Tag Archives: van dwelling

Apr12

Buckeye Hills Recreation Area

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UPDATE: In late March 2019, I was looking for a place to camp near Phoenix and called to find out if camping was still allowed at Buckeye Hills Recreation Area/Regional Park. I was told this area is day use only, with no overnight camping allowed.

I’d heard of Buckeye Hills Recreation Area (sometimes called Buckeye Hills Regional Park), and it sounded like an ok place to stay. The Divine Miss M stayed in the recreation area on her way to Ajo. She said it was fine, had pit toilets, and best of all, was free. The park had also been discussed in a couple van dweller and boondocker Facebook groups I belong too. I was passing through the area and decided I would camp there.

However, I wanted to confirm it was truly free before I arrived. I got online and did a search. The information I found grew more and more confusing.

The VisitPhoenix.com website (http://www.visitphoenix.com/listing/buckeye-hills-regional-park/5636/) says,

Park hours are Sun-Thu: 6am-8pm and Fri-Sat: 6am-10pm, 365 days a year.

How can people camp in a park that closes?

The azcentral.com website (http://azcentral.com/thingstodo/events/Buckeye_Hills_Regional_Park_735692500728) does not mention a thing about camping being allowed in the park.

The Free Campsites website (https://freecampsites.net/#!9956&query=sitedetails) showed plenty of reviews by people who’d camped at Buckeye Hills Regional Park, but I wanted something a little more official. I wanted to be sure there was no camping fee. I didn’t want to pay to camp, and I certainly didn’t want some authoritarian dude knocking on my door in the middle of the night telling me I couldn’t camp where I was parked or that I had to pay money to do so.

I did some research on the Maricopa County Parks and Recreation website (http://www.maricopacountyparks.net/). When I  clicked on “Buckeye Hills Regional Park,” I went to that park’s page (http://www.maricopacountyparks.net/park-locator/buckeye-hills-regional-park/). The page said nothing about camping, so I decided to call the Maricopa County Parks and Recreation main office. The woman who answered the phone in that office said I’d have to call the office at Estrella Mountain Regional Park to get more information about Buckeye Park. I was beginning to feel as if I were descending into some sort of bureaucratic limbo.

The woman who answered the phone at the Estrella Mountain Park office was very…crisp…just bordering on being rude. I asked if camping were allowed in Buckeye Hills Regional Park. She said yes. I asked if there were a fee to camp. She said yes. She said there was a $6 daily per car fee and a $12 per night fee for primitive camping. I asked her if that meant it cost $18 a night to camp. She said no, it only cost  $12 a night to camp. I asked her if there was a self-pay drop box, and she said yes.

Well to hell with that, I thought as I ended the call. I wasn’t going to pay $12 a night to camp.

Buckeye Hills Regional Park was on my way to where I decided to go, so when I saw the sign pointing the way to the entrance, I decided to go in and have a look around. I figured I could share my findings even if I didn’t sleep there.

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View from near the entrance of Buckeye Hills Regional Park.

I saw no sign saying there was a fee to enter the park. I saw no sign saying camping was or was not allowed. I saw no sign saying there was a fee for camping. I saw no self-pay drop box.

I saw the shooting range (signs of the fence proclaimed it as such) to the left of the entrance road. Past the shooting range was a road leading to some buildings. There were no signs saying visitors needed to go to those buildings to check in or pay a fee. I did not drive near those buildings. I followed the dirt road to the right and drove around the loop.

I saw a couple of windblown tents. As I drove deeper into the park, I saw a few travel trailers and 5th wheels parked far apart. I saw some fire rings and a few picnic tables with shade covers. (Most of the picnic tables did not have

One of the few and far between saguaros at Buckeye Hills Recreation Area.

One of the few and far between saguaros at Buckeye Hills Recreation Area.

shade covers.) Campsites were not numbered or officially designated in any way. It was one of those campgrounds where one could tell someone else had camped in a spot in the past, so one figures it must be ok to camp there today.

I can’t say the view was breathtaking or even all that pretty. There were a few saguaros around, but like shade covers, they were few and far between.

There were only a couple (maybe three) restrooms in the whole park. No signs labeled the restrooms,

This is the building housing pit toilets. Notice the lack of a sign.

This is the building housing pit toilets. Notice the lack of a sign.

so when nature began to call–and then shout–I hoped I was in the right place. I parked the van and went into the rather stinky, rather dirty little building housing a couple of pit toilets in stalls.

When I got back to the van, I almost immediately locked myself out and had to ask a family in a nearby converted school bus to help. (Read that story here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2016/03/30/good-samaritan/.)

While waiting for the son to bring tools, I told the father about my conversation with the woman in the office of Estrella Regional Park. He grinned and said there was no self-pay drop box and no one paid a fee to camp at Buckeye Hills. He said the campground is patrolled by sheriffs deputies (especially because of the shooting range on the grounds), and none of them ever collected fees. He said a person might get hassled for camping in the park for more than two weeks, and then in practically in the same breath told me about someone who seemed to be hunkered down in the spot he liked. He also suggested I not camp near the front restrooms, as he’d camped there a couple of nights before and 39 of the four dozen Easter eggs he’d stuffed with quarters and hidden for his kids had been stolen.

