Safford, AZ

As the weather gets cooler, we have decided to stay at a Mobile Home & RV Park (Safford Ranch) for the month of November to see if this area, around Roper Lake State Park, is anything we want to pursue further for staying put in the winter.  The weather is in the 70’s during the day, and low 40’s at night. We took a quick trip back to Trinidad, CO for an Art Show, to see friends and to collect mail.  While we were in Colorado, one day it only got up in the 30’s burrrrrrr – it’s amazing how fast our blood thinned!  We had a great time in Trinidad/Aguilar, yet we are glad to be back in warmer weather, we do miss our friends though.

Safford Ranch, as the sign reads, is for ‘active seniors’ and we find this to be true.  Everyday we see residents walking their dogs, bike riding, or just strolling around the ‘ranch’.  The park is very clean, no ‘trailer trash’ here, and everyone does their part to keep the grounds and common areas clean and inviting.  There is a pool and hot tub, open all year round, a rec room with tables for communal meals (Thanksgiving pot luck coming up), a pool table, a shower and even a wide-screen TV for watching DWTS or Scandal.  The rec room closes at 8:00pm, but we have a special dispensation to hang-out there till 9:00pm on Mondays and Thursdays (as long as we lock up after we leave)… LOL. There is a laundry room; washers are $1.00 per load and dryers are $.50 till everything dries.  Attached to the laundry room is a bathroom and a shower facility with HOT water.  Everything is exceptionally clean & the ‘active seniors’ are ALL very friendly and helpful.  We give this park a 5* rating!

As we were checking out the Park, we had a hitchhiker on the windshield…

Safford, AZ is a quiet little town with numerous big box stores like Safeway (including a Starbucks), Walmart and Home Depot.  We can get pretty much everything we need along the main drag.  Eastern Arizona College is just a few miles down the road: the college campus is beautiful and obvious pride is taken in its sculpted landscape.

There is a copper mine about 10 miles out of town and our RV neighbor just started to work there.  In our travels, we have now seen 2 open pit copper mines; one in Silver City and one in Safford – small world.  Today we drove the 10 miles to the mine and tried to get an overview of the mining operation, but at the security check point when we asked if it was possible to see the overall development, we were told in a very friendly manner: “absolutely not”!  So I was only able to take pictures ‘from afar’.

A cute sign along the road to the mine..

Additionally, much to our surprise, cotton is grown here.  We never would have thought cotton would grow in the Arizona climate.  I always associated cotton with the south.  Yet, throughout Arizona we have seen endless fields of cotton.  The other night they were busy harvesting the crops trying to beat the rain that was due the next day.  Today we saw piles of cotton along the roadway that had fallen out of the bales, we could make a pillow…  Cotton is no longer picked by hand, it is done via a tractor with huge tong-like ‘claws’ that sever the cotton from the plant, then it is baled in large round or square bales, sort of like hay.

Unexpectedly we wandered down a quiet back road, stumbling upon a cemetery that had been established in 1886 and saw a few picture worthy grave stones…

As you can tell, we are impressed with this area.  We would like to check out other areas as well, but we are content, for now, to reside here.

That’s all till we take another side-trip in the area…