Since Monday was a holiday (apparently) DaNece and I decided to head out for a little camping on Sunday. We didn’t want to deal with the cold that we are seeing up here in Prescott, or the snow, so we headed south to lower elevations.
Since we are planning on camping again in a few weeks with Sadira, we settled on the area north of Wickenberg, figuring we could scope it out to make sure that temperatures were acceptable for a longer trip.
We drove around for a bit before finding a gate onto public land with some mountains behind it. We putzed slowly down the dirt road, and came to an old ranch house. Of course we had to stop to take some photos:
Behind the house was an expansive cattle pond:
Once done with taking photos of the surroundings we rolled out slowly down the road again, seriously enjoying all the desert scenery.
Eventually we found a spot that we liked for camping, nestled at the base of a small hill. We parked the truck and setup the tent on the leeward side. Then we climbed the nearby hill to get a view of the terrain.
You see that little spot of yellow (click for bigger image), that is camp. We were surrounded by a whole lot of nothing, and we were loving it.
Of course it was shortly after that picture was taken that I managed to drop my camera… right onto a rock… cracking the screen… again. Yeah, for real. All I could do was laugh, and stop taking pictures.
We finished our little hike and then headed back to our little home to start gather firewood. With all that nothing I was worried that firewood would be scarce, but I was pleasantly surprised. There was dead joshua tree bits, plenty of dead cactus, and some dead shrubs which all made for fine burning. Then it was just a matter of digging a firepit, cooking up some burgers, and sitting back to relax.
Bed time came early, as it often does when camping, and our new tent did absolutely awesome, and was big enough for two people, and two dogs to sleep comfortably.
We woke up to a nice 40 degree temperature. Just cool enough to make the fire appreciated, without freezing our butts off. I slept with my bag mostly unzipped throughout the night.
Breakfast consisted of a ham steak cooked over the campfire (on sticks! which really excited me), and little else. We packed it up and headed home to finish the weekend up.
A great camping trip, and we are definitely looking forward to going again with Sadira!
6 comments:
As usual, I had a great time catching up here, Tombo.
You really do have an interesting and varied blog. Loved the graffiti update and the restaurant update... the picture of the old ranch house set my imagination in gear. And wasn't it wonderful to see that cattle tank brimming with water!
Linda - I'm a pretty eclectic guy, I think the blog reflects that nicely. :)
I was amazed by the water in the tank. And by how green the desert was. There was a thin green carpet over most of the ground from the recent moisture. The barrel cactus were not doing so well though. I think perhaps too much moisture for them, as many had fallen over and brought their roots with them.
C'est la vie. :) Thanks for stopping by Linda!
The photos in your Flickr Set are spectacular, Tombo. But I'm sorry - - that looks like prime rattlesnake country to me!
Catalyst - Yeah, there were snake holes all over the place, but we didn't see any critters. We did hear some cows throughout the night though.
Whee!! I am SO SO SO excited (can you tell?) to go camping with y'all and was going to email you about supplies and what not...
We need to talk about all of that...
Sadira - Yep, it should be a grand time! I'll shoot you an email and we can figure out gear requirements.
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