vehicles in the parking lot here, but when leaving on the float, locked their valuables in the other vehicle, including their keys, at their starting location.  Man what a terrible mistake.  Not much water, in the desert and a six mile hike ahead of them.  Of course I said yes when they humbly asked me to drive them back to get the keys.  I text my Daughters that I was leaving on an errand and when I got back told them the story as we packed up and headed home from our adventure.

Until next time, Safe travels…Gary

MORE Photos: Upper Salt Creek River