Living the Good Life in Why, Arizona

 Our Christmas tree--a thrift store wooden saguaro cactus that I painted

When I last wrote, I was struggling to get ready to leave Truth or Consequences, NM.  I had to replace all of the batteries in my motorhome, and get some work done on both the Beluga and my new Tracker in order to tow. 

Steve came over from Why, Arizona, via public transportation, helped me get ready to go, and then drove back with me, which made the trip much more pleasant.  We both drove and found that driving a big rig with a car behind it isn't that much different than driving a big rig without towing.  It takes a little longer to stop, you have to consider the added length when you are changing lanes, and you never ever want to put yourself in a situation where you'd have to back up.  But since most of the time, you're just tooling down the highway, it's really not that big of a deal.  

Getting the car unhitched once we got here was a little more of a challenge than I'd realized.  But, like everything else I've learned since taking up RVing several years ago, it's just a matter of getting used to stuff like this.  Eventually hitching and unhitching will become routine.

Baskets that I admired at the Heard Museum in Phoenix

I have had one more hiccup with this Tracker.  Once we got the Beluga to Why, we turned around and drove the Tracker back to Tucson where Steve could pick up his truck at his sister's house and I could get the Tracker retitled and registered in Arizona.  But, after spending several hours at the Motor Vehicles office, it turned out I could not get the Tracker street-legal because there's a restitution lien on the car.  A previous owner had a DWI and owes money to the court.  I had to file a motion with the court, asking that they remove this restitution lien, since the guy who owned it hasn't owned it for several years and there have been several sales of the car since he had it.  We'll see what happens.  In the meantime, I've got a 90-day temporary registration sticker in my back window. 

Oh, and the Tracker has some sort of a short that makes starting it interesting.  If it won't turn over right away, I have to get out and wiggle some wires until it does.  It's better when I have someone with me to act as Wire Wiggler while I stay in the driver's seat.  

My friend Feral Willcox is a great Wire Wiggler, but she's leaving.  I've had a really nice time getting to know Feral, first in Truth or Consequences and now here in Why.  I met her at the TorC Poetry Reading one Sunday this past fall.  We sat next to each other and quietly introduced ourselves.  The following week, I must have seen Feral a half-dozen times at various coffee shops and stores.  Finally, I thought maybe I'd better sit down and talk with her, before I get hit on the head with a 2 x 4 or something.  Well, it turned out we have lots in common--both former pottery, tile, and mosaic artists who are now doing lighter forms of artwork due to health issues and having a mobile lifestyle.  Lots of other commonalities as well.  The type of person I could talk to all day, probably, if I wasn't quite so introverted.  

As a result of our first meeting in TorC, Feral came to Coyote Howls for a month!  She was heading west towards LA, anyway, and wanted to try some inexpensive camping for a while.  She tented and hung out in her pickup truck.  Feral told me yesterday that she's basically treated the front bench seat of her pickup like a couch.  At dusk, she'd sit there and watch nature unfold just outside her truck.  Coyotes would walk into her campsite and she watched lots of birds, rabbits, and ground squirrels.  I had never thought to do that in my several years of coming to Coyote Howls in the wintertime.  I'm usually fussing with making supper about that time of the day, but maybe we'll just have to start eating earlier or later.

Feral has probably already pulled out of camp this morning.  She's heading to LA to stay with friends and get things arranged to leave for India, where she hopes she can live and get needed medical care more cheaply than here in the U.S.  I may be following her sometime in the future--not to live in India for very long, but perhaps to have a knee replacement done there.

My friends Pat and Fred from TorC just pulled in to Coyote Howls on Sunday and plan to spend about a month, maybe more.  They have been full-time RVers for years and usually are either work camping in a park or boondocking in National Forests, and this is their first time to Why.  

Sly on a day trip to the Tohono O'odham museum

We celebrated Christmas with a nice dinner at the Why Senior Center, and we went to a lovely open house on New Year's Day at the new home of Donna and Noel, the managers of Coyote Howls.  Then my son Sly visited for a little over a week.  I went up to Phoenix the last two weekends, first to get him from the airport and then to take him back up to the airport.  It's only a couple of hours to Phoenix, but each time I made a little overnight trip out of it, doing some tourist things and shopping at thrift stores and staying in a motel.  It was nice.  Sly and I especially enjoyed the Heard Museum and a nice dinner out one night at a Thai restaurant.  I hadn't been to a Thai restaurant since my last trip to Seattle over a year-and-a-half ago.  Sly is doing well--he's been on the same job as a barista in a coffee shop for over a year, and he is moving this week from a residence for at-risk youth to an apartment with a friend.  

These two panels provide me with enough power to run my computer or sewing machine in the Beluga, and also run the furnace for a little while in the morning to take the chill off

Today is one of those much-needed days when I don't have anywhere I have to go.  I relish the thought of staying home and getting things in better order and doing some artwork and eBay work.  I've already cleaned the fridge, and Steve threw the uneaten leftovers over the fence for the coyotes, so this evening might be a good one to follow Feral's lead and sit in the driver's seat of the Beluga and look out at the wildlife.  I feel so fortunate to have such a great set-up for my lifestyle here in Why.  Steve is lending me a couple of solar panels until I buy my own to install on the roof of the Beluga, and I can spend time in my own rig doing my art and business, so I don't have to drag everything into Steve's space, which we reserve more for relaxing. 

