Boondockers: you'll love this. Everyone else: you'll want to become boondockers.

I've been advertising these boondocking guides on the blog for years; you've stopped seeing them by now. We bought the one for Arizona - a toe in the sand - but haven't really needed it until we hit Sedona. WOW! You know I don't just go around saying "WOW!" for no good reason. These guides are a good reason.

Marianne and her husband spend half the year boondocking in the US Southwest, and have been skulking around finding the best spots. You 'dockers know there are public sites (I list them here) for finding free campsites, and they're pretty good, but those sites all let us down here. I don't blame the sites, I blame the April snowstorm that turned access roads into inaccessible roads. This is a job for Marianne!

Would you like to park here...

And wake up to this view of the valley?

Or, how about parking here...

  

 and walking a dozen steps to the creek?

 

We scouted out at least four sites yesterday, all from Marianne's guides, and I didn't find any of them on the online sites.

If you're intrigued, you can buy one guide of your choice for less than a night's stay at a crowded campground. If you're already sold on these guides, you can buy all five for less than two nights' stay at a crowded campground. 

They arrive instantly on PDF, and are very convenient to use. She tells you if your rig will fit in any site she reviews. She even provides location coordinates and descriptions of landmarks. She tells you about cool things to see nearby. It's the whole package.

Full disclosure: Marianne didn't give me anything to say "WOW!" No discount, no freebies, nothing. I am being enthusiastic for free. She will give me a generous commission if you buy from my links, which will make me say "WOW!" again.

Go ahead. Make me say "WOW!"

Crossing over.

I can't stop myself from blogging.  It's NaBloHoMo around here.

We're scooting around the border with Mexico, which seems exotic and exciting to this country duck.  We want to give all due credence to sensible warnings, while blocking out the extreme and sensational.  You border-dwellers and -crossers, how do you make your decisions?

Here's how I made our sleeping decision last night:  heebie-jeebies.  We did all our fill-uppy things at the Flying J on the Texas side.  Still,  we were determined to cruise on into New Mexico for the night, and we rolled about 1/2 mile into the NM Welcome Center.  It's a pretty little building, secluded and quiet.  So secluded and quiet, and not visible from the road.  At 6 PM, after sunset, we were the only motorists in the entire lot.  No staff and no security, and then, no us.  We headed back to the perceived safety of a Pilot travel center.

We're actually pretty familiar with border issues.  Back in NYS, there were stories of mules:  innocent-looking U.S. citizens crossing back into our borders smuggling basic health-care for all.  Scofflaws flouting international regulations and filling their prescriptions in Canada, trafficking in recreational Crestor and Celebrex.



Speaking of border issues, here's a Border Patrol stop ... Annie!  Stop looking guilty, for Pete's sake.

Afternoon.  Just you two middle-aged, white women?

Yessir.  We are not, nor have we ever joked about becoming, coyotes for the purpose of making a living and supporting our mobile lifestyle.

Okay, you can go.

I'm not saying these guys are profiling. But, along with the sad decline and bodily softening of age comes a certain comfortable invisibility. They try to imagine us as dangerous criminals, but instead, they think of their moms.

Little Duck on a big desert.

As we drive, I see dozens of little roads I'd like to head down.  This gives me B-ness envy.  Size matters, and this Duck has to stay off many intriguing roads.

  

Annie wants to see one of these cuidados.  I am not so brave, and would settle for a live prudencia.

Annie's sinuses have started to hurt.  Do you deserters have suggestions? Is it the elevation?  The dry air?

So close, and yet, so close.

Otherwise, they could never have anything nice.

Don't even tell me it's okay to come out.  I see the lie in your eyes.

In an earlier rest area, we caught a guy taking a picture like this through our windshield.  I wonder how many we haven't seen taken.

Stereotype busted:  Texas only cares about oil.  In fact there is a 160.5 megawatt wind farm in Pecos County.  Instead of finding you a nice picture on the internet, I'm sharing my craptastic shot through a dirty window.

Each one is rated at 1.5 megawatts.  That's enough to power your rig AND ours.

A woman working at Flying J is a geologist, and she told me stuff about the local mountains (north of El Paso, TX).  We're in the Rockies!  And, if you're a geologist not working at the Flying J, maybe you should consider yourself appreciated.  I asked about the range that I could almost touch with my credit card, and she told me other stuff, too, which I'd tell you but this is not PBS.

