Paintball and Picacho

You need to click the pics, I've waited for them to click themselves, but its just not happening.

In the woods behind my truck is an unofficial paintball battleground. This boondocking area and the paintball area is all BLM land. The boondocking area is legally recognized as a 14 day boondocking area, and there are signs to that affect, but the paintball battleground; I don't know how it got there, or who put it here, but I doubt if it's kosher.

But that's okay, it's been here for many years and if folks are having fun running around out there with their paintball guns I say "more power to em," there's a lot worse things people could be doing with their lives than running around out in the fresh air.

I had been thinking about leaving here tomorrow and stopping at Dateland, Arizona, for a few nights. But since Barney the Old Fat Man was thoughtful enough to inform me that Dateland was closed, I had to develop some new ideas.

Dateland is an actual town, tiny though it may be, but the only business I can remember being there is a gas station, country store, and campground, all in one place and owned by the same person. So when it closed, there would be no businesses left in Dateland as far as I can remember.

So I'm considering going to Picacho State Park near Eloy, Arizona, and spending a few nights there. And I chose that place because the ten-day weather forecast calls for lots of cloudy weather in the area, and Picacho State Park, under the right conditions, can have some nice sunrises and spectacular sunsets, and all those clouds are the beginning of the right conditions.

I'm not going to make any reservations at the park, which is not the smartest thing to do in the winter in Arizona, and if it were a weekend, I'm sure the park would be full. But most folks spend Friday night and Saturday night at State Parks, so it's often easier to get a place to stay on Sunday through Thursday night. And since my schedule is highly flexible, I can choose days when it's more likely a State Park will have room for me. But if that doesn't work, I've always got Plan "B," which consists of throwing myself under a Park Rangers truck and refusing to move until they find a campsite for me.

The first thing you need to do before you start shooting each other, is site in your gun.

When I first came here to boondock the paintball area was pretty small but every year it gets bigger and bigger, and now it's several acres.

These folks must've scrounged up every piece of scrap wood they could find in Yuma.

There are several of these "buildings" scattered around and I suppose these are the kind of places the "enemy" is trying to capture.

This place is huge and I could've taken a lot more pictures, but you get the idea. There used to be a host at this boondocking area but I haven't seen one for several years. But you would think if the government had problems with these paintballers the host that lived here would have shut it all down. But apparently nobody has a problem with it, to which I say GREAT! It's land that belongs to the people, the land is not being harmed, there are no permanent structures, and nobody lives here... Very similar to us boondocker's.... I say live and let live.