Perimeter

"Out here on the perimeter
there are no stars
out here
we is stoned immaculate
"

The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)  - The Doors

Solar problem fixed (???)

Today

I've had a problem with my solar power system since around Labor Day. I could not seem to generate enough power to keep my batteries sufficiently charged. At one point, Batteries Plus replaced all 4 6 volt batteries for me. I have replaced everything , except for my solar panel. It was part of my plan to add one to my existing system. I bought another one this Wednesday, and behold, She is making Lots of Electricity! So, it seems like I probably damaged this panel . In fact, I'm pretty sure it was while I was parked at Rampart Range Road back in August and until Labor Day.

If this continues, I will be ready to add a 12V fridge/freezer to my system. At this time, I have no plans to add any other "appliances".

YAY!

Uncle Pat goes to Jail

A few months back, one of my friends suggested that I write down some of my adventures and mis-adventures.   Back on September 27, 2017, I was retrieving a gun that I had pawned at a pawn shop.  They always run a federal background check whenever you get your firearm out of hock, just as if you are buying it for the first time. I had forgotten that I had to pay a ticket , and that the deadline was the day before.  This particular morning , the folks at the Pueblo County Courthouse were being very efficient and issued a "bench warrant" for my arrrest.  When a federal background check is run, the software automatically checks for any outstanding warrants.  If it finds any , it automatically contacts the local constabulary and sends them to where you are, instructing them to take you into custody.
So, I decided to write this as a children's story.  For some reason, it just seemed like the right format for something so absurd.  Oh, and the ticket was for a "leash law violation"...
hahahahahah.

Uncle Pat goes to Jail

One day Your Aunt Mary was telling your cousin Tracy a story

This story was about the day that Uncle Pat went to jail

We'll talk about jail later, but it's a place that we always want to avoid.

People make you stay in the same place all the time,

And some of the other people staying there are kind of mean

It's kind of like church! 

Your uncle Pat got a ticket one day

(a ticket is a piece of paper those nice policemen sometimes give you because you did something naughty,

And they saw you doing it.

So, they give you this ticket, and you are supposed to give some money to some nice people who work in a building downtown called a courthouse.  You might find out about those later, when you start driving, or if your big sister likes to get you into trouble)

So, uncle Pat got a ticket. And that silly uncle Pat forgot to pay it. 

Silly uncle Pat.

So one day, he was in a pawn shop, buying a gun, and some nice policemen showed up and arrested uncle Pat.  He said, "But gosh darn it, why the heck are you doing this?"

And the nice policemen said , "Silly uncle Pat! You forgot to pay a ticket.  Now watch your head" as he made him sit in the back seat of the car, with handcuffs on.

That sweet dog Lacy was sitting in the car , waiting for that silly uncle Pat.  But the nice policemen let uncle Pat call his friend Weldon.  Nice uncle Weldon came and got Lacy and took her back to his house.

The nice policemen took Uncle Pat to the El Paso Country Jail and got him a room.  He had to share the room with other men who forgot to pay tickets, and had robbed banks and been mean to other people.  He had to stay at the jailhouse until they let him pay his fine , and then they let him go.  It took them 12 hours to let him go.  Thankfully, there was a toilet in the room where all the men were staying.  It wasn't nice like the one we have here at home, and it didn't have a door.  Or a toilet seat.

Uncle Pat was lucky.  He got very hungry, and the nice men who worked at the jailhouse brought a lunch with a cup with some kind of meat, and some lettuce and a cookie.  And a drink of some sort.  Uncle Pat ate everything they gave him, but was still hungry.  But the nice men who worked there reminded uncle Pat that the jailhouse is not a resort hotel, and they were very busy , and that it was a good idea to not complain. 

It was about 11:30 at night when uncle Pat got out of jail.  He was awfully happy to put that adventure behind him.  He told me that next time, he'll be sure to take care of any tickets that those nice policemen give him. 

The end.    

NOT Going to the RTR. Why?

NOT Going to the RTR.  Why?

Not sure if anyone cares, but I'm going to put it in "black and white" (virtual). 

