theboondork's RV blog

The time to ease on down the road draws nigh

12/12/2020

The ability to Click these pics is an honor bestowed only on a few..... And that's because so few read my blog.

My most recent abode. I'm not even bothering to unhitch, I figure I'll be gone shortly, I just wanted a new view for a while.

I took a walk around the desert this morning, and my new digs are not much different than the other place, except I'm closer to the mountains now.

My new location puts me well down the road towards Yuma, so it looks like my Christmas plans will put me in Yuma, Dateland, or Ajo. With Ajo being the most likely spot to hunker down, there are more, and better, hunkering areas than the other two places.

Yuma has a lot going for it, with plenty of shopping and things to do, but my experience has been it's often too crowded, at least for my taste.

I've never boondocked in Dateland because the RV Park is usually not crowded and reasonably priced, but there's not much to do there. Shopping is a loooong drive down the road. And you have to go through a Border Patrol checkpoint on I-8 to get to the shopping areas.

So Ajo is shaping up to be my place to hunker down for the holidays. There's not a whole lot to do there, but the town is kind of scenic, the desert mountains around the area are pretty to drive through, the folks I've met in the town have been really nice, and I'm getting kind of antsy to find a place to hole up for the holidays since the whole Thanksgiving mess is still fresh in my mind.

theboondork

There's not many folks here, which is one of the reasons I chose this place. Those of you familiar with "Q" may recognize Dome Rock waaay in the background.

One of my sunrises this week.

One of my neighbors at my new boondocking area. This kind of trailer is what I'm seeing a lot of now days. Small, lightweight, and easily towed with the family SUV.

Boondocking in Quartzsite Arizona BLM land Picture

Here's two more things I'm seeing more of all the time, camper vans, known in the RVing world as a class "B", and electric bicycles. These vans have become so popular it seems to me that around boondocking areas their almost replacing fifth wheels as what I see the most of.

I'm still not seeing as many electric bikes as I am regular bicycles, for one thing E bikes are still pretty expensive. But if Walmart ever comes out with one pedal bikes might just disappear.

6 Comments

Judith

12/12/2020 04:19:43 pm

Well, what is there "to do" anyway? Do you like museums, concerts? Poetry readings? Shopping? Raves? Bar-hopping? Packaged tours? Music "venues"? Art openings? OK. I'll stop. Truth is, I don't know what people mean by that. I know what I like to do. Can it be that I have not changed much since I was 20? Well, OK, I did like bars then, but hever hopped. They seemed grown up and dark and quiet. Ha.
Best wishes for your travels. Mountains and deserts are always good in my book.

Tom

12/12/2020 05:27:33 pm

Wow! You named off all those things that people like to do, and the only one that I like is museums.

Poetry reading? Do they still do that? I thought that died off with the Beatniks.

Shopping? Nope, I go in, get what I need, and leave.

Raves? Can't dance.

Bar-hopping? I did enough of that in the Air Force to get it out of my system, so by the time I was in my mid-20s I outgrew it.

Package tours? no freedom, no fun, no way. When I wanted to see Europe, I flew to London, bought a motorcycle and rode it around Europe until I run out of money.

Music venues? You mean like concerts? When I was stationed in Japan I got to see Peter, Paul, and Mary, at the Budokan theater in Tokyo, I believe it was 1967.
And when I lived in Miami Florida back in the 70s I got to go to a Chicago concert. And I believe that's the last concert I was at.

Art openings? I do like art, but I tend to stay away from the people that create it, more often than not their weird.... And yes it takes one to know one. Except for one of my brother-in-law's, Joe Netherwood. He's a fairly famous Western painter living in Scottsdale Arizona, and actually makes a pretty good living selling his paintings.

If you're in a bar, and you're able to hop, you're missing the whole point of being in a bar.

Since I got old, and became a full-timer what "I do" has changed and narrowed considerably and consist mostly of going somewhere to take a picture, which sounds pretty boring even to me, but I apparently enjoy it, because I keep doing it. Or I ride my little motorcycle around. But mostly I keep my easy chair from getting lonely, and that's almost a full-time job.

Tom

12/13/2020 08:46:49 pm

There you go. You've said what you like to do in the last paragraph. I was just responding to the sentence about there not being a lot to do in Ajo. Seems like you can do what you like to do, so wahoo.

12/13/2020 09:48:52 pm

I guess I wasn't thinking in terms of me actually "doing" something when I said there wasn't much to do. Because frankly I don't do very much ever since I became a full-timer and had to give up almost all of my hobbies.

Not much to do was probably in reference to me watching other people do something, such as when I'm in Tucson at the Pima County Fairgrounds they have events all the time that I can go watch which gives me "something to do."

I was hoping this winter I was going to be able to plan my travels around different events in Arizona and New Mexico which would give me a reason to go to those places, and at the same time give me something to do, Which is why I went to the Bosque Del Apache to take pictures of the annual gathering of the Sandhill Cranes. But almost every event I was interested in going to has been canceled due to the Kung flu so I've had to fall back on visiting places I often go to.

Some places I go to because there's things to do there, such as I like Box Wash in Wickenburg Arizona because it's a great place to ride my little motorcycle. And I love the Pima County Fairgrounds in Tucson because of the horse events, dog shows, RV shows and the Rodeo. And I like to camp at the Ben Avery gun range near Phoenix because I can shoot, or watch the various shooting events that happen there.

Other places I go to because I just like being there. And Ajo is one of those places. It's peaceful, laid-back, uncrowded, and I enjoy being there just for the relaxed atmosphere.

So like I said I don't actually "do" a whole lot in my winter travels, I probably "do" more in the summer in Colorado. I guess you could say in the winter I kind of rest up from my busy, hectic, madcap, summer..… :)

Tom

Larry Worsham

12/13/2020 08:44:53 am

I went to your BIL Joe's web site. He does nice work. We have collected a few pieces of western art over time but we no longer have wall space. His bio said he provided some work to the Charles Russell museum. We visited there a few years back. Interesting place......

Like your new spot and you ability to move around.

Be safe, Larry

12/13/2020 12:30:59 pm

Thank you Larry, moving around is not necessarily my favorite thing, but the ability to do it when and where I please certainly is.

Joey, which is what I've always called him since meeting him in his early 20s, is what you would call a natural talent. And when I first met him he was drawing cartoons which were really incredible. with no training whatsoever he could sit down and sketch out the kind of cartoons that were popular during that time, like if you remember the Hot Rod cartoons about the "Rat Fink", or the hippie stuff about "Mr. natural", Robert Crumbs "keep on trucking" and the 'Doo-Dah Man" he could draw things in that genre with great detail that were simply amazing.

But Joey moved to Arizona and I kinda lost track of him for a while. When I saw him again he had completely changed. The cartoon phase was over and he was now painting cowboys and Indians, what a change. I remember telling him back in the cartoon days that, yes you have talent but would never make a living drawing pictures, and he needed to get a job. Shows how much I know.

There's a couple members of my family that have always been artistic and could draw and paint things that looked real even as children. So I've always felt that, just like musical ability, you're either born with that artistic talent or not. And maybe that's what determines whether you're destined to be a hobbyist, or someone like Joey that people will pay thousands of dollars to for one of his paintings.

Tom

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The time to ease on down the road draws nigh

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