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There are two ways to get to Patagonia Lake State Park from Tucson. It’s about a 65-75 mile trip one way depending on how you go. You can take I-10 east to Highway 83 and go south to Sonoita through the high desert, where Highway 83 intersects with Highway 82. This is Arizona’s rural wine country, and there are a number of local wineries with wine tasting opportunities. Turn right (west) onto 82 toward Patagonia. The well-marked turn off to the park is located 7 miles west of Patagonia on Highway 82. (Nogales, AZ is 12 miles further west of the turn-off.) The park is about 4 miles north of 82 on a winding road through private land spotted with homes. From Tucson you can also take I-19 South to Nogales, and pick up Highway 82 and take it 12 miles east to the turn-off for Patagonia Lake. (You can also take exit 12 off I-19, Ruby Road, take an immediate right turn after crossing east over the freeway onto Via Frontera… Take Via Frontera south to River Road North and turn left (east)…this allows you to bypass Nogales and takes you along the river to Highway 82…turn left onto 82 and take it to the turn-off to Patagonia Lake. The lake is created by a dam on the Sonoita Creek and is about 2 1/2 miles long…it’s a very popular recreational area for boating, fishing, skiing, camping, picnicking and hiking. It is also very popular with birders with over 300 species of birds recorded. There are 72 developed campsites, 34 with water and electricity. There is a concession-operated store with gas and basic supplies, including firewood. There are bathrooms, showers and dump station, as well as several boat launch areas and a marina where you can rent rowboats and paddleboats. There’s also a visitor’s center with scheduled activities and bird walks. And there is a beach for warmer weather and several day use ramadas. The best time to arrive at Patagonia Lake if you hope to get a water/electrical site is mid-week…it fills up quickly for the weekends, particularly in the summer months, and is very popular with winter visitors because of its proximity to a wide variety of southern Arizona attractions. We arrived on Thursday, 31 January and found several sites open…but by Friday early afternoon all the electric sites were taken. Some folks dry camp in the non-hookup sites (which are actually very pleasant) and wait for an opening in the electrical loops. We had camped at Patagonia Lake back in November of 2004 when we had our small motor home, but we had not been back…mostly because of a matter of timing… (We always call first to see what the availability is like.) On that trip the park was very active with lots of day users and fishermen about. This time, in late January/early February, it was much quieter…the electrical hook-up site area was busy, but the dry camping area was virtually empty. Even the marina was quiet, though we did see some fishing boats on the lake. The weather was pleasant in the days…high 50s and low 60s, and the nights were in the low 30s/high 20s. Heat was necessary! The skies were clean until the day we left and a cold low front with freezing rain hit just as we were hitching up to hit the road for home. It snowed in southern Arizona and higher elevations around Tucson that day. So you can expect some cill weather during the winter months. One of the reasons we decided on this trip to Patagonia Lake—besides the fact that we had not been there for some time and wanted to get out in the Aistream again—was that Chan, the birding friend we had met at Gilbert Ray Camp Ground earlier in the month, had headed to Patagonia to meet up with birding friends and hunker down for a couple of weeks. And Greg had Chan’s new curtains and bolster slip covers finished. (The bolsters fit behind the dinette back cushions and fit into the curve of the Airstream.) The dinette cushions themselves are in process, but we wanted to get at least part of Chan’s new décor to him before he headed further east in Arizona near the NM border, then north to meet up with other birders further north in NM. So our mission was two-fold: (1) to get away for another long weekend escape, and (2) to do a partial “décor installation” in Chan’s Bambi. The day we arrived, Chan had gone birding to Madera Canyon near Green Valley, AZ off I-19 with friends. When we spoke the evening before, he said the site next to his was open…and when we got there, we found his Bambi, and sure enough, the site next to him was still open! To our amazement we not only found Chan’s Bambi, but three other Airstreams besides Chan’s (counting us that was five Airstreams!) There was another 2006 19’ Bambi from Maine (in our favorite site near the end of the loop), an Excella from OH, maybe 30’ in one corner of our loop…and in another corner was a 30’ Classic from CA! Before the weekend was over, an Airstream Van from Alaska pulled in and landed on the other side of Chan’s Bambi for a total count of six. It was wild! Everyone in the park was amazed that there was that many Airstreams in one place, and none of us knew the others (except Chan and us). There was also an Avion, probably 34’ at the very end of the look next to the Maine Bambi. (Avions are not Airstreams, but nevertheless well-respected aluminum trailers contemporary with earlier models of Airstreams…cousins, if you will.) We were situated on the higher level of the loop near the restrooms, so it seemed like we met everyone in the park as they visited the facilities off and on…we spoke to the Classic Airstream lady several times…they were from Sacramento and were on a non-scheduled tour of southern Arizona and New Mexico…not returning