After I was reunited with the keys to the van, I drove around the rest of the park. I didn’t see anything that would make me want to pay $12 to spend the night, but for free, it looked ok.

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If you are interested in staying at Buckeye Hills Recreation Area, it is located at 26700 W. Buckeye Hills Drive in Buckeye, AZ. Free campsites.net gives the following GPS coordinates: 33.293172, -112.642783. There is no running water or electrical hookups in the camping area.

I took all of the photos in this post.

Apr9

10 Things You Might Want to Know About Van Organization

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I’ve learned a few things about van organization in the last 3+ years (and the last 3+ months). I wish I’d known the following things before I started life as a van dweller. If you’ve not yet started a life of van dwelling, you may want to contemplate these things before you begin. If you’re already van dwelling, well, it’s never to late to learn something new, right?

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This photo shows how I use binder clips to attach things to decorative wood strips.

#1 If you have an old-school conversion van, look for anything decorative you can rip out to free up a little more room. In my van, the first thing to go was the last captains chair in the back. I can’t believe it took me over a year to rip out the pieces of wood housing cup holders and ashtrays (which I couldn’t see, much less use, because of the tubs and drawers pushed up against them). By ripping out those useless, stained pieces of wood, I gained six to eight inches, which is immense to a van dweller. BUT before you start ripping things out, try to imagine how you could use the decorative touches that are there. I use binder clips to hang things from flat strips of wood that maybe looked nice in 1992 when the van was new.

#2 If you live alone in a van, you may not need a double bed. If you have a bench seat in the back, the bed it folds down into will likely not be very comfortable unless you top it with several inches of memory foam or something similar. You might be better off pulling out the bed that came in the van and putting in something smaller, unless you’re holding out hope of getting laid. You’ll have to decide if you want more bed space or more space for stuff. (Of course, you could also store things on the double bed–I’ve definitely gone that route.)

#3 Your bed does not have to be built strong as a bunker. Sure, you want your bed to be sturdy, but My Rock Guy proved to be brilliant when he built my bed with no attached parts. When it comes time to vacuum back there, I can remove and replace all the parts quickly, without help. I can also move the bed easily if I want to try a new floor plan.

#4 Underbed storage is really helpful. I suggest putting your bed as far off the floor as possible while still being able to sit up without hitting your head. Store things you use less often under the bed.

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This photo shows both my underbed storage and the dishpan full of books wedged under there. Yes, that’s a paper cutter to the left of the dishpan full of books. Doesn’t everyone travel with a paper cutter under the bed?

#5 Containers typically need covers. Baskets may be super cute, but without a cover, the stuff inside is likely to end up on the floor. (My one exception was a plastic dishpan full of books  wedged under my bed. I’ve since bought a tub with a lid to put those books in, not because the books were ending up all over the floor, but because I needed the tub to lift my sloping bed.)

#6 I resisted for two years, but I find drawers really are easier to live with than using 18 gallon tubs for storage. Having to move the top tub to get to the bottom tub was a perpetual pain in my ass. Finding a place to set the top tub was often nearly impossible in my already overcrowded van. Locating an item that had settled to the bottom of an 18 gallon tub was usually an exercise in frustration. Yes, plastic drawers are stupidly expensive, but I think they make my life easier.

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This is my camp stove, set up in the van on a plastic tub for cooking. Usually my laptop backpack is on top of this tub, but the backpack is easy enough to move when it’s time to cook. When I’m cooking indoors, I always make sure a window is open. I’m also careful to keep flammables away from flame.

#7 You will probably want a flat surface in the van for cooking. Even if you usually cook outside, there will likely come a time when it’s rainy or too cold or the wind is blowing at gale force or you just can’t bring yourself to put on pants and you want (or need) to cook inside (even if “cooking” is simply heating water for instant Ramen). At such times, life is much easier if there is a flat surface on which you can set up your camp stove.

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This photo shows bags, jewelry, and my sun hat hanging from shower curtain hooks that I have wedged in between the wall of the van and decorative wood.

#8 Wall space can be utilized by hanging as much as possible. (This is another good tip from My Rock Guy. He says when he lived in vans, he stored his clothes in duffel bags, which he hung.) If my shower curtain hook method doesn’t work for you, you can figure out something else that will.

#9 Many people who live in small spaces have a rule that every item they own must have two purposes. This rule has never really worked for me. I can quickly name ten important things in my van that only have one use (sunhat, ice chest, stove, propane bottles, heater, Luci light, screwdriver, pee bucket, cast iron skillet, sandals…you get the idea…) I understand the reasoning behind this rule: you don’t want to haul around a bunch of stuff you don’t need. But I don’t think the “two use” rule is actually very helpful.

#10 You are probably not going to get your van arranged in the most efficient and aesthetically pleasing way on the first try. Trial and error will probably be involved. Maybe you’ll decide I’m all wrong and drawers don’t work nearly as well as tubs. Maybe you’ll decide the wheels on your ice chest take up too much space. (I took the wheels off my ice chest last month, after living with them in the way for over a year. I thought it would be a hassle, so I didn’t even try for the longest time. Taking them off turned out to be really easy.) Maybe you’ll decide you only need two pairs of pants and two t-shirts, so you only need one medium drawer instead of three large one. I suggest you give yourself permission to make mistakes, change your mind, and try new things.

