Portal, Arizona

Portal, Arizona is home to Cave Creek with the lovely Sunny Flat Campground in a beautiful rocky, cave lined canyon. I first experienced Cave Creek about 10 years ago, when I solo camped and fell in love with this canyon… Now I wanted to share the beauty of this area with Patti since we were hopscotching around the area. After our cruise to the Mexican Riviera it would be nice to just “chill” for awhile and hang-out.

In Arizona, the weather has been warm (mid 80’s) most of the time – we anticipated being in a canyon where there was more than cactus, cactus, cactus… Now we would have trees, a creek and birds, birds, birds… Oh yeah, and rocks, rocks, rocks…

I’ve often wondered why do I love rocks so much? So, today in Portal, when I was up at daybreak to photo some of the rock formations – I saw the pitted faces of the rocks and pondered this question…

Nature is her own entity: she doesn’t see her existence as ‘life-or-death’ – she sees it, in my interpretation, as transcendence… Even as the rock is strong, stable and anchored, it is also pliable. The wind and rain batter her surface creating pits on her face. The rocks don’t complain, they yield – and in their yielding caves and shelters are created for birds & bats; lizards & rodents; lions & bears. The rock pits are a catchment for water and seeds finding their way into the basins, sprouting into future grass, shrubs, and giant trees. Vegetation is nourished by the catchments, further eroding the rock by stretching out their roots and splitting the rock into smaller and smaller pieces – eventually creating soil for us two-leggeds to grow crops upon her fertile soil for our survival. Shouldn’t we, in kind, be as giving and non-complaining? Just a few of my thoughts on: rocks.

So now I would have my fill of rocks again… Patti had called the Portal Ranger Station about camp availability but the Ranger said there were no vacancies at that time: “the birders just won’t leave!” The female Ranger suggested we arrive on a Wednesday or Thursday for the best chance of finding a campsite. Taking her advice we left Safford on Wednesday the 13th heading south on AZ 191 to Wilcox, got gas, then east on I-10 & then south again at San Simon.

Since we had been stationary for 5 months, we checked and rechecked and triple checked everything necessary to pull Rosalita, our beloved home on wheels. We were used to doing 75 – 80 mph with our Tundra (to CA, and all of our side trips) now we would be relegated (in the slow lane) to the top speed of 65mph and on non-interstate roads, 50mph. We enjoy driving slower as it allows us to take in more of the scenic cactus, shrubs and desert, the typical AZ landscape.

At San Simon we head south on a small paved road just 21 miles to Portal – when at about 10 miles in – the road turned to dirt with the ever familiar sign warning us, “This road is not regularly maintained, proceed at your own risk.” Well, we had traveled quite a few roads in our journey’s while wintering in Safford and the signs never misled us. The roads are usually quite rough and rocky – so at a wide intersection we made a u-turn ’cause this was NOT a road we wanted to drag Rosalita through. Later we would explore Paradise, AZ which was this same road that we would have traveled on and discovered that it was narrow, windy, with hair-pin & blind curves – Good choice on our part to by-pass this road.

 

Heading back up north to I-10, we crossed over into New Mexico (by about 5 miles), hooked up with NM HWY 80 headed south again and then just before Rodeo, NM, we turned east to Portal and Cave Creek.

We had been to Portal on a day trip while we were staying in Safford this winter so we were excited to find one of the last spots available at ‘Sunny Flat’ campground. NOW we could relax in this gorgeous National Forest haven.

Sunny Flat has only 13 campsites so we felt extra special being able to find ‘this space’ for our stay. ‘Our space’ was #2 which was probably the closest to the creek (about 50 feet from the water) which pleased us greatly. I found a peaceful spot to do my Yoga every morning right along side the creek and meditated to the sound of a babbling brook. A serene slice of heaven for us. (As in our travels in 2015, we were almost always able to find a spot or the last camping spot available in the spur-of-the-moment, even without reservations. Actually Cave Creek does not accept reservations at all. Later that weekend the campground would be full and even the overflow campground would be full and remain so for the rest of our 11 day stay. “No Vacancy” would apply here).

The Cave Creek camping area does not have electricity so we would ‘test’ our batteries and how we would do ‘roughing-it’. We lived outside most of the day, sitting by the camper reading/relaxing, taking hikes, or exploring the local hangouts. We had a campfire most every evening, except for one night when the wind came up and it was too windy to risk a fire. Then, after dark, we would mosey inside where I would use a lantern to work by and Patti would use the light by her bunk to read for 30 – 45 minutes and fall asleep. We were very glad the weather was nice and we didn’t have to stay inside the camper all day and night. Being frugal with the battery power, it lasted for the entire 11 days but by the time we left, there was very little left in storage. Perfect timing.

One day we drove down to the Portal Library to use the internet, where I wrote the first blog “rough draft” of Cabo from our cruise, and Patti caught up on her internet business. The internet is free although slow and sometimes freezes up (yet, it was free and the only source available), and we could spend from 10am – 2pm there with no one bothering us. The Librarian allowed us to charge our various battery-powered electronics also. I was able to print the rough draft so Patti could edit it overnight and then return to the library the following day to add the suggestions she made.

The Library is the hub of the town – meet & greet, good books to read, bake sales, tamales for sale, catching up on who’s recuperating from a fall, who’s moved away, stories of bird sightings as well as a resource for bird identification and where. Patti and I were present for “National Library Day” and had homemade cupcakes baked by the library patrons decorated with ‘book-flags’ stuck in each cupcake. They claim their Library is “The best little Library in the Southwest”.

We were told the library used to be a one room school house, I guess when there were actually kids populating the town of Portal. Now most of the residents of the town are retired.

