My Trails

Nice campsite!

I’ve been almost a week in the Coconino National Forest, 40 miles north of Payson, Arizona. It’s a beautiful area of tall pines and grassy meadows, situated at 7000′, high on the Mogollon Rim. The best part about the area is that it is only two miles from Richard and Dianna, and it has been great to see them after a summer traveling in the far north.

The monsoons seem to be over so we have not had any rain since I’ve been here, but this step into Autumn has brought some chilly nightime temperatures. I have had three nights that have dropped below freezing, and a jaw-dropping reading of 18 degrees this morning.

19 degrees

It has been quite a bit warmer at Richards home two miles away. He is a little more protected than I am and lives in a small community. I am in an open meadow that sits in a valley of sorts. Even with the difference in topography the variance of our readings has me wondering if my thermometer is accurate. We may do a double-blind test with our instruments tonight to get to the bottom of this.

At any rate, I know it was cold last night. My furnace came on several times in the night even though I have it set at 50 degrees. When I checked outside this morning, the water in my solar shower was half frozen and the tube running down from my roof was solid ice. I’m thinking that tomorrow I will migrate a few miles lower in altitude to save on my propane bill.

With Richard and Dianna working and making trips to the Valley for Dr. appointments, it’s been a challenge to spend a lot of time together. We have gone out to eat a couple times, and of course Dianna makes delicious meals when I’m up there. We are taking a trip to Payson this afternoon to check on some camping places and find a restaurant to share a meal. I’m looking forward to it.

I like to blog at each place I stay to keep a record of where I’ve been. It seems like the older I get the harder it is to remember what I did two days ago. Why is that?

A cave in the forest.

Mile long cave

I have been camping in the Coconino National Forest for a few days. I knew from reading blogs that three friends I met last winter were in the area of Flagstaff, so when I arrived in town I emailed John to see if I could drop by for a visit. He replied back that he, Nancy, and Jeanne were all camped north of Bellemont, about 10 miles west of Flagstaff. He said there was lots of room where they were staying, and to come on out and camp with them.

It has been nice to see them again. We go for walks in the morning and catch up on all the news of places we have been this summer. Yesterday, John drove us all to McDonalds at the end of the road where we all enjoyed a breakfast. They have been saving their receipts and going online for a coupon for free food. I thought you would have to give out your email address but they said no.

This afternoon I drove 8 miles north of here to a lava tube cave. The Lava River Cave is almost a mile in length. It has not been improved in any way, and in fact the forest service tries to remove any trash or graffiti left by humans. It is really kind of a nice place to go.

Because it was a Saturday, there were many people there to hike the cave. There is only one entrance to the cave so everyone has to walk two miles to do the whole length. The entrance is quite technical with large, jagged, slippery boulders, where you scramble down a steep slope for about 50 feet. Then the cave levels out for the rest of the way. There are still piles of rocks to climb over that sometimes roll around under your feet, and low ceilings that don’t move if you forget to duck. Ouch!

Picture in the cave.

A lot of the walking is on a floor of bubbles, seams, and lava flow, turned to rock. It is quite easy to twist an ankle or lose your balance in the dim light of a headlamp. I saw a few kids that moved too fast over the uneven rock, trip and fall.

As I traveled further back into the cave, the crowds thinned and there were even times when I was all alone and out of flashlight flicker from people ahead and behind. When I reached the end of the cave, there was a group of young people playing band instruments. I not sure what kind of celebration they thought they were doing, but to each his own. The noise ruined the affect for me.

I was pretty tired by the time I got back to the entrance. I had already walked 4 miles that morning, and the additional two of the cave left my legs pretty rubbery. I would like to do it again someday when there were not so many people.

Cave entrance.

I’m going to leave in a couple days and travel down near Richard and Dianna. They are leaving to travel to Texas in a couple weeks and it will be nice to see them before they go. Then it will be time to find a lower altitude to camp – it has been down to freezing the last two mornings! Brrrrrr!

Monument Valley

After a relaxing two weeks in the Monti-LaSalle National Forest above Moab, I have moved further south into Arizona. I’m presently camped at a free campground in the Navajo National Monument about 30 miles west of Kayenta, Arizona.

I really liked the camping spot I found in the Monti LaSalle National Forest. My site was secluded and pretty, I had a stream nearby for cleaning and washing, I had some shade trees behind my RV, and I got pretty good cell signal.

There were also a couple of things that were not nice. Even at 7500′ the weather was warm in the middle of the day. I would take walks early in the day or late in the afternoon and sit in the shade through the hot part of the day. The road up the mountain was under major construction, so to miss long waits for the pilot car, I had to time my trips to town during the weekend. When I left camp yesterday, I drove to another forest road past the construction zone after all the workers had parked their yellow machines and went home. I parked just before dark and left early this morning.

When I drove the road to Navajo National Monument I noticed several vehicles parked alongside the road and the people crawling around under the trees. This morning as I waited for more construction, I asked the flagman what they were doing. He told me they were gathering Pinyon Nuts. I didn’t Google it to see if he was right, but he said the trees only bare nuts every few years. They roast and sell them along the road for pretty good money.

Still warm at 7500′

Harper holding Olivia

Lily holding Olivia

I traveled south from Idaho and and spent the night in a town park near Burley. The park had hookups for $25, which was nice because it was hot and I could run my A/C.

The next day I drove to a campsite in the Cache National Forest. Unfortunately, my favorite spot was taken so I parked in a site across the road. If my site was open, I would have stayed a few days.

The next day I drove further south to Strawberry Reservoir and found a nice place to camp for a few days. I stayed at the reservoir for a week and then drove to Salina and found a campsite high on a mountain road in the Fishlake National Forest. Fishlake was just another overnight stay.

As I set up camp I noticed a smell of propane. Further investigation found that my propane regulator was leaking. I shut off the tank, removed the bad regulator, and transferred most of my food into my 12 volt fridge. I have had three propane regulators go bad since I bought Minnie. I think I will carry a spare from now on. That’s one way to make sure it never fails again.

The next morning I drove to Moab, Utah. I found a new regulator in a little farm and home store. It was twice as much as the last one I bought but little else could I do. I headed south of town to find a campsite in the Monti-LaSalle National Forest where I could install the new regulator.

About half way up the mountain I ran into construction. I had to wait 15 minutes for the pilot car and then drive 10 mph for 6 miles of construction. The road to my favorite campsite was blocked off, so I went down another road until I found a place to camp. I will be here at least through the weekend.

You can tell by my travels that I like national forest campsite. This time through I have not had good luck finding a place to stay. A few times I have passed up a previous camp because I had no Verizon where I had AT&T before. One place had washed out roads that left me leary of driving down. But most of the good campsites have been occupied by a trailer left to reserve it like a summer home. It’s not fair to take a good campsite and not be there except on the weekend. I want to make a sign to tape to the door of these rigs:

WARNING!!! THERE HAVE BEEN BREAKINS OF TRAILERS LEFT UNATTENDED IN THE FOREST IN THIS AREA. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR TRAILER FOR VANDALS TO DESTROY YOUR PROPERTY!!!

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

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

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!