There was a little broo hah hah down in the area where Jimindenver camped.  As usual, Jim had a group of camp followers .  An incident occurred where one of the followers threatened to spray someone's dog with bear spray.  Later they tried to de-escalate, but forgot to remove the thread where this statement was made:

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I was advised to carry bear spray to protect my kitten....I pass that advice to you...Carry bear spray if you have to protect the yorkies.

http://www.cheaprvliving.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=28155&pid=354654#pid354654

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I said that "Do NOT spray my dog with bear spray.  Just DON'T". 

Several people jumped all over me in that thread.  Especially RoamingKat, Geogentry and Headache.  (I will keep mentioning their name until I get a cease and desist order... which will involve time in court for EVERYONE involved). 

Then there was the thread where rumors and gossip started going nuts.  "The BLM is going to start enforcing the 14 day limit"... No one bothered to go out and ask other campers if they had talked to the BLM rangers.  I did;  only one guy had. 

I drove down to Ehrenberg Sunday 1/14/18,  to see what was the story.  Several campers who were there when I left are still there.  So, it was just a bunch of rumors.

I felt like I had had enough .  The CheapRVliving.com forum was initially the source of much information and inspiration for me.  It seems to me that it has turned into Facebook, or AOL.
I do not want to be associated with them. 

I STILL think the world of Bob Wells and several members, especially Highdesertranger and masterplumber.  There are others as well, but I don't want this to sound like an award ceremony. 

One Year on the Road

One year ago today I spent my first night in my trailer at the 2017 RTR in Quartzsite, AZ.

I had committed to giving it a year, even if I thought I hated it after 6 months.  So here I am, and I'm still doing it .  I look forward to spending the rest of my life being on "Driveabout".

As it is, I don't actually drive every day.  I usually spend at least 14 days in one spot.  In the future , I may do more driving every day.  For example, I want to travel up the coast of CA, starting in San Francisco and ending at the Olympic Peninsula in WA.

I will probably drive more often.  But even then, I believe I will stay at least 2 or 3 days wherever I am.

Thanks to those folks who actually read some of this!

Looking back over the last Year

Summary

It's been a heck of a year.  Some good, some bad.  I learned a lot, saw a lot of Arizona, and have become a lot more comfortable on the road.  The kind of daily flow, when to move, how to figure out where to go next, how to assess a camping spot for my preferences. 

Details

next week will be the 1st anniversary of my first night spent in my trailer.  That was at the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous (RTR) which is a get together, sponsored by Bob Wells. 

I've seen a lot of AZ over this last year.  I will freely admit, I stayed in my friend's 5th wheel for 6 months while I attempted to work on my cargo trailer.  Then I hit the road again around mid-August or so.

I've lost my dog Taz, who I was really close to .  I spent 12 hours in the El Paso County jail for forgetting to pay a leash-law violation ticket.   This got a bench warrant issued, which caused a couple of cops to come and take me into custody.

I got a ticket from a forest service ranger in Pike National Forest for overstaying the 14-day limit.  The 14-day limit is pretty standard among lands owned by the federal government.
That cost $104... I paid it.  After staying at the jailhouse, I wasn't taking anymore chances.

I got kicked out of San Isabel National Forest, mainly because (In my opinion) I look like trailer trash.  I don't fit into some rangers view of what an RV'er should look like.  I'm just poor white trash.

On the other hand, I've gotten to see a lot of places I've never seen.  I've experienced a kind of freedom most people only dream about.  I'm doing what I moved to Colorado to do.  See the West.   So far, I've mostly seen Arizona.  But that's ok, there's a lot to see here.  My experiences on the road have toughened me up, I think.  These are the kinds of experiences that my mind was made for ... how to find water, propane, a spot to camp, remembering where certain things are in towns I've been in before.