In one of our visits to the library a recently transplanted couple was looking for someone to repair their roof. As they were asking the library patrons whom to call, there were various replies:

• This guy knows roofing inside and out, but is too old to be on a roof now
• This other one is a great roofing contractor, if you can wait for him to finish in 3 years
• This one will do it but doesn’t have enough know-how
• and… This one is great and does the work in a timely manner but won’t come up from Douglas to work here…

Ah, small towns – sounds a bit like Aguilar!

One day we ventured down the block and had a scrumptious lunch at the Portal Store Cafe and Lodge. Fish & Chips was the special of the day with onion rings on the side, and a beer “Kilt Lifter” – a Scottish style dark draft ale on tap, well worth trying, (although we saw no Kilts!!!). We enjoyed our country fare in an outdoor patio setting – where bird feeders hung in plentiful supply and birds were feeding in mass.

Our next day trip took us to Rodeo, NM (at the turnoff to Portal on HWY 80) just to see what we could see… It is a ‘small town’, only about 5 blocks long, and looked deserted. Our purpose in checking out Rodeo was to replenish some food staples. The store/cafe/bar was the only place for ‘staples’ and sadly there was not much to be had except potato chips, candy bars and beer – none of which we needed. I snapped a few pictures and then we stopped at “Mountain Valley Lodge”, to check out prices on RV spaces, laundry facilities and showers. Both of which we needed (laundry and showers).

We met the owner and said the town looked “deserted”, he seemed offended and said there was a lot happening in his little town. He was from Oregon and when Patti asked him, “why Rodeo?”, he said he was tired of the big city and wanted to ‘slow-down’ and change. He informed us that they have parades, a lot of art galleries and birders from Portal, a nice community. His cabins, and RV area were like an oasis in the desert (although the RV spaces had no trees). He had a large inviting pond filled with Koi, water lilies, and frogs. The birds had a wonderful time splashing in it and feeding at the feeders. Across the walk from the pond was a greenhouse just built this last winter which had lots of organic greens growing, as well as; tomatoes, strawberries and herbs, some were even ready for harvesting. Some of the plants were growing via hydroponics while others were in pots. The water from the pond circulated through the greenhouse feeding the hydroponic plants.

Although we did not visit any of the cabins or rooms it seemed pretty clean, decorated with care. There were places to sit in the shade while we did laundry and showered. You can see the insides of the rooms and cabins on his web site http://www.mountainvalleylodge.com. The rooms and cabins rent from $90 – $125.00/night: RV spots $20/night. It was actually his birthday and he was having a party that night so we tried not to take up too much of his time. Later, when we stopped by for ‘farm fresh eggs’ he said we could have come to his party – but we didn’t know. The eggs came from his own black chickens which were from Australia, and they were excellent! What a joy – we were impressed! He told us the nearest place to replenish our staples was Animas, NM (the Vally Mercantile) about 15 miles west, and that they were also the closest establishment  for petrol.

Patti and I decided to venture down to  Animas to check it out. We drove around Animas, all 7 blocks, and found cafe PW (which stood for Pizza & Wings). We had bean burritos though, and they were very good. Nice place, good food and nice people. It was like a museum inside with an antique shuffle board, antique toy trucks, miners regalia, even a ‘pleasure’ poster from Las Vegas (complete with phone numbers) from the 30’s. LOL It always amazes us what you can find in wind-swept, wanna be ghost towns.

After satisfying our food cravings we headed back to the Valley Mercantile for petrol and staples. The Merc was a metal building with a wood facade at the entrance. We ventured in and were in awe of what they housed inside this l-o-n-g metal building! At the entrance we found the staples; milk products (although no 1/2 n 1/2), meats, condiments, snacks, etc. To the left was a hardware section complete with DeWalt & Porter Cable tools, levels, squares, saws, screws, nails etc. Then further down was the plumbing and electrical section; then the gardening section with plants, garden tools, and pesticides; animal husbandry supplies with everything for dogs, cats, horses, birds; and lastly the paint section. Not only this, but outside was the lumber yard, and metal gates. Who knows what was in the other smaller metal buildings? I guess people come from a hundred square miles to shop here. It was a Home Depot & Lowes combined all in one town that looked like it was dying. “Life is like a box of chocolates…”

Home at last after our adventure out of camp, we enjoyed a light dinner happily consumed by the campfire – mellowing for our nightly siesta later on.

As we were staying in a Birders’ Mecca, we couldn’t help but notice the etiquette among the birders… We of course observe the birds and their unique antics, but we do not follow the birds around the states. If it is prime time for a specific species and we stumble upon it, great – but ‘no’ we do not ‘follow’ the birding seasons. We try to learn at least the common names of the species, but sometimes we just can’t find them in our simple beginners’ books.

Birders’ Etiquette

There is a similar dress for birders’. They mostly wear khaki clothes, shorts, pants and binoculars hanging from their necks. There are no ‘short-shorts’; no ripped jeans, and no flip flops! Most of them are trim and fit, mostly because they walk a lot. They leave at day break to ‘view’ certain species, come back at mid-day, then go back out in the late afternoon to ‘view’ more birds. At the full moon, they were out just at dark to find the owls that supposedly hung out at campsite #4, although we did not see them, but did hear them. They are a friendly sort and willing to help us ID the birds we couldn’t find in our basic bird books.

Most of these birders’ are retired and the interesting thing we noticed was how many of them camped out in Tents, a lot traveled around in station wagon type vehicles or small vans. They were very neat and most DID NOT have campfires in the evenings. But we just don’t believe that they can be living out of their vehicles full time as we are. Good for them if they can sleep on the ground or even on cots – YES, we are spoiled and gratefully so!

Our time is up here at Cave Creek and Portal so it is on to Pancho Villa in South New Mexico (south of Deming), where we will meet with some friends and travel to the Pink Store in Palomas, Mexico.  Stay tuned…