The crew and I are all by ourselves today.
Rusty takes off around 7:30 to buy tires in Prescott. Although I enjoy his company, I also enjoy my alone time. My first task of the day is to grill some chicken breasts I took out of the freezer yesterday. The crew and I eat an early lunch when the chicken finishes around 10:45. What difference does it make when we eat!
That’s the way it is when you’re retired.
After putting the remaining pieces of grilled chicken in the refrigerator, I wash dishes. Being a good desert woman, I don’t throw out the dishwater. I soak my feet in it! After that, I use the water to wipe the bugs off the hood of the PTV. And then I wipe down all the lights on the PTV and the BLT. Finally, I clean the rims of the BLT before tossing what little water is left onto a bush.
Arizona is experiencing a mini-heat wave.
I call it “mini” because it’s going to be over by Tuesday. Today it’s in the nineties. There’s a cool breeze on the shady side of the BLT. I open the window and blinds on the shady side depending on whether it’s morning or afternoon. That keeps us cool. In fact, I don’t turn on the 12-volt Endless Breeze tabletop fan until around 2:30. I putter around and watch a little tv.
Around four o’clock I start to wonder where Rusty is.
He pulls in at five and beeps his horn in front of our camp. I go outside as he strides toward the BLT. I can tell he’s not completely happy. “Well, I got my new tires, but they weren’t on sale. The guy was talkin’ about the wrong tires.” I tell him I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m glad he has new tires now.
He sits down and gives me a report.
He drove up to Williams and scouted the boondocking areas north, south, and east of town. “The forest roads are dry down about two inches and under that it’s mud. The roads are deeply rutted. It’s too soon.”
He also tells me he drove up past Red Lake going toward the Grand Canyon. “The Forest Service is burning up there. I saw the smoke. And I heard on the radio that there’s smoke at the Grand Canyon Airport.”
Next week it will be cool again.
This weather makes it difficult to know when to move and where to camp. I was going to camp outside Williams tomorrow and find a dump station there. Now I’ll probably drive down to Chino Valley to empty the waste tanks. It’s an easy drive. No need to chug up that long grade to Williams if I’m not going to camp there.
If I can’t find a window of opportunity for camping near the Grand Canyon weather-wise, I’ll skip it and move out of the area. I don’t want to do that. Maybe after the burn, sometime next week, the conditions will be right for a boondock in the Kaibab National Forest off the road to the Canyon. The heat wave will help dry out the forest roads.
A quick entry with no photos today.
The writer got an attack of laziness and the photographer took the day off!
rvsue
P.S. I looked up the website for the Kaibab National Forest and Rusty’s report is correct. There was a prescribed burn today two miles southwest of Tusayan and west of Grand Canyon Airport.
rvsue and her canine crew 