Cosmo and I got up today and I made my coffee and got us both breakfast. I looked at my apps and maps and headed toward coordinates that my friend Ben had supplied to Cieneguita BLM land/Wild Camping. (I just LOVE being WILD!!!) It was about an hour drive, and when we arrived, we followed the GPS coordinates. There are over 44,000 acres. It is grassland as far as the eye can see, until it ends at mountains on every side in the distance. We followed the paved road in until we got to our turnoff and the road became gravel and dirt. At the risk of seeming melodramatic, it was absolutely breathtaking. We continued down the dirt road seeing campers every few hundred feet. We got to the end and came up on a gate. All the spots were taken. I started to pull into the last spot where two big rigs and pickup trucks were parked in order to turn around when a man came up to greet me. I said hello and he said “We’re just now pulling out if you’d like our spot.” I thanked him and they left and I pulled in. It is an absolutely perfect spot with views in all directions.
As I was setting up, an older couple* came walking by and were going through the gate. They were parked down the road from me and said they heard there were more sites beyond the gate. We chatted for a bit and they gave me some info on a nearby place that they loved to camp (about an hour away.) No sooner had they left than a couple of women came by walking a beagle. They introduced themselves, and said they were camped beyond the gate and there were still a couple of sites left for a small rig like mine. We talked about where we came from, where we’d been and where we were going. They were from upstate NY but fell in love with Arizona. They were nice and we exchanged information. I hope we see them again in our travels.
{*Older Couple- I find myself using this description often– at least as often as I use “young man.” As I was proof-reading this, I realized that this “older couple” was about my age, maybe a couple years younger. So older than who? I guess the answer is that I don’t think of myself as my age (except after my friends Ben and Lauren take me on a two hour hike …then my bones and muscles feel every day of my life so far). So how old do I think I am? I don’t know, but certainly not 69. Anyway, I just thought I should explain when I refer to someone(s) as “older,” there is no reason you should assume they are 70+}
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The night was silent and dark. The stars came out full force and, as always, when I take Cosmo out for his “good-night pee,” I pause for a minute before going back inside the van and look up, and try (without any hope of succeeding) to imagine the vastness of the Universe. I wonder if some of the stars I’m seeing have actually gone super nova and burned out many light years ago, and yet their light is still making its way toward earth. I wonder if there is anybody out there and what they might be like. And sometimes I wonder if someone, or something, perhaps greater than humans, is looking out into the vastness and wondering if I am out here.
I woke up early, before dawn. I was wide awake and was glad to see it was after 6:00 a.m. The days are starting to get noticeably longer as we approach spring. There was a chill in the air, and out my “bedroom window” I saw this:
Sunrises and sunsets out in the desert never get old for me. I love to be up before the sun and watch it come up in a blaze of pinks, blues and purples. I put the coffee on and took Cosmo out to pee. It felt like an early summer morning; the air was cool, but it was one of those mornings that you just knew would bring a warm day once the sun actually made it over the mountains in the distance.
When I came inside, I discovered that my fridge was not running. I could see moisture collecting in the bottom tray and realized it must’ve been off all night. It runs on propane, and the pilot light is tricky. It’s invisible in the daytime, and only faintly detectible in a pitch-black night. It also needs DC power to run the solenoid, to keep the gas line open. Had I forgotten to light the pilot when we stopped driving? Or had I switched my solar from AC to DC without turning on the master switch? There were a couple different possibilities, but I tried not to think of the worst one—that my fridge, a 1998 Dometic could finally be giving up the ghost. I relit the pilot (or at least I believed I did—I cannot see if it is lit during the day) and waited. An hour later, the fridge was cold again, so I chalked the whole thing up to operator error.
I made a breakfast of leftover tofu, assorted greens, tomatoes, onion and red bell pepper, lightly sauteed. I watched the sun over the mountains and listened to a mix of Cat Stevens, Carole King and Joni Mitchell. If life never gets any better than this, I’m OK with that.
