Out and In and Out

At the moment, I'm at Rockhound State Park near Deming, New Mexico.  I like this place.  But there's a story ...

Last weekend the plan was to spend a few days with a friend at Parker Canyon Lake south of Tucson. Didn't quite happen according to plan.  The friend had to cancel because of a family crisis.  I went down solo, and the place was full.  Packed.  Lots and lots of children ... little girls on pink bicycles seemed to prevail.  The campground host site was empty... I could have stayed there and hoped that the host wouldn't show.  But the idea of getting rousted out in the evening when he/she appeared wasn't appealing.  So I flipped a coin.  Tails.  I turned around and went home.

It turned out that the reason for the crowd was Spring Break.  We take Spring Break seriously in these parts.

Stayed home for a day and decided that the rig was all packed, so it was time for another visit to the New Mexico park system.  There was a vacancy for Monday (that's today) in their on line system, so I jumped on it.  And here I am. Exactly where I'll be tomorrow remains to be seen.  But for the moment I have a great spot with electric and water and good views.  Stay tuned!

Thinking ahead

The Roper Lake weekend trip was fun in lots of ways.  But I've been thinking about how to reduce the "overhead" of going out in the Beast.  I've got a few strategies:

One is a shopping list of "ingredients" for mobile meals.  I can take this list to the store and buy as much as I think I'll need for the time I'll be out.  It's divided in two parts: one is stuff that needs to be refrigerated, the other is stuff that is OK at room temperature.  The cold stuff has to be loaded a day or so after the refrigerator is turned on.  The other stuff (cereal, for example, or canned tuna) can be put in the rig at almost any point.  

I've thought about clothing, and poked around in my closet and found stuff which fine for RV travel and can simply live there; when it gets laundered after a trip it can go right back in the rig whenever I'm headed that way (it's stored 10 minutes away from my house.) So I shouldn't have to sort and pack clothes much.

The final piece is to empty holding tanks before I leave my last campsite, and to refill gas and propane tanks on my way into town.  That way the rig is ready to roll at almost any point; the gas station is on the road home just before I get there, and the propane place is between home and the storage lot.  Done deal.

This doesn't mean I could just jump in the rig and go.  But it's closer, and as the weather here gets hot, the less running around and packing I have to do, the better.

Now to think about the latest repair job: the strings on one of the pleated blinds broke last trip, so I have to get on YouTube and watch how it goes to repair one of those.  It's cool and cloudy here, so this is a good time to work on things like this.  

Roper Lake State Park

I'm back from a weekend at Roper Lake, just south of Safford, AZ.  This was an impromptu weekend away, organized by friends here in Tucson ... it's about a 2-hour drive from home.

The GPS coordinates for the park are 32°45'21"N, 109°42'17"W  Elevation 3130 ft.

The park is a pleasant place ... Roper Lake was constructed as a reservoir, and there's a swimming beach, fishing, lots of ducks, rental cabins, and even a hot (warm-ish) spring for bathing.

The most prominent feature of the landscape is Mt Graham:

10,720 ft elevation

There are three "loops" in the campground.  Two loops have electric and water hookups; I was in the dry camping loop, in site 50.  Level, gravel site:

Site 50.  Note awning deployed (rare) and solar panel

The park was booked full for the weekend ... for a while I was worried about loud music and happy (read:screaming) kids nearby, but everyone quieted down and there was no problem sleeping.

This was my first experience with what the RV world seems to call a "meetup." A group of friends in Tucson proposed this trip, and I was happy to join. What I hadn't expected was a trip into town for brunch on Saturday, another trip into town for dinner, and a nightcap at the bar where some local friends-of-friends.  A good time was had by all.   I woke up really early in the morning on Sunday, and left after breakfast; was back in Tucson about 10:30.  The rig was unpacked and parked in the storage lot by mid-afternoon.

As I noted after my short trip to Buenos Aires sanctuary earlier this spring, there's a lot of logistics overhead in a weekend trip.  But the change of scenery, and time with some friends, made it well worthwhile.

Out again ....

Summertime at Roper Lake

The work on the Beast is done: ball joints replaced, alignment done.  Next trip: I'll be out for a weekend trip to Roper Lake State Park for a weekend with a group of friends from Tucson and Phoenix.  It's a short drive: I'll leave here tomorrow (March 4) and plan to return Sunday (March 6.)

