 
Beans and I on the Loose

A traveler and his cat exploring the back roads of America

Book Three  
2019

Seven Months of Summer

By  
JOHN LEE KIRN
Copyright © 2019 by JOHN LEE KIRN

All rights reserved, including the right of

reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

As if it really matters...
Summertime,

And the livin' is easy...

_Porgy and Bess_

Summertime

George Gershwin, 1935
CONTENTS

ARIZONA

UTAH

COLORADO

WYOMING

MONTANA

IDAHO

UTAH

ARIZONA

AUTHOR'S NOTE
Seven Months of Summer

ARIZONA

We had arrived at our winter retreat in Quartzite, Arizona on October 10 the previous year, 2018. I planned to do something different that time in that I would pay a hundred-eighty dollars to stay in any of the four BLM (Bureau of Land Management) LTVA (Long Term Visitor Area) camps. This would permit us to stay in the area for up to seven months (Sept. 15-April 15) rather than having to move around between several free fourteen-day stay limit short term BLM camps as I had always done in the past. In addition to the extended stay privilege I had access to free water, free dumping of waste water and free trash disposal. So in all it isn't a bad deal and could work out to be as little as eighty-six cents a day camping. That is pretty cheap "rent".

Now having said we arrived on October 10 this was much earlier than I had planned. We were in Winslow, Arizona when the weather turned; it became quite cold−by my standards which aren't all that forgiving when it comes to cold–and I checked the weather in Quartzite. It showed to be over ten degrees warmer and so we headed to the western side of the state. At the same time I received a message from my friend Joanna who I had met a year previously in Quartzite. She was camped in one of the LTVA areas, the one closest to town. This hadn't been in my plan as I was thinking more of way out in the hinterland away from all the people and hub-bub. I learned she had volunteered to work for the BLM a couple days a week checking campers in and in doing so she did not have to pay the one-eighty fee. She got to stay for free. This is why she was where I didn't necessarily want to be. Yet, I figured I would go see her and maybe stay for a week or two at the most. I could tolerate close camping for at least that long. I ended up staying with her for five months! It wasn't all that bad. I could walk into town for supplies rather than breaking camp and the "neighborhood" for the most part was quiet and entertaining. People watching can be a great past time.

Sitting in one spot doesn't provide the stories as does traveling around the country does in the remaining months of the year. But occasionally a story does surface and here are a few encounters during our winter lay-over before Beans and I began a new year of traveling the back roads of America.

A Special Christmas Moment

I was standing outside one of only two small grocery stores in Quartzsite reading the bulletin board ads. Nearby was a frail elderly woman, dressed in a red full-length garment, blonde hair rolled in a bun on top of her head, carefully positioning herself in her roll-around wheel chair. Several bags containing her possessions hung from the arms and back of the chair, her cane poking out in the back. The lady in red moved real slow, had difficulty in doing most everything and was attempting to make arrangements for a ride to her doctor sifting through her papers and digging out her phone. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman walk up to the lady and slip her a few dollars. The lady in red said "I'm not begging." The woman told her "You keep it. Merry Christmas" and she walked away. I talked with the lady in red. She was deeply moved by the gift and told me she had been having trouble lately with people stealing from her (I didn't inquire as to details on that) and couldn't believe someone just gave her a few dollars. I said "Maybe this is a sign that good things will come your way now." I told her how that act of kindness on the part of the mystery woman and my being witness to it just made my day. I wished her well and couldn't get the lady in red out from my mind for several hours afterwards.

The Lady at the Water Fill-up Station

I drove down to the larger LTVA south of Quartzite to top off the water tank in the RV. There are four pipe outlets for water fill-up each stand about four feet high, a faucet on each side. As I was filling the tank a lady pulled in on the other side of me. She was in a small SUV type of car. She was heavy-set, may have been in her forties, hard to say as she was bundled up against the cold. Wearing a heavy coat, knit cap, long black braid of hair and bare foot except for flip-flops; it was too cold for me to not have anything on my feet! She was filling a white five-gallon bucket. She was going to do her laundry. "I need to get a hose like yours" she remarked as the water shot out from the faucet some of which wasn't making it into her bucket. We got to talking.

I learned she had been bedridden for three years, with little or no use of her arms and legs following a traffic accident. She said "I used to exercise, do Zumba dance workouts and run 5k runs. You wouldn't know that to look at me now." She would tell her daughters, "If I ever get out of this bed, I am making a big life change."

Her prospects never looked good until she stopped taking the medication the doctors had put her on. Gradually she recovered, became mobile and left her prison-in-a-bed life. She told me she would watch YouTube videos while incapacitated and learned of this nomadic life on the road. She had packed what she needed in her car and this was the first time she had ever been in the desert. She was living out of a tent and so very happy. "I walked five miles yesterday!"

I have heard similar stories about the detrimental effects of prescribed medications. Someone once told me they didn't trust doctors. "They don't know anything. They don't care. They cause more trouble than they cure. They charge the earth and if you don't get better they blame you for it. After they blind you or cripple you, so that you've got no choice but to sue them, where do you have to go? To a lawyer! And that's worse!"

The lady hefted the five-gallon bucket full of water into her car (remember, less than a year ago she couldn't even lift her leg or arm) and we exchanged good-byes. I wished her the best. She left me inspired for the rest of the day.

Walking to Woodstock

Every once in awhile during our five-month long stay in camp I would see this older man walking by heading for town a mile away; grey hair, grey beard, slightly built, day pack on his back, usually wearing a tie-died shirt. A couple of times I had come across him walking down the dirt road to the LTVA camp area south of us about two miles distant. He would be carrying two one-gallon jugs of water, sometimes sitting in the shade of a mesquite tree taking a break. One day during one of my hikes we met on the road and I just had to say something to him.

"I see you walking by my camp, in town and sometimes way out here on Yuma Road. Just wanted to say I admire you walking everywhere you go."

"Yep, I walk all the time" he said. In fact I came to learn that that was his only means of transportation–walking. He mentioned the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of Woodstock. "Bethel, New York. I'm going there, walking." Bethel, New York is 2200 miles from Quartzite, Arizona, if you are a crow. By road it is 2529 miles! He told me how he had gone to the original Woodstock event. He was thirteen years old and got picked up by the local law enforcement as a "teen runaway" and sent back home. That would make him sixty-three years old today, seven years my junior. I wished him well and continued on with my three-mile hike. I hope he makes it. He will. [Unfortunately later in the year the Woodstock celebration event was canceled]

Dave

Dave moved in near our camp a few months after we had arrived. He was sixty-seven, had a rough leathery face much like Rolling Stone Keith Richards or actor Tommy Lee Jones. His dark shoulder-length hair was always unkempt and appeared greasy and went along with his scraggly beard. He walked slowly, slightly off-kilter and was hard of hearing. He had done three years in the army, a Vietnam veteran, got out in 1971 and said "Screw the world". A tour in Vietnam will do that to you. He bought a Harley Davidson motorcycle and rode away. He joined a Maine chapter of the Hells Angels but that lasted for only six months. "They had too many rules."

Over time he wound up buying a sailboat, a pure sailboat with no motor. He lived full time on the boat out of Key Largo, Florida. He sailed all about in the area including to Bermuda for eight years until a hurricane de-masted the boat and he was unable to afford the repairs. He still has the boat parked on a cousin's piece of land up in Maine.

It was at this time fifteen years ago he bought eighteen acres of land in the wilderness near the Maine/Canadian border. He built a log cabin with a flat roof, dirt floor, no electricity, no plumbing and lived there for fifteen years. All heating was done with wood and he spent most of the summer cutting up wood to get him through the brutal winters. Then one day he discovered people were growing pot on his land. In Maine you are only allowed to grow six plants; this was a whole field of marijuana plants. He talked to them about this. "You're gonna get me in trouble." They ignored him doing nothing about the plants so he chopped down the plants. They in turn burned down his cabin. "Oh well, I was getting tired of walking a mile through snow to get to the road anyway." He sold the land, bought an old van, a travel trailer, loaded up Harley number ten and left Maine for a life on the road as a nomad.

Dave has had Harleys all his life. This may explain his hard of hearing problem. On Harley #8 an old lady in an Oldsmobile turned in front of him and he centered punched her in the driver's door. He walked away from the accident; the old lady went to the hospital. Witnesses told the police it was her fault. With Harley #9 he was rear-ended by a car going fifty miles-per-hour. Dave went sailing for over a hundred feet. This time he sustained a broken back. "I got glue in there holding me together." He was in a wheelchair for a year and now is supposed to use cane. "I keep forgetting. It's in the trailer somewhere." This is why he walks slow and off-kilter.

Dave was nothing like he looked. He was kind and soft-spoken. He gifted my camp mate Joanna a hundred watt solar panel that was on the top of his van. "Here, you can have this." He had a weakness for Pepsi Cola polishing off a six-pack or more every day. A few weeks after Dave moved in we eventually moved south a mile to a quieter location away from the highway noise. We learned later Dave had had an accident on Harley #10. He was motoring along at eighty miles per hour when his weathered old rear tire went flat as he approached a right angle turn in the middle of nowhere on a lonely desert highway over in California. The accident broke his ankle and further disfigured his face.

Greg

We never knew his name for sure; was it Craig or Greg? So for a couple of months we referred to him as Craig-Greg. He was camped about a hundred yards from us in a beat up old brown GMC passenger van. A small equally abused little old fiberglass camper trailer sat in his camp site. Greg would drive everywhere he needed to go. Every morning he would drive into town to McDonalds and get some sort of breakfast. Using the drive-up window he didn't have to get out. He would buy the daily newspaper and then pass it on to others in camp. Towards the end he quit doing this as no one ever showed any appreciation for his newspaper. Lunch time he'd go back into town and maybe hit Burger King, again not having to get out due to the drive-up window. Dinner most likely was the same routine. Other campers always were on the lookout for Greg and sometimes brought him meals, us included. We never saw him out of his van. Sometimes he would be taking a nap, in the van sitting behind the steering wheel. For all we could tell it looked as if he had died there in the driver's seat. Greg would come by and show us "treasures" he would pick up at the give-away tables at each of the four kiosks and sometimes "gifts" left behind at the dumpsters as people would leave things outside the dumpster that may be of use to someone. Greg kept me supplied with lots of books. After I read them I would return them to him as he was taking the load back home for his daughter. Home was a flyspeck of a town on the map in the southeast portion of Iowa. Sometimes when Greg would come by we had to be sure to be upwind from him. Joanna especially would pick up on his smell. She would not hesitate in telling him he needed a bath. I think most of the smell came from his clothes as he never did laundry and traces of his fast food meals were always present dibbled down his shirt. As the months went by the back of the van grew ever so much packed with all of his finds. Greg informed us he had been coming to Quartzite for thirty years now and felt this would be the last time he would make the trip. He was ninety-six years old. Overlooking all of Greg's short comings the fact alone that he was still out here doing this at his age was an inspiration to both of us, especially me. "Greg, when I grow up and want to be just like you." He'd smile. He was still sharp as a tack and very witty but he knew it was becoming more difficult for him to make the drive, to get around and one could not help but notice the growing cataracts in his eyes.

We met many people while there for those five months. Everyone has a story. Two people had heart attacks while there. Each was transported to Phoenix for repairs and the installing of electronic devices to keep the heart ticking properly. Both within weeks were walking around. Joanna while working at the check-station met many more people of course and was in contact with the BLM rangers often. Occasionally a camper would come in and register a 'welfare check' on a fellow camper. These originated usually from the fact of just sitting there in your own camp and not seeing any activity at all from a neighbor's camp over a period of time. So they would bring this to the attention at the check-in booth, a welfare check was written up and the rangers would go out and check. Most of the time it wasn't anything except that the individual just holed himself up inside like a hermit. Yet there were the other instances. One ranger informed Joanna that they discovered eight individual cases last year of people having died in their RV.

For nearly a year I had been having issues with my Motoped cycle. If you can picture a beefed up mountain bike with a 50cc motor, this is what the Motoped Survival bike is. It had been giving me problems for the past year requiring frequent adjustments to the settings of the valves. Over time the problem grew worse and the bike lost power. Around the first of the year it would barely run going no faster than if I was peddling a regular bicycle. I finally gave up and parked it. A couple weeks later, with nothing else to do, I removed the head on the engine. I discovered the intake valve was burnt and had receded into the head. It was then I seriously gave thought to just get rid of this Chinese-made knock-off clone of a Honda motor and put in a true reliable Honda 50 engine. Research showed that the engines alone were hard to come by and a rebuilt motor would go for nearly a grand and that was when supplying your own motor which I did not have. Oh how I longed for the 1979 Honda Trail 90 that I had completed restored and foolishly sold some years ago. Also I wished I had my nice mountain bike with me that hung from the rafters in the garage back in California. I thought back over the past couple of years at how many times the bike would have been nice to have, surely now as the Motoped was down. I hadn't brought a bicycle with me for I had that damn Motoped. I decided when my time was up in Quartzite I'd make the dreaded trip back through California, to the house, and get the mountain bike.

Over the winter Joanna had secured a camp host position at a small Forest Service campground in Wyoming. That was to begin in May. She wanted to spend time with family in Colorado before beginning her new job so at the end of March we left Quartzite for Lake Havasu City at the California/Arizona border near Needles California. There we camped for two days and then parted ways, her to the east and Beans and I would head west to California. After Joanna drove away I decided to take a walk up the narrow rocky road that led into the canyon near camp. I had seen several vehicles go in up that way only to soon turn around and come back out. I assumed camp spots were not to be had up that road or it just became impassable. I hiked in a half a mile or so and was surprised to see an old van and travel trailer parked just off the rocky trail. I saw someone outside and planned on complimenting them on dragging that trailer up there and getting parked as they had. That person turned out to be a lone woman and her blind little dog. I met Kat from Oregon. I'd guessed her to be in her early forties. She was tall, short spikey hair sticking out in all different directions and had the prettiest blue eyes you could imagine. She wore a dirty brown t-shirt, equally dirty levis, and flip flops on her dried cracked weathered feet. She seemed pleased to meet me and we shook hands as we introduced ourselves. Her hands were rough like those of a construction worker. Her voice gravely but she was very pleasant to talk with. I eventually told her how impressed I was that she got her twenty-six foot long trailer up that road and parked as she did. I come to learn that she had just bought both the van and trailer recently and didn't have any money left to get it registered so was kind of "hiding out" up there until she was in a better way. She also let on that she had just left an "unpleasant situation" in Oregon. She bought the van through an ad on Craiglist for four hundred dollars and the trailer for one hundred dollars−two different sellers. She said she checked to make sure neither were stolen property before making the deals. The white van looked well used with ladder racks up top and a good share of dents in the body along with a cracked windshield as it had been used as a telecommunications service van. Despite its appearance it got her and the trailer across the Mojave Desert from Bakersfield without a problem. The trailer was equally abused looking on the outside; the inside was a whole other issue. I stepped in and went no further than the doorway as I took in the total chaos in front of me. Everything was in complete disarray as if the trailer had rolled over and landed up on its wheels once again. Her clothing, the few possessions she had, parts and pieces of the trailer, building supplies, cans of food and dry goods, all were strewn about on the floor. No cabinets remained. The interior had been totally gutted. Some exterior walls were exposed to bare wood framework and insulation. All that remained from how it once looked was half of an interior wall separating the living area (such as it was) and the "bedroom" where a mattress lay flopped on the floor. A hanging portion of the kitchen counter top remained and the cabinet that held the original refrigerator was still in place and worked...kind of, she said. Along one wall someone had installed a wood burning stove. Next to it a Pepsi Cola cooler case−not working. In the middle of the floor lay her deaf and blind little dog unaware I was there. She had lots of ideas and plans to fix things up and I didn't judge her any since she had only had the trailer for three weeks. She pointed out all the tools and power tools sitting on the shelf up front that came with the trailer. "They alone are worth over the hundred dollars I paid". She admitted she wasn't all that knowledgeable when it came to fixing things but she wasn't afraid to try. I admired her spirit and although I liked her I knew I couldn't get involved. I wished her luck and continued on my hike. I'd really like to run into Kat again someday and see how she had come along. I think she'll do fine.

As we made our way north over the next couple of days I had a lot of time to think. The Motoped had become an albatross to me and I resolved to get rid of it as is. I'd take my loss and move on. Maybe I could find a Honda 90 Trail bike. I had looked online and the few out there were parts bikes, needed a lot of work or were highly priced.

On April first I arrived at the house. It was good to see the ex. We hadn't seen each other in three years. While there I went through the things I had left behind when I had purged my life of all my stuff and junk before going on the road full time. What I left behind were the things I didn't have the courage to get rid of at the time. Now three years later it was easier to let go. They didn't mean anything to me any longer. I wanted to help her clean the clutter, simplify her life and do various little projects around the house that she was unable to do herself and was reluctant to pay a handyman for. In return, she fed me like a king. A week into this I finally got around to putting the Motoped on Craigslist at one-third the price I paid or 'best offer'. I got hits right away which kind of surprised me. Many offers were very low and a couple guys wanted to come see it that weekend. But when a kid from Sacramento offered two hundred dollars over the asking price I said he could have it. I wasn't going to wait through the weekend as planned and deal with tire kickers. He came on a Friday morning, paid cash, was happy to have it and I was happy to see it go. That went much easier than I had anticipated. At the same time a very nice looking 1972 Honda Trail 90 showed up on Craigslist and amazingly it was right there in town!

Over the winter Joanna was always trying to convince me of "the power of the Universe". She would tell me that if there is anything you want, you put the word out there in mind and thought and "the Universe will provide". Yeah, right. But over those months too many things happened to support her belief and it began to get creepy to me. Little things like how she wished she had a hummingbird feeder so we could feed the humming birds around camp. Two days later I came by a hummingbird feeder someone was giving away. She wished she could afford a 100 watt solar panel to keep her battery for her trailer charged up. Within a week, Dave walked over and gave her that solar panel. He didn't know she wanted one. And so now here I was wishing to get rid of that Motoped−which I did very easily at more than I had hoped for−and even more amazing, a Honda Trail 90 bike shows up looking every bit as good as the one I had (new tires, battery, other parts and pieces, everything clean, rust removed and polished) and for a price lower than similar bikes online needing work. I bought it. Four weeks later after arriving I never thought I would be driving away having accomplished everything I had.

