Blanche & Lucy say Goodbye to Arizona

The last few days before we left Apache Junction, Arizona for the season we decided to enjoy the blooming cactus

A real treat for us was seeing the Night Blooming Cactus which only blooms once a year for only 24hrs.

Many of the folks who live in our park have this Hedgehog cactus - so those were blooming all over right now.

Some folks who head back to their summer homes early miss this site - the little Hedgehog cacti in our park were all blooming.

Some of the Hedgehog blooms are red, some are yellow and some are pink.

The night sky in the desert is unlike anywhere else - so we drove around for a few evenings to enjoy those before we left for the season.

Cheryl loves the views of the Superstition Mountains so we couldn't leave for the season without enjoying that sunset view.

Even the colors from the sunsets in our park were different every night.

So after saying our goodbyes to the gals that were still in the park - we loaded the RV and left Apache Junction for the season.

For our first stop-over, we headed to the White Mountains of AZ, Pinetop-Lakeside where the weather was cooler than the high 90s of the valley.

In fact the weather was so much cooler that we actually found snow in some areas....brrrr a bit of a shock for our warm blood.

Our friend Jakota opened up her home to us and hosted us for a couple of nights while we "decompressed" from our active winter season & prepared to head north for the summer.

Jakota played tour guide for us and we discovered that Pinetop-Lakeside was aptly named for all the beautiful lakes and pine forests in the area.

Springtime brings the fishermen out to catch the early crop of fish.

Jakota gave us a little thrill doing a some 4-wheeling to get to this view.

This root stump was a beautiful big natural sculpture in the forest.

Hawley Lake is on Apache Reservation and for hundreds of years people were able to lease a lot of land for $25 a year, for 99years - But the day came when the Apache wanted their land back so many of the residents who had built beautiful summer homes here on the lake had to just walk away from their property.

Now the homes sit vacant, with broken windows, and some had inhabitants or visitors like this steer on the porch.  Some residents burned down their homes or destroyed their homes rather than just walk away from them... a pretty sad sight.

The Aspen Groves reminded me of the photos in B&W that I had seen of Ansel Adams work.... beautiful white bark against dark green forests.

And of course as in many other of nature's beautiful landscape - humans must make their mark... graffiti carvings made bold statements.

Another beautiful sight was all the new baby pines coming up everywhere.

We stopped for lunch at the Greer Cafe where we couldn't help but put Blanche and Lucy in the sleigh prop for the restaurant.

Blanche & Lucy enjoyed being along for the day long ride through this part of the White Mountains.

We left the White Mountains and Arizona and headed to Colorado - our first stop was to spend the night at the San Felipe Casino just outside of Alburquerque, New Mexico on the way to Sante Fe.

The campsites were only $10 a night and were clean and level with electricity.

This is a smaller casino but very hospitable with a restaurant for those who didn't want to cook.

We decided not to try our luck in this casino as we were too tired from a long day traveling.  Tomorrow will find us in Colorado for the night - see you then.

Blanche & Lucy say goodnight from the road for now.