Uraling within the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and meeting fellow Uralisti!.

 Friday, February 18

First thing after breakfast, I checked the valve clearances on Scarlett this morning after breakfast, found the left side clearances too tight, the right side exhaust valve too loose.  Remedied them to .004 for intake and .006 for exhaust.

Then it was time to ride Scarlett!  I headed on down AZ Highway 85 to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.  I was there just over three years ago, in December of 2018.

Not much has changed except that this time, instead of me having the loop basically to myself; I struggled to stay away from the crowds of tourists in their cars.  Lazy bums couldn't even be bothered to exit their cars to take pictures, instead clogging up the one way road.  Sigh.

Anyways, here's the pics that turned out OK.  I hope you like them, it could be I'm seeing the cacti later in the season; but they seemed a bit forlorn to me.

Next two pics are same cacti, three years apart:

2022

2018

Approaching Arch Canyon, can you spot the arch below?

How about now?

There was a clusterf*ck of cagers at the Arch Canyon parking lot, thoroughly filling it with milling tourists getting in each other's way.  I bypassed this particular hike.

Not much else to report, I headed on back to the camping area to get away from the already burgeoning crowds all seemingly headed towards Mexico on AZ Highway 85.  

It's the way, you see, to Rocky Point which is this part of Arizona's "beach access" in the Golf of California.  It is also known as Puerto Peñasco.  I'm guessing, with this being the President's Day holiday weekend that's where the almost steady stream of cagers was headed as I proceeded north.

I got back by 2:00 PM and the rest of the afternoon was spent building a fire ring, reading and just resting in the bright sunshine of a warm winter day here in Southern Arizona.

Saturday, February 18

Today was the warmest day of the week with a forecasted high of 81°.

I rode Scarlett to the nearby town of Ajo and turned west on Darby Wells road to map the campsites that were visible for future years.  It was easy to spot the campsites cuz they were campers in them!

I mapped several campsites that could be used in the future.  Here's some pictures of mountains and rock formations I found interesting.

Then I headed into the nearby town of Ajo to drop off the used oil from all the oil changes at the NAPA store for recycling.

I made one stop before entering the town, to check out a stone monument I'd seen before:

I also spotted something and made a stop at the town's open air market place:

Sammy!  The owner wasn't around....

After I dropped off the used oil, I went to the nearby grocery store.  Scarlett lost all power as I made the left turn off of Arizona highway 85 to head into the parking lot!

I coasted to a stop thinking something had come loose at the battery terminals again.  As I did troubleshooting a fellow stopped his ATV and offered to help.  Tim was his name and I told him I  thought I had a handle on things and thanked him.  He stood by for a bit while I did some trouble shooting.  

The battery terminals seemed fine, at that point Tim offered a shady spot at his nearby home to work on the rig, turns out his wife owns a 2010 Ural Gear Up!

I decided to continue troubleshooting for a bit after he showed me how to get to his home.  Both Tim and Nancy returned with me back to the rig and stood by for a bit.  After 10 minutes he left, and having confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the battery cables, it was time to check out the ignition switch again.

I removed the headlight to access the wiring within, and using the multimeter I found the right wire, connected it to a hot wire when the key is turned on, and things worked from that point on!

I buttoned things up, rode over to Tim and Nancy's place and we chatted for a long while.  Nice people from Minnesota, farmers, and just all around nice folks.

Tim and Nancy have this cool vintage Land Cruiser

I said my goodbyes after taking a picture of them:

I then went to the grocery store as was the original intent, got some groceries and then headed back to camp.

I was back at camp by 3:00 p.m. and I just relaxed the rest of the day away.  Scarlett gave me no for the problems, glad I asked Martha to send me the replacement ignition switch.

Four Oil Changes and Views near Alamo Canyon

 Wednesday, February 16

No riding today to speak of, spent most of the day changing out the oil and cleaning the filter on Yagi, my Yamaha TW200.  I'd not packed a new filter you see, but it's coming from home soon and I'll put it in then.  The way Yagi's engine is designed, it looks like I can swap the filter without losing any oil.  I also cleaned and oiled the air filter.

I also replaced the oil in the Harbor Freight Predator 2000 Watt generator along with cleaning out the air filter on it.

By the time the above were complete, it was almost 2 PM and I was tired, so I rested the rest of the day.

Thursday, February 17.

Two more oil changes.  First was a ride on Scarlett, about 12 miles or so to the town of Ajo and the Napa Auto Parts store located there.  Got 5w20 oil and a new oil filter for Umarang, the VRRV along with an oil pan to catch the oil.  I'm embarrassed to admit I'd forgotten to replace the oil at the 75K mile interval so it's been 12000 miles since the last oil change!  Bad Dom, bad!  The oil change went well, with only minor spillage.

