 |
|||
         |
|||
            
I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine. ~ Caskie Stinnett
It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end ~ Ursula K. LeGuin
Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey ~ Babs Hoffman
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be. - Douglas Adams
"Thousands of
tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out
that going to the mountain is going home; that wildness is necessity;
that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of
timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life."
"Illegal aliens have
always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian."
As Ben Franklin said: In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in Water there is bacteria!
The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see. ~ G.K. Chesterton
Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey ~ Babs Hoffman
It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end ~ Ursula K. LeGuin
No one traveling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive ~ Thorstein Veblen
Travel like Ghandi,
with simple clothes, open eyes and an uncluttered mind
The world is a book,
and those who do not travel, read only a page
When you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there ~ Anonymous
Never before did I get so close to Nature; never before did she come so close to me…. – Walt Whitman
The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what they did, they regret what they didn’t do - Unknown
When I get to a place
for the first time and know it like home, this is when I know my journey
will be over
I told the doctor
I broke my leg in two places. He told me to quit going to those places.
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive!
|
Pat's 2008 January Blog If this is your first time here, you might want to start from the beginning of our fulltime RV Journey with our 2007 Blog's For Those That Don't Know Me, You can click here to read my Bio Photo Gear We Use - Solar Tips, Fact's and Trick's we've learned while on the road
Camper
Check List - A list of things we do before leaving camp.
Again, this isn't gospel, but its a good start for those who might not
already have a list made up. **** We've spent the last few days compiling our 2007 Year in Review questionnaire. We added all the normal questions that we get asked the most and answered them all on one page. Tuesday January 1st 2008 Wow, it's almost been one year on the road for Cindy and I. How time flies when you're having so much fun. This was probably our mellowest New Years celebration we've had in our lifetime, but after our last year on the road, we need no wild and crazy times to celebrate. Having the kids with us was celebration enough.
Once the early morning frost was burned off, we drove over to the Tonto Natural Bridge to spend the rest of the day hiking the trails. That was until I went in to the Ranger Station to pay and found out the trails were closed due to ice conditions. We could hike down to one of the viewing platforms, but wouldn't be allowed to hike underneath the natural travertine bridge. The entry fee was only $3 for Cindy and I and the kids got in free, so we decided since we were here, we might as well show them the beautiful natural attraction. I guess the ice was building up on the underside of the cave and when the afternoon temperatures would warm up, vehicle size pieces of ice would come hurtling down. Not something we wanted to be hiking around. It just sucked that we had brought them up here to hike this route and wouldn't be able to.
Courtney has taken years of Gymnastics and is the girl in her Cheerleading team that gets thrown in the air. So launching herself from rock to rock over the freezing creek was nothing short of a weekly practice session for her. Mix that in with the numerous handstands on random boulders or balancing on broken logs hanging over the stream and you would have thought she was a professional mountain climber. Austin on the other hand had fallen in love with trying to never touch the ground with his endless pursuit of energy. Bouncing from rock to rock using his 11 year old skills of skateboarding, snowboarding and mountain biking, he reminded me of a supercharged Mexican Jumping Bean. For some reason he forgets that I'm 20 something years his elder, and expects me to follow him along every route he can think of. With a camera bag on my back and holding a big framed camera, I just cant follow him all the time.
While I hooked up to the camper, Cindy unpacked us some lunch and got things ready to travel. We scarfed down some food and hit the road back towards Phoenix. As always, Cindy and Courtney were asleep within minutes of pulling onto the road. Thankfully Austin knows so much about music as he kept me informed on every song and band that came on the radio. If only Cindy was this talkative, it would make driving long stretches so much faster. Driving down Route 87 during sunset is quite the sight. At one point I even woke Cindy up to take in the amazing views. As the sun dropped behind the Superstition Mountains, we pulled into the Pebble Beach Campground in the Tonto National Forest. I joked with Austin and Courtney how in Arizona they call them forests, but really they're only Saguaro Cactus. The campground was rustic with no hook-ups, but it was only $6 and had a locked gate after dark, so the measly price was worth the security. We spent the rest of the night getting rocked back and forth by a fierce windstorm and knocking back games of Rummy. Wednesday January 2nd 2008 The kids had to be at the airport at 3pm to fly out at 4, so we spent the day fooling around in the campground and packing their things up. We're camped right on the Salt River, which is known for it's spring time rapids, but the state of Arizona is working on the Roosevelt Dam, and has the water level very low right now.
