Road Trip

We figured we should head down Why way so on Friday, we packed our outfit and headed east. The plan was to stop at a park in Gila Bend that we have frequented before, it is a nice place, well set up and best of all it has a great laundry facility that is open 23 hours a day, and we needed to do a few loads, before we headed south to Ajo and Why. Thought we might see a different scene as well for our camera's to shoot.

That shot was from the side of our rig after the sun had set. The bright lights on the right are the Calgon Carbon Corporation. Before sundown we went into town to a Sofia's Mexican place, a small local place, been there for 23 years and by the quality of the food and the service we received they shouldn't have any problem making it another 23 years. Somewhere along the way someone pointed out to us that the border crossing into Mexico at Lukeville was closed and had been for a couple of weeks. They have an invasion going on there, reports of lots of folks jumping the border, cutting down the walls and fences. Mainstream media, says maybe 10,000 a day, now we know those guys sometimes get the numbers wrong, but if it is even 10% of that number sitting out in the desert along the route those folks will take to get anywhere doesn't sound like the smartest plan.

But the sun still rises in the morning so I got out, walked a little, shot a little sunrise and then we got our laundry caught up. Once that was done I took a run north up to Aqua Caliente, looking for a spot that might come in handy another time. Different country up there, but it might work some other time.

Early in the day we figured we should head over east towards Picket Post an old favourite spot and hole up there for a couple of weeks over the Christmas season. But we'll sleep on that decision before we hook up and head that way. Meanwhile if the sun comes up, we all know it will slip over the horizon in the evening and if we are lucky we will catch it at an opportune moment and save that image for our old age.

When we got going this morning and looked at the long term weather for Picket Post, it seemed that we would have to break out our coats and long pants for much of the days over there, and things down along the border looked not so bad with that in mind. But a little caution was needed, and a quick text told us we knew where there was a vacant spot and maybe even some hungry neighbours that would be glad to see us and our sugar supply back in their neighbourhood. So we lifted the jacks and headed back west looking for warm temperatures and friendly neighbours.

Staying at Home

Eventually I will get back to the beginning and explain but for now let me tell you what is happening in Dogpound Anywhere's wanderings about Arizona.

Last time I updated you was back in early February so really I guess this has become a monthly blog, rather than a daily one as it was in its early days. We had just moved down to Ogilby Road and I was curious about who was still in the area, as it turned out Ivan had moved on, Willy was back in Bouse where we left him their spots were empty. We found our usual spot here empty and moved right back into the same tracks we had been in a year or so ago, when Brenda broke her ankle.

Up in the top right corner there is a small black blur, that is a bat that escaped the soup pot in Wuhan!

This spot is nice from a couple of different perpectives, it is pretty isolated, not many neighbours, and yet close to Yuma, Arizona, with all the benefits of a big city except for a Costco and there is one of those 40 odd miles to the West in El Centro, California.

We gathered up all our Amazon packages at the local GNC/Amazon Hub so that was out of the way. We also got a couple of visits in with our friends Bill and Margaret Klepachek from Dease Lake, British Columbia, one at their spot in Foothills and one out at our camp in the desert.

Wandering Willy and Ivan and Hailey wandered back into the neighbourhood area and set up just a few hundred yards north of us. They joined us for a couple of morning tea fires and one evening Ivan sent a message over to alert us to a slow moving critter coming our way.

Desert Tortoise

I took this shot with a big telephoto and cropped it in quite tightly. Don't want to disturb these guys as they live in harsh environment and don't need the additional stress of being in a photoshoot. After a couple of minutes of watching him making his way across the desert we left him to his own devices. Hope he makes it safely wherever he was heading.

We were watching the weather over at our next stop and it was a little cooler than we like so we actually stuck around here on Ogilby Road a week longer than we had planned. That allowed us to connect with some new friends Ernie and Debbie and we shared a couple of happy hours with them as well as a trip south of the border to old Mexico for a little lunch.

These fellows were regular visitors both day and night over our camp so we were always entertained with them and their compadres in the jets and Ospreys zooming by.

Eventually the weather over east smartened up and we lifted the jacks and headed that way. We stopped at Holt's Shell in Gila Bend to dump and fill our water and fuel tanks, then over to Casa Grande and into the Blue Beacon Truck Wash to get our rig all shined up. They did a great job. Just a note: We heard that Holt's Shell in Gila Bend has been bought by Pilot and will be razed sometime this spring and a new Pilot built on the site. As RV'ers we will miss Holt's and their spotlessly clean lot and RV Dump complete with potable water.

