Day Trip to Chiricahua National Monument and Now Boondocking by Dragoon Mountains

Yesterday, January 15 

We drove down in Lori and Chris Z's Jeep Gladiator to the Chiricahua National Monument by way of Apache Pass Road.

I'd visited this monument before on my own back in 2021: LINK

It was chilly and windy with snow in the shady parts of the monument's tour route.  Very tough to get good shots of the "standing rocks" as the Apache called them as the road is very close to some of them and there's lots of trees in the way.

Organ Pipe Rock Formation

From the Sugarloaf Overlook 

I took more pictures on the previous trip if you wish to see more via the link above.

We stayed basically on pavement on the way back after ascertaining the boondocking spots listed by iOverlander were not "usable".

Today, January 16

A warmer day with some wind but quite nice.

We displaced from the Indian Bread BLM Rec Area and headed west towards Benson, AZ to do chores and pickup Amazon stuff from a locker there along with laundry day.

Chores done, we headed south on AZ 80 towards Tombstone and are now boondocking in the Dragoon Mountains area of the Coronado National Forest.  Its one of my usual stopping stops in the snow bird tour.  This time we snagged one of the larger spots not too far from the entrance.

Lori and Chris Z. joined us in the afternoon after doing their own chores along the way.

Mid-Afternoon lighting

Golden hour lighting

Tombstone and its reenactment of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral is on the schedule, perhaps tomorrow.

Here's a couple of sunset pics courtesy of Chris Z:

Last Day at Hot Well Dunes and First Day at Indian Bread BLM Rec Area

We were joined by Chris and Lori Z. of BlazeOurWay fame the last 3 days that we were camped at the Hot Well Dunes.  It was good to meet up with these two again since Fall of last year.

The weather, which was chilly, precluded much riding.  Just as well since we didn't have the requisite orange flags one is supposed to fly in the dunes area.  The BLM rangers even came by to give us this information.

Javelina Peak 

Stewie and Umarang

Our camp host representative:

On Monday, January 13, we displaced to the Indian Bread BLM Rec Area, doing chores in nearby Willcox, AZ along the way.  (Dumping of tanks, filling up of water tanks, replenishing propane).

We went through two regular weeks of propane usage in one due to cold conditions at night which saw temperatures in the low 20s!  The feed tube from the fresh water tank froze as usual, but Chris Z. had some pipe insulation and experience with such matters.  Once I located the right tube (all these years, I had the wrong one in my mind), the insulation remedied the frozen tube condition!  

Lori Z. picked out the sites at Indian Bread BLM, good sites for our two rigs next to some nice rock piles.

Shot from above Stewie's Cab

Just before dinner, we had some nice views of the moon as it rose for the night:

Next to us, a different rock pile presented interesting silhouettes.  Can you see the bear sitting on its haunches?

Tuesday, January 14.

In the morning, I decided to climb up the rock piles to the front and side of the campsite.

After very carefully descending from this rockpile, I went up the one to the side of the campsite.

Standing near the Bear Profile rock.

Lori Z. was kind enough to take pictures of me at the top of the rock pile:

photo courtesy Lori Z.

photo courtesy Lori Z.

More to follow, a tour of nearby Fort Bowie is planned for tomorrow I think.

First Camping for 2025

Martha and I left the overcrowded cesspool that is the Metro Denver area on Sunday of this week.  We were racing to catch a narrow weather window before snow threatened to close down our route through New Mexico.

We left these conditions, not too bad really but cold:

We got our wish, dry roads all the way into New Mexico.  We ran out of daylight though and had to find our way to our chosen county park campground in the dark!  

It would have to wait till sunrise on Monday for me to see what the campground looked like:

Monday was spent driving through New Mexico and into Arizona using the I-10 Super Slab.

Hot Well Dunes was pretty much empty in terms of campers.  We got a nice site for Uma:

We checked out the hot tubs, no one around!

The weather would be overcast/cloudy and colder than normal.  Tuesday was spent on repair chores such as fixing the ground points for the front rack lights, broken fender mounts on the trailer.

Of course, it was time for a mishap.  Our second visit to the hot tubs Tuesday afternoon resulted in me carelessly getting my Pixel 4a phone wet!  Dammit.

The marketing specs say the phone is IP68 water resistant.  Supposedly you can put it into at 3ft of water for 30 minutes with no issues.  My pixel 4a didn't survive 5 seconds of foot deep water.  

A bit of a bummer ending for Tuesday but it finally got me off the fence about getting an upgrade.

Wednesday, Jan 8 

Rode in some bone chilling temperatures to the village of Thatcher, located west of Safford, AZ.  There was a Verizon store there and I'd placed an online order for a replacement phone:  A Samsung Galaxy S24+.

The phone was ready for pickup by the time I motored up, less than an hour later I was all set up and driving back to camp.  Some really strong wind gusts added to the fun as I drove Scarlett.  I think I would have rather spent the morning relaxing warm in the VRRV instead but one must pay the price for careless stupidity eh?

Here's the first pics taken with the S24+:

The above are in the default .jpg format, I've seen switched the camera setting to shoot in RAW as well.

Spent the rest of the day configuring the new phone, getting data from the old phone when it would cooperate with me.  The old phone sometimes displays correctly, but you have to use an external keyboard (courtesy of Martha) to navigate around.  I might send the pixel in for repairs, not sure.  Right now, it won't recognize the SIM card so no phone functions, the display only works half the time and its recognition of finger input is crap.

Hopefully it won't be as windy tomorrow and things are supposed to get a bit warmer starting Thursday.  Sunny conditions should help a lot.

Happy New Year and 2024 in Pictures

Here's hoping 2025 is a great year for you and yours!

Another trip around the sun, to paraphrase the title of a Jimmy Buffett song.  

Here's a compilation of photos from this past year, 2024.

Motorcycle mileages:

Brigitta (1987 BMW R80): 103370, 410 miles. up from last year's 231 miles, but still a sad state of affairs.

Yagi (2006 Yamaha TW200): 22110, 1954 miles. down from last year's 2295 miles.

Scarlett (2014 Ural Patrol): 1189 km or 713 miles, down from last year's 1187 miles.  She'd been relegated to just hometown driving.  Now, she'll be the spare when the Honda CRV isn't camping with me.  Heir and a spare, don't ya know.

Days Camping:

178 days (49% of year), down from last year's 240 days (65% of year).  Downtime caused mostly by Yagi being deadlined for a bit and also being home to attend medical appointments and such.

Umarang the VRRV:  11906 miles, up from last year's 10438 miles.