Day 20 Roadrunners and the Road to Willcox

Ruth at Balmorhea Lake Roadrunner, one of many

It was another cool morning in the desert SW with the temperature at 5:00 Am reaching 25 degrees. (How did I know that?) Ruth and I have remote sensor that we put out every night that tells the ‘high’ and ‘low’ for the day with other statistics The high reached 75 today as we reached Willcox AZ.
The morning started with that free breakfast that Rally RV Park offers to all of its guests. It actually had two lines in two rooms and it seemed like the whole park was there. It was a buffet style; help yourself, with waffles pancakes, juices, cereals, fruit, coffee and tea, and rolls of all sorts. Quite a spread. We picked up a free “Today” newspaper, and the clerks gave us all the advice and questions answered that we needed. No one, however, seems to be able to tell us where a “Truck Wash “ for the trailer is located (We never did find one all day) but, we know there is one in Tucson on the way to Phoenix, so perhaps we will find it.

Red Tailed Hawk


Green Heron

We left Las Cruces at about 8:45 and headed out west on I-10 again. . This road is undulating with many long hills both up and down of course. There are many trucks heading to Phoenix and California. The vistas are marvelous and it reminded me of some pages in the Arizona Highways magazine with all the resplendent colors thereto. The limestone and sandstone walls along the highway are replaced with red sandstone layers which change the reflective light off the rocks. When we look far ahead the haze at the foot of the mountains makes them appear as if floating in a cloud.

Eared Grebe

This was a good area for Roadrunners and a few miles out of Las Cruces was a large grassy area with some mesquite bushes interspersed. There was one of those Roadrunners about every 50 feet for a few miles. Ruth has the count.

During lunch at a rest area near Lordsburg (a big trucking stop) we had a chance to see our first Cactus Wren, (We heard one a few days back at Boy Scout Canyon). It was in the trees at the rest area. I also had a good discussion about the Museum of Space at Alamagordo. Today we did see 18 species of birds including many hawks (Northern Harriers, Red Tail and some Sharp Shinned, a few Chihuahuan Ravens, some crows and a NEW bird the Black Throated Sparrow right here in the park in Willcox. Being on the road all day ,that was a good day.
After an early supper and getting the trailer set up we did a ‘scouting trip’ to see if we could find any Sandhill Cranes of which there are 10,000 here in the Playas south of Willcox. We drove a “circle route” with a few long dead end roads which were very dusty, and did find a viewing area that was open only until 6:00 Pm. Saw 5 Cranes in a distant sky. We will get there tomorrow before the gate closes. It is now managed by a huge cooperative energy producing plant across the road so it is controlled access (That might be good).

Here in the RV Park there is another type of quail, the Gambel Quail. They are found further west than the Scaled Quail. They are much darker than the Scaled Quail, and we should have some pictures to compare them tomorrow.

Tomorrow should be another cold morning and a fine day with sunshine again. They get a lot of that here in AZ.

May this find you all well, and thanks for reading the blog. It is good to hear from some of you that are doing that and I am open to suggestions as you might have guessed. - Blessings,
Jim and Ruth