Bonus! #11 It may go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. You’ll probably save money if you shop at thrift stores and garage sales before you buy brand new things. If you’re in a town with a Habitat for Humanity Restore, look there for household items that might work in your van. Have patience. If you can, give things a chance to show up cheap or free before you rush out and buy new stuff at full price.

I took all the photos in this post.

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Apr8

Where Do You Sleep?

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My bed is behind that curtain.

A question people frequently ask me when they see the inside of my van is Where do you sleep? I guess that’s because they expect to see a bed in there, but my bed is hidden behind a curtain.

When I was a vendor at the Bridge, I worked out of my van and kept the side doors open all day. I often saw tourist craning their necks, trying to get a look into my living space. The nosy tourists might have thought they were slick, but I knew exactly what they were doing. Some people with good manners asked if they could look in my van. These people I graciously invited to step behind my tables of merchandise and check out my home. I don’t mind people looking so much as I mind people looking without asking.

Each of my first two vans had a bench seat already folded down into a double bed at the time of purchase. While a double bed was quite luxurious, it was really more room than I needed at night. I usually used at least half of the bed as a haphazard storage area.

When I got my third van, there was no bench seat in the back, no sort of bed at all.

My Rock Guy’s friend had a grandiose plan of the bed he would build for me in the van. (He probably also had a plan for the  wad of cash he expected I would give him in exchange for his carpentry work.) My Rock Guy, however, told me not to waste my money.

My Rock Guy rummaged through the piles of building materials he had scattered on his land. He found a piece of plywood and cut it to fit across the width of the van. He also found three lengths of thick boards to hold the plywood off the floor. On top of the plywood, I put the folded-in-half double-bed-size piece of memory foam which had been given to me when I bought van number two. Once I added sheets and blankets, I had a bed. (You’ll thank me if you ever have to move a piano, My Rock Guy said of this easily disassembled bed.)

(After a few months, I decided I needed more storage space under the bed, so I bought a few 9 and 1/8 inch plastic tubs with lids. These tubs brought my bed up just about as high as it can go and still allow me to sit up and not bang my head on the weird, two-level low and lower ceiling above where I sleep. In the under-bed plastic tubs, I keep extra food, jewelry making supplies, and other things I don’t need every day.)

One thing I really wanted in the new van was a curtain to hide my sleeping area. Maybe I’m weird, but it seems so…intimate…to have strangers gawking at my bed.

I found a cool sheet with a sort of 70s floral pattern at the Habitat for Humanity Restore. The sheet wasn’t priced. When I brought it up to the counter, the lady working said the price was $2. I told her I didn’t like it enough to pay $2, so she said I could have it for $1. I said I did like it enough to pay $1, and I bought it.

Since the sheet was too long, I folded it in half and pinned the two edges together. When I asked My Rock Guy if he had a curtain rod I could have to hang the curtain/sheet, he told me it would be much better to hang it on a bungee cord (which I already had). He was absolutely right! If the curtain were on a rigid rod, I’d have accidentally pulled it down many times. Instead of falling on my head whenever I unintentionally sit on the curtain or tug on it too hard, the bungee cord moves with my mistakes and stays in place.

While the curtain keeps people from seeing my bed, it also causes confusion about my sleeping arrangement. People look in my van, don’t see a bed, and ask (usually with a note of panic in their voices), Where do you sleep?

I was asked the question twice in less than half an hour on the last day of the 2016 Rubber Tramp Rendezvous.

I’d driven my van up to the fire pit/seminar area to pick up the remains of the free pile and drive everything to a thrift store in town. There was some confusion about who was taking what and when, and an older-than-I-am fellow offered to help me carry the large, heavy garbage bags full of free stuff to my van. I took him up on his offer. When I opened the side door, he not only hoisted in the bag he was carrying, he also let his nosy head follow it in so he could have a look around. Where do you sleep? he demanded. (Please note, this man was not a friend or even an acquaintance. He was just some dude I’d never talked to before, some dude helping me carry bags.) I answered, Behind the curtain, before I closed the door and hustled him away from my van home.

There was more confusion about who and when, and a woman showed up who’d also volunteered to drive the remains of the free pile into town. While she and I were figuring out who would make the trip, yet another woman showed up to help.

This second woman went right up to my open side door and started touching the cloth covering of the door panel, the decorative strips of wood, and my organizing pockets. She proceeded to ask me about every aspect of the door (while I was still trying to figure things out with the first woman.) I tried to tell her quickly that since the van is a conversion van, it came with the fuzzy panels and decorative wood, but before I could get the explanation out of my mouth, she’d stuck her head in my van and asked in a panic, Where do you sleep?

I refrained from saying, None of your business, nosy stranger!

For all of you who were wondering, here’s a photo showing where I sleep:

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The floral curtain has been pushed to the left. Notice the bungee cord it hangs on. Yep, that’s my Holly Hobbie doll and my teddy bear lounging in the bed. The striped green blanket is actually a down comforter from Germany I got at a Goodwill Clearance Center for about $6. I got the green striped cover at a Goodwill on half price day for $2.49.

I took the photos in this post.

Apr6

Van Organization: Tubs and Drawers

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A place for everything and everything in its place?

