Lake Havasu - Learning to Boondock

Wednesday, November 13, 2013


Yesterday we celebrated a year on the road! We settled on our house in Maryland on November 12, 2012 and started south. November 9^th was Greg's last day at work. The year has flown by! No regrets. It's been a great decision for both of us.

One Year On the Road Celebration in the Arizona desert

After four nights at the BLM spot outside of Lake Havasu City, AZ, we finished, for now, connecting with our realtor, and signed the contract papers to sell our rental condo. We 're praying that all goes well to settle on December 17^th. With that done, we drove the short distance into town. We stowed all our gear, and didn't leave anything behind to save our spot. We wanted to try the real Craggy Wash boondock.

We decided to leave behind the off-roaders and their dust

And look for even better sunsets

After stops at WalMart, and Home Depot, to resupply our food, and look for a few odds and ends, we drove along the lake to Crazy Horse RV Park. The host at the last boondock told us that for $5, we could dump there and get more water, which was actually our most urgent need. They had a trash can as well, so we rid ourselves of our trash. Boondocking is “take it in, take it out”, as far as trash. We had to find room in the outside bins of the RV to store our trash. No room inside, and animals outside, so we rearranged a bit to fit it in an outside storage bin. We are generating more trash than usual, since we are using more disposables in order to conserve water. I hate to do that, but it's one of the tactics we need to use to live out here in the desert with no hook-ups or access to water. The longer we can stretch our water and tanks, the longer we can stay in this spot for free.

Lake Havasu "Landscaping"

London Bridge- Yes, someone disassembled it and moved it here years ago!

Original London Bridge Lamp Posts

After dumping and filling the water tank and four more five-gallon jugs, which are stowed on the floor in various places on our “spacious” floor, we drove back through Lake Havasu City. Seem to be lots of retirees and snowbirds here. Coming from the moist East, a town in the middle of the desert always seems rather bleak and dusty no matter how much people try to landscape it. Fun to visit, wouldn't want to settle here.

We found the entry road to Craggy Wash just past the airport. It took us a mile of driving on the dirt road before we passed all the no camping signs. There were lots of campsites and fire rings, but we guess that the front area got overused and they are trying to let that area rebound a bit. Stopping at the sign that said Camphost, we got a new slip of paper to count our 14 day limit here. We traveled another mile up the road, passing a few campers in RV's and tents, and found a spot that suited us. We are in a site that has been used before, which is what BLM encourages, and are a little more off the road than some of the other sites. That cuts down on the dust when people drive by. We can see a tent down the road, but otherwise, it's only us. It's mostly quiet. Occasionally we hear a small plane take off from the airport over the ridge.

The track up the wash. Campers mostly tried to stay out of sight of each other.

Sunset is early here behind the little volcanic ridge

The moon is bright enough to cast clear shadows

Sunset on a volcanic plug nearby. The cinder cone eroded away,
leaving the lava throat (estimated to be 6 million years old)

Remote enough to be quiet, but close enough to get local TV, cell phone and data.

Greg is enjoying the volcanic geology. We've seen a few lizards and a hummingbird. This area is supposed to have Big Horn Sheep, Bobcats, and Coyotes, but we haven't seen any. Just taking the days slowly and deciding when to move on based on how soon our feet get itchy, or we run out of water, or decide we need a “real” shower!!!