Archive for 2016

AT

Tuesday, March 1st, 2016
The trail lives on!

The trail lives on!

Tucson

Thursday, February 18th, 2016
Arch

Arch

I have been in Tucson at Snyder Hill BLM campground for two days. I had a good time in Why and Ajo last week getting in the loop ride through Organ Pipe NM and hiking the short trail in the mountains. I found a place to get free water in Why, and groceries were plentiful at the market. The biggest drawback to my stay there was high prices for gas and groceries. In a town that is so remote I can understand the prices but it is nice to pay $1.30 / gallon here in Tucson when I paid $2.30 in Why(I would not have thought $2.30 was high a few years ago). One thing you want to remember when drivng into Ajo is the speed limit. The limit goes from 65 mph to 25 mph in the span of a couple miles while coming into town, and the sheriffs were busy working that area every time I went to town.

Ajo also has a museum with a few displays. One of the displays held brochures for attractions in the area and I picked up one that described a walking tour of the town. As you walk around town the pamphlet describes some history and architecture that went on there. It was an ok way to spend a little time in town.

Telescope for looking at the sun.

Telescope for looking at the sun.

The temperature in Tucson today hit 90. That’s not an unusual temperature for Tucson but it is unusual for it to happen in the middle of February. I figured it would be a good time for a ride up to Kitt Peak observatory. The observatory is only 40 miles from my camp, it would be much cooler at the top of the mountain, and best of all, there is a fun, winding road for Honda all the way to the top.

Kitt Peak has more telescopes scattered around its summit than you can shake a stick at. I think I counted 26. There are many universities all over the country that have there own telescope up there, and each time they would build one bigger than the one before. It was all quite interesting to walk around to the different structures and read about all the things they have discovered.

I will stay here for a couple weeks and do some more exploring. There are places I remember from 50 years ago, though some are gone and some have changed.

Crazy Lady

Monday, February 8th, 2016
No Arms

No Arms

There was a story told to me by two people camped here at Gunsight Wash about a woman and her son who lived in the desert behind the BLM boondocking area. She was known as the crazy lady. Sometimes people get an unflattering label attached to them just because they are different than what we perceive is normal. This story is based mostly on rumor but here is what was told to me:

Long before this land was BLM, a woman and her son lived in Ajo, AZ. It is not altogether certain if the son got mixed up with the wrong crowd and got into drugs or if he was afflicted by some disorder like severe ADD, but whatever the reason, the mother took her son and moved to a remote part of the desert. No one knows what they lived in or much of anything more about how they lived. The story is that every day the woman would walk her son two miles to the road where he would meet the bus. There are rumors of how they lived but the only fact that can be substantiated is the display of rocks that the boy crafted during their time there.

I wanted to see if there was any evidence of the rock art that still existed so I rode Honda back through the desert yesterday. The people camped there gratiously showed me around and told me what they knew about the lady and her son. Apparently, the son did most of the work of carrying stones, laying them in heart-shaped rings around every bush and tree, making walkways, and building rock gardens. It was probably some kind of therapy activity.

The people that are camped there now are cleaning up some of the trash left. I guess not all the old lady and her son’s activities were making home beautiful. Eventually, the land became BLM and they moved all squatters out.

Ajo was home to the first copper mine in AZ, but since it closed the only thing that keeps the town alive is the tourists driving through to visit Organ Pipe National Monument, and the modern, mega complex located a few miles south in Why, AZ., comprising the headquarters to hundreds of boarder patrol agents. Every day the helicopter stationed there takes off to patrol the surrounding area.

Organ Pipe cactus don’t like frost. They are mostly indigenous to Mexico but some thrive in the south part of Arizona. This is all part of the Sonoran Desert, a place so arid that here the Saguaro have trouble getting enough moisture to make arms. Where I’m camped about the only thing growing is creosote bushes. Everyone says that no one is enforcing the 14 day limit. Even the camp host says that if a ranger comes through and says anything we will just play musical chairs and shuffle everyone up.

Mexico and a Ride

Sunday, January 31st, 2016
Petroglyphs

Petroglyphs

13 gallons of water

13 gallons of water

For over a week in the middle of January, I was one sick puppy. I had a fever that flirted with 103 degrees and the energy resembling that of a slab of meat. Concensus is that it was the flu, and if there is even a remote chance it can be prevented in the future, I will certainly get that flu shot next year. Even now my energy level is not quite up to par and I still have a bit of congestion deep in my lungs.