I so desperately wanted to put California in the rear view mirror and in the last week of April Beans and I were back on the road. This year of traveling I would strive to do shorter drives, stay in places longer, stop driving earlier in the day and be in no rush to move out in the morning. And with that thought I put in a long four hundred mile drive on the very first day. I wanted out of California that bad. That's my excuse. We stopped in Fernley, Nevada between a Walmart (no overnight parking allowed) and a Lowes. The next day was a short drive on Interstate 80 to Imlay, Nevada followed by another short drive to a rest area at Valmay. My new driving plan bit me in the butt the next morning at Valmay. We woke up to snow falling. Knowing snow was in the offering I should have pressed on the day before. We could stay put but the forecast predicted temperatures to drop down to twenty-five degrees that night. Dying a frozen death at a lonely rest stop along a desolate Nevada highway isn't my way of choice for checking out. I decided to drive the remaining hundred-ninety miles to the Utah border−so much for my new traveling plan. We drove on to Elko where I stopped for a bite to eat and see what we would be dealing with further on in Wells, Nevada where the altitude was the highest at over six thousand feet. Snow was forecasted all day for Wells. I reasoned the sooner I got through there the less chance for the snow to build up. As it was I hit it just right with no snow falling over the high passes. Pure dumb luck on my part and I was even able to relax some and enjoy the snow-covered scenery. Crossing the border into Utah we dropped in elevation and stayed at our usual camp area near the Bonneville Salt Flats just outside of Wendover. No rain, no snow and sunny skies were predicted for the following week.
UTAH

That night after I turned out the light and tried to go to sleep Beans decided to start playing around up front. "Beans, stop it!" _Groan._ I got up, pulled back the curtain and saw the dashboard lights were on. _What did she do now?_ Then I recalled having driven through the snow storm with the headlights on. I had forgotten to turn the lights off! It was now five hours later! The battery wouldn't turn over the engine. The Dodge Sprinter has a battery boost button on the dash. I had never used it before. Supposedly you push the button, the circuit switches over to the coach batteries to start the motor. I tried it and lo and behold the engine started right up. _Whew! Thank you Beans and thank you Dodge._ I fed Beans extra bit more as a reward.

We spent three days there at the BLM Silver Island Mountains Recreational Area. I took the new-to-me Honda Trail 90 out twice thoroughly enjoying the bike over the Motoped Chinese junk motor powered bicycle. With just 40cc's more in engine displacement it could do so much more in addition having a low range gear option giving me four low gears to climb long steep grades whereas the Motoped struggled and I had to pedal to help it along. It would take me awhile to get over that poor decision I made several years ago selling the other Honda Trail 90 and then later buying the "Survival Bike".

One morning I woke up to the sight of runners passing by our desolate camp. Watching them pass by stirred up fond memories for me. For my thirtieth birthday I gave myself a present. I was overweight and out of shape. I would change that. I started jogging. The jogging craze was full-on in the late 70's. I couldn't even make it around the high school track once without hallucinating. I stuck to it and later entered a local running event of 5km (3.1 miles). I was hooked. I loved the competition. Over the next ten plus years I entered races of all lengths. I even did a marathon (26.2 miles)...once. My goal was to do the marathon in less than three hours. I made it with a minute to spare. Never again! I stuck to the shorter races of a half marathon and under. Ah, but eventually all those miles of hard training and racing took a toll on my knees and I had to quit running. Another twenty years passed and we moved next to Annadel State Park near Santa Rosa, CA. and I got into hiking the trails there everyday. I loved it. Occasionally I would see people running the trails. That lit a spark in me. I started jogging again. Fortunately this time I was in much better shape and soon progressed to running the trails I hiked. Oh my! Such joy. This was so much better and more fun than running on streets. But I was older now and a problem soon reared itself. I had developed a smooth and efficient style of running while racing. This style did not bode well on trails. I ran barely picking up my feet and thus frequently would get tripped up by even the smallest rock. Several times I crashed and burned picking myself up with skinned palms and knees. I couldn't change my style of running and I couldn't risk breaking bones miles way out in the wilderness. After about five years of this nonsense on February 29, 2016 I ran 4.3 miles on a trail. It was to be my final run.

I researched and found out these runners were taking part in the _Salt Flats 100._ The event comprised of three different lengths of your choice: 50 km (31 miles), 50 miles and a 100 miler. I watched them all morning into the afternoon. Oh how I wished...

The next morning when we left I drove on out the asphalt road to the salt flats itself, which were under water. There stood the finishing line on the paved road. I had passed a woman and a man on the way to that line, still walking and running twenty-seven hours after the start of the run the previous morning. No doubt they had slept some over the night. That day we put in a hundred sixty-five miles of driving before finding a Walmart Campground in Saratoga Springs, Utah. My new driving plan was going by the wayside fast.

I tried to get back with the program and split the driving distance of our ultimate goal in half with an overnight stop at an abandoned Denny's restaurant in Salina, Utah. The next day we arrived at Willow Springs north of Moab, Utah. We had been there a year and a half ago and I wanted to return as I still had some exploring to do. One of the features of this area was fossilized dinosaur tracks embedded in the slick rock. When I found it before I discovered just beyond was a back way entrance into Arches National Monument. This I wanted to explore on my new more reliable motorbike.

I slowly drove down the rutted dirt road and was amazed at how many people were there being the start of only the second week of May. _Doesn't anyone have to work anymore?_ Many of the people were very young. _Shouldn't you be in school?_ I was concerned about having to camp near someone when I spotted an incline up to a small table-top plateau of a hill. The Little House on the Highway motored right up on top. _Oh, this will do just fine. No one will come up here. There's not enough room._ Ha! That evening two cars pulled up the hill and set up tents right out our back window. Okay, they left right away in the morning. I rolled out some stumps left behind for firewood and created a little barrier blocking the road in. This pretty much solved the problem yet I was living in constant fear someone would still move in. Cars would slow down at the bottom as they drove by eyeing the real estate we had.

I tried to forget about it and enjoy my time there. My first motorbike ride took me out to those dinosaur tracks and beyond. I was stopped at that back road entrance to Arches N.M. by a new sign posted. Among the long list of things you couldn't do were: NO TWO-WHEELED MOTORIZED VEHICLES. THIS INCLUDES STREET LEGAL MOTORCYCLES. Well great! So much for my grand plan of exploring the seldom seen portion of Arches National Monument.

When the weekend arrived the place became a zoo with all the mountain bikers and ATVers not to mention my self-imposed worrying about the increasing amount of people passing by thinking of trespassing; I wasn't enjoying myself. The three day Memorial Day holiday weekend loomed on the horizon. I knew this place would be a madhouse. One day a guy parked down below and came up to the RV. _"Hello?"_ His name was Trevor and he was wondering how long we were going to be there. He and his wife Jenny with their newborn were camping outside Moab along the Colorado River in their old Airstream trailer. I told him I was going to leave early that coming Monday and they could have the spot. I even suggested they come up Sunday so as to not lose the chance for what seemed to be the primo spot of Willow Springs. He was ever so grateful and they arrived that Sunday afternoon. I was surprised he got that long Airstream up the slope and maneuvered it into position behind us as he did. I met his wife Jenny. She had beautiful thick red hair framing her freckle-filled pale skin. What is it with redheaded women? I love 'em.

We left for town Monday morning where I stocked up on some groceries, filled up with fuel and found some free water. One task was to send all the required paperwork to resister the Honda Trail 90 in South Dakota. With errands done we backtracked north beyond Willow Springs to Klondike Bluffs. I had not been there before. I found a nice little spot in a cove at the base of a hill away from where most other people were camped. There were far less campers here and it looked promising. Especially so in the fact there were no ATVers, just mountain bikers and they don't go so fast stirring up dust. Plus mountain bikes are quiet. Not so much their owners though.

We stayed the full fourteen-day limit at Klondike enjoying everything it had to offer. Dinosaur tracks were close by, within hiking distance from camp. One set of dinosaur tracks were a longer trek of five miles and that hike proved to be one of the best I had done in quite awhile. It was very remote with no one else to be seen. Early in the hike as I was cutting cross country through the sagebrush I came upon a reddish orange heart-shaped chunk of jasper, weighing eight or nine ounces. This three inch long two inch thick rock will probably be the best find of my lifetime. I'm always looking for heart-shaped rocks but to find one with the perfect multi-coloration of a real heart in a three dimensional form, I'll never do better. The entire area was spider-webbed with trails, many exclusive to mountain bikers and hikers. I finally took the mountain bike down off the rack and went for a ride. It had been over three years since I last rode on trails and learned straight away I was out of shape. I had some work to do yet still, five miles later I had enjoyed myself. And I explored all around on the Honda 90 also. On one ride I ran out of gas two miles from camp. I knew it was getting low but just didn't know what was _too low_ when looking into the gas tank. I was still learning the bike and hadn't taken the precaution to put some gas in the auxiliary fuel can strapped to the side of the bike. I had to push the motorcycle back those two miles, not something I was too thrilled about especially since this was right after my maiden voyage out on the bicycle! At least I wasn't so out of shape that I could push a motorbike for two miles across the desert.

A few days we had some showers and the terrain would become a muddy mess in camp. I realized the RV had sunk a bit into the muck. Another rain was predicted and I decided to pull out a day early and just camp along the terra firma road out for the night avoiding more mud on departure morning. Well the sinking of the RV had wedged the support blocks under the steps in that it took a bit of work digging them out just so the steps would retract when I started the engine. Then more work digging out the leveling blocks under the tires. It was a good thing we left when it was dry (the rain never materialized). We left the following morning under clear skies heading northeast to just over the Utah/Colorado border at Rabbit Valley, a place we were at a year and a half ago that has made our top five list of favorite places to camp.
COLORADO

Rabbit Valley

Rabbit Valley is part of the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area sections of which are beautiful red rock cliffs and canyons. With the Honda Trail 90 I had a much more reliable machine under my butt and was eager to explore deeper into the Conservation Area than I had with the Motoped. The bike has a set of low range gears which is put into operation by shifting a small lever down under the side case of the engine. Before hills used to cause me to have to stand up and pedal or worse yet, get off and push. Now I could easily motor up with the bike in low range. A virtual mountain goat it is. Map boards set up at various trail heads would pinpoint where you were and where you could go. I noticed further south was the Colorado River and it appeared to lay at the bottom of a deep canyon−possibly a smaller version of the Grand Canyon? I wondered. I wanted to go check it out. I went many miles in, crested a rise and could see off in the distance that I had many more unknown miles to go crossing a broad flat valley before even getting close. I sat there and thought about it. If the bike crapped out, if I crapped out, or worse still got hurt, no one knew where I was. Being alone I really had no business pressing on and reluctantly turned around and headed back for camp. This is one of the reasons I have always traveled with a cat. I worry about them more than I do myself. Having a cat waiting for me back at camp keeps me from doing stupid shit. Therefore most all my trail riding was done on trails I had been on before but that's not to say I was bored or didn't have fun. But it was on my mind _I've seen this and done this already_ much of the time. Same held true for hiking straight out from camp. It all seemed so familiar even though it had been a year and a half ago.

I had made a "redneck" repair to the exhaust pipe on the bike before leaving the house. I bought a muffler wrap repair kit from the auto parts store and made a fix to a blown out portion of the exhaust pipe. I had little confidence in this product and it didn't disappoint. At some point at Willow Springs or Klondike the wrap gave way and the exhaust gases were blowing through. I had also discovered a leak in the gas tank. This small crack was a result of the seat rubbing against the metal−the gas tank is under the seat and the seat cushion rests on top of the tank−and fatigue eventually led to a small crack, fortunately on top where only fumes or gasoline splashing about was all that leaked. I did a repair to the crack using JB Weld but this didn't hold. I did a second repair, roughing up the metal for the epoxy to stick better. This worked better but a blister still presented itself at the crack although hadn't leaked out any. So at Rabbit Valley I did two repairs the way they should have been done the first time. I cut metal patches from a beef stew can. I carefully cut and shaped one patch to follow the curve of the exhaust pipe and secured it in place with JB Weld. After that set overnight I then wrapped a tin can 'bandage' around the whole pipe synching it tight in place with two hose clamps. As for the gas tank I cut and shaped a small metal patch, epoxied it over the weakened part of the gas tank and then added more JB Weld around the edges. I had already added extra rubber padding to the seat where it rests on the tank. The repairs worked fine and held. I also did my first miles-per-gallon test running the tank dry (I had spare gas with me this time) and the bike recorded a ninety mile-per-gallon reading. That's nice.

The not-so-grand day at Grand Junction

After a week I needed to go into the nearby town of Grand Junction. On the way I stopped at the small post office in Loma to buy two money orders. One was to renew the license tags on The Little House on the Highway which was due in June. While in Moab I had sent off all the paperwork to get the Honda 90 registered and licensed for South Dakota. I eventually found out a motorcycle had to be over 120cc to be street legal in South Dakota. That's weird. It doesn't matter if it is a street legal motorcycle; it must be of a certain engine size in South Dakota. I decided to just get the title in my name through South Dakota and deal with a license some other time, in some other state. I may not even bother. Most all my riding would be off road anyway and the bike still has the old classic blue California plate on it so who's going to notice? It will only be in Arizona while at Quartzite that I would be riding on the street going to the market for milk and such. And to see some of the off road vehicles and ATV's buzzing around the streets of Quartzite it's not like the police there give much of a hoot anyway.

Arriving at the post office a half hour too early before the window opened I decided to continue on to Grand Junction and take care of some business, errands if you will. First off would be to drop off the mountain bike at a bike shop for repairs. When loading it up the evening before I discovered one of the fork seals was leaking. I figured I may as well deal with it now rather than putting it off as the fact that the Grand Junction area being a mountain biking paradise they had quality bike shops whereas the further north we went such may not be the case. I chose Ruby Canyon Bicycles as they had great reviews and was situated close to the other places I needed to go. Well Ruby Canyon turned out to be in the heart of town, the foo-foo district for tourists and parking a small RV was an issue not to mention the streets were lined with those infernal parking meters. I found a large parking lot two blocks away at the Two Rivers Convention Center. Only thing was it had signs posted: PARKING FOR TWO RIVERS ONLY. VIOLATERS WILL BE TOWED _._ I'd take my chances. How can they possible tow away my home in the short time I'd be away? I rode the bike to the shop, checked it in with John and hurried back. Beans and The Little House on the Highway was still __ there. Whew! I dropped off a week's worth of trash in the nearby construction dumpster and drove off to my next task – laundry.

Now I was aware of card operated laundromats before but never had seen one until then. I walked in with an armload of dirty clothes and my bag full of quarters. The machines did not accept coins. You had to buy a card at what looked like an ATM machine, and that in itself only accepted bills. Back out to the RV to get three dollars which would cover the two-fifty charge per load to wash. The machine greedily ate up my three bills as I fed them in, spit at a credit card and the display showed the card had two dollars and twenty-five cents on it. I had lost seventy-five cents for a "card fee"! Two twenty-five would not cover one load at two fifty. Back outside I went for another bill, fed it into the machine along with my card and I now had three twenty-five in credit and a bad attitude. There was no one there to complain to so I loaded a machine, stuck in the card and it began filling with water. Not trusting any of this or my ability in figuring anything out I was at least pleased with hearing the water filling the tub. When the wash was done I went over to the dryers which were twenty-five cents for eight minutes. I did two drying loads, and handed off my card to a pretty lady who just walked in. "Here, you can have this. It has twenty-five cents on it and I will not be using it." "Sweet" she said. Yes I am. The one and only thing good about laundromats is when you drive away from them.

One day some time earlier I noticed the connections to the filter for the filtered water spigot at the kitchen sink was leaking. I decided to deal with that today. I went to a True Value hardware store as I felt it would be easier to get some personal help in getting the parts I needed rather than at a big box store like Lowes or Home Depot. I had already made some attempts for a fix with new compression fitting sleeves but they leaked each time also so I figured I needed a whole new compression fitting. The True Value Big Boy figured out the correct fitting to replace what I had. I then asked about a new water line for I wanted a longer line to work with and not have such a bind at the filter. Only thing was I couldn't figure out how to get the existing blue plastic line out from the old spigot. Big Boy was helping another person at the same time so he called in for help. A younger version of Big Boy arrived. He took the spigot and pulled on the plastic line so hard he stretched it thin like a piece of spaghetti! Well now it was unusable! Big Boy number one tells Big Boy number two to go in back, cut out the bad part of the water line and attach a compression fitting coupler in that space. "We won't charge you for that." I left the store only to realize Mr. Moron (Big Boy number two) had secured the new compression coupler in place with the mounting hardware still on the spigot! I could not get the mounting nut, spacer and washer off past the coupler! I decided to go to Lowes. There I talked with a guy who informed me that those lines do not come off. They are put in at the factory and come that way with a couple feet of line coiled up. I showed him what dumbass had done. "You can't get it off without ruining more line and then you don't have enough left to work with. You'll have to get a new spigot. True Value needs to make it good by you." He takes me over to aisle 61 where a new spigot complete is sixty-nine dollars. "They're not cheap" he says. Grrr!!!

Back across town I go to True Value and talk with manager Julie. I showed her what numbnuts did and tell her what I learned at Lowes. She tells me to go buy what I need and get a copy of the receipt and she will refund me the purchase price. Well I wasn't expecting it to be that easy at least without a fight. Back across town again, this time I tried Home Depot. There I found a new water filtration spigot that looked more like what I had, not all fancy for the home like the one that Lowes was, and it was much less at twenty-two dollars. I bought it and had to buy water line for it plus new fittings for my water filter with nice guy Steve figuring it all out for me. Once more back across town and True Value Julie, after several attempts at inputting the information into the register leaving behind a pile of incorrect receipts by the wayside, gave me my refund. Somehow I ended up with five dollars more than what I paid but that wasn't enough that I could claim for my inconvenience. I'd need much more than five dollars for that! But I took it anyway and went next door to buy a Subway sandwich for it was now three in the afternoon; I hadn't eaten and was fading fast. I made it back to the Loma post office before they closed at four-thirty and got my two money orders mailed off, returned to Rabbit Valley and picked a new spot down the road from where we were before.

