Even our rig was tough to keep aligned with the road as the picture shows. You can see their tread mark in front of our back tire, where they were not even pushing any mud away and eventually got stuck. Our tire treads were big enough and the vehicle heavy enough that we pushed down the 2 inches or so to the clay surface of the road. The Ontario couple we glad to see us, but they had already contacted AAA and a tow truck was on its way. I figured I could winch him back towards us to get him aligned with the road and the get in front of him and winch him to the pavement. I walked over to discuss options since the Roamer has a front and rear winch. The road was luckily flat in the middle, but I didn’t want to get too close to the side and slide into the ditch. I stopped a little distance away to leave some recovery options open. They had made it 1 & ¾ miles in the clay muck but came up ¼ mile short of the pavement. We turned onto the road we came in on and about ¾ of a mile on that road was the couple that was camped in front of us the night before. It soon became obvious that they were not stopped as much as stuck on the road as we fish-tailed north on the road in 4-wheel. We turned north out of the Whitewater Draw area and could see a couple of RVs and fifth-wheels stopped in the road about a half a mile to the south. I put the rig into 4-wheel high and even then, noticed that the back of the rig was not always directly behind us. We packed up and left the site and had to travel two miles by dirt road to get back to pavement. I even walked out to see the birds again and realized that the ground was just not muddy, but a little slick getting around. We didn’t need to be anywhere until noon, so we had a nice relaxing morning in the rain. The folks camped next to use were up and gone at daylight. Also, the dirt in this region turns to a slick clay that makes walking and driving a little more interesting. It was still raining in the morning and the ground was fully saturated. The sunset turned beautiful colors of orange and gold as we sat outside and enjoyed the evening.Ī little rain was predicted for the next morning, and we heard it start in the middle of the night. As night fell you could see the hundreds of bats take flight to feed on the local insect population. There was also a bat house in the hay barn. The great horned owl perched on a pole until it spotted something in the grass and became a high-speed, silent glider about to eat. Once night approached, the owls took to the skies for hunting. While they spend the winter along the Arizona-Mexico border, soon they will fly to their summer home at the northern shores of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean. These two Long-Billed Dowitchers were also enjoying the reduced water level and larger feeding areas that it produced. Three female, Northern Shovelers were enjoying shallow water. The ponds were lower than usual, but the waterfowl appeared to like this reduced level because it made bottom feeding a little easier. The Arizona Wildlife Game and Fish Department purchased the area some time ago and fill the ponds with water from a local well. You can tell the Snow Goose from the Ross Goose by the black lips of the Snow Goose. There were still thousands around the ponds.Ī group of Snow Geese were also calling the area home as they will soon begin their migration north. The Sandhill Cranes has just returned for the evening from feeding in the farm fields to the north when we arrived. One of the owls was nearly hidden in the huge nest in the rafters, while the other kept watch from his rafter perch. Pam and I found a Great Horned Owl couple in the hay barn. We got to Whitewater Draw on a beautiful evening and squeezed into a camp spot near the old hay barn. The food there is always good, so we always stop there. We did stop for lunch in the small farming community of Thatcher at Kainoa’s Hawaiian Grill. Blue lupins lined the roads as we made our way towards Safford. The spring orange and red desert poppies were in bloom across the San Carlos Indian Reservation hillsides. We drove east through Globe to Safford before dropping south through Wilcox. A little weather was predicted for the trip, but we decided to hit the road anyway. The winter weather has been typical this year with day-long rains and snow in the higher elevations across Arizona. These 4-foot tall birds with a 7-foot wingspan, along with many other birds, use the Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area as their winter migration stop. Every year we make a late winter trip down to McNeal in southeastern Arizona to see the Sandhill Cranes.
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