Colorado in Black and White

In talking about our experiences driving the US and Mexico Layne mentioned how much she misses meeting people on the road and exchanging travel stories. 

It happened a man walked past our campground with his very inquisitive beagle Rosie who put her snout in and around GANNET2 much to Rusty’s amusement, I guess he liked her. The man was scouting a campsite for his rather boxy Ford Transit Ekko Campervan and we exchanged a few pleasantries before he walked down the road looking for a site. 

In Mexico, Layne pointed out he’d have hung out and chatted about where he was from and where he was going and we might have invited him and Rosie for drinks later and so forth. To my way of thinking in Mexico campers are pioneers, outliers in a way. Here in the US that sense of companionship on the road is absent.

I enjoy the wild camping for the serenity I get hanging out in the woods, the absence of stress comes perhaps from the absence of people. And I know fear of being attacked and murdered keeps more people from boondocking for which unfounded fear I am grateful. Yet those that do camp in the woods are invariably pleasant in the shared experience. 

I enjoy mixing it up, looking forward to the bright colors and bustle of Mexico followed by the peace and serenity of the wide open spaces. I think I am on the verge of convincing Layne the wide open spaces  of Alaska may be worth the expense and the reputed assaults by mosquitoes. 

Rusty prefers the US to Mexico, and he is more at home in these places that are largely dog free unlike Mexico where ambush by street dog is a constant threat. He seems to have figured out it’s mostly bluff since he started to snarl back and the dogs ran. Rusty and I snarling together make a fearsome enemy. 

We spend our days here reading and doing a few chores. When the sun is well up Rusty makes a nest of dry leaves under a little oak shrub and, almost invisible, snores the day away just as he used to in the gravel in front of our house on Cudjoe Key.  

Lack of humidity and strong wind warnings make campfires an iffy proposition as I don’t want to be the one responsible for burning down the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park just next door. 

We will have to leave soon to keep nudging our way east, with a few more slow stops in Colorado before we launch ourselves across the open plains of Nebraska and the cornfields of Iowa where Layne was born. 

It is rather pleasant not to be counting down the days till the end of vacation. One day succeeds the next our plans governed by the weather and the seasons and our ambitions. 

We hear through the internet and in person of youngsters tiring of life on the road. They dislike the uncertainty and the lack of community and the absence of roots and at their age, 35 maybe, or  less there can be no surprise. I had similar feelings when I traveled in my youth. I looked forward to moving back ashore into a community. Imagine that! 

Old age is the perfect time to take off I think. A proper pension plan instead of working while traveling, the experiences of life will hopefully make the vicissitudes of travel easier  to bear and when we meet  authority figures two old gray heads wandering around look infinitely less suspicious than rootless youngsters seeking adventure. 

What youngsters consider hardship we view as an interruption in a routine made tedious by decades of conformity. You want to quit the road to keep a garden? Done that. You need friends? Ask Layne how she stays in touch from the road because she keeps track of tons of friends. Uncertainty bothers you? Stay put and enjoy your neighbors by all means. Every night you will know where you will be sleeping. We old foges have the advantage of having done those things and uncertainty spices our days. 

After we sailed from San Francisco to Key West I too wanted to fit in to a community and have a routine. That feeling didn’t last long when confronted with the reality but by then Layne was organizing our retirement with ambitious plans for real work. And lucky she was as now we have no ties to the job market. 

Layne is on the phone in the van, Rusty is curled up next to me after our morning walk and when these words are set down I’ll wait for Layne to finish her call before we set to cleaning our home for a couple of hours. Then lunch, then the hammock, then a walk, then dinner, TV and so endeth another day. It’s a van not a space ship; we still live life on earth.  And very happy I am to do so.  

Ajo Dispersed Camping

Camp spot in southern Arizona found on iOverlander, the travelers’ app (above). 

You get 14 days at a Bureau of Land Management campsite. It’s all free and pretty much unsupervised but every two weeks you have to move at least 25 miles. It’s a fantastic program but I don’t think I could sit still for a whole fortnight. 

Three days worked well for us. Rusty needs a little time to get comfortable in a new place so by day three he was happy wandering the bushes with me. But then we had to move, we had places to go and things to do. Besides, Laynes mouth was healing nicely and I was rested and ready to explore. 

The weather was okay, cool enough to be comfortable with unfortunately overcast skies and gray flat light. It was t-shirt weather but with no insects. We slept well in the silence. 

To get here you drive through the tiny village of Ajo, a collection of picturesque but tumbledown buildings alongside the highway. Suddenly the mapping requires a right turn through town on a paved road. 

Which turns into a dirt road and in this case recently graded which made it an easy drive. 

I’ve long wanted to check out this distant corner of southern Arizona so plans are to drive the Organ Pipe National Monument and the Tohono O’Odham Indian Reservation on our way to Tucson.  

Rusty and I wandered the desert, an area that reminds me of the Keys in that the variations in terrain are subtle and I went looking with my camera. 

We had a few specks of rain and some cold winds pushing thick black clouds overhead. 

Layne had her birthday here and she reserved the right to celebrate when we get to Mexico later this week. 

The days passed easily with a slow start in the morning, a walk with Rusty and a late breakfast followed by some housework and reorganizing of the lockers. We are always looking to get rid of stuff. 

Layne reminded me it was a long holiday weekend and we had a few cars and Jeeps and motorcycles and quads and bicycles and hikers come by. It’s a popular area but they just passed by and left us to our own devices. 

There is a group of travelers that like to go deep into the back country. I’m not one of them as I prefer asphalt but still I’m always ready to take to the dirt as long as it’s manageable with GANNET2’s low clearance and fundamentally road going Agilis tires by Continental. They are great tires, quiet on pavement but they aren’t knobby off road tires. 

We were possibly five minutes from the end of pavement and parked just off the dirt road but it was genuine wilderness. For us there was no need  to go further or dig deeper into the back country. 

We had a few distant neighbors including one poor soul who droned a generator at odd hours. I could hear the vroom-vroom when I was outside our home. Not everyone has a huge battery bank. You can see the RV below with a Mini parked alongside. 

I have added some photos gleaned from my walks with my Panasonic G95 and zoom lens. It was a good spot listed on iOverlander just south of Ajo on Alley Road. Easy to find. 

I hope you had a good weekend. We did, some home cooking, lots of reading and photography. Layne kept in touch with friends by phone as we had a decent signal here. 

Enjoy the desert!