I had wanted to get something for all the crystals and pretty rocks I had found over the winter at Quartzite. A nice display case would be nice but that would be too big for the RV. Near Lowes was a Hobby Lobby and there the sales lady steered me over to some plastic containers for jewelry and handicrafts. This would do nicely. I bought a stack of five little round containers about the size of a silver dollar in diameter. Once I had camp set up and my cup of tea, I removed the plastic wrapper from the stack. You can imagine my disappointment in finding there was only one lid. The other four containers screwed into place acted as a lid for the container below it. This is not what I wanted! Well I decided I would put the crystals in, screw it all together and use it until I found what I really wanted. It was only three dollars so it wasn't like I wasted a lot of money. Stacked up and sitting on the table it didn't look all that bad and I grew to accept it thinking this was better than having five containers rolling around while we are driving. I liked my new crystal rocks display. It would be a couple days before I would attempt to install the new water spigot for I knew something would go wrong or that I needed some other part. But when I did finally screw up the courage to take it on I discovered that good guy Steve at Home Depot did alright. It all went in with little hassle and best of all, no leaks−always a joy−plus the spigot looked nice too, not sticking up as high as the old one did.

At our new camp spot the first time I took Beans for her walk, and she always loves to walk the washes, we were coming upon piles of crap and toilet paper left behind up and down the wash. No need to go into my disgust in seeing this. I tried to overlook it but I only lasted two days. One morning I was on shit detail. I went up and down the wash with my long handle grabbers, picking up TP and putting it into a soda pop carton. The poop I left alone. I do have a limit as to what I will do on shit patrol. After cleaning up a dozen or so deposits I burned it all in a nice fire in the rock fire pit along with other trash left behind by previous idiots.

Trail 8

Things were going good and our immediate area was looking nice. I was ready for some exploring on the Honda 90. Each time I went out I tried to do a different trail but was beginning to feel I had done most all of them. Yet the one I selected this particular day was new to me. Once I crested a rise there spreading out before me in the valley below was the Colorado River. I had found it! I was so delighted for this route wasn't as far out as the one a week before. I took pictures and enjoyed the peaceful scene. Now I would have to double back on the way I came in and knew there was a long steep rocky uphill I would have to negotiate. Nearby was a branch route, Trail 8. I had seen the other end of Trail 8 coming in. Maybe going back via Trail 8 I could avoid that long climb. Off I went into new territory, new sights, and new adventures. The trail was a single track trail down into a canyon. There were numerous rock ledges, boulders, more rocks, stair-steps of rock, I took it slow and easy hoping it would smooth out soon. It didn't. What to do? I certainly didn't want to go back up what I just came down. I pressed on. Eventually I reached the bottom of the canyon and saw the trail went up the other side. I was hoping it would follow the canyon floor up and out. _This is not good._ I started up and it was just as I feared, very much like what I had just came down through. _Surely it's got to get better._ It didn't. It only got worse for I eventually ran out of trail. I had no idea where the trail went or what even happened to it. I parked the bike and walked around looking. No trail. I had no choice. I had to go back the way I came, only now climbing up over all those rock ledges. The fun meter had now hit zero. Thank goodness the little Trail 90 had that low range gear selection. I turned back and started fighting my way back up out of the canyon. For most of it I had to get off the bike and walk it up over rocks and steps allowing the motor to do most of the work. I eventually reached one point that was so high of a ledge that for the first time I felt I could very well be trapped, unable to get out. I won't try to hide the fact here: I was scared more than I had ever been on a hike or riding. I simply did not have the strength in my puny little arms strung with spaghetti thin muscles to lift the bike up onto the foot and a half high ledge. Several times I had to stop the bike and study for a path of least resistance, usually approaching at an angle, which the bike could somewhat pull itself up along with my pushing. I was hot, thirsty, sweating, tired, out of breath, shaky and scared. I'm seventy years old for heaven's sake! I thought of others I've seen around my age, heart attack candidates just to walk to the store. That filled me with a little bit of confidence in myself, but that confidence was waning fast. Twice the bike fell over, once pinning me under it with the motor racing. I quickly turned off the key. I do not remember how I got out from under the bike. I can only recall the exhaust pipe heat on my leg. I was getting very religious by now. With the engine racing, the rear tire burning rubber on the ledge and my lifting and pushing as if my life depended on it (I'll not get all dramatic and say it did but I damn well felt like it did at the time) I finally got up on the ledge and out from the rocky portion, moving once again. When I reached some soft sand and knew I was getting close to the top, the junction of Trail 8. When I did make it back onto level ground I cannot express the relief I felt. I sincerely believed I would have had to walk up and out that canyon leaving the bike behind and try to get some help. I knew now I would make it back to camp. I was so grateful the little bike−which I had come to name Gracie a few days earlier−was ever so reliable and started with one kick every time I had to shut it off. _Thank you Gracie for getting me out of there._ I was still shaking, breathing heavy, exhausted and frightened as I rode back to that steep rocky uphill I was trying to avoid in the first place. I stopped at the base of the slope, drank more warm water and rested allowing the adrenalin in my blood stream to filter out. Sitting there I let a family of ATV riders come down the slope and pass by. One of the riders was a little nine year old girl on a small ATV, her feet barely touching the floor boards. I complimented her dad when I asked her age. He said she had been riding since five. The little girl was fearless maneuvering down those rocks. I warned them about Trail 8. After what I had just been through, this climb would be a piece of cake. Well normally it would have but in my current state it did provide a challenge as I was so weakened already. Back on level ground I motored back to camp, stripped down, washed up, tried to rehydrate myself and felt I needed to lie down. Beans came and laid down beside me. She had never done that before even if I was to lie down or maybe take a nap. They know when you are troubled, stressed, not yourself. Oh my sweet Beans. It took two days for me to fully recover and feel myself once again.

Later that afternoon I was feeling a little better, lying there reading when I heard a vehicle stop. I looked out front and a huge Class A RV had pulled in to our area towing a trailer packed with close to ten motorcycles. _This is not going to be good._ There seemed to be eight guys in the RV. I had trouble counting. The bikes were unloaded and a couple fired up. Soon some of them were blasting through camp and cross country off trail. That was it. I got dressed, went outside and gave them "the look". One guy waved at me. He was a big guy, all geared up with his helmet and riding leathers on ready to ride. That was good as I didn't want to hurt him. I walked on over. I asked who was in charge. He mentioned that would be Monty and pointed off to a group donning their motorcycle gear. Then he asked what was wrong. So I explained the buzzing through our camp and pointed out the fresh tire track right outside our window. Then I explained to him about the cross country travel and that all riding was restricted to existing trails. I pointed out the tall dry grass and how easily a fire could start from a hot exhaust pipe. He was receptive to what I said. He said they were from Pittsburg and had just drove thirty hours to get here. He apologized and said he'd talk to everyone. I thanked him and said I had nothing against motorcycles for I had raced them in the desert for years when I was young. We shook hands, I didn't have to hurt him, and things were much better afterwards. I had contemplated moving but felt I'd give them a chance, plus other spots to move to were not to be had. The next morning they got ready to ride, not hot dogging around and took off with a manner of restraint. All good. It was quiet now and Beans wanted to go for her walk in the wash. Off we went over towards where they were parked and guess what we discovered? A fresh pile of shit with a long stream of toilet paper nearby! _This was NOT here before!_ My God, there is a toilet inside that motor home! Why this? That did it. I had seen a truck with gray trailer leave earlier in the morning. I thought they were in our old spot. I hopped on Gracie and rode up the road a hundred yards. Yep, our spot was open. I parked Gracie, jogged back to camp, threw everything inside and drove The Little House on the Highway back to where camp life was much cleaner and quieter. Done deal in fifteen minutes. We both felt much better there and spent a relaxing Sunday in Rabbit Valley, I still in recovery mode.

After a couple rest days I felt like doing something. We've been to Rabbit Valley twice now and I had never taken the time to do the nearby Trail Through Time paleontological walk. The short mile and a half trail followed an exposed section of the Morrison formation layer of rock from the Jurassic period that contained fossilized dinosaur bones. I rode the bike the three miles down the road and across the interstate to a vacant parking lot...always a good sign. I locked up Gracie and took off up the trail. At the first point of interest stood a sign explaining what was embedded in the rock in front of you. When a little kid, well most all my life for that matter, I have always wanted to be a paleontologist. And now here I stood in front of a rock marked with numbers pointing out where to look and I wasn't seeing anything. Some dinosaur hunter I would have been. I continued on. I came upon another information sign and here I could see the bones plainly embedded in the rock before me. There was hope for me after all.

Just then up ahead approached three people walking the trail the wrong direction, two women and an old man who immediately sat himself down, breathing heavily and sweating profusely. The younger woman who obliviously was the daughter began reading the sign _out loud_ to her parents. I had to leave. I stood there directly in front of the mother who was blocking the trail and not moving one bit. "Uh...I'd like to get by."

"Oh, excuse me" she said. She stepped aside and by now the daughter was done with her narration. "I don't see anything" she said.

Mom replied, "Me neither. Where are they?"

I muttered "You're sitting on them" as I walked past.

"Oh, here they are! Don't you want to see the bones dad?"

"No!"

Dad was not feeling it. Among the three of them I didn't see one water bottle unless the little blue backpack mom had on contained a bottle. They had just completed the flat portion of the trail. From here on it would be all uphill for them. In the hot sun. No shade anywhere. I didn't want to think of the possible consequences that lay in store for the two overweight parents from Florida, the land of no mountains, no hills. I continued on thinking about my day on Trail 8 and how I felt just how dad looked. As I neared the parking area a young lady from Washington had just arrived and was walking towards me. She stopped, bent over to look at a rock then continued on nearing me. We exchanged hellos and I was wondering what had captured her interest. When I reached the rock she was staring at and there sat a beautiful light green collard lizard. The girl had just merely looked at it and moved on, not trying to take a photo, seemingly not the least bit interested in this desert creature. I've seen a lot of collard lizards over the years yet still I stopped to get a picture of this little guy who willingly posed for me, until I got too close.

We had been at Rabbit Valley for over two weeks now and the temperatures were warming up into the nineties. It was time to move on northward to higher elevations and cooler weather. But I wanted to get in one more motorbike ride before leaving. With no real plan on where to ride I end up retracing my aborted route from that first day. This time I pressed on beyond from where I had turned back and to my great surprise came upon the Colorado River overlook I had missed out on that first ride. It really wasn't all that far further on after all. Here again I was able to look down over the edge into the abyss, a steep walled canyon with the muddy river flowing below. I'll admit it took a lot for me to stand near the edge (that and a nearby bush I held onto for a sense of security). Fifty years ago I'd not give it a thought standing there like that. Strange how we change with time. There was a primitive campground there complete with cement picnic tables. One would need a high clearance four wheel drive vehicle to get back into this camp area and thus there wasn't a soul around. I thought back to my days of owning my Land Rovers. This is where I would be camping. It was peaceful and so quiet save for the soft sound from the rapids down below on the river and the bird song from trees along the flooded banks. I was happy to have made it to the river on a much easier route with no Trail 8 or steep uphill to contend with. I could now leave Rabbit Valley satisfied.

We would return to Grand Junction to pick up my repaired mountain bike and a do a couple more errands. That morning as I prepared to leave I had the side door open to the storage compartment loading up the table and chair. Beans took the opportunity to leap out from the bed onto the ground and make off towards her wash. She had done this a couple times before over the years and I was always aware of her being there looking out, thinking. This time I wasn't aware and she didn't stop when I told her to. Her mind was made up. I went after her and soon lost her in the tall grass covered slope leading down to the wash bed. She was gone. I called and called. I couldn't see her anywhere. I was sick. I was panicked. I went up the opposite bank and looked out across the field. Nothing, nowhere. I knew she would come back but I worried nevertheless. I had no idea which way she went. I'd have to wait, hope and pray. I turned back to go to the RV just heartsick and there I saw her crouched down in the tall grass. I had to have walked right by her. She knew she was in the wrong. I talked to her softly but she didn't allow me to come near. She headed back for the RV, her home. I let her lead the way, held the door open and inside she went. I picked her up and held her, thanking her. This episode would leave me shaken for the rest of the day. I vowed that day would be spent trying to come up with something that would block that gap along the bed when the storage door was open. At a hardware store in Fruita I found plastic panels that cover rain gutters to keep leaves from coming in. That would work.

I parked at the Two Rivers no parking tow-away __ parking lot again, picked up my bicycle and didn't get towed away in the meantime. I planned to stay at Walmart Camperland again that evening so I could spend the afternoon using the Wi-Fi from Lowes next door to load up photos and prepare posts to the blog for a week in advance. I also returned to Hobby Lobby as I wanted to get a special case to display my heart-shaped jasper stone I had found at Moab. The nice lady stocking shelves directed me over to these plastic cube display cases used to hold collectable baseballs. They were perfect. The following morning we left Grand Junction for the last time and headed north on Colorado scenic Highway 139 for Douglas Pass where at 8240 feet in elevation it was much cooler. The winds howled there at times and provided for some dramatic weather overnight.

The next morning I would be breaking one of my steadfast travel rules: never travel to a new location on a weekend. It was Saturday morning and my destination was Rio Blanco State Wildlife Refuge near Meeker, Colorado. In no hurry we putzed along on the scenic highway traveling through the Canyon Pintado (Spanish for painted canyon) National Historic District, the home for the Fremont culture of Native Americans, 0-1300AD. I stopped at one location to walk the mile and a half trail and view some pictographs–rock paintings. Petroglyphs are images chipped into the rock face. Just like most of these artworks left behind that I find, the so-called experts come up with "theories" as to the meaning behind the images and their symbolism. I maintain that most all are nothing more than just doodling as we do today on a piece of paper. After all, imagine yourself a Native American with some free time on your hands not having to go search for game or harvest nuts and grains to feed your family, work on your home or defend yourself from marauding neighbors. What would you do? Draw a picture of yourself shooting that big deer with your bow and arrow? Draw a picture of yourself and your family? Or maybe that strange looking creature that haunted your dreams last night? Think about it.

We soon arrived at Rio Blanco and it looked promising as I pulled off the highway to the boat ramp area and nearby camp parking lot. Only a few trailers and truck camper were there. Off in the distance as the dirt road circled the small lake there didn't look to be anyone around. On a small side loop from the road we found a nice camp area with little possibility of anyone else moving in. That would be our home. We liked it there. Except for a few mosquitoes and a mysterious unknown bug that left a three-day-long irritating itchy bite we would have stayed longer. As it was we stayed there a week and left only because of a weather forecast. It called for a hard steady rain with high winds for an entire day plus a temperature drop of thirty degrees. That temperature drop was closer to forty degrees. We moved on north to Craig, Colorado planning to stay at the Walmart Bed and Breakfast, a better option for waiting out a storm. Once we arrived I drove a quarter mile down the boulevard to check out the McDonalds free Wi-Fi for the upcoming raining day entertainment. Behind McD's was what looked like an abandoned K-Mart. The huge deserted parking lot butted right up to McDonalds so I made that our overnight stay, or rather two night stay. Storm day was miserable. Without any solar to keep the batteries charged I couldn't do any editing on my eBooks. And I was cold. The entire mid-western half of the country was the same so there was no escape. On day two the sky looked to be improving, I did a bit of shopping at Walmart (a small store), I finally found some baby beers (eight ounce cans of Budweiser Chelada) at a nearby liquor store, the only one in the state of Colorado it seemed that had them and headed north out of Craig. Just over the state line into Wyoming we were going for Robbers Gulch Road where there was supposed to be some free camping available. The mile and a half road in was deeply rutted from the past rains and made me uncomfortable to drive in on. Any more rain and we'd be in there for awhile. At the "spot" was nothing to be had to pull off onto. In fact it all seemed vaguely familiar. I may have been seduced into this location the last time through the area. I turned around and got out of there. Back on the highway a couple miles further was another Robbers Gulch Road entry. I pulled in there parking at a wide spot for lunch. As I took Beans out for her exploratory walk I reasoned this wasn't a bad place to spend the day and night. Good cell, hardly anyone passes by on the nearby highway and no chance of getting stuck in mud, so there we boondocked. Later in the evening it began to rain and I was thankful I did not stay at the previous location. As it was, it was less than fifty yards to the cattle guard crossing and the highway and even that I was a bit concerned about the tires spinning in the mud when we were ready to leave in the morning. I hit it with some speed and we escaped the muck and mire with no problem slinging mud up underneath The Little House on the Highway __ as pots and pans jumped all over inside.
WYOMING

We stopped at a point of interest along the road which described the Overland Trail passing through the area. Supposedly the wagon tracks from 1862 onward were still faintly visible in the prairie but I saw nothing. An interesting fact on the sign was that the stages were driven day and night, traveling up to one hundred twenty-five miles over a twenty-four hour period. In 1864 alone the post surgeon at Fort Halleck counted over seventeen thousand emigrants passing through. In addition dealing with hostile Indian tribes there was the "cold, discomfort and misery" as one traveler described it later on. Less than a mile further we crossed the Continental Divide at seven thousand feet in elevation. Pronghorn antelope became plentiful to see along the drive. Being the fastest land mammal in the western hemisphere it caused me to wonder if the pioneers had any luck in hunting them for meat. Soon thereafter we had crossed into Wyoming and it didn't disappoint. Every time I have been in the state the wind was always relentless. I suspect Wyoming is the word for 'windy' in some Native American language. We hit Interstate 80, and turned west for Rock Springs where we would stay the night at the Walmart Resort. The following morning we drove north on Highway 191 for an hour to the Big Sandy River Reservoir where free camping was on the offer. No one was there and we even had a cement picnic table in our spot. The wind was rip-roaring for the first two days and there was little we could do but stay inside and hunker down.