to CA until March. We never met the folks in the Excella because they left early the morning after we arrived. The couple (Gigi and Rig) in the Maine Bambi had been on the road since just before Christmas and were making a grand tour of the SW and Mexico. We got to know them a little on Super Bowl Sunday before the game started…they stopped by to see our trailer which is the same year and model as theirs…to see how we had utilized space, etc. There were impressed with Greg’s handiwork for our interior, and they liked the little touches we’ve come up with to make the most of the limit space available. They will be coming back from Mexico and plan to travel north through Arizona, so we will probably cross paths again. In fact, we got email from them today from San Carlos, Mexico and they plan to keep us posted on their travels. Sounds like they are having fun, too! Maybe they’ll inspire thoughts of going south of the border in us… who knows! Part of the fun of meeting other Airstreamers is the inspiration we gain. And of course, since we are big into Arizona state parks and were the only ones from Arizona, we gave everybody we talked to our take on the best places to camp as they traveled around our amazing state… Patagonia Lake was virtually crawling with birders… everybody was outfitted with binoculars and small groups or couples trudged off to the nearby marsh to sight the local birds. We got our binoculars out, too, they probably thought we were birders, too. The real birders were very excited to have seen—on several occasions—an “Elegant Trogon” (Trogon elegans; Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.). It was a little outside its territory as it breeds primarily from the southeastern most part of Arizona to northwestern Costa Rica. It has showy plumage and is apparently quite a sight to behold. A couple who are longtime, well-traveled and experienced birders— whom Chan had met previously in Texas—were lucky enough to see the Trogon twice while we were there. So that made their whole trip here. Chan saw it also on one of his birding walks…so everyone was talking about it. We are not birders but we did appreciate everyone’s excitement. Our birding was limited to watching each evening—about 5 o’clock just before sunset—a row of power lines near the campground become one long line of black birds perched on the power lines…it started at the furthest point visible from our camp site. Hundreds of birds would flock in, filling in the lines from one end to the other until the whole thing was full. Just about the time they reached our camp- site, we’d look away for a few minutes and when we looked back up they were all gone! It was weird enough that they seemed to line up facing us menacingly like they did in the Hitchcock movie “The Birds”… ready to attack at some predetermined moment…but when they disappeared as if by one sweep of a great silent wing, we really wondered what they were up to and if they were out there in the desert dusk somewhere…waiting. The evenings were cold, so we did manage to have a couple of nice campfires and burn up all the firewood we had brought with us. Love campfires. Chan joined us for campfire time…and a couple of nights we collaborated for dinner… and one morning we even fixed waffles with butter and plenty of “maple surple” (as we call it). And of course, one afternoon was dedicated to installing Chan’s new curtains and bolster covers in his Bambi. Greg had waited to put on the snaps that attach the end of the curtains to the interior wall of the Bambi because the placement of the snaps could vary from trailer to trailer…so once he measured the spacing of the wall snaps, he went to work putting the other part of the snaps on the curtains while Chan and Terry washed his windows inside and out. And we lubricated the tracks that the curtain tabs slide in with dry silicone spray….to make them smoooothe. (It’s good we were camped right next to Chan, as there was a lot of back and forth for this!) The Chinese red curtains fit perfectly and the black faux leather covers for the bolsters that fit behind the cushions of the dinette look great. Chan’s sister had been right when she told him he needed more color in his life…the stock décor in his Bambi is sort of bland. The red and black go great with the dark charcoal color of his woodwork and the white Formica cabinets and tabletop. Greg is working on his dinette cushions even as Terry types this log…the dinette seats are…well, we better not tell until Chan has seen them, right?? If you read our travel log from the MLKing weekend at Gilbert Ray, you might remember that Chan had fallen and banged his head while we were there… Well, I gotta tell ya, that was nothing compared to what happened to the poor guy at Patagonia! He was making his way to our trailer one night for dinner and he tripped over the fire ring/grill in his campsite in the dark, landing squarely on the rusty grill. He picked himself up and got to our trailer…and out came the first aid kit again. He’d cut both shins…one was a fairly deep puncture. The other was not as deep, but longer. Again, lots of blood. We cleaned everything out, put on Neosporin, used a couple of butterflies to close the wounds and applied gauze bandages. He’d just had a tetanus shot recently thank goodness. He was OK for the night, but the next morning he went into the town of Patagonia to see a doctor… who told him he should have had stitches in the deeper cut, but considering the situation, he would be fine but gave him anti- biotics just in case. Another scar to show for life’s battles! We were so glad he’d gone to see the doc…we’d been kinda concerned. Sadie, our