Strolling Amok

Pops goes on tour.

Archive for the category “Tourista!”

05 May 2018
4 Comments

Oak Creek & NF-535

At 6,900′ elevation, this should prove livable for awhile! It’s about 200′ from the road.

As you can see from the photo above, I made it out of my campsite near Cottonwood intact, though I took the precaution of pumping the Mighty Furd’s rear suspension airbags up to 70 PSI instead of the usual 30. (Maximum is 100 PSI. Fascinating, I’m sure.) That raised the cargo box frame about 2″, just in case. Both left side tires are now wearing a few cactus thorns.

Getting to NF-535, otherwise generically labeled Oak Creek, was a brief and picturesque hop. That places me something like 7 miles south of the Expo site and not much further to Read more…

Posted in Campsites, Tourista! and tagged ,
26 Apr 2018

The Great Western Trail

These little stickers are on many trail marker posts here.

[I finally figured out how to set photos so that they can be clicked on and viewed much larger. Enjoy]

This will be an unusual post, in that I won’t tell you all that much about the title subject. You can search online for that yourself. Still, the small stickers I kept seeing along the Woodchute Trail I’m camped on made me curious, especially since one was placed on a trail clearly impassable by the Intrepid. I’m nearly at the practical limit of what the large-barge Furdster can do here, and to go more than a quarter-mile further up really needs a spotter to make progress practical.

Anyway, the so-called Great Western Trail is a modern patching together of existing trails into a network that is envisioned to go from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, and perhaps one day to Alaska. Because some of its pieces or at least locations have some historical provenance, as it were, its fans like to claim that some of your distant ancestors have used parts of it to migrate from one area to another. Mine? No, definitely not. Maybe yours. Some 350 miles of trail have been assembled in Arizona so far, and it’s likely that Read more…

Posted in Campsites, Daily Life, Tourista! and tagged , | Leave a comment
15 Apr 2018
1 Comment

NF-493 – The Movie

Well, due to its length of 29 minutes, not too many folks are going to suffer through this thing because it’s not relevant to how they camp or would want to camp if they could. Then again, if you harbor the same “get out there” delusions I do and want to find out what you can unknowingly get yourself into, then this is for you. All the trail surface variety and wild 3 MPH action is here. plus there’s all that blue sky on one side and mountainside on the other. Looking at the footage, it’s obvious that I dropped a wheel solidly into that erosion hole at ledge’s edge, and yet I can’t explain why no tire tracks can be found in the dust around the bad part of it. I’ll have to leave that mystery as it is. Not being a Read more…

Posted in Miscellania, The Intrepid, Tourista!, Uncategorized and tagged ,
15 Apr 2018
3 Comments

NF-593 – The Movie

My apologies: the route is NF-493. This error is in the video as well, so all subscribers have received another notification to a corrected post and video in addition to this now-bogus one. The corrected post is here.

 

Posted in Miscellania, The Intrepid, Tourista! and tagged
12 Apr 2018
1 Comment

On Tour: Woodchute to Jerome

 

A holiday snap taken by the Garmin VIRB Ultra, which inserted its own default data overlays of speed, elevation and location on a mapped track. And its own logo, of course. These are probably easy to get rid of, just as they are on video captures, but I haven’t explored that yet.

Once you get the video bug, it’s hard to stop seeing what can be done on a budget. The 16-minute video below takes the viewer from my campsite at Woodchute Trail through the eclectic town of Jerome, Arizona. If all you want is to see what driving through Jerome is like, just skip farther in. Should you be considering Woodchute as a potential camping spot, you’ll want to start at the beginning. Basically, anyone in any rig can make it up to the cattle gate, and there are plenty of pull-offs to choose from. Cell reception may be an issue there, however. In this video, you’ll eventually see some travel trailers large and small in this section.

Once past the gate however, your rig should be more compact and have good ground clearance, ’cause it can get pretty bumpy and rutted. 2WD is all that is needed in dry weather, however. The Mighty Furd’s new shocks certainly got a workout on a few parts of it, and you need to know how to pick your path to avoid dropping a wheel into something deep enough to ground out an axle. It’s not difficult at all, but it’s worth mentioning and something to avoid doing in the dark.

As for the mechanics of the video, it was all done with an action cam. Except for a view of the rear suspension taken by mounting the camera on the cargo box’s hitch stalk, all of the footage was taken Read more…

Posted in Campsites, The Intrepid, Tourista! and tagged ,
03 Feb 2018
7 Comments

Overland Expo West Tickets

Roughing it has its appeal, but a hot shower has more.

