Warning: Very long FLASHBACK post. 😎 Grab a beverage and get comfy for a spell.
Saturday, April 9- We had just about a 140 mile drive, and over half of that was on I-15 today, so it wouldn’t be a long day. We were headed down in elevation to someplace with warmer temperatures and more oxygen! I had originally hoped to get a spot at the Sand Hollow State Park, but I forgot that this is Easter Week, and there was no availability. Oh well. Plan B was to camp on BLM OHV land in Warner Wash, just next to the state park OHV riding area. The state park would have been “dry” camping anyway, so why pay for a spot afterall? 🤷♀️
2022 Westward Camping
Day 24-33 : Hangin at Stark Park, AZ
EDITOR’S NOTE…. While we’re waiting for ”Our Ship to Come IN”… literally…. I will go back to March & April and finish the missing episodes of our cross-country road trip! This episode of 10 days falls in between our week in Florence with Friends, and our subsequent adventures at Grand Canyon and Utah. Sorry it is out of order, so you might have to refresh your brain on where we were and what we were doing back in March!!
Day 36-38: On to Dixie Nat’l Forest and Bryce Canyon
I am SOOOO far behind on this blog! Hopefully I’ll find some time to catch up. For the 17 days that we were with friends & family, we were too busy in the evenings for me to work on it. We only had Wi-Fi at Stark Park, and everywhere else we’ve been has had very marginal cell service, so I haven’t even been able to transfer pictures from my phone to Gladys, let alone load them into the blog library! 🤷♀️. Oh well… I guess we’ve been much more remote than when we’re on the boat where I can stay up-to-date.
4/6-Wednesday: We had a long 340-ish mile day planned, so we got up and going, out of the campsite and were entering the Grand Canyon National Park by 9:00. I finally got the sign!
Day 34 & 35: Kaibab Nat’l Forest at Grand Canyon
Monday, April 4- We said thank you for ten fun-filled days with hugs good-bye to Kenny’s folks. Today we headed north to the Grand Canyon area of Arizona. We really had hoped to go to the North Rim, but the road is still under winter closure there. So the south rim wins for our visit this year. Both sides are surrounded by the Kaibab National Forest with lots of roads and trails for off-road discovery.
The route that we drove took us through the little town of Seligman (Sell-IG-men) which is on the old original Route 66.
Day 17 +7= 23: Florence with Friends
Three weeks earlier…. Flashing Back…. like some TV shows do. 😉
Friday 3/18’s drive was a couple hundred miles, and we left or dusty sandy camping spot with no wind in sight. WHAT?! After the dust storm we’ve been in for two days, it stops the day we leave? 🤨 There were lots of rigs coming in for the weekend, so it was a good time to get out of their way. We came out and turned left, because we figured the road to the south was better, remember? It was good for awhile, then got really crappy with potholes and rough. And then…. it turned into a dirt road! Oh well. Sometimes a dirt/gravel road is better than a worn out paved road. We actually had fewer potholes and it was better!
What day is it, anyway?
Today is Sunday, April 10 – Palm Sunday. 🌴 We are still alive, I promise. 👌 I figured I should at least tell you that much. We have been having a blast! We’ve spent a lot of time in places that have just one bar of cellular signal, so it has not been strong enough to load pictures into this blog. 🙁 And without pictures, what’s the point? 🤷♀️ We’ve only had wi-fi in one place, and there we were with family that we only see once a year and we were too busy for me to sit down and talk to you. Sorry about that.
Read moreDay 15 & 16~ Hot Well Dunes
Wed 3/16-We got up and moving early enough so that we could be to the DMV office by 8:00. We went in and right to the same gal that helped us yesterday, and she got us all fixed up. YAY! So now Kawi has a temporary Arizona plate! Mission accomplished, so back to the RV park to get hooked up, loaded up, and on our way.
This is Mt. Graham, rising nearly 8,000’ above the town of Safford. It is really interesting to see snow in the desert, and the gal referred to the snow, saying it’ll be gone in the next couple of weeks. It was kind of neat to hear her say that, which made me realized that the mountain is very much a part of this community.
Day 13&14 -Yes, the wind blows in the desert
..ALL THE TIME, I think!
Monday 3/14/22- We got up before 8:00 to go check with the office about staying tonight. If we have to leave, we will need all morning to get our chores done. Kenny unhooked the propane tanks so that we could go get them filled in town, and he said that both Tank 1 and Tank 2 were at least half full! And we haven’t touched Tank 3. Really? He said it would be silly to take them. Wow! Neither of us can believe how little we used on the several nights that were under 25 degrees outside!! That’s great!! So no propane tanks to fill. We still need to hit a gas station to fill up Henry with diesel and all four of our 5 gallon gas tanks that Kawi and Jenny (the generator) share. Then we need to hit a grocery store to restock perishables – like bread.
Read moreDay 11 & 12 – Lincoln National Forest
Sat 3/12 – We had two days of fantastic riding through a variety of different kinds of terrain! We loved being out here in the ‘forest’, even though we were all by ourselves. We’ve had a great time dry camping, and have really enjoyed it more than we thought we would. I just wish it was a tiny bit warmer and less windy so that we could have enjoyed sitting outside.
On day one, we set out for adventure. I planned a route on our OnX app (that I had to run on my phone, because once again, we need wi-fi to download any maps or anything with Sammy the Samsung tablet). Here is the entrance to our route, and one of at least a dozen cattle gates that “gate-girl” (me) had to open and close. They were all different, from this pole and wire type, to ones with sticks holding the barbed wire to real aluminum tube gates.
Day 10 – yes, it snows in the desert
3/11/22-Last night we had a really big windstorm. It started to rock the trailer about 7:00pm , and didn’t die down until after 11:00. I don’t know how hard it was blowing here in the desert, northwest of Carlsbad NM, but the report from Carlsbad was a peak of 44mph! 🌬 We did not see that coming, and it wasn’t in any of the forecasts! However, a 40% chance of snow this morning was in the forecast, and yes…. we got it. Just a light dusting, and it was down to 22 degrees last night! We ran the generator with the electric heat in the evening, and it was having a hard time getting/keeping the temperature above about 62. We switched to the propane heat when we went to bed. It would run for about 3 minutes at a time, and kept it about 54 degrees in here. We had it set low to try to save propane, not knowing how much it actually burns. Then it’d be off for about 3-5 minutes, then come on again. So it seemed like it was spending a lot of energy just heating back up again. 🧐. Hmm. Maybe we just need to let it run longer and be warmer. We were both chilly last night, probably because the wind kept robbing our heat! Kawi said he does not like snow, he does not like cold, said Sam-I-Am. (not a good picture taken through the screen)
