Arizona 2024: Day 12: Willcox, AZ: Free is never free.
Silence and stars. The wind eventually died down, the sky was pretty clear. We slept in the quiet while occasionally glancing at the stars. By morning, there was zero wind and we were amazed at the silence. None of the sites near us were occupied. Maybe because of the incredible winds?
Morning walk I decided to head over to the Village of Rocks (I made up the name) which is a smaller outcropping of rocks about a km on the east side of the main city of rocks. It was a great walk that culminated at the top of the lookout above the village of rocks. Walk was a little over 4km round trip with 60m of elevation gained/lost. Some pictures, of course!
On the return trip I followed the official path and right a the path junction, Lou Reed’s New Sensations played (I listen to the same large playlist when I walk). One of my favourite songs ever, from a great album. Offspring #2 got me a t-shirt with the album cover on it as a Christmas gift.
Once the walk was complete and post breakfast, we took Amy for a walk in the city of rocks. She really likes climbing the rocks and plotting her own path.
And this concludes this episode of “1000’s of Rock Pictures”.
It’s moving day so we got the van ready and headed over to the drinking water spigot to replace the water we had consumed. There was a massive collection of bees drinking the spilled water, as I approached, they made it know that this was their watering hole. And we left to find another. Wait, there isn’t another? We parked at the visitor center and had shower time. Mrs Milddogs concurs with my rating of 5/10. I asked in the visitor venter if there was another place to get water and they suggested finding an empty electrical/water site and using that supply. We had thought of that and now had permission. Except, there weren’t any empty sites. We asked a guy from Colorado if we could use his water spigot and he was totally cool with that. We had a nice chat while we filled the tank. Turns out he was originally from Detroit, now lives in Colorado except travels to warmer places in the winter. He informed me that the dust storm I had photographed was dust from mine tailings. I’m glad it was about 12 miles away and blowing north mostly. We thanked the nice dude and drove off.
Water tank full, we hit the road to stop just north of Deming, NM to empty the other tanks at the gas station. Free! We had filled up with gas at this station a few days ago so no need to fill up again. And now I must confess! I still remain faeces free, however, it was close. I had not firmly attached the hose to the van at the bottom of the connection (it was askew) and as I opened my secondary valve, I saw some drips. By drips, I mean about 100ml of fluid. Close that valve! Phew, that was close! I hosed the area down thoroughly. Glad nobody was watching and thus no one will ever know about this small misstep.
We stopped in Deming for Sonic! Chilli Cheese Tater Tots! They never disappoint in the moment. Mrs Milddogs did leave a 1 star google review as her strawberry lemonade was 98% ice. Three sips, all gone.
Our target for the day was a Harvest Host near Willcox, AZ. It was a straightforward drive west on highway 10 with minimal winds compared to yesterday. Still saw plenty of blowing dust and dust devils.
Small construction delay near Willcox, that was the only hiccup.
We drove around the Willcox lagoon to look at the migrating birds. There were plenty of sandhill cranes and ducks.
Off to our Harvest Host. We are the only campers here. We got parked, relaxed for some minutes and then headed in to spend some money. Dinner! Flight of Beer! Picked up some cans of beer to go. Spent too much money 🙁 Dinner was good, I made the better choice having a “Pizza Burger”. We left Amy in the van while we ate but could watch her using our cellular router and a camera.
Currently unsure where we will go tomorrow nor Saturday. We will figure that out and let weather guide us. We have reservations for the week starting Sunday at a number of places.
Out!
