Sunday, March 30, 2014

Next Place - Patagonia, Arizona, a 78 mile drive

A few last photos from Buenos Aires, Arivaca and we are off to Patagonia, Arizona.
Our morning Walk north of Buenos Aires campsite.  Good driving road
We prefer to travel 100-150 or less miles in a day which means under 3 hours drive time, less gas used per day, and less wear and tear on everyone and everything.  We are meandering with no fixed agenda. We only have 3 fixed dates on rest of 2014 calendar so in between we can wander.

Our route from Arivaca to Patagonia
This trip is 78 miles according to the Google GPS on my iPhone and the photo above.  Our route takes us east through rolling hills to Amado and I-19, then south on i-19 to Nogales then NE back up highway 82 to Patagonia.  Before we depart, we go power walking 4 miles.
Our morning walk route north of Campsite in Buenos Aires NWR
We break camp, heading east to Arivaca for Saturday market where we purchase fresh eggs, a squash, and a chocolate chip cookie.  Then breakfast at an outdoor cafe.  Chile Rellenos.  Fresh grilled on mesquite open fire, then dipped in sauce.  Virginia, the owner seats us on a picnic bench while she prepares the food.  We were lucky as today she only had 12 chiles and we ate 4 of them.  Yum
Enjoying a Chile Relleno Breakfast in Arivaca
We drove the winding road over hill and dale.  Just as we turn to go onto the interstate I spot this bar and grill in Amado.  Have to take the shot.
An interesting entrance to a bar in Amado.  
The GPS wants us to turn off the interstate just north of Nogales.  Our benchmark map says this is a dirt road which we are not interested in taking so we choose an alternate route which takes through part of Nogales.  Hmm.  Nothing to shake a stick at, and one of the lanes was closed off due to a bike race so the speed was pretty slow.  Eventually we made it to highway 82 which took us east 16 miles to Patagonia.  There is no place around Patagonia to dry camp and we need to dump waste and replenish supplies so we headed to the local RV park which turned out to be a quiet little place off the beaten path.
Patagonia RV Park  Good WIFI
We signed up for 2 nights, set up camp and headed over to Paton's bird yard where I was able to get a couple decent photos of birds.
Paton's 
Lots of birds here and birders show up all the time as it is quite famous birding place with several seed feeders, oranges, hummingbird feeders.  The place used to be owned by someone named Paton who passed away.  Last year the Tucson Audobon society purchased the grounds in order to preserve the birding mecca.  Thousands of birders pass through here each season.  We stopped by last year.  Must see place.



Above is a low res photo of a Broad billed Hummingbird I photographed at Paton's.  It is slightly simplified.  I posted a much better one over on my flickr account if you want to see it but I don't want Google to have the better one. (Sometimes Google doesn't play well). 

That's all for now.  Stay tuned tomorrow.



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