We drove to the airport and spent a few hours going through the security and paperwork to get Cindy and I to the gate to see the youngin's off. It was hard to say good-bye and as I choked back tears, I remembered how much I enjoyed spending time with family. I don't think Cindy and I spoke a word on the ride back to the campsite. I'm not sure if we were depressed or just soaking up the quietness that we hadn't seen in the past few days with the kids endless chatter. We relaxed with some dinner and somehow our small camper seemed huge. For the past two weeks we had been sharing the 200 square feet of living space with Christine and her dog or the two children and their big duffle bags.
You don't realize how much you've become acquainted to rationing your water until you throw a non-camper into the mix. When Christine and the kids were staying with us, what would normally last multiple days or even weeks of camping were shortened down to only a few days time. Not that they were doing anything wrong, they just don't realize that every drop of water is sacred and you cant leave the faucet running while you're brushing your teeth or washing you face. I cringed when I heard the pump running for an extended length of time and heard one of the kids yell with their foot on the flush pedal "This is soo cool!" My only thought was how much water was going down the toilet just for amusements sake. This is another reason why if friends are visiting, boondocking is out of the question. It's too much to ask friends of family to skimp on water, or live by the rules "If it's brown flush it down, if it's pee, let it be." Even with the wind trying its hardest to blow the camper over, I think Cindy and I slept better than we have in months. Thursday January 3rd 2008 We had received our package from Wilson Electronics a week ago, and I had been dying with the box of equipment in the back of the truck and not being able to break it open to set everything up. Like a kid drooling over his Christmas presents under the tree, but having to wait a week after Christmas to open them. It really chapped my ass that we didn't have a signal on New Years Eve and couldn't call or contact any family members. Knowing if I had spent a few hours and hooked the equipment up, I would have a signal and the kids would have been able to call their parents or Cindy and I would have been able to contact our daughter, it would have made the holiday that much more enjoyable. Today was my day to get the necessary equipment to install everything. I needed to find a Radio Shack to grab the Male end of a 12 volt connector for the amplifier connection and some miscellaneous clips to run all the wiring. Once I got to installing it, the hardest part of the whole install was getting the supplies. For some reason my GPS kept giving me directions to the local Radio Shack, but it wasn't in the plaza where the GPS was telling me it was. I walked into one of the local stores and they gave me directions to where it had moved, but it wasn't there either? After numerous stops, I finally found it in the new plaza right across from where I had started, grabbed my supplies and headed home to the RV. This was after 3 calls from Cindy to see what was taking me so long? In the past month, this 2 hour time period was the longest we had been away from each other...I'm Not Kidding! She was yelling at me as to why I had been away from her for so long and asked if I was having an affair on her. Something tells me we need to get away from each other more often.....LOL
All in all, this took maybe two hours of my time. Once I got everything hooked up, the campsite we were staying in where we couldn't get a signal on either our cell phones or our Broadband card, now gave us full bars on the cell phones and we were able to log on to the internet with a strong signal! Man how I love modern technology!! In the long run, this should only save us money as the normal reason we find a regular campground is so we can find a signal to update the website. If this amp and antenna helps us stay out in the boonies longer, then in the long run it will save us valuable money. (But then isn't all money valuable? I guess I'm such a smartass, I even make fun of myself) For the full story on the Install, check out the Wilson Electronics Page where I have a bunch of pictures on how I installed the set-up. Friday January 4th 2008 Now that we have a signal and can update the site, the day was spent answering the hundreds of emails we hadn't been able to get for the last week. With the change of the New Year and everything that goes along with a new month, our day was spent updating the website and making many needed phone calls. Funny how a simple amplifier can make such a difference in what we're able to do.
