Cactus Touring: Anza Borrego, Yuma, Organ Pipe, and Quartzite, Arizona

After a change in previous plans, we had to figure out where to spend the month of January, and ended up flocking to all the popular spots for full-time RVers (“snowbirds”) that spend their winter in these warm southern areas.

CALIFORNIA: 

Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree National Park and the BLM land at its south entrance is a mecca for RVers this time of year because its technically “off-season” but still pretty mild temperatures (highs in the 60’s, lows in the 30’s). Joshua Tree also has a pretty wide range of activities for families as well as adventure seekers since there’s rock climbing, short and long hikes, night time star gazing, and tons of stops for information and overlooks. It’s really a huge park. Actually according do a google search I did just now, it’s the 15th largest in the US. There’s several entrances, convenient towns to stay in on both sides of the park, free boondocking and fancy RV parks, so no wonder it was packed this time of year. Since campgrounds were closed inside the park due to COVID, there were hundreds of RVs camped along the BLM road at the south entrance. (Make’s total sense to close the campgrounds so everyone goes and camps in the same spot instead, right?) We went in early January with friends that joined us on a several week roadtrip. We weren’t prepared for the amount of people there, and ended up driving a couple miles down the washboard road, and still seeing RVs further down, we just tucked in between two other groups because it was late and we were just heading into the park the next morning.

 

It’s just a bunch of dirt roads winding through brushy BLM desert land, nothing special, but it’s free and 7 miles from the park entrance. However, if I were to camp there again, when you exit from I-10 onto Cottonwood Springs Road, I would go south rather than north where everyone else camps, and go camp by myself on Box Canyon Road. We discovered this too late, but on our way out saw lots of open camp spots away from the crowds, and it only adds a minute to your drive to get into the park. Joshua Tree and this camping area can get very windy though, which can be brutal in the desert.

We only spent one day in the park even though I’m sure you could spend an entire week exploring from the different entrances. We entered through Cottonwood Springs, and made stops at the Cholla Cactus Garden and White Tanks. The cholla just look like golden balls of spikes in the sunlight, and with really dramatic stormy skies behind them looked spectacular.

 

You can hike around a bunch of white boulders at White Tanks. The hike we chose to do in the park was the Desert Queen Mine and Eagle Cliff Boulder House loop. It’s more like a small loop with an out and back at the back end of the loop. Only 3.5 miles with 600 ft elevation gain, but we were all hiking in several layers because of the wind chill so it felt harder. This hike brings you down to a few old mine shafts (with grates over them), past an old wheel and stone walls, and up to a very well preserved miner’s cabin built into a crevice between several boulders. I don’t think that this is the most popular hike in the park, so we actually only saw one other group hiking all the way to the cabin, and probably why it is so well preserved, with lots of old artifacts inside and glass still in the window. I was really glad we picked this as our hike because it was less crowded and added a bit of history to our hike. We finished our one day tour of Joshua Tree by continuing our drive out through the West Entrance, where the Joshua Trees become really spectacular against the rocky desert backdrop.

Palm Springs

A bit warmer than Joshua tree (70s/40s) and with tons of tourist activities, Palm Springs is actually a great place for RVers looking for a combination of city exploration and outdoor recreation. There’s tons of shopping, museums, art, and restaurants in downtown Palm Springs, (even though these were all closed for COVID), but Palm Springs is also totally surrounded by tall jagged mountains. The summit of Mt. San Jacinto is 10,000 feet above the desert of Palm Springs, and you can take the aerial tramway up to 8,500 feet (again, closed for COVID). There’s tons of little hikes up these steep mountains, as well as Indian Canyons (requiring permits) where you can hike to waterfalls and palm tree oases. We don’t normally spend time in cities unless we have to, and we were dropping a friend off at the Palm Springs airport, so we ventured around Palm Springs for a day. We hiked straight up a portion of the Cactus to Clouds trail, which brings you up to a view overlooking all of Palm Springs and Palm Desert. The one touristy thing we did was go to Shield’s Date Garden, because this desert is known for its date farms. I imagine this is more exciting in a time where samples and dine-in service is allowed, but we ordered brunch and date ice cream and made our own picnic on their front lawn.

