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Epilogue

Miles

Motorhome drove - 3887

Toad drove - 1494

Carolyn & Maddie ran - 252 miles

Bill, Carolyn & Maddie hiked - 39 miles

Carolyn swam - 4 miles

Locations

Boondocking Sites - 1 lake (2x), 1 Wildlife Area, 1 event lot, 1 desert Nat'l Monument, 1 desert Wildlife Preserve, 1 desert Wildlife Refuge,  2 desert BLM areas (3 locations)

Wallydocking -  2 locations

We Visited - 3 couples (1 of them five times, 1 at a restaurant, 2 at their homes)

Special Sightseeing - 1 preserved town, 1 artisans' town, 1 historic town, 1 ranch (in Wildlife Preserve), 1 canyon (in Wildlife Refuge), 1 mine, 1 Natural Area, 1 concert

Coffee Shops - 18 (2 of them several times)

Airport - 1 (2x p/u & d/o)

Libraries for internet - 1 (after Starlink was Paused until next year)

Restaurants - 10

Grocery Stores - 11

Laundromats - 3 (plus 1 friend's house)

RV dumps - 5

Propane - 4

Carwashes - 5

Motorhome washes - 2

Look at all our 2024 pics here

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Day 71 (continue drive home & arrival)

Not much to show in the land of flat, so flat you feel like you can see to Canada.

Mullinville KS

How did we miss this 50 yards of M.T. Liggett's art lining his land on our way out in January? We were in a US54 detour, but not sure this was part of it. Hmmm.

All Through KS

It was so warm this Winter that the Pear trees and the Red Buds are in full bloom (normally mid April) along with the leaves starting to open.

Last Dutch Bros

Kansas Fires

Again with the smoke and multiple fires burning 100s of acres. We ran into it last year (see 2023 Day 69) and it happened coming home from Bill & Jen's one trip as well (the Colorado route is I70).

Sunset in Ft Scott

May not be the desert, but still pretty awe inspiring.

The Arrival

We talked about the re-entry this afternoon, Bill saying it's hard to believe we're going to be home and Carolyn saying let's sleep in the motorhome tonight. Last year we did it and the re-entry to the house seemed less shocking than the years before. Stay tuned for the Epilogue where we'll include our impressions of re-entry.

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Day 70 (continue drive home)

These are north east of Alamagordo and we had to have driven right by them both last year and this year. We both don't remember them to look like this. Is it because we're seeing them at a different time of day or from a different direction (this is becoming a theme!)

And here we thought it was a bummer to see same thing going home but.....

If it weren't for the Lake I could see myself living in the middle nowhere in this big open space where though the houses are so far apart you can only see them because the valley between all these mountain ranges is tens of miles wide.

Cool bumps

And then miles of beige again

Vaughn NM

We're fascinated by the small towns with a mile of abandoned commercial buildings. Even more fascinating is why are a few occupied and in good repair. This town is one of town after town like this along US54 but it at least has a story. It developed into a thriving town because it was at the intersection of 2 major railroads so and the beautiful depot is one of the old buildings in town that's been kept up. By the 1920s there were 900 residents. And even though the population now is 286 it still has its own school - a total of 60 students in all grades. Where do you get teachers for that? The houses we saw are pretty run down and in 2019 the students listed as doing well on state test was 35% (that's up from 2017 at 21%). So there isn't a large taxpayer base to pay for it. But as we were leaving town there was a brand new diner (the silver kind that's meant to look like the 1950s) and a new Travelodge. Why?

And then miles of beige again. Every so often in the middle of the beige is just the fireplace of a stone house. Or just a couple walls. When we see these likely houses from a long ago ranch we think of the family having dinner together, and sitting around the fireplace in the evening.

Thank you Santa Rosa library for your internet so I could run an executive group this afternoon. Our fabulous Starlink was set to start a new payment month last week the day we arrived at Jim & Wally's. And then Kim & Sheryl's and then drive straight home. The only thing that required more Internet than our phone could provide was this group facilitation - 2 hrs was not worth the cost of a whole month. So we reverted back to the last 2 years of driving to a library.