A God box in the works

Art-wise, I have started on something for my "Faces of God" show that is scheduled out about a year.  As part of that exhibit, I envision having a table full of mixed-media altars, shrines, reliquaries, God boxes, journals, etc.  All of the small places in which we keep God, y'know.  So I'm acquiring boxes and stuff as I browse thrift shops and eBay, and I'm doing a mixture of collage and painting to richly decorate them.  

A small completed God box, formerly an Altoids tin

Figuring Stuff Out at a National Forest Service Campground

 Approaching the White Mountains

Four days ago, we left St. Johns, Arizona, where we'd unexpectedly spent a full week at a pleasant private RV park.  It's a good thing we hung out there--the first prescription of antibiotics I'd been given at the local clinic didn't completely make me well, so I was able to get another round of stronger meds before leaving town.  Now I am really feeling much better.  

We drove only about 60 miles to our next destination.  We want to check out the Show Low, Arizona, area this summer.  This part of Arizona, also known as the White Mountains and the Mogollon Rim, has at least three contiguous National Forests:  Sitgreaves, Apache and Cococino.  All of these have established campgrounds, and all allow dispersed camping (boondocking).  There are also city and county campgrounds, State Parks, and many private RV parks. 

Entering Sitgreaves National Forest

Somebody told us a ways back in our travels to go to the Lakeside Ranger Station out by the Show Low Walmart and there would be a good campground close by.  Wow, they weren't kidding!  Right across the street from the Ranger Station is Lakeside Campground.  

This is a very interesting place to camp.  The sites are large and wooded, so you feel like you're out in the boonies.  However, just outside the campground entrance is a bus stop, where you can catch a little bus that drives all through Lakeside-Pinetop, two communities a few miles south and east of Show Low, as well as out to the Hon-Dah Casino on the White Mountain Apache (Fort Apache) Reservation.  So you can have the best of both worlds here--a spacious, inexpensive campsite that's close to everything you might need or want.  

We can also take the Lakeside-Pinetop bus to its northernmost stop (Walmart) and transfer to another bus that loops through Show Low.  We haven't done that yet.  So far, we've been satisfied with finding groceries, the post office, and a bookstore on the bus route that goes by our campground.  

In fact, a lot of stuff is within easy biking distance.  I've been needing a new bike, so we took the bus up to Walmart the other day and got me an inexpensive 26" ladies 18-speed mountain bike.  It's much easier for me to ride a bike than to walk long distances, because a bike has zero impact on my knees. 

 My new bike!

We are experiencing very good and somewhat disappointing aspects of staying here at Lakeside.  The good part is, as mentioned, the sites are big!  Even though we're close to Highway 260 (I mean, we can walk to the other side of the campground and eat pizza and wings at a franchise), it's quiet in the evening.  Last night we watched a great horned owl hunting for field mice. 

The Beluga in our lovely campsite.

What's not working for us is the lack of electricity.  We have a generator, but it makes a troublesome burning smell when we use it, so we're not using it until we find out what the problem is.  

We do have a small solar panel with us, but it doesn't gather as much electricity as we sometimes need, given that I am not yet retired and need to keep up with my online business.  If it's cloudy for very long, I can't do my work.

We had been counting on being able to run the generator to have a little air conditioning during the hottest part of the day (it's about 95 degrees in the tin can...I mean, the Beluga right now).  We thought I'd be able to iron the scarves I sell on eBay while the generator was running, too, and maybe do a little sewing. 

So, much as we love this campground and the price (just $6 per night with Steve's Golden Age Passport), we did some research today and we'll be moving to a private resort on Friday, or possibly sooner if something opens up before Friday.  We're going to stay there about a month, which brings the nightly price down to about $10, which is a really good deal, considering it includes electricity, as well as some services we might not use, such as cable TV.  And we'll still have access to the bus, so we don't have to uproot our home every time we want to get groceries.  

So that's pretty much what we've got figured out in our nearly three weeks of summer travel.  We like driving a short distance and then staying a while, and we're enjoying the balance of woodsy camping and urban life.    

My Life Off the Grid

A bank of batteries we use to store solar power

When I was traveling earlier this year in the Guppy, looking for a warmer, healthier place to live where my arthritis wouldn't hurt as bad as it did in the Pacific Northwest, I mostly camped at places where I could hook up to electricity. Once in a while, I'd overnight at a Walmart, casino or truckstop, but then I really only ran the houselights and didn't attempt to really "boondock," where you live off the grid for some time.

I had done some reading about how to boondock, but I lacked confidence. For one thing, I was traveling alone, and it didn't seem like a good idea for me to go out and stay in remote places by myself. For another, I didn't really understand how to work anything except the house lights.

