Near-Glamping in the Fort McDowell Regional Park

Yep, actually in a campground for once!

It's a convenient location for us to visit Martha's cousin at her home in nearby Fountain Hills.  Since we're not towing the CRV this trip, we're being picked up at the campground and conveyed hence to Martha's cousin's location.

The campground here is nicely laid out from what I've seen so far.  The sites are spaced nicely apart from each other and there's power and water at our site.  No sewer hookup, hence the use of the term Near-Glamping.

$40//night is the cost, not bad.  Since I was on shore power, ran the AC unit for a bit just to exercise it.

Altitude:  2011 ft.

Martha's "auntie" Carol, a close friend of the family, picked us up along with her friend Loretta to take us to Martha's cousin's home in Fountain Hills.

Drinks, then dinner at a very nice Chinese restaurant, rounded out a very nice evening.

Last day near Solomon, AZ

 A peaceful Sunday, even with two truck/tent campers (who set up farther than our existing neighbor) and a small travel trailer who set up barely within line of sight, a mile away.

Not as warm due to a strong breeze but warm enough in the mid to late afternoon to enjoy the outdoors.

A shot of the dam from its other side:

Sunset was ok:

Sunrise on Monday, January 19 was pretty good one to wake up to:

The plan is to leave here this Monday morning and drive to the McDowell Regional State Park near Fountain Hills, AZ.  We're visiting a cousin of Martha's for a couple of days.

Dispersed Camping near Solomon, AZ

Martha and I left Hot Well Dunes this morning at 9:15.  

By 10:30 AM we were at a dispersed camping area managed by the BLM.  Located off of Haekel Road and just south of US Highway 70, to the east of the small town of Solomon.

Only a pickup truck pulling a small utility trailer in the area.  We picked a spot at least a quarter mile away from him.

We'd left because we thought the schweinehunde from the previous post would be increasing in numbers and sought to avoid their annoying company back at Hot Well Dunes.  

The new campsite is wide open terrains with a pretty good view:

Mount Graham

After lunch, I rode out on Yagi to explore the area.  I went to the end of Hackel Road, along which all the obvious camp spots are located.  

Found a cool looking dam.  It's the San Simon Barrier Structure Dam.  It shows on Google as Sam Simon but I think that's an error.  After all, it's the San Simon River that's dammed by it.

Just past the dam is the Southern Pacific Rail Line which transits the San Simon Valley.  I ran out of road at this point so I returned to the dam which I found quite interesting.

I think it looked pretty cool:

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing in the gazebo under bright sunshine and temperatures in the mid-60s with a slight breeze.

So far, I'm liking this place.  No OHV a-holes, no schweinehunde, and great weather 

Altitude: 3104 ft

T-Dub'ing at Hot Well Dunes

In spite of the schweinehunde (two rigs basically crowded a rig from NY, who left today), today was a pretty good day.

The mentality of the asswipes who crowd out others by parking right next to them baffles me in its inconsiderate stupidity.  Oh well, IIWII and given a chance most people disappoint.

Regardless, Martha and I got in a mid-morning dip in one of the hot tubs without anyone else around.  The afternoon is when the crowds gather to hog the tubs it seems.

After lunch, I left Martha to her book and stitching and went for a ride to get away from the schweinehunde.

I motored out to Dripping Spring, about six miles from camp.  The trail was ok but very rocky towards the end!  No wonder the bracket broke on Scarlett's windshield the last time I was here!

Yagi handled the conditions with her usual aplomb.

Here's a view of the valley from near the base of Javeline Peak where Dripping Spring is located.

Javelina Peak

Another windmill driven pump slowly decaying, replaced by solar powered pump.

Returning towards camp, I detoured to get some pics in the main dunes area with its cliff sides.

One can see the campsites from the top of the dunes above.

Another angle on the campsite:

We've new neighbors in campsite 12, a bit noisy with their dirt bikes and in the habit of letting their dog run loose.  Martha used "the voice" to get them to call back the dog as it wandered into our campsite; I'm hoping they'll take it as a sign we don't want to socialize.

On a different and bothersome note:  

We were woken by loud bass-driven techno "music" blasting from 2 OHVs that raced in and out of the area near campsite 14.   The OHVs were of course driving with high beam light bars on and multi-colored LED lights whips waving in the air.

This was shortly before midnight, after two runs a few minutes apart they stopped and went to sleep.  So at least the annoyance was short-lived.

We're figuring the 5th wheel rig that showed up Thursday, was the placeholder, staking out the large open area near site 14.  They parked their rig almost nose to nose to the class C from NY to drive them away successfully.  Now more of their gang have shown up and I expect more to come by Saturday night.

We'll be leaving Saturday morning.  I foresee nothing but trouble and the BLM won't or can't do a thing.