Benson, Arizona

Good morning, my friends. It was a fairly long day of driving yesterday. We stopped at one waypoint. (I'll tell you about that in a minute.) Otherwise, it was just mile after mile after mile of freeway driving. The kitties were happy to be getting their first morning sunbath of the trip. We were facing the wrong way back in Escondido. We're probably facing the wrong way here in Benson too, but I'm sure there will be more opportunities down the road.

Sadie definitely had the Do Not Disturb sign out, but disturb her we did.

Heading out, this was our view for much of the day.

There are mountains in Arizona, however. What makes the landscape unusual is that the mountains seem to jut up from a perfectly flat plane. There are no foothills, as we think of them.

About 90 miles down the road, we headed north from the freeway about ten miles to take in the Painted Rock Petroglyph Site. I'd read about it after I'd already planned the whole trip. When I realized how close we would pass by, we decided to take a little detour and have a look.

There was good signage leading the way, right up until the point where we were to make a left turn off the main road. There was no sign pointing the way, and so we drove right past it. We were headed to where a dam is located. We didn't see the dam, but we did see this cinder cone off in the distance, indicating this is a volcanic area.

We turned around at that point and let our Google navigator tell us how to get there. Once we found the right turn, it was just a few hundred yards more. I'm going to include some signs below interspersed with the images of the petroglyphs. Read them or don't. I'm sorry some of the printing is a little small. Remember that you can make an image larger by clicking on it. 

It's always fun to see what our ancient ancestors were doing. 

This was essentially a pile of rocks with lots and lots of petroglyphs. I don't think I've ever seen so many at a single site. Indeed, Wikipedia tells us that "over forty petroglyph sites have been recorded in the area, however; most of these sites are small with only a few dozen petroglyphs. The Painted Rock Site is the largest known site with about 800 images."

This place has historical significance beyond the petroglyphs. Painted Rock also bears the inscriptions of historic passers-by. Juan Bautista de Anza passed near here during his 1775-1776 expedition, followed by the Mormon Battalion in the 1840s, the Butterfield Overland Mail, and countless numbers of pioneers. During World War II, General George Patton used this area as headquarters for tank training.

The area is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and there is a primitive campground here. 

Speaking of volcanic activity, here's a sign discussing just that.

Where the second paragraph of the sign above mentions the "shield volcano," we turned to have a look. You can see it in the image below.

Heading back to the freeway, we passed by these mountains to the east.

Also, we passed by the Solana Generating Station. You can see just a bit of it in the image below. It was completed in 2013. When commissioned, it was the largest parabolic trough plant in the world, and the first U.S. solar plant with molten salt thermal energy storage. Built by the Spanish company Abengoa Solar, the project can produce up to 280 megawatts gross, supplied by two 140 MW gross steam turbine generators: enough electricity to meet the needs of approximately 70,000 homes and obviate the emission of roughly 475,000 tons of CO2 every year. Its name is the Spanish term for "sunny spot."

And if, like me, you have know idea what a "parabolic trough plant" is, read on and be elucidated. Wikipedia tells us that "a parabolic trough is a type of solar thermal collector that is straight in one dimension and curved as a parabola in the other two, lined with a polished metal mirror." Here's a picture of one located in California.

The sunlight which enters the mirror parallel to its plane of symmetry is focused along the focal line, where objects are positioned that are intended to be heated. In this case, a tube containing a fluid runs the length of the trough at its focal line. The sunlight is concentrated on the tube and the fluid heated to a high temperature by the energy of the sunlight. The hot fluid can be piped to a heat engine, which uses the heat energy to drive machinery, or to generate electricity. This solar energy collector is the most common and best known type of parabolic trough. So there you go. If you're like me, you learned something new this morning.

We saw lots of wildflowers along our route yesterday. The blooming rabbit brush below was seen in abundance.

I believe these below are known as desert marigolds.

We also saw some of the orange mallow lining the road as we approached our final destination. We'd seen this all along, but we saw it most abundantly near Benson.

Here's a close-up.

Also, desert lupine was plentiful. We pulled off at a rest area for these next several shots.

The lupine also comes in pink.

 Below is notch-leaved phacelia. We've seen this in Death Valley too.

This is Mojave pincushion. It's flowers are about the size of a marble.

I don't know what this next one is. Just a bloomed out something-or-other. It was glinting in the sun and caught my eye.

Below is a blooming creosote bush.

It has interesting stems that look like snakeskin.

I believe this next one is Mojave desert star.

In the distance, we could see snow on one of the highest peaks.

We passed by Picacho Peak State Park. We've stayed here a few times. It's a nice park with a nice campground. You can see the campground close to the middle of the image below.

Arizona...at least in this area...has some fun freeway art. I captured as much of it as I could.

And then, just shortly before we reached our final destination, we passed by a series of these earthen berms. We're told these have been constructed through our southwest rangelands (and especially in this part of Arizona) to manage runoff and reduce erosion.

After a long day of driving, this was a welcome sight.

And yay! We made it!! I'm ready to be out of the truck. How about you?

We came here specifically to stay at this RV Park. It has an observatory. We are signed up for tonight's telescope show. I'm not at all sure what the "show" entails, but I know we're going to like it. We love a good telescope. The skies are clouded over this morning. If it doesn't clear up, we probably won't get a show, but we'll hope for the best. Maybe this cloud cover will burn off before the day ends.

We were treated to this beautiful sunset last night.

And that brought our driving day to a close.

Today we have some "life" things to take care of. Since the point of this place was to see the telescope, the rest of our time here will be relaxed. We need to pick up a few things at the grocery store, and Mike needs to make a trip to the hardware store. Our electrical connection where it plugs into the RV has some problems, and so he's doing some repairs. It isn't a trip killer, but it is an inconvenience we hope to put right.

That's all I have for you this morning. I've missed my slow stitching for the past day or two. That's where I'm headed next.