Archive for April, 2017

Strawberry Creek

Friday, April 28th, 2017
Still cold up top!

Still cold up top!

The last time I visited Great Basin NP, I found a nice, free camping spot about 5 miles from the park. The wind for the past few days has been blowing too strong to make travel pleasant, so I decided to hold up at my previous discovery until the weather returned to more normal. The road I’m camped on is called Strawberry Creek and I have good and bad things to say about camping here.

I’m only a couple miles from Route 50, but it is far enough in behind some hills that I have no cell signal. There is a nice little creek beside my site, but a fire last fall has left the trees and meadows blackened to charcoal. I’m at high enough altitude that the temperature hardly gets out of the 50s during the day and nights are well below freezing. Last night I listened to rain and wind for several hours. This morning dawned clear and bright, but still windy.

Above me is Mount Wheeler. Last year I road Honda all the way to the top at over 10,000 feet. There is a campground near the top but I doubt if anyone is up there now. Looking up at all the mountains around me confirms they are all buried under deep snow. I won’t be making any side trips on Honda this time. In fact, I’m not even going to unload him.

I’m hoping that in a few more days I can continue to drift north. I have no objections to staying at one place for a few days but I would like warmer temperatures and cell signal. I’m still not sure whether I will go up through Nevada or scoot over into Utah and travel Interstate 15 north. By the time I post this maybe I will have made up my mind.

Pahranagat NWR

Monday, April 24th, 2017
Pretty but crowded!

Pretty but crowded!

I left Ash Fork early and headed west on Interstate 40. Already the wind was blowing strong from the south, broadsiding Minnie with gusts after gust, causing me to hang furiously to the wheel with white knuckles. I don’t like wind. If I could wait it out, I would gladly stay put, but the forecast was for high winds all week, so I gritted my teeth and vowed not to go very far today.

I checked out a spot near Chloride, AZ, and another by Boulder City, NV, but they were both too hard to get into. I thought I would be staying overnight at a Walmart in Vegas and then I remembered RV Sue telling about a campground near Alamo, NV. I looked it up and Google told me it was only 1.5 hours away, so I headed north on Highway 93 to Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge. Don’t ask me how to pronounce it!

The campground is free and the sites are scattered along a picturesque lake. Those two things make it very popular. So popular in fact that I thought every site was filled when I drove in. At the very end of the road I saw two motorhomes parked in what I thought were two spots. On closer inspection, I noticed there were three signs designating sites, so I asked a lady if it was indeed an open spot between? Yes!

I was going to look around at Hoover Dam for a bit but the crowds were wild. I was subjected to a search of my RV, then had to drive across the dam and a mile up the hill to find RV parking. It is something to see if you are turned-on by concrete in large volumes, but I had had enough of the dam traffic by then and turned around and left. The whole place has become so commercial and expensive. Parking is $10 and gift shops are all over the place. I fled with my wallet intact.

I probably will move on tomorrow. It is a pretty campgrounds, but I’m too close to another RV and trees block my solar and dtv. I know of a site near Great Basin NP where I stayed last year so i will move there tomorrow.

Ash Fork, Arizona

Saturday, April 22nd, 2017

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I saw this on Facebook.

I saw this on Facebook.

I have started migrating north. Right now I’m camped ten miles south of a little town called Ash Fork, AZ. The nights have been a little cold but the days have been perfect. I was the only one camped on this forest road until yesterday when a class A motorhome parked about a half-mile away.

I road Honda into Ash Fork two days ago. The town was created when the railroad established a siding in 1882, and later received a boost from the famous Route 66. After interstate 40 bypassed the town in the 70’s the town never recovered. The town still celebrates Route 66 with nostalgic old cars on buildings and establishments with themes from the 50’s era, but it will probably fade away in years to come.

I found a Family Dollar on the edge of town and bought a Gatorade for my return ride. On the way back to camp I checked out a couple other forest roads but found no good camping spots on them. I’m going to move on on Monday or Tuesday. It seems good to be traveling again.

Donna’s Visit

Friday, April 14th, 2017
Rookie selfie taker

Rookie selfie taker

It has been nearly a month since I last posted. At times it seem like nothing of any interest has happened while I have been camping this last month near Cottonwood and Sedona, but as I think back on my time here, it feels like too much to chronicle. It’s funny how some people living this lifestyle can blog almost every day and have interesting things to say, and I can go a month without coming up with anything worth writing about.

I’m pretty sure there are two reasons why I procrastinate updating the blog: the first reason is because I’m in sort of holding pattern for my next travel adventure. When I’m traveling to new places and seeing new things, it’s easier to share the adventure and chronicle the trip in my blog. The second reason is that our family has a pretty robust connection through a text app and we keep in touch regularly. Things I write in my blog are usually repeats.

The dispersed areas that surround Cottonwood are great places to be this time of year. Cottonwood is a bit higher and cooler than the lower areas of Arizona and significantly warmer than Northern Arizona. When the year moves into March and April, this place picks up many full-time RV travelers looking to transition from the heat in the south to the cool in the north. The only problem with riding out the weather here is that it can take over a month for the higher elevations to the north to shed their cold and snow.

The law enforcement in this area tries to keep boondocking in any area to a limit of 14 days, so we are forced to play “hopscotch” between four or five different areas. There is a lot of fudging going on in some places but most of us try to obey the law. All the people that I hang with are very respectful of the land, don’t leave a mess, or cause problems for anyone. The rangers are looking to crack down mainly on people driving where the are not supposed to, leaving trash in the campsites, and living in the forest.

Living the life of a full-time RVer lets you meet up with lots of people that share the same lifestyle as you. It is in some ways like the AT in that everyone migrates in a loose community to some of the same places. I have met people I saw down in Quartzsite and I have also run into people here from last year. One thing that keeps the group in touch with one another is our blogs.

Donna feeding a giraffe

Donna feeding a giraffe

Last week Donna came up from Mesa to camp with me. We started out camping on the Cherry Creek Road, near Camp Verde, where we took two motorcycle trips to nearby attractions. We first visited Out Of Africa, a compound for a variety of exotic animals in a somewhat natural environment. We road a tour bus that took us around the park where we got to feed a giraffe and watch zebras, water buffalo, ostrich, and many other African animals. Then we walked the area of fenced in animals too dangerous to be let out – lions, tigers, and bears! In the end we saw a show where several trainers play with two tigers and get them to jump in the pool. It was an expensive attraction but worth it to go one time.

With a few hours left in the day we rode over to Montezuma’s Castle. We have both been there before but it was interesting to look again at the magnificent cliff dwelling of the early people who lived there. Donna and I have the Golden Pass that lets us into national parks and monuments for free so that was a good deal.

On the last two days of her trip, we moved over to a dispersed area only five miles from Sedona. Donna liked the area near Camp Verde and the one near Sedona lots better than where we stayed last year. Thousand Trails dispersed area is closest to Cottonwood for supplies, but it is not as pretty as other areas and way more crowded.

Devil's Bridge

Devil’s Bridge

Yesterday we rode into Sedona and hiked a trail to Devil’s Bridge. I had been on the hike with Karen and Noah a few years ago but I had forgotten how far and hard the trail was. We didn’t even take our water bottles because we thought it was only a short walk to the end. It turned out to be 2.5 miles from where we parked and the last quarter mile was a steep rock scramble. By the time we got back to the motorcycle we were both thirsty souls!

I’m thinking that next week I will move north. I may run into some cold weather but as long as I stay out of snow it should be OK. I like starting out on new adventures that give me something to write about, but I don’t want to write about being trapped in a blizzard in Wyoming!