blonde cocker had wrenched one of her back legs earlier in the week, so she was limping around a bit this trip…we talked to our vet before we left and they said to just let her rest as much as possible. (She had done this to her other back leg earlier in the summer.) So we were not able to take the Girls on long walks on this trip…just short ones around our campsite so they could do their thing(s). Of course, Sadie would not have been pleased if we took Annie and left her behind, so Annie was on restricted walks as well. We took some long walks, however, leaving the Girls in the Bambi with the stereo on to occupy them (and keep Sadie from barking at noises from outside). On one walk we walked west to the dry camping area and the beach…then on to the store and then on to the visitor’s center…and even further along the lake to the great bridge that crosses the lagoon where the marina is…and up a hill to an overflow parking area for folks towing boats…then down the other side of the hill to the marina and back up the hill on the other side of the marina back toward the store. It’s a large park and there are lots of places for nice walks. On another walk east to the end of the loop and onto a trail (where everyone had seen the “Elegant Trogon”)…there were moo-cows basking in the sun…the marsh was more “marshy” this time than we remembered when we’d been there before…some mule deer were spotted. There are pictures below but they are really well camouflaged and very hard to see, so we circled where they are in the pics. Although the vegetation was very “wintry” looking without much in the way of leaves...it’s February, after all...it was still strikingly beautiful…the rushes, the water, the architecture of the trees and shrubs…we’ll definitely have to return sooner this time to see it in the spring or summer. Each night it was pretty cold…high 20s or low 30s. (I know, this is not so cold for a lot of folks who may read this, but it is cold for us! Remember, we woos out when it’s below 70! We are so spoilt!) So we detached the water connection and brought the water filter in so it wouldn’t freeze. When we’d re-attach the water the next morning and flush the hose a slushy ice came out the other end…so it was a good thing we disconnected. We were able to receive one Tucson TV station, but it was a station that was carrying the Super Bowl, so everyone was happy…even those who didn’t have satellite. When the game started it was eerily quite in the campground except for a muffled armchair quarterback shout here and there throughout the game. Besides this one TV station, we had a weak air card connection…not the best connection for surfing the internet (without having to shave between page loads)…but it was OK for email. This was better than our new friends from Maine experienced just a little ways down the hill from us toward the lake shore…they got nothin’ down there…they had to go up to where the store was, even higher than where our site was. So maybe that site isn’t our favorite site any more. We likes to be wired! And of course we were armed with plenty of DVDs as we didn’t know if there would be any reception at all there…it’s pretty far from anything. The weatherman had been predicting rain for a week, and every day it got moved back another day. We were fully prepared for rain on Saturday, but it didn’t happen. Then Sunday was nice…then on Monday, the day we were to leave, the morning sky was threatening and the wind was chilly and we knew the weather was going to catch up to the weatherman’s predictions…finally. Chan checked in with us over a cup of tea and we said our goodbyes…and he took off to spend a couple of nights in Sierra Vista to the east to stock up before he headed to Portal, AZ on the east side of the Chiricahua Mountains, via the southern route through Douglas, AZ. He was to meet up with more birders there. Chan took off and we got all packed up about 11 am. Before hitching up we hopped in the truck to drive down to the Maine Bambi and say our goodbyes there…but they were out somewhere, so we left a note…and went back to our site to hitch and go. Just as we started hitching up the skies opened up and the cold hard rain came down. By the time we were hitched we were also soaked from the waist down where our jackets hadn’t protected us…so back into the Bambi we went to take off cold wet jackets and grab towels to sit on in the truck. We decided not to dump out tanks at the park, but to wait till we were home instead….didn’t feel like doing it in the rain! So we took off and drove west toward Nogales, taking the short cut over to I-19 and on north to Tucson. It rained all the way, though it was a pleasant ride…we always need the water in AZ, so no one here really complains about the rain—until several days have passed—then we complain. Again, we are spoilt. We got home about 1 pm and backed the Bambi into the drive positioned so we could dump the tanks once the rain stopped… We didn’t have to wait too long…there was a lull in the weather so we did the deed and re-backed the Bambi into its Bambi-port and put it away until the next adventure… Laundry and catching up on mail immediately followed. Where to go next? We aren’t sure…but we want to go somewhere within a couple of weeks… Until, enjoy the pictures…you can click on the slide show button and get the slide show and at the end of the page you can click on “Other Trips” to go back to our trip list… Ease on down the road! http://www.pr.state.az.us/parks/parkhtml/patagonia.htmlgilray_jan08_intro.htmlgilray_jan08_intro.htmlshapeimage_6_link_0shapeimage_6_link_1shapeimage_6_link_2

The Elegant Trogon

(Trogon elegans)