Mecca Wilderness and Box Canyon Road

This is a really unique canyon area south of Joshua Tree that is full of slot canyons and washes and desert hills that get you a view over the Salton Sea. The main attraction is the Painted Canyon/Ladder trail, which we did as a 6 mile loop. The Painted Canyon Road is full of washboards in the beginning and sand at the end, so we camped 4 miles down the road before the sand got too deep, and took our friend’s 4WD van all the way to the trailhead. There’s really cool camp spots further down the Painted Canyon Road past the trailhead for smaller rigs that do better in the sand than we do. The trail itself starts in a wash, and then takes you up a series of ladders into a slot canyon. We accidentally ended up hiking this on New Years Day, so it felt like we drove into the middle of nowhere just to wait in line for people to climb a ladder.

 

We eventually passed several groups and once we got onto the part of the loop where most people turn around, we actually did’t see many other people. The top of the slot canyon brings you on top of a ridge with spectacular views of the Mecca Wilderness, and then drops back down into the Painted Canyon wash, which you take back out to the trailhead. Hiking in sand for 6 miles is definitely exhausting though. 

I would say that we got the best camp spot around, because we got tucked up against these rock walls and had seclusion from all the trailhead activity, but there was also tons of camping in the wash on the other side of the road. There have been flash floods here in the past though, so be careful in inclement weather!

We took Box Canyon Road all the way from our camp spot by Joshua Tree to the Painted Canyon Road, and there is a sandy wash on both sides of the road with endless amounts of easy camping (although, no cell signal until you get closer to Painted Canyon). We found a second camping spot along Box Canyon Road where we got tucked up into the rock walls again and could see down to the Salton Sea. 

Salton Sea

The Salton Sea is a place I didn’t really know existed until recently when we had to drive past it, and it just kept going and going. But after reading about it, the history of it is really odd and the current state of it is rather frightening. It was created by “accident” when a dam broke and flooded the salty basin, and later became a celebrity destination, but when California cut off the water supply, the only water feeding the lake is runoff from the farms in the area, so it is full of nitrates and fertilizer.  The lake has started drying up and exposing these toxins, and then the Santa Ana winds blow these toxins all over southern California, including the crops within a few miles of the lake. Reports of dead fish and birds didn’t really make me want to go anywhere near the Salton Sea. But recreating or camping within sight of the Salton Sea makes you feel like you’re looking at the ocean, and we decided to go check it out in person. You can pay $7 to go into the State Recreation area, which we did because we were promised showers, but we couldn’t find any open showers. Instead we got our $7 worth by using the dump station and refilling fresh water. Other than that there are also picnic tables and a white(ish) sandy/salty beach, but it was definitely a bit stinky. The poor park ranger probably gets really sick of people showing up and turning around because they don’t want to pay $7 just to briefly see the lake, because he was already telling us that we can go see it for free a couple miles north of the state park. He must have to tell that to everyone. We paid anyway, but I think you can go see it for free at the North Shore Marina. It’s worth going to look at once, and we at least got a really great sunset.

Anza Borrego State Park

Anza Borrego is a desert overlanding paradise, but its sandy washes are not really meant for a rig our size or weight. Anza is full of sandy washes and canyon roads that can get you into more remote camp spots and 4WD trails. It’s mostly a desert landscape, with steep, loose rocky mountains, and a badlands type of terrain. If you aren’t set up for 4 wheeling though, there’s still fun things to do in the park. 

We hiked the Slot Canyon Trail. The slot itself is less than a mile long, so can be done as an out and back, or turn it into a 5.6 mile loop that takes you further into some washes, past some wind caves, and up the West Butte. The slot is not technical, and not that narrow, so could be hiked by any age, and is beautiful to walk through. The sandy washes past the slot get a bit monotonous as you walk several miles in the sand, but you are constantly surrounded by badlands and beautiful ridges. Following GPS tracks is important though to stay on the trail because it makes a couple turns into specific canyons and isn’t well marked. We took a wrong turn before the wind caves and ended up following lots of footprints up a dead end wash, so apparently we weren’t the only ones to make that mistake. I could see that our GPS was off our tracks, but instead of turning around we ended up scrambling up a couple loose rocky hills that put us on the other side of the loop almost back to the trailhead. At that point we accidentally skipped the wind caves and the climb up to the top of West Butte, but I had a raging headache and we were super close to the trailhead so we just ended up hiking back to the camper. Will have to try for West Butte another time.

