theboondork's RV blog

Organ pipe cactus National Monument

3/12/2019

It's pretty inside the park, but not that much better than Ajo. From what I understand that 20 mile long one-way road that I didn't get to see is the prettiest area of the park.

Today looked okay when I peeped out the window this morning, it was a little cloudy but that was ok since it would make for better pictures, so I hopped in the truck and in about half an hour I arrived at the visitor center in The Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

Even though I was only about 30 miles from my boondocking spot the weather had changed drastically and now it was very cloudy and lightly raining off and on. Undeterred but disappointed I went into the visitor center and asked the nice Ranger lady a question that she's been answering a thousand times a day lately... where can I see some flowers? And her answer was not the one I was looking for.

It seems most of the wild flowers are located up the road from the visitor center on a 20 mile long, one-way loop, dirt road. Now if I could've driven just part of the road I would've done it, but once you start your committed to the full 20 miles, since it's one way, and the weather looked even worse in the direction of the loop road than it was where I was standing, so I wimped out.

If the weather had been better, if the drive had been shorter, if the description of the flowers had sounded more spectacular, if if if, I would've done it. But I just couldn't bring myself, even after driving all that way, to driving 20 miles on a muddy one lane dirt road, and maybe not even getting a picture because of the rain.

But I drove around to a couple places and took some pictures of mountains and cactus but not the wild flowers that I'd come to see.

On my last picture taking stop I noticed that my rear tire looked a little low, I checked it and sure enough I had a nail in my tire. Now don't that just burn your biscuits.

I couldn't find my trusty can of Flat Fix in the truck and since it was raining I certainly didn't want to jack the thing up and put on my spare. Since I was losing air my only choice was to get out of there and drive as fast as the speed limit would allow.... As far as you know.... Back to what passes for civilization out here, and bought a can of Flat Fix at the Why Not gas station which got me back home in one piece.

First chance I got I took the truck into Ajo and let the one man tire repair place fix the tire. Fortunately the guy wasn't busy so he took the tire off the truck, removed the tire from the wheel, patched it from the inside, put it all back together and charged me 15 bucks which I felt was very reasonable for the time involved.

Oh well, it wasn't the greatest day of my life but looking at the bright side, I got to take a picture of an Organ Pipe Cactus. I know I need to pick up some Flat Fix next time I'm at a Walmart. I now know that no one in Why repairs tires. Ajo has one man that repairs tires. All the rain cleaned off my solar panels. The mud on the truck covers up some of the scratches. And best of all none of those things about getting rained out in the park, or rushing around trying to get my tire fixed affected my mood at all, because they're all just part of life and I'm happy to be living it.

theboondork

The weather in Ajo looked great. But the deeper I got into the park the worse it became.

This is what all the fuss is about. This is an Organ Pipe Cactus and apparently this park has a lot of them, but I'll have to take their word for it because I didn't see all that many.

The fruit of the Barrel Cactus. Their well protected by the cactus and look like little pineapples.

This was the largest bunch of wild flowers I saw on the trip.

The rain was closing in on me so I was taking pictures of anything that didn't move. Unfortunately Organ Pipe National Monument didn't seem all that interesting to me so I probably won't go back there again.

Here's another picture of an Organ Pipe Cactus and all of its neighbors.

Desert rain. Organ pipe National Monument

The weather got worse and worse in the Park so I got out of there, but the rain followed me most of the way home.

8 Comments

Barney Ward link

3/13/2019 07:10:15 pm

About 2004 I spent a couple of hours in that park looking for neat things to photograph. Not many pictures came home with me.

Tom

3/13/2019 08:10:47 pm

Since people's tastes are different people might like one Park and not another. When I first visited Everglades National Park in South Florida which was sometime in the early 60s I remember wondering why they made the place a Park. There wasn't much to see or do. For most of the year the mosquitoes were so thick they could block out the sun. And the only thing interesting about the place was getting to see an alligator, but you could see an alligator in almost any Lake or canal in Miami. So I didn't really care for the place that much and actually still don't.

And I think the same thing is going on with the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. To me there wasn't a whole lot to see or do especially in the rain. In some parts of the park you have to be concerned about Mexican drug smugglers. And you can see pretty much the same views around the Ajo area. So to me it was a long drive without much of a payoff at the end.

Tom

Linda Sand

3/14/2019 03:05:22 pm

Yeah, I wasn't impressed by Everglades or Organ Pipe, either. We did run into some friends at Organ Pipe, though, and that was fun.

3/14/2019 04:23:36 pm

It seems to me that parks like Organ Pipe and the Everglades are very specialized environments and they only have a few things going for them and neither one of them are what most people call beautiful. Most people don't find a swamp interesting, and a lot of people don't find a desert environment beautiful so right off the bat places like that aren't going to appeal to a lot of people.

Whereas Parks like Yellowstone, or Smoky Mountain National Park have a natural beauty that most people would agree is pretty spectacular and that probably explains why their some of the busiest parks in America.

Tom

3/14/2019 05:03:40 pm

PINS (Padre Island National Seashore) is another specialty park that a lot of folks are unimpressed about.

3/14/2019 05:57:07 pm

I would be the first one to agree that the Padre Island National Seashore seems a lot better on paper than it is when you actually stay there for a while.

What could sound better than camping right on an island beach, and letting the sound of the gentle waves lapping the sandy shore lull you to sleep at night, who wouldn't love that?

I would say hardly anyone after the second night. Miles and miles of waves hitting the shore actually makes a roaring sound which is interesting the first night but by the second night is like the worst case of tinnitus you've ever had. The wind never stops blowing, notice I said wind not "gentle breeze" and the blowing sand manages to find its way into places you didn't even know you had. And all that wonderful "sea air" is great when you get there but the salt will rust everything you own.

In Japan they have a saying about their sacred mountain, which goes... Everyone climbs Mount Fuji once, but only a fool climbs it twice. That's the way I feel about boondocking at the Padre Island National seashore.

Tom

3/14/2019 07:24:00 pm

And tourists always want to argue that I don't know what I am talking about at PINS. You did a great job of explaining it. I stayed at Malaquite one night many years ago. Since then I have made only day trips on calmer days.

3/14/2019 09:09:31 pm

I haven't been a beach person since I was a young man, and when I moved to Colorado I left what remained of my desires for beaches and salt water behind. It's nice to see it every once in a while, and I do kinda miss the saltwater fishing. But to be in that environment I would have to get reacquainted with mosquitoes and that is an association I can live without.

Tom

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Organ pipe cactus National Monument

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