Boondocking in Coconino Ntnl Forest
Just south of the Wupatki National Monument, Loop Road pokes out of the Monument and into the National Forest. While there is no camping (aka; overnight parking) in the National Monument I am free to do so here in the National Forest. While I was not planning to camp out here, my Verizon signal showed a 3G connection so I found a nice spot to pull off the asphalt called it a day after 99 miles of driving today.
I dove right into preparing some left over chicken breast, fresh broccoli, and some instant mashed potatoes for another civilized meal on the road. It was my last piece of the chicken breasts I purchased back in Douglas two weeks ago. I guess that $8 in chicken was a good purchase considering how long it lasted. I’m out of beer (which is a good thing) so settled for a tall glass of water. Hopefully this month I will stick to the no-beer financial diet.
As the sun was setting I began to survey the van and trailer. The van has been on my mind more and more this week with the oil light blinking at me more often then usual. It won’t be long before I have to decide on a new vehicle or to spend some money on this old guy to rebuild the motor. I’m fine with either decision, I just do not want to be stranded 20-miles out in the middle of no-where if the engine does decide to fail me. The mountain bike will come in handy if that does happen. The poor van has seen better days. With all the off-road traveling I have been doing these past few months it is caked with a rainbow of dirt layers from California, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. There are still bugs in the grill from the trip out to Texas back in October!
Little Jr behind is beginning to catch some of the dirt as well… looks a lot like Big Blue had a case of the runs eh? So concerned abut a flat tire on the trailer, and my lack of a spare, I picked up a 12v air pump and a tire repair kit. I think Jr has seen more dirt in the past 6 months then in all it’s 40 prior years. It is holding up well, but I look forward to finally dropping it in Colorado and getting my 15 MPG’s back when solo in the van.
