Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

But of course

So that's what this is

Sometimes nature is sad

A dead sea lion washed up on the beach. Old age, disease... I don't know. The tide brought it in—maybe to remind us that life is temporary—and the next tide will take it away. Other marine creatures will feed on the corpse. It's that Circle of Life thing.

So fill your remaining time with as much happiness as you can.

I just love the ocean

I don't have more than that to say, except that I'm at Carpinteria State Beach for a few days.

Smile for the camera

I keep a Google map of all my camping sites. I was doing the entry for my spot at Belle Campground in Joshua Tree National Park when the satellite view showed me something quite unexpected.

That's me and a couple of friends during our visit last March. The Rolling Steel Tent on the right, Lou's pickup and trailer are in the middle (back when the trailer was green and shorter) and Jo's former Sprinter-based RV is on the left.

Fascinating, but kind of creepy.

Blown out

I had already planned on leaving Joshua Tree this morning, but when nasty winds kept the Rolling Steel Tent swaying and shaking all night, I took it as Nature's validation of my plan. So I'm catching some breakfast and free wifi at McDonald's in Twentynine Palms before hitting the road to the coast.

I had considered taking the extra slow route through the San Bernardino Mountains, up to Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead, then connecting to the Angeles Crest Highway. It would be a narrow, twisty drive down Memory Lane for me. I used to go up there when I lived in Los Angeles and Orange County. I was a twenty-something dude with a third-hand Porsche 911. I wasn't a great driver, but I looked cool. That was the important thing. Now, wrestling a van along those roads would have zero cool factor, and drivers of sports cars and motorcycles would be cursing my slow ass.

Back at Joshua Tree

Spring is a great time to experience Joshua Tree National Park. Not too hot, hot too cold. That means it can be hard getting a campsite. But I lucked out. Coincidentally, it's the exact same spot in the Belle Campground as I was last year.

I arrived a little before noon, which I usually consider too late to grab a site. Several people arrived between five and six in the evening imagining there would be vacant spots. Sorry, folks. Early bird, and all that.

Maria

It makes me very happy to see women on motorcycles out on their own. Bold and independent. Add solo camping to that and my heart flutters. Too bad Maria is married.

Alone again, naturally

There are only a few ways to go east-west in Arizona. If you're in the southern part of the state, you pretty much end up going through Phoenix. Or Gila Bend. So here I am, once again at Buckeye Hills Regional Park, my go-to free and easy camping spot in the greater Phoenix area.

I'm at the very end of Robbins Road where there are usually at least two other rigs camped. But I have it all to myself. Ah, the perks of going places off-season. Most snowbirds have started their migration north, but not me. I'm migrating to the coast. Again. Because that's my (adopted) native habitat.

I'm about to hit the road highway for Joshua Tree National Park. I have my fingers crossed that I'll be able to find a vacant campsite. Spring is high season at Joshua Tree. But it's mid-week, so I might have a chance. A few days there, then it's off to the beach for about a week before heading back inland to meet up with friends.

So this stop at Buckeye Hills might be my last bit of solitude for a while. I probably won't be able to step out of the Rolling Steel Tent in just my underwear. No more peeing on the ground. Civilization is so inconvenient.

Ex-rattler

Found next to campground dumpster

Next phase

Having wrapped up my southeast Arizona tour, I had to go somewhere. So I went to Roosevelt Lake, in the Tonto National Forest (I'm still looking for the Lone Ranger National Forest. Perhaps it's in Texas.) A storm system blew in with me. Occasional light-to-heavy squalls.

The sky cleared a bit just before sunset and the night was pleasantly brisk.

The last of the front was moving out at sunrise. It looked like a perfect day to hike up to the Tonto National Monument ruins.

On the Energy-Expended-Getting-There vs. Wonderfulness-of-the-Ruins Scale, I've gotten better values elsewhere. But I needed to expend some energy after spending too much time cooped up in the Rolling Steel Tent. A one mile trail rising 300 feet. Yay, cardio.