Flying J had gas, propane, and potable water.  It's like we died and went to a campground.

We made it to New Mexico tonight!  Then we came back to Texas!   I think we'll keep going tomorrow, but I don't like to jinx us with unreasonable expectations.

So fast, it's like we're on wheels.

We aborted our Big Bend plans like honey badgers.  I was resting in a rest area one night, thinking Big Bend sounds like a sensible thing to do next ... SCREEEE? Sensible? So, I looked over at Annie and I said Annie? Would you rather just head for Arizona instead? and she said WOULD I?!? so I talked for a while until she was convinced.

Steve, please forgive us for the speed (62 m.p.h.) at which we blew around San Antonio on the 1604. Annie's gas foot got itchy and leaden, and there was no slowing her down.

Once we got north of the city, the scenery got KABLOWIE! pretty, but hard to drive through even on the interstate. We gained some altitude without realizing it, and my side of the Sleep Number got very, very firm. Chris warned us about exploding mattresses in higher elevations, but we thought she meant Pike's Peak. We deflated before something bad (like another hill) happened. This must be why biological implants are not filled with air.

We're west of Sonora, and the scenery just got WOWIE KABLOWIE! awesome. Someone look this up for me - is this considered high chaparral? I'd Google, but I'm already using my one bar of 1G to send this post instead of calling 911 or something. Bring me my horse and six-shooter! Throw over my poncho and cheroot!

I have got to pee like a beer-drinking man.

We're heading out to see the girls at Where the wind goes, if they don't kill us remotely with laughter first.   Annie said We're their biggest fans. I asked how she knew that.  OH I KNOW.   I sense danger for anyone else who claims to be, but that does NOT make us stalkers.

Texas rest stops are very friendly to overnighters. Some of them have dump stations and potable water. Often, they have free wifi. So far, it hasn't been strong enough to stream TV or watch an endless loop of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. We stayed in a picnic area last night. There were trucks coming in and leaving throughout the night, but somehow that anchors my sleeping mind and helps me remember where I am.

Nicole and Darlene challenged us to do 200 miles yesterday, and we did 252. Plus, see, that's more proof that we're not stalkers, because they're encouraging us. Two hundred is probably our comfortable limit, though; otherwise, we're missing out on primo hours of rest area wifi, and the Nutty Bars are all gone from the machines.

Our preference is boondocking someplace pretty, but it takes some work to find and settle into some of those places. While we're traveling, it's easier to use the quick-in/quick-out method of overnighting.  Now we're nearing some free wifi, courtesy of the Lone Star State, so here goes nothing ...

Texas rest stops need love, too.

Easy-out through Corpus Christi, and the seashore gravitational pull has been broken.  We had to wash most of the gravity off at a car wash with a series of delicate, yet demanding, maneuvers involving removing the Prius, the tow dolly, reattaching the two in reverse, pulling around, taking two bays, 122 quarters, two naughty words, becoming completely drenched, reattaching tow dolly, reconnecting the Prius, smudging my almost-clean-enough shirt, and Annie pulling her shoulder.  Later, we found sand in every crevice, and then there's the rig. [RIM SHOT]

These cormorants are just praying the salt comes off.  Why did we vacation here? I wanted to visit my mom in St. Augustine!

We were pleased to spend multiple units of time with Chris, another full-timer who will eventually be cajoled and shamed into blogging again.  

Photo by Teri

No, c'mon!  Not my backside!

Seriously, what is wrong with you?  Not my backside!

Honest, Chris, all the frontward pictures I took came out blurry!  It's like your frontside is a vampire.  Oh!  My mistake - here's a good one.




Teri is a full-timer who was cajoled and shamed into meeting us.  She caught the trolley, which was quickly controlled with ginger ale and bed rest.  It was good to spend time with her and learn more of her story.  She's in the pre-retirement set like Annie and me, and she has some interesting ideas for suitable employment that I'll try when times become desperate.

"Whatever you do, just don't post my picture to your blog."  Always happy to comply.*

We're in for the night at a Texas rest area, where they have free wifi. It's not strong enough to stream videos or TV - the gold standard - but plenty for surfing and blogging. Not good blogging, but it's fast enough for obnoxious posts.

