Later that day

Sufficiently solitary

The roads not previously taken

The standard way to get from I-10 to I-8 when you’re west of Phoenix is to take Highway 65 from Buckeye to Gila Bend. But I’ve driven it more than a dozen times and wanted to do something different. Besides, even though that route is familiar it seems to get longer every time.

The Parker-to-Interstate 10 route had worked well, so what did Google Maps have to offer for the next leg? This:

It’s sort of taking the squiggly hypotenuse of the triangle rather than the adjacent two sides. Slightly shorter and slightly slower. That’s cool. More leisurely, fewer semis and other large vehicles (or any type of vehicle) and some new territory to see.

The big surprise was the amount of farming along the way. The Gila River runs through there. It’s usually dry (at least at the surface) when I’m in the area, but the recent storms have it looking like and actual river instead of a large dry wash.

As a bonus, it’s perfect weather for driving with the window open. And 50 to 60 miles per hour makes that much more enjoyable than 70 to 80.

I’ll spend a few days in my current boondocking east of Gila Bend before backtracking to visit friends in Why. The Gila Bend-to-Why journey also seems longer each time, and there’s no shorter way there. Oh well.

Enough for one day

Continuing with yesterday’s story: By the time my leisurely cattle-aware drive got me to I-10 I realized I didn’t really want to drive all the way to Ajo that day. There was no schedule to keep, no rush to get there. Slow down, man. Put in fewer miles and more time just being. Yeah, sounds good.

But where to stop? Someplace with plenty of cell reception and no off-roaders. And free, of course. How about Saddle Mountain, by Tonopah (a. k. a. the other Tonopah, not the Tonopah of “I’ve been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah” in Nevada, the location of the Clown Motel)? I hadn’t stopped there in, oh, eight years. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Would my opinion be different now?

Yes. Winter storms have greened the place up. I found a more pleasing camping spot. And my perceptions — and I — have probably changed. I’ll set here a spell.

Where’s the beef?

After my Walmart adventure in Parker I found pretty good boondocking spot south of town along Shea Road. But after a while two things made me decide to leave in the morning. 

The first was the realization it was the beginning of Presidents’ Day weekend. Off-road vehicles were buzzing up and down the road and more toy haulers arrived all evening. It was going to get crowded and noisy.

The second thing was that with the growing crowd the cellular bandwidth was rapidly clogging to the point of uselessness. I had come here to get away from that problem in Quartzsite. Rats.

But where would I go? The general plan, without a schedule, was to visit friends in Ajo/Why. That would be about a three hour drive. Easy peasy. And Highway 72 as a shortcut. I had never gone that way before. There, I had a plan.

Not only was that route new to me, but so were pavement markings like this. I guess the ordinary signs hadn’t been sufficient. Or were these offers of a trade?

Check time

The Walmart in Parker, Arizona, isn’t very big. Small town, small store. But it attracts RVers from Quartzsite (35 miles away) and people with homes and houseboats along the Colorado River. So the store can get crowded, like today.

The first thing I noticed (after the nearly full parking lot) was approximately 80 percent of the shoppers were old farts like me. Then it hit me: it’s the day after Social Security checks arrive. About half of us retirees get our funds the second Wednesday of the month, which was yesterday. I’m guessing my fellow Thursday shoppers had thought, “It’ll be too crowded on Wednesday. Let’s wait a day.”

A few decades ago I had an interesting taxi ride in Chicago. Traffic lanes meant nothing. Drivers would straddle the lines, swerving back and forth into whichever lane appeared to be moving faster — often into oncoming traffic. That’s what it was like pushing my cart through this small Walmart’s narrow aisles clogged with slow people and those who had stopped to contemplate their product choices. I had to divert into the nearly deserted baby products section for a few moments in order to regain my cool. “Should’ve waited until the afternoon when a large portion of my peers are napping,” I advised myself.

Having finally gathered my seven items I headed to checkout. The line for self-checkout was nine people long (some of them blocking traffic, of course). Rats. So I looked for the shortest cashier line of people with the fewest items. I found one with a woman finishing up a fully loaded cart, and a guy with mostly liquor and cheese puffs. 

I don’t want to be agist or sexist, but holy crap, why do little old ladies always take forever to wrap up their transactions? The project manager’s axiom is that the first 90% of a job requires 90% of the effort, and the final 10% of the job requires another 90%. That’s what this was like. 

(In my head) C’mon, sister! You’re almost there! Just… just… put the card back in your purse… into the purse… into the… There, now put the purse in the cart and… in the cart… the cart… now push the… No! Don’t check in your purse now! Move out of the lane first! Move! AAAaaaarrrrrgh!!!

 I really need to put more forethought into the time I choose to shop. Ugh, people.

Accurate weather

I’ve been to Joshua Tree National Park enough times to know the place is uphill from the towns on its borders. So when trying to find out what the temperature is in the park (at about 5,000 feet), rather than in the town of Joshua Tree or in Twentynine Palms or Yucca Valley (at about 3,000 feet), you need to use a weather site that lets you enter coordinates, not just place names or zip codes. The National Weather Service site allows that. 

