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February 11, 2020, Benson AZ

We left Asheville NC on January 15, 2020, with everything we owned in a Dodge Ram 3500. It took us four days to get to Elk Bend, Idaho to pick up the Outdoors RV F26RKS 5th wheel we had bought off RV Trader. We spent the night in it and got instruction from the previous owners and then pulled it to Salt Lake City. We stayed in a motel there, since it was in the 20s and we didn’t want to deal with freezing temperatures in the RV. The next day we pulled it to St. George, Utah. I swear it was uphill all the way until the last 60 miles. We stayed at Temple View RV park downtown for a week, just to catch our breath. We didn’t do much. We went on a couple hikes. The woman next door, Sherri Atwood, was super nice. We did a couple things with her. David is working SOOO hard to grasp the solar system setup. We unplugged a few times to see how things went on just solar.

From St. George, we drove through Las Vegas and through Kingman AZ and camped at Burro Creek, which was a pretty cool spot. We didn’t get much water, thinking we would find some the next day. We headed to the east side of Phoenix to a secret piece of BLM land to meet Jerud and Ching #livesmallridefree. They have been on the road five years. Jerud is very knowledgeable about solar. We spent three days there with them and #roaditup and went mountain biking at McDowell Mt park and hiked Tom’s Thumb. 

We moved on to Benson AZ. It’s fairly close to Cochise Stronghold, where we thought we’d do some rock climbing. Also because I had ordered some seat covers from CoverKing and had them shipped to Willcox. We found this SKP campground, which only charges $5 a day dry camping if you are a member. This means you just park on the asphalt area and get shower and laundry privileges. We joined ($40), thinking it wouldn’t hurt since we are so new to the game. Also, it was turning cold in a few days and they had a deal for a week for $65 for new members. So we did the week. David ordered a battery monitor and installed it, so we have more information about our solar system now. We also got some other stuff from Amazon like a bike cover, a stove eye diffuser, and an inverter. Shipping General Delivery works pretty well. We added another day for camping here since it rained the last two days. We’re still chicken to go that long without sunshine.

We did do some different things around here. We went over to east Stronghold twice, exploratory the first time and actually climbed the second time. We went to the west side twice, just looking the first time, then hiking Cochise trail the second time. That was a top 10 hike. The dry camping situation is better on the west side. The road on the east side is pretty crappy. I don’t know how #roaditup got their bus in there! 

Tomorrow we move to Tucson for a few days. We’ll check out Mt. Lemmon, but it got snow today. We need to visit an RV dealership for a couple issues. We’ll see if we like any of the free/cheap camping options. Then we’ll go down to Organ Pipe NM for a few days. Once we have the interagency pass, that will be cheap too. 

Robin