Living in the Moment

I was outside our rig reading a book. When I came to the end of a chapter I folded the page, set the book down, and closed my eyes……. And just sat there absorbing my surroundings, feeling the warm wind blowing across my body, listening to it rustle the flag on our neighbors rig. Soon I was hearing other subtle sounds like the cricket in the nearby grassland and the sand hill cranes roosting ¼ mile from our rig. Does it get any better than this?

We are boondocking two hours southeast of Tucson at the Whitewater Draw WMA (Wildlife Management Area). Our neighbors are Jim and Brenda Jordan who turned us onto this area a few weeks ago are parked just yards away. You can stay for 3 nights free, no water, no electric, no dump stations no frills whatsoever. After spending 5 weeks in Tucson this is just the place we needed to be.

What caught me off guard was the fact that we were not really here. Over the past week Barb and I have been planning our spring and summer travels….Where will we go?  When will we get there? What route will we take? What is there to see along the way? Our minds were hundreds of miles and weeks ahead of where we actually were.

Sometime you need to remind yourself to slow down and live in the moment. It's not like we have been parking cars in the sweltering heat of Florida for 12 hours a day, we were in a beautiful spot and not enjoying it to its fullest. This may sound strange coming from someone who is just traveling from place to place, but we have caught ourselves doing this more than once, looking ahead to where we are going next and not thoroughly absorbing where we were at. So with a change of attitude, that’s what we did. We relaxed, read, played with the dogs and bird watched over our 3 day stay in the area.

The WMA has several trails around the wetlands where you can see a variety of waterfowl, shorebirds, deer, javelina and other feathered friends. Over those three days we woke up before sunrise twice to watch the sandhills head to their feeding areas and watched the sunset each day when they came back to roost.

Thousands and thousands of Sandhills

Javelina!

Avocet

The mule deer bucks still had their antlers!

Shovler

I was told this was a Vermillion Flycatcher

Sand Pipers

Cinnamon Teal

Gadwall

On our second day there we jumped in the truck with Jim and Brenda and headed over to Bisbee to check out the sights and walk the town. Along the way we came across the adjacent town of Lowell which in the end we enjoyed just as much, if not more than Bisbee. Lowell has very few actual businesses that are open. In fact I only saw a Co-op Market and a restaurant. The remainder of the town looks like everyone dropped what they were doing several decades ago and just walked away……the cars, the buildings, the signage were from decades gone by and very cool to see….

The following day Jim and Brenda left leaving us alone with the sandhills. We enjoyed the day taking walks and honing up on our photography skills. This was our first time staying in a WMA which is surprising given how much we love the outdoors. We will now be looking for more of these hidden gems in the future!

Sunset with our rigs in the foreground

Departing from Whitewater Draw we drove two hours back to Tucson....but first a stop at......

Dairy Queen!

We spent one more day with Forrest, Somer and Lily…..well really it was a ½ day. Time for one more dinner together before we continue our journey north. So what are our spring travel plans?  We plan on being in South Dakota the first week of April where we will continue our land search…. There I go again! We have 2-3 weeks before we are there and have lots of adventures planned between now and then. Winslow, Petrified Forest, Antelope Canyon….lots of places to see and lots of opportunities to live in the moment.

Final Days in Tucson

Our time in Tucson has come to an end and it is time to move on. We have been here for just 5 weeks and the time went really fast. This past week we all moved a couple miles down the road from the Snyder Hills BLM area to Justin’s Diamond J’s where we have full hookups! We were trying to remember the last time we had full hook ups and the best that we could come up with was last November when we left North Dakota and that was for one day. Previous to that it was almost a year! Forrest, Somer and Lily will be here for a total of 8 weeks while stayed just one week.

Our site at Diamond J's

So we took advantage of it. Barb spent several days cleaning the inside of the rig. The dust from Quartzsite and Snyder Hills was in every crack and crevice. She ripped everything apart, vacuumed and wiped it down. I cleaned the outside just getting the surface dirt off and finished taping and dicor’ing the roof.

Barb took a road trip to meet her friend Nancy who is currently staying in Casa Grande. Nancy and her husband Greg are part-timers from Minnesota. Nancy picked a restaurant that was in the middle for traveling distance and outside of a town called Marana.  Although the outside looked kinda sketchy, they had great food, a friendly waitress, beer (of course), and a fun place to hang out for a couple hours!  Barb had not seen her in a couple years and said it was great to finally get together and catch up.   