Well, there’s good news, and there’s bad news. The good news is that, as of yesterday, tickets are now on sale for this year’s Expo, if you’re planning on going. The bad news is cost. Apparently, the expenses incurred by moving this event to Fort Tuthill County Park near Flagstaff were higher than expected last year. That’s just a guess on my part. Whatever the reason, the result is that day passes are now $25 instead of $15, and 3-day weekend camping passes have jumped from $95 to $155 in one year. I do not know what the gate cost of day passes will be, but I do know there will be no such thing for the camping passes, since those will be sold out before long. I have mine now, but I can tell you that this will likely be my last Expo attend for awhile. I will make it a point to enjoy it!

Posted in Camper Nirvana, Miscellania, Tourista!
14 Jan 2018
2 Comments

Gratuitous Gunplay

A marauding pack of gun-totin’ crazies gathered in Yuma, Arizona over the weekend for a three-day competition. It was run by the Yuma Matchmasters, a local club which scores the time for each competitor in each category according to SASS (Single Action Shooting Society) rules. The main match consists of 12 stages, each of which varies slightly around the commonality of having to show proficiency with three very different kind of firearms, one right after the other: dual six-shot single-action revolvers, a carbine rifle, and a shotgun. The arms used can be new, but must conform to being replicas of early designs. This annual match is sold out, with a waiting list.

The garb? It’s required.

The serious competitive nature of firearm timed target or combat competitions pretty much evaporates here because of two requirements. The first is that Read more…

Posted in Tourista! and tagged
26 Dec 2017
3 Comments

2017 in Review – Part 3

[Same old data warning. You know.]

Taos Junction Recreation Site, New Mexico

Taos Junction Recreation Site, New Mexico

Taos Junction Recreation Site, New Mexico

Taos Junction Recreation Site, New Mexico

Taos Junction Recreation Site, New Mexico

Taos Junction Recreation Site, New Mexico

Taos Junction Recreation Site, New Mexico

White Rock, New Mexico

NF 445 in the Cibola National Forest, New Mexico

NF 445 in the Cibola National Forest, New Mexico

NF 445 in the Cibola National Forest, New Mexico

NF 445 in the Cibola National Forest, New Mexico

NF 445 in the Cibola National Forest, New Mexico

NF 445 in the Cibola National Forest, New Mexico

NF 445 in the Cibola National Forest, New Mexico

NF 445 in the Cibola National Forest, New Mexico

NF 445 in the Cibola National Forest, New Mexico

Joe Skeen Campground in El Malpais National Conservation Area, New Mexico

Joe Skeen Campground in El Malpais National Conservation Area, New Mexico

Joe Skeen Campground in El Malpais National Conservation Area, New Mexico

Joe Skeen Campground in El Malpais National Conservation Area, New Mexico

Joe Skeen Campground in El Malpais National Conservation Area, New Mexico

El Malpais National Conservation Area, New Mexico

Bar “S” RV Park, Grants New Mexico

Bar “S” RV Park, Grants New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

El Morro National Park, New Mexico

Bighorn Campground, Glenwood New Mexico

Southwest New Mexico

Posted in Campsites, Tourista!
22 Dec 2017
4 Comments

2017 In Review – Part 2

[Caution for those on data-restricted cellular accounts – BAIL OUT NOW. Don’t let this page continue to load, since it contains a hearty gob of photos.]

The return trip to Arizona begins with pulling a Captain “Wrong Way” Peachfuzz and heading northeast, then southeast.

Shelby, Michigan

Shelby, Michigan

Read more…

Posted in Campsites, Tourista!
20 Dec 2017
2 Comments

2017 in Review – Part 1

KOFA National Wildlife Refuge (Arizona)

[Caution for those on data-restricted cellular accounts – BAIL OUT NOW. Don’t let this page continue to load, since it contains a hearty gob of photos.]

I thought I would present here a kind of photo summary of many of the places I visited this year. Not all are represented, especially this section on the commute toward Illinois, when truck stops and rest stops were the norm in order to minimize travel time. This year’s trip eastward was unusual in that I first stalled for time waiting for the Overland Expo West in Flagstaff. Apart from locations, no explanations are provided in the photos – I don’t want to rehash what I’ve already written. You may be able to get an explanation by entering the location in this site’s search box at the upper right, but the purpose of this photo presentation is sometimes “pretty pictures”, sometimes a simple reveal of what campsites were like, and now and then, memorable moments.

Please note that you can click on any one of these photos to see its detail in a larger format.

The photos in this post are not new to this blog, but in a way, they are. First, I’ve always left my photos Read more…

Posted in Campsites, Tourista! and tagged

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