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We ended up staying at the Plomosa campground until March 12th, mostly soaking up the sun and I think I finally perfected my guacamole recipe. 

We rode our motorcycles a few more times and Whit went through some more off-road riding lessons. She has improved tremendously this winter and I think it will really show when we ride some Colorado trails this summer. We went to the Desert Bar which was about 40 miles North of us on the 10th. It was a very large sprawling place with lots of desert rats there and great live music. Oh, and the chili cheese fries were awesome! On the other hand, the beer selection was not so awesome.

The owner built this metal church. 

We had a great winter down in Southern AZ, but were ready to move on. We enjoyed our last desert sunset on the 12th, wore the dogs out, and then headed out early on the 13th. 

When we drove in to Southern AZ we took the Southern route on I-10. It was relatively flat and boring. This time we decided to take the mountainous route on highway 60. It was a beautiful drive. There were saguaro cactus sparsely populating the Quartzsite area, but just outside of Phoenix in Tonto NF there are literally 
forests of them.

Some of them were huge.

The drive through Tonto kept going up and we soon left the desert behind. There was still lots of snow up in the mountains, but it was melting fast. Nala found her new favorite spot to ride in the rig.

After the long drive through the mountains, we stopped in a little place called Pie Town. They have a free campground and we were the only ones in it that night. Nala got to chase some deer and we found one of the biggest Alligator Juniper trees I have ever seen.

 The next day happened to be Pi day (3/14) so the Pie-O-Neer cafe was open for business so we had pie and coffee for breakfast. It is not called pie town for no reason, they know how to make pie! We moved on a few miles down the road to Datil, NM and stayed at the Datil well campground. It was a beautiful campground and only cost $5 to stay. We got there early in the day so we took the dogs for a nice long hike. The trail had several viewing seats along the way. The dogs enjoyed the rest and Nala especially enjoyed the shade.

We made it to the Rocky point overlook and had a great glimpse of the VLA which was over 10 miles away. 

I decided that since we were around our first real trees in a while that I would take advantage and set up the hammock. It turned out to be a great place for napping (Who knew?).

The next day we headed towards Socorro, NM with a stop at the VLA for a look around. Whit had never heard of it so it was a nice learning experience for her. Also, just outside the VLA there was a herd of antelope that we got some great shots of.

I got too close and they started running away.

They had all of the dishes close together so we got almost all of them in one shot.

It is hard to tell how big they are from far away, but standing right next to one they are not your average satellite dish.

We made it to Socorro later that day and stayed at my Aunt's house for a couple of days before heading back North to Denver. We went to the Buckhorn and had their wonderful award winning green chile burgers while we were there. Definitely worth a stop if you are ever down that way. We made it safely back to Denver and will be working for the next ~3 months. I will not be updating the blog as often since we will not be on the road for now. We will take off again in July. It is supposed to snow for the next couple days with highs in the 20's. Not exactly spring weather, but that's Colorado for you. Hopefully it will warm up after that. Hope everyone has a great spring!

Spring is Nigh

It has been almost 2 weeks since the last update, so I figured it was about time. We stayed at the Scaddan Wash camping area for another week after the last blog. We went for a ride on the 19th on a trail called Hog's Back. It was by far the most difficult and most beautiful trail we have ridden so far.

The ridge in the background is the beginning of Hog's Back. This shot was taken right before we started the ascent up to the top of the ridge. 

As you can see the trail was extremely steep with loose rock. Whit refused to attempt this particular section (I don't blame her). I rode her bike up first and then walked down to retrieve mine. This shot is just before I came up on my bike (you can see me way down at the bottom). Pictures are always deceiving, but keep in mind that I am only about 200 feet as the crow flies from the camera in this picture, but about 80 feet down in elevation - very steep.

Whit contemplating which boulders she wants to run over. 

This is the view from the top of the ridge. It was pretty hazy that day which made for some great pictures. 

Another view from the top of the ridge. You can see part of the trail near the bottom on the left of the picture.

This shot is from about halfway down the ridge. Very cool trail followed the top of the ridge with the hillsides dropping off on either side. 

We also got some good pictures of the local wildlife. We are in the desert so there is not much for Nala and Ivy to chase. Small lizards like the one above are abundant, but that's about it. It was a cool day so this one was too sluggish to run away before I could snap a shot. We hear coyotes some nights and a packrat accosted me one night when I opened the door to go outside. There are also some small birds and Whit swears she saw a rabbit. Nala and Ivy were both with her at the time and neither will confirm her story. 

