Lost Dutchman State Park

December 6-7, 2023

Lost Dutchman (Arizona State Park) is a fantastic park. It is right at the base of the Superstition Mountains. They were formed by volcanic activity, and they have a very rugged look to them, standing out high above otherwise flat land that stretches many miles. I did a short (four miles) hike into them, very scenic. There is also a good road for cycling out to a town named Tortilla Flats. It was a very hilly road, winding its way through and over rustic desert-vegetated mountains. Saguaro and other cactus and desert trees are abundant. This is the Sonoran Desert, and it is very different than the Mojave, where we had spent a good deal of time the past few weeks. There seems to be much more vegetation here.

But, before we went to Lost Dutchman, I found myself at McDonalds having tea. I came here because Laura went to visit with two cousins in Apache Junction, a town adjacent to the park. She has never met them! I can’t imagine what that must be like. After they finish their chit-chat, we will maybe do laundry ...

... Laura called me shortly after around 12:15 PM. We met at The Laundry Place and did our clothes together. She told me her cousins seemed very nice, and they were quite knowledgeable about desert plants and how to utilize them as food, particularly Prickly Pear!

Uh-oh, as we prepped our stuff to do laundry, Laura realized she could not find her wallet. Nerve wracking: Ugh! So, she took just about everything she had out of the 4Runner, and Lo and Behold, she found it. That was a huge relief. I'll note that there had been other occasions when Laura could not find something, and an examination of her sleeping area, in the back of her SUV, often produced the missed item.

She also learned, in searching for her wallet, that somehow water had leaked out of something. I don’t know if it was her cooler, her filtered water, or what. I think it was the cooler. So, there were some wet items she had to dry out. It was good she found out about this earlier than later. She asked me about the saint Catholics pray to when they lose something. Apparently, she knew this was a thing. I told her it was St. Christopher. I was quite sure of it, by the way. And when she found her wallet, we both thanked Saint Christopher. But, then I Googled it to find out, and it turns out that St. Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of items lost. So we thanked him, too. :-)

I finished the laundry, while Laura went into the Purple Heart Thrift Store, which was right next door. She came back shortly, said it was too big. She was done with looking at the goods they had, and she was ready to get away from the city and out to the campground. But, we decided to make a stop to get ice cream. We drove over to McDonald’s. We went in, anticipating a nice ice cream cone. But the guy at the counter told us the machine was not working right, and the result was that the ice cream was kind of runny, and maybe we would prefer a cup. I thought even that would not be appealing. And Laura, sharp eyed as she was, told me as we walked out we could go to Dairy Queen, which she saw across the street.

She remarked, as we crossed the median of the road, that the DQ looked like it might be closed. It did have a funny kind of look, dark glass, and only a couple cars parked outside. But there was a red OPEN sign lit up. Yet on the door it said drive-up only. She headed to the back, where the drive up was, and I caught up with her. She asked if we could order without a car. They said yes. So we ordered two, small twist cones of vanilla and chocolate. We got the cones and the instant I tasted it, I knew it was bad. Further analysis determined the culprit was the chocolate side of the twist, that it had gone sour. We communicated with the worker about this. She gave me a sample of plain vanilla in a cup, and it tasted fine, confirming our suspicion. So we ended up with two very large, vanilla cones. Neither one of us finished them completely. I want to note that I ate most of mine with a plastic spoon, which the girl at DQ had given me with the sample of vanilla.

After this, I went to the campground, and Laura went to Walmart to get the oil changed in her car. I have to look into this stuff, too, but my oil change is not due until at least another 3K miles. I don’t think I have to do anything until the next oil change, which my van is supposed to indicate via the dashboard readout. At 20K miles is a bigger service, or that is what the handbook says.

I saw a Javelina this morning. I was a little startled, even frightened at first. At another park, in Cave Creek, Arizona, we were told that Javelinas are quite aggressive. The only experience I have with them is from camping down in Big Bend, Texas. There, they walk all over the place in the campgrounds, and they seem quite peaceful. They don’t seem to bother people. The one I saw this morning gave me a look, from about 40 yards away, then walked off into the brush on the side of the road.

Laura had gone up to Petrified Forest National Park, about 200 miles north by driving. When discussing our plans the other day, while we were at Cave Creek, she had mentioned she felt a need to get off on her own for a day, and she thought going to Petrified Forest alone would be good for her to do, having something to do with her own space. After that, we would meet at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument as planned.

She sent me several photos from Petrified Forest. She said she had a really special time up there, and she wants to stay another night. She also said she had used the time alone to figure out what she wanted to figure out, and she asked me, would I like to come up there? She seemed to want some company. My initial reaction was no, but I soon changed my mind, and I said sure, I’d come up there next day. We’d rearrange our other plans for Organ Pipe and Tucson.