Camping on the Salt River, the banks are low right now because they are working on one of the dams up river. The exposed river rocks are all covered in a white film that makes it look like the river is lined with snow. Sort of deceiving considering even though it's cloudy today, it's still in the low 70's. Saturday January 5th 2008 We've been boondocking since the 31st of December and with the kids staying with us, our usual 8 day water supply had run out early. Cindy needed to catch up on some laundry and while she was doing that, I headed over to the neighborhood gas station and used their dump station. Of course, while filling up our 40 gallon fresh water tank, which takes for ever because of the dual filters we run the water through, I had some impatient old-timer pull up behind me and give me an ear full of what he thought of me and how long I was taking at the dump station.
He also told me that "He didn't know why he was waiting for me, and should just open up his black tank on the road like he normally does and let it empty while driving." WTF is that nonsense? That's when I just ignored him and knew the old coot was crazy. With our black and grey tanks empty and our fresh tank full, we should be good in our little $6 campground boondocking for the next week. On the drive back to the campground, it started to rain which made for an early night. With no sunshine to charge our batteries today or yesterday, and the fact that I had sat on the computer all day updating the site with the big 2000 watt inverter running the whole time, our battery level was running low. Sunday January 6th 2008 What a dumb ass I am! I was just looking through my blogs for the past week making sure I hadn't spelled anything wrong and realized I had labeled everyday as 2007?! OOPS!! So if anyone noticed that, I've fixed it now, but I'm sorry I was still a year behind. I think every year for the first few weeks of January, everyone makes that mistake and writes the wrong year on their checks and when ever they write the date down. Well we had hoped we would wake to some sunshine so we could get our batteries charged, but instead we opened our eyes this morning to the sound of rain drops falling on the roof top. I tried to fire up the small 400 watt inverter to see if I could just charge the batteries on the lap top, but any time I made the lap top do anything other than sit idle, the inverter screamed telling me it didn't have enough juice to power it.
Really we would be fine, except I hadn't looked at the forecast when I had left the big inverter on for the entire day and drained our batteries down so low. We can normally run the inverter just fine and when the sun comes out the next day, it just recharges the battery bank back to comfortable levels and we have no problems. Maybe I should start checking on the weather forecast next time I'm going to go on a computer marathon. We heard a comedian the other day who said "The American Government cant figure out how to use Solar power because it cant figure out where the sun goes at night!" I mean come on, this isn't rocket science! The gentleman camping beside us, Darrel, has a full workshop set up under the pavilion for woodworking that he runs off of a small Honda EU2000i generator and while I sat and talked to him this morning, he told me I was more than welcome to charge my batteries off of his generator if we needed to. I love how fellow campers are all so nice to each other and go out of their way to look out for one another.
Speaking of Darrel's workshop; he's into Wood Turning and was making some
wood bowls out of Mesquite Burls yesterday that were just amazing.
The character in the burled wood is like nothing I've ever seen before,
and to see
Darrel came and knocked on our door and let me know he was going to be turning another bowl if I wanted to watch. What I watched was a master at work. He started with a small burl from a mesquite tree and ended with a true piece of art. That picture is the bowl that Darrel turned for Cindy and I and all I can say, is I'll never get tired of looking at the unique designs in the deep texture of the wood. Thanks Darrel. By the time he was done, it was Happy Hour time. Darrel asked if I wanted to join him for a Makers Mark and Water, and who could turn down that offer? Next thing you know, Cindy's coming over to his coach and we're all sitting around chewing the cud and laughing our tails off. What a great guy filled with very interesting stories and a great outlook on life. I sure do love this lifestyle and cant imagine any other way. It's just amazing to me that it doesn't matter if you're in your 60's or 30's, life is what you make of it, and as long as you have a good attitude, you'll get along just fine. Monday January 7th 2008 In Search of a Generator Any thoughts of waking to blue skies and bright sun to recharge our batteries was squashed when we opened our eyes to rain still pounding on the RV roof. What are the chances of camping in the desert and getting hit with a weeks worth of rain storms? The weird part was I noticed that the Inverter/Battery Charger was running when we woke up. It's mounted in the pass-thru bin, which is right below my head while I sleep. I thought that was strange because the only time that runs is when the inverter is on, or we're plugged into shore power and it's charging the batteries. Please No! Did the dogs somehow hit the button and turn the inverter on all night long?! (They've done this before) We got out of bed, and when I looked outside, I couldn't tell if Darrel's little Honda generator was running or not because it was about 20 feet from our camper. A few minutes later, he came knocking on our door and let us know that as soon as he woke up, he took the liberty to plug us in so we could bring our batteries up to full charge. Like I said, it's so nice to know that campers go out of their way to make sure their fellow camper is warm and cozy. Darrel let us know he was headed into town for the day and we were more than welcome to run his little generator as a long as we wanted to. His words are "They like to run, and if you don't use them, they end up breaking." While the rain was coming down like cats and dogs, we got our morning rituals done, and decided that we needed to get our own generator. I knew there was a Harbor Freight Tool outlet in Mesa, and there was also a Camping World. We thought we'd go drive around and compare some prices.