The day was warm, but mostly cloudy. (Not cloudy enough to have any ill-effect on my solar power). I stayed in and finished my bookkeeping for last year. I’m in the process of organizing my financial records to send to my accountant to do 2022 taxes. It’s going to be complex with me having sold my commercial property and having to pay capital gains taxes. I’m not sure the best way to present last year. I legally had a business license and massage therapy license for the year. So can all my expenses for the last half of the year, while I was on the road, be considered business expenses? I had no income from massage therapy after May of last year. I have also been advised that if I turn these blog posts into a book and put it on the market (which I fully intend to do with the help of a friend I met on the road), then my writing is a legitimate business. Then I’d have to consider my van as my home office. My accountant thinks that is a stretch; a friend who had done finances for the Federal Government said it is not a stretch at all if I truly intend to make a profit, and as long as I take a reasonable percentage of my expenses as business expenses. He hypothesized that I probably spend about 10% of my 24-hour day working on writing, photos, my YouTube videos, etc. That would mean I could deduct 10% of all my van expenses—gas, food, camping fees, van repairs, propane, fresh water, etc. He said claiming 8% would be very conservative. I’ll run it all by my accountant again once I get my numbers together.
After doing bookkeeping, I read and took a short nap. I watched some YouTube videos and Cosmo and I took a walk at sunset.
It was a very nice, easy day.
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My friends Ben and Lauren arrived the next afternoon. I had saved us a very nice spot, easily accommodating two vans, three adults and three dogs. They got settled in and we used the wood gifted to me by the previous site occupant and built a campfire. I’d not had a fire for many nights, partly because sitting by a campfire alone is not really fun for me, and also, it’s been too windy for a fire many nights. But that night was clear and the wind was relatively calm. Ben had read on the sign at the entrance that we were welcome to gather any downed wood, as long as we didn’t damage any living trees. He brought back a few big logs from underneath nearby trees. We think they may have been mesquite. Whatever they were, they burned bright and hot and long. We sat outside until nearly 10:00 catching up, swapping stories, and just enjoying being in such a beautiful spot with good friends. We all hung out on and off the following day and in the afternoon, Ben and I decided to take a hike to Empire Ranch, which is “just down the road.” Or so we thought. We passed it coming in, and it didn’t seem that far. Google told Lauren it was a 36 minute walk, so we embarked with three dogs leading the way. Cosmo is much better off-leash than on these days, but we were crossing through fields with bulls and we’ve seen and heard some coyotes at dusk, so he had to be on his leash. We passed over several cattle grates, and at first it was not an easy chore with 3 dogs. The grates have gaps so the cattle won’t cross to the other side of the road. They make it quite difficult for dogs to cross as well. It took about two grates before we noticed an adjacent gate was open. From then on, we realized we could go to the side of the grate, open a gate, go through with the dogs and close the gate behind us. Much easier. We got to the abandoned ranch just before sunset. There was not much to see, except an old, deserted former ranch and a very cool windmill (the kind you’d picture in a ad for “Oklahoma” (the musical). We didn’t stay because it took us over an hour to get there and we didn’t want to be stuck on dirt roads or trying to find our way back to camp in the dark. I was exhausted from the long hike already, and my phone died on the way there. About 10 minutes into our return hike, the sun set in the most amazing colors and cloud formations I’ve ever seen…and my PHONE WAS DEAD! So I had no camera, but Ben took a few photos and shared them. Gorgeous.
He also shared a photo of Me and Cosmo. I’m so trendy, I dress to match the sunset!
We got home well after dark. I think Lauren was worried about us as she was sitting outside with the outside light on. It helped us find our way. I was sore and tired, and Cosmo went straight to bed. Ben and Lauren and I lit a campfire, but no sooner had we got it going and the wind picked up. We are surrounded by dry grasses, and even though the signs said that the danger of fire was low and campfires were OK, we decided that we needed to put it out and go to bed. I got water from my grey tank and doused it and we went to bed.