The town of Borrego Springs is in the middle of the state park, and looked like it had several cute restaurants that we would have tried if I hadn’t just done a bunch of grocery shopping. There’s a very nice park in the middle of the round-a-bout with very nice grass that we stopped at for a work out. 

Borrego Springs is a unique town because there are 130 metal sculptures scattered around the town from a late local artist of animals and dinosaurs and reptiles. You can drive right up to these sculptures in the desert and park right next to them and take photos. The dinosaur ones are probably 20 feet tall. We had to go take our photo with the T-Rex. 

Probably the most popular hike in the park is a three mile round trip hike to the Borrego Palm Canyon. This area (similar to Palm Springs), is known for these oases of palm trees out in the middle of the rocky desert canyons. The landscape is totally dry when you start, and then you hike through a canyon and end up at a palm tree grove with dripping water springs. This one in particular had experienced a fire a year ago, and all the tree trunks were burned black, but the tops of the trees had regrown. You used to be able to walk into the grove underneath the canopy, but it was all taped off since the ground was now unstable. Really unfortunate to read that the fire was human caused, and it wasn’t even the first fire to occur there; apparently in the 50’s there was another human caused fire in that same palm tree grove. This was definitely a good quick hike to do this time of year. The canyon provides some shade, and it was a really pleasant temperature. Winter is better for visiting the desert for the temperature, but I’ve seen pictures of Anza Borrego in the spring time when all the wild flowers bloom, and there are actually waterfalls in the canyons. I imagine spring time would be an amazing time to come here also before it gets too hot.

There’s tons of other hikes and driving trails in the park, but that’s all we did. The most recommended thing in the park is sunrise at Font’s Point, but you need a 4wd vehicle good for the sandy wash. Two other things I want to do next time are the Hellhole Canyon to Maidenhair Falls hike which also has a palm tree oasis and waterfalls, and check out the wind caves by the Fish Creek trailhead.

Since the park is mostly made up of 4wd trails, you can normally just primitive camp down the many washes. Primitive and developed campgrounds were closed for COVID, but there is easy and free camping just outside of the park in the Ocotillo Wells Vehicular Recreation Area on the S22 and highway 78, which is what we did. They are OHV areas, so they are full of big rigs, generators, and people ripping around on their OHVs, but they are free, and we found hot showers for 50 cents for 2 minutes. 

ARIZONA: 

We didn’t really know what to do with our selves for a couple weeks in January after Anza Borrego when we didn’t have any work, but we needed to order an entire set of tires for the truck, and had to pick a real address for the shipment. We chose to order the tires and a bunch of other items to our friends house in Phoenix, and we would find some places to go between Anza Borrego and Phoenix. 

Yuma 

Yuma is definitely where all the retirees and full time RVers go for the winter. The grocery store was PACKED with seniors, and all the propane spots were marked up in price for all the RVers. We were waiting on an Amazon package to a locker in Yuma, so I randomly found a BLM area north of Yuma called Mittry Lake where it looked like we could easily camp and kayak in a wildlife refuge area. I think most RVers in Yuma go to RV parks, but there were still upwards of a hundred RVs at Mittry Lake. The camping was pretty endless though, you can camp right up against the lake, against the jagged mountains, or down in some bushes farther away from the lake, and we didn’t have a problem getting a spot, and saw some pretty fantastic sunsets from here. The kayaking was nothing special though, just water along the cattails. It was actually pretty windy and there was lots of bird poop, which I guess is what you get in a wildlife refuge. The hills surrounding the lake are quite interesting though and look like they are full of jeep trails. It’s probably quite a nice place to stay for a while as a snowbird if you have a UTV and a boat. 

Yuma is super interesting because it is right next to the Yuma Proving Grounds where bombs are tested like every half hour. You can constantly hear the bombs going off and even after a couple days it’s still pretty jarring. We were also super confused when we saw this giant white floating aircraft way off in the distance that wasn’t moving, and were convinced it was a UFO until we looked it up online, and learned about this helium-filled aerostat balloon used by Border Patrol to spot low flying aircraft. There’s actually 6 of these balloons along the southern US border. This was the first time in two years I’ve used my tiny binoculars that I stashed in the camper a long time ago. 

Turned out our Amazon package was delayed for a week long date range, and we didn’t want to spend another week in Yuma, so we left without our package. Which sucks because we probably wouldn’t have stopped at Mittry Lake if we weren’t waiting for a package, and it wasn’t the most spectacular place. Then right after we left and drove a couple hours, the package showed up. SO FRUSTRATING, but just part of living in a camper. I will say though that we bought some really authentic tortillas at the Kroger in Yuma, and local chorizo, since we were so close to the Mexican border, and it was tempting to drive back just for more tortillas.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

This is the only place the organ pipe cactus grows in the US (and it grows throughout Mexico). The monument is literally on the Mexican border, but I’ve read that it’s a really beautiful place to visit, and since we were already on a cactus tour of southern Arizona, seemed like a place we should go check out. If you haven’t read about this monument before, it’s got a really interesting (and somewhat eerie) history, because it used to be the most dangerous national park in the US. Of course that immediately makes me think of vicious wild animals, but it’s actually because of the illegal activity that used to (and still does) occur in the park, being along the Mexican border. Back in year 2000, apparently 200,000 illegal immigrants crossed through the park. The drug smuggling was so bad that a park ranger was killed. 70% of the park was closed until 2014, but was eventually reopened and hundreds of border patrol agents are now staffed in the area. They patrol by helicopter and the agents whip their trucks through the dirt roads. It’s such rugged landscape and extreme temperatures that even in 2015 agents would find the remains of at least one person a month that didn’t make it through the crossing due to dehydration. It makes it kind of an odd place to visit because even all throughout the monument, there are signs alerting visitors to illegal activity that occurs in the park and to be aware of their surroundings and alert park rangers if you see something. Humanitarian groups leave water for migrants out in the desert. We didn’t see anything, and it is rare that visitors do see anything, but it is definitely unique camping and hiking 5 miles from the Mexican border.

The monument was also one of the main areas for construction of Trump’s Wall since the land is government owned, which unfortunately has caused the entire southern road in the monument to be closed for construction concerns. This closure was unfortunate because most of the roads in the monument are “narrow” dirt roads designated as one-way, so since the two-way portion of the road was closed, in order to see some of the sights, you’d have to turn off onto a different 60 mile dirt road that leaves the park and takes you back north to the town of Ajo, which was not even worth thinking about in our rig.

The monument is made up of a western loop and an eastern loop. There is a tent campground in the northern part of the park, and an RV/tent campground by the visitor center where the two loops start. Even though we don’t normally like to pay to camp, we stayed at the campground because the nearest free BLM camping was 30 miles back north, and we wanted to explore for another day, so at that point would’ve cost just as much in gas as just paying to stay. I was surprised that the RV sites did not have any fire pits. Fires were only allowed if you have a raised fire pit a foot off the ground. The spots were essentially just paved rectangles right next to each other, but I guess that’s what all RV parks are like, and thats why we don’t stay at places like this very often! At least there’s nice views in all directions and trails that start right from the campground. 

As we were driving through the campground, we saw that a ton of vehicles had their hoods raised, and we couldn’t imagine why. Maybe in the summer when it was 100 degrees, but this time of year was pretty pleasant. We had to stop and ask the park ranger, and turns out it is due to the packrats that will start making nests in your engines. Apparently this is a thing in the area, because we saw people with their hoods up even 50 miles north when we camped in another BLM area.

We hiked the Victoria Mine trail that starts right at the campground. This was only 2 miles each way, and brings you to an old stone cabin and mine shaft. Compared to the miners cabin that we saw in Joshua Tree, this one was pretty run down and had been vandalized. The trail takes you through tons of cholla and Saguaro cactus with really nice views of all the mountains, and you can see into Mexico. Definitely recommend this as an easy hike when visiting the park. It was essentially flat and could be done in a couple hours before sunset to avoid the heat. It looked like you could connect this trail to other parts of the park for longer hikes too. 

We hiked the Arch Canyon trail and it was spectacular. The arch is visible from the road, and the trailhead tells you it is a 1.2 mile roundtrip hike with 200 foot elevation gain, which I’m pretty sure is just to get you to a better view of the arch just up the hill a ways. The actual Arch Canyon trail takes you all the way to the base of the arch, which is over 1,000 foot elevation gain in just over a mile, and requires some scrambling and route finding. The trail is pretty steep as you go up the back side of the mountain, sometimes having to step up knee height boulders, and then you have to drop down some loose rock to walk along the base of the arch to get underneath it. Absolutely one of the best arch hikes I’ve ever done, and super rewarding after the tough ascent. You can see back down the valley to the parking lot and feel like you’re so high up. 

