No way

Searching for a camping site in the Gila Box Riparian National Conservation Area northeast of Safford, Arizona, my wife and I were following a narrow, rough road when we came to this sign. Fifteen percent! That's almost twice as steep as on the worst route into Death Valley. And a near-hairpin turn half-way down. A dinghy or pickup alone could have made it, but a 12,000-pound trailer? And we'd have to come back up after our camping. I could almost hear the brakes and transmission groaning. I chickened out and backed up a quarter-mile to a suitable boondocking site we had just passed.

The next day I hiked along the Gila River and saw this old truck on the rocky slope below the road. Apparently it had slid off. I don't know the circumstances, but the wreck seemed to validate my caution.

A better movie

Like many RVers and virtually all critics, I was disappointed in last spring's movie "RV," starring Robin Williams. My disappointment was redeemed recently when I watched the 1954 film, "The Long, Long Trailer," with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, on satellite TV. I had seen it in the theater decades ago as a kid and had forgotten how enjoyable it is. The plot concerns a newly married couple who buy a trailer and have a series of mishaps. Like "RV," it's slapstick but much more tasteful and realistic. Even though it's a half-century old, "The Long, Long Trailer" depicts situations that many modern RVers will find familiar.

"The Long, Long Trailer" also connotes the days when you could go the movies and not have to endure commercials and booming, surround-sound volume.

Apache warrior

Sadness clouds much of the recorded history of Apache Indians in the Southwest since the arrival of white settlers and troops. The government broke treaties with the Apache, hunted them down and confined them to reservations. Officials exiled many, including Geronimo, to a prison camp in Florida. Hundreds of Apache children had to leave their homeland and attend boarding school in Pennsylvania, where educators forced them to abandon traditional practices.

Although modern descendents of the defeated Apache have assimilated American culture, they haven’t forgotten that once their ancestors roamed defiant and free. This statue of a mounted Apache warrior with drawn bow seems to symbolize that image. While staying at the RV park at the Apache Gold Casino Resort on the San Carlos Indian Reservation in Arizona, I took a walk and noticed the statue on a rise overlooking the golf course. An Apache employee of the resort, talking about the statue, jokingly told me that “he comes alive at night.”

I wanted to believe him.

No more hikes

My wife doesn’t enjoy the off-trail exploratory hikes I like to do from campsites, so until recently my hiking companion was our west highland terrier, Woody. Over the years he and I have tramped together across all types of terrain except those that were just too rugged for his short legs. While I studied geological features and plant life, he chased the jackrabbits and ground squirrels. We shared some adventures—getting caught in thunderstorms and being overtaken by darkness, for instance. This photo shows Woody on a hike at Afton Canyon in the Mojave Desert.

As he aged, Woody became hard of hearing, and he gradually started lagging. Eventually, I had to restrict him to short, easy walks near the trailer. Now I take extended hikes alone. It’s hard on both of us. I miss his company, and he doesn’t realize he’s 14. As I slip on my backpack and walk out the door, he stares at me with his big brown eyes, his ears perked. “How come you never take me with you anymore,” he seems to ask.

Woody’s grounding haunts me with the reminder that someday I, too, will no longer be able to do more than short, easy walks. Someday I’ll have to give up RVing altogether. Meanwhile, each trip, each hike seems a little more precious.

And Woody? In deference to his senior status, we pamper him endlessly.

Mystery post

I like to explore on foot wherever we park our trailer, and even in remote areas I usually come across evidence of human activity. I found this upright post on an isolated rocky slope about a mile west of the Red Rock Canyon campground near Las Vegas.

The post didn’t appear to commemorate a grave; the pile of rocks at the base seemed intended only to support the post. It bore no identification words or numbers, such as you’d expect to see on a government survey marker. And if this was a mining claim, the cairn had no supporting document tucked inside some container, like other mining claims I had found.

I saw no similar posts in the area, nor any other signs of human presence.

Any ideas?

The force of water

Although the Southwest presents an image of an arid, dusty region, water was a dominant force in the formation of two popular national parks there my wife and I visited recently in our fifth-wheel.

In Death Valley, the hottest, driest place in the country, you can see the effects of water everywhere. Death Valley’s sand dunes, playas, alluvial fans, debris cones, salt pan and canyons are all the result of various forces of water. Many of Death Valley’s rocks were created from ancient seas.

The infrequent rain in Death Valley often comes in downpours that cause flash floods. All around me on a hike above the Mesquite Spring campground, where we stayed, was evidence of these floods’ incredible power, such as boulders jumbled against one another. The top photo shows a flood-carved gully.

Grand Canyon, the other national park we were in, would not exist without the Colorado River. Geological uplifting, faulting and erosion were also necessary, but the constant downcutting of the river over the last several million years was the major agent. This is a scene of the Grand Canyon's South Rim and the Colorado.

Coyote ritual

Whenever my wife and I leave on an RV trip, we always play our favorite LeAnn Rimes CD to celebrate our departure. But no matter what route we take out of town, development surrounds us for hours. In a sense, we don’t feel that we’re really on a trip until a second ritual takes place: hearing the sounds of coyotes.