So, it is traditional when doing a summary of the following year, to do an assessment of goals for this coming year

• Continue to simplify and possibly move into more primitive camping experiences. 
• See more states 
• Work on archery, music, fly-fishing, HAM radio , etc... 
• reorganize the trailer again!  :) 

2017 campsites

{this is really just me tracking my own travels}

These are the places I stayed in 2017

Quartzsite
Mittry Lake BLM
Q Casino
Pilot Knob BLM (Felicity, CA)
Weldon's 5th Wheel
Rampart Range Road
Greenhorn Mtn Road
Walmart - C/S, South Academy
78C , 12 mile road , near Beulah
A1 Mountain Road , Flagstaff
Crown King Road, Prescott
Mesa Verde Entrance BLM
Page, AZ BLM
Butler Ave, Flagstaff (beside I40)
Lake Havasu City , North of town, West of side of AZ95 (US95?) ...
                        one night at Jaime's Van Build
Ehrenberg, AZ
Big River BLM , Earp CA

Where Next?

I'm scouting out my next move.  Toward Show Low, AZ?  Texas?

What I've been trying to do this month is to live within my means.  {GASP!}
Yes, it's true.   I need to get what is in a storage unit in Colorado and bring it down here.
Giving me time to disperse of it in temperate weather, rather than what is in Colorado in the winter.

So, in order to do that, I will need some $$$ ... If I rent a UHaul, that will be expensive.  So, I need to start setting aside some cash for things like moving, or fixing brakes , or getting another solar panel.

So, for the next 2 months, I may just move around this area.  The idea is to cut down on long trips for a bit.

Earp , CA

It turns out that Wyatt Earp really did live around here.  This was after the Gunfight at the OK Corral.

From Wikipedia:

Earp, California is an unincorporated community in San Bernardino County in the Sonoran Desert close to the California/Arizona state line at the Colorado River in Parker Valley.

The town, originally named Drennan in 1910, was renamed Earp in 1929.^[1] It was named for famed Old West lawman Wyatt Earp who with his common-law wife, Josephine Sarah Marcus, lived part-time in the area beginning in 1906. Earp staked more than 100 copper and gold mining claims^[2] near the base of the Whipple Mountains.^[3]:83

They bought a small cottage in nearby Vidal and lived there during the fall, winter and spring months of 1925 – 1928, while he worked his "Happy Days" mines in the Whipple Mountains a few miles north. It was the only permanent residence they owned the entire time they were married.^[4] They spent the winters of his last years working the claims but lived in Los Angeles during the summers, where Wyatt died on January 13, 1929.

Though the town was never incorporated, the post office near Earp's mining claims at the eastern terminus of Highway 62 near Parker, AZ was renamed "Wyatt Earp, California" after Earp's death in 1930 with a ZIP code of 92242. For amusement only there is a tiny cemetery showing the fake grave of Wyatt Earp (his actual grave is in the Hills of Eternity Cemetery in Colma, near San Francisco).

The post office is more than 220 miles (350 km) from the county seat in San Bernardino, California; further than any other in the county. The entire region on the California side falls under area code 760.

Unofficial alternate names of the area are listed as Drenna and Drennan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earp,_California

Two of my favorite scenes from the movie   Tombstone

(BTW, I don't think this is HISTORY, this is just a movie, entertainment.  The facts related to these events are still open to debate.  The legends largely came from Hollywood movies)

Johnny Ringo and Doc Holliday debating in Latin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gSj1G4Vf0w

Final shootout between Johnny Ringo and Doc 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfbAFgD2mLo

California

Without knowing it, I've crossed into California! I didn't know, I swear! Anyway, I was trying to find a camping place outside of Parker, AZ.. which is where the closest Walmart is from where I've been staying for the last 6 weeks. So, I followed the directions posted on freecampsites.net for Big River BLM.

I recently told someone that, "Oh, I just don't go to California"... and now, I slipped in unknowingly!

The question being asked was "how do you handle carrying guns and keeping up with the different laws?"... Since I'm from Colorado, and we have the most restrictive gun laws of all the neighboring states.... the simplest thing to do is just avoid the West Coast, and don't carry a concealed weapon. I'm still legal, and I don't carry a concealed weapon.

But here I am, in Big River , CA. Just down the road from Earp.
That's Wyatt Earp, kid!