IN THE SPIRIT OF THE SEASON

PEACE ON EARTH

WANDERING AROUND

Wandering around the Oatman mountains here today, we discovered a lesser-visited petroglyph mound, and several areas where lots of the most colorful rocks have collected through geological upheaval and heavy flooding of washes and plains. Every time I go wandering now, I fill my hoodie pockets up with rocks to put at the hearth of our fire ring. Today we had to go home because my pockets were so heavy. And wandering around the internet this morning, Darell found that the site where we are turns out to be one of Arizona's 28 prime hang-gliding points - people launch off the mountain and sail for miles. It's no surprise, really, because it's windy as all get-out here. There are even wind direction ribbons on poles throughout the area (there's one about 30 feet from our RV) - we were wondering what they were for!

 And here's Scout the Cat, looking out. He really likes it here, and since there aren't too many cactus or other dangers (except for the coyotes at night), we take him out regularly. When he isn't out, he looks out.

CHINOOK CHALLENGES

One of the reasons people say that it's hard to "full-time" in a Chinook is the fact that the fresh water, black (sewage), and grey (waste from sinks, shower drain) water tanks are so small. It's indeed a challenge. We (two adults and a cat) can go about 3 days before we have to dump the waste water tanks, and take on fresh water for drinking, washing, cooking, etc.. Compared to RVs with bigger tanks (almost all of them), we have to deal with this very frequently. It's not a problem when we are in a campground, where sewer dump stations and drinking water hoses are right on site. When we are boondocking, we have to find the stations ourselves and then pack up the rig and go there. Every 3 days. Here in Arizona, we don't have a hard time finding stations, there are lots of them around. Where we are now, however (parked in a lovely solitary spot at the base of the Oatman Mountains, where we've enjoyed 3 days of hiking, sunset watching, and fire ring building), we are an hour's drive to the nearest dump/water. So that's what we did today. We took a scenic backroad (which actually took 2 hours, but it was interesting!), then dumped the tanks, threw away our garbage bags, bought a few supplies (okay, wine and ginger snaps.), and drove the hour back to our site. It's good to be home! It's going to be cold here tonight, but not as cold as much of the West.  So we are happy and contented (mostly due to the wine and ginger snaps).

IT'S TOO COLD TO SIT OUT BY IT

We've built a fire ring using the beautiful "painted" rocks of this area, but it's just too cold to go outside and sit by it!

A HIKE AT DARBY WELLS

We hiked out from our boondocking site, just following the BLM road for a bit, and discovered a small desert cemetery, still active.

At the gate of Darby Wells Cemetery

From just behind the hilltop altar

Same altar, different direction

An interesting grave on the outskirts of the cemetery

 And then I sort of got obsessed with mistletoe growing on Palo Verde trees.

A very pretty parasite

with very red berries

This specimen had lighter foliage and lighter-colored berries

Still pretty, for a parasite, anyway!

A huge overtaking of the host tree

NEW DIGS, FASTER CONNECTION

With a chance of rain moving in, and basically no internet connection, we've moved on. We'll definitely return to Darby Wells in the future - there are many mountains left to explore. We're now boondocking on BLM land near the Painted Rocks Petroglyph Site - it's warmer here, we've got a lovely site, and we have 4G internet! We arrived late in the afternoon; the shadows stretched for what seemed like miles, and the sun set down on a flat, brightly orange horizon.

Tomorrow I'll upload some photos from a wonderful hike we took back at Darby Wells before we decided to hop in the Chinook and head out!

NEW DIGS, SLOW CONNECTION

We're in new digs now - boondocking on Darby Wells Road outside of Ajo, Arizona. Great site with beautiful views. Internet connection is spotty, and slow when connected, so posting will be sparse. Here's last night's sunset: