Day trip - Lake Alamo, Congress, Wickenburg

A storm was forecast for today so we decided to take a drive instead of sitting around and waiting for it to rain. We were given beautiful views of cloudy skies and spots of sun on mountain sides like the shot below.

We decided to make the drive to Lake Alamo State Park as a possible location for our next move. Supposedly, the lake offers spectacular views of the lake and abundant native wildlife. They have wild burros, eagles, coyotes, and other desert animals. Before you get to the turn off for Lake Alamo, you have to go through the town of Hope. This is their sign as you are leaving their town. I know the grammar is incorrect but we thought the sign was cute regardless.

You make the turn off in a small town call Wendon and travel for 38 miles out in to the middle of nowhere. If you want isolation, you have got it, as even our cell phones wouldn 't work out there.

If John had been hot on spending a few days there, I would have been fine but I wouldn't rate it high on my "it" meter. The area did have a campground loop with full hook-ups (nothing to get excited over) and a campground loop with water and electricity and if you were lucky, a view of the lake which wasn't bad.

As we were leaving and discussing the possibilities of returning, John said that it really didn't float his boat and for him, it was way too far from anything even for a few days. I had to agree and told him that I thought the Imperial Dam LTVA was better and was only 30 miles from Yuma. So with that, we decided to drive on to Congress to check out the Escapees park. Escapees is a membership club for all RVers and was so named to signify escaping from a conventional lifestyle to a more adventurous one. If you would like more information, log on to www.escapees.com. It is a very nice organization that provides a lot of good information and does nice things as well.

Along the way, we were treated to a big rainbow with a low trajectory. Most of the rainbows we have seen are higher in the sky.

We arrived in Congress and checked out the Escapee's park. Most of the sites here are deeded lots and it was amazing as to what some of the owner's have done to their sites. Most sites have been landscaped very nicely like in any subdivision and a few sites have been left basic just full hookups for camping. The RV sites available to rent are pretty much like all RV parks with not a whole lot of room but the rates are good - $80 for the week plus electricity. We may come up this way to spend a week to visit the towns of Jerome and Sedona should weather permit it. Right now, Sedona is getting snow. We want to avoid that kind of weather no matter what!

From Congress, we drove into Wickenberg and had linner (lunch/dinner combination). We were starving and stopped at a Mexican restaurant. Both of us enjoyed our meals. Wickenberg is an interesting town. If we go up to Congress, we will be interested in spending a little bit of time there exploring the town.

We had pretty much stayed ahead of the rain and had only experienced a few sprinkles. As we got closer to home, the heavier the rain got. We were stunned at all the standing water in the desert. The picture below doesn't show it very well but the area must have gotten a good amount of rain.

We got home just in time to hit the bathroom and grab our daubers for Bingo! Nope, we did not win. Every game it seems like there are 5 or 6 numbers called before I even get one number. Can't win that way. Attendance was down due to the rain (wimps) but we had fun anyway.

As we are starting to get a bad case of hitch itch (ready to hit the road), we spent a fair amount of time (until after midnight) discussing different possibilities as to which direction we will head and where to stay. Ah, the tough decisions.