Although we weren’t sure we’d be able to leave Thursday

for our extended Halloween weekend at Roper Lake

State Park near Safford, AZ … it worked out! So off we

went … getting out the drive at 12:30 PM … a little later than we had hoped, but it’s only a 2-hour drive from Tucson, so timing was still OK. It’s an easy drive about 90 miles east of Tucson on I-10 just to the other side of Willcox, where Highway 191 takes off north from I-10 to Safford. It’s 27 miles to Roper Lake State Park (about 6 miles south of Safford, and 1/2 mile east of 191).

We hadn’t been to Roper Lake since May 08 when we stopped there for one night on our way home from our trip to Silver City and City of Rocks NM State Park. At that time, they were making some improvements to the park and it was all torn up. The loop we usually stay in, Hacienda, was closed, so we ended up in the other electric loop. The wind was strong and it was sweeping across a freshly grated dirt area in the park, blowing up a cloud of dust and dirt nearly the whole evening/night. We had not planned to stay more than a night, so it was not too bad. The renovations were finished in September and some nice changes were made … the sites had been leveled, some had been built up so the rain run-off doesn’t run gulley through them, the pull-through sites now had curbs to help define them, and all the roads and pads had been resurfaced. Happily, the nightly fee for electric/water camp sites is still $16… which is a good deal. This is also one of only two Arizona state parks where one can make reservations — although we didn’t reserve because we weren’t sure when we’d get here.  We did call (which we always do before going to a park, just to make sure there’s not a local event or park happening that will make it especially busy), but this is a fairly large park, and form previous experience we were confident that we’d be able to find a good spot, even without a reservation. When we got there, our preferred spots were already reserved for Halloween weekend … guess they are others’ favorite sites as well! But that was OK. We had expected that … and being creatures of habit, it gave us impetus to try something new. We found a pleasant site in the same loop … one that we’ve never stayed in … good morning sun, but with trees to provide shade during the warmest part of the afternoon ... we’ve learned to consider where the sun will be shining when selecting sites.

So we settled, set up camp, took the Girls for a walk and scoped out who else was there for the weekend. There weren’t that many campers on Thursday night, but several sites were reserved for Friday and Saturday. (How did we know? They have traffic cones with a stick stuck in the top of the cones with reserved names and dates stapled to it … not a real high-tech or elegant system, but it works.) Fortunately there were a number of sites with no reservations at all.

                                  Once set up, the Bambi looked great. We decided on the

                                   “Wild West” décor for this trip … this is a fun vintage-

                                    looking fabric with vignettes of cowboys and western

                                   images on a tomato-soup red background. For this trip we

                                     paired the Wild West curtains, pillows and shams with   

                                     the Camel and Cayenne dinette and used a curly blond faux fur bedspread. The bedspread reminds us of those curly wool chaps some of the oldie cowboys wore…it also reminds of us Sadie when her hair get to the “wooly” stage. It was a good choice for this trip…and the first time we’d used that particular combination.

To help us celebrate Halloween, we brought a terracotta jack-o-lantern that we’ve had for years … it has now found a new use when we go Halloween camping ... which is now every year. We threw in some bright orange and black faux fur fabric we had, and set up a small Halloween display on the patio … it was quite festive, especially at night with the jack-o-lantern lit and our lights and tea-light lanterns set up.  We brought Halloween treats, of course, in the event we actually had trick-or-treaters ... it’s happened before!

Finally all set up, we had a light dinner, fed the Girls, and settled in for the night.  It was in the high 80s that day and the night was to be in the 50s. Not too cool at night, but pleasant.

Halloween day we got to sleep in late … really late. That was nice. When we finally did get up we thought we’d now be surrounded by newcomers, but when Terry took the Girls for their morning constitutional, no new campers had yet arrived … but we knew they would be arriving in the afternoon. After getting ready for the day, we decided to go into Safford and check out the local antique store we always visit, and a couple of thrift stores. 

While we had been setting up, Terry couldn’t find the Girls’ tethers

that we’d made from plastic-coated airline cable… and

realized that we’d left them attached to the picnic table

legs when we left our site in Fool Hollow on our last trip.

Bummer! Neither one of us noticed that we’d not packed

them up!  Dang!  Oh well, split milk and all that… We

had made three, so we now only had one…so we made do

with that for the time-being attaching both the Girls’

leashes to the one tether.

Sooo … one of our stops in town was the Ace hardware to get the parts to make a new tether so they’d each have their own. If you are interested in how we made them, check out the pics below. They are quite versatile and can be used a number of ways … as leashes in themselves, as leash extensions … or used to attach the Girls to anything that’s handy, like picnic table legs or the step to the Bambi.  And no normal dog is going to break or chew through them.