I had only planned on staying at Big Sandy through the weekend then move on. Then I realized the Fourth of July holiday was approaching later the following week and people would be on the road, camping, creating mayhem everywhere. What to do? If we move we may not find a place to camp. Where we were there was only four campsites and for the most part no one had used them in the past week. There had been only one other camper for more than just over night and they were way over on the other side of the lake. It was quiet. No ATV'ers or motorcycles buzzing around. The weather was nice, in the eighties everyday. There was the wind at times but it blew away the clouds of gnats−which weren't bothersome−and other places I was considering going to could have mosquitoes. Plus I had good cell service there which isn't always the case everywhere. So what is the problem you may ask? Just stay put. Well there wasn't anything to see, do or explore there. I had already ridden all around the place exploring on the Honda 90. It was just kind of boring. Nevertheless there we stayed until after all the madness of the upcoming holiday weekend would be history.

The caretaker for the area would come by once a week to clean the long drops (pit toilets) and dump the trash cans if they need it. Neither needed much attention due to lack of use. The second time he came by he stopped and knocked on the door to our home. "I was just checking to see if you're okay. I saw you here last week." I guess no one stays as long as we had and he thought that unusual. That was nice of him checking on us. I explained how I decided to stay put until after the holiday weekend and added how nice and quiet it is, that no one comes here, "...but there isn't much to see and do or explore. I've ridden my bike most everywhere. Today I tried to go around the lake today but found that wasn't possible." It was then he told me about the petrified wood that was in the area. Well thank you for that tip. I now had something to do.

The next morning I took off along the shoreline but was finding nothing. I finally sat down to empty the dirt from my shoes before heading back to camp and there right at my feet half in and out of the water was a large chunk of petrified wood. Now do I want to keep it or just a small piece? If I kept every nice piece of rock I have found I'd need a cargo trailer to tow behind the RV.

Later that same day in the early evening as I was eating dinner came another knock on the door. This time it was a local, a sketchy looking guy, long scraggly beard, lots of tattoos, wearing a dirty heavy metal band black t-shirt, beer in hand; the rest of his crew were sitting in the big monster truck waiting. He saw the hood up on The Little House on the Highway and was wondering if I was okay. I explained how I kept it open at night to deter the varmints from getting in the engine compartment building nests and chewing wiring. "Okay. If you need anything we're camped down by the dam. Have a nice evening." Now that was nice. Goes to show, you can never judge people solely by their appearance.

As the Fourth itself arrived we were still in pretty good shape. A large encampment of five rigs and two boats had moved in down the road a few hundred yards, far enough away they weren't an issue. Later on, on the day of concern a couple trucks moved in right next door. It was an older couple so it looked safe. Then I noticed the old guy pounding PVC pipe tubes into the ground aiming them out over the lake. "Shit! Those are for shooting fireworks mortars high into the sky." I would have to dig out my ear plugs this evening. Shortly thereafter I had to laugh at myself. He and the old lady were anglers and the tubes were to hold their half a dozen fishing poles! A few hours later he caught a nice fat rainbow trout.

We had a couple from California move in next door after the fisher folk left. They had a Sprinter van and were in their fifties I'd guess. Guy and Leona were both in good shape being the active sort. They had these inflatable stand-up paddle boards. I had never seen inflatable paddle boards before. The first day Guy set one up and took off across the lake which had to be well over a mile away. _Okay, I'm impressed._ A big storm rolled in on the afternoon of the Fourth itself and that put a kybosh on any fireworks for the evening. The next evening the large encampment shot off what had to be over a thousand dollars worth of pyrotechnics. I was able to sit in the front seat and watch the show which I have to admit was impressive for not being professional. Beans had no interest.

Everyone packed up and left leaving the lake to us three. Leona said she didn't want to travel on the Sunday as all the holiday folk would be racing home. I had planned on leaving Sunday but then took her thoughts into consideration. _What's the hurry?_ I had no place to be and didn't really know where I was going. So we stayed. I took the day to get ready for departure. As I was rolling the Honda up on the carrier (I have to roll it on backwards to fit around the spare tire) the rear wheel crawled up onto the edge and fell down between the carrier and the spare tire! Now I was in a pickle. How to get the rear end of the bike back up onto the carrier while still holding the bike so that it doesn't fall off completely? I looked over to my neighbor's camp. Guy was nowhere in sight. I was thinking that the reality of this situation is I need to do it myself. I won't have Guy around every time I screw up. It literally took all I had in me to lift the rear end up the few inches to get it back where it should be on the track of the carrier. I surprised myself and was extremely grateful too. I don't want to ever have to do that again. I would be very aware from now on. Once I finished securing and covering the bike I went into the lake to calm myself down, cool off and relax. Whew! Bad scene. Then later in the afternoon the bottom hinge broke on the refrigerator. _What else is gonna happen?!_ I expoxied the broken hinge together with JB Weld and let it set overnight hoping that would do the trick. In the morning I removed my supports and the door swung freely again. Another big _whew!_

Monday morning we toured each other's vehicles, exchanged hugs and said our _'until we meet agains'_. The destination for the day was the Riverton, Wyoming Walmart RV Park for a resupply and overnight stay. Propane was getting low and there were two places in town to get it. I pulled into the closest one and found myself in a tight quarters situation in getting out. A cable truck was parked in the drive doing an install in the shop. The other way out was the way I came in but this meant I'd have to blindly back out onto the boulevard into oncoming traffic. While he was filling the tank I viewed my exit ahead and felt I could just squeeze by the cable truck and a propane truck parked in the neighboring parking lot. I slowly drove forward and had to pull in my driver mirror as it made contact with the cable truck mirror, but I was going to make it. What I didn't think about was my ass end swinging around when I sharply turned left onto the alleyway out to the boulevard. I head a crunch and felt a jolt. _Oh shit!_ I had hit the front bumper of that parked propane truck. I pulled onto the boulevard, went around the block and I stopped to check for damage. I thought the carrier and bike might be damaged. Well they were okay; it was the flip-up door for the tool cabinet and generator compartment that made contact and the plastic bodywork was wrenched out of shape. The clearance light was broke and would need to be replaced. The door still opened with resistance and the bodywork below the tail light was cracked. I was sick. I was mad at myself. This was the first piece of real damage I had every done to the Little House on the Highway body in twelve years of ownership. I felt I could repair it to some degree of satisfaction. I went back to our place for the night, another abandoned Kmart lot across the street from Walmart. There I investigated the damage more closely and tried to devise a plan for repairs. I was able to realign my thinking and be thankful it was no worse and the carrier and bike escaped unscathed. In the morning I stopped at Car Quest auto parts and picked up a replacement clearance light that kind of matched the opposing one on the other side I replaced years ago from the previous owners mishap. I put Riverton in my rearview mirror and tried to have a nice day's drive.

First stop was at the Shoshoni Post Office to pick up mail that had the new license stickers and registration for the Little House on the Highway. Opening the packet from my mail forwarding service in South Dakota who did the registration paperwork for me I was shocked to find a small license plate for the Honda! I had been told the Honda could not be licensed for the street in South Dakota for it was only 90cc and had to be at least 120cc. Wow! No explanation was enclosed and I decided to not ask any questions. This made my day and left me shaking my head wondering. I took the Highway 120 Scenic Byway drive up through the Wind River Canyon. This was nice and I was able to get over the previous day's catastrophe (the license plate helped with that too). Once out of the canyon we came upon road construction. Traffic was stopped waiting for the pilot vehicle to escort us through. I like road construction stops. We sat for at least five minutes while more vehicles stacked up behind us. Finally the pilot truck arrived having escorted the southbound traffic through the construction. We were on our way for several miles crawling through the freshly paved rock and gravel tarmac. Once we were turned loose by the pilot vehicle I pulled over to let everyone behind us pass by. In doing so I now had no one behind me for the remaining sixty-eight mile drive to Cody Wyoming. With no one on my butt trying to pass me, I could leisurely drive along enjoying Scenic Byway Highway 120. We stayed at Homestead Park, a city park in the town of Powell. The next morning I was able to undo the bent compartment door hinge, squeeze it flat with channel locks, secure it back in place (the door now worked better) then mix up more JB Weld to bind the cracked bodywork together and fill in the remaining gap. After installing the new clearance light it was good enough that I gave it a _I can live with this_ evaluation. Again, I felt thankful I got off lightly as I did and was very grateful for that. I put on my new stickers for the RV (the bike plate would be later when I get the bike down next time), cleaned house, caught up on my journal and just took it easy for the day before heading off for Laurel, Montana an hour's drive away. There at Laurel we stayed at the Walmart Camper Village which had to be in the top five of the nosiest Walmarts we have ever stayed at.
MONTANA

My original idea was continue on northward but there just didn't seem too many if any at all places to stay even considering pay-to-stay spots. I looked westward and found a city-run park by the name of Itch-Kep-Pe at Columbus, Montana. We'd go check it out being only twenty-eight miles away. This place proved to be very inviting. It was a long tree lined stretch of land along the Yellowstone River. There were a lot of sites to choose from and I selected a nice grassy area beneath towering cottonwood trees right alongside the river. I couldn't believe our good fortune. It was very peaceful, quiet, no bugs and good cell service. _This is nice._

I've stayed at city run parks all over the country. Many small towns set aside places for the traveler to stay most being free but will gladly accept donations. Texas is littered with these free city camps. I don't know why more small towns don't do this as the traveler staying there is most likely to spend money in their little town. As the day progressed I liked it more and more. I had a favorite city park in Junction Texas, Schreiner Park, and felt Itch-Kep-Pe had now taken the new number one spot on my list.

Early the next day as I was taking my morning walk some guy from California had pulled in and parked his big Class A motor home right behind us in the driveway out from the next camp over. Why not park in the camp itself? I don't like people parking right up my butt invading my space. So during the day I positioned my camp chair in the shade looking away from him anytime I was outside not sitting at my picnic table along the river's edge. As the day progressed he at least proved himself quiet, was by himself and I eventually 'got used' to his being there. Later his lady friend showed up in her car along with a big dog. Still the scene remained 'acceptable' as I kept thinking of a possible worse case situation. Later in the afternoon the woman left. Nearing sunset as I sat inside writing I heard a vehicle pass by outside and it was him! _Oh joy, he's leaving._ I thought about the next day. Maybe I would try to do something to prevent anyone else moving in there, even to the point of informing any future infiltrators that the camp is back there, this is a driveway not a campsite and _'the camp host will come by and make you move'_.

A short time later a truck with camper shell moved in the exact same spot. I looked out the back window to see what they were going to do. The truck began to back in towards the camp table. _This is good._ They at least will be in the designated camp spot further away. __ The only thing was the truck was aiming for the wrong side of the camp table, the area between the table and the river bank. Without stopping the truck continued on slipped off the edge of the bank coming to rest with the ass-end nearly in the Yellowstone River and the headlights pointing upwards into the evening sky! _I can't believe I just watched that happen!_ No matter what the driver did, even having four wheel drive they were going nowhere and only digging themselves even deeper into the gravel. The driver's side door opened and with great difficulty having to overcome the angle of incline and gravity a woman in her forties or so stepped out and walked up the bank. She was a bit ragged looking, bleary-eyed, long blond hair from beneath her baseball cap and from Colorado which might explain the bleary-eyed look. I asked if she was okay and she said she had been driving for thirteen hours and just wanted to stop and get some sleep. I could smell the alcohol. She kept saying "we" and I asked if there were someone else in the truck. "Keith is in there." A fellow camper came over with his big dually rear tired truck pulled them up and out, and then I could see Keith in the cab leaning forward with his head on the dashboard. The woman helped Keith out of the truck. The old guy was obliterated; so drunk he needed assistance to get out, stagger around to the back of the truck and crawl inside. I never saw them again until the next morning.

That evening as I lay in bed reading it was after ten and I turned out the light. Soon after a vehicle pulled in somewhere and so began a lot of yelling, noise making and flashlights bouncing around in the darkness. I got up. Across the way Cousin Eddie and his family had arrived. If you've ever seen the movie _National Lampoon's Vacation_ you'll know who I mean. The only difference being they were in two vehicles−a pick-up and a minivan−and were setting up a tent. The loud talking, yelling and fighting between the two adults and four kids plus two hound dogs that kept wandering off continued on past eleven o'clock that night. It finally grew quieter and I was able to go to sleep. As nice as Itch-Kep-Pe Park was in scenery and atmosphere the people who came took away all of that splendor and tranquility from us. I really was looking forward to staying the full ten days but could see that would be a growing challenge.

The next morning it didn't appear that Cousin Eddie was planning on moving on. Colorado woman and Keith were up and didn't look any worse for the previous evening's adventure. I doubt Keith was even aware of what had happened. They left early and I walked over eyeing that camp site. The ground was very uneven, pot-marked with mini bomb crater holes and trenches dug into the earth from tires spinning in the mud during recent rain storms. But it did provide protection from anyone moving in behind us and I wouldn't have the yelling and screaming across the way going on right outside my window. The little girl had the power to split eardrums at fifty paces. How on earth can a little girl produce such high pitched screaming without rupturing her vocal cords all the while the parents were able to completely ignore it? Debbie was camped further back in among the trees. She had been there as long as us and was camping out of her car with her cat, Lola. She said we were welcome to move in closer to her. I thanked her and said I was considering it. Leaving my chair and table in the grass at camp I backed up the hundred or so feet through California camp, the Colorado off-roading grounds and avoiding deep trenches and pot holes I got the RV level and turned off the engine. I felt this might do. What could possibly happen?

That evening a troop of Boy Scouts from Colorado arrived. Thank god they were on the other side of the campground.

I was taking my usual morning walk–a loop around the near mile long campground–and came upon a Class A motor home that had a ginger cat walking around outside. He looked just like my dear Sinbad who passed away a few years ago. He walked under his home, safely away from me. On the dash behind the large front windshield lay a fluffy gray cat sunning herself. I had to talk with the people. The door was open and I could see a cat door cut into the screen door. "Hello". A man's voice responded from inside and that is how we carried on our conversation, through the closed screened door. I never saw his face. He said there was a third cat inside "somewhere". He informed me that the cats come and go at their leisure at all hours of the night, sometimes hearing the cat door flap at three AM. Then he added that they had a fourth cat but lost it to a coyote over the winter while in Yuma, Arizona. I just wanted to throttle the guy for being an irresponsible pet owner and tell him he didn't deserve his cats. I had to walk away.

Before that encounter I saw a lady ride by on her bicycle. On her return trip as I was making my way back to camp after the cat encounter she stopped by me. She asked if I was a hiker. I don't know why just my walking through a campground would cause her to ask this. It seemed more of an excuse just to stop and talk with me and I was fine with that. I never turn down an opportunity to talk with a lady who approaches me. So "thinking I was a hiker" she wanted to share some hiking routes around the area with me. Sounded kind of weak but that's what she said. Anyway we ended up talking for quite a while. Cindy was very soft spoken (I liked that), a petite little thing that I doubt she weighed a hundred pounds. I learned she lived six miles away and would come ride in the park twice a week. She was interested in my on the road lifestyle and I shared some good points with her such as how cheap it is which really intrigued her. I suggested she check out the Cheap RV Living website where she could see some interviews with women starting out on their own. We eventually parted ways and I continued on with my walk thinking (fantasying) "She would be someone I'd enjoy traveling around with". Plus she had given me the line: "I'm glad I stopped. I like you. I enjoyed talking with you." Yeah, I'm a sucker for that line which has been dropped on me more than once.

Later in the week she tooled on through the campground again on her bike and I saw her go by from my window. She was kind of looking around for the RV but I doubt she knew what to look for. I let her go. Then the weekend came and my neighbor Paul, a nice guy from Missouri, had allowed these locals to move in near him with their long trailer in the very spot I had backed out from earlier in the week. It was two couples with six dogs−two of them being the women. And of course they had a Noisemaker 3000 construction job site generator. So with the dog barking (at least they were tied up−just the four legged ones), the incessant generator noise (Paul was getting the worse of it for the machine sat outside right by his door) and the drifting cigarette smoke, it wasn't a pleasant scene all day that Saturday. Paul and I both were staying until Monday but come Sunday morning while taking Beans for her walk I saw Paul starting to load up his van. I went over. He informed me the clowns were staying to Monday. I told him I'm not putting up with this for another day. "I'm leaving too." And with that we said our goodbyes. Paul pulled out and I left soon after to go down the campground road a short distance to flush out the fresh water tank and fill it up. Just as I finished and prepared to pull away here comes Cindy on her bike. This time I flagged her down. We stood by the water fill-up and talked and talked and talked. All during this talking I see the idiots leave! Now I'm going on to myself about this while Cindy's talking. I have to apologize to her and say "I hear you, I'm just beside myself since I left camp because of them and I'm now going back and forth in my head if I should just go back to my camp and stay or leave. Plus I feel bad about Paul leaving when he really didn't have to." Cindy was concerned about me losing the chance to get my old site but I told her it's okay, "I'll go when we finish visiting. There's hardly anyone in the campground now anyway. It'll be fine."

Well during all this visiting I come to learn that Cindy was turning sixty soon and I would have guessed her at least ten years younger. I also learned she hasn't owned or driven a car in fifteen years! She does everything on her bicycle. That means she rides the six miles from wherever she lives to tour the park and then rides back home. I asked about grocery shopping. She does her shopping on the bicycle carrying her small bag of purchases on the back. Well there went my fantasy about her possibly taking up this nomadic lifestyle and maybe us travelling together some day. I liked Cindy and enjoyed talking with her even though I wasn't too sure what she was talking about some of the time as she seemed to drift off into another universe.

