For a week, we’re boondocking on BLM land at the Carrizo Plain National Monument, the largest native grassland in California. Before I get to why we’re here, I’ll give you a rundown of how we got here, because my friend Susan told me that people don’t understand that this, too, is part of our lifestyle. […]
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Banjo Visits Mars, Again
Our long-planned spring trip up the Pacific Coast begins with reservations in San Diego soon (but not yet), so we needed a stop west on the way there. Why not revisit Mars (aka Imperial Dam LTVA)? Our seasonal pass is still valid, and we can get mail and packages here, plus a handful of other […]
Tamarind Sour, Gliders, Goodbye Tucson
It’s our last evening right outside the Ironwood National Monument Lands (northwest of Tucson), and I’m feeling the Sunday blues just as if I had to go to work tomorrow instead of picking up and moving on to the next interesting place. It’s true the desert here is flat and mostly creosote bushes, but I’ve […]
A New Week, A New Desert
We’re actually still in the Sonoran Desert, but we moved east—from the lovely Ajo, Arizona, toward the city of Tucson, trading a green area for a brown one. But we need city stuff so we bit the bullet. The travel day to get here was another humdinger, too. After hitching up and maneuvering out of […]
Water Conservation While Boondocking
We may get rain today in the Sonoran Desert just south of Ajo, AZ, and if it’s more than just a drizzle, it’ll be the first rain we’ve ever seen in the desert, and I’m pretty stoked. The washes (dry “river” beds) might fill with running water, and we might see blooms on cacti and ocotillo […]
Mines, a Desert Cemetery, and One Awesome, Useless Map
We’re having a delightfully quiet week (or longer, if our tanks will last) here in the Sonoran Desert just south of Ajo, Arizona. We’re only about 30 miles from where we were last: Organ Pipe Cactus Nat’l Monument, so the landscape is pretty much the same, but there’s no campground, and thus fewer people around. (We did […]
Tracy’s Parking Skills for the Win Again
We made it into a great boondocking spot in the desert just south of Ajo, Arizona, thanks to a wee bit of luck and a lot of work. Here’s kind of a technical post about finding a boondocking site and actually getting into it. Finding a Site in Hilly, Cactus-covered Desert Here’s the rundown on […]
The Is-That-Person-Dangerous Game
Here’s an aspect of living on the road that people don’t talk much about. I’ve written previously about how weird it is to be always the stranger in a strange land, but today I’ve been thinking about what it’s like to be surrounded by strangers. Always trying to guess: Is this person walking by my […]
Calm Days, Dramatic Skies
Yes, we’re still at Imperial Dam LTVA, where not much is happening. It’s so quiet here, in fact, that this morning when the weather was warm and the wind mild, I totally forgot to go to yoga. The mind stretches out across these views, and you lose track of everything. We’re waiting here as we […]
A Nomadic Life on Our Couch
Yes, it’s still relatively chilly and very windy here at Imperial Dam LTVA, near Yuma, AZ. We’ve been spending a lot of time in the trailer, which not one of us is excited about, but Tracy endures it with more stoicism than either Banjo or I. Quiet Inside I’ve been reading (I just started the […]
