Thursday, December 26, 2019

Boondocking at the Willcox Playa State Wildlife Area, AZ

Displaced from the Pancho Villa State Park near Columbus, NM this morning and went north about 32 miles on NM 11 to a Thunder Lube Oil Change location.

Got Umarang's 5000 mile oil change interval and filter replaced only 266 miles over the 5K mile interval requirement per the maintenance schedule.  Didn't get synthetic oil though so it all cost me $39.19.  Not too bad.  Umarang was at 60,266 miles and we bought her with 20,240 miles on her odometer back on October 7, 2016.  So a bit over 40k miles in a bit over 3 years, not too bad.

After the oil change it was driving time on I-10 westbound till I got to Lordsburg where google maps decided that instead of staying on the interstate, it routed me through Apache Pass Road, through 30 miles of muddy dirt road (where Uma swung her "hips" occasionally, like a hootchie-kootchie dancer) till I finally found AZ 186 (paved highway) and the Willcox Playa State Wildlife Area!

Never trust the GPS!  I'd forgotten that rule and now Uma is quite mud covered.

Still, I made it here and its just a parking lot for the WMA next door.  Good enough for an overnight stay of boondocking.



The Sand Crane viewing area was a 2.4 mile round trip per the sign so I walked to it, only to find the "lake" was dried up and so, no Sand Cranes to be photographed!

Though sunny, the wind was evident and made for cooling conditions.  Which makes sense as I returned to the URRV to find there was a Winter Advisory for this area.  Possibility of snow of all things!  Accumulation is supposed to be zero so it should be OK.

The plan is to go to Vail, AZ (SE of Tucson) sometime tomorrow to pick up a package sent to me by my loving wife Martha.  She knows a teacher at her school who was home for Christmas in Vail with her parents and arranged permissions for me to come by to pick up the box.

After that, I think I'll head southwards a bit if possible.  We'll see.

Tonight's sunset, meh.


2 comments:

Oz said...

Nice to have a wife with connections. That worked out well. Sorry no cranes.

RichardM said...

Are you using Google Maps as your GPS or a dedicated device? I’ve been surprised how many times Google wants to route along the shortest route instead of the “best” route. We use a Garmin RV gps along with Waze.