I’ve never been very good at living by these words of wisdom from Benjamin Franklin. Too often, the place for something I own has been on the floor or draped over a chair or tossed on top of some flat surface.  This problem did not begin when I started van dwelling; this problem has been with me all of my adult life. (As a child, I lived with two very controlling parents who forced me to keep my room neat and tidy. Is my messiness some form of rebellion I haven’t gotten over in the 30+ years I’ve been out of their home?)

But as a van dweller, being messy is a problem. There’s just not enough room to have stuff scattered everywhere. There have been so many times when I’ve literally had to clear a path through clothes (clean and dirty), balls of yarn, books, and bags of chips to get to my bed at night…and then I had to clear off the bed so I could sleep. I found it an uncomfortable way to live.

My first organizational endeavor was plastic tubs. You know the kind: 18 gallons with a lid that snaps shut. At IMG_5647one point I had six of these in the van, filled with clothes and books and shiny rocks and tools and automotive fluids and whatever other things I needed to contain. On the plus side, these sort of tubs are widely available and not overly expensive. On the downside, because I overfilled them, they were heavy to move, and to get to the bottom one, the top one’s got to go somewhere else.

After over three years of living in my van (three successive vans, really), it occurred to me in a flash of insight why people like drawers: the top one doesn’t have to go to a new spot so the bottom one is accessible. (It’s a bit embarrassing to admit it took me so long to figure this out.) Also, drawers aren’t so likely to become the (seemingly) bottomless pits that 18 gallon tubs tend to turn into.

So I went on a quest for drawers. I tried to avoid buying new ones at Stuff-Mart, but the thrift stores in the town I was in just weren’t providing for my needs. I found four small-ish (not tiny) drawers for about $5 and filled them with as much as they would hold. I was immediately hooked on how easy it was to get to the things within the drawers. I wanted more. So I went to Stuff-Mart and bought all the large drawers in the store. (There were only three large drawers in the store.) On my way out of the state, I stopped at a Stuff-Mart in another town and bought one more large drawer.

My next problem was that the drawers kept toppling. So I did some rearranging and put my heaviest items (books) in the bottom drawer. That seemed to help, until I got to Desert Babylon and had to start taking corners and pulling out of driveways faster. The drawer full of books wasn’t going anywhere, but the top two drawers were often flying, then crashing. Also, the top plastic tub in my stack of two was frequently ending up on the floor. Something needed to change. Bungee cords helped some, when I could remember to fasten everything before I hit the road. One friend suggested getting braces and bolting the braces to the floor and to the shelves, but that seemed like a lot of work. (Since the sloth is my spirit guide, the less effort, the better, is my motto.)

One day I realized the decorative wooden panels six to eight inches from the floor were stealing space and giving me precious little in return.

My van is a conversion van, converted in the early 90s. At some point before I owned it, there were probably a couple of captain chairs back there and a bench seat that folded down into a bed. (When I bought the van, only one captain chair remained in the back of the van, and the bench seat/bed combo was gone. After about six months, I ditched the remaining captain chair in exchange for more room.) The wood panel in question was on the side of the chairs at just the right level to put one’s beverage into the built-in cup holder or to knock a cigarette’s ash into the ashtray. But now there weren’t any chairs back there, and the wood panels were stealing precious inches I needed to house my stuff.

Inspired by the Divine Miss M, who removed every single piece of space-wasting plastic when she bought her minivan, I decided to rip out the panels. I was going to go after them with a crowbar (which I was going to have to borrow, since I don’t actually own a crowbar), but when the Lady of the House looked things over with me, she realized there were screws that could be removed. I used a screwdriver to get the screws out. Where I couldn’t use the screwdriver because of space constraints, a bit of brute force did the trick. Once the extraneous wood was removed, I think I gained six to eight inches in van width.

Not only did I push the large drawers up against the wall, I also put them as close to the cab as possible. So far, they haven’t toppled once.  We’ll see what happens when I get back to Desert Babylon.

I took all of the photos in this post.

This photos shows the four large drawers I bought at Stuff-Mart (under the purple paisley tapestry), as well as the two (deep) drawer set I bought at a thrift store) (under the grey tapestry. On top of the two (deep) drawer set are two smaller drawers housing socks and underwear. In the bottom drawer under the purple paisley tapestry, my library is visible.

This photos shows the four large drawers I bought at Stuff-Mart (under the purple paisley tapestry), as well as the two (deep) drawer set I bought at a thrift store (under the grey tapestry). On top of the two (deep) drawer set are two smaller drawers housing socks and underwear. In the bottom drawer under the purple paisley tapestry, my library is visible.

This is what the drawers look like under the tapestries.

This is what the drawers look like under the tapestries.

 

 

 

Apr3

Poem about Stealth Van Living

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My friend Laura-Marie Taylor wrote a poem about stealth van living. Although Laura-Marie doesn’t live in a van (and I don’t think she ever has), I think her poem shows a clear understanding of how not to call attention to one’s van home.

Without further adieu, here is Laura-Marie’s poem:

Make your van forgettable
so it blends in–buy
no bumper stickers or weird
patterned curtains like leopard print.
Don’t do it.
Yeah, Eve was framed
and your silence will not protect you.
But you need invisibility
more than to confuse
the strangers behind you.
No painted peace signs
especially.