We managed to get out to dinner one night to one of the two Mexican restaurants that Barb wanted to get to while we were in town. And bonus…..we went on her birthday! Jim and Brenda arrived back in town for a few days and joined us and bought Barb a Prickley Pear Cactus Margarita…thanks guys!

The biggest news of the week was that our window came in!!!! The day before we were set to leave…..nothing like cutting it close. It was a week later than the 4 week maximum that promised but it was the right window and fairly easy to install.

First we had to remove the valence around the window, remove the day/night shade and then remove all the screws around the inside of the window. Getting the old window out proved to be a little challenging as they use a very sticky caulk tape to secure it in place.

After getting the old window out I had to thoroughly clean the surface around the opening, apply the caulk tape around the new window and slide it in place. But things are never quite that easy. There was a noticeable gap at the top of the window. After removing it and adjusting it several times we noticed that the old window had a couple of shims to hold it up so we stole those off the old window and got it in place! Finally we are whole again and ready to roll!!!

Lunch with a View on Wasson Peak!!!!

Wasson Peak was a scenic and diverse hike and making it more memorable and honestly unforgettable was that we completed this hike with John and Pam! In our circle of blogger/hiking friends John and Pam are known for their ultra-hiking skills. We were excited yet apprehensive to tackle this peak with them. We likened it to golfing with Jordan Spieth or playing tennis against one of the Williams sisters. We had no idea how we would fare.

Although we love hiking we don’t consider ourselves anywhere near their ability. I am happy to report they took it easy on us and we had an incredible day!

After meeting them at the King’s Canyon trailhead just past the entrance to the Desert Museum we headed up the trail. The trail itself is listed as a 7.4 mile loop (our GPS’s showed just over 8 miles) with ~2,000’ in elevation gain. The first few miles are fairly smooth a moderate incline, the perfect way to start the hike.

John ready to head up the stairs

Ready to head up the trail!

Looking back the way we came

Two tough guys taking a break amongst the blooming poppies

We named this one the buckhorn

The trail winds its way up hills, around hills and through saddles with constantly changing views. Both John and Pam educated us as with the names of many of the flowers, bushes and cacti. Pam seemed to know the names of about every plant we came across and it soon became apparent that John has a unique skill at naming plants on the spot. (who knew there is no such plant as the Sonoran Pink Buttercup).

About ½ way to the peak the trail became much rougher and steeper with a series of switchbacks resulting in more photo ops (rest stops) along the way.  

One of the many switchbacks, you can see the trail in the background

We eventually made it to the top where we had a 360° views of the surrounding area.

You can see the switchbacks and trail on the opposite hillside

To the north

For those of you who know John and Pam, you also know that they are known for their “Lunch with a View” shots. It took us almost 3 years but we finally had our opportunity to take part in this infamous tradition!

The backside of the loop was a bit longer but equally as beautiful.

We saw this beauty on the way down

The round trip took us about 5½ - 6 hours but we really took our time stopping to talk, look at plants and take pictures. The temps were in the 60’s and I would not want to do it when it is much warmer than that. We could definitely recommend this hike for anyone who is in the area!

Highlight #2 for the week was our visit to Kartchner Caverns outside of Benson. Barb and I made this trip by ourselves and was our first cave tour of any kind. Discovered in 1974 these caves have a very interesting history which can be read here. Due to the fact that these are “living caves” the state goes to great lengths to protect it including several airlocks as you enter and exit the caves, a strict no photography rule and a mist shower for the visitors as they enter to maintain the moisture levels within the caves.

We toured the Throne Room. (Pictures provided by Kartchner Caverns State Park website).

In addition to that excitement we had a farewell happy hour with Greg, Cori, Guy and Susan who are all headed to Cabo for a couple of weeks (some people really have it rough).

Susan and Guy

Cori and Greg

But we said hello to Jim and Brenda who have returned to the area for a few days. We headed out to Nimbus Brewery with them. It was good but not as good as the other two that we went to.

Their flights included 9 beers!

Still no word on our window so it looks like we will be here for at least one more week!