The Ajo Mountain Drive loop (20 miles) is very beautiful and full of tall Saguaro Cactus and the Organ Pipe Cactus that we drove so far to come see, set against the red jagged mountain backdrop, it’s stunning. We only drove the two-way portion of the western loop until the Red Tanks trailhead, just to see as much as we could before it became a one-way road, but you could tell the scenery on this side of the monument was just as beautiful.  Tall Saguaros against the desert mountains. After visiting the monument, I think the best way to visit the park would be if you had a street legal UTV you could drive on both the west and east loops, and drive through more of the jeep roads in the monument. Since Arizona lets you street legal a UTV, it would make it so much more fun to see the park this way instead of having to bring your rig on the dirt roads like we did. This would’ve been a really ideal spot for us to ride through the monument on our street legal dirt bikes, but Blake still hadn’t replaced his bike that got stolen at this point. This is a trend we’ve realized after spending so much time in the desert. Since our rig is so heavy, it’s not very ideal for us to camp in sandy spots, so we’re better off finding a pretty easy camp spot, and then exploring the jeep trails by dirt bike, and it seems like a lot of the other snowbirds have UTVs in this area for that reason as well. And there’s tons of dirt roads in the desert that lead to old mines, etc. 

There are several free camping spots on BLM land north of the monument, most notably at Gunsight Wash and Darby Wells Road.  We grabbed an easy pullout on Darby Wells Road late at night before entering the monument the next day. Border Patrol agents whip up and down this road til about 10 pm, and shine their lights into your camp spot, but other than that it is very calm and quiet. We drove into Gunsight Wash after visiting the monument and were surprised to see 100s of other RVs camped out in the brush. It was only surprising because we didn’t think that the monument was that busy, it was a weekday, and we were so far south. We had to drive for a half mile to a mile before finding a decent spot that wasn’t too close to other rigs. It’s not really that great of camping, but obviously lots of people come camp here for the winter. Still got a great sunset though.

At this point Blake had been scanning Facebook marketplace to buy a new dirt bike for at least an hour a day, and anytime he saw a 2019 KTM 300 TPI for sale, he’d call immediately and someone would already be looking at it, and none were conveniently located. We were really trying to avoid having to fly to the east coast and drive one back again. We were all set up at camp at the Gunsight Wash, having a fire, when he found one for sale in San Louis Obispo that had only been posted for 45 minutes, was the first to call the guy, and convinced him not to sell to anyone else if we could get there by the next day to look at it. It was pretty much brand new, had only been ridden for 180 miles and 12 hours and was immaculately clean. So we finished our dinner, put out our fire, and started driving! SLO was still 9 hours from Ajo, Arizona, but we got part of it done that night, and arrived right before dark the next day. It was a slow drive because the Santa Ana winds were crazy coming into Palm Springs and all the way up the coast. We saw a Semi tipped over on a guard rail, and we were getting pushed around in the wind anytime we’d pass or get passed by another truck. But it was all worth it because the bike was is great condition, and we got a deal on it. 

Since we still had packages waiting for us in Phoenix, we pretty much turned back around from SLO the next day, but to make the drive more worth it, we stopped to say hi to some friends in Shell Beach, and also went to see one of our clients over at the Rugged Radios compound in Arroyo Grande and the new headquarters they are building. 