I have been to Mexico for dental and my annual meds. I still have one more trip tomorrow for the permanent crown. There is more work to do on my teeth but I’m trying to space it out each year so as not to break the bank. It is a toss-up whether the fixes will ever catch up with the damage. Like most of us this age we all wish we would have taken better care of our teeth.

Yesterday I rode Honda up to Imperial Dam LTVA. I keep hoping that AT&T has put up another tower and now I will be able to get cell signal. Imperial Dam LTVA is the best long term facility that I have ever stayed at and they keep making improvements to it all the time. They now have separate lanes to fill water tanks and relieve congestion at the faucets. For the long term visitor, Imperial Dam has everything you need except….. AT&T cell signal.

Of course I had to stop at Imperial Date Company and have one of their delicious date shakes. It has been quite some time since I’ve had any ice cream and that shake sure tasted good.

The trip wouldn’t be complete without stopping to wander through the old war tanks on display outside the Yuma Proving Grounds. There is a new building on site that advertised itself as a visitors center but it was locked tight. I looked through the window of the door and thought I saw chairs arranged in front of a screen. Maybe there is a time they will show a film.

I drove back through Yuma and stopped to pick up a couple cheeseburgers at Burger King. I would like to take some fresh fruit back to my camp but I’m always afraid the checkpoint entering California will trip me up. There is probably no worries because I have always been waved on through whenever I have been on my motorcycle.

New Camp

Monday, January 18th, 2016
Trail ride to Seeping Springs petroglyph site.

Trail ride to Seeping Springs petroglyph site.

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I have been giving my blog address to a few fellow travelers I meet along the way and I have mixed feelings about it. As you know, I make a lot of mechanical errors in my writing. It’s one thing to share my blog with family that overlooks my bad grammar but quite another to subject myself to the scrutiny of strangers. Bad grammar and misspelled words can be as distracting as trying to concentrate on someone talking to you while sporting a missing, front tooth. It may be a silly segue, but I am also sporting a missing, front tooth.

About 30 years ago I chipped a front tooth and had it repaired with a filling. Crowns weren’t as common as they are today, and even if I was given the option, I probably wouldn’t have spent the money anyway. Over the last few weeks I noticed the filling was getting loose, and just yesterday, while eating a taco chip, the filling fell out leaving a cavernous hole in my mouth. Time to get to Los Algodones.

I’m now on the Ogilby Road, 10 miles west of Yuma. The RTR in Quartzsite came to an end today and people are moving to several different locations in the southwest. There is a group going to Ehrenburg with Bob, another group is headed to Slab City, and I found out a few are caravaning down into Mexico. Others like me are dispersed around Yuma with plans to go into Algodones.

It was a good experience being at the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous. I met a lot of nice people that are mostly financially challenged. Sometimes life happens and people get left at the bottom. Whatever the reason, most of us don’t want to be a burden to society or our families and look for some way to be independent. Most of them say when it comes to a choice of throwing themselves into the welfare system or living in a van, the van makes more sense. And I really think they are for the most part happy living this way. They like to say that they are not homeless, just houseless.

The mobs of humanity that descend on Q this time of year are shocking. I rode to town a few times, fighting the crowds at the vender booths, checking out if there was anything I needed or wanted, and finally wandering through the big tent the last day I was there. Most of the booths in the big tent are selling things like appliances, jewelry, magnetic devices to relieve pain, and other objects you would buy if you had a Class A motorhome or house somewhere. There are a lot of campground people along with Amazon recruiters looking for workers, too.

I will be here for a while. I hope to pick up my meds and take care of a badly neglected mouth. That is as far as I’ve thought ahead. One guy at the RTR found out I was hoping to travel to Alaska this year and wanted to do some planning with me. I told him that I am the wrong person to ask where I will be, when I am going, what will I see, and how long I will be anyplace. I had a plan once and I didn’t like it.

I met a young lady at the last seminar of the RTR that has quite an impressive list of accomplishments. She is writing a book about the subculture of van dwellers. You should look at her biography and read the article she wrote for Harpers Magazine. Here are the links:

http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/profile/141-jessica-bruder/10

The End of Retirement