Darby Well Road Ajo Arizona

Late yesterday afternoon an Arctic Fox 27–5L moved in across the road from me. It's newer than mine. But it's got some solar panels on top so he must be serious about boondocking.

I went driving around a little bit today to see whats going on. I stopped by the place where I boondocked the last time I was here which is some kind of a county picnic area not far from where I'm at now, and just like most of the time when I was there it was empty. There are six or eight places to boondock at that location that are very comfortable and right next to a huge dry wash, but there was no one boondocking there today.

I also went out to Darby Well Road which is just outside of town, and well known as a popular boondocking area. There's several miles of dirt road with open areas on either side of the road where you can boondock. Some of the areas are only large enough for one RV and others big enough for several.

It was a pretty area, and looked like the kind of place that I would love to boondock but it had two problems that bothered me, neither problem would stop me from boondocking there if I had no place else to go but it certainly wouldn't be my first choice.

The first problem was the dirt road was very wash-boarded, I'm talking teeth rattling wash-boarded. I could tolerate it but it sure would be tough on the truck and the Arctic Fox.

And the other reason Darby Well Road wouldn't be my first choice of places to boondock is the sign in the picture below.

                      theboondork

Darby Well Road only a couple of miles from downtown Ajo. It's obviously a very wide road but most of it is very wash-boarded. Maybe the county grades it every once in a while because this is also part of a scenic loop that the Chamber of Commerce sends tourists on. There's boondocking spots all out through here.

The area is very scenic and if it wasn't for some minor problems I would be here instead of at the rodeo arena.

I think you could comfortably get half a dozen RVs in here.

This to me is a problem on a couple of different levels. First of all I think having a dangerous encounter out here would be remote or the Border Patrol would close down this area to boondocking. But there's no reason for me to take that chance, like I said if there was no place else to stay I would boondock here. What really bothers me is that I have to deal with this in my own country. This sign tells me that the government has given up on this part of America and Mexican drug dealers now own it, or maybe just lease it, which is more of a possibility than most people realize.