With my mothers house sold, and all our belongings distributed again, we were ready to roll. It seems that it was harder to get rid of it all the second time around. But it’s gone and we are ready to go. We began with stops to see the kids. And we spent some time pondering where we have been in the past three years! It is crazy to think that one of Mike’s first blog posts came out when we were leaving our comfort zone the last time. It was August of 2014 and we thought we were leaving the USA. But as we began to travel slowly we realized there were many places in North America that we needed to go see. So we did!
From Arizona to Florida. From the East Coast to Nova Scotia. Across the Northern USA and in to Canada. Through British Columbia and the Yukon to Alaska. And then back towards Arizona. Whew, it was a great journey! And now we feel that we are really ready to head to South America.
There are a few things we need to finish still. Getting work done quickly just hasn’t worked out for us, so we will stall a little longer as we finish up a few things. We will also take a few test runs and make some modifications.
After visits with the sons, we headed to Hot Well Dunes BLM Recreation Area. This is a place we visited in the VW van when we kicked off our trip. It is a good place to test the boondocking limits of the rig. We arrived after dark and found a temporary spot. But in the morning we moved to a flatter location and set up camp. We had a great deal of sandy real estate around us. And a short walk to the hot tubs! We used the solar, the water, the propane, the awning, the storage boxes. We even set out the new ground cover and chairs. Things were working well. We stayed four days, and then went into the nearest town to play bingo and get a few groceries. Then back to our campsite for a few more nights. At just $3.00 per night, with nearby hot tubs, it was a great place to relax and get into the groove of boondocking again. We added a new flag to the front of the truck. This will help us navigate low hanging trees and obstructions. The flag is demountable, but when in place it is exactly the height of the camper. The dogs became comfortable with their placement in the back of the truck. Sleeping while we drive and exploring when we are stopped quickly became their routine again.
Our next campsite was near Tucson. We found a great spot at the Colossal Cave Park. They have just a few campsites, mostly requiring wash crossings and high clearance.
We tackled it with no issues and found a terrific campsite. We went geocaching at an old CCC site and walked a short stretch of the Arizona Trail. This turned out to be a great little test run and we were ready to cross our first border with this new rig.