According to the guide, once upon a time a railroad brought tourists to see the ruins and encouraged them to take pieces of it as souvenirs. And there's some graffiti here and there from those less enlightened times. As the saying goes, I left only foot prints and took only photos. And some dust on my shoes.

Maybe when I'm tired of the road...

Just toss in the mattress, have a high speed Internet line run in, and I'm good to go

Bark, bark

Thwarted escape

I got some groceries in Willcox, tossed the bags in the back of the Rolling Steel Tent, and headed off for Roosevelt Lake. Three hours later, I'm setting up camp and putting away my purchases when I notice one of the two avocados I bought was not in the bag.

Okay, round things tend to roll out of limp bags. I searched the van floor and... nothing. It's a dark, drizzly day and parts of the floor are black. Not the best avocado sighting conditions. I looked again, moving containers and the laundry bag (must do laundry soon) and still no luck. It would be one thing if the avocado somehow rolled out of the van while I was doing something else, but I didn't want to discover a rotted avocado sometime in the future. So I looked again. Nada. I gave up.

Two seconds later, something caught my attention in my peripheral vision. Ah-ha! There you are. I'll have to eat that one before it talks the other one into breaking out together.

That's part of the sliding door mechanism

Well, that was a pleasant surprise

I'd driven past the Chiricahua Mountains a couple of times on state highway 80, but I'd never checked them out. "Next time," I told myself, because I had some other goal in mind at the time. (A vagabond with an itinerary?)

So, with my southeast Arizona exploration trip in mind, I researched the place. There was plenty of info about the Chiricahua National Monument, which is a small part of the Chiricahua Mountains. And between various camping/hiking websites and the Forest Service I learned about other places to camp in the area, both boondocking and campgrounds—mostly on the west side of the mountains. Since I would be coming from the west, it made sense to go to the camping areas on the west side. But I'm sort of a contrarian, so I decided to loop over the north end of the range and enter from the east, through Portal.

From the highway, the Chiricahuas look like the other "sky islands" of the Southwest desert. Nothing exceptional. But when I arrived at Portal I saw I was in for something different.

Whoa! Narrow tree-filled canyons with cliffs and rock formations towering above. And lots of caves, which is why it's called Cave Creek.

Boo!

One of the campsites in the canyon was closed, another was small and full and had too much solar-unfriendly tree coverage. But I nabbed the last campsite at Sunny Flat campground, which was both sunny and flat.

I wished I had a geologist handy to explain the greenish yellow color of the rocks and how these caves were formed.

There are several trails in the canyon, so I got up early and headed up Cave Creek. The creek bed is the trail most of the way. Stepping about on grapefruit sized rocks is a good workout for one's ankles. But it's pretty as hell in the canyon.

The area is also big with birdwatchers. One of them saw me with my camera and asked if I got any good bird photos. "Nah, I'm more of a landscape guy." She looked at me like I was a freak. (Well, I am, but not because birdwatching isn't high on my list.)

I stayed two days, which is something for me, especially considering there's no cell signal in the canyon. But I'll be back, maybe in the autumn when the leaves are changing.

A fine place to hide out

Having wandered about the Southwest all his life, Cochise knew where the nice places were, like a certain canyon in the Dragoon Mountains. The canyon floor was filled with oaks, sycamores, junipers and game. The rocks provided thousands of hiding places.

For us modern wanderers of the Southwest, Cochise Stronghold is still a beautiful place to be. There's free dispersed camping as you enter the Forest Service managed area, and there's a campground and trailhead at the end of the road.

In the boondocking area

If you camp at Cochise Stronghold, get up early, do your morning stuff, then, as the sun starts to peek over the ridge, go walking. There's a half-mile nature loop at the trailhead, or you can take Cochise Trail all the way to the western side of the Dragoons. If, like this morning, there had been rain during the night, there will be rich aromas added to the dramatic scenery. The rabbits and deer are out and about, too.

I'm adding Cochise Stronghold to my short list of places to visit more than once. Cochise chose it as the last place he'd ever be.