At the antique store we bought a green Kitchen Kraft Pie Plate … we have several of these in different colors, including green … they were made in two sizes, and we have a large one in green, but this one seemed smaller. We are vintage Fiestaware collectors and Kitchen Kraft was a utility line that was

                             produced by the same china company to coordinate with

                                  Fiesta. (Update: when we got home, we discovered it’s the

                                   same size as the one we have … so now we have two.

                                  Oh well. It’s in pristine condition, so we’ll keep the better

                                   one and put the other n our antique booth in Phoenix.)

We also scoped out all the gas station prices, and the least expensive was $2.699. In Tucson we paid $2.349 the day before we left, so since we didn’t think we’d be back to town this trip, we bought just enough fuel to get us back to Tucson.

Larry (of Larry and Bill, our Airstream friends in San  Diego) called while we were in town … we always check in when one of us is on a camping trip … just to make sure everyone is having a good time.  We were! Always fun to talk to them … they are in trip-planning mode for their next outing. We wished they lived closer.

When we got back to the campground, one additional group of campers had arrived in our loop, and several in the other loop … One group in the other loop was definitely out for a grand Halloween weekend … everybody was already in costume — even the adults, and they’d set up some games for the kids

Sure enough, just after the sun went down and we’d got the jack-o-lantern lit, we could see a bunch of costumed folks heading toward our loop …

Terry was outside and hollered at Greg, “Get the candy ready! Here

come the trick-or-treaters!”  There were only a couple of little ones

who were actually trick-or-treating…a cute pair of little girls…one

dressed up like a witch and the other was a little devil…and both as

cute as dickens. All the adults were in costume as well, which made

it even more fun. We gave the kids treats and insisted on pictures

… They moved on around the loop and I do think they got treats

from several of the campsites … the friendliness of folks in campgrounds never ceases to make us smile … and gives us hope for the human race.

With the excitement over, we had dinner and settled in for the night — another successful day on the road. And we even had the fun of a few ghouls and goblins! Nobody toilet-papered our campsite or committed other sinister tricks, so once more, we survived the event!

Saturday was the day after Halloween, the first day of November and the last day of the rest of the country being on Daylight Savings Time … and we were

                                 extremely lazy!  Basically, we just rested and took the Girls

                                     for leisurely walks … went over to the “Island” which is

                                      really a peninsula on the lake. It’s a day-use area with

                                      picnic tables and ramadas scattered about with a large

                                     group ramada in the center … grassy areas for

                                      volleyball, etc. The Girls always really enjoy the Island

                                     because they don’t get to experience grass very often

                                      living in SoAZ. Annie, in particular, seems to get a big charge out of rolling around in it … and this time of year, it’s not very green, so she gets covered with grass clippings from the last mowing of the season. She loves it. There were lots of ducks in the lake around the Island this time. They followed us as we walked along the edge. Guess they thought we were going to feed them. We did get some good pictures of them.

Larry called in the afternoon to check in again. They are getting ready for a Veterans’ Day trip… Larry is the “camp cook” when they go out, so he is always thinking of what he can fix to make the trip that much better. So we talked about food for a bit. We are looking forward to a shared camping trip with them over New Year’s … it should be a good time. It will be our first meeting with Bill and Larry, something we are really looking forward to.  And rumor has it there will be a few other Airstreamers at the same campground. A chance to make new Airstream friends!

Talking with Larry made us hungry. So we got the charcoal grill out for dinner and grilled chicken fingers … not bad! Nothing like grilling at the campsite. Maybe tomorrow evening we’ll have a campfire, too … another camping “must.”

When we got up Sunday morning several of the camping groups in our loop had already departed. It’s funny … campgrounds are so transitory that you never know who will be there or will have gone the next time you look. Since a lot of folks don’t have the luxury of taking off a Monday from work, they are basically weekend campers, going out for Friday and Saturday evenings and heading back to “the real world” on Sunday.  That’s what it looked like Sunday. The place was basically cleared out … only 3 sites in our loop were still occupied by noon. What I don’t understand is why they leave so early!  The checkout time for the park isn’t until 2 PM…yet they people seem to leave at the crack of dawn … except us … we usually leave at the crack of noon or noon-thirty. We tend to want to squeeze every second out of a trip that we can.

After a leisurely morning, we took the Girls on a walk over to the other loop and beyond to the group camping area. It’s really pretty nice. It’s dry camping … with 15 sites for RVs in a circle with a group ramada in the middle. Then there are tenting sites on about half the outer part of the area and cabins on the outer area along the lake. The cabins are very nice, with a grill stand and swing seat on a cemener porch. They are very simple, with no inside pumbing but are set up with beds. You bring your own bedding, etc. There are a few fire rings scattered about the group area and a big group fire ring near the ramada. Water spigots are scattered about, too … not to be used for permanent hookup, but to make water easily available. It would be a great place for a rally. Hmmm. We are going to get some information from the ranger station about what is involved in reserving the group area … you just never know when we might need to get a group down to Safford for a long weekend outing.