When Cindy asked if he could find the exact decibel rating, he got out the owners manual and said "The only thing it states is, you must use ear protection while the generator is in use." Looks like they can keep their generators. So we drove over to Camping World and I never even got out of the truck. Cindy walked inside while I fired up the lap top. I figured I'd look on Craig's List or EBay to see if I could find any deals. She walked in and walked out saying "I'm not buying anything from here!" The generators were overpriced and the 3 other things we were looking for were on the shelf, but were almost double what we had just saw them for at a competitors. In the short time Cindy was in the store, I found a Honda EU2000i Generator for $650 on Craig's List and another one on EBay for around the same price. That's almost $400 off of what the normal asking price is, and the same exact price that the Honda EU1000i normally sells for. So I contacted the person and asked if they still had it for sale, and while we were waiting for the reply, we stopped at Home Depot to see what they offered. Home Depot had a little Coleman 1800 Watt Generator for only $399 that claimed to be "quiet" and one of the selling points was "It's great for camping because of the quietness." The packaging also said "It's Florida campground approved." At $399 we figured let's try it, I know nothing competes with the Honda's and their whisper quiet motors, but the beauty of Home Depot is, you can return anything within 30 days.
It's a heavy little bugger even though it's not much bigger than the Honda. The Honda EU2000i weighs in at 46lbs and if Cindy needed to load it by herself, she could handle the task easily. The Coleman is considerably heavier and would need two people to lug it around. Darrel was out walking his dog Charlie, and stopped by to say "Hello." He was asking if we needed to use his generator for the night when Cindy told him we had bought our own. That was until we fired it up. Now granted, it started up on the first pull of the rip cord, but when I say "Fired it up" that's exactly what I mean. If I can recall, the Honda is right around 53 decibels which is quiet enough that you can be standing right over it and still have a normal conversation. When I fired up this Coleman, Darrel and I just looked at each other and started laughing. It's basically a Contractors Generator dressed up in a fancy little package to try and make it look like the Honda EU Series of generators. We couldn't say anything to one another because of the earth shattering sound, and Cindy just turned around and walked away. Yep, this generator would be getting returned in the morning. We figured we would run it for an hour to get our batteries up to full charge and box it back up for the morning. I came inside and Cindy and I just looked at each other. "That's embarrassing" She said to me as we both started laughing. It's at this point when you know that the steep price of the Honda's are well worth the quietness of their motors. They just make for good neighbors. While Cindy was making dinner, I couldn't even stand the obnoxious sound coming from outside, and just said "Forget it, I don't care if we have to eat with our headlamps." I went outside to kill the noisy beast. I also got a reply back from the lady with the Honda for $650 and told her I would take it "No questions asked.". That extra $250 is so worth it, that I don't care if we never take the generator out of the truck for the rest of the year, I know if we have to, we wont be obstructing any noise ordinances when the need arises. Tuesday January 8th 2008
Luckily her plane arrived on time, and we headed down to Old Town Phoenix for some lunch so we could catch up on lost time. We sat talking and enjoying the warm sun till her jet lag started to creep up and it was time for an afternoon nap. We forgot to mention that she works nights at a casino in New Orleans and had basically gone straight from work to the airport with only a short cat nap on the plane ride. We drove back to the camper and continued the talking in a more relaxed atmosphere where we could swear and laugh without disturbing anyone else around us. Darrel was in the process of making another Mesquite Bowl on his lathe and we sat watching for a short while. After watching Darrel and his next masterpiece, I left the girls alone to talk like mother and daughter do, and ran over to the other side of Phoenix to pick up the Honda EU2000i generator we found on Craig's List. Of course my dumb ass forgot that afternoon traffic going through Phoenix would be a parking lot. So an hours drive turned into two and luckily for me, I got caught up on the political happenings of the presidential race taking place right now. I'm amazed that the only thing every news channel will talk about is how much the candidates have raised for their campaign. What does this tell us as Americans? That who ever has the most amount of money is the best candidate? Why not just buy your way to the Presidency? What a Joke! But lets not even go there. I will say that I think they should put a cap, say $100,000 that can be spent on the campaign and no more. The rest has to be done on personality and hard work, just like most of us have to do to get ahead. Ok, enough political jabbering.