I also replaced the engine oil on the Onan 4KW onboard generator for the VRRV.  No issues there either and even less spillage involved.  Now I have several containers of used oil to take back to the Napa store for recycling later this week or next.

After lunch and some rest; I decided to ride Yagi, the TW200 to ensure no leaks from the recently opened drain plug or oil filter cover.  I rode her about 10 miles south on AZ 85 for pictures on the road to Alamo Canyon.  There's a small primitive campground there but its sites are too close together in a rather tight cul-de-sac arrangement.  No good cellular signal either!

I believe the rock formation up top is called

Montezumas Head

Ran across a mobile version of an Emergency 

Aid Summoning Station.  It has a spinning beacon on top

that catches the sun's rays for attention along with a blue

LED light for nighttime visibility.

A bit further north, just before the Ajo Mountains

Wayside Stop, another pic of Montezumas Head

The view from the Ajo Mountains Wayside Stop

Returned to camp and just took it easy for the rest of the afternoon/evening.  I made myself a recurring note/reminder on my phone to check for upcoming oil changes; so that I don't miss them as badly as I did the ones for Yagi and Umarang!

Now Boondocking near Why, AZ....Why Not?

 Yes, I had to state that, before someone else would inevitably have done.

I left the BANWR at 7:30 AM and by 9 AM or so I had fueled up the VRRV and topped off the onboard propane tank at Robles Jct aka Three Points; it's the junction of AZ286 and AZ86.

I headed west on AZ86 and spent the almost two hours or so traversing the Tohono O'odham Nation.  Not much to see from the highway, just sagebrush and hills.  

I got to Why and dumped tanks at the Wolf Howl East RV Park along with taking on a fresh supply of water.

Here's why the town is called Why:  LINK.

I headed two miles south of Why on AZ 85 (which takes one eventually to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument) and turned west at the entrance to the Gunsight Wash BLM Area.  I've boondocked here before, back in the early days of my boondocking travels: The Southwestern Sojourn, Day 11

The place is way more popular with boondockers than the last time I was here!  Still, by driving further inwards away from the highway, I was able to find a nice spot that wasn't too close to my neighbors:

Around 2:30 PM or so, I drove Scarlett over back to Why to see what kind of groceries one could get at the convenience store.  Not bad pickings but not great either.  It's 11 miles or so to the Grocery Store in Ajo, AZ but I think I've got enough to feed me for the week or so I plan to be here.

The real objective was to cruise through the Why settlement and see what there was to see.  The answer, not much!  Here's some pics of the murals at the Why Stop Store.

An old car turned into a fountain with music speakers

playing for the store's customers

The back side of the restrooms

The side of the store itself

The front of the restroom building

The store itself

I cruised through the settlement, not much to see but modest housing endemic to this part of the state.  There was however, a sight that caught my eye just north of the settlement:

This pyramid is actually mentioned on RoadsideAmerica.com

It had been a very windy day, all day.  It got a bit worse later in the afternoon/evening but is supposed to calm down after 8 PM.  The "fog" you see in the shot below is actually dust storms blowing by from the south.

How I Spent Super Bowl Sunday and the importance of good connections.

 Sunday, February 13

I woke this morning, at site 74, feeling rather cold.

Not surprisingly, it was 24°F (-4.4°C) outside and barely 35°F (1.6°C) inside the VRRV!  The forecast had been for a low of just 34°F (1.1°C) so I'd gone to bed without engaging the propane heater!

I checked the weather app and the surrounding area was reporting low to mid 30s!

It was then I remembered the fact that cold settles to the lowest point.  I'd forgotten that, and had camped next to an old stream bed which of course makes it the low point for the surrounding terrain of the campsite!  Doh.

I decided to do a hasty displacement to site 73 before someone else occupied it. (It is apparently popular with day users and their trailered ATVs)

Got everything packed up but couldn't get Scarlett started!  To make matters worse, the starter decided that today was the day it would quit even working intermittently.  The starter had been going downhill over the last few weeks and I'd been meaning to unmount it to clean it.  I was now paying the price.  

I couldn't get Scarlett started through the kick starter either!  I'm thinking it was just too cold, and apparently fuel-injected engines don't start as easy in the cold as do carbureted engines.  (This was a comment made by RichardM when I later discussed things with him).

