Kudos to Maricopa County!
We started out doing exactly what we don’t like to do: drive 400 miles in eight hours. Through the San Diego County mountain passes we experienced strong wind, rain, and poor visibility. I don’t know if you would call it fog or just being thick in the clouds, but it wasn’t fun. Once we dropped down into Imperial County the skies turned blue, but the wind did not die down. Our intention was to stop at the Imperial Sand Dunes for lunch and to play on the dunes, then American Girl Mine Rd west of the Colorado River for an overnight boondock. Both were nixed because of wind and blowing sand. We called Usery Mountain campground and were lucky enough to get a spot a day early.
The campground is near Mesa, Arizona. The weather was delightful, the topography rugged, a lot of nice Southwestern style homes, cheap gas, and plenty of mountain biking. Your mind wanders for just a couple of seconds, but that’s it. The summers are brutal and that’s being polite. Last year Phoenix set a record in July with a 31 day streak of highs at or above 110 degrees. No thank you!
The campground was really nice and spacious, but just partial hook-ups, though the showers were free. My only real gripe was the constant rat-a-tat-tat of the nearby gun range.
Site 74
We biked three days at Hawes Trails. The area is not very well signed, even with the MTB Project app it took a while for us to get the lay of the land. The riding was fun with some steep climbs.
If you ask me, this is an eyesore. Back in the day, painting rocks white and doing this on a mountain were quite common all over the west. This was done by the Boy Scouts back in the 1950s. It’s pointing the way to the Phoenix airport.
03/04 is from the tag for our rear view mirror for the day we had to depart the campsite and move to the original site we booked for three nights. It’s also my lovely wife’s birthday 😍.
Chain-fruit Cholla
We didn’t have the typical awesome desert sunrises, but this one was pretty good.
Mexican poppies. It’s always a treat to ride amongst the flowers.
Desert Wishbone-bush and Desert Star
Chia
The classic Saguaro sunset
This stop will always be memorable because of EJ Peak. When we saw it on the map, there was no doubt we would be hiking it. It was short and steep with magnificent 360 degree views. The entire hike I was reminiscing about my brother EJ. When we got to the summit there was another couple, Dave and Trish. They were delightful and gave us a geography and history lesson of the area. He was a past president of the Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society. His stories were fascinating.
It’s hard to believe, but next month will be 30 years since my brother passed.
One of the stories Dave told us was how they set up a 5,000 gallon tank to capture rain water for the Big Horn Sheep utilizing helicopters. It’s located between the peak jutting left and the peak mid center of the pic.
The views!
This is how folks are painting rocks nowadays, not white ones spelling out names on mountain sides. It was on our picnic table when we arrived. I’m kind of curious how long it’s been there. We left it there for the next campers.
That’s the first stop on our second long trip. We are super stoked to be using the same house sitters that we used in the fall.
We love reading the comments, so please feel free to do so, either through the blog or by text. I do my best to respond. Thanks for following our adventures.
Hard to believe Eric’s been gone 30 years. A one of a kind afraid of nothing force of nature. I will always be sorry for your loss Gregory. And your mom’s.
Would love to know how you guys started before the AirStream. We are thinking about renting through Cruise America to see if we like it and start out with a short trip and minus the biking. Just to see parts of the country a different more low key way. Thoughts?
Hey Goode, sounds like a good idea to me. We both grew up doing a lot of camping. So we knew it was something we enjoyed. We went straight to an Airstream. It was quite a learning curve! Hell, we are still learning. Definitely smart to rent first. There are so many places to see, and not that far away. Go for it!
Flowers are already popping up! Looks beautiful even with all the painted rocks ❤️
Ha ha 😀
Love it! Thank you for always posting the flowers too so I can learn the official names. My grandma lives in Mesa for years. So bummed the only place I saw was the restaurant where we went to dinner at 3pm along with everyone else’s grandmas. Didn’t know it was so pretty just outta town. Enjoy you crazy kids and so glad you got to hike EJ Peak. your mementoes keep your brother alive.
Oops she lived in Mesa. Passed a long time ago.
Omg!! I’m the typo queen. Grrr auto correct. I meant “your memories keep your brother alive.”
🤣 I knew what you meant! We should start to see some new to us flowers soon, so that should be exciting
I love this! Be safe and have fun!
That’s the plan Mama Jean!
yay! Another great adventure!!!