Roadtrip 2025: Criss-crossing southern Arizona and California!

Well, my typically hermit lifestyle got a bit busier this month! Friends from the frozen north braved some frigid weather on their way south, but fortunately had mostly good driving conditions. So, I decided to head back over to meet them in the Yuma area from my spot on Bates Well road, south of Ajo, Az.

After the usual stop in Gila Bend to dump and fill, we got back to our spot west of Yuma, just inside of California, just before Don & Donna arrived.

My slide motor decided to quit again. It would have been replaced, except that the USPS decided to send the replacement back to Florida, instead of giving it to me while I was in Quartzsite! As usual, I managed to fix it again, so all was good.

That's when it got busier! Soon, I was off with them on expeditions to Sam's Club in Yuma, Costco in El Centro - with a side trip when I lured them to Sweeny Pass, and the usual Yuma stops at the Arizona Market and Wally's World. Social life got busier too, meeting up with some old classmates and friends at Lutes Casino, and some more folks from back home at Boston's Pizza. Another day, we toured some of the LTVA's around Senator Wash, the Yuma Proving ground, with a side trip on the way home to Wellton, and a previously unknown to us boondocking area of State Trust land south of Wellton.

Another day found us off on a day trip up to Quartzsite for lunch at Silly Al's and a look at a few of the vendors.

One day it was a trip to Calexico to have lunch and check it out, detouring up through Glamis on the way back, another day we joined my cousins for happy hour and supper over at Fortuna.

In the tech department - my Shaw satellite TV is no longer available this far south, so I don't even bring it along anymore. But I do like to listen to some radio stations from home - mostly just to see how cold it is there! Because of various regulations and bureaucracy, some of the stations from home are blocked from being received from out of the country :-( It is the same with some TV programming online. I have tried a VPN to spoof my location, but have had little to no luck with that technique. But I did just discover that I could listen online to some Canadian radio stations (normally blocked) by turning off my AT+T wi-fi, and just using my Rogers phone, which apparently shows up as still being in the Great White North. I am also able to watch some programming on CBC Gem, not normally available out of the country. My next test is to see if any of my (paused) tv programming is available, if I use my Canadian phone as a hotspot instead of my US account! It's strange, because my Rogers phone uses mostly ATT when down south. Stay tuned for the next tests!

Since we had hit most of the high points in the Yuma area, it was time to move on, this time back to the east. Once again, a quick stop to dump and fill in Gila Bend, some fuel in Eloy, and I was back to my usual spot among the cows in Ironwood Forest National Monument! It's a great spot, and very quiet because it is completely surrounded by either the monument lands, or vacant lands owned by the city of Tucson to collect water. There is even a gate to keep out the riff-raff (and keep the cows in!).

Don & Donna also migrated this way, but they chose a spot further out of town, but also within the national monument. It wasn't long before the social schedule resumed, as we met more friends from back home at the Circle S - a rustic country saloon.

Bailey is kept busy hunting lizards and thinking he can catch flocks of birds! There are lots of coyotes here, but fortunately, he hasn't seen them or attempted to chase them away. He did stalk a big black bull though, and may have been planning an ambush, but I managed to thwart his plans just in time!

As an old wildfire towerman, I'm always attracted to smoke on the horizon!

I don't know what it was. There is a small airport over there, but I never heard of any crashes or incidents.

This does not appear to be a heavily used smuggling or alien travel route, but the presence of black water jugs or abandoned backpacks lets you know that it does happen.

The requisite 3AM moonlight shot ...

My camp is just on the western edge of the west section of Saguaro National Park - which has an abundance of great scenery and hiking opportunities.

Much of the trail I was on has hundreds, likely thousands of stone steps built into the trail. Some local rock is used in places, but hundreds of the rock chunks have clearly been drilled and ground in a quarry somewhere. My question is - how ever did they get them way up this steep narrow trail and place them?

I estimate some of the idividual stone pieces would weigh over 200lbs!