Arizona - Spring 2022!

Lisa and I got back Sunday evening from another amazing camping trip to the Arizona desert. We were out for 10 days. Our first night was at Trona Pinnacles, CA for a little boondocking and some light off-roading (the 560 held up GREAT!). Stayed the next night at Hualapai Mountain Park Campground outside of Kingman, AZ. The next three nights were at Lost Dutchman State park in Arizona...what an amazing park! Even saw a double rainbow at sunset over the rocks which was absolutely spectacular. From here I was able to make contact via ham radio to family back home, which was fun (didn't have as much luck at our next campground due to a Solar coronal mass ejection blasting the Earth and screwing up the radio bands).

We hit the San Xavier Del Bac Mission for some really cool architecture and cultural history on our way to our next stop, Gilbert Ray campground near Tucson (three nights). It was here that I almost got kidnapped by a pack of hippie folk musicians when they saw my banjo mountain dulcimer and heard that sweet banjo sound. I remember hearing about pack rats, but they were particularly bad here. One of the camp hosts had $2000 worth of damage to his engine in ONE NIGHT. So, everyone had the hoods of their vehicles open and lights under their vehicles to discourage the rodents from eating and destroying the rubber-ish components in their engines. Leaving the hood open creates more airflow, which the rats don't apparently like. I had some red rope lights, so I deployed those, although white lights are much better since the pack rats don't see the reds as much. The white LED hanging lights I had were also used...one in the engine compartment, and one on the ground under the engine. Certain years of Ford vehicles have soy-based insulation instead of petroleum-based insulation in their engine compartments, and the pack rats apparently love the soy, so be aware of that if your tow vehicle is so inclined. Much of the pack rat problem was supposedly minimized when they removed some big nests in the area around the campsite, but there is still a decent risk. It's worth noting that the risk goes up the longer your vehicle is parked, since the the pack rats explore more and more as they get familiar with your vehicle...and they follow their urine trail to return to where they were on previous nights. None of this will prevent me from camping there again. It's a beautiful campground with amazing desert saguaro scenery; we had literally thousands of saguaros visible from our campsite. LOVED IT. Next time, though, we'll bring the motion-sensing strobe light units with ultrasonic repeller that most people down there recommend.

Our last night on the way home was a stop at Owl Canyon near Barstow, CA. We got woken up by a 3.6-magnitude earthquake almost right under us. As a native Californian with ancestors here before CA was a state, I'm no stranger to earthquakes and normally I wouldn't care about a 3.6 at all. However, when it wakes you up at 2 in the morning and you're in a trailer that isn't tied to the ground, it can make for some interesting shaking. And knowing that 10-20% of all earthquakes are precursors to larger ones, it did keep me awake for a little bit thinking about it. But hey, these are the experiences that are the most memorable in our camping expeditions!

All in all, it was another amazing trip. We're really appreciating the desert trips more and more (although I recommend the cooler months...we've seen as high as 117 degrees in July on previous trips!). Another thanks to Craig, Cary, and team for engineering and manufacturing such an amazing camping trailer that works SO well, and keeps us happy and comfortable on these excursions.

 

Oh, and my apologies to Cary for using the less aesthetically-appealing 20-pound propane tank instead of the proper 11-pounder that came with our 560! Depending upon where we're going and how much propane we're going to use (like when we use our portable propane fire grill), we sometimes want the ability to swap tanks at the store instead of finding a refilling station!

 

The Lost Dutchman area looks amazing...Love the cacus photo. I want to get out there so bad...I've seen the rain forrests of the nw, the swaps of the se...the big cities in the northeast. I've NEVER been to the arid 4 corners states.

Great photos!!!

 

Thank you! We LOVE the desert.

 

Great pictures and story.

 

Mike, the pictures looks great. I have a question about the hitch mount umbrella, do you bump your shins?

 

Love the photos. Thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks! Neither my wife nor I have had any issues hitting it with our shins. I'm 6' and Lisa is 5'10", so we have that working in our favor. If both of us are working in the galley at the same time, we each take a side and stay there. If either of us are flying solo back there, it's super easy just to step over or go around. The quickness with which we can deploy the umbrella and the good shade makes the minor inconvenience of stepping over the umbrella mount completely worthwhile, in our opinion.