That evening we installed our digital-to-analog converter box on the Bambi’s Sony TV. We went to the Sony website and determined that the TV was made just before they started making them digital ready, so we had to get the

converter box to be able to receive TV broadcasts after they all go

digital in February 2009. We used one of those government coupons

against its $60 cost. We settled on box called the DTV Pal+Plus

by Direct TV. We liked it because it is very small compared to other

brands, and is also a “pass-through” box which allows us to watch

either digital or analog broadcast without disconnnecting it … not

to mention it got great reviews in Trailer Life Magazine. “Smaller”

is good in a trailer, especially a small trailer! It was also easy to install and worked right away. It includes a very nice user-friendly  interface for programming, too. So we are all set for the impending change-over. We are amazed at the clarity of the picture. We have cable at home, so we don’t have to worry about the TVs in the house. We could only get a few channels that were digital, so we switched to the pass -through mode for the weekend, but when we got home we rescanned for reception and found 16 more channels (some are dulicates). Amazing. Doncha just love technology (easy technology, that is)?

Having successfully installed this latest gismo, as audio-visual-electronic-challenged folks (our techno-dweeb friend Loretta will attest to that ... she’s had to install every device we’ve ever purchased for our TV at home since VHS recorders hit), we were quite happy and proud of ourselves that (a) we did it ourselves, and (b) it worked as it was supposed to! So we turned our attention to a more familiar area — food.  It was “Shrimp on the Barbie” night … always a hit, and so easy. The hardest part is cleaning the shrimp, and that’s Greg’s job. Terry continued to bask in his post-electronic-gadget-installation glow while doing his part — grill prep. He was also in charge of the actual grilling. The resulting grilled shrimp and salad dinner was yummy!

We decided to stay for one more night, Monday, and return home on Tuesday so we could be home to watch the election returns. We’d already voted by mail so we didn’t have to wait in line to vote, happily, but we knew we’d want to have a variety of TV channels to view the various return commentaries.  Glad we did, as our TV channel reception at Roper was limited to a few stations.

So we drove to the ranger station late Monday morning and paid for another night in the Park. We really had our loop mostly to ourselves at this point …there were two camp hosts/volunteers, and a Class A rig still there, but the few that had come in the evening before had taken off early in the day to

continue their trips to who-knows-where ... Roper was jsut an “overnight stop” for them.

As is tradition on our last day, we took it very easy and just enjoyed the down time and the peace and quiet. When we’d originally selected our site, we knew that we might have neighbors on either side of us, but it was not as busy as we thought it might be and no one ever did camp next to our site … so we had plenty of space.

A couple had come into the park when we were at the Ranger station earlier in the day…they had a “Hi-Low” trailer. They ended up selecting one of our

                    favorite sites in the park that had been occupied when we came in.

                        When they were walking the loop in the late afternoon, Terry

                            was outside and they stopped by our site to admire the Bambi

                            and pet the Girls. They were from Colorado and were

                           planning to spend the next couple of weeks in SoAZ, so of

                           course, Terry had to suggest all the places they might consider

                          visiting while they were in the area. He should work for the

                           Arizona Department of Tourism (RV Division, if there is such a thing)! They were actually quite interested in the Aistream and wanted to know all about it. Maybe we’ll see them down the road in teir new Airstream someday!

Tuesday was our day to break camp and return home, not to mention election day. Since it’s only a 2-hour drive, we didn’t rush into things. We got up and began the task of getting the Bambi ready for the road, re-loading the truck and making sure everything was ready for travel. We got on the road about 12:30 PM after hitting the dump station. Roper Lake has no sewer hookups at the sites, and as we’d been there for five nights, we were in need of dumping the tanks … though neither had reached the “critical” stage.

We got home about 3:00 PM. There was a bit of wind but

nothing that caused the drive to be less than pleasant.  By 4:30

the truck and Bambi were unloaded and the Bambi was tucked

into its port … and the pile of mail had been gone through …

So we took showers and settled in to watch one of the most

historic presidential election returns in US history. Even though the economy is in the tank at the moment and there are plenty of things not right in our country and the world … somehow the results of the election brought with it a sense of hope and progress. We look forward to the time ahead as one of growth, reconciliation, progress and prosperity for all Americans.

Click on the slide show icon below to see pictures of this trip, and you can click on “Other Trips” at the end of the photo section to go back to the main 2008 trips page. We hope you enjoy yoursleves... See you down the road