The Last Mountain

Bill said, "You better look now because that's the last mountain". After 2 1/2 months of mountains on all 4 sides this is the last. And it sure was a great one - rising out of the land like an ancient city.

We slept at the Liberal KS Walmart tonight. If Liberal KS sounds familiar to you it's because of your trip last year on the way home to Dorothy's House (see 2023 Day 69)

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Day 69 (start drive home)

We spent the morning doing some tasks for our friend Sheryl after she left for the hospital. Then we went to the hospital to see Kim in the early afternoon. We feel great to see his amazing progress after the docs gave up hope.

In the parking lot as we were about to start our drive home a man knocked on the door and asked for a jump. So here we are after the jump, in Tucson rush hour traffic starting our trip at 4pm. So us.

We both can't remember seeing this before but think we had to have driven this past it on I10 W going west more than once. Looked it up and it's the Dragoon Mountains. Maybe they don't look anything like this when you approach from the east?

All of a sudden came these!

Slept at Holloman Lake (see Days 2 - 11) because it's right off the road and I'm the dark we know where to go.

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Day 68 (drive to Tucson)

Past the Salton Sea (see 2019 trip there Day 28-30)

Through the smelly Imperial Valley (major food growing area for the US)

Then the Imperial Dunes (have had it in our list for several years - we will go next year now that we've seen it)

Now back in the land of Dutch Bros so our first one in a month

Then the always fascinating twists and turns near Dome Rd just east of Yuma. Why fascinating - this landscape only lasts a couple miles starting just outside the town of Yuma and couple miles of these cool hills later it's flat, flat, flat.

Sky in Oro Valley

What is this? And that streak of light you're seeing lasted for at least 15 min. We later learned it was the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket.

And we were there!

"What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... all things are as they were then, except you were there." Walter Cronkite

Arrival at Kim & Sheryl's

It was so great after a month of phone reports to be able to celebrate in person with Sheryl the miraculous recovery this past week of Kim. So happy to be able to support them through the past month of severe illness (see Day 44)

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Day 65, 66, 67 (Jim & Wally's)

Cooler than usual for 2 days (we swam anyway - plus shopped to gather our imports to the Lake of Costco and Trader Joe's).

Sunny and a bit warmer for 2 days and we enjoyed the swimming even more.

Meals which are always better when cooked together. And each meal included lovely music and always stimulating conversation.

A real Mexican breakfast at a Mexican (not a Mexican American) restaurant followed by a weekly street fair

Then went a home art show - a woman they know from Tai Chi (and instructor) is also an artist. Not only did we see so many interesting mediums (canvases and paper with all kinds of treatments, pottery, jewelry) but got a description of how she does them and heard about her childhood in Hiroshima before becoming a US citizen. She also plays golf, teaches a stretch class, has the most unique gardens (filled with her pottery) and has more energy than most people (she is not young).

And we went to a Killer Queen concert (a Queen tribute band) at one of the many, many large casinos in the Coachella Valley.

Maddie says, again, "Thank you for a stimulating and relaxing time dear friends".

[boondockerblog]

Day 64 (Drive to Cathedral City)

Love this every year as we start our drive to Cathedral City (not the cars...the fuzzy mountains and flower lined highway)

Time to Cityfy

b4 ⤵️

Part 1 ⬇️

Part 2 ⬇️

The car (sorry no pic - there was no one to take it - Bill washing the car and Carolyn doing Saturday cleaning inside)

Super windy drive - tough for the driver and the gas mileage but also the view

And all of a sudden there's the Coachella Valley spread out beneath us

We know you can't see it - we can't either as the dust from high winds is almost obscuring the view. We just know because our minds fill in the picture . Even still, we both agree that this is our favorite part of the trip to friends Jim and Wally's. See 2023 Day 61 for what we thought then was dust-filled air, but this year is worse.