Have a great weekend, peeps!

Settled at home for a while

I finished cleaning out the rig.  The next task (on Friday) is to replace the ball joints which Buck's strongly suggested before I do any more extended travel.  Repeat after me ... it's only money. It's only money ...

Some reflections from this last trip: The combination of inexpensive/free camping in New Mexico state parks and low gas prices mean that I can afford to do about as much of this as I want. I'm not sure when the next trip will be.  Almost certainly not for a couple of weeks.  And while I've thought a lot about focussing on New Mexico, I might head over toward the Quartzite area for a bit, just to check that out now that the big crowds have dispersed a bit and before it gets furnace-hot over there. We'll see.

I'm also thinking about my idea of staying in one place for longer than I have previously.  Maybe spend two weeks in one place, which would be -- it just occurred to me -- the traditional length of a vacation back in the old days. If I stayed in a NM park with electricity, that would be about $56.   Food would cost what it costs at home, and there's be no gas burned.  It would shift my focus from going somewhere to being somewhere.  If I was boondocking, a few cloudy days in a row would mean that I'd need to run the generator a while each day to keep batteries up.  That would be a real change for me.  Not sure how I feel about that right now.

I do really enjoy that moment heading out down the road. It's very reminiscent of standing at a trailhead with a pack on my back. Just as with a car trip, I make a point of stopping every couple of hours to stretch my legs.  And it seems like 3-4 hours of travel a day is about right.  Something like 250 miles/day. I get up early no matter what, so that means I can get in wherever I'm going about mid-day, which should make it possible to get a good site at my destination.

I've finally figured out how to deal with getting a site at a NM park.  Each park usually has 20-30 sites for RV's, usually with electricity and water.  Some of those sites are available through the online reservation system at http://newmexicostateparks.reserveamerica.com/  It costs $8 to make an online reservation.  The remaining sites are first-come-first served, so if you get there mid-day there's a good chance of a site with no reservation charge.  For me with my annual permit, that means $4 per night.

Some parks also have dry camping sites with no utilities; these are not available on line and are somewhat confusingly called "developed" sites -- presumably because they're more or less level and have a picnic table and shelter.

Got that? Good!  There'll be a quiz!

Headed home

I'm back at Rockhound, watching the sun set, drinking OJ and tequila, and listening to NPR's election coverage.

Soup and biscuits for dinner:

The biscuits were ... delicious!

I plan to leave here tomorrow morning, which should put me into Tucson sometime around mid day. And then I unpack.  Not my favorite part.

The Shalem (Shalam) Colony

As I drove north from Las Cruces the other day I spent time on "Shalem Colony Trail," and wondered what that meant. There was a historical roadside marker as the Trail intersected NM 185, which I  couldn't read.

It's actually pretty interesting.  Here's the lead paragraphs from an article on the New Mexico Historical Society web site:

Shalam was founded by a New York dentist and doctor named John B. Newbrough and a group of his religious followers called Faithists. Newbrough claimed to have written a new Bible, called Oahspe, while under spirit control. Contained in this Bible was "The Book of Shalam," which set forth a plan for gathering the outcast and orphaned children of the world and raising them, according to strict religious principles, to be the spiritual leaders of a new age.

Newbrough and some twenty Faithists decided to create such a place as described in "The Book of Shalam."

In 1884, Shalam Colony was finally established on the banks of the Rio Grande, one mile from the village of Doña Ana. It is generally believed that without the help of the villagers of Doña Ana, the colonists would have suffered even more than they did the first year. The villagers showed them how to cook beans and make adobe bricks, and other skills necessary to survive in this new land. Financed by a wealthy wool merchant from Boston, Andrew Howland, the colony was developed into one of the finest agricultural areas of the Southwest. Nearly a million dollars was spent to build and furnish fine buildings and maintain a herd of prize dairy cattle, build a chicken farm with heated runs, and develop a reservoir and irrigation system which was far ahead of its time.

Disaster befell the colony in 1891 when John Newbrough died of influenza.

The full article is here.  Another 19th century utopian vision!  The Amana colonies in Ohio were contemporaneous, as were the Shakers in the northeast. 

Today, The Shalem colony seems to be a community of high-priced homes.