Uraling to Ajo and Area B's southern rock formations.

Another gloriously warm day today in the Barry Goldwater AF Range.

By mid-morning, I was driving Fiona, my '99 Ural Patrol the 11 miles or so to the town of Ajo.  Errands were run, gas obtained for Fiona and groceries for yours truly.

Before I got to Ajo though, AZ 85 goes through a gap in a series of interesting looking rock formations, I just had to stop and get some shots:

The next three shots are rock formations visible from the highway:

The town of Ajo itself seemed neat and tidy for the most part.  It boasts a central square of sorts with a rather nice looking church as its anchor.

Not really a lot to sight see though.  The Ajo History museum wasn't open till Noon and the viewpoint for the open pit mining operation was closed.

Errands accomplished, I drove north back towards to campsite after stopping at Gate #15 to verify that I indeed had the right padlock code to get in later for pictures.

Soon enough, groceries were put away and I was back in the area behind Gate 15 of Area B of the Barry Goldwater AF Range.  It's got a couple of spots for camping but the road has some rough patches and all I could get was 3G cellular signal.  I bet a booster would help perhaps.

You really can't go too far into the range though, the road was closed perhaps two miles in:

Still, plenty of rock formations to pose one's rig in front of as I made my way back towards the gate, detouring to check out a couple of possible campsites.  Nice secluded locations for folks who don't necessarily need Internet access.  Again, the road has some rough patches but if you go slow enough just about any Class C should have no problems.

The afternoon had warmed up rather nicely and I was getting a bit hot in my riding gear so I left the area via Gate 15 and soon enough I was cooling off at my campsite.

The rest of the afternoon was spent working on the wiring for the front cargo rack's driving lights.  Now I can switch them on from inside the URRV while driving; before I had to go outside and push the on/off switch manually.

Tonight's sunset was pretty good:

An A-10 Warthog kind of a day

A pretty nicely warm day today.  It was in the low 70s as I took the sunset pictures to give you an idea of how nice it was.

The morning was spent sitting outside the URRV, watching A-10 Thunderbolts aka Warthogs (Close Air Suppor) aircraft do practice strafing and bomb runs in the nearby gunnery range across the highway.

The sound of their 30mm GAU-8 rotary cannon (around which the aircraft is built) is quite impressive even from a bit over 3 miles away where I sat.  BRRRRRRRT, the sound reaching me 15 seconds or more after I saw a burst of smoke come off the nose and trail behind the A-10.  More info on the warthog here:  LINK

Speaking as a former groundpounder, we on the ground loved these aircraft for their close support and willingness to "get in the weeds" to deliver ordnance on the enemy.

As I was more at least one miles away at their closest point of approach, and with just a piddly 200mm telephoto lens, not many of my pictures came out very sharp or indeed, usable!  Here's the best ones that came out.

 This one came out best as the aircraft was closest to me

After lunch, I did a small hike to a nearby hill to get a shot of the campsite from the north side of the range:

Can you spot Uma?

The rest of the afternoon, I rode Yagi, the TW200 to and from the trail junctions for the 605 and 609 trails.  No real new pic opportunities presented themselves, and I was content to just pootle along, exploring faint trails and just enjoying the warm weather.

I also did a short test ride with Fiona, my '99 Ural to test out the newest mod to fix the "hanging" throttle cable issue that crops up now and then.  The fix seems to work fine, we'll see how well it does on the longer rides.  I'm thinking of heading down to Ajo, AZ tomorrow to see what there is to see.

Sunset was OK.

Boondocking/Uraling in the Barry Goldwater AF Range B

Monday, March 2.

No riding today.  Temperatures were kind of cool with the skies being mostly cloudy all day and rain in the late afternoon.  Spent the time instead fixing things on the URRV.

Managed to once again bend the metal moulding on the right rear corner of the URRV while backing the trailer and it impacting the corner slightly.  I hammered things back into shape but it's not great.  Must figure out a way to prevent further contact by the trailer when I happen to cause it to swing too wide.

Cleaned up the wiring for the front motorcycle rack's driving lights. 

While hammering on the moulding, managed to have the right side hearing aid fall out of my ear without me noticing.  I noticed later on and after a slightly frantic search, fortunately found it right at the site of the moulding repair!  These new hearing aids from the VA sit further out from the ear canal and are more comfortable but apparently fall out pretty easily!

The rain lasted quite a bit, and formed puddles but it was mostly gone by next morning.  In the meantime though, there was no riding or moving the URRV!  Quite muddy.

After the rain stopped, I got a good shot of the sunset:

Tuesday, March 3

Warmer day today, got into the low 70s!  Mostly sunny in the morning with clear skies in the afternoon and a fierce sun beating down.  It felt good!

The sunrise at the campsite was nothing, but a bit further to the east, some nice view of the distant mountains:

I also took another look at the backup camera's wiring and while I didn't see anything new, all that moving things around apparently fixed a connection issue.  The backup camera is working for now, we'll see how long that lasts.  The replacement system is at my FIL's place waiting for me, guess I'll keep it as a "hot spare".

In the afternoon, it warmed up enough that I was able to ride Fiona, my '99 Ural Patrol with the Beemer engine down to Trail 605 and took it south all the way to near the border of area B of the Barry Goldwater Air Force range.  Rock formations form the norther and southern borders of this area of the range, I guess it makes it easy for the Zoomies to spot the borders of the range!

There were some nice rock formations a bit east of the SW corner of Area B, so I parked Fiona near them for pics:

Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit warmer and sunny!

Back in Arizona: Boondocking in area B of the Barry Goldwater AF Range

Woke very early today to catch a 6:20 AM flight back to Phoenix, AZ.

Martha, my loving wife and Patrick drove me to the airport and dropped me off, then they hurried home to get back in bed!  :)

The flight was uneventful, I made sure to touch nothing if at all possible and used lots of Purell on my hands, often.  I even sprayed parts of the airplane seat with a small can of Lysol provided by Martha!

Being an early flight, I got to take some pictures of today's sunrise as the plane flew towards it's operating altitude:

 A gateway through the space-time continuum?

Nah, just playing around with Lightroom's editing tools.

Below is the less modified photograph:

 I liked the shadows and hues created by the cloud

layers in this shot.

Hopefully, I won't get sick again from air travel.

Got picked up at the Phoenix airport by my father-in-law, Richard and he drove us back to his place in Sun City.  From there I rode Fiona to the RV storage place in Goodyear, AZ and retrieved Uma, the URRV.

I returned to my FIL's place and packed up my belongings into the URRV, filled her up with fresh water and after lunch with my FIL, left for Gila Bend, AZ.  I discovered that the backup camera sending unit had apparently failed.  After verifying that I was getting power all the way to the circuit board involved, it was time to order another one.  It'll be at my FIL's place by Tuesday and I hope to pick it up from him once I leave the Gila Bend, AZ area.

Enroute, I stopped by a Safeway grocery store to stock up on some food items, get gas for the URRV and such logistics prior to camping.

Got to Gate #9 of the Area B portion of the Barry Goldwater Air Force Range at around 4:35 PM with no issues and found the spot I'd found in an earlier ride back in January.  The idea is to spend a few days doing some hiking, exploring the southern half of Area B with the motorcycles.

Not a bad spot eh?

Tonight's sunset was "OK", the alpenglow or the coloration of the clouds to the east proved better than the actual sunset which was cloudless.

 

The URRV appears to be also positioned well, purely by chance on my part, to reflect the sunset's colors in its windows: