A quick camping trip in early June

John’s adjusting to a new job, we’re selling property in Albuquerque, interviewing new remodel contractors (yes, it’s come to that, more on that later), getting everything from Albuquerque unpacked, dealing with address changes, health insurance changes, new doctors, etc. & etc. We needed a camping trip for our sanity!

We decided to go the weekend after Memorial Day weekend, after all the crowds thinned out. Not that there are ever crowds where we go camping. We always do our best to avoid popular areas.

John had a 3-day weekend, which gave us plenty of time to get away, as long as we didn’t go too far. We chose an area that’s new to us, in eastern Arizona near Mt Graham.

We pulled off at one of the first campgrounds to take a look around, and John liked it so well, we decided to stay. We don’t usually stay in campgrounds because we have to keep Biska leashed. But it was pretty, and nearly empty. And I wasn’t enjoying the climb up the mountain. Many times in the past we’ve made the mistake of going too far up the mountain roads, only to discover that it’s cold, bleak, and windy at the top. Then we have to wind our way down again, and I don’t like those twisty, exposed roads. This time we decided we liked what we saw where we were.

Later, while walking around, we discovered another spot just up the road outside the campground. We moved there for the second night.

We had that area to ourselves until the following day, when a large, loud family arrived. We were packing up to leave by the time they arrived, so we didn’t mind.

The elevation was high – I think around 8,000 ft. I did not have a lot of energy at that high of elevation, so we didn’t do any huge, all-day hikes. But we did go on a couple shorter hikes.

The hike that started at the campground was difficult to find. It required walking through the middle of the group campsite to access it, and there were no signs indicating where it was. It was worth the hunt though, because it was a beautiful hike.

We particularly liked the blooming trees – which we believe are locust trees.

I think they are Southwestern locusts, Robinia neomexicana. https://www.treesofnorthamerica.net/show/tree/Southwestern-Locust/173

We all got our pictures taken with the flowers.

Actually each of us more than once!

Most of the flowers were pink, but there were beautiful white ones too.

The manzanita was also blooming:

John took quite some time trying to take a picture of this caterpillar. It was hanging in mid-air on a thread, swinging in the breeze, and the camera had a very hard time focusing on it.

The hike also had some great vistas and rocky outcroppings.

The next day we drove up the road a short distance and went for another walk.

We came across this abandoned campsite with halloween signs nailed to the trees.

Suddenly I realized I could smell smoke. Sure enough, the fire was still hot and smoking slightly! Someone had just been there. Even though it was broad daylight, it felt spooky. It was as if the goblins had just slipped into the trees when they heard us approach, leaving their fire still smoking.

It is ridiculously dangerous to leave a smoking campfire in any conditions, but particularly in the hottest, driest month of the year in the desert southwest. We were out hiking and didn’t have much with us, so John started trying to put it out with his bare hands and a stick.

Luckily, just then some other people came by looking for a campsite, so we left it for them. They were happy to find the campsite available and we were happy to have someone else take responsibility for the abandoned fire so we could continue on our walk.

Further down the hike we came across various pieces of metal equipment – remnants of some sort of industry – perhaps mining. We thought this was maybe a boiler to generate steam.