After picking up the generator, I returned the Coleman we had bought
yesterday explaining to the woman that they should remove the part about
it
By the time I got back to the camper, Cindy had dinner waiting for me, and the girls were ready to watch a movie. While I was away, Darrel had come over and gave Donielle the newest bowl he was working on which was so nice of him. This would also let me keep the bowl he had made for me since Donielle had already claimed it when she saw the beautiful work of art. Cindy was in tears saying how nice that was and how thoughtful he was for doing that. We all crawled into our bed and watched a movie like old times when we lived in Michigan. This was one of our favorite things to do as a family and was designated as 'Movie Night.' We would stuff ourselves on one of Cindy's awesome dinners and then veg out in front of the TV for the rest of the night. It was cool to be back together as a family and enjoying each others company. Wednesday January 9th 2008 Happy Birthday MOM!! We had a full day ahead of us, and none of us knew just how crazy it would end up. Cindy started us off with a big breakfast, and while she packed a lunch, I took Donielle for a ride up and down the twisty mountain roads on the motorcycle.
So we turned around and headed back so we could start the day of four wheeling. While Cindy finished packing up lunch, Donielle went over to thank Darrel for the bowl he had made her. He said the only requirement was a double-breasted hug, "None of this off the shoulder shit! I want a good bear hug like you mean it!" he told her. I started talking to Darrel about changing the oil in the Honda Generators as he said his was due, but he had personally never done it. I didn't get a owners manual with mine, so he dug out his and I read up on the process. Nothing much to it really, just unscrew the oil cap, dump out the old oil into a pan, and refill it right in the same hole with some fresh oil. I kept a quart of 10W-30 Synthetic for my motorcycle in the tool box, and the small generator only holds 0.4 quarts of oil. So in twenty minutes, we had the oil changed in both our generators and that task was out of the way.
I had filled out the paper work earlier and they provide you with the combination of the locks on the gates. The map said that the Bulldog Recreation Area had a 10 mile trail that would leave only a few hundred yards from our campground, and dump us out over in Apache Junction. The Great Western Trail actually stretches from Canada into Mexico and is over 800 miles long! Since we had so much history right next to us, I figured we should enjoy it while we can. I figured that these back roads would be a bit rough like the ones we encountered in New Mexico. The scenery would more than make up for the bumpy ride we would encounter and it would be a great way to sit and talk with Donielle. We would all enjoy some beautiful Arizona scenery while catching up on some long lost memories. Little did I know that this trail would take us over 4 hours to cover the short 10 miles, and the truck would limp out with numerous dings and scrapes on the underside from the wild terrain. It just wasn't what I wanted to subject my wife and daughter to while on vacation. When I was in the Forest Service office filling out the paper work, I asked the forest ranger how rough the trail was? He replied "As long as you have 4-wheel drive, you'll be fine." I should say that in my hundreds of miles of four wheeling history, I've never tackled trails this rough. We're talking 4-Low, 90% of the way, and trails that would make Cindy walk the majority of the 10 miles. I've 4-wheeled hundreds of miles in my youth, and these trails were way more than I had expected them to be.