I went back and claimed my old camp spot for the remainder of the day. Later a small Class C RV pulled into Paul's spot in front of me. The generator soon fired up and I swear they were baking a wedding cake inside. I eventually gave up after approaching the third hour of generator noise and moved to the other end of camp just for our one and final night at Itch Kep Pe Park.
IDAHO

We traveled west to Bozeman, Montana to resupply at the Walmart Hilton there and as usually the case ended up staying the night. I could have pressed on but there never is any hurry to get anywhere we want to go and therefore I like to keep the driving down to under two hours. Yes, I was by now in on my new driving plan. No sense in wearing myself out. The days of long marathon drives are long passed. In no great hurry we left the next morning for our next camp, one that we stayed at two years ago, Henry's Fork at Island Park, Idaho. This camp I've named 'Camp Perfect' for it is just that. It is a free dispersed area west of Yellowstone National Park. Most people camp within the forest for the shade. I have this little spot by the slowly flowing stream of Henry's Fork that sits out in the open for full solar panel action. The first time we were here was at the beginning of the month of June and the water was a bit too cold to get in. When we came back in the middle of July the water was just right. My travel friend Amanda and her cat Dilbert joined us then and Amanda loved the spot. This time now it was just Beans and I and it was the last week of July. The water was even more comfortable, a bit lower (I had to lie down in it to get fully wet) but unfortunately there were these annoying small biting house flies. It wasn't that way before. We must have hit the 'hatch' and I made a note to NOT go there at the end of July again. Flies aside we had a nice ten day stay at Camp Perfect. Beans would create daily havoc among the local rodent population. I put a lot of miles on Gracie riding all around eventually running the tank dry just to get some sort of reading on distances possible. The little Honda 90 averaged eighty-five miles to the gallon, would go one hundred ten miles on a full tank and the spare fuel can provided at least an extra fifty miles. The afternoon before we planned to leave a cow moose waded downstream right outside our side door. This happened two years ago also in the early evening only with a big bull moose. It is moments like that which explains why most of the time I boondock in the wild and rarely ever stay in a campground.

We left Camp Perfect continuing south to Rexburg, Idaho to pick up a few items at Walmart. It was only around noontime with that chore finished so we carried on westward towards the town of Arco on the eastern side of Craters of the Moon National Monument. We spent a couple days at the monument the last time through the area so no sense in doing so again. At Arco was an RV Park where I had stopped before to use their laundromat. That was the goal again for I had accumulated enough dirty laundry to make the effort worthwhile. Once in Arco I searched out a free campground I found online and would save the clothes washing for the following morning. And so began our experience at Honey's Park.

The reviews online were all positive and people really seemed to enjoy their stay at Honey's. The owner had a few electrical hook-ups available at no charge (unheard of), free WiFi and free beer. Free beer? Yes, the only catch was that you replaced what you drank with beer of the owner's liking. Otherwise there was no water, not even the owner had water−he had to haul it in−and no restrooms. He had signs (he had a lot of signs!) asking that you do not dig holes to poop in and to not pee on his land. If you did not have your own bathroom facilities such as tenters for example, you could walk the few hundred yards through the stickery grass, climb over the barbed wire fence and use the facilities at the nearby Jack's Truck Stop and Travel Center. Or drive into town to the city park as they left the doors open twenty-four hours.

The owner whose name was Scar Honig Stigr–that really was his name and he'd show you his ID if asked−was a disabled vet which was his sole income (whatever disabled vets get from the government) yet still he offered everything free–donations accepted. The story behind the park was that he took care of his daughter's golden lab, Honey a rescue dog, when she had to leave for college. The dog had had a mistreated early life and he would take it for walks everyday in the city park. Although homeless at the time and having suffered a stroke due to an old army injury Scar vowed he would get some land for Honey to be free to roam on all the time. This is how he came by the small parcel of land in Arco. After acquiring the land, Honey suffered an aneurysm and died three months later. She was only five years of age. He turned the land into a RV and dog park in Honey's memory. Currently he has a hound dog named Ruby who he loves more than the world. Only thing is Ruby has severe food allergies and Scar has hand written signs all over the place: DO NOT FEED RUBY. SHE WILL GET SICK. DO NOT POISON MY DOG. The day we arrived Ruby wasn't feeling too good. Being there was only one other camper there he thought someone over at the neighboring KOA Campground might have fed her, which caused me to think _Well, why don't you keep her here?_ but I didn't say anything. He had other signs around like 5MPH INFORCED BY SHOTGUN on the entrance road and PLEASE BLOCK OUTLETS YOU AREN'T USING SO OTHERS CAN'T by each RV electrical supply hook-up. This one really befuddled me until I finally got to know Scar and his sarcastic sense of humor. The idea behind the sign was no one could use the blocked outlet thus less electricity was being used that he had to pay for. Regarding his humor, all along the face of the rocky mountainside across the highway were large numbers painted on the rocks most likely done by kids of each graduating class at the local high school. I asked Scar about this and with all seriousness he calmly replied "Each year the city keeps track of how many die from boredom here".

Although it was just us and another guy in a van there at the time, based on reviews written on various camping apps Honey's gets a fair amount of people staying there. Everyone writes about how they had such a great time sitting around the camp fire, having pot lucks and just hanging out with Scar and Ruby. Don't forget the free beer. He told me how some people come in here and get upset, even mad. "It's free. What are you expecting?" His camp isn't anything about protesting the neighboring KOA and its commercialized camping. He's simply catering to those who can't afford, don't want commercial or just want a different kind of camping experience. He even has a large school bus with bunk beds installed for those who want something unusual for their stay. This is especially nice for the tenter if the weather is cold or raining, still free to use. I couldn't imagine someone pulling in with their half a million dollar travel coach having everything they need onboard and still get upset with the guy when he's offering you a free place to park. What I liked about the place was the guarantee you will not have to listen to someone's generator. They're not allowed. You can plug-in here for free so why get mad? Maybe someone was blocking the outlet.

We left Honey's early the next morning dropping off a few bucks in his donation box at the entrance on the way out. On the other side of town I pulled into Mountain View RV Park where I had done laundry on our previous pass through two years ago. I had to roust up the owner to unlock the door to the laundry room. He informed me that he no longer was allowing 'non-residents' of the RV park to use the facilities. But he allowed me to do so based upon my previous stop plus I looked as one not to abuse his machines. It seems people in the past had washed dog bedding, rugs and oily clothing and rags despite the posted signs on the walls saying not to. With that accomplished we proceeded along to Hailey, Idaho and a stop for groceries and then our ultimate destination Trail Creek Road free dispersed camping outside of Sun Valley. Here we found our same camp spot of two years ago open and waiting for us to take up residency. It was here at that time we first met good friend and fellow traveler Amanda and her cat Dilbert. This place had a lot of memories for us, one of which was tearing apart Amanda's class B van and eliminating the six mice that had been traveling with them for some time. Great fun. The camping limit was sixteen days in that part of the Salmon-Challis National Forest which would take us to the middle of August. That would leave us with four weeks to go before we could return to the Long Term Visitor Area of Arizona and purchase our ticket when the season began on September 15. I really needed to stop looking at our travels for this year in that light−waiting to return to the desert–nevertheless that was what I was doing. I probably wouldn't be thinking like that if I were traveling with someone. I had to accept the fact that traveling alone wasn't all that it used to be with me.

The camp location was ideal. It's very peaceful with the only noise being the occasional vehicle passing by on Trail Creek Road a couple hundred yards away. The land is covered with low knee-high sage brush which prevents anyone from moving in camping real close. The dirt road bordering deep Badger Canyon has only a half a dozen wide spots to camp for its mile long length before ending back out on Trail Creek Road so even someone with a loud-ass generator wouldn't be a bother. I spent my time revisiting places I had explored before–nothing had changed. Having my mountain bike with me this time I was able to do some cycling albeit not for any great distances. Old age and high altitude (6352 feet) saw to that. But having the little Honda Trail 90 this time really added to the fun factor. It allowed me to do a lot more exploring around with greater ease and less worry. One of the more fun rides was the six-mile climb up Trail Creek Road to the summit at 7910 feet. One website lists the road as one of the "most dangerous". I hardly think so. True, it is dirt laden with sharp-edged rocks (flat tires?) and very narrow in sections, like one car wide narrow. And of course one side of the road is a vertical drop off into the canyon below (no guard rails), but still hardly worthy of a "most dangerous" categorization. Weather was perfect in the mid-seventies to low eighties. No bugs and always a nice breeze. No mice either so Beans had to be content jumping for grasshoppers.

I had an opportunity to talk with a sheep herder camped nearby. He was of one company in the Ketchum area of Idaho grazing sheep. He said he's the fifth generation in his family in the sheep business. "It's not something you get rich doing" he said. They bring the sheep down from their grazing areas during the second week of October and herd them down Main Street in Ketchum. It's a big deal for the town with a parade and all the other festivities that go with the event. The sheep are then loaded up and trucked off to one of two places for winter grazing and lambing. One is BLM (Bureau of Land Management - a Federal agency) land at Wendover, Utah. This is one of the places we go to stay near the Bonneville Salt Flats. They have to pay the BLM ten cents per head per day for grazing rights! Other sheep are trucked all the way to Bakersfield, California where they have to pay thirty to sixty cents per head per day!! Here he mentioned sorting out those for sheering and lambing at Bakersfield. He didn't mention sheering and lambing for the Wendover bunch. I didn't ask why the two different locations as my head was spinning at the per head per day fees. Anyway, the trucking of sheep is completed in November. Come April the sheep from both places are trucked back to Idaho. They are unloaded near the Craters of the Moon National Monument southeast of Ketchum/Sun Valley. There the fresh grass of spring is just beginning to sprout and the sheep will work their way up into the high country following the new growth as it ascends in altitude. Yep, they are once again paying ten cents per head per day for Idaho grazing. The process is repeated come October. It's a business they barely made any money at when it's all said and done. I told him how I wrote in my blog post that it seemed like a peaceful occupation compared to herding cattle. He said no way would he deal with cattle and yes, it was a very mellow tranquil life raising sheep

We ended up staying for eighteen days although the limit was sixteen. Sara the Forest Service ranger came by the day before we planned to leave. She welcomed us and gave me some papers, information on do's and don'ts which she had written the day's date and our license plate number. So we could have stayed sixteen more days from that date. But I confessed to her how long we had already been there. She remarked that I was the second person that morning that was honest to her about their length of stay. The propane was getting low so we had to leave anyway and as the nearest propane dealer as I could find online was eighty-five miles south in Twin Falls. Well as we motored on out of Ketchum and passed through nearby Hailey a couple of service stations showed to have propane. I went ahead and bought propane in Hailey and went across the street to their welcome center which had a free dump station. Having the composting toilet I didn't need the dump facility. Two years ago Amanda had to pay to fill up her fresh water tank. I was surprised to see water was now free so I took advantage of that even though we still had a half a tank. I was able to get rid of a large bag of smashed cat food cans and some plastic bottles and then continued on our way to Twin Falls. It was warm there, much more so due to the lower elevation. We stayed at the Walmart Motor Inn where I found a tree providing some shade. Not long afterwards a semi pulled in nearby and wouldn't you know it, he was one of those yokels who left the engine running all day and all night. I could have moved but would lose the shade plus who's to say another semi would pull in even closer. The next morning in no great hurry to leave we pulled out and Mr. Yokel pulls out at the very same moment! He waved as he was making his turn. Grrr...

It was hot. Evidently a heat wave had descended upon the U.S. just when we were planning to move. I made a stop at a Petco store to load up on some quality Beans food then over to a Lowes building supply to get what I would need to mount my little digital bicycle computer speedometer onto the Honda, one that I had in place on the Motoped. I mounted it on the Honda and got it all calibrated while at Sun Valley. But when I went to load up the bike, the tie down hook rested right up against it. I came up with a better mounting idea. While at Lowes I undid the cover on the back to double check my idea and the plastic mounting strap for the computer broke. _Well, so much for that idea._ I put the bike cover back on and walked over to McAlister's Deli for a New Yorker pastrami sandwich. One lone sandwich placed into a huge white paper shopping bag with handles! Explain that to me.

I had a free campsite picked out less than an hour's drive away near Sublett, Idaho. It was twelve miles in from the interstate turn off. Once on the road the pavement ended in two miles. Although the gravel road was well graded I just wasn't in the mood of ten miles gravel driving. I turned around at the first opportunity to do so. Before getting back onto the interstate I checked a different camping app. On the other side of the highway about the same distance away was McClendon Springs. This looked like all paved road so we went for it. With two and a half miles left the directions turned us off onto a single track dirt road through grazing land towards the mountains. _Well Beans, let's have some adventure._ The further I drove the less I liked it. The road was barely wide enough for the RV with absolutely no way to turn around. We were committed (sometimes I think I should be for my own safety). With about a mile left to go we crossed a cattle guard and a wide spot revealed itself. _That's it. No further._ I was able to get level and called it home for the evening. And it was hot. Once the sun went down behind the mountains it cooled down and we could enjoy being outside and take in the view across the valley. I looked at the mountain range far off to the east thinking how we almost went up there but this would be fine for the night. And it was. Not a single car or truck passed by all the while we were there. Not even a cow.
UTAH

It was just a short twenty mile drive to the state line where I pulled in at the rest stop for breakfast and let Beans out for a walk. I had been checking camp options for days in preparing for this. We had to get up in altitude to escape the ninety-eight degree heat. The Wasatch Mountain range behind the Salt Lake City area was the only place and I just knew most every campground would be full of locals from the Salt Lake area towns. I didn't even want to try. I pretty much had already resigned myself to a long day's drive that day. At least we would have the air conditioning while we drove. And drive we did all the way to Salina where we over-nighted behind the same vacant Denny's restaurant we had earlier in the year. Midway through the metropolis I had stopped at an Arby's for a chocolate shake. Now I didn't even feel like eating.

The only relief from the heat lay in the mountains so we headed for the southern part of Utah as I had an idea. Three years ago we were near Bryce Canyon National Park but didn't go in. The last time I was there was around forty years ago. Maybe it was time for a revisit. I had a back-up plan if the campgrounds were full. After a not-so-long long day of driving as before we were finally there and turned off Highway 12 for the park. I was immediately hit with all the development that wasn't there four decades ago. There were motels, hotels, monster hotels, a mega RV park and campground, diners, restaurants, ice cream shops, souvenir stores, souvenir shops, souvenir stands, ATV rentals and tours, horseback rides, and worst of all a huge paved parking lot staging area for the _Bryce Canyon Shuttle_. This did not bode well. I pressed on and came upon the entrance sign. As I pulled in to park for the obligatory National Park rock and wood sign photo another RV our size pulled in right behind us. I climbed out and the young lady behind the wheel opened her door and said _Hi_. We got to talking. It was her and her husband and two little girls. I asked if they had reservations. "Oh no. They aren't taking reservations. The south campground is closed as they are rebuilding it." Why rebuild a campground during the height of the tourist season?! "Well there goes half our chances of getting a campsite" I said. She agreed and said the north campground is on a "first come first served basis and its $30 per night!" They lived in Phoenix, Arizona where it was 112 degrees and had come to the mountains to escape the inferno at home. I decided I wasn't even going to try to get in the park campground and casually mentioned "I saw it forty years ago anyway". Her faced reflected surprise for neither she nor her husband were that old. I told her where they could go to camp if they couldn't get in. "Go back up the road ten miles to the Losee Canyon turnoff. There's a sign. Two miles in its free Forest Service camping and the canyon is like a little mini Bryce Canyon you can hike around in. No one is there and there is cell service." She was very grateful for the information. I took my picture of the Bryce Canyon sign turned around and left. I hope they got to stay but if not, they'll like where I sent them. Before turning back onto Highway 12 I checked my free camping app. About four or five miles down the highway was a turn off onto Tom's Best Spring Road. Reviews were positive stating many free sites were available all along the road. _We'll go check it out Beans_. And they were right. Two miles in we selected a nice spot just off the road nestled in among some tall pines. I let Beans out for her exploratory walk and immediately found a broken arrowhead. _Yep, Broken Arrowhead Camp will suit us just fine._ The altitude was at 7869 feet and very pleasant in the low eighties.

As the days passed the entire Tom's Best Springs Road area proved to be an ideal location for summer boondocking. Every day the temperature never varied far from eighty give or take a few degrees. There was always a gentle breeze and for the most part as quiet as can be. The only bad thing, and it really wasn't bad, was the more than normal traffic flow back and forth Tom's Best Spring Road a hundred feet or so in front of us. The first few days numerous trucks pulling large horse trailers would go by stirring up all kinds of dust which fortunately was blown away from us by the breeze. After the second day of this I made a point of trying to locate where the 'rodeo' was being held. I finally found them scrunched up on a ridge, several dozen horse trailers. It didn't appear to be of anything special. The next day an ATV came by hanging pink ribbon on the sagebrush and pines. _It must be some sort of ride._ I looked online trying all sorts of combinations of words but couldn't find anything about what type of horse activity was going on in this area on these dates.

The next day I rode Gracie across the highway and up a dirt road to Coyote Hollow Trailhead. I was coming across riders along the way then at the trailhead were large rubber buckets of drinking water for the horses. Riders would stop and I was able to ask questions. They were doing a fifty-mile race. One lady said they had started out at seven in the morning. It was now nearing three in the afternoon. Every rider I talked with said they were hot and tired. Earlier I had seen two ladies walking their horses. I asked why. "Our legs got tired. We had to do something different." I asked how the horses held up for fifty miles. "Oh it's the same as with people; you train them for it." It turned out not to be a ride for that Sunday but a different ride was held each day for the entire week with a couple days off midweek. Fifty-mile rides were each day but the rider had the option of doing a 'limited distance" route which was less than fifty. One day thunderstorms rolled in. Even with lightning and rain the riders were out in it. Three women riders stopped at camp so the one walking could use the stump in camp to get back on her horse. They were all smiles having a grand time riding in the rain. Seeing this all week gave me a deep appreciation for the riders of the old west, be them cowboys, the Calvary and even the Indians. I'd much rather ride my _iron horse_ fifty miles than I would a real horse.