We also saw Snoopy in the sky one day. No idea why a Metlife blimp was flying over the middle of the desert. Maybe going from a game in California to one in Phoenix??

We also did a pretty big hike on one of our last days at the Scaddan Wash area. After doing some research, I found a trail all the way up to the top of Cunningham mountain. Once we got there, we found it was actually a road that they had used to install radio towers at the top of the mountain. 

Cunningham is the one in the middle of the picture. You can just barely see the towers on top. 

We had not hiked any elevation in months, so this hike really beat us up. Cunningham is the tallest peak for miles around at ~3300 feet. Doesn't sound like much, but when you start at 900 feet and the trail is less than 2 miles long, it's rough. The trail was pretty much straight up the entire way with no flat spots. Needless to say we took lots of breaks. The view from the top made it all worth it though. 

I love the panorama mode on the camera.

Quartzsite is the white area in the top left of the above picture. Our bikes are parked on the road right in the middle of the picture.

After this hike a front came through and after dumping some hail and rain on us it got pretty cool for a week or so. Not much to report from that week since we didn't go out much. Oh and for those of you in the really cool weather, by cool we mean it didn't hit 70 the whole time, but was in the 60's every day. The weather warmed up a few days ago and Ivy and Nala are once again enjoying the warmth. 

We moved to the Plomosa camping area during the cool weather and is where we will be for the next week or so. Also, if anyone is wondering why we move around so much but stay in the same general area, here is an explanation of how the boondocking life works. There are lots of BLM camping areas down here in southern Arizona. Some of them are LTVA's (long term visitor area). Other's are free 14 day areas. You can stay at an LTVA all season for a nominal fee (around $180 for the season) and they provide trash service and usually have a dump station on site. A free 14 day area has no services, but you can stay for free for 14 out of every 28 days. We can go for 10 days or so on one fill up of water, so we move about every week and a half or so. When we move we usually just take care of everything that day (laundry, dump the tanks, fill propane/water, and grocery shopping). We have a fresh water carrying capacity of about 60 gallons, plus two 5 gallon jugs of drinking water. It is amazing that we can go for almost two weeks now on the amount of water that we would use in LESS THAN A DAY when we were living in the house. That includes the water that is used when we do laundry. A lot of full time RVers like us stay in RV parks all the time. RV parks range in cost from $20-$50 per night, almost like staying in a hotel. The only thing that they offer is electric and water hookups at your site (plus trash service, usually showers and laundry facilities, and usually wi-fi). With the solar system we have on the rig, we never need to plug in and only have to run the generator when we use the microwave or vacuum (which uses 1-2 gallons of gas per week with our minimal use). The dump and refill of water every week and a half costs between $5 and $14 and laundry costs about $8 every 2 weeks. Our phone has great tethering and fast service, so we have had internet almost everywhere we have stayed so far. As you can see, the RV lifestyle can be pretty inexpensive for those on a budget like us. Groceries and gas in the rig when we travel long distances are by far the biggest expenses for us. 

The rig has been holding together pretty well, so not much to report on that other than a screw up on my part. The water pump had been making some noise for a couple of days, but I figured it was just some air in one of the lines that was causing it (I was right). After taking a shower one night (but before Whit had taken hers), Whit said that the pump was really loud. I thought that the air was in the line coming from the city water connection which we had never used. I decided to open the one way valve on the connection to let the air out of the line. I opened it and a bunch of air came out before water started spraying out. It was a spring loaded one way valve so all I had to do was let it go and it should close back up. This was not the case. I let it go and water continued to spray out all over the place. I had Whit turn off the water pump and found that since the valve hadn't been used in years the gasket had dried up and deformed, so as soon as I opened it there was no way it was closing again. Whit did not get her shower that night and was none too happy about it (although the dogs were quite happy that she had finally seen the light and decided that being stinky was ok). I should have just let it go then, but instead I spent the next 2 hours trying to get it to seal and took apart way more than I should have. I finally gave up and we had dinner and went to bed. I went to the hardware store the next day and fixed it for 40 cents. It took much longer to put everything back together than it did to fix the problem once it was all back together. I will be sticking much closer to the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" from now on.

 The high today is 85 and it is supposed to be in the 80's all week, so we are going to sit back and enjoy some beach drinks even though we are far from the beach. Hope everyone is well and as excited about spring as us.