Alamo Lake State Park

We could have stayed on pavement to get from our camp location near Bouse, Az to the state park at Alamo Lake, but that would have been too easy.  A check of the map book showed a shorter cross country route that would take us there more directly.  Part of our route followed the course of the ‘Parker 400’, an annual off-road desert race.

Leaving ‘downtown’ Bouse.

Pavement soon ended, but the wide desert road was amazingly smooth for the first ways.  We crossed over the Central Arizona Project canal along the way.

The route also skirts the edge of the East Cactus Plain wilderness area.

The co-pilot kept a sharp eye out along the way – from various vantage points.

Only one gate to go through in the vicinity of ‘Bouse camp’, while following powerline road.  This area was used around 1940 by General Patton to train with his tanks for the assault in north Africa.

The road got pretty rough in a rocky section just before joining the pavement again along the access road to the state park.

 

The dam that forms Alamo Lake was built by the US Army Corps of engineers, and presumably the campgrounds too.

The campgrounds and area were quite nice and well cared for, with camping prices ranging from $13 to $25, depending on services.  Maybe it was just the drab day I visited, but the area did not have much appeal to me personally.  It is apparently a very good bass fishing area.

There are ‘signs’ of the wild burros everywhere, along the road sides and parking areas, but it took me quite a while before I actually spotted some.

I did not visit it, but I could see a free boondocking area at the east end of the lake, outside the state park.

On the way back to camp, it was pavement all the way, through small towns like Wenden, Salome, Hope, and Vicksburg.

When I stopped to camp in Bouse, I thought it was going to be just an overnight stop along the way east.  But, here we are a week later, still finding things to do and places to explore.

Apparently it was a long day for Hailey, who was glad to be back at our home on the road.

Next – exploring the ghost mining town of Swansea …