That’s how I learned that while the town of Joshua Tree will have daytime temps in the high 60s with nights in the mid 40s, the park will have days in the low-to-mid 50s and nights in the low 30s. Yeah, no. Too cold for me.

I need to give credit to my friend, Roxy, for making me curious about the forecast for JTNP. She was there last week and posted about it being cold and windy. Looks like it still is.

Golden hour

I’m in Quartzsite to take care of some business with my mail forwarding service. I need to do a change of address from Lou’s former place in New Mexico. The Postal Service has extra hoops to jump through when you’re changing to a mail forwarder.

Then I need to jump through the DMV’s hoops to change my license and registration. And since my debit card expires in May, when I’ll be wandering the continent, I need to deal with getting the new one.  Ah, stuff.

So, Quartzsite. It’s still high season here and that means cellular bandwidth is clogged. Even though I have two carriers it’s still hard to get usable web service. In the past I’ve waited until the middle of the night to use the Internet, but I discovered something this afternoon: apparently a lot of us old farts take post-lunch naps, freeing up enough bandwidth to post things like this.

Also, the not well known boondocking area very near town still has enough room for privacy. And quiet enough to nap in peace.

Proper distancing

Unless I’m camped with friends, this is what I consider a proper amount of space between me and other folks boondocking in a popular area.

Tortilla sadness

The wonderful tortillas I get a Food City contain a bit of potassium sorbate as a preservative. However, I learned that isn’t enough to keep away mold after two weeks. That’s one of the down sides of a single guy buying a family’s worth of tortillas. But a 24 pack was all they offered. I suppose they’d last longer in the fridge, but it’s already full of other things, like burrito filling and cheese. So a dozen tortillas into the trash. Such are my trials.

[Potassium sorbate occurs naturally in the berries of the rowan tree, also known as the mountain ash. The berries have been used for centuries in traditional medicine and food preservation. Today, potassium sorbate is more commonly produced synthetically through a fermentation process involving sorbic acid and potassium hydroxide. This method creates a chemically identical product to the one found in nature, but in much larger quantities and at a lower cost.]

Another propane buying experience

I didn’t know how much propane I had left, but since I was in town anyway I decided to get my tank topped off. I didn’t want to go back to U-Haul, and the other locations Google Maps offered were out of my way. Eighth Street has proved to have necessary services without unnecessary hassles, so I drove along looking for propane dealers.

I spotted the familiar giant white wiener at an unexpected but very convenient place: a corner liquor store. (northwest corner of 8th Street and Avenue B) Not the usual combination of products, but who cares?

As soon as I walked in the amiable clerk asked, “Propane?”  Why yes. Maybe that’s the bulk of their business. As he hooked up my 1-gallon tank he commented, “We don’t get many of these small ones, but this is the third so far today.” 

The tank took a half gallon. “Just tell the guy inside point-five.”  The guy inside had no problems with taking my cash. All so easy.

There’s a water kiosk on the other side of the liquor store, but even better is the Desert Water Store on the southeast corner of 8th and Avenue B. It looks kind of shabby (except for the mural on the Avenue B side). They’re set up to handle anything from gallon jugs (me) to RV tanks (my friend Jason who clued me in on the place). Just tell the clerk inside how much you’re going to get, pay her, then pump away.

So, tortillas and marinaded beef or pork at Food City; laundry across the street; a car wash a couple of blocks away with catwalks for tall vehicles; water; propane; a number of Mexican restaurants; and a mini Walmart — all in one easy fuel saving trip on Eighth Street.

UPDATE: I was in the neighborhood of the water place today and decided to top off my two half-empty gallon jugs and the five-gallon bottle. Different clerk this time. When I told him I needed a couple of gallons or so he asked, “Like the small jugs?” I nodded. He smiled, rolled his eyes, and waved my money away. “Just take it. And have a nice day.” So I did. And I did.

Soggy afternoon

I got back from town just in time. There had been some scattered sprinkling, but all the signs pointed to some actual rain. I dropped off groceries and water for a sick friend and settled into my camping spot nearby. And then…

Here’s what it looked like a few minutes later. Those streams weren’t there before.

What we got here, near Yuma, was the tail end of a storm that caused landslides and flooding in San Diego. The mountains between there and here saved us from the worst of it.

Rain is good (except when it causes damage) but it makes me feel trapped in the Rolling Steel Tent, even if I didn’t have any plans to be outside. It’s a reason I’m not a big fan of the wetter parts of the country. But I’ve “suffered” through rain many times during the past ten years on the road. I can cope.

The sky started to clear at about 4:00, so I went outside to assess the situation. The top layer of rocks — desert pavement — usually keeps the ground rather firm. B-u-u-u-t… it was squishy. I had to learn a new physical skill: taking off my shoes just inside the door, standing on the step, so I didn’t get mud on the rug. Then, um, where do I set the shoes until I can wipe the mud off? Uh, yeah, the wastebasket.

