Saturday, December 13, 2008

PROBABLY OUR SHORTEST TRAVEL DAY EVER

BLOG POSTED FRIDAY NIGHT

We had decided the day before to leave the Painted Rock area & head over to-wards Yuma & hopefully find us a Verizon coverage spot out around Mitry Lake somewhere. Short doggy walk & then slipped over & had us a look at all the petroglyphs on a large pile of rocks just north of us. I included the pictures I took this morning of the glyphs in yesterday's album.

We rolled out of the Painted Rock campground about 10:15 heading for Yuma. Decided to check for a Verizon signal about a mile down the road & sure enough, there it was. Drove another couple of miles & decided to pull over, have a coffee, & upload the blog & photo album. Had spotted a large flat spot on the desert floor by the east side of the road so pulled in there. Surface was hardpacked with stone just like Quartzite. Kelly checked one of our BLM Lands books to see if by chance we were on BLM lands & sure enough, we were. Figured we might just as well stay here for the rest of the day & overnight so drove the rig about a quarter mile further in off the road & set up camp. Probably the shortest travel day we've ever had. A grand total of about 3 miles. Not another human being or structure visible for as far as the eye could see. We could leave our door open finally & the doggy guys could come & go as they pleased. Very little traffic out on the road. Maybe a couple of vehicles every couple of hours or so. And it's a free spot too:)) STEAKS & BAKED POTATOES ON THE BARBIE

Spent the rest of the day catching up on computer stuff & just relaxing. Gathered up some firewood & built us a firepit. I think I had a siesta in there somewhere too. We have 5 or 6 television channels but they are all on the fuzzy side, but who cares, we have the whole Sonoran Desert to ourselves right outside our door. Despite it being heavily overcast, the scenery is just beautiful...........as usual here in the southwest.

Kelly did up some steaks on the barbie & just as they were done, the clouds to the west parted allowing the setting sun to spray the entire desert floor & surrounding mountains with awesome splendor. Grabbed my camera & managed to bang off some nice sunset shots. By the time I was finished, my steak was almost stone cold, but it didn't matter. The sunset had priority. We got us a nice campfire going as the desert night closed in around us. Wasn't long & we could see the distant lights of Gila Bend about 30 miles to the southeast across the desert floor. Over the mountains to the east we could see the large & spread out light orange glow of Phoenix on the low clouds. To add to all this, the cloud cover thinned out allowing the full moon to emerge & cast it's far flung moonbeams across the desert floor. We eased back in our comfy lawn chairs & marveled at the spectacle around us. Sat outside for a couple of hours, burning embers in the campfire, binoculars in hand, & just soaked up the whole wondrous canvas of Mother Nature's masterpiece in front of us. The clouds skudding across the moon made for one of the most memorable nights we've had in a very, very, long time............ OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

2 comments:

  1. We will start fulltiming next year but are enjoying the ride through the desert for now.

    Stay Safe
    John and Bridget

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  2. Interesting that often we overlook great places simply because their not far to travel to.

    the hermit

    ReplyDelete