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