The wind continued the following day. It howled, and gusts were up to 40 mph. The van rocked, and not in a good way. The rocking concerned Cosmo so much that he lay most of he day, across my lap, looking up at me for reassurance every time he thought the van was ready to tip over. It was an inside day, to be sure. I cleaned for about an hour, taking my tiny stove apart and deep cleaning the inner workings and the cracks between the stove and the sink. I took stuff out of cupboards, and cleaned the shelves. I wiped down countertops and any other horizontal surfaces. The desert is beautiful, but it is extremely dusty. I decided to cook. I love my Instant Pot, and it is relatively energy efficient. It takes a lot of energy to get up to temperature and pressure, but then it turns off until the pressure drops significantly, then it turns on again, but only for a matter of seconds until the pressure comes up again. Cooking rice takes about 18 minutes, but I’d say that it only draws electricity for about 6 of those minutes. Even though my energy comes from the sun and is free, I’m very aware that it is not unlimited. If I use too much during the day, especially a cloudy day, it may not fully recharge by sunset. That’s OK with my system for a day or two, but I’ve found that if my solar generator and my inverter don’t ever turn off and don’t get fully topped off after a day or two, the calibration gets off. So I try to conserve electricity as much as possible. When I use the Instant Pot, I try to cook everything I can in it while it has hot water. I steamed some veggies for a curry I was making, then cooked the rice in that same water, already flavored with veggies, and after that experimented with baking cornbread in it. I guess I didn’t bake it so much as steam it, but it turned out to be quite delicious.
By then it was early afternoon, and I was very over cooking and cleaning, so I took some cornbread over to Lauren and Ben and tried to figure out how long I was staying near Sonoita, where I was going next and if they were interested in meeting up later in the week. Ben had talked a lot about going to Bisbee, AZ, a copper mining town in the late 1800’s and now a trendy tourist spot that welcomes hippies and van dwellers. I told Ben to count me in. The city parking lot allows vans and small RV’s to park for free, which means for a couple days we could live “in town” and walk to various bars restaurants, coffee shops, and multiple consignment stores. It sounded like a great time to me. I can’t remember the last time I went out to a restaurant for breakfast or dinner.
I need to be in Las Vegas to see a friend in a couple weeks, so I was trying to coordinate my trip to fit in as many places as possible in southern AZ before heading north. Ben looked at weather for different towns we’d talked about visiting; It was not promising for the upcoming week. Because of altitude, the weather here near Sonoita was dipping drastically by Sunday, going down below freezing at night. I have a “three season” van, meaning the water tank and pipes are exposed to the cold, not insulated and should they freeze, I risk serious damage and expense if they burst. The weather was as cold or worse in Patagonia and Bisbee.
Ben and Lauren decided they wanted to stay put for a few more days. We’ve been hibernating inside a lot due to the wind and cold at night, so they wanted to wait it out and get to spend some time outside hiking and exploring. That was not an option for me with freezing temperatures at night, so I spent the afternoon using all my free-campsite-finding apps, the Weather Channel, and Google Maps to try to figure out where to head where it will stay above freezing. It turns out I don’t have to go very far. Tucson is only 20 minutes away, but since it has a much lower elevation, the weather is much warmer. My plan is to head there on Sunday before we get freezing temperatures on Sunday night, and then wind my way up through Arizona, stop and see my friend Barbara in Prescott Valley (weather permitting) and then on to Las Vegas.
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It got cold last night, but with my propane heater and double sleeping bag, we stayed toasty warm. I woke up and made coffee and took Cosmo out to pee. About half an hour later, Cosmo started barking like a mad dog. He ran from window to window and when I looked out, I saw this:
He and his friends were about 20 feet from our front door. They hung out and grazed for several hours.
Lessons from the Road: When I stopped in a garden store to buy composting material for my composting toilet, the young woman at the checkout looked up and smiled and stopped for a second. She was assessing me and before I could ask “What?” she said “I like your style.” Then I said “What?” She repeated “I like your style…your hat, your t-shirt, beard, hair…it works. You put out a good vibe. I like your style.” I just grinned and said “thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say. But all the rest of the day, I was conscious of “my style” and I smiled and talked to people and they smiled back. And by the end of the day I was totally conscious of putting out a good vibe. I looked in the mirror before going to bed. Usually I think “When the fuck did THIS happen” when I see the new wrinkles I’d not seen before, or other signs that the years are catching up with me. But that day I smiled and said out loud “Yup. You DO have a good vibe.” And that vibe is happiness. Contentedness. Connectedness to the life I live, to the ground I walk on and the stars that I watch out my window before going to sleep. I guess as the old song says “My cup runneth over” and as my happiness fills me up, it overflows to such an extent that others can pick up on it. I think happiness is a style anyone can pull off with only a tiny amount of effort.