Down the Road from Dogpound

This morning started like most down here in the desert, I was up and out for a walkabout, but today it was just a short one, enough to see a few favourite spots and gather a picture or two for the journal. I still haven't figured out how to actually make blogger make paragraphs yet so the pictures serve as spacers to keep the words from all jumbling together.

This place outside of Bouse is probably my favourite spot from a desert rambling point of view, there is just so much variety here and so many hills and washes to explore it would take an entire winter to see it all.

So that said, we will be back here, but there are other places to see, and trails to wander, plus we have been here for 14 days and although we haven't yet run out of water and our tanks aren't full, that is probably not far in the future so we headed into the local RV Park, and dumped the tanks that needed dumping, and filled those that needed filling, and pointed Dogpound Anywhere southward.

Whoa, that is a kind of crooked picture, but it is what it is. We have changed deserts, left the Sonoran Desert and moved across the Colorado River into the Mojave Desert, to a familar spot to many, alongside American Girl Wash. We will call California home for a while now, although we can still jump back across the border into Yuma, Arizona for cheaper fuel and most of our shopping, although one day we might run west to El Centro just to exercise our Costco membership.

Pretty decent sunset to welcome us to our new digs tonight. The little screen in the bottom hints that if it works out I might have a time-lapse of the sunset as well. But while I am waiting for that to happen I thought I might make a comment on the roads we have encountered on our journey south this year. Now I frequent some forums that folks using the Alaska Highway, the Cassiar, and the Dempster chat on all year round, but especially the summer. Now the Alaska Highway crosses some difficult terrain up in the Yukon, muskeg and permafrost so it has a reputation for having some horrendous frost heaves on it, and I can vouch the veracity of those claims. But it seems to me that the highways down in the States suffer from some kind of heat rash, that is equally as hard on vehicles. We have driven some that had us hurling up and down, lurching from pothole to pothole, or heat blister to heat blister. It appears that our American hosts suffer from the same kind of infrastructure deficit we Canadians do. Just makes me curious where we are spending our tax dollars cause I am sure way back when, we paid lower taxes and we had better roads. All that said Highway 78 out of Blythe heading towards Brawley, a lonely two lane highway was pretty near the best road we have been on since heading down the road from Dogpound.

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

Update Hummers, Vets, Moving on!

I know I am not very regular with this blog, but I find we are not doing all the exciting things we did when we first started traveling. Most days we do regular stuff, like eat, drink and chill, interspersed by a few photo ops for me. I have probably driven all my Facebook fans nuts with hummingbird pictures but when you are laid back in your recliner and they come and set on the end of your camera lens, what are you supposed to do.

Along about the 23rd of January we headed into Quartzsite and checked out Bloggerfest. Shadow Moss had set it up and about 10-12 folks showed up so we met a few folks and put faces to names and blogs.

Other than that burst of excitement we have just been enjoying the weather and chilling at one of our  favourite spots out near Bouse, Arizona. We run into Parker from time to time to pick up groceries or do some laundry but other than that we haven't been going far.

That said, our two four legged buddies Max and Maya have been having some problems so we have had to take them up to see the vet. Max was diagnosed with a mass last summer so he is on some pain meds to control his discomfort, and Dr. Wendy at Paws and Claws in Lake Havasu City has put him on some prednisone to deal with his difficulty breathing. seems to be working. Maya must have been  a little jealous at all the attention Max was getting so her stomach was bothering her and so she got an appointment to have that little problem looked at and some medicine to fix her up.

Max

Maya

The folks at Paws and Claws take a picture of their patients for their records but both Max and Maya are kind of fussy about their social media presence and found the pics they took unflattering so asked me to send these up to them for their files

Max is on a Schedule III controlled substance so his prescription for that which Dr. Wendy increased was interesting to fill. Unlike home where the vet actually fills it here you take it to a regular pharmacy and they fill it. So Brenda is now Max's Guardian and she controls his medicine, well she controls all of their medicines in any case. They almost take more than me now.

Friday, the 7th, we packed our tent and moved camp, down to Ogilby Road, west of Yuma, on the California side. We have a few packages coming into the Amazon Locker here in Yuma next week and we are hoping to visit some friends from Dease Lake and Vancouver Island while we are here, and who knows if we hang long enough, maybe Phyllis, who folks who have followed us for the long haul will know had a place in Yuma where we stayed a long while ago. I will have to kick our aerial surveillance division into gear as rumour has it there may be a couple of other folks we know in the area as well, but maybe they have moved on.

Sunrise January 30, 2020

What's Up

Since my last entry we have just been chilling here along Ogilby Road. The weather has not been the greatest, a little windy, a little cool, but the last couple of days it seems to have turned around and maybe winter along the Mexican border is almost over.

New Years Day we joined our friends from Dease Lake, Bill and Margaret at the Texas Roadhouse to celebrate Bill's birthday, he was a New Years baby way back in the middle of the great depression, so you do the math. That said he looks like he hasn't aged a day since we first met back 10 or 15 years ago.

The next day we had visitors out to rig, Skip and Jean are staying over in the Pilot Knob LTVA and ran over to chew the fat with us and see our new outfit. Hopefully we cross trails with them later in the winter again.

Then it was off to Mexico with Bill and Margaret, while Bill visited his dentist the rest of us wandered the town. Brenda got some puffers for Rebecca, and I got my Sunday go to meeting boots all polished up for Ryan and Lisa's wedding later in March this year. We stopped and grabbed some lunch at a pretty good little restaurant down there and then while the rest of them headed off to grab a spot in the line to cross back over the border I ran back and bought a bushel of shrimp from the Sea of Cortez. Despite Donny's threats the border was still open and we got back on the north side without issue.

Since then we have just hung out here and done the regular stuff like hitting the laundromat and Wally World to restock our larder. We needed to reprovision as we are heading towards Quartzsite tomorrow, we think, to join a group of folks who have rigs similar to ours for a little rally.

I have been hanging out shooting Hummingbirds and the odd sunrise.

A dogfight at the feeder

Tough little guys to catch sitting still

Sunrise over the Cargo Muchacho Mountains

The Eve of New Years Eve

A week or more has passed since I bored you with our adventures. We are still up on Ogilby Road enjoying the serenity and peace and quiet. Our nearest neighbours are 3 or 400 yards away from us, and pretty quiet folks as well. Across the road pandemonium reigns supreme as that is where the folks who have brought their quads, side by sides, and sand rails to tear around the Imperial Sand Dunes are camped. There must be a few hundred rigs, toy haulers and car trailers parked on the East side of Ogilby Road where they stage to head out into the dunes.

Lots of Rigs

Imperial Sand Dunes

Earlier this week we were over to the gravel pit, north of Yuma, where our friends Ron, Edie, Bill and Margaret are camped for a visit, and then on Christmas Day Bill and Margaret came over here to Dogpound Anywhere for Christmas Dinner. Brenda of course went all out so we had a bird along with all the usual trimmings. The wind has been howling these last few days and we have been hiding out in the rig and catching up with some trips to Yuma to pick up some stuff we needed.

One day we stopped by Rockies Pizzeria to satisfy that craving, what a wonderful pizza those guys concocted for us, if not the best ever, certainly in the top 3.

Of course we had to do all those usual things, like laundry, and we combined that with a trip over to Don and Angela's to pick up Brenda's Christmas present and some other things Amazon had dropped off with them. One of those things was a new phone for me, my old one decided it had had enough and quit charging so it died a slow painful death. I ordered it online and the Apple elves managed to get it delivered in one day so it was waiting with the rest of our packages. 

Today was a mixed bag, this morning I headed over to Gray Well, a rest stop just to the west of Ogilby Road where you can drop off your garbage and fill up with water. I have a bladder I have carried around with us for the last ten years or so and it once again was pressed into duty.

Water hauling

After hauling a load of water we once again headed for Foothills and a lunch date with Don and Angela at a local Chinese place called Sesames.

One morning the wind was down a little so I kicked the Mavic up so I could give you a look around our little slice of desert. It is pretty gray and not many trees but it is quiet and the hummingbirds are buzzing us constantly and that is the kind of spot we like to be in.

The sunsets aren't to bad either.

In Search of a Canine MASH Unit.

Maya has had an ear infection that Brenda has been treating for about 10 days. She develop a swelling in her ear that made us decide she needed to see a vet before Christmas. We started off looking around Quartzsite without much luck although the vet in Parker could see her after we got the appointment organised it turned out that vet was in Parker, Colorado, a long drive from Western Arizona. We tried Blythe but they couldn't do anything till mid next week, so we figured we needed to head for somewhere bigger. Yuma was our next choice of spots and they have 4 or 5 vets but as we got hooked up and heading down the road Brenda called them all and none of them had time yesterday to squeeze us in.

I guess through the miracle of social media Brenda got in touch with our own vet back home. Heather Van Esch from the Cremona Vet Clinic gave her some advice and a few tips on what to look for and some possible treatments.

Meanwhile I found a Truck/RV Wash in Ehrenberg, Arizona so we pulled in their before we crossed the border into California to wash some of the road grime off of our rig. It is a cash only outfit so I had enough to get them started then I ran over to the Flying J to raid a bank machine for the balance. It wasn't the greatest job, but they did get the big lumps off so it is better than it was. After that we headed through Blythe and then south towards the Dunes and Ogilby Road. We found a little spot just east of the road on Road 707 where we got ourselves set up. It was a little cloudy and cool yesterday, great day for traveling, but the sunset was pretty nice.

Dogpound Anywhere photobombing a great sunset.

