Day 21: Me mind on fire – me soul on fire: Lost Dutchman State Park
Day 21. That is 3×7=21. That is 3 full weeks of this adventure. We are about 6500 km in. Still going strong. If baking in a tin can doesn’t ruin it, what would?
Morning walk was fantastic! Since it was so hot I was on the trail by 0727. I intended to go up the north side of the Treasure Loop to Green Rock and back down the south trail back to the campground. Well, this might surprise you, I got it wrong. I may have a problem with trail navigation skills. I went up the south side and down the Prospector’s View trail. No biggie. Only difference is the north side is slightly more gradual incline. I stopped a bit too often to take pictures. Usually pausing my workout on the Apple watch. Turned out to be 5.02 km in 50:43 (travel time) with an elevation gain of 133m. Here are a bunch of pictures.
Our mission today was simple: Do not melt. Do not let the Snickers bars melt. Cool the van as much as possible before we have to move to our new site that lacks electricity. Barbaric we say!
Check out time is 1200 here. The people at the gate had told us to stay put and the other people would come and tell us when we should move to our new campsite. That did not happen. The Richard Wilkie type dude arrived at 1145 to make sure we knew 1200 was checkout. We explained what he had not been told. Then we left to go into town to provision.
Traveling with a dog means taking turns in stores when it is really hot. Amy and I hung out in and around the van while Mrs Milddogs did the shopping. At the third stop we gave up, turned on the generator and fired up the A/C . It was 35C in the van by then. We watched F1 qualifying.
Once shopping was complete we got to our new site which is also quite nice.
We have a lovely large Saguaro in behind our site. We have claimed it. Every time I type Saguaro I think of Tony Siragusa (he played football and did TV things).
Here’s a great idea. Amy was getting a bit doggish smelling with all this travel and walking around so we gave her a bath outside with our hoarded jugs of water. She dislikes baths but stuck it out. We then put her on her rope and the fun began. She rooted around this campsite like she was a wild boar. She had a great time. Mission not accomplished.
We do have someone across from us slightly blocking our view (Jason is his name). Fortunately he is in a Leisure Travel Van (that he ordered 2 years ago and just got) and not a 40 foot tall toy hauler or Class A. Jason seemed nice (I think that is a mandatory if your name is Jason, or Jackson or Jay or Wilbert) and we chatted about too many topics. He’s a Californian.
Dinner was T-Bone steak that Mrs Milddogs picked up at the provisioners. It was 14 inches thick (complete exaggeration) but she swears it was the thinest one they had. We cooked veggies and the steak on the Blackstone griddle. It was good and I forgot to take pictures 🙁
Post dinner sunset was pretty. Awfully nice of nature to open up the clouds and let the sun shine in.
Post dinner we went on a hike with Amy up the Siphon Wash trail (I think that is the name). As the sun was setting we kept it short at 1.5km and walked back in relative darkness. Good thing Amy always knows the way back home.
Now it is time to attempt to clean Amy again. So we bathed her one more time and then locked her in the van. Doesn’t really matter if she gets stuff wet as there is no humidity here, it will be dry in 17 seconds.
After we cleaned up Amy I hit the shower. I rank it a solid 10/10. Not because it was clean, it was far from that. But because there was no hot water and oh my it felt so good! If it had had hot water it would have been a 4/10.
We have been doing a bit of replanning based on the forecast (In this context, replanning means we have zero campsite reservations after Sunday night). Supposed to rain a bunch Monday night into Tuesday. Monday was when were were going to hit BLM land near Sedona. But most of the good spots in Sedona get a bit muddy in the rain. So we will hold off for a day. I’m looking forward to the healing vortexes in Sedona. Should cure all that ails me. I also want to go to Sedonuts.
I was reflecting on this being the 21st day of this journey. When DenDog and I did our Alaska trip, we did it in 20 (21 for me) days and covered over 13,000 km. That seems relatively torrid in hindsight. But that was our time budget and we had a goal. On this #vanlife trip, we have a time budget of 6 weeks and really only one goal: To get to Wally World! If only! Hey, we do make sure we don’t leave Amy tied to the bumper as we leave every campsite.
Let’s answer another question people have asked (or that nobody has asked): What is your favourite modification to the van? Thanks for the question, Timmy. That’s hard to say. I have made so many excellent modifications to the van. I should probably review each one some day. I’d say the blackout curtain we put behind the front seats. It makes it very easy to go private and really makes two distinct temperature zones. The front seats rotate to mostly rear facing. We have not used that feature yet. If we did, the blackout curtains wouldn’t be as convenient.
Tomorrow? Hide from the heat. Move to our new campsite in the same park. Maybe have a nap?? Hint, hammocks are pretty useless in the desert 🙁
The truth is in here.