I finally told them they needed to stop yelling at me and start spotting me on some of the more technical descents. This was after scraping the step bars on a few large boulders and thinking that I had made the wrong decision, which both girls had told me I had made. With Donielle acting as my spotter, and Cindy covering her eyes to not seen the carnage, we became a pretty good team that tackled some of the wildest four wheeling of our careers. The heated yelling, became frantic screaming at one point when Cindy was spotting me over a giant boulder and the A/C compressor decided to empty its holding tank. All Cindy saw was fluids gushing from the undercarriage and automatically assumed we had broke something under the hood. Her exact words were "Shut the F-ing truck off right now and call for help!" I jumped out of the truck and came up laughing as I explained what it really was. I could tell I was going to pay for this little trip dearly with the looks I was getting from both girls at this point. Coming to the top of a really wild section, we spotted a gate and the girls let out their cheers thinking we were at the end of the "Trail from hell." Now remember, at this point, neither of them were in the truck with me, they had both decided it was smoother to walk behind the truck rather than get thrown around inside cab. I tried to not say anything to ruin their little victory dance, but if they would have looked past the truck, they would have realized we still had a few miles to go, it was just simply a gate and didn't mean we had finished the rugged trail.
The forest service should let people know, that these trails aren't drivable for just any four wheel drive truck. Granted our truck is bone stock, but the crawling ability of a diesel in 4-Low is really impressive compared to most stock trucks. I could see some more inexperienced drivers doing some major damage to their vehicles on this trail. I say it should at least be rated as an Expert Trail or one for more experienced drivers. None the less, it'll be one we don't forget in the near future and I guarantee that Donielle will tell her children about the time that her goofy parents took her down this short trail, that just about ruined the truck. We got back to the camper, and were all whipped from the day of excitement. We snacked on some dinner and enjoyed a nice quiet night with another move. If you haven't seen 3:10 to Yuma, and you enjoy suspense thrillers, it's a great movie.
Saturday January 12th Back to Normalcy, If That's Possible
It was so nice to be able to sit and talk with her without having to worry about school, grades or where she's headed. As long as she's safe, in good health and keeps in contact with her mother and I, what more could I ask for as a parent? It's nice to know that from here on out, we can get along almost as equals rather than always having to preach like parents are so good at. By no means do I think that I'll ever have to stop preaching, but I know she's becoming a responsible adult and is starting to make adult decisions that are thought out. No more of these childish comments like "That stupid cop gave me a ticket because I rolled through the stop light." How many parents have heard that one over and over? So the last few days were spent updating things and catching up on emails. We needed to head into town to empty our holding tanks and refill our fresh water and maybe throw a load of laundry in before the pile gets too big on us. You know, the day to day things that get put on the back burner when company is visiting.
Darrel had invited us over for some dinner tonight, and we were rushing
to make the 4 o'clock Happy Hour time. Darrel's motto is "Do what
you have to
So with a Makers Mark in hand, Cindy and I strolled over to his coach to sit and watch the sun set over the mountains. His son Scott had spent the day fishing on the Salt River with his son Cody. We sat around enjoying each others company swapping travel stories. Scott is a very interesting guy who has traveled all over the world and has fantastic stories from countries I've never even heard of. He know resides in Scottsdale with his wife and two kids and is in charge of the Southwestern section for the high end restaurant chain Black Angus Steakhouse. Being in the restaurant industry, we had many funny stories to share and it was great just enjoying the night with like-minded company. After filling our bellies with some mouth watering steaks, I could feel my eyelids becoming ten times their normal weight. It wasn't long before Cindy and I were saying our "Goodnights" and heading off to bed. Sunday January 13th We've decided that we have to start getting into an exercise routine. Could it be the giant steaks that we ate last night, or the fact that my pants are becoming harder to button up? We both said that we need to do something active everyday for a minimum of one hour. That shouldn't be too hard, and hopefully, it'll help me lose my ever growing tool shed. So we woke up this morning and went for an hour long hike along the Salt River. This area we've been staying in is absolutely beautiful and only drives home how amazing it is to me that people would rather waste their money in a normal campground with hundreds of other campers around them. Pebble Beach campground has maybe 10 other campers staying here, and with our million dollar view, what more could you ask for?