So, I was burning daylight, and decided to leave the rig and take everything else over to the new site.  It's good that I did because as soon as I put it into park within site 73, a truck came by dragging a trailer with two ATVs on it!  The driver gave me a long look as he was forced to go find somewhere else.  Hah!

Leaving the rig, I walked the two miles back to Site 74, the exercise serving to warm me up.  More kick starting and attempts to get the starter to work via wishful thinking failed.  Then I decided to try and bump start the rig by pushing her up to speed in a very slight downhill grade just off the entrance to the campsite.

Well, it took four attempts, each time with me dragging the rig back up to the top of the hill, before the engine caught!  Once started, I rode her the two miles to site 73 and shut her down. (Definitely got my cardio workout this morning!)

Got camp set up and ate breakfast, then tackled the cleaning of the starter.

I like this view of Baboquivari Peak better

Unmounting the starter wasn't a big deal, taking it apart was a bit dicey the first time but no real issues.  As you can see, it was a bit dirty.

After I cleaned things up, I mounted the starter back up and got nothing.  Just spinning noise from the starter motor.  Dammit.  Took it back off, cleaned some more and then realized I'd installed the white plastic lever above upside down. (red arrow above)

So, got it back together, and hooked up the starter to the VRRV's coach battery and tested it.  I could see the Bendix Pinion Gear  (white arrow above) spinning up to the top as designed before dropping back down.  Yay I thought.

Got it mounted again.  It rattled the first time, like when the pinion gear wasn't going up to engage the flywheel's teeth.  The second attempt resulted in engagement and start!  Yay, I again thought.

Buttoned things up, went to test and got nothing, just the death rattle.  Dammit.

Did more research, thought some more, and saw that sometimes a weak battery can cause the solenoid (green arrow above) to not push strongly enough on the plastic lever which pushes the Bendix Pinion gear assembly up to meet the flywheel's teeth.  The voltmeter I put on the battery reported 11.89 volts so it was dead from all the previous cranking attempts.

So, a couple of hours later, I had recharged the battery via the small generator I carry with the VRRV and damn if it didn't start working more reliably!  There's a pattern emerging (I went for a test ride with multiple stops), first I hear the starter motor spinning but no engagement.  Second button push results in a clean start!  It did this each of the times I shut it off then started it back up again after a short interval.  Weird.  But, it's enough for me to declare victory and see how things go.

So, that's how I spent Super Bowl Sunday.  I will say, the new site is much nicer in terms of views eh?  I hope, it being at a higher elevation than site 74, that I'll wake to expected low temperature not something almost 10 degrees colder!

Monday, February 14

Happy V.D.!  Valentine's Day that is.

Another great warm day here in southern Arizona, the temperature got up to 78°F (25.5°C) and it felt pretty good.  

I went riding on Scarlett, just to check out the roads to the west and north of my present campsite.  Found a couple of campsites, noted them in google maps for future reference.

The towering presence that is Baboquivari Peak made itself known as I rode along:

Here's shots of the couple of campsites I found on state land (possibly private land which has granted public access, kind of like parts of the Santa Margarita Ranch where I camped last week).

Before I took the above shot, I encountered an issue with Scarlett when I went to start her up.  No power, nothing, nada, no lights, no fuel pump....dammit.

I of course went down the wrong rabbit hole, thinking it was a problem with the ignition lock assembly.  It's been giving me issues for quite a while now, I really should get around to installing the replacement unit I bought oh so long ago.  

I had removed the seat, thinking perhaps to check the three relays underneath when I realized I left the multimeter in the VRRV!  Then I thought to hotwire the rig to get it going but attaching a wire with alligator clips on both ends to the battery and what I thought was the ignition wire at the lock failed.  Hmmm.

I called up RichardM, and he patiently (as always) walked me through the troubleshooting process. He keyed on the fact I wasn't getting a spark when using the alligator clipped lead wire....he had me check the cables at the battery.

I found both connected as expected but a tad loose, especially the negative side.  Hmmm.  I tightened them both down and damn if that didn't restore power.  Doesn't take much looseness apparently!  Yay.  I thanked RichardM and proceeded to button up the rig.

Got back to the VRRV and spent the rest of the afternoon, resting and reading....with some minor chores thrown in.

Here's a pic of the two arrows I found at each of the two campsites that I recorded on google maps.  Weird that people left them in the fire circles eh?

Towards late afternoon, I packed all the outside items to include both motorcycles.  The plan is to move towards Why, AZ tomorrow.  Its forecast to be a windy day so a good time to move, especially since a little rain is expected for the BANWR on Wednesday.

14 nights here in the BANWR area, and my onboard fresh water tank lasted me till yesterday!  Not bad.