Early in the week I saw a truck pass by towing an older trailer with a nice mountain scene painted on the side instead of the usual gaudy graphics the RV industry puts on RVs. One day at the end of my hike I found the trailer nestled up under the tall pines in a little hollow. The owner was outside as I walked by and she waved. I waved back and walked over meeting Marcella. She was from Wisconsin and had been full time on the road now for just about a year. She did the artwork on her trailer herself. "I just wanted something different than the _normal._ " Well she did accomplish that. The mural painting wrapped all the way around the trailer depicting a high mountain range in the back ground with pine trees and wildflowers in the foreground. It had a very Bob Ross style to it. "Let's put a happy little tree here." Marcella had an entire forest of happy little trees. We talked for quite awhile exchanging stories, tips and places we've stayed. Her best story was from just this past Memorial Day weekend. She was up in the High Sierra of California to see the big trees of Sequoia National Park. As she was leaving the campground and had just turned onto the highway one of the leaf springs on the trailer broke. Fortunately there was a turnout right there where she dragged the trailer off the highway. What to do? There was no cell service. She walked back to the campground and found a ranger. The ranger said she was on Forest Service land so no problem. "Just unhook and leave your trailer. You're good for fourteen days there." So she unhooked and drove down the mountain until she got a cell signal and then started calling. It was the holiday weekend and repair shops were all closed. "I wasn't thinking." So she called some tow service shops. They wanted $2000 to come up and load the trailer onto a tow truck and bring it down off the mountain! "Screw that!" Undeterred, she went back to her trailer, packed some clothes and supplies in her truck and drove out to the coast. "I went to Monterey and toured the aquarium for the weekend." Tuesday she shopped for a new spring, bought a big hydraulic jack and drove back up the mountain to her trailer. "I had looked and it was just a few bolts. I figured I could do this myself." And she did, jacking up the trailer, removing the broken spring and installed the brand new one. "The worst part was the ground was all wet so I got pretty dirty. The whole repair cost me $168." I love meeting women like her.

It was mid-week before I got wind of the fact a holiday weekend loomed ahead–Labor Day. And yet again another holiday weekend had snuck up on us. Fortunately like with the Fourth of July three-day holiday while at the Big Sandy Reservoir in Wyoming, we were in a good place to weather out the storm of holiday hooligans. That Friday evening as I lay in bed reading the traffic going back and forth on the dirt road in front of us had really picked up. One car slowed to a stop in front, sat there for awhile– _no...no...keep going_ −then moved on. Soon they were back and backed right in to our site directly in front of us. The audacity of people amazes me. I fumed over this lying in bed. Not so much at them but at myself. I had thought earlier in the day perhaps I should lay out a log, some branches or rocks in our driveway. _Naw, it'll be fine._ I was upset more with myself for not following my feelings. The next morning they–two young women in a Jucy rental van–left early and I never had to go out and suggest for them to move on which would have been more difficult for me to do to a couple of girls. The barricade went up soon after. I really needed some sort of early warning system a week ahead of time to prepare our safe space location for Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day holiday shenanigans. The thought came to mind to program my iPhone calendar to send reminders of events, and this would be as a good event as any to be alerted about. Things settled down and my barricade wasn't ever needed the next two evenings.

The remainder of the week was peaceful and tranquil. Marcella had told me about showers being available at the General Store in the only opened campground at Bryce Canyon National Park. I thought I would take advantage of that as it was less than ten miles up the road. I used my old person lifetime park pass (National Parks Senior Pass) which got me in for free and found the store. It was three dollars for eight minutes. That was the best three dollars I had spent in a long time. I bought a half gallon of milk while there and talked with the store clerk. He was from Croatia and was doing this seasonal job. I asked how long he would be here and if he liked it. His time would be up in mid-September. He enjoyed doing this and would do so again but in a different location. He would be going back home to continue his education majoring in history.

Feeling refreshed and rejuvenated I decided to do the tourist route and see the sights of Bryce Canyon. I tried for pullouts where there weren't many cars (meaning people) hopefully to try to get a good photo of Beans with the canyon features in the background. She really wasn't into it and getting her to pose was an issue. Most of the pictures reflected her _Dad_ , _I'm not impressed_ attitude. At the end of the road fifteen miles on sat Rainbow Point a popular view site. The place was overrun with tourists. I didn't even get out. I simply ate lunch and then motored on back down the road. Our destination was several miles past Tom's Best Spring Road to Losee Canyon where we stayed two years ago.

At Losee the few spots to camp were not as how I expected. Ah my memory sometimes gets jumbled. I opted for a different spot than before and had a bit of difficulty getting somewhat level. I ended up my head being a bit downhill which gave me headaches all that first evening. I repositioned the RV for the second night head uphill and problem solved.

The first day there I started out at the Losee Trailhead across the road for the hike I wanted to do again. The trail would loop around a small canyon climbing the cliff face and along the rim passing many hoodoos (columns of weathered rock), windows and arches. But the trail I took instead wove into a canyon following a stream bed. I remembered this trail but this wasn't what I wanted. Now I was confused. Was the trail I had in mind someplace else, maybe another park altogether? Disappointed I turned around a mile in and walked back to camp. I unloaded Gracie, ate lunch and then took off for a ride I had wanted to do the last time here. Castro Canyon was a few miles up the road and I think I just didn't feel confident exploring it on the little Motoped bike I had at the time. Gracie the Honda Trail 90 was more up to the challenge.

Once I got onto the ATV/Horse trail and entered Castro Canyon I was very pleased with all the spectacular scenery around me. Gawking about side to side as I putt-putted along the disappointment of Losee was soon gone. The further in I rode the further on I wanted to keep going but being all alone and not seeing a single soul the entire time it was best that I not proceed much farther. Five miles in I reached a trail junction and forced myself to turn around and go back. I longed to have a fellow rider along on some of these excursions but remained grateful that I am able to go and do what I do. Having Gracie gave me the opportunity to see many places I would not be able to otherwise being too far for me to hike. And so it happened as I arrived back at the trailhead. I was in first gear going real slow preparing to stop and open the gate when my attention was distracted to the side at a possible route around the gate. The front tire hit a small rock and slid out from beneath me. With the suddenness of breaking a shoelace I was on the ground with the bike on me. I had fallen before (Trail 8) but this one hurt. I slowly crawled out from under the bike, dusted myself off, took a picture for the blog of Gracie lying there, picked her and she started right up. I would check out the damage done back at camp. Once home I first loaded up Gracie then went inside to inspect my injuries. The back of my right leg at the ankle was leaking blood. _This is going to take forever to heal. Damn._ This is why I am very cautious when out riding alone. Even still, going as slow as I was one can still hurt himself. The fact I was going so slowly led to the fall from hitting a small rock. Had I been going faster the momentum would have carried me through. Had this happened way back on the trail where I turned around I would still be able to ride back out from there, it just would not have been very enjoyable. It would be working on my mind the entire way as to what if this was more serious. What if the accident was worse? That thinking would haunt me all the way back to camp. I cleaned the wound, bandaged up the leg and limped around the rest of the day.

The next morning I was pleasantly surprised to find myself not hobbling around as the evening before. We were all packed and ready to leave when Beans wanted to go for a final walk. We stuck to the wide dirt road and as we were walking I could hear voices from somewhere. I finally spotted a group of people high up on the canyon rim. _Is that my missing trail_? _How did they get up there?_ It still ate at me that I didn't know where that trail was that I had in mind when coming here. Back from our walk I pulled up a satellite image and zoomed in on the area. I spotted what I thought was a trail looping around. I decided to go out one more time to Losee Trailhead and try to find the trail. We were in no hurry anyway. So with a leaky injury I took off. And there it was, off to the left from where I walked by the day before, a sign: ARCHES TRAIL. Within a quarter of a mile the trail began going up and up and I knew I had found what I was looking for, _the_ trail I hiked two years ago. And I was very happy. My memory was fine. It's just a matter of my not seeing anything such as a solitary sign-post right there in front of me.

We left Losee Canyon and drove the ten miles into the small town of Panguitch. I stopped at a carwash to wash out the dirty carpets and squirt off Gracie. Ah, clean rugs; the simple pleasures of nomad life. While the carpets dried in the sun I ate lunch and posted the last couple days onto the blog. Naturally I would run out of data for the month midway so the process of uploading photos was agonizingly slow. Nearby was a truck stop rest area and I briefly considered that for an overnight stay but thought of the nimrod truck driver from before and decided to just drive the ten miles back to the Losee Canyon road entrance where we would be assured of a peaceful night's rest.

The next morning it was back into town to have breakfast and try to get some WiFi (no luck on that) then move on out for Cedar Breaks National Monument thirty miles away and over ten thousand feet up. We were already at sixty-six hundred feet in elevation so not much further to go. There were a few pullouts along the way in the Monument but pretty much each only provided a different angle of view of the one and only main feature, the huge gash in the landscape creating the multicolored sculptured canyon far below. Beans was not cooperative in posing once again not without a scowl on her face. At the small visitor center parking lot we spent most of the time catching up on the journal for the past few weeks. Hey, it's much better to write there than sitting in a Walmart parking lot where we were off to next to resupply. In Cedar City we spent the night in a Home Depot parking lot, much quieter than the neighboring Walmart Motel. In the morning I did the shopping then went over to a nearby Dollar Tree store. Dollar Tree is the only place I know of to buy boxed milk. I get these one quart containers of milk from Gossner Farms. They have up to a year shelf life based upon the _Best if used by_ dates on the box. They do not need to be refrigerated until opened. These are handy to have when the half quart container of cold-bought milk runs out and we're in the outback far away from a store.
ARIZONA

We crossed over into Arizona (damn, have to change all the clocks now) and stopped in the little one thousand plus population town of Fredonia. They had a nice shady little rest stop on the outskirts of town. Beans was itching to stretch her legs. Dad was too. It was ninety-three degrees and quite toasty compared to what we had been in the last several weeks. After a bite to eat we motored the final thirty miles for the day climbing up to nearly eight thousand feet at Jacob Lake. It was much cooler there. Nice. Jacob Lake sits at the turnoff for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. There is a spider web of Forest Service roads all the way to the Canyon, all free for boondocking. It's just that Jacob Lake is the only place that has cell service. There we stayed for ten days within a half mile of the Jacob Lake Inn, restaurant, café, souvenir gift shop and visitor center with never having anyone in sight of our camp. The day we left for the North Rim I drove over to the nearby Kaibab Camper Village RV Park and used their laundry and shower facilities. All clean now we headed south to the North Rim forty-five miles away.

As usual, none of what I saw seemed familiar. It had been forty years at least since I was here last. Parking I soon found would be a problem. The parking lots were small offering very few spaces for RVs. Some lots were closed for some unknown reason. Construction was going on nearby of course but why this would impact the one lot that had some RV parking opportunities was beyond me. Cruising around I soon found myself in a dead-end lot with no exit. I had to turn around to get out. Not possible. So I backed out a couple hundred of feet; fortunately no one was coming in or we'd have a problem. I decided to make another loop around thinking if nothing shows we may just as well abandon all hope. And just when I was ready to give up there was an RV pull in slot with a clean shot for an exit. I couldn't believe our good fortune. Someone must have left while I was having fun backing out. I was able to briefly get Beans to pose for an acceptable photo with the Canyon in the background and soon she was done with that and wanted back home away from all the tourists. I made lunch then left for a look around.

I found the narrow footpath out to Bright Angel Point. With steep drop-offs on one side or the other it offered great views of the Canyon. It was a nice asphalt covered path wide enough for three people across for most of its length. Along the edge where the land fell away was a foot or so high rock barrier to give one a sense of security. Nevertheless I came upon two separate women who were having a difficult time with the drop-off. One lady was holding onto her husband's daypack following along with her eyes closed as they were leaving. The other woman was really having a bad time. I overheard her husband say "It's okay, were past the worst part now." The woman stopped, leaned against the boulders on the opposite side, bent over hyperventilating, on the verge of tears.

A lot of people like the North Rim over the South Rim. It may have to do with the remoteness and difficulty in getting there resulting in far less people. Yet the South Rim offers the expansive wide open vast views of the Canyon resulting in a far greater impact upon one's senses in my opinion.

I came back to the RV to check on Beans and consult my map given to me at the entrance station. I couldn't find the Visitor Center. As it turned out I had walked by it twice never seeing it. Normal for me. Mainly I wanted to get something to put up in the RV; something that would specify the North Rim over the bookmark I bought last year of the Park as a whole. All there was were a single post card and a 3D magnet of the entrance sign. I went with the latter and was very happy with my find. A little more walking around in case I had missed anything, a quick peek inside the lodge and then over to their "saloon" where I purchased a mocha espresso drink for $4.81 which was kind of so-so. I found out they close everything down on October 16 and there it all sits in the winter snow until the next season.

We drove back to Jacob Lake and turned east. The drive along Highway 89A takes you along the Vermillion Cliffs Natural Monument. I feel this is one of the most scenic drives in America. It is slight downgrade all the way to Lees Ferry so just set the cruise control, relax and enjoy the colorful towering high cliffs right out the driver's side window for thirty-some-odd miles. We spent the night at the Walmart Camper Village (and it is just that too for more RVers stay here than most other Walmarts) in Page, Arizona. After buying a few supplies in the morning then topping off the fuel tank we headed off for the South Rim of the Grand Canyon to a place we stayed last year, Grandview Lookout in the Kaibab National Forest just off the Park road a quarter of a mile.

We entered the park at the east entrance where immediately is the Desert View Watchtower view point. Amazing the difference in a year. Although we were within a few days of when we were there last year, the crowd of tourists was significantly less. In fact it was quite pleasant. I took full advantage of this fact and hung around for quite some time before heading off to our camp several miles down the road.

Nothing had changed. It was just as we left it. I first selected a site we used before but that lasted only the first night. It was too shaded blocking the morning sun and afternoon solar power. I moved back up the road to our previous spot in the open. The wind was whipping the first two days which pretty much kept us confined inside for shelter. Finally it subsided on the third day and I unloaded Gracie the trail bike for a little ride around. It was all too familiar having just been there a year ago. I wasn't even into any hiking for I had hiked all around there already. I toyed with the idea of striking out cross country going north just to see if the little stack of rocks I had set up by the edge of the Canyon rim where no one ever goes was still there. There had been some recent sightings of a mountain lion in the area and I recalled the scattered elk bones I came across last year. Nope. I don't need that kind of adventure right now. It was a very remote location and who would ever know that an old man had become kitty food. So I decided this would be a good time to just devote some effort to editing eBook stories.

I wanted to take the trail bike out to various lookout points along the Canyon but the Park road is so narrow with little to no shoulder that all I could think of was some tourist driving a large motor home, gawking around at the scenery wiping me out, probably unawares that he had done so. I studied Google satellite images and just couldn't find any access via trails to get me close to the Canyon. I gave up on that idea. With the forecast of occasional thunderstorms passing through the area I loaded up five days later and resolved to just drive to various view points, one of which was nearby Grandview where a year ago it was just like this day, thunderstorms. I had stepped off the path to go around a bunch of tourists blocking the way, slipped on the wet border rocks and crashed sending my iPhone flying and providing entertainment for all those around witnessing the spectacle. Worse than the embarrassment was that I landed heavily on my left arm leaving a painful pregnant mouse bump contusion that lingered for a week. So easily I could have broken an arm bone. I returned to the scene of the spinout this year and just stared at that rock. Lesson learned. I stayed on the path even though it was dry. Just like at Desert View, Grandview had nothing like the hoard it did one year ago. I couldn't imagine why the difference as the time period was the same. I planned to just hang out there for the day but as the weather deteriorated we returned to camp before having to drive in mud. Temperatures dropped and I eventually gave in and dug out Mr. Buddy the heater, the first time since we left Quartzite at the beginning of the year. The next day promised sunshine and we went to the main view area at Mather Point where the visitor center was located. We hung around there for the better part of the day. Poor Beans though, she wanted to get out at each of the places but struggled with doing so with so many people milling around.

Leaving the Grand Canyon at the south entrance we pulled off into a Forest Service road just outside the park boundary near the airport at Tusayan. After a bit of searching I finally I found a somewhat level place way back in woods. Taking Beans for her exploratory walk the jet powered Grand Canyon Tour helicopters strafed our camp at low tree top altitude scaring the bejesus out of both of us. We left. We didn't need all that racket. Retracing our way out I slowed for a guy walking the road towards us. I stopped and asked him if the nearby little Winnebago Toyota camper was his as it was in a big area off to the left and I was going to ask if I could pull in there for the night. It wasn't his camper. We got to chatting and while doing so a tall guy walked over from the encampment on the other side of the road. He offered me space there. With a bone-crushing hand shake he introduced himself. That was nice, his offer−not the hand shake−and I took Buck up on his invite. Two large class A RVs with him in the encampment were leaving so it would be just Buck in his small class A and another guy with him living out of his Subaru. Both were close to my age. Buck had been full-timing for a year and a half and the other guy (never got his name) was looking forward to his first Rubber Tramp Rendezvous in Quartzite this winter. This other guy may have been older than I, a nice soft spoken guy.

Later the guy I met on the road came back from his long hike looking for some elusive thing in the woods he had heard about plus looking at birds. He stopped by our camp which was away from six foot tall Buck and Subaru guy. Road guy's name was Baja.

"That wasn't your given name at birth I assume."

"No, they didn't have the imagination at the time."

Baja though was a nice guy and I enjoyed visiting with him. He was interested in my Winnebago View because he was not sure how he wanted to go with his present camping arrangement. Currently he was in a four wheel drive truck with a camper shell and a fold out roof tent on top. He liked the ability to get way back in there away from everyone and everything but his truck was tired I gathered. He said it had 250,000 miles on it.

Baja tells me how he's heartbroken. He had been traveling around with this tall blonde from England. She's fifty-five and has been living in the states for twenty years. She travels around in a pickup truck, sleeps in the back on the bed of the truck. He told me all the activities she takes part in but all I recall was that she is or was a world class rock climber. They traveled together for six months, driving all around in Mexico then flew to Patagonia. There they backpacked; carrying their collapsible fold-up kayaks in front packs, kayaking rivers, climbing mountains, hiking all over Argentina. Here I must mention Baja is seventy-three years old. Yes, I really took a good look at myself.

So this woman, Annie, had just recently left him by the side of the road you could say. Out of the clear blue one day she told him "I'm going on my own from here." So the guy is crushed. This evidently had just recently happened. I finally got it out of him that they were having a few little "squabbles" as he put it which led up to this ending of their "romance", again his word. This led on to sharing stories about the solo female nomads we have met on the road. He asks me since I'm not with anyone at the time that if the "romance" ended similarly. I set him straight. "All my associations with women I meet are platonic. Relationships ruin good friendships and I value a good friendship more." He nodded his head understandingly. I had been joking around saying I'd like to meet this woman. Annie. He insisted on giving me her name even though I tell him I'm just kidding. "I'd never be able to keep up with her. She's out of my league." He made me write her name down just in case I ever see this six foot tall blonde with an English accent in a pickup truck. "Just tell her you know Baja." Yeah, right.