Quartzsite

On the way back from SLO, we stopped in Quartzsite so that Blake could get to ride the new bike for a couple hours and make sure everything ran okay. I picked Quartzsite totally randomly because I didn’t know anywhere else to ride between LA and Phoenix, but had seen trails from the side of the highway when we passed Quartzsite on the way there. We’d also seen a lot of RVers camped out in Quartzsite when we drove by, but we were not aware that Quartzsite is likethe MECCA of RVers for the winter. I read online that the town of Quartzsite goes from 3500 people to 1 million people during the winter because so many RVers come here to park in the desert and it just becomes this RV community that everyone comes back to every year. Part of the BLM land here is actually designated as Long Term Visitor Areas, so you can pay to stay longer than the normal 14 day limit, and pay for trash services, etc. There’s still some free areas on the BLM land, but anywhere and everywhere was absolutely packed. There were thousands of RVers in every direction. BIG rigs with HUGE cell boosters (like 20 feet in the air). I’m sure this isn’t news to a lot of people in the RV community, but it was news to us. It was especially busy because there was an RV show and a rocks and minerals show going on in the town, but one person told us that this was only a tenth of how busy it gets during non-pandemic years.  And surprisingly, the land, at least where we stopped for a night in the Roadrunner area, was not trashed at all compared to the amount of people. The roads were still pretty maintained, and people weren’t running generators all night. And there’s tons of jeep trails that take you out into the mountains to explore old mines, dripping springs, and surrounded by beautiful cholla cactus, so I can see why it’s a decent place to come for the winter. It is also just north of the Kofa Wildlife Refuge and several wilderness areas that have lots of desert hikes, and similar Palm Tree Oasis hikes like we did in Anza Borrego. Quartzsite is only 60 miles north of where we were camping in Yuma, so I guess just this whole part of Arizona is a mecca for RVers.

We unloaded the bikes for a 40 mile loop south east of Quartzsite that brought you to the old Apache Chief Mine and to a Dripping Springs, which was dry, but you could tell would be really neat in the spring. Part of the loop went past black volcanic rocks, through cholla fields and switchbacks to the tops of the desert mountains, and back through sandy washes and canyons. Blake’s bike ran great and it was a very scenic day. I will say though that we had to pass several large groups of UTVs going really slow, that were completely oblivious that we were behind them and unwilling to move over to let us pass and unaware of proper trail etiquette (you need to hold up the number of fingers to show how many more riders are behind you when you pass another group). I’m just generalizing, but I think that this place is probably full of RVers with UTVs that are new to the off-road industry and need to be more aware of their surroundings!

Lake Mead Recreation Area: 

We visited Lake Mead right before the pandemic was starting (see blog post from February 2020), but visited again on our way to Vegas in order to hike the Gold Strike Hot Springs. This 6 mile hike is only a few miles away from the Arizona Hot Springs that we hiked in February, and is very similar because you hike down a canyon that takes you all the way to the Colorado River and a natural hot spring is just up a few hundred feet from the river. The parking is really easy right off the highway and trail is super simple to follow. This hike requires a bit of scrambling over big boulders, and a couple rope climbs. Arrows often marked the best spots to scramble over the boulders or where to pick up the ropes. The water starts trickling and forming small pools probably 3/4 of the way to the river, but the best pools are all the way at the bottom of the canyon, so keep hiking! The water also drips down the sides of the wall forming trickling waterfalls against the moss which is so pretty. The pools at the bottom of the canyon have been built up with sand bags, and one is pretty hot while the other is warm, so you can pick your preferred temperature. We were there during perfect conditions, because it was a cold and windy day and we started the hike in pretty brisk conditions, which scared away a lot of other hikers. But then the wind dies down in the canyon, and by the time you are at the hot springs it was the perfect soaking temperature, but not freezing when you have to get out of the pool to get dressed again.

Seems like these days we rarely get on the trail before noon, but sometimes that’s a benefit because we time our hikes in between the morning people and the afternoon people. We got to the hot spring right as 3 groups were headed out, leaving us alone at the hot springs, and then we saw 5 groups heading down the trail right as we were leaving! Since this trail is so close to Vegas, I think a lot of people come here for late afternoon hikes or sunset, but I sure wouldn’t want to be navigating the canyon at night. You have to gain all of your 950 ft elevation on the way back out (after soaking in the hot springs), which makes it tougher on the way back, and of course it’s harder to scramble and rope climb up than it is to come down. I also thought it was a bit tougher to climb up because at that point my boots were wet from the ground so they were slipping on the rock.

The one sad thing about this hike was graffiti on the canyon rocks and lots of articles of clothing and water bottles getting left behind at the pools, making it not the best sight to see. But overall it was pretty fantastic and the water felt clean enough to soak in. 

With zero work on the table for us in January, we ended up camping and recreating a lot more than we normally get to. It ended up being a hiking cactus tour of southern Arizona and California deserts. Our February is looking to be a bit busier with work picking up again, so we’re glad we got out as much as we could!