Once we got her all shined up we headed for our old haunts at Picket Post. Our usual spot was taken so we moved over to what I will call the horse camp and got set up there in a pretty decent spot. A day or so after we set up over the hill came Kim and Wendy for a visit with us. They spent a couple of days there, we ate some Mexican food, some stir fry, and a trip into town for some more Mexican. After a day or two they picked up their chairs and headed on down the road. By this time that pesky little virus was rearing it's head in the collective consciousness of the globe but we were still able to enjoy some social distancing in a pretty nice spot.

Self Isolation Picket Post Style

We spent a nice couple of weeks here enjoying our beautiful surroundings.

The view from our doorstep

Not to shabby a spot

Playing with focus stacking

I alluded to the looming health crisis a couple of times throughout this blog, but it was always in the back of our mind. We although, out in the boondocks, have pretty good connectivity, so we were following it closely. We love our time down in the sunbelt but we were starting to wonder whether our hosts were actually giving the proper amount of seriousness to this Corona Virus issue. I hate to say it but, at least in our opinion, we were not seeing the kind of changes here that we were hearing about back home in Canada. I contacted our Health Insurance company and eventually they confirmed that from their perspective we were good from an insurance outlook. Even with that assurance we were watching the roads north for a good weather window to appear. Now we had a little complication, our spot here was beautiful and perfect but the trail into it needed a couple of dry days before we would be able to move out to hard surfaced roads.

When those dry days came we jumped, and moved out, that also coincided with a short window of decent roads heading towards the Land just North of Summer that we call home, so once we got those wheels rolling we just kept them going. We got over to Constellation Park in Wickenberg the first night and then just decided to head out and see where we got the next day, weather dependant. We had our overwatch, Brent, watching the weather systems and the roads were good, traffic pretty light so we made it north of Salt Lake City to the Cabella's at Farmington. Thanks for the spot Cabella's and we'll be sure to do some business with you on our next trip as we are self isolating as much as we can and didn't want to come in and wander around your store.

The next morning we rolled out with the intention of getting across the Medicine Line in Coutts, Alberta, and that is exactly what we did. It was a longish drive, and the wait at the border went on for an additional 2.5 hours so we ended up stopping just 18 kilometres north at Milk River.

The next morning, early we rolled north to Dogpound, stopping once for fuel in Ft. McLeod, and nothing else. Matt had put a couple of things in our fridge and we were packing a bunch of groceries in the trailer so we were good from that perspective.

Once we got home, as international travellers, we were asked to self isolate for 14 days, so that is where we are right now. Day 7 is behind us and we have no signs of infection so far. It is a little odd being out here on the farm, life looks normal, until you turn on the computer, or the TV.

It will be interesting to say the least to see whether our decision to run north was a wise one, from this viewpoint anyway, we are happy with it, there are folks up here who are not taking this threat serious but not in nearly the same numbers we were seeing down south, but then it is ten days later and things might have changed there as well.

Until next time, stay safe, or as the kids say #staythefuckhome

Where Have We Been

Well we pulled out of our last spot a couple weeks ago and headed back to our old stomping grounds around Maricopa. We spent a night at Gila Bend filling what needed filling and emptying what needed emptying and then invaded a friends yard in Thunderbird Farms.

Brenda had an appointment with her Doc back north of the Medicine Line so I fired up the old Buick and dropped her at Sky Harbor and she was off with Westjet for the northern ranges. Once she was on her way to pups and I were on our own for almost a week so we spent a little time wandering the desert, hitting the mill down the road to restock our firewood supply and of course a visit to Costco to pick up a few necessities.

After a couple of day of moochdocking at Lorrie and Trish's place it was time to hit the road. I headed to an old favourite spot east of Gold Canyon near Picket Post mountain. I can sit and watch this mountain all day as it is constantly changing throughout the day.

Picket Post Mountain

We didn't spend the whole week watching the mountain though, we did take a spin down the Ray Road and back around through Christmas, Az to Globe. Lots of cool scenery on that scenic highway.

Queen Creek Bridge

Cool Cactus

 The moon was hanging in the sky most afternoons and I tried to capture it without a lot of success.

Daytime Moon 

And of course it is Arizona so there were pretty nice sunsets

Brenda came back a week or so ago and then she had some Calmare treatments for her CRPS scheduled for this week, so each day we ran into Gilbert and got that out of the way. To bad this treatment is not available back home as it seems to deal with her nerve pain quite well.

We did get to watch the full moon rising, It was a combination of a Blue Moon, a Super Moon, and the next morning was a full lunar eclipse so it ended with a Blood Moon. January's moon is called a Wolf Moon and February is a Snow Moon so I guess this must be a Snow Wolf Moon. Not much snow around here but I still remember what it looks like.

Blood Moon

This morning we hooked the truck up and wandered our way down through Florence, Coolidge, Casa Grande and here we are back in Gila Bend catching up on laundry and tank management before wandering a little farther west to see some friends from back in Canada.