I gave Baja the twenty-five cent tour inside. Beans head butts him a couple times then curls up on the bed and ignores him. He likes Beans and gives her a few pets. I admitted that I miss my old Land Rovers and the ability they provided to get way back in the wilderness, going places I cannot go now, but the older I get the more I like my comfort I say with the thought in the back my mind _this guy is three years older than I and not sniveling any about discomfort_.

Meanwhile Buck was glad the two big Class A's left for he was tired of the social hours around the campfire each night. He, Mr. Subaru and I were standing around talking when Buck made the remark that it was ten to five. Mr.Subaru says "Oh, you know what happens in ten more minutes?" Buck responds "Oh yeah, meditation time." I immediately think _please, don't invite me_. This is after I had earlier made some disparaging remarks about California after they finally got it out of me where I was from not knowing at the time the Subaru had California plates on it. Oops. Anyway, Buck made his own comments about Subaru's power of enlightenment mediating, Buddha teachings and I'm thinking _so why do you agree to do this with him?_ Buck said he'd rather be reading his book.

Buck wanted to see the View as he wanted something smaller than his Class A which looked to be about as long as my View. The next morning I never saw Buck. By nine or so when we're ready to roll he was still inside. I left a book on his table with a thank you note and pulled on out. He never got his tour. And I avoided a bone-crushing handshake goodbye.

Years ago I said "Never again" about visiting Sedona. It was a monumental glitzy tourist trap in my opinion. But I had never tried boondocking around Sedona and had heard from fellow nomads this was the way to go. So I got brave and would give Sedona another chance. I took highway 89A south from Flagstaff after missing the off ramp and had to drive almost two miles west to turn around and get back on Interstate 80. And just so you know, this was the second time I had done that very same blunder which I did last time through Flagstaff. I might add that the city of Flagstaff does not allow travelers to overnight in either of the Walmarts in town. Plus their network of streets are so convoluted and it is nothing unusual to sit through several traffic light changes just in order to make a left turn at a few select intersections. My grandfather would tell me it is never nice to _hate._ "You may dislike something but you should never _hate_ " he would say. I _hate_ Flagstaff, Arizona. Sorry Grandpa.

I saw on my free camping app some Forest Service land just a few miles south from that place 'I dislike'. Turning onto FS237 we dropped down in amongst the tall Ponderosa Pines and soon lost cell service. The road was lumpy and bumpy and the designated camping areas were heavily shaded and I need sun for the solar panels. By the time I reached designated camp area number four I decided I wasn't going any further. I couldn't have anyway since that was the end of the allowed camping area. I found a spot somewhat in the open and told Beans "This will do". She was glad. That night it rained.

The next morning we made an early get-away before breakfast. I drove real slow so as to not sling a bunch of mud up underneath. Back on the highway I pulled into an Arizona road maintenance facility to search online for an alternate camp location. Two more showed up a few miles further. Turning in on the first one the road began to climb and of course it was wet and muddy. I pressed on. I had to; there was nowhere to turn around. The first camp area was deeply rutted, very unlevel and shaded. But it had cell service so it had that going for it. I continued on. Every other camp place was of the same make-up and still there was nowhere to turn around. _Well here's another fine mess you've gotten us into Dad!_ I had to agree with Beans. I was not liking this at all. We finally topped out at a flat area and I saw three or four people camping in the mud. One old RV looked like the rear end had settled down into the muck. Here I was able to turn around and we coasted back down in first gear no doubt slinging mud underneath but happy to get out of there. Our next option a few miles further I had at least the presence of mind to evaluate the situation before committing ourselves. _Nope, not even going to try it._ The rain had thoroughly muddied up all the roads. So now we had to continue on for Sedona.

The closer we got to Sedona the more I realized this was a mistake. The skies were gray and dreary which didn't help my mood any. Having still not eaten breakfast didn't help any. Then we hit the extremely steep crooked down grade into Oak Creek Canyon. I remembered climbing up that grade in our old four cylinder Land Rover with nearly two dozen cars back up behind us much to the embarrassment to the kids sitting in back. Some sections the speed limit is set at 15mph. When things leveled out we were stopped due to road construction. There we sat long enough that I could have prepared and eaten my breakfast had I known. Finally on the move again some miles further we entered the town of Sedona. If I thought Sedona was a monumental glitzy tourist trap thirty some years ago I don't have the adjectives to describe it now. It's a shame. The entire Oak Creek Canyon area should have been set aside as a National Park or Monument long ago saving it from the horrible development it has suffered. I finally found a place to park that had some room and was level, a Church of Christ parking lot. There I was able to wash up, shave and eat breakfast. Oh, and feed Beans. She's such a good girl. She never complains.

Refreshed we could continue on. Should we take a little road over to Highway 17 or stick to the scenic route to Camp Verde? I'd let Claire decide. Our GPS girl had us stay on 89A and so we did. This took us through Cottonwood−nothing remarkable except the opportunity to once again sit through several light changes just to make a simple left turn. Now it was a straight shot for twelve miles to Camp Verde and the four-lane Highway 17−well not quite. There had to have been a dozen traffic circles along that stretch, each where they had you slow down to twenty mph. I supposed a traffic circle is nicer in the respect that you don't have to come to a complete stop had there been a traffic signal. But these roundabouts were pointless. Most of them had the intersecting crossroads blocked off CLOSED. So this just added to my ever-growing aggravation until we reached the highway where I could pull over and stop, grease the annoying creaking latch to the side door, get on the highway and deep breathe. Thirty miles later we pulled in onto a gravel area just at the entrance to Aqua Fria National Monument which would be home for two nights with the soothing sounds of nearby Highway 17 to serenade us.

Aqua Fria looked promising for some trail bike riding. The next morning I unloaded Gracie and took off following the dirt road to a trailhead that supposedly led to a former Native American site. I saw some pictures at the trailhead−just a pile of rocks creating a low wall. I wasn't in the mood to hike the mile and an half anyway. Continuing on the bike I began running into muddy sections left over from the recent rains a few days earlier plus various points where the road ceased to exist and signs were posted NO MOTORIZED VEHICLES BEYONG THIS POINT. Soon I found myself back at the RV. There wasn't anywhere I could ride so I loaded up the bike and that was that.

The second night there I laid in bed reading when I heard sirens blaring up on the Interstate. It sounded close. Then I sensed something going on outside behind us. I looked out the back window. There was an Arizona Highway Patrol car and a Border Patrol car that had pulled a eighteen-wheeler hauling hay off the highway. The officers were standing outside flashing their flashlights all around the hay bales. What were they looking for? Marijuana? Illegal migrants? Soon a fire truck pulled in on the scene. The exhaust stacks from the truck had caught the hay on fire and it was smoldering. I thought this was hilarious and went back to my book.

I was not looking forward to the day we left Aqua Fria. I had for some time been planning and thinking ahead as to what I would need for over the winter at Quartzite; certain foods and such that I would not be able to buy in the little markets in town. I wanted enough to carry us over to March or April. That wasn't so bad as I kind of enjoyed the challenge of preparing. It was the fact I had to do all this shopping in Phoenix. I do not like Phoenix (I didn't say that word Grandpa). You couldn't pay me to live in Phoenix.

In big towns I try to make a stop at Petco to buy quality food for Beans, otherwise I am stuck with buying junk food such as Friskies. The good stuff I buy is grain free Merrick (I used to get it for Sinbad too) but it seems Petco isn't carrying the variety of flavors as before. I asked about this while at a Petco in Idaho. The lady said they may be phasing it out and suggested I try Tiki Cat. Her cats love it she told me. So I thought I'd give it a try here in Phoenix. Changing food for a cat is always a crap shoot. Will they like it or not? I walked into the store echoing with dog barking. Just inside near the registers they had set up a pen which held what looked like two pit bull "pups" hoping someone would adopt them. These two mutts were constantly barking an ear piercing bark. It was painful and there was no escaping it anywhere in the store. I found Tiki Cat and selected one each flavor of what I thought she would like in small 2.8 ounce cans. I held my hands over my ears while paying for the Tiki Cat at the register. I might add the employees were NOT happy about the commotion either. Back in the peace and quiet of the RV I realized I didn't have a lid to place on these smaller style cans. I'd have to go back into the store. I couldn't find any lids and enlisted the help of the employees to locate them. April found the lids for me. I grabbed one and with my ears ringing returned to the register. I was stunned to see I was being charged $3.25 for this tiny piece of plastic about the size of a silver dollar! I just wanted out of there away from that infernal barking. I paid for the over-priced lid and ran out the store. That was just the beginning of the shopping day in Phoenix. I stopped at a couple more stores nearby avoiding having to go any deeper into Phoenix itself. There are about six Walmarts in the Phoenix area, none of which allow overnight parking due to a city ordinance. Thank you Phoenix for being so welcoming to travelers. I drove thirty miles along the western edge of that infernal city in bumper to bumper traffic to nearby Buckeye and parked at the Walmart Camper Village there. By now I was HOT, TIRED and THIRSTY. A lemonade sounded good. Next to us was a Taco Bell. I don't eat their food but a drink is a drink. I went inside and told the kid I just wanted a medium size drink. He set the cup on the counter and said with a smile "Take it".

"Really? Wow, thank you!"

That kind gesture on the part of this kid made me feel better about buying the over-priced cat food can lid. I went back in Taco Bell that evening and bought their taco salad.

Oh, and does Beans like Tiki Cat? She LOVES it!

Two wins for the day!

We left in the morning and drove about an hour to Vulture Mine Road south of Wickenburg where we had camped two years ago. It is at little bit at altitude there−2550 feet−so hopefully would be a little cooler. It was here Beans first learned about cholla cactus. She had only been on the road for a few months and this was her first desert experience. Removing stickers from her feet did not go well. Two years later she knows now whatever I do to her is for her wellbeing and is more tolerant of my removing the occasional cactus thorn. So the cholla cactus and the come-and-go cell signal are the only drawbacks to the Vulture Mine camp area. Only this year we arrived just after that recent rainfall. The place had these annoying tiny little black flies like we had encountered earlier back at Rio Blanco in Colorado. These little buggers, no bigger than the tip of a pin, leave an itchy little pustule behind after biting you. They were relentless buzzing around my ears and face and for the most part kept us confined indoors. Still I was able to get out and do some hiking, keeping on the move which the flies could not keep up with. It was mainly when walking Beans, moving along at cat speed, the flies were able to do their business. I never unloaded the bike as there weren't any routes to ride except the sandy washes which would be a struggle for the little 90cc motor. After a week we had had enough. We drove eight miles north to the town of Wickenburg to pick up a few items then headed west to Vicksburg Mine Road near Salome, Arizona. We had a good stay there two years back. But alas, such would not be the case this time. Those damn black biting flies were there waiting for us. Only now they were outnumbered by regular flies! What the hell was going on in this world anyway? I struggled with what to do. A heat wave had descended upon the west with temperatures over ninety degrees everywhere. We were once again confined indoors and there was no escape elsewhere since it was hotter everywhere. In two days there would be a fifteen to twenty degree drop. Our winter home in Quartzite was only a thirty-mile drive away. I really didn't want to arrive this early but there seemed to be no "Goldilocks" zone. Where we were at the Grand Canyon was too cold now; further north in Idaho and Montana they were having blizzards. We'd just have to bear it out here. The next morning I dumped the gray water and moved up the dirt road a few hundred yards for breakfast. Amazingly the flies were not as bad that short distance away. We stayed only for the day and I decided to go on ahead for Quartzite.

It was a nice feeling driving into town, like coming home. Nothing had changed. I stopped at Family Dollar to pick up a few items. The same people were working there. I stopped at the Shell station to top off the propane. The same guy was working the pump. I drove south of town for the LTVA (Long Term Visitor Area) camp locations which there are four. Here we could stay where there is water, trash dumpsters and sewage disposal from Sept. 15 through to April 15 all for only $180. There are free places on BLM land also but you are limited to a fourteen-day stay and then must move on to somewhere else at least twenty-five miles distant. That is what I used to do in years past. Last year was the first time I paid the $180 and it was nice not having to move all the time. That's like twenty-six dollars a month rent with free utilities. That's hard to beat. Last time we stayed at La Posa West which is very close to town for my friend Joanna was working as a volunteer for the BLM thus not having to pay the fee. This year I wanted to be further away where it was much more peaceful and quiet. I was thinking La Posa North, across the highway which has a larger area and I could get way out in the hinterland. But first I needed to fill the water tank and only one of the locations, La Posa South, had water. Upon arrival I found a notice stuck to the door of the kiosk where you purchase your permit. It seems the outfit that prints the permit stickers you place on your vehicle hadn't delivered yet. So I couldn't pay the fee but could still stay and use the facilities for free until then. I decided to stay at the southern location, rather than move to our permanent home site elsewhere only to have to break camp and bring the RV in to get my sticker later on. The note stated they expected the stickers by October 15 which was six days away. We'd just stay put and when I get the sticker move on to our permanent location north of there. Weeks later we were still there. No stickers. But our temporary site continued to be ideal with few neighbors.

One day two weeks in a big rig, a big diesel tractor towing a humongous six-wheeled toy hauler fifth wheel trailer moved in across the way from us a hundred yards distant. I watched as he set up camp which took all of the next day and then some. They were from Minnesota. I couldn't believe all the crap I saw him unload out from the back end of that trailer: one full sized Harley Davidson motorcycle, a smaller dirt bike, a small ATV and then a BIG ATV, plus two bicycles. They had also their SUV car which the wife drove separately. In addition were two large shade structures filled with chairs, two tables, a big master chef barbecue and untold number of storage boxes no doubt filled with even more crap. Everything was fine and entertaining to watch until he started up his music. I don't want to hear that! _Enjoy the sounds of Nature people!_ I decided we'd move. There was another factor behind this decision to move.

An older couple from Idaho had moved in several days after we arrived. They were about the same distance away. Everything they had looked brand new. Every day I watched them pull things out from boxes and unwrapping the contents. Sometimes they'd be gone for the day and return later with more new items. I suspected even their medium size trailer was brand new also. They set up a tent for some unknown reason. They set it up several times. I can't say why they took it down only to set it back up again. They set up a wire fence corral for their little dog. I'd watch them stumble along trying to do everything. Hooking up the new sewer hose to the new portable waste holding tank was really a spectacle to watch every other day. I guess the first time there was a back splash of sewage that drenched the guy's clothing and he some got onto his face and in his eyes. I missed that but I certainly heard it. See, that is where the problem lay with these people. The woman was crazy. She'd all of a sudden go off yelling, screaming and cursing at her poor brow-beaten husband all the time. He was meek as a mouse and took all the abuse without a word. She'll yell "you stupid moron, you idiot" and so on with every other word a foul curse word which I'll leave to your imagination. Sometimes she'd let loose on their little dog as if it had any idea what she was ranting about. I'll add that she was probably the ugliest woman I have seen in a very long time too. So when Mr. Minnesota-if-I-don't-have-it-I-don't-need-it caused me to move, I was ready anyway for I had grown tired of listening to the crazy woman from Idaho.

When the music started I walked ahead of our present location a few hundred yards. The spot seemed far enough away. I walked back, put the table, and chair inside, removed the step support tossing it inside too and made sure the motorcycle straps were okay in the back. I had a shade cloth on the other side of the motor home. It was no problem to pull the two stakes out of the ground and leave the cloth hanging from the RV. I drove slowly forward the few hundred yards and parked. Then I walked back to get Gracie and rode her to our new site. With table, chairs, step support and welcome mat in place I drove the two stakes into the ground on the other side and stretched the shade cloth out. All was done in fifteen to twenty minutes by having a simple camp set-up. If you don't like your neighbors you just turn the key and move. Easy enough.

I was now closer to two ladies I had met the first week there. They had just pulled in when I was finishing up my morning walk. Holly was from Ohio and the other lady who I didn't catch her name and wasn't all that into being sociable was from Michigan. They both were full-time on the road RV'ers. Ms. Michigan towed a car behind her Lazy Daze RV. Holly had a Fleetwood Tioga. One day I notice the little red car gone all day. The next morning it was back and soon after a third RV had joined the group; another Lazy Daze class C RV. The next day Ms. Michigan moved. In fact she moved twice leaving Holly and the new arrival to themselves. I figured there were some female dynamics going on there for the final move was like a hundred yards away. I'd see Holly go in a visit the new arrival several times but could never catch this new person outside. Their camp was several hundred yards away so it was easy for me to miss something going on. I only assumed the newcomer was another lady. In fact I came to the conclusion that this new person must be in poor health or the like and couldn't do much for herself. I saw Holly loading up some gear in the new arrival's storage lockers outside. I thought what a nice friend she had in Holly to help her out like that. Still Ms. Michigan was way off by herself. Later that afternoon I saw the new Lazy Daze RV on the move. _Good, now I'll get to see who this person is._ She was heading over to the water fill-up station and when got directly in front of me I could see that it was Holly driving! Only then it sunk in−Holly had bought herself a new RV that day the little red car was gone! There was no third lady. Holly returned and parked her new home over by Ms. Michigan and it all made sense...finally. Her Fleetwood Tioga sat back at the old site for days afterwards. A couple days later on a walk to the trash dumpsters Holly stopped by me on the road. She was in the Tioga. She did indeed buy a new RV, a 2000 model she found on Craiglist. The RV was in Bakersfield, California, a two-hundred-ninety-five mile drive one-way. That explained why the little red car was gone all that day and didn't reappear until the next morning. Ms. Michigan must be a really a great friend to drive Holly all that way for her new home.

The stickers finally arrived two weeks past the expected date. I rode Gracie up to the kiosk, paid my money and went back to camp carefully placing the 2020 sticker next to last year's sticker. Yep, if I let them put it on they'll get it caddy-wampus and that'd bother me to no end. I really don't have OCD but I do like some sense of order in my life. By this time I had grown to like La Posa South as it really didn't present any reason to go elsewhere. Yet a week or so later I had another music man across the way from us so I went for a walk further on down the line scouting some new real estate. Again, only a few hundred yards away I discovered a spot that had been nicely landscaped by its previous occupants. Large rocks outlined several shallow water courses and some sort of rock art creation stood at the base of several tall saguaro cactus. There were no signs of other campsites in the past anywhere around. It looked promising and in twenty minutes we were in our new home site.