Arrival is Jim & Wally's

Always such a joy to arrive at their beautiful, relaxing home!

[boondockerblog]

Day 63 (Last minute decision to  drive to Quartzite)

A plan hatched while running - tomorrow we leave for Cathedral City (in the Coachella Valley) to visit friends' Jim & Wally. What if we just left today after brunch and drove to Quartzite? Why would we drive 30 miles now instead of just driving it tomorrow with the other 180 miles? 2 reasons - #1 it's going to take 45 minutes just to get from where we're camped to the road and then another 25 min to get to Quartzite. Plus we're stopping there to go to our favorite grocery store in a tent (see 2023 Day 61 and 2019 Day 47). So by going today we can cut off 2 hrs from our time tomorrow, getting to sunny Palm Springs area earlier. And why do that? - reason #2 it's cold and windy here and in Quartzite today and tomorrow so let's get closer to the warmth.

After the grocery we set off to check out the land along Plamosa Rd which had been recommended by the people with the lost dog (see Day 55)

No reason to look for a really good place as we're only staying until after breakfast so we just pulled off the road. And now we're sure we should never stay by a road - car lights, sirens from Quartzite all night. Running I already see how far away we could go right here and there are many more miles along Plamosa to try.

But even in a not good area for us for camping we found beautiful sunset and sunrise and fabulous flowering Creosote and who knows what that white filly flower is.

[boondockerblog]

Day 62 (KOFA)

And the Spring bloom just keeps on coming (especially love the Prickly Pear magenta, and look at the literally hundreds of buds - wish we were going to be here until next week when it will be fabulous!)

You saw the sunrise so you should see the sunset-

#Vimeo

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Day 60 & 61 (KOFA)

The Usual

Running, breakfast, dinner each day.

The Unusual

One night a campfire at Annamarie and David's site (sorry, too dark for pic).

The next afternoon a text from them with the pictures (click on the pic on right and enlarge to see step better) title - New Friend, and the words - "Gave us quite the fright. We were all outside dogs lazing, me and David reading when we heard rattle rattle. We moved pretty quick. It was about a foot away from Diana."

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Day 59 (KOFA)

We simply wanted to follow the road we could see from where we parked. When we got there we learned that once on the single path trail we could hike to see a canyon with California Fan Palms. Except for a couple hours at midday this canyon is dark.

Some botanists theorize that the trees gradually spread into this canyon and other protected niches as the climate warmed to desert conditions. Another theory is that the trees may have been spread from other palm groves by birds or coyotes carrying seeds in their digestive tracts.

We prepared a wonderful grill dinner with Annamarie, David, Fidel and Diana from BC. But by the time we were ready to serve it was so dark we decided to eat in the motorhome. Wish we'd taken pictures of the floor solid with 3 dogs!

#Vimeo

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Day 58 (KOFA)

As promised last night, we went running toward the mountains. Many many areas that would be easy to drive into and park. The drawback is the only 100 ft from the road part you read about yesterday. But, we found several possibilities about 2 more miles up the road.

Though I was in a hurry to get the run in to find a place we'd like and, once found, to get back to the motorhome (once you see something you have to move fast as you never know if someone else will come along). Anyway, though in a hurry we came up on a 5th Wheel pretty quick after leaving and the people were packing up. I commented how sad they must be and he said "everything's broken". Last night their super, and huge capacity solar collection system and massive storage batteries to inverters just quit. Then they discovered the truck wouldn't start (battery?). He showed me  his amazing house batteries (boondockers are mighty proud of their electric systems and can regale you for hours) and we swapped wonderful boondocking stories. On the way back past them he still didn't have a working truck so I told him we'd be happy to help figure it out, or at least give his truck a jump since his battery charger wasn't doing it. I let him know what we looked like and that we were moving and he said he'd ride his bike up if he needed us.

We left immediately, stopped to talk with him and he'd put his spare battery in the truck and charged it so was all good to leave. Bill took a peak at their electric set up:

then 30 min later we were parked with a beautifully close up view of the mountains.