Early in my travels, when I tried to turn on the inverter, it screamed like a cat you'd just stepped on, which apparently meant it wasn't getting any juice. Later on, when I got new batteries and a new alternator, the inverter worked fine and I finally learned that I could plug in my computer or charge my phone or run a little fan--but this was late in my travels. Probably 6000 miles into them.

When Steve asked me to join him in Arizona this winter, living in his 5th wheel at Coyote Howls, a primitive RV park, he warned me that in some ways it would be like camping and that I may not like it. However, so far, I am enjoying it just fine. And it's been very valuable for me to see how a person actually lives off the grid. It's giving me a lot more confidence about my future travels in the Guppy.

Steve's 5th wheel, bike and trucks

I don't know any technical jargon. I tried to learn some from books, but it was all way over my head. I'm smart, but in an artsy literary way, not scientificky or mathy. (See, I like making up words.)

Anyway, what I do understand is, we use solar power. We are currently using four solar panels and four batteries. Steve used to use just two batteries, but with me and my computer here, now we have four. Basically, for every two or three hours of sunshine, we get an hour of being able to use the computer or DVD player or vacuum cleaner or whatever inside the 5th wheel.

Solar panels on the ground and on top of the 5th wheel

Usually there is plenty of sunshine in the Sonoran Desert. Occasionally we get a cloudy or rainy day, and then we may have to choose between getting online or watching a DVD that night. But that's okay--Coyote Howls has a clubhouse that has regular 110v power (ooh, that's pretty technical for me!) and we can take our computers up there if we want.

When we want to use electricity for anything besides lights in the 5th wheel, we go outside and turn on the inverter. Then we go back outside and turn it off when we're done.

The inverter where we turn the electricity on and off

There are some things you can't do with solar power, regardless of how much sunshine you are getting. We can't run an air conditioner, but that's fine. This time of the year, it's temperate enough to not need one during the daytime, and it's downright chilly at night. I also cannot use my waffle iron (it's in the Guppy for when I go camping someplace where I hook up to electricity), my sewing machine, my iron, my toaster, or basically anything that has a heating element.

For sewing and ironing, I can go up to the clubhouse, and I do. I iron there pretty frequently because I sell vintage scarves and Western wear on eBay, and I need those things to look good before I photograph them.

For making toast, we have a primitive toaster made out of an old coffee can that we use on the propane stove. We use propane for refrigeration, cooking and heating. The original propane furnace that came with Steve's 1978 Holiday Rambler 5th wheel no longer works, but he installed a propane wall heater that keeps the living room, bedroom and kitchen warm. Also the fridge in Steve's rig doesn't work and needs either replacement or a very expensive repair, so we use the fridge in the Guppy. This requires a little walking back and forth before and after cooking, but it's not a big deal.

The kitchen, looking into the bathroom

We can also heat water using a propane water heater, but currently we're not doing that. We take showers in one of several community bathrooms here at Coyote Howls, and we just heat up a little water on the stove to do dishes. We will start using hot water and taking showers here in the 5th wheel later this winter, when it gets colder and it becomes unpleasant to go use the showers in an unheated community bathroom. But for now, not having hot water in the RV is no big deal.

The living room, with the bedroom up the stairs

Living in this campground is not exactly "boondocking," because we do have a water hook-up instead of having to use water from the 5th wheel's tank. However, we buy drinking and cooking water rather than using the water that comes from the hose. They've upgraded the water treatment here in Why, but there are still very old pipes, so the water doesn't taste good.

We don't, however, have sewage at individual campsites here. So we use a Blueboy, which is a portable sewage tank. Every week, Steve empties the blackwater into the Blueboy, which he hooks onto the back of his truck and empties at one of the campground's dump stations.

Steve and the Blueboy

We have a very large lot here at Coyote Howls--larger than any city or suburban lot where I've ever lived in the past. The Guppy sits across the lot from Steve's still-unnamed 5th wheel, and I've been slowly emptying it out and putting some of my vintage fabric and art supplies in the shed. Soon I'll be able to use the Guppy as my eBay reconnaissance vehicle, taking it for trips to Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott or wherever to buy new inventory. I plan to get to Phoenix later this week.

The Guppy, parked across the yard from the 5th wheel

I also plan to use the Guppy to go camping and exploring. We're going to take it down to Rocky Point in Mexico and spend some time camping on the beach. I may also head to Quartzite later this winter to meet up with some VanDweller friends and then head further west to Palm Springs to do some upscale eBay shopping there.

In between trips, I'll be using the Guppy as my eBay office and art studio. Steve has an extra solar panel in the shed that I can use to keep the Guppy's house battery always charged enough to use the inverter to power my computer. And the solar panel is small enough that I can take it along and use it on my various trips. So I will finally get out and do some real boondocking with the Guppy this winter.

So that's essentially what it's like to live off the grid. We have to be conscious of our use of electricity, but it's really not a big deal. I don't feel the least bit deprived in any respect. In fact, we were in Ajo for a monthly fair at the downtown Plaza on Saturday and I had my blood pressure checked by a nurse from the local clinic, and my BP is the lowest it has been in many years. I'm feeling very relaxed and happy with the slow pace of things here.