Simple Living and Simple Travel

‘I was seeing if M&M wanted to come out and play.’ I know the reasons why people choose to stay in campgrounds but it just can not compare with disperse camping out in Nature. As I got back to camp one morning after a sandbag walk, this little one was checking out the place. When I first saw her, she was at the door. Sure glad she stuck around until I dug out the camera and got off this single rushed shot. The next morning while I was working through a medicine ball routine, guess who came walking up the road? I should have posted the previous entry the last time I had web access so I’m posting two today. I’m back to spending time at the bench but I’m working with ‘found objects’ rather than silver. I’ll post pictures when I get some pieces made along with a photo of what they were made from. I made a bow drill. I used something I had around for the weights. I’m keeping my eyes open for a single more compact weight to use for a cleaner look. Sure has ...

Well, we headed south from Pinedale towards the Mogollon Rim. There were deep tire tracks in the mud and some standing water from all the rain along the 8-mile stretch. I was thinkin’ that if it rained, I would have to wait for a couple days of sun or I wouldn’t get out of here. I did not want to get stuck in the mud with a trailer. At one spur road, I pulled over and jogged down it looking for a camping spot but found I would not have been able to get the rig in far enough to be out of sight of the main forest road. I continued on and headed west along the Rim Road (which also had deep ruts and mud in spots) and did not come across any accessible spur roads. This area of the Whites didn’t have the appeal that I look for in a pine forest and I started playing with the idea of heading up to the Flagstaff area the next day. I’ll save other areas of the Whites, maybe around Overgaard and Heber, for another year. Eventually I turned north on another forest road and pulled into a spot ...

I lucked out with my first camping site in the White Mountains. I drove to the end of an unmarked spur road and came across a spot that looked good. I let M&M out, then backed the casita off the road a ways, under some trees. I started setting up camp among the ponderosa while M&M were off exploring their new yard. Mesa soon came running back to the trailer so I thought someone was probably coming this way. I heard voices and a couple mountain bikers came by on a trail that passed about 50 yards of where I was setting up. I had not realized it was there. Way cool. The next morning I got on the Trek and hit the trail. What a beautiful trail and quite varied. It is part of the White Mountains trail system (something else I hadn’t been aware of). The trail crossed forest roads from time to time and over the next three weeks, I biked along them looking for possible camping spots and followed the roads far enough so I knew where to access them from one of the main forest ro...

A weld broke on one of the rear stabilizers (what a surprise) as I was heading out of the Burros. I really need to get a more practical trailer for this lifestyle, maybe a 18 footer with aluminum framing, insulation(what a treat that would be!) and decent ground clearance (not just another 2”). When I got to the first spot up rt180 where I wanted to camp, there was no one around. Yes! But. The next morning I hiked ten minutes up the road to the trailhead where I was going to start my run. That’s where I saw this sign. Guano. I hiked down another road on the way back to my camping spot and it took me down to a water holding tank. I was making a lot of noise coming down a loose rocky section and spooked a bear. It looked as if she might have been taking a bath in the small tank. The water in the tank was still in motion and the ground next to the tank in one spot was soaked. Along the path the bear took, there was less and less water until there was practically none after 50 ya...

One afternoon I was sitting in a lowrider working on my Mac. I heard what was getting to be an all too familiar sound and looked up. There was Meadow ‘on point’ in front of some brush at the base of a boulder. I couldn’t get Meadow to back off until I got pretty close even using some expansive arm movements. I did not want to set the rattler off and with all the noise he was making, he seemed all set to let loose. This was way too close to home. He was hard to see and after a short while he moved off to a break in the rocks, rattling the whole time. That was something new I learned about rattlers. A couple days later I saw my fifth and last rattler since being back to CoR. This one was smaller but still on the edge of my campsite. Not good. No way am I ever going to be here again in May. The idea of a solar eclipse never did anything for me, not the least bit interested. A volunteer at CoR told me about the eclipse last month and gave me an info sheet along with a pair ...

M&M have been giving me a hard time about coming in at night the last month or so. From time to time one or the other has spent the night out and a few times both. Not good. They had been doing fine with nightly access to their window cage now that it’s warm enough to keep the window open all night. Have no idea why this has started all of a sudden. It’s not like this lifestyle is new to them. If it continues, whenever I’m around camp at noon, I’ll boot them out (with their water bowl). It might then be easier to snag them just before twilight. The bicycle pump was working well with the casita and Cherokee tires but the larger tires on the Dodge proved a bit too much for me. I wimped out and purchased a 12V Slime tire inflator. Sometimes being a wuss doesn’t feel all that bad. The pump works well and it’s much faster than I had anticipated for being so small and compact. There have been times when an email finally gets through to me or someone mentions that my email addre...