We watched an honest-to-Pete murmuration at sundown. Please watch this and pretend these young women are us:



They are so graceful and lovely, those starlings, and they really only want a place to sit for the night. We're like them, we Road Starlings. Beautiful and flowing, restless yet weary, and ready to settle in for the night with wifi and Nutty Bars.

*In real-life, I always comply with photo requests.  If you don't want your picture here, it will never see the light of day.  Unless you're Chris' backside.

Port, Eh?

Thank you for your responses to my question about change.  I am grateful, and awed by your stories.  If you feel inclined to add a reply, I hope you'll give in to the urge.

Meet Toni and Scott:



They're living full-time in their Honda Element with their two substantial dogs, Walter and George. Both are swim coaches (the humans; the dogs swim avocationally). Toni describes her work with young kids as helping them relate to people better, speak more effectively with adults - a set of life skills - and almost incidentally she helps them become better swimmers. Scott works with older kids and young adults, superior swimmers who are headed for watery greatness. His work is more focused on the mechanics of swimming, and helping kids reach their scholarship and Olympic goals.

They have given themselves a year to find their own Utopia. A place that feeds their soul and jobs that feed their food habits. They've been offered jobs, but not in places where they want to live. Toni says she'd settle in a heartbeat if there were only a swimming pool in the Escalante Wilderness.



When we met them, they had snuggled in tightly against the Duck to shelter from the punishing winds we'd been enduring on Bird Island Basin. Which was fine, except that their too-cute rig was also snuggling the exhaust on our generator, so we got a little depleted waiting for them to move. Annie eventually took our rig for a drink and potty break and pulled back in a little further away.

They don't have a toilet or any refrigeration. I asked them about stealthing, but their handy pop-up makes them conspicuous, and without it they're sharing the bed with George and Walter.

They had some solar equipment that I covet:

 The Powerfilm line of solar chargers is especially rugged and remarkably thin, as you'll notice because I'm remarking on it.  The 30 watt charger folded up to be about the size of a spiral notebook (that's an iPad you can rip pages out of).  If a panel should become damaged, it doesn't take the array out of the game.

We rode our bikes to dinner.

  

Bring mine with a chainsaw and an artichoke.

We each enjoyed an adult frozen beverage. Annie asked for the butchest thing they served.

This was a bit too much alcohol for Annie, and she had to walk her bike home.  I mocked her from the sidewalk where I was resting;  I don't remember the details, but the officer was nice.





Where are we going next!  The giant car wash!  Where then!  I don't know!  It's a mystery to all of us!  As soon as I know, I'll tell someone!

Hello Madre, hello Padre, here we are at Camp Grenadre.

I told a friend once that I hoped this thing we're doing would change me.  Not that I needed to erase some smelly, evil smudge on my soul - I like my smudges, thanks - but, that I wanted to sense that how I see myself has shifted.  Continues to shift with time.  It seems, though, that you can't even begin such a project without changing;  that it isn't possible to seriously conceive of starting a life over without already having permanently shifted.   

Lots of you have started over, sometimes more than once.   Are you willing to share what changed for you on the inside?

~~~~~~~

Please meet our friends, Obadiah (4) and Bella (6).

Bella and Obadiah love cats.  Specifically, Bella and Obadiah love Bob.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

 

They live with their two little brothers in a school bus, along with their parents (who look like L.L. Bean models).  The family is from Indiana, and they decided they wanted something other than the life they were living;  they hit the road this past September.  We've been neighbors for two weeks, and we met while dumping our potties into the chemical toilet.  You know how it is: you're waiting in line with a gallon of urine and you just start talking about stink control.  

~~~~~~~

Within the National Park is an old overnight corral and sleeping quarters for cowboys driving cattle in the early part of the 20th century.  Pat Dunn owned the whole island and used it to graze his cattle.  It's roped off to prevent vehicular traffic, but it didn't stop my hooves.

I picked up a little marching cadence:

I don't know, but I've been told

Bacillus spores just can't get old

The Castle Anthrax

Walk past the old corral ...



... get a treat.

~~~~~~~

Photo by Chris

It's been fun here on the Laguna Madre, and we're ready to fun-seek on down the road.