Now if you've been paying attention to our journey, you'll know that this is the longest we've stayed in the same campground. What is keeping us here? It's the fact that we can leave in the morning and hike right out our door. We're on the Salt River, so we could paddle if we wanted to. There are numerous mountain bike trails that are within riding distance and we all know about the Four Wheel Drive trails that Cindy's still giving me dirty looks about. Then there are the Camp Ground Hosts. Jim is so damn nice that I'm wondering if he's human? The first day we pulled in, he sat talking with us about the local attractions, gave us maps of everything we questioned him about, wrote down his cell phone number for us incase we got lost, and invited us up to his camp site for a BBQ. How can you top that? His side kick Tom is just as nice and both have made our stay as nice as we could imagine. Staying in a campground like this reminds me of moving into a new town. Within a day or two of moving in, we have learned a bit about each resident and have all become new friends. We spend each night sitting under one of the canopies beside our campers sharing stories while the sun sets against the beautiful mountain sides behind us. Did I mention that the campground only costs $6 per night? The only thing is you have to have a generator, or solar panels, as it's all rustic camping. In my book, this is one of the nicest places we stayed so far and I'm just imagining how much its saving us from paying for a regular campsite. Thanks Arizona Forest Service! Monday January 14th 2008 Rather than do another hike today, we decided to pull the mountain bikes off the rack and go for a ride. We rode out of the campground and just a short distance up the Bush Hwy, I noticed a few motorists sitting on the side of the road with their trunk open. This usually only means one thing, so I pulled off the road and asked if they needed any help? This is something that everyone who has aftermarket rims should pay attention to.
This very nice couple from Alberta Canada who spend their winters here
to escape those frigid Northwestern climates, had gotten a flat tire on
their car.
I told him that I had a socket set back in my truck, and could ride back to camp to get it for him. By the time I returned, Cindy was old pals with our friends from the Great White North. One of the funniest parts was one of the guys, a neighbor of theirs from Alberta was down visiting and worked for a Tire Distributors. How's that for karma? You work for a tire company and you're stuck on the side of the road with a flat? Like I said, these are little things you would normally never think about till the need arises and why you should make sure if you have aftermarket rims, you should make sure you have the proper tools to change the flat. By the time the flat was changed, we had swapped business cards and they made sure when we get up their way, that we would look them up so we could share a few ice cold Molson's. The Schmid's actually told us that a few of their kids are guides and would be happy to show us the area. I guess everything happens for a reason. We spent the rest of the day cleaning up the camper and doing some piddly things that had been put off with all the company visiting. Happy Hour was spent with Darrel and our other neighbor Gene, while trying to figure out why anyone would want to live any other way than relaxing out in the desert surrounded by nothing more than Mother Natures beauty. Aint life grand! Wednesday January 16th 2008 We had gone for a long walk along the Salt River yesterday and were just appalled. We should say that while we've been staying here, the State of Arizona has been working on the dam that feeds the river were camping on. With their work going on, they have the Salt River almost shut off right now. This sucks for us because we really wanted to kayak the famous river, but instead, we can walk across the river in many places. What's wild is the rocks that are normally under water are now all exposed. They are a bright white from the salt content of the water that gives the river its name. What appalled us so much was the amount of trash on the bottom of the river. You can see where ever the river must have rapids because the cans and garbage will be very heavy in certain areas.
Since we love paddling so much, we felt it our duty to bring some garbage bags with us and spend a few hours cleaning up this river while we had the chance. Little did we know how much stuff we'd collect. It didn't take long for our contractors bags to be filled so full I couldn't tie them closed. This was all with aluminum cans. We even crushed them so we could fit more in the bag. What we didn't think about was once the bag was full, we'd have to carry them all the way back. I'm not lying when I say each bag weighed close to 50lbs.
| ||
Playing
Gin Rummy till the wee hours of the morning, we had our own little party
and spent the morning hours getting things ready till the temperature
warmed up enough to go for a hike.
Do
you think young kids care about where they hike? Hell no. We
showed them the natural bridge from the viewing platform and spent the
rest of the afternoon hiking around the stream which flowed out from the
bridge area. For them this was a slice of heaven. Scrambling
over boulders the size of our truck and loving every minute of it, you
would have thought they were in Disney World. 
When
we were all wore out, we hiked back up the rugged trail to our waiting
lunch. Oops, Cindy had left the packed cooler on the kitchen table
of the camper. Luckily for us, we were only minutes from the
campsite. It was all I could do to keep Cindy and Courtney from
falling asleep on the short ride back to our waiting Sunline.
