February 13-17, 2013
Wednesday: We got up
early to get a head start on our move.
First thing we did was backtrack about 7 miles to a county park to dump
our tanks. Cost $10. Even though we’re headed to a spot with full
hookups, we needed to dump in order to try to “fix” a newly annoying black tank
issue. Our hope was that if we dumped
and then put in some water to slosh around, our clog would heal itself. After dumping, we got on the road. GPS showed it would be about a 5 hour drive
to Borrego Springs. However, we hit
some heinous traffic and had trouble finding a gas station. (CA apparently doesn’t believe in road signs
showing you the services for their exits).
We didn’t get to the state park until after 4. We got set up on the horribly uneven site 5
(4 levels of orange blocks!), took showers and got chili cooking in the crock
pot.
Thursday: The plan on
scouting boondocking spots kept changing.
At first, we were going to go look.
Then we decided we didn’t want to unhitch and we would trust other’s
blog reports of areas to camp. This
morning we got up so early that we decided to go ahead and scout. (Should have been under 15 miles to find a
spot). However, apparently Jesus didn’t want us moving. The landing legs wouldn’t work. We spent about an hour futzing with them,
but couldn’t get them going. Missy
figured out how to use the metal stick thingy (that we previously had no clue
what it was for) to manually operate the legs. So at least we could use them when we
moved. Since we’d wasted so much time,
we decided not to scout.
We packed up and pulled out right at noon. Easy drive and easy directions to follow to
Rockwood Canyon road. Reports were
that you could get reception closer to the main road, and the large gathering
of rigs proved that to be the case. We
decided to forego reception in favor of privacy closer to the mountains. We headed down the dirt road, and soon came
to a fork that had us concerned. We had
no clue if we’d find a spot further on, and staying by this fork might be our
only chance to get turned around if there were no spots. Missy got out the bike and headed out into
the hot, sunny, dusty desert. It took
her about 30 minutes to get back, but she said she found a spot. So we continued down the road. Her estimation of the spot being adequate to
turn around in was off, but I pulled in anyway. It will take some back and forth to get out
again, but I was ready to get out of the car and get settled. Getting in, I had to jackknife the car at
the very end. You’d think we’d learned
our lesson about getting the safety bolt out of the hitch pin arm before this
maneuver, but nope. So we were set up
where we wanted to be, but couldn’t unhitch.
I had to get back in the truck and straighten out, get the bolt out, and
then try to put it back where it was.
Ugh. I’d like to say “thanks” to
the prankster who messed with our mounted level. Somehow, the front to back was waaaaaay
off. But, stupid idjits that we are, we
thought the level was infallible. So we
spent the first night very uncomfortably.
My head was 4 inches lower than my legs. So dumb.
We fixed that the next morning.
(Beeteedubs: when we got to our spot, Jesus fixed the power
on the landing legs. Wtf?)
Friday: It took some
getting used to, being back in the desert, but we’re quickly warming up to this
spot. It’s almost completely private,
with great mountain views. We were able to get our rig oriented so that
we get great shade in the afternoons.
Sometimes we get a nice breeze, and other times we get total
silence. It’s so nice to be able to
wear shorts and t-shirts. And we don’t
have to use the furnace in the mornings.
Sweet!
Saturday: We got a
very early start today. Up at 6:30, we
needed to get going before the sun got too hot. We climbed the mountain closest to our
rig. We were curious if we got to the
top if we’d get reception, so we brought our electronics. It was a great morning for a hike. There was some intermittent cloud coverage,
which really kept things cool enough to bear.
Sadly, there was no reception.
But the hike was challenging and the views from the top were
gorgeous. On the way back, poor Cassie
got a cactus spike ball embedded in her front paw. It was like pulling out porcupine quills,
and each one pulled left behind quite a bloody drip. But luckily, she didn’t seem bothered and
didn’t limp or anything. Phew!
Missy got loaded up and went into town to do laundry. It was disappointing to find out that the
mifi had bad speeds. The sleek did
nothing to bump it up. She actually got
better speeds with just the sprint phone.
Go figure.
Sunday: Hot and
windy. We had about an hour of really
strong sustained gusts. But that died
down to just regular windy with occasional strong gusts. We missed our chance for early morning
recreation, so we’re going to wait until the sun goes behind the mountain at
4:30 this afternoon. The roads here
are tough for bike riding because there are long stretches of soft sand. So we’re going to see how much we can
handle and maybe check out biking in the dry lake bed.
Upcoming tentative plans…we have to forego staying here for
our usual 2 weeks straight. The black
tank clog is not fixed, and we have to use lots of extra water. So our freshwater will not last as long as
usual. We’re going to stay in this
spot for a week, then go pay to use the state park dump, and then come back to
Rockwood Canyon, but this time pick a spot with reception. We’ll be closer to other people, but that’s
the price to pay to be connected. We’ll
stay another week and then head to AZ.
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