Of course, we have less control over the second ritual. If we stick to freeways and overnight in RV parks for the first couple of days, we’re unlikely to be indulged. Even when we’re finally camping in the remote areas we love, the local coyotes don’t automatically serenade for us right away. Eventually, though, we hear them, usually in early evening. Sometimes we’re having dinner. Sometimes we’re already in bed. Then it comes—a high-pitched, mournful yipping and baying, often in a symphonic unison.

At last we know we’re really, really, really on an RV trip.

Pioneer graves

In the 19th century, thousands of western-bound travelers died before they reached their destinations in California and Oregon. Some of their graves are preserved, such as the one in the photo. It’s in a tiny pioneer cemetery I noticed off unpaved Robidoux Road in rural western Nebraska. Dunn may have been an emigrant on the Oregon Trail, which parallels the road. Or he or she may have been associated with a party of American Fur Company traders who spent the winter of 1849-50 in the area.

For every visible grave, though, countless more are unmarked and unknown. Sometimes the travelers hid the graves of their deceased to deter scavenging Indians. Often they simply lacked the time, energy or resources for a substantial burial. Growth of trees and foliage obscured many graves that were marked. And, of course, in all but the driest environments wooden monuments gradually deteriorated over the decades.

Whenever I hike near the Oregon Trail or other western migration route, I’m haunted by the realization that the ground I’m walking on might contain the remains of a long-forgotten pioneer. A few unmarked graves could probably be rediscovered through technology. Most, though, are lost forever. For me, the mystery adds to the allure of history.

49ers Encampment

For me, making delightful discoveries is one of the great joys of RVing. But you have to be in the right place at the right time. The law of averages demands a few disappointments.

When my wife and I entered Death Valley National Park from Beatty, Nevada, last week, we headed directly to the isolated Mesquite Spring campground. Only when we drove to Furnace Creek to tour the visitor’s center three days later did we learn that the Death Valley ‘49ers’ 57th Encampment was under way there. Originating in 1949 to observe the 100th anniversary of the 1849 California gold rush, the Encampment has evolved into a grand celebration of western culture.

Hundreds of RVs were parked in several huge dry-camping lots. Here and there, amid the motorhomes and trailers, members sat in small groups, talking and laughing. Everywhere, people milled about with cameras and smiles. The scene reminded us of bustling, colorful Quartzsite in January, minus the vendors.

Unfortunately, by then the five-day, early-November gathering was about to end. We looked at a schedule of events and realized how much we had missed—square dancing, slide shows, poetry readings, a costume contest, pancake breakfasts, a horseshoe tournament, an art show, jamborees....

We wished we had arrived earlier. But we had a couple of consolations: the Encampment will return next year, and the Quartzsite festivities are just weeks away.

Just listening

While camping at the Bouse Community Park campground in Arizona, I heard live country music across the way and strolled over from my fifth-wheel to investigate. About 15 people were listening, and occasionally singing along, to amateur musicians playing guitar, fiddle and violin. I sat down. As I listened, I noticed several of the women glancing at me.

After a while, during a break, one of the guitar players acknowledged me and invited me to introduce myself. I did, mentioning that my wife and I were staying in the nearby campground. A short silence ensued. The guitar player then informed me that I had joined a gathering of the Desert Singles from Quartzsite. Happily married and steadfastly faithful, I apologized and got up to leave, but he motioned for me to sit back down. “Everyone’s welcome here,” he said. “Got a favorite number you’d like to hear?” I requested “Home on the Range,” which the group then played.

The rendition was great, although the women no longer glanced my way.

Sorry about that

Guilty. I did it. I’m responsible for the cross-over lines in the photo. While my wife and I were staying at an RV park in Newberry Springs, California, I took a day trip in our truck to Mojave National Preserve to check out boondocking possibilities. On Cedar Canyon Road there I got stuck behind a road crew repainting stripes. The signs on a support vehicle clearly warned of wet paint and advised motorists not to cross.

For a few minutes I dutifully stayed behind the team as the painter truck and the support vehicle crept along at two or three miles an hour. I knew the crew eventually would have paused and waved me on had I been patient. But I was hungry and eager to return to our trailer to report my findings about boondocking sites to my wife. So, in a sudden fit of irritation I pulled out and passed.

Instantly regretting the action, I glanced in the mirror and saw the result. Several of the workers twisted their heads to look, too. No doubt they noticed that my truck had Washington state license plates.

Out-of-stater. Probably from the city. Comes down here, thinks he can charge around, break our rules.

As I sped off I half-waved to apologize, but the crew may have interpreted the gesture as a flip-off.

A couple of days later, after my wife and I had set up camp in the preserve, I returned to the scene and took the above photo. Realizing that the painters might still be in the vicinity, I pondered what action to take if I saw them: attempt another apologetic wave, stop and speak to them in person, or turn around and make a cowardly retreat. But they were nowhere in sight, and I felt the relief of a student who had gotten through class without being called on to recite.

My guilt lightened somewhat when I spied several other cross-overs on roads in the preserve. Apparently the paint crew were not particularly diligent about letting backed-up motorists pass. Wanting to leave a reasonably good impression of my home state, I could only hope the other guys had plates from elsewhere.