Four busy days.
My number one reason for coming here was to visit my dad’s gravesite, so the cemetery was the first place I went. We had a nice visit but I’m thinking about him a lot and therefore missing him. He’s been gone since ’81.

I went to San Xavier Mission and spent some time there. The outside is beautiful, called ‘the white dove of the desert’, but inside is just too ornate for my taste…doesn’t seem peaceful to me. (No pictures today because I’m having strange stuff going on with my wi-fi and though there is wi-fi at the RV park where I am, it’s not working very well.)

I’ve been to an AT&T store here twice trying to get answers about my hot spot and wi-fi but they can’t seem to figure it out either. Whatever…

I’ve also been shopping at Costco and Walmart, and I’ve done laundry…not real exciting stuff going on, except…

I did get to scout out my next camping location, and this is a place I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

Back in the late ’70’s when my parents were Snowbirds from Michigan they used to go to a place in Arizona called “Wild Horse Ranch”. My dad especially loved it there …no horses, wild or otherwise, but it was a remote location in the mountains powered by a huge generator 12 hours a day. There were friendly, nature-loving people around, some of whom were rock hounds, out there hunting rocks.

A couple of years ago while I was dreaming my dream for retirement, I started searching for Wild Horse Ranch on my maps, with no luck. My mom didn’t have an inkling of memory about where it was. Amazingly, I was able to find some old mail from them, still in the envelope with the return address of ‘Sasabe Star Route’. Way back when I remember them saying they had to drive down a long dirt road to get there and they also mentioned ‘Three Points’. On the map I found a town called Sasabe. Highway 286 goes between Three Points and Sasabe, and I felt pretty sure the ranch was off that highway somewhere. A year ago on line I found a dude ranch in the area, that claimed to have been there for some 50 years or more. I emailed them and told them my story and asked if they knew if Wild Horse Ranch was still in existence. They answered promptly and told me that, yes, it is still there but now it is called Caballo Loco Ranch! Well dog-gone if there isn’t a dirt road off 286 on my Benchmark Atlas called Caballo Loco Ranch Road. Other maps give it different names, some give it no name, and some don’t even show the road.

At any rate, I was able to find an email address for the place and had some corespondents with the owner, Jim. He wasn’t as forthcoming as I would have liked, didn’t have pictures, and the area on Google Maps just looked weird. All that just made me more curious.

I finally got to scout it out on Thursday! That dirt road my parents talked about…yep, it’s 8 miles long, but most of it is in decent shape. Upon arrival I swear I recognized the club house from pictures they took so many years ago. I quickly figured out the reason that the area looks weird on Google Maps is because it’s on the side of a mountain and has campsites on many levels, most rather random, where they fit, not sitting side by side. There is an area with full hook ups, but the electricity is still supplied by a generator that runs 12 hours a day. There is also an area for boondocking with no hook ups. There are bathrooms, showers and laundry. The water supply is in a huge tank higher up the mountain.

The folks there were great…visitors don’t come along all that often it seems, and not one, but six people came round to help me, give me info, supply Joy and Shiloh with treats, walk me around, and help me find my perfect spot, which I’ll be moving
to on Saturday. I plan to stay a week. They say there is wi-fi at the clubhouse and it’s possible that the Joel Pole may pick it up at my site. My phone, with AT&T showed ‘no service’, but my neighbors with Verizon had a great signal, and cell, is the only kind of phone there is out there.

There’s still no horses, crazy or otherwise.