The next day I went for a walk in our new neighborhood. I met Jim. Jim was eighty-two years old. His faithful companion Lacey, a curious pooch who was intent on sniffing Beans smells on me, had been with him for the last several years. He had been living on the road in a fifth-wheel trailer for twenty-six years. Twenty-four of those years he had been coming to Quartzite for the winters. Camping in the same spot each year he told me he had seen a lot of changes. "Back in the day this place really got crowded. They say there were a million people here and the travel rigs were so many and so closely packed you could walk to town from roof top to roof top never having to set foot on the ground." I like how old timers tell stories. But he had one story to tell that he was still confused as to how he had made such a tom-fool mistake. They were at Lake Havasu on the Colorado River, a couple hours drive away, before coming here. Somehow he had accidentally filled his diesel pickup truck with gasoline. "The truck was running rough soon after leaving town and I foolishly kept on driving. Sixty miles later she gave up and died alongside the road." He had to be towed the rest of the way to Quartzite. I had actually seen a tow truck pulling a pickup and fifth-wheel in weeks earlier I told Jim. "That was you!" Jim seemed sharp and with it. The only thing I could think of was someone crossing the hoses over at the pump. I've seen that before−someone's idea of a practical joke. Yet he would have had to push the GASOLINE button though on the other side of the pump to get gasoline to flow. So we couldn't figure it out. Now his truck was in the shop for months while waiting for replacement parts including, injectors, fuel pump, turbo, exhaust system components all added to labor estimated cost at $5000. Lord knows what the hundred plus mile tow cost.

At the entry of each Long Term Stay Areas is a kiosk booth, a small brick building where one can purchase their permits to camp. Each had a small library of books for exchange left by campers. Outside under the awning is a picnic table where people leave items they no longer want or need that someone else may be interested in. These tables are commonly referred to as the _Free Table_. With that information I will tell about meeting Jan.

Early on near the entrance station where we were staying I noticed a woman in a beat-up old minivan setting up camp. Everything she had, which wasn't much, sat outside in the elements. A camp chair, her "kitchen" set up on a table and not much else. I suspected she lived and slept in the van. Each time I'd walk by she would be slowly improving her site bringing in rocks and creating a small perimeter boundary, or landscaping. She had a small flatbed trailer, only about four by six feet at the most. There looked to be some buckets and her water containers. Once I saw her at the water fill-up filling her water buckets. One day later on I saw the van and trailer at a pit toilet. It was then I realized she was working for the BLM for a free stay, not having to pay the $180. It all made sense. The little trailer was supplied to her by the BLM to haul the cleaning supplies around. Now I had questions. I wondered how many long drops she was responsible for, how many days a week she was on duty and how long each day's work took to complete. To me this seemed like a much better deal than dealing with people all day checking them in to the campground. One day on my walk I saw her at her camp outside eating breakfast. I walked over and said hi and introduced myself. I mentioned how I realized she was working here and had some questions. She was all too happy to visit. It turned out she was only responsible for five drops (I believe there are at least twice as many), it took her only a few hours of the day to sweep, clean, supply toilet paper and do whatever necessary which she went into great detail of some of the shitty encounters she dealt with. She was on duty only three days of the week. So this was a pretty good gig in saving $180 for seven months free stay. She was funny and I liked her. I complimented her on her camp, living a bare existence out in the elements as she was which few people would even consider doing. It was then she told me how people thought her kitchen table was the _Free Table_ and she would come home to find stuff left on her table which irritated her. I laughed out loud like I hadn't in a long time. "I even leave signs THIS IS NOT THE FREE TABLE – IT'S A CAMP! and they still leave things!" I asked if anything ever turned up missing thinking it was free for the taking. "Just a small ice chest the BLM gave me to use." She then offered me some orange juice she got at the Food Bank since she had no refrigeration and the orange juice would go bad quickly once opened. That and some canned goods which in all I felt bad taking because she had so little but wanted me to have if I could use. So many times I have found that it is those who have so little are those who give a lot. I stopped by a week later to visit and find out how her Free Table problem was going. She had since got a small tarp to cover the table which put an end to people dumping stuff off. We were talking about something and she went to van to get her legal size pad to draw me a diagram of something, I don't even remember what it was as I was focused on the page of paper on her tablet. There were around five long columns of very fine print in her handwriting. The words were too small for me to read so you can imagine each column probably had at least over a hundred words. I had to ask what all that was. She told me it was a word game and being she didn't have computer or tablet to play the game by through an app, she did it on paper. She would start out with a word, one of eight letters or less in length. She would write down a new word under that using only the letters in the word she began with. What really blew me away was as she was explaining the game she demonstrated alongside the diagram she just drew. She wrote down a word and immediately a new word beneath it without pause to think−one word after another word after another as quick as she could write them. It was amazing to watch. She said coming up with two hundred words was usually her goal. The best she ever did was two hundred forty-nine words from the single word PAINTERS.

One day some people moved in across from us. They were far enough away (just barely) that I was okay with it. They were in a truck and camper towing a flat bed trailer full of camp gear. This was much better than having one of those humongous coaches or monstrous fifth wheel trailer in my view. It was a man and woman with a little yapper Pomeranian dog. The man unloaded the camper from the bed of his truck. The camper was a low profile model that you raise the roof by hand (lifting from the inside) once settled giving you room inside to stand up. The sides of the raised part are made of a type of rubberized canvas so as you can imagine this type of camper isn't well insulated from the cold. So every morning (before the sun was up) he'd start up his generator so that, I assume, they could run a heater inside. The generator was in the middle of the flatbed trailer surrounded by container boxes and wasn't one of those exceedingly loud contraptions. Nevertheless it had been real quiet during our stay and that faint humming noise was annoying. I gave him, or rather myself, two days. On the morning of the third day that was it. I was going to move, not far, just on the other side of the wash where a huge Palo Verde tree between us would filter out the sound. I finished up breakfast and was preparing to go outside and start the move when I looked out the window and it appeared he was loading up camp gear into the trailer. _Could they be leaving?_ Yes in fact they were. _Yippee!_ I found out by a third party (I never talked with the guy) that his wife/girlfriend (African American) wasn't digging being here. She wanted to go home. They were from Oklahoma! Can you imagine looking forward to coming out here for sunshine and warmth (relative speaking) for the winter only to be heading back home within a week? That drive home will be a lot longer than the one coming out here. The poor guy spent all morning getting loaded up to leave and pulled away right at noon. She did absolutely nothing in helping out except guiding him backing the truck up underneath the camper. In fact I only saw her outside twice sitting in a camp chair for a short time, all bundled up. Otherwise she was inside that camper all the time. Ya know, if maybe you stepped outside and took a walk around every once in awhile you might grow to appreciate your surroundings just a wee bit. They were in their 50's I'd guess and this was to be a test run thinking about making life on the road a new lifestyle. Buddy, it ain't happening for you. I'd dump her off at the nearest Greyhound bus terminal, buy her a ticket and return to the desert.

Several days each week I'd ride Gracie around either doing errands such as grocery shopping or picking up packages of items ordered from Amazon, such as food for Beans−the good stuff. Occasionally I'd get to ride just to ride. I've explored much of this area in the past years so mainly I'd tool around campgrounds gawking at other people's camps. On one of those gawking tours putting along real slow I came upon a woman supervising her cat who was wandering around sniffing everything. I had to stop. As I approached them they both understandably were a bit guarded. I introduced myself adding "I'm a cat guy. I just had to stop and see your kitty." The lady relaxed and the cat wandered away. I met Alicia. I then saw another cat and she informed me there was a third one around somewhere. The other two cats weren't interested in me, but Jasper was and cautiously approached me, checked me out and then turned away and continued his exploring. She then told me about Jasper.

In his first year of his life he was raised to be "bait" for pit bull training. People (I shouldn't call them people for they a below such) take young cats and throw them to pit bull dogs where they are savagely torn to bits as a training tool. I never heard of such and thing and wish I never had. Oh what I would give to just have a few minutes with this type of individual in a world without consequences. Jasper was lucky in the fact that he escaped this horrific fate. He was eventually rescued off the streets and the Alicia adopted him. She already had the other two cats Sasha and I don't remember the name of the other. When Jasper was introduced to the family he was extremely aggressive to the other cats and his new Mom. There was hissing, scratching, biting and blood. You can't blame him one bit. People, including her vet said he was hopeless but she didn't give up on him. Overtime he mellowed out and today Jasper is six years old and he is a lover and cuddlier. Jasper walked back to me and allowed me to pet him, then wandered off again. Alicia was surprised he did this. As we talked Jasper came back a third time and gave me a couple head butts on the leg then rubbed up against me. She was astonished at this behavior from him. "He's never done this with anyone before." What can I say? Cats like me. Alicia and het cats were from the Midwest and this was their first time here in the desert. She had two tents set up plus her minivan. She was very concerned about coyotes for she could hear them at times. I tried to reassure her that there wasn't any need to be concerned for she was out there watching over her cats and the coyotes never come around during the daytime with so many people about. Nighttime yes for people leave food for their pets outside or even people food at times. As I rode away I thought about the fact that rattlesnakes would be a bigger concern than coyotes. I wished I had told her this. But it was winter and very cold so all the snakes are hibernating now. Jasper, Sasha and number three cat would be okay.

It was so ding dang cold outside this winter that Beans and I were confined indoors most of the time. It would be both cloudy and cold, or the wind blowing twenty miles per hour, or raining, or a combination of all three. This winter wasn't the usual style for Quartzsite. Anyway, this gave me a lot of time to think and thinking leads on to a project.

I had a motion detector security light I bought in Quartzsite three years ago. It has a small solar panel that charges two small batteries which powers the light during the night. It worked great for a year then the motion detector quit detecting motion. I took the light down and have been carrying it around ever since. Being cooped up inside I got to thinking. The solar panel brought in 13 volts. The batteries put out 7.8 volts. I took the light apart and hooked up a nine volt battery. What could 1.2 extra volts do? Nothing. It didn't catch fire or blow up. I knew it wouldn't. I reinstalled the light high along the roof line pointing to the rear and ran wire down along the ladder and inside the RV. With the solar panel no wiring was needed but I couldn't use the solar part anymore nor the batteries as now I needed to be able to switch on the light manually. To do that I picked up a small nine volt transistor radio at the local Animal Shelter Thrift Shop for three dollars. I took the radio apart and figured where to connect the wires from the light inside the radio. Turning on the radio makes the light go on. The radio is mounted next to my head at the bed. Now if I hear anything outside, I can flick on the radio and see what is going on. This will be especially nice when over-nighting at places like Walmart parking lots. You may wonder "Why not just get a new security light?" That'd be too easy. Where's the fun in that? Besides, that Chinese made junk doesn't last long.

The project I had been thinking about for a long time I decided during my stay in Quartzsite this year I would finally do it. I have a five-gallon twenty-pound propane tank like you have on your bar-b-que outside. I lug the thing around all year long, taking up storage space, all for only one purpose...to run the Mr. Heater inside the RV during the winter. My plan was to do away with the tank and use the propane from the RV itself. There is a connection that can be bought to hook up auxiliary propane tanks to the main RV propane tank. I thought it was something that screwed in to the filler port but eventually learned that it was to be installed within the gas piping to the RV appliances. Well I didn't want to mess with all that (I don't like to do plumbing) and some reviews people said they encountered leaks which had to be corrected. There's no fun in that and I don't need added issues to deal with. So much for that plan. Later on I got the bright idea to buy a valve, remove the burner for the hot water tank (I never used it but one time−a waste of fuel) and connect into the propane system there running the propane heater hose inside along the hot water tank. Around this time the realization set in, just how would I have got the propane hose inside the RV to the heater had I plumbed it in at the main tank outside like I originally wanted to do? Good that idea fizzled out. With that completed now all I wanted to do was run the five-gallon tank empty, hook up to my new system and I was good to go. Finally one morning the heater sputtered and the fire went out. Good. The tank is empty. I hooked the heater to my new line, opened the valve and turned on the heater. It lit and then soon sputtered out and died. "What the heck?" I tried again. Same thing. _Well that's just great. Something is wrong with the heater. It probably even didn't run out of propane._ I started looking at new heaters online, maybe one of those fancy catalytic heaters. Research showed the Wave Three catalytic heaters had to be really clean all the time or would not work. Well being out in the dusty conditions as I am not to mention cat fur floating about, this would not do. It was back to buying a new Mr. Heater. Just before I was about to place my order I learned that the portable heater runs off high pressure propane. They won't run on low pressure. The RV propane lines have pressure regulators in them. Huh! I screwed on one of my green Coleman propane canisters to the heater and it fired right up, working like it a champ. _Yippee! I don't have to buy a new heater._ I still wanted to get rid of the 'Fat Man' five-gallon tank though. What to do? Buy a smaller tank! Back online I found a one-gallon tank, a cute little thing weighing only five pounds. I call it 'Little Boy', both names being a nod to the A-bombs dropped on Japan during WW2. A good thing about 'Little Boy' is that I can carry him on Gracie to go get filled up. I couldn't do that with 'Fat Man'. I gave 'Fat Man' to Michelle down the road from us.

Michelle was new at this nomadic lifestyle and this was her first time in the desert. She had a brand new Starcraft trailer for only a few months and already she had a long list of problems with it. One was every time she turned on a water faucet the water pump would kick in and soon there would be a flood on her floor. So for a few months now she had been using water from water jugs, her faucets being useless. I felt it was probably no more than a loose connection at the water pump. She said she had a RV knowledgeable guy look at it and he said there wasn't any access to the pump without cutting a hole from underneath the trailer. I had to look for myself. I laid on the floor and looked in the small cabinet beneath her sink. The pump was right there behind the wall of the cabinet but there was no way to access it without destroying the inside back of the cabinet. Who builds an RV without providing access to the water pump? Starcraft does for one. Customer service from Starcraft was nonexistent. They completely ignored her. RV's coming out from the factory are famous for having issues of one sort or another. It's a common theme in the industry. I always suggest to new prospective RV buyers to purchase a barely used RV from a private party. Usually all the issues have been taken care of in that first year of ownership plus you get the RV of your liking at a much reduced price than a brand new model. I bought my 2006 Winnebago View in 2007 after the original owner traded it in for the new 2007 model. I saved nearly $20,000 from the sticker price. That huge savings was in part that the Views were a brand new line of RV styling in the market. They are a small class C RV on a Sprinter van chassis. My purchase was probably one of the first for this new type of RV and dealers just did not have the knowledge of what the market would bear on prices. Ten years later I help some friends by a used 2006 View just like mine. The price they paid was the same I did back in 2007.

Something I always wanted to know was just how many days the twenty-eight gallon water supply would last me with normal usage. I've always filled it up before it ran empty. I made a note of filling it up on November 18 and the tank ran dry fifty-two days later. At the same time I was keeping track of the propane usage. Being it was so cold this winter I had turned the refrigerator down to its lowest (on the warm end of the scale) setting. Besides running the refrigerator the only other propane use was with the stove top. I was noticing the needle moving much slower on the tank gauge than usual. I had filled the fourteen-gallon onboard tank (it really only holds eighty percent of its designed capacity for safety reasons so actually it held 11.2 gallons) on the same day as the water. The propane held out for fifty-six days before I decided I best go fill it which was a good thing for it took the full 11.2 gallons. During the rest of the year it was good for forty plus days, the best being at forty-nine.

While all this monitoring was going on we had some people in a trailer move in across from us, the same spot where the couple from Oklahoma were camped. And they had a generator too. It was a Honda generator which are "quiet" so it wasn't obnoxious as some generators are. Yet it was there and a bit annoying. I'd wake up in the morning to the gentle incessant hum. I went to bed each evening enduring the same thing. After two days of this I was pretty set in moving on for we had been at this spot for a couple of months now. I was just waiting for the propane tank to get down to "E". On the third day I noticed their truck was gone and the damn generator was still moaning on. That was it! I slowly got everything packed to move out. They still weren't back when I left. I'd wondered if they would even wonder why we were gone. Anyway, I filled up the water tank on the way out then headed for Family Dollar using the opportunity to buy a lot having the RV with me and not the Honda. I couldn't believe my good fortune in the fact there were no line at the checkout. It usually always has a line of a half a dozen or more. Next a stop at Roadrunner Market for a few more items that I could not get at Family Dollar. Again, no line! I was on a roll. Lastly the Shell station for the propane where I discovered after it taking that 11.2 gallons, I was running on fumes. So like I always try to do is put a positive spin on and negative situation. If it weren't for the inconsiderate California neighbors going off and leaving that generator running I might have pressed the propane tank and extra day or two. I think being on a slight tilt the gauge read more than it should. That gauge is tucked up under there where I can't get my fat head in to see it clearly and straight on. With all this done I treated myself to a Whopper at Burger King. All chores done and with a nice lunch in me we headed back south but turned in across from La Posa South into Tyson Wash LTVA. There I settled upon a nice spot. The only two neighbors visible had solar panels, always a good sign. With camp set up it only then I realized how quiet it was. I had grown accustomed to the distant sound of camper traffic crunching the gravel road back and forth to the water fill, trash dumpsters and sewer dump. That afternoon I spied a nice thumb-sized crystal in front of camp. And there was a fresh crop of lizards for Beans to terrorize.

_Yep, this spot will serve us well._
Author's Note

If you are reading this, thank you for coming this far.

The eBooks preceding _Beans and I on the Loose –Seven Months of Summer_ are:

_Sinbad and I on the Loose_ − a collection of stories, over twelve years of travels with my first travel cat Sinbad. This includes a bonus book _Lonely, Oh So Lonely_ which is as the title implies the story of a short winter trip where I didn't have my faithful furry Sinbad with me for the journey.

At the time of this writing there are two additional books of the Beans and I series published:

Book One (2017) – _Getting to Know You_

Book Two (2018) – _A Hot Mess_

Each book of the _Beans and I on the Loose_ series covers a year of traveling, people we meet and a few misadventures along the way.

I welcome you to download all my eBooks and follow along on our adventures exploring America.

As always, all my eBooks are free to download.

Thank you from Beans and I