Prismatic Decorative Ornamental Peace Sign by GDJ

Thanks to Laura-Marie Taylor for honoring me by allowing me to share her poem.

Image courtesy of https://openclipart.org/detail/274498/prismatic-decorative-ornamental-peace-sign.
Mar30

Good Samaritan

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I broke the first rule of van life. I didn’t know where my keys were.

It only took about twenty seconds of not knowing where my keys were for life to begin to unravel.

I’d pulled in to a potential boondocking spot to check it out on my way somewhere else. As I drove around the main loop, nature called, then began to shout. I pulled into a spot near a pit toilet restroom and hustled inside. Once out, I slapped some hand sanitizer on my palms and climbed into the driver’s seat. Then I thought, I should take a few photos here, grabbed my camera, got out of the van, and slammed the door behind me.

Snap! Snap! I took the photos and turned around to get back in the van. The door was locked. I reached down for the cord around my neck on which my keys usually hang. No keys. That’s when I realized I didn’t know where my keys were.

It didn’t take me long to find the keys. I looked through the window on the driver’s side door and saw them, one sitting in the ignition, the other hanging on the ring. I cursed under my breath.

Maybe another door is unlocked, I thought. I walked around the van checking doors. Every door was locked. Every window was latched. There was no getting in.

This is what I think happened. I unlocked the van and got in the driver’s seat. I hit the power lock button, but didn’t close and latch the driver’s side door. I put the key in the ignition, but didn’t start the engine. I decided to take photos and grabbed my camera. At that moment, I thought I knew where my keys were, but in reality, I didn’t. I got out of the van, not realizing the door was going to be locked when I slammed it behind me.

So. I was locked out. My keys were in the van. My phone was in the van. All helpful phone numbers were in the van. Everything was in the van, except for me and my camera, and the camera was not going to do me any good.

Down from where I was parked was a school bus. It had a nice, conservative, professional looking paint job. When I’d first pulled in, I’d seen a man and a young teenage boy cooking at the fire ring. (Roasting marshmallows is what it looked like they were doing.) When I saw the man (thin, mid 30s, with short brown hair) come out of the bus, I walked over and politely asked him if he knew how to jimmy a lock. He grinned and said he didn’t have the right equipment, which made me think he could jimmy a lock if he had the right tools.

When I told him I’d locked myself out, he and his boy (about thirteen years old, lanky, short hair, and with a machete strapped to his side) walked over to the van.

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This is the back window that was open.

The man walked around the van, checked every window, tried every door, found it was locked tight, except for a window on one of the back doors. Unfortunately, there’s no way to open those back doors from inside even if one of us could have gotten an arm through the small opening at the bottom of the window.

The man and his son discussed different tools they might have that would work to jimmy the lock on one of my doors. Nothing the boy named seemed right to the dad.

At one point I asked if they had a coat hanger, and the man laughed and said, I live in an RV. I guess those marshmallows I thought I saw hadn’t been skewered on a coat hanger.

The man thought he could take the bolts out of the piece holding on the back window and remove the whole thing. He sent the boy to get tools. The boy came back not only with wrenches, but with two younger kids, a girl of about eleven, with long blond hair slung into a ponytail, and another boy, this one about nine with short, dirty-blond hair.

The man couldn’t get the bolts off. He sent the boy to get crescent wrenches. Those didn’t work either. The man tried the boy’s machete in the gap between window and body on the passenger side door, but that didn’t work either. The girl produced a Swiss Army knife with a tool the older boy thought might work, but that tool too proved inadequate.

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This photo shows the hinges holding the door to the van.

Just when I thought the man was going to admit defeat and tell me there was nothing he could do to help me, he wondered aloud if he could remove the pins from the hinges on the side door, thus enabling him to remove the door. He banged on the top pin, and to everyone’s delight, it moved. He sent the big boy to the bus for a hammer and chisel. It didn’t take long for him to remove the pins and take the door off its hinges. Some wires (electrical, probably) connected the door to the van body, so the man held the door while I tried to snake my (frankly, too fat) arm into the gap between the door and the van’s body. Then the man had the idea to open the latch on the window of the unhinged door. Once I stuck my hand in the open lower portion of the window, it was easy enough to reach under the cloth organizer hanging there and slide open the lock.

It didn’t take the man (who when it was all over introduced himself as Tim) long to get the pins back in the door’s hinges, at which point, I was on my way.

Thanks Tim (originally form Philly) for not giving up and leaving me stranded. You’re not just a good Samaritan, but an angel too, I think.

I took the photos in this post.

Mar12

Homestead

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Along the Ajo Scenic Loop, I saw what appeared to be an old homestead.

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I interpreted this sign to mean, you can be in here, but don’t touch, damage, or destroy anything.

Going west on Darby Well Road, almost to Scenic Loop Road, there was a fenced off area on the right. Although there was a fence, there weren’t any “No Trespassing” signs, and there was an opening in the fence (more like a purposefully made entrance than like a place where fencing had fallen or been pulled down) where an adult could easily walk through. Near the entrance opening, there was a sign. I interpreted this sign to mean, you can be in here, but don’t touch, damage, or destroy anything. Ok. I knew I could handle that.

