Heading South after a Visit with Blazeourway's Lori and Chris Z.

 Martha and I spent almost a whole week visiting with Lori and Chris Z. in Meadview Arizona where they have a base of operations. 

Here's a picture of a mockingbird that spent some time on a bush near my last campsite at the McDowell Regional Park campground: 

During our time visiting with Chris and Lori, we meant the new addition to their home, a rescue puppy terrier called Pinky. 

The weather wasn't really conducive to ridng as it was just cool enough to be a nuisance even in the full sunlight.  So we did some chores, basically hung out with Chris and Lori, and just caught up with each other's lives. 

The main chore was helping to almost finish the installation of baseboard in several rooms of their home.

Lori cutting baseboard to fit....

Lori, Chris and Pinky beside their new truck

Which will eventually replace Stewie, their overlander vehicle.

Today, I left them to start driving south in the VRRV while Lori took Martha to Las Vegas to meet up with a neighborhood friend for a few days before she flies home to Colorado. 

I drove perhaps three and a half hours or so to a BLM dispersed camping location south of Lake Havasu City, Arizona. There's still a fair amount of RVs and Camping rigs in the three dispersed camping areas near this city but I found a nice spot nonetheless. 

Tonight sunset was pretty good, I'm glad to be on the road again. 

Mid-60s for temperature today, a little warmer tomorrow.

Altitude: 1194 ft.

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.

Still at Hot Well Dunes

Yesterday, Wednesday January 14

Pretty much a do nothing day, the highlight of which was a long soak in the hot tub nearest our campsite.

It was a little breezy as well, encouraging one to simply hang out in the gazebo.

Today, Thursday January 15

Another sunny day with temperatures in the low 60s but at least not as breezy.  After a relaxed morning and a hearty lunch, I went riding the local area with Yagi.

Some meandering on deep sand trails later , I found the small pond that I believe is created from the water pumped out of the well.  The water drains constantly from the hot tubs you see, and the water collects perhaps a mile downstream.

I found my way back to the main road and exited the rec area to get a picture the windmill nearby used to run a water pump back in the day.  

This is the windmill back in 2023:

2023

Today I found the windmill and tower gone.  The solar panel remains press powering the pump that is apparently sending water to a square cement structure nearby.  

Oh well.

I rode back into the rec area and meandered about the small bush-covered dunes parallel to the north side of the main access road.

Surprisingly, there were still at least 3 open campsites: 3,5 and 7.

I wandered over to near the base of the small cliffside area where the big dunes are located atop of.

Can you spot the metal cross I showed you in the last post?  Look along the top edge of the cliff....

Ok, here's a 10x zoom view of it:

Some more slow meandering and soon I was getting close to my campsite.  Only to find this numbskull schweinehund who'd decided to park his rig between two designated campsites!  Yep, less than 50ft away.

The F*ck Off flag was hung up immediately of course:

A sour note to end what had been a nice ride.  Oh well, schweinehund can't help being schweinehund I guess.

A big fifth wheel rig showed up later and parked seemingly nose to nose with the class C in campsite 14.  I assume they were friends.  It's getting crowded here.

Boondocking at Hot Well Dunes

 It took about 4 hrs for us to drive from Elephant Butte to the Hot Well Dunes Recreation Area in Arizona.

We transited through Hatch, NM enroute.  

RV Man

The place was nearly empty when we arrived but would soon see other rigs show up later.  Still, we had an opportunity for a good long soak in one of the cement hot tubs to ease weary muscles from the driving of late.

Sunny and in the low 60s for a high in terms of temperature.

Camping near the hot tubs since we don't have a towed vehicle.

Altitude: 3461, we woke to 31° F so not too bad but we had the cat propane heater running since early morning keeping things warm inside the VRRV.

As Martha relaxed in the late afternoon sunshine and warm temps, I headed out on Yagi, my TW200 to check out the dunes.

The dunes are criss-crossed with tire tracks from ATVs and OHVs mostly though you see single tracks as well.

Javelina Peak

We're planning on a few days here then we'll move on further west towards Phoenix.