The
banks of the river are lined with bright white rocks from the salt
content of the river water which makes it look like it's covered in
snow. Sort of deceiving since it was in the mid 60's today.
It
was at this point that I fully understand when families buy big travel
trailers with multiple slides. I've always wondered why people
need such huge campers, but when you add kids or multiple adults to the
picture, every square inch reduces the stress level. 
The directions say to mount the antenna on the roof and wire the cable
through a window, but being as once I get the system up and running, I'm
not going to move it for a few years, I'd rather not tie up a window
with the cable which would leave a small gap in the window. I was
able to run the wire down the refrigerator vent shaft, and drill through
the wall to the cabinet where I mounted the amp. 
Not much to talk about unless you want to hear about Cindy's amazing
noon time fajitas and home made guacamole all washed down with
margaritas in the Arizona desert. Sorry to rub it in, but
sometimes you just got to kick back and enjoy life to the fullest.
I
found it quite humorous when he said "I don't waste other peoples time
like this and usually fill up my water tanks at home!" I let him
know that since this was my home, any place I could find water was the
only place I could fill up. 
It's times like this when I wish we had a small generator to just bring
our batteries back up to full power. Then I know we would be good
for the next few days again. We're just too cheap to drop a $1000
on a generator when we would really have only used it a handful of times
this past year. One of the other campers in this park has a small
1000 watt 2-stroke generator that he only paid $200 for and says it does
a great job of charging his batteries. The thing is about as small
as a milk crate and I'm thinking that this might be something we could
afford for times like these when the sun goes away for a few days at a
time.
such a beautiful piece of artwork come from such an ugly
piece of wood is like watching a diamond be cut from an old piece of
coal. It's just one of those things you have to see to believe.
Harbor
Freight has a few different options to choose from, but they were some
no-name brand and when we asked about the decibel rating, the salesman
just laughed and said "If you have to ask that, then you probably don't
want to know the answer."
We
got home in the dark, I unpackaged the Coleman, and checked all the
fluids on our new generator.
I
was so excited to go and pick-up Donielle from the airport that I could
barely sleep last night. It had
been almost a year since we had seen her and probably the longest time
I've gone without her since I met her and Cindy so many years ago. 
being
campground friendly. 
It
was hilarious to hear her squeal over the sounds of the rushing wind
like the little girl she is when I would lean the bike into one of the
tight corners. She was squeezing me so tight, I finally pulled
over to ask what was wrong? She let me know that her legs were
numb, and she was freaked out by how fast we were going.....LOL
The area we are staying in is surrounded by the beautiful Superstition
Mountains and miles of backcountry ORV trails. In order to get
onto them, you need to go register with the Forest Service, but no
worries, it's free. 
By
now you all know that Cindy is not one to keep her mouth shut when it
comes to her feelings. Well our spunky little daughter isn't any
different, and if anyone could have heard the cuss words coming from
these two girls, I'm thinking even a Marine drill instructor would have
blushed. 
I
thought they both were going to cry when I told them the news. But
the good part was, past this gate, the trail became much easier, and
both of them could get inside the cab now. With the end in sight,
we had made it with only some big dents in the step bars on the sides of
the truck. The tires looked like their sidewalls had seen better
days, and I'm sure the skid plates on some the under carriage parts were
mangled up, but all in all, we came out with flying colors. 
For the first time in multiple weeks, it's back to just Cindy and I.
Our visit with our daughter was better than expected and I'm just
glowing at how well it went. You have to remember that she's 21,
and usually a 21 year old daughter doesn't want to spend that much time
with her boring older parents.
do
during the day, but Happy Hour starts at 4pm, and there aint too much
that is going to get in the way of that!"
When we had driven into Apache Junction to do some laundry, there was a
campground that I tried to pull into so I could turn around. The
roads were so tight with the campers packed in like sardines that I had
to back out and couldn't even pull through?. I honestly don't know
how they got the campers that close together? It looked more like
the lot at 
The
problem was they had installed aftermarket rims and the stock lug wrench
was too big to fit in the holes of their new rims. So they had a
spare, the jack and all the necessary equipment to change the flat, they
just had no way of getting the rim off the vehicle. 