A brochure about the Ajo Scenic Loop I got from the Ajo Historical Society Museum says,

Junction of Darby Well Road & Scenic Loop Road. This intersection is unmarked but it is obvious. Parts of deserted buildings are on the right–this is Darby Well.

I walked around and didn’t see any signs naming this place or any evidence of a well. What I did see was a lot of rusty metal and a lot of broken glass, much of it green. IMG_4608

IMG_4609This site looked more like a dump than a homestead. There wasn’t a trash pile, no single area where broken glass and rusty metal was heaped. Broken and rusty things were spread out all over the place.

In New Mexico, people love to make “art” from rusty metal. I call this “tetanus art.” This place would have been a jackpot for a “tetanus art” artist, if all of this rusty metal had been up for grabs.

It was a bit hard for me to imagine any of this junk being “fragile or irreplaceable.” I suspect I felt this way because this trash was relatively modern. I know trash can tell archaeologists a lot about a society, but because this trash didn’t look terribly old, it was easy to think there was nothing going on here more than this was a place where people who didn’t pick up after themselves lived.

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The remains of an old car (truck?) sat on the property. I thought this old automobile body was interesting. We can see from the dashboard that this vehicle was made by Chevrolet. IMG_4624Anyone have any ideas about the model or the year?

As I do whenever I walk through abandoned places where people once lived, I wondered about the people who had lived here. Who were they? Why did they leave? Where did they go? Are they dead now? Where are their descendants? Do those descendants ever come here and look at the trash of their ancestors and think, My grandfather may have drunk from that bottle of Sprite. Did my grandmother wear that shoe? 

Whose grandmother wore this shoe?

It was easy to forget–when I didn’t see or hear another human being–that this had once been a place where people lived and worked and laughed and cried and sang and cooked and loved and hated.

Someone built the house that was now only a wall, probably several someones, probably without power tools or other fancy equipment. What was left of the house held the sweat and probably the blood and the tears too of the people who built it and the people who lived there.

Who slept on these mattress springs? Who ate the food out of these can? Who cooked on that stove? Who lived in that house?

Who slept on these mattress springs? Who ate the food out of these can? Who cooked on that stove? Who lived in that house?

Who’d lived in that house? Had people made love there, birthed babies there, died there? Who’d cooked dinner on the stove now sitting in the sand, slept in a bed whose springs were now abandoned and rusty, awoken in this place each morning?

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_4619How much longer will the house stand before nature reclaims the land?

Nature wants to reclaim the land.

Nature wants to reclaim the land.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Mar11

Ajo Scenic Loop and BLM Land

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Afternoon sunlight on the Ajo Scenic Loop

When Coyote Sue told me about Ajo, I was excited to hear there was plenty of free camping on BLM land right outside of town. Between what Sue told me about Darby Well Road and the brief write up on the Free Campsites website, I found the BLM land with little problem.

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Beyond these two saguaros, one can see the giant wall of earth. Beyond the wall of earth is the New Cornelia Mine.

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“Property of Freeport Minerals Corporation–No Trespassing”

Freeport-McMoRan owns the land across from the BLM land.  Freeport-McMoRan’s land is fenced off, with “no trespassing” signs affixed to the fence. Beyond the fence, are massive walls of earth. Beyond the walls of earth is the New Cornelia Mine.

Later, when I read the brochure for the Ajo Scenic Loop, I realized that Darby Well Road is part of that picturesque 10 mile drive.

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This photo shows the view I had when I opened the side doors of the van.

The first couple of nights I stayed in the area, I kept my camp fairly close to Highway 85. On the third day, I drove the whole Scenic Loop and saw how much public land was available for camping. From that night on, I parked the van in a spot where I was surrounded by nature.

IMG_4591At the intersection of Darby Well Road and Scenic Loop Road is a sign warning people that smuggling and illegal immigration may happen in the area. I didn’t see anything that even vaguely resembled smuggling or illegal immigration, although I did see Border Patrol trucks zooming way too fast down Darby Well Road. The only other people I saw were boondocking on the BLM land.

Like on most BLM land, there is a 14 day camping limit here. However, there was no camp host in the area, and no IMG_4646permit was required for camping. I did not see any BLM employee during the time I  spent in there.

Camping in the Darby Well/Scenic Loop area is definitely primitive. There’s no running water, no drinking water, no picnic tables, no shade structures, no trash cans, no dumpsters, no showers, and no pit toilets. Nothing is provided and anything packed-in certainly needs to be packed-out.

This was the view from the other side of my van.

This was the view from the other side of my van.

What I liked best about camping on this BLM land is that even though Ajo is just a couple of miles away, I couldn’t hear the low roar of vehicular traffic in the distance. I couldn’t see the lights of the town. The only signs of civilization I saw were the RVs belonging to the other folks camping out and the occasional automobile tooling along Scenic Loop Road.

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This organ pipe cactus is visible from the Ajo Scenic Loop.

There is a lot of organ pipe cactus, as well as other varieties of cacti on the Ajo Scenic Loop. A brochure from the Ajo Historical Society Museum states,

Essentially all Sonoran Desert plants, for this elevation, are readily spotted on this easy self guided tour. Many say there are more Organ Pipe Cacti here than in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Saguaro, Organ Pipe, Hedgehog, Barrel, Prickly Pear and Cholla Cacti, Ocotillo and Jojoba, Mesquite, Iron Wood, Palo Verde and Elephant Trees, Fairy Duster and Brittlebush all are well represented or in abundance as are many more desert varieties.

[The overzealous capitalization in the above quote is thanks to the writer of the brochure and not to me.]

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Cholla–pronounced \ˈchȯi-yə\–cactus.

Saguaro in the afternoon light.

Saguaro in the afternoon light.

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The BLM land on the Ajo Scenic Loop is definitely one of my favorite places to boondock. It’s quiet, it’s dark at night, and the scenery is fantastic! IMG_4641

Mar5

Saddle Mountain

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IMG_5146I first heard about the Saddle Mountain BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land at the 2015 Rubber Tramp Rendezvous. I ran into a guy I’d previously met in New Mexico, and he told me about the BLM land surrounding Saddle Mountain, but I didn’t make it out there before I set out for my summer job. In early winter 2016, my friend Coyote Sue took a trip to the area, and I decided I REALLY wanted to go there.

IMG_5179One reason I hadn’t gone sooner was because I didn’t have very good directions. The guy who first told me about the place pointed to it on an old Arizona map, but he wasn’t able to tell me what roads to take. I was a little worried about going out there and getting myself lost. Before I set out on my trip, I did some research by searching “saddle mountain free camping Arizona” on Google. I got a hit on the Free Campsites website.

On Free Campsties I found the GPS coordinates (33.458626, -113.055023) and plugged those right into Google maps.  (Thanks Google!)

I’ll just go ahead and give directions so nobody has to do all that work him/her self.

From Interstate 10 in Arizona, take exit 94 toward Tonapah. Turn left onto 411th Avenue. Keep  going south for almost three miles, passing Osborn Road and the Saddle Mountain RV Park. You’ll get to a T in the road. Turn right onto West Salome Highway. (If you go left, you will end up in Buckeye, AZ.) Drive for 5.2 miles, then turn left onto Courthouse Road. Both West Salome Highway and West Courthouse Road are paved and both have official street signs. After 1.8 miles on West Courthouse Road, turn left onto the Saddle Mountain BLM land. IMG_5172

Like a dumbass, I had not written down the distances I was supposed to go on each road. I found Salome Highway easy enough (411th Avenue ends, go left or right, no big deal), but I’d gotten a little worried after a couple of miles that Courthouse Road wasn’t signed, and I’d missed it. I kept going, then saw the sign for Courthouse Road and breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t lost. However, because I didn’t know how far I was supposed to go on that road and my last direction was simply “turn left,” I didn’t know where to turn onto BLM land.

I drove slowly and kept an eye to the left, hoping to see a sign. I didn’t see a sign, but I did see a kiosk. IMG_5132Although I couldn’t read the words Saddle Mountain on the top of the kiosk, I suspected I was in the right place and turned down the road. When I got closer and read the words up there, I knew I’d made it.

The kiosk didn’t have any information on it, other than one sign saying this is a pack-in/pack out area. (There are no amenities in this area, not even a trash can or a pit toilet.)

I drove south on the road, which I later found out is Route 8211. IMG_5169This road is not paved, but is what I would describe as a “good” dirt road. My conversion van had no trouble getting down it.

As I drove down Route 8211, I saw one RV, an older, medium size motor home which was about to pull out of its spot. The people in it waved to me as I drove by. During the time I was there (Wednesday afternoon to Saturday morning), I didn’t see any other folks camping in the area.

As I was trying to find a spot, I realized I could see bits of civilization to the north. Sure, I wasn’t looking at a metro area, but I could see vehicles (including many 18-wheelers) driving past on I-10. I could also see a couple of large industrial operations between my location and the interstate. I decided to park the van so my side doors opened to the south, which offered a view of mountains and cacti, not the trappings of humanity.

IMG_5137Once the sun went down, I could see a good number of ligths to the north and the northeast, which also detracted from the sense of being alone in the wilderness. Sure, Saddle Mountain is well out of the city, but I didn’t feel as if I were in the middle of nowhere. IMG_5142

That situation might have been remedied if I had driven farther down Route 8211. On Friday evening, I went for a walk to the south on that road and found many other places where folks had obviously boondocked before. There were plenty of flat spots to park a rig, and I saw fire rings made from rocks obviously gathered in the area.  I didn’t move the van; I was much too lazy for that. However, next time I stay there, I will drive to the end of the road and try to find a place where I can’t see one bit of civilization.

Although I could see vehicles on the interstate, thankfully, I couldn’t hear them. I didn’t hear much human noise out there. The sound  of a car engine passing on the road in front of the van did wake me up on Wednesday night. When IMG_5171I looked at my watch, I saw it was 11:30. I thought it was a weird time to go exploring, but whatever. I heard the car pass by again, headed to the main road, before too long. On Thursday morning, a couple and their dogs walked on the road in front of the van; the woman and I waved at each other. Several hours later, they walked past again, going back to their vehicle, I assume. On Friday the sound of a man and a little boy walking by caught my attention, but other than those situations, maybe two other cars driving on Route 8211, and a few aircraft flying overhead, I only heard the sounds of nature.

I absolutely enjoyed my time in the Saddle Mountain area, and hope to stay there again.

 

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I took all of the photos in this post. They were all taken in the area around where I camped near Saddle Mountain.

Feb13

Where to Stay in T or C

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I’ve been writing about Truth or Consequences, NM in the last few days, and several people have told me they now have T or C on their list of places to visit. It would hardly be fair to get folks excited about visiting the town and not tell them where they can stay.

The first time I visited T or C, I had the good fortune to spend a week in a motel. I stayed at the Rocket Inn (605 N Date Street), a small motor court with only nine rooms for rent. Built in 1948, and originally called the Red Haven Motel, the entire place has been restored. According to the website, the

fully modernized King Deluxe and Double Queen rooms…include fridge, microwave, WIFI and HDTV/basic cable. [The property is] family run, dog-friendly and walking distance to Main Street.

I chose the Rocket Inn because I could walk from my room to downtown where I was able to sample the wonderful hot springs bathhouses. Everyone working at the Rocket Inn, from the owners to the housekeepers, were exceedingly nice to me and made sure I had everything I wanted and needed. The rooms were impeccably clean, and I felt perfectly safe there.

SDC10011The third time I visited Truth or Consequences, I stayed at the Artesian Bath House and RV Park (at 312 Marr Street) for two months. Nightly and weekly rates at the Artesian were reasonable, but the monthly rate was a fantastic deal.

According to the business’s Facebook page,

The Artesian Bath House opened for business June, 1930. For over 33 years the Martin’s [sic] have owned, operated, and maintained their commercial hot springs.

The Artesian is great for vandwellers, as there  are restrooms on-site, and one can take a hot bath if one wants to clean up.

I have also had great success stealth parking and boondocking in the town of Truth or Consequences. I’m not sure if I’m actually as stealthy as I like to think I am or if no one in T or C cares about who’s sleeping in a vehicle in a residential area, but when I left in December of 2015, I’d never been bothered during my nights in the van. Lots of folks park overnight in the parking lot of the T or C Wal-Mart. I have seen everything from luxury Class A’s to old-school motorhomes held together with duct tape and prayer to stealth vans parked in that lot. On some nights I’ve counted a dozen vehicles parked there, then counted them all again in the morning as I walked toward the doors of the store. Sometimes I call that parking lot the Wal-Mart RV park.

For folks who want to get out of town and into nature, there’s plenty of that in the area too.

Paseo del Rio Campground SignTruth or Consequences is very close to Elephant Butte dam and Elephant Butte State Park. According to Wikipedia,

Elephant Butte Dam…is a concrete gravity dam on the Rio Grande river near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. The dam impounds Elephant Butte Reservoir, which is used for both recreation and agriculture. The construction of the dam has reduced the flow of the Rio Grande to a small stream, with high releases occurring only during the summer irrigation season, or during years of exceptionally heavy snow melt.

Elephant Butte Dam

Elephant Butte Dam is the large concrete structure in the middle of this photo.

The Paseo del Rio Recreation Area is part of Elephant Butte State Park. The Paseo del Rio includes a campground I stayed at for a couple of nights during my first visit to the area.

When I was there, the campground did not offer water, sewage, or electrical hookups, but each campsite had a fire ring and picnic table covered by a ramada. There were flush toilets and sinks with running water on one end of the campground, near the day-use parking lot, and portable toilets at the other end. I believe the camping fee was $10 per night.

The Rio Grande and Mountain

This photo shows the Rio Grande as it looked from the trail that ran through the campground.

A 3/4 mile trail with “interpretive signage of historic interest” ran through the campground and along the Rio Grande, and there was a historic fish hatchery in the recreation area.

I found the campground peaceful. There wasn’t much traffic at night on the road closest to the campground, so there wasn’t much disruptive automotive noise.

Fish Hatchery Lake

This photo shows one of the fish hatchery lakes. The water drew birds, so there was a lot of avian life in the area.

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This photo shows Caballo Lake, with the Caballo Mountains beyond it.

I also spent a couple of nights at the Percha Flats camping area at Caballo Lake State Park. Percha Flats was a primitive camping area with no designated campsites, no running water, no electricity, and no hookups of any kind. When I visited, there was a pit toilet and a dumpster near the entrance to the camping area. The camping fee was $8 per night. There were no designated hiking trails in the area where I stayed, but I did take some nice walks along the edge of the lake.

The final campground I stayed in near Truth or Consequences was in Percha Dam State Park. SDC10028The campground had many developed campsites, although mine only had a picnic table. My site had no ramada, and no hookups, although there may have been a water spigot there. (I can’t remember.) Many of the sites had electrical hookups, but I decided not to splurge on that. The campground also had flush toilets, sinks with running water, and hot showers that didn’t cost extra to use. I did enjoy a nice hot shower during my stay.

My last tip is a boondocking spot about 3o miles away from Truth or Consequences. Last time I was there, the cute little town of Hillsboro (population 124) allowed folks to park overnight in the community’s tiny park across the street from the Black Range Museum. There were a couple of pit toilets in the park, as well as a few informational placards, and campfires were not allowed. I think this spot would be a good place to spend the night on a trip between T or C and Silver City.

So there you have it. I’ve offered up several choices of places to stay as you start your adventures in Truth or Consequences and the surrounding area.

I took all of the photos in this post.