100227 - Benson, Arizona

Feb 27, 2010
Plato Blanco Lakes RV
Benson, AZ

Dear friends,
As I have said so often in the past, the winter season offers very little in the way of entertaining or interesting material. However, I have found from previous experiences that some of you worry about Danny and me if we fail to “check in” from time to time. Feigning concern at this point will be of no value.

After a pleasant stay in Casa Grande, we headed for one of our favorite places in southern Arizona. The Arizona State Park system is going to be closing many of its parks in the near future because of budget cuts. Therefore, we hurried to savor the possible last time in the near future to enjoy these wonderful areas. Picacho State Park is just off the interstate, but once inside, it is a beautiful and scenic desert. Camping among the tall and old cactus plants and small mountains, it is an oasis in an otherwise congested, noisy and commercial world. The other campers and park hosts and rangers are friendly and helpful in both basic assistance and cultural history.
There are modern facilities for bathroom and showering and electricity at each site.
I have to keep Danny on leash because of the many pointy growths around that he is not familiar with or will not have any respect for until he is stuck, and I don’t want to have to be pulling needles and thorns out of his fur all day.

At sunset, the sky is ablaze with color and shadows and after sundown, the area is practically pitch black with the exception of a few distant, diffused lights from parked RVs with their shades drawn. There is no moon currently, but the darkness here is not fearful or threatening as one might feel in a large city. It is almost mystical and soothing, as a protective covering. The silence is also a strange but welcome aspect to the surroundings, especially to a city dweller that has become accustom to the constant drumming and pulsating of constant noise.

We did have some plans to do a little sight seeing as we drove thru Tucson. There is a toy train museum with large layouts of scale models as well as an old movie set where westerns were filmed, and also a space museum. Unfortunately, boon docking (urban camping) is becoming more differcult than previous times. More cities are making ordinances against overnight RV parking at some of our favorite sites such as Wal-Mart and so we were forced to bypass some of our planned stops.

Benson, Arizona is about 40 miles east of Tucson and a popular RV area for snowbirds.
We stayed at Valley Vista RV Park and got a good spot with a great view of the terrain from our patio. One of our neighbors invited us over for a beer and conversation and we spend some time watching the quall and roadrunners play in the desert.
The weather is a bit on the cool side, with nighttime lows in the low 30s and daytime highs about 60+. The 2nd week here, I came down with a bad cold, sneezing, running nose, and joint pains and the weather turned wet for about 3 days. The rain left quickly, but the cold symptoms dragged on for more than a week. I was of course prepared with Nyquil, Drixoral, tea, chicken soup and lots of Kleenex.

We just moved to a nice campground in the area and will stay here a week. Its got a small lake with stocked fish and no license required. I may try it out with my old relievable Pocket Fisherman.

There are also lots of duck and other aquatic wildlife around and Danny doesn’t understand why they don’t want to play with him.

Unfortunately, there are also javelinas in the area that I do not want him to play with.
(http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/urban_javelina.shtml)
These are a species of boar that recently came from South America to the southwest area and became plentiful. They are medium size porkers with sharp tusks and not friendly to man or beast. Their bite has been known to give humans Rabies.