My Trails

After my doctors appointments in Tempe, I drove up to Payson for a couple weeks. It is almost time to head for southern Arizona and stake out a spot in the desert to ride out the winter.

I had three reasons to stay in the area for a few days: I still needed to wait for test results ( all ok), the election was coming in a couple weeks, and best of all, Donna and Hanna decided to come up in her motorhome and camp with me in the tall pines and cool weather.

It was chilly nights above Payson and it rained a few times that we were there, but Donna has a car she tows behind her motorhome and we could run around in comfort. We went to see some nearby boondocking sites on a few days, made a trip to places Donna remembered from her time with the Cancer Society, went into town for a movie, and made several trips to Walmart for odds and ends. I think we only stayed all day in camp on two occasions.

We had a campfire on most nights. The nights got very chilly so it felt good to slide our chairs close to the flames and roast marshmallows. I very seldom have a fire when I’m camping alone but those s’mores sure tasted good. About 7:30 or so we would retire to our motorhomes and watch a little tv or read.

I won’t go into any more detail about our camping trip because Donna is going to write about it too.

Right now I’m parked in Bulldog Canyon, just north of Mesa along the Salt River. When I was in Payson the tall pines blocked most of the sun during the day and my solar panels struggled to keep me charged. For the last two days my panels have really appreciated being here in the open desert to soak up sunshine and turn it into electricity; they are usually able to fully charge the batteries shortly after noon.

My plan it to head for Quartzsite next week. Even though I make home base at one of the LTVAs, I still seem to wander abound southern Arizona all winter. Last year I was working my way over to Boot Hill when I made a detour back to Phoenix. I like to go back to places I know I went to when I was young because Ican’t remember them anymore. And my memory is getting so bad as I get older it seem like every place I go to is new – even if I was just there – Wonderful!

Not much to tell about. I’m just hanging around Payson until my scheduled doctor appointments are taken care of. I’m testing out a new (to me) phone I received from Donna. It is an iPhone, so will involve relearning different system operations. It has been many years since I had an iPhone.

Over the last few years Don gave me a Samsung 4, Daryl gave me a Nexus Google Phone, and Donna has given me an iPhone 6+. It’s nice to have siblings that upgrade to the latest technology and give me perfectly good devices. Thanks again guys!

While I camped at Datil Wells campground in New Mexico, I rode Honda a short side trip over to the VLA. The VLA, which stands for Very Large Array, is a group of 28, giant, parabolic dishes, built in a remote section of windy, New Mexico desert, and used to capture radio waves from distant reaches of the universe. With these radio telescopes they have photographed galaxies, black holes, and thousands of cosmic objects millions of light-years away.

I have been here before but it’s an interesting stop. The visitors center costs $5 for a senior, allowing you to browse the rooms of displays, watch a movie, and take a walking tour out to one of the dishes. All this science and astronomy is all quite boring, of course, but what is exciting and interesting is that Jodie Foster filmed a movie here! She even narrated the movie you watch in the visitors center.

There have actually been several films that have used the VLA as a backdrop for visuals in parts of their story. It pricks the imagination to wonder what alien and unknown things might be out there and movies are good at exploiting our curiosity and making us think about it.

It has been quite warm here. Even though this campground is at 7800′, the temperature has been in the high 80’s. I’m pretty close to Elephant Butte State Park so I may drive there to take a look. It will not be a place to camp, however, because the park is located at 4000′ elevation with temps approaching 100° this time of year. I’m definitely going to have to find someplace high up in the mountains.

I’m doing a little wandering now that all the legal hurdles of residence in Arizona have been taken care of for the next year. I found out that insuring Minnie in Arizona is way, way more expensive than South Dakota, and getting an emissions test every year is more of a hassle, but it feels good to have all my legal pieces of residence in one place.

I still go by the philosophy that inquiries about my travel plans are best answered: “Wherever I end up, I guess.” Right now I’m in the Apache-Sitgraves National Forest at the Rim campground above Payson. I have been here several times before. The campground is full this weekend, mainly because the fire closures have limited choices for campers, and partly because this is a Father’s Day weekend.

It still bothers me that people take a trailer or tent or some other piece of camping gear, drive up to the campground several days before they intend to camp, and leave the gear in prime sites to reserve the place for the weekend. I talked to the camp host about it and came to the conclusion that even though it is illegal, no one is going to do anything about it.

Last night a young couple parked in front of my camp and walked through two adjoining campsite looking for an open site. The site next to me was occupied by a vehicle left to reserve the camp for the weekend. My site is large with room for more than one camper so I told them they were welcome to camp here with me. They were very happy to have a place to pitch their tent. They were courteous, respectful, and quiet during the evening. In the morning when I awoke, they were gone.

There is a storm headed this way. The remnants of hurricane Bud are expected to dump some rain on eastern Arizona and western New Mexico in the next two days. I was planning on moving east into New Mexico but decided to wait here until the storm passed. That’s the nice thing about traveling with no specific time table, you can always stay put until you feel like moving.

Not long after I moved Minnie from the desert near Yuma to the forest above Payson, some deranged person started the forest on fire. I had set up my camp in the Coconino National forest, only three miles from Richard and Dianna where they live and volunteer for the forest service during the summer months. All was fine for a few days as we made plans to welcome Daryl and Gisele and their new car for a visit and lunch. We even hoped Donna would detour up to our get together.

The fire started when we were on a shopping trip to Winslow. On our way home we could see smoke as we drew closer to the Blue Ridge Ranger station where Richard and Dianna volunteer. We eventually realized that the fire was only a few miles from where we were staying and close enough to give us great concern for safety.

When we eventually arrived at the ranger station we learned that the road I was camping on was closed. I was informed that I could not even go down the road to get my camper out. Richard knew of a back road out of the compound that took me safely to my rig where I packed up quickly and moved up to the ranger station.

Even though we were within a few miles of the fire, there was no danger where we were. The wind over the next few days took the fire away from us to the north. With the dry condition of the area and the strong wind, the fire has grown to over 12,000 acres. Several homes have been destroyed and the fire is headed for more houses ahead of the flames. There is zero containment.

The fire has brought together several units of hotshot crews, fire teams, air support, and personal from all over the west. They have all fought the fire bravely and undoubtedly saved many residences. Tonight there is snow and rain in the forecast so we are all hoping the fire will be controlled with the help of the weather.

For several reasons, including but not limited to, snow, rain, freezing temperatures, high wind, fire traffic and road closures, I decided to travel down to a lower altitude for a few days. I’m now at the same camp I found last year, only five miles from Payson. I will go back up on the Rim after summer returns.