“The rain retreats
Like troops to fall on other fields and streets.”
~ Joni Mitchell
When I don’t move locations very often, time gets blurry. One day runs into the other. I lose all sense of what day it is, and sometimes have to think hard to remember what month it is. I almost always know what phase the moon is in, and I guess that’s enough. I check the weather often to try to plan ahead for upcoming heat, but I find weather.com to be extremely unreliable. In the morning it may warn me of severe afternoon thunderstorms, but by afternoon the forecast is for sunny skies. I want to know what the week ahead may bring, but if they can’t tell me what is happening today, I don’t have much faith in their forecast for 5 days from now.
Cosmo and I have settled into a routine of taking a morning walk after I’ve had my coffee and perused headlines and e-mails on my phone. We are sort of at the mid-point of the “road” that leads through this section of the forest. Somedays we walk north, somedays south. We check and see if anyone new has arrived overnight, or since the last time we passed that way. It’s mostly deserted during the week and we both like it that way. A man passes by with his dog every morning before 6:00; sometimes he is walking behind his exploring dog, and sometimes he is on a small, motorized cycle with his dog jogging along beside him. I would certainly not notice him if it weren’t for Cosmo letting alerting me to the intruders in our neighborhood. I’m not sure where they are staying, but I suspect farther north on this road.
Monsoon season is here in Arizona. Last week we had two very brief storms in the afternoon that were a blessing because they cooled everything down and wet down the pervasive dust. Once the sun came out 5 minutes later, the wet ground turned quite solid. But on Monday, the real monsoons started. It rained long and hard for hours. I often see road signs warning of “Flash Flood Area” and I’m always mindful before parking near any washes that could become raging rivers. Here near Ashurst Lake, I hadn’t seen any, but after hours of rain, it was easy to see how the smallest grooves in the camping area turned into tiny rivers as the water ran downhill in the lowest part of the site. As it turned out, that lowest part was just where I set up my solar suitcase, and it ran under my van between the front and back tires, just where my door opens to the outside.
I don’t mind staying in all day, but Cosmo has not yet learned to use the indoor facilities, and he needed to go out several times. Since he had gone out just before the rain started, we managed to hold out until it stopped, and the “river” subsided some, but it left behind a huge mud pit. I took my flip flops off before re-entering the van; Cosmo could not. Last year when in Flagstaff, we ran into the same issue, so I bought a dog paw washer. We never got to use it once it arrived because the weather stayed dry. So this was our trial run. It helped, but with the extent of the mud, it didn’t resolve the problem completely. I’ve spent much time mopping floors this week.
Tuesday morning was bright and sunny with heavy thunderstorms predicted for the afternoon. We got up early, packed up and drove to Walmart. I was out of several essentials (half and half and dog food to name a few). I did a major grocery run, knowing I’d not want to go back to Walmart until I absolutely had to. When I came out, the sky was black in the west and the thunder shook the ground. I contemplated going around the corner to stay at Cracker Barrel for the night so I wouldn’t have to drive on very muddy roads to get back to my campsite, but I made the decision that I could outrun the storm and make it “home” before the rain started. If I didn’t outrun it, I could always pull into one of several campgrounds in the forest I’d pass along the way. As I got onto Lake Mary Road (Lake Mary was once again topped off by the previous day’s rain) it started to rain. I pulled into the next paid campground. They had dirt clearings not much different than where I was heading. Each site had a picnic table and cost $30. I couldn’t bring myself to pay for a muddy spot with a picnic table that I’d have to cross a puddle to use if it stopped raining, so I persisted and got to my original road in the forest just before Ashurst Lake. I had scouted different spots before I left. Many had puddles and very mucky ground.
I found one that seemed high and dry and pulled into that one. I quickly got set up, expecting the skies to open up any second. They didn’t. It wasn’t until late in the day that the heavy rains came, and they continued until almost bedtime. The weather channel said there would be no rain through the night and it would start again around noon on Wednesday. I slept soundly until 5:00 when the sound of rain pounding on my roof woke me up. I looked outside to see this as the sun rose:
It made the rain much easier to take.
I had a small leak at the top of my back door when it rained so hard on Tuesday, so when the rain subsided, I went outside and removed my e-bike from the rack so I could open the back door. I climbed up and found where I suspected the water was entering, and got out my tube of Flex Seal, did what I could and crossed my fingers for it to hold on the next downpour.
After the rains subsided, Cosmo alerted me to visitors.
I’d not seen any cattle in this area in past visits, but they were bountiful this week. They often make the typical “mooing” sounds I associate with cows, but they also have a variety of other sounds. One in particular sounds like a horn you’d hear at some sporting event when the home team scores. It’s interesting to hear them in the distance; It’s a bit unsettling to be woken up by them at the crack of dawn most mornings.
Lessons From The Road: I did a pretty major cleaning of the van when I visited Long Beach in May. That “clean van feeling” is just a memory now that I’ve traveled on so many dusty roads since, and camped in multiple mud pits. I bought cleaning supplies at Walmart the other day and am doing my best to keep up with the dirt and mud inside. With vigilance, I can keep my kitchen counter and most horizontal surfaces clear of dust. I sweep and vacuum each morning, seemingly to no avail. The throw rugs will definitely need to be replaced. I’ve washed them at carwashes several times, but I think they’ve outlived their life expectancy. I’ll get new ones at Big Lots once we’re out of the dusty/muddy forest at the end of summer.
I seem to have gotten my chigger problem under control. I try to avoid walking through tall grass as much as I can, and when I come back into the van, I spray my legs and arms with alcohol and wipe them down with a paper towel. I am choosing to believe that if the chigger larvae got on me, the alcohol would wipe them off. It seems to be working, or perhaps all the chiggers got washed away with the heavy rains. I bought some Calamine Lotion and dabbed it on the existing welts. It helps somewhat.