Cell Service Surprise

We tried KOFA (3 of the 4 long roads in) a few years ago (see 2021 Day 43) but couldn't find a cell signal for phone or internetnso couldn't stay. We came this year because now we can go anywhere - thank you Starlink! So imagine the letdown when we had cell service this year! This is the opposite of last weeks in Cabeza Prieta - 2022 and 2023 we had poor service but could send an email and this year we had a big fat X - so thank goodness for Starlink.

With the move we got a late start on breakfast/brunch and our BC friends, Annamarie and David (met in Cabeza Prieta the last weeks - see Days 51, 52, 53, 55) stopped by on their daily hike. We knew each other were coming and it was great that we were only about 4 miles apart.

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Day 57 (unplanned leave for KOFA Wildlife Refuge)

Ran a path I hadn't since last year - the one with so much exposed copper that the ground is blue everywhere. I was surprised when I started the path that the blue wasn't there. What could have happened? And then after a mile all of a sudden everything was blue! Didn't have a phone so I brought a rock home - but you can see the whole effect on 2022 Day 47.

The partly cloudy and cool forecast in reality was dark clouds and rain and windy by the time I got back.

A few days ago we'd seen the cool temp and thought it would be a good driving day. Then we flipped the motorhome around yesterday and loved the new feel so said let's stay a few more days. NEW PLAN

Quick get ready to go and be at KOFU Wildlife Refuge b4 dark.

Hard to leave what feels like home (see Day 46). And on top of that the bushes we've been watching the buds on are out or days away. Especially sad about the flowering bush which we've been watching for a week and it's days away now.

And of course we got Oasis Coffee saying goodby to Zenia and dumped/water/propane/gasoline/grocery.

North on AZ85 - we can't resist showing you more of these stunning rocks.

We arrived KOFU (choosing Palm Canyon Rd - there are 3 other roads in over the course of a iit 40 miles N to S). And we arrived just before sunset. You must camp within 100 ft of the road (yuck) so there were many choices. We want to be close to the mountains (and maybe that blocks some of the RVs - even though people are far apart with 6 miles of flat you can see RVs for miles).  As dusk fell we were likely still another 30 min on washboard road so we had to just stop once we hit dusk. Tomorrow we'll find a place after running to the mountains - as usual so stay tuned.

[boondockerblog]

Day 56 Cabeza Prieta

We've been saying for over a week that we should flip the motorhome 180°. When we arrive somewhere that we want to make camp because we love the view there's a long conversation (many times devolving into frustration) about which direction to orient the motorhome based on where the door is, the windshield, the bedroom picture window, the table window. The bedroom and table windows are about being sure we can see the sunrise out one side the sunset out the other.The door  is about being sure there will be  sun there for most of the day. The windshield is where we things are that we don't want to see (here it's the mine and the path). Sometimes late in the day we get  it right and other times, like this week, we were so wrong about the door that the only sun we got was about 5pm. The temperature even with wind is good and hot no matter what the C/F is as long as there's sun. So... we finally flipped it today. Now this might not seem like much to you but simply having sun when you go it the door and no moon isn't blasting in our faces at 3am, we'll, it was a whole nother perspective. To the point that Bill said, "Maybe we'll stay longer" (we'd been talking about leaving tomorrow - Thursday - as it was predicted to be the cold day if the week). In fact we were talking about leaving Saturday instead.

Is that sunset coming from a rock?

[boondockerblog]

Day 55 (Cabeza Prieta)

Ran new paths on the other side of the road into town. Didn't even know they were there but they looked the right direction. I was seeking the labyrinth that was on the Bike Ajo map (see Day 54). I ran down one path after the other and the only thing I found were signs  that said:

Stay Safe, Stay Out

including a picture of  skull & crossbones

So I stayed out.