Since I’m all stocked up on food and water I can stay put until the ground gets good and dry. Patience is better than getting stuck. And I have nowhere else I need to be. Besides, it looks like this now, thanks to the rain.

Walk around

I went for a little exercise this morning, heading south from camp and making my way overland without a trail, the small mountain ridge being my destination. The weather was perfect, about 68 degrees, thin cloud cover, no wind. An outcropping provided a place to sit and a view of the Imperial Sand Dunes five miles away. And there was a gnarly old tree along the way, a desert survivor.

Paradise?

I made a run to Yuma today for laundry and supplies. The 8th Street Laundromat was kind of crowded. There was a lot of jockeying around, trying to get things in and out of washers and dryers without colliding with other patrons. And the place could use more counter space for folding laundry. But the machines are rather new, and there were enough of them that I didn’t need to wait. It’s also right across the street from Food City. So I picked up more of their perfect tortillas.

Then it was Walmart for most of my stuff, with a stop at Fry’s for some dense, moist, triple chocolate brownies.

I have a couple more things I need to do in town tomorrow, so to save myself a trip out to the desert and back, I decided to pay to camp at the Paradise Casino just across the Colorado River from the old Yuma Territorial Prison (which also served as the high school for a while). The camping ain’t fancy, just a hard packed dirt lot with graded rows, but it’s convenient and relatively quiet, particularly where I’m parked in the far corner of the lot. I suppose I could have found somewhere in town to stealth camp, but I don’t rest well in that situation. Am I okay here? Will I get the knock? Will there be troublemakers? I figure my peace of mind is worth ten bucks. Besides, there are dumpsters.

Space invaders

I’ve been camped in a nearly perfect spot in far southeastern California. A wide area between two converging washes. Only one way in. Sort of a cul-de-sac, even though I have ranted against them in the past. The closest neighbors are about two football fields away. My reclusive self was happy.

Until yesterday.

A little before sunset a truck pulling a toy hauler drove within feet of the Rolling Steel Tent. Then there was another. And another. And another. Then a truck with a flatbed trailer carrying two ATVs/OHVs/side-by-sides or whatever they call them these days. And an SUV. I thought they would discover the dead end and turn around. No, they were setting up camp, about 20 yards away, with a certainty of movement that conveyed it had been their plan from the beginning.

Dudes?!?!?

So, as they unloaded their ATVs/OHVs/side-by-sides or whatever they call them these days and started revving the engines, I secured a few onboard items and climbed into the driver seat. (My habit of not setting up outdoor living space allows for quick getaways.) There was plenty of other space I could move to. Plenty of other space the group could’ve moved to when (if) they saw I was already occupying the area. (Heck, I had even peed a few times around my territory. I guess that only works with critters.)

A group showing up on a Friday evening is probably weekenders. It has been my experience weekenders — particularly those with ATVs/OHVs/side-by-sides or whatever they call them these days — operate with different rules of camping etiquette. Or with none at all. C’est la vie nomade. Let it go, and go elsewhere. While giving them the stink eye.

UPDATE: Yup, weekenders. They left Sunday morning. Maybe they had planned on staying through the afternoon but my stink eye chased them off.

Adult content

I met up with part time nomads and full time wonderful people, Pam and Russell, in Los Algodones today. We had fish tacos, pozole, and cervezas, and caught up on the news. Then we stopped in a liquor store so Russell could buy a bottle of tequila. While he decided, Pam and I wandered around and spotted some… uh… shall we say interesting bottles. (For the record, it was Pam who pointed out the, um, connection.)

One for men and one for women? If so, which is for whom? ¿Quién es capaz de decir?

Owies

When I was a Boy Scout, they spent a lot of time teaching first aid, with many sessions of improvising bandages, making splints, crutches and stretchers, and learning the proper way to use tourniquets. Because, you know, Be Prepared.

All this left me with the impression that one or more of us (I hoped not me) would be seriously injured each time we ventured into the woods. Billy or Johnny would manage to find a cliff to fall from, leaving him broken and bleeding.

But we never had occasion to deal with compound fractures or severed arteries. Just cuts, scrapes, blisters, sunburn, insect bites, and the occasional twisted ankle—not even a proper sprain.

“Are you sure you don’t need us to bind that up with your neckerchief?”

“Nah, I’ll just walk it off.”

“How about a crutch? It would give us an excuse to chop up a branch. Maybe pad it with a neckerchief?”

“Nah, I feel much better already.”

“You’ve been scratching that mosquito bite a lot. We should bandage it with a neckerchief.”

“Leave me alone!”

So, why has Boy Scout first aid been on my mind?

Snagged my finger on a sharp bit of something in the toolbox. In my years out here on the road, where the building dwellers warn us it’s so dangerous, I haven’t needed much in the way of bandaging. Just some booboos now and then, mostly cuts. The worst was probably scraping some outer flesh from my shin when I lost footing in some rocks. And it was nowhere near a cliff. But I still have a bunch of bandaids and medical tape on hand. Maybe I should get a neckerchief or two, because Be Prepared, man.