Today we got up early and headed into Yuma to set up a blockade at the Ironwood Vet Clinic. They opened at 8:00 and Brenda was ready to knock the door down to get Maya looked at. We pulled into the parking lot about 7:00AM and one of the tech's was just getting out of her car. After hearing our sad story she took us in and we filled out all the paperwork and prepared to wait till they could squeeze us in. Fortunately an early morning surgery they had scheduled was late showing up so Maya was first up. Turns out Heather had nailed the diagnosis all the way from down the road from Dogpound and even the treatment, so we have some prednisone to deal with the hematoma in Maya's ear and the infection that was there last week is all cleared up so it is just a matter of time till all is right in her world again.

The vet visit out of the way we headed over to Walmart to re-stock our larder, we were running low on ice cream and that is critical component to our well being while we are down here. Picked up some other stuff and then headed back to rig.

It was a beautiful day today so we read a little, sunned a little, snoozed a little and then Max and I took a walk in the desert which brings us to now. No excitement planned over the next few days but who knows what tomorrow will bring.

California in our Rear View Mirror

Sunrise at Ogilby Road

Sunday morning we packed out stuff and headed west, well a little north and then west across the Imperial Dunes. We were heading to Borrego Springs a place we have never been. We pulled into the Arco station on Highway 78 just as we turned west to Borrego and dumped our tanks and filled with fresh water. They have four dump lanes here but only one was working properly so things were a little hectic on a Sunday afternoon. Folks were filling their tanks with the water at the dumpsite but I am always a little leery about those taps and went looking for some marked "potable". They were well away from the dump lanes. Our rig has a big tank so it takes a while to fill it and it is always nice not to have to entertain all the folks behind you in the line so out of the way is good.

After dumping and filling we headed west for Rockhouse Road. We have heard about this spot from other RV'ers and figured it was a good place to spend some time. Once we got there we found that a lot of other folks who had heard about Borrego Springs had also heard about Rockhouse Road, We rolled up the rolled three or four miles until we were long gone from phone coverage and deep in the valley before we found a spot almost big enough to turn our rig around. After tearing up the road surface and then having to fill the ruts we had made in the sand we trooped our way back to the area where everyone else was parked. Another look confirmed what we had figured on our first cruise through, there were way more rigs and way less space than we are used to. A command decision was called for and a conference called, it was decided that America's most populous state was way to crowded for Dogpound Anywhere so we headed into town spun around Christmas Circle and then waved adios to Borrego Springs. We found a spot on a cliff just above Ocotillo Wells to spend the night.

The view from our doorstep last night

This morning we loaded up and headed for Indio this morning, where we met up with my Uncle Brent and Aunt Helen and enjoyed a great breakfast and then headed back to their place for a visit. It was good to catch up and Brenda had a jar of Buffalo Creek Ranch Saskatoon jam that was made from berries on Uncle Brents place, but we forgot to leave it, so I guess he will just have to believe me when I say it was great.

Aunt Helen and Uncle Brent taken by Brenda

After our visit we headed back east and climbed out of the Coachella Valley and headed for an old favourite spot. Nice to be here the nearest rig is pretty near a half mile away and the view is great. Good to be back in the land of Arizona sunsets and sunrises.

Not another rig in sight

Ogilby Road Sunset

California Dreaming

We headed out of Gila Bend a few days back and made for the California line. After getting through the traffic congestion at the Fruit Police stop on the border we made our way out to Grays Well Road and exited the freeway for a moment then headed back east to Ogilby Road. The overpass at Ogilby Road is having some work done so it is closed so there is no exit from the westbound lanes. We found us a quiet little spot north up that road about 4 odd miles and got set up for a stay here.

Blue and I took a spin looking for some folks that Ivan had told us were in the neighbourhood and met Skip and Jean and then Wandering Willy and had a visit with those good folks.

The next day our friends Mike and Shaunna Lewis and their horses/mule and well-trained mutts joined us here.

We headed south of the border to Los Algodones to order some glasses for Brenda and I and a new sign for Mike and Shaunna. Along the way, we managed to find a lunch and a Margarita and a Cerveso or two. Our glasses wouldn't be ready till the next day so we decided to pop back down the next day to have lunch and a few more Margarita's as well as make another run into Walmart for some necessary supplies.

Camp dogs

Back Yard

Lewis's sign

Algodones is always a great place to visit, the people are friendly, and so accommodating and very enterprising, it is nice to see, although the culture is a little different than north of the border. Good food, good music, and apparently good Margaritas.

Back in camp we enjoyed chewing the fat around the campfire both morning and night and were sad to see Lewis's pull out to start their journey north to the northern ranges this morning. Happy Anniversary you two.

Beginning the long journey home

Sunrises and sunsets in Arizona are spectacular and change so quickly, these two were taken with moments of each other this morning.

They are both panorama's made up of 3-5 separate shots but the colours are pretty much straight out of the camera. And this last one was taken just a short while later. Later in the afternoon Ivan himself came by for a little chin wag.