We love the staff at Oasis Coffee. After conversations with Zenia about her family the last time we were here (see Day 51) we got to meet her husband (he brings her lunch everyday) and we learned that they were expecting their 1st baby. Again we were aware of the feeling of home and belonging from these inclusive people.

The BC people stopped by on their hike today and asked us to come to their campsite for a fire. Where they moved to a couple days ago ends up to be near the people with the lost dog from last year . In talking a couple days ago, we had recounted the story to illustrate how much we loved boondockers because they create a sense of community while still staying to themselves.  So when the BC people met the lost dog people the lost dog people started telling the story from last year about Bill and Carolyn driving around for hours giving out their phone number and eventually getting a call, the BC people said - "we know them and the story!".  So tonight we got to see them at the campfire and had  a whole evening of boondocking experiences and got great new ideas for the next time we go to  Quartzite.

[boondockerblog]

Day 54 (Cabeza Prieta)

Cabeza Prieta Nat'l Wildlife Preserve is about 60 miles East to West and 30 miles North to South. One long road runs from the Eastern edge to the West (Darby Well Rd, becomes Bates Well Rd, becomes El Camino del Diablo). We've camped and explored about the first 6 miles in the middle of the Eastern edge off Darby Well Rd (dark green triangle on Eastern side is where we're camped).

We drove slowly on washboard road so we knew we'd only be seeing about another 15 miles from where we're camped. Interestingly after driving about 10 miles all the cactus disappeared leaving only Creosote bushes and a handful of gnarly trees. The Bates Mountains and Growler Mountains continued on all sides.

Speaking those mountain names, and referring to the map we had so many questions - who names all this that we saw? How are the borders decided? Who drives around to make the map?

Just after the long stretch of no cactus we came to a gate and sign that showed we were entering Organ Pipe National Monument. We knew from the map that a small NE corner of Organ Pipe butts up against Cabeza Prieta, and in fact the Bates Well Road runs right through that corner. And the vegetation changed almost instantly to lots of Saguaro and other cactus (no Organ Pipe Cactus though - when we went through the official entry to Organ Pipe 2 years ago (see 2022 Day 45) it was primarily the namesake cactus).

Bates Ranch

A few days ago Bill was reading about the Bates family being the last to own a cattle ranch in Cabeza Prieta and the controversy of having them on Organ Pipe Cactus Monument lands. But still we were surprised to come upon a house and some smaller buildings - it was the Bates Ranch!

Driving back the way we came (red dot in middle of Organ Pipe section of road is where we turned around) was the same by different - because the sun is at the end of the day illuminates things that were in shadow and shadow things that were illuminated. Just look at that

"hole" in the mountain. Never saw that before even though it's a part of the road I've run before this drive. 2 guesses why - #1 never saw it in the late afternoon so the location of the sun makes shadow (compared to early morning running time), and #2 never saw it from far away (in fact as we got closer to it the hole turned into just mountain ridges completely earsing the sense of a gaping hole)

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Day 53 (Cabeza Prieta)

Still empty, still sunny, still silent except for a whisper of wind every so often. A wonderful location for a lovely breakfast and walk and writing and reading.

Another looked forward to event planned for today - going to Ajo Pie.

We learned our lesson with Grannie's a couple days ago so we contacted them (email), even though Google and their website and FB page say they're open. Got a pretty quick email back - "we are temporarily closed". Rats - the pictures of artisan pizzas on their website and Facebook and Google look so good.

We had asked the people from BC if they wanted to go so now we had to figure out something. So, we went to the only place that we could find open for dinner in Ajo. The food was only ok, but the reason we went, as always at a restaurant, was to be with the people we went with. We sat outside and even though the area obviously hasn't been used in awhile we really liked having it all to ourselves. We discovered many more things we have in common and learned many experiences that formed who they are. One example - after he left one business they put their whole family in their bus (RV) for 18 months traveling all over including many months on the beach in Playa del Carmen on the Yucatan Peninsula and then later in Guatemala. We have learned so much over the years by talking with people and hearing the way they live their lives.