This year’s Labor Day camping trip became a week long boondock event with several friends up on the Mogollon Rim. We went up on Wednesday to get early pick of campsites. Once we got there we did see a lot of RV’s that got placed the weekend before to hold their spot but, we still got the first choice location Dan & Mel scouted weeks back. The Mogollon Rim area is a great get-away in the summer with 75-80 degree days when Phoenix is 110 or above!
The forest roads were quite wet on Wednesday and in one section of the road was very slippery red clay, there was little if any gravel for traction. Going up part of one incline I was turning left with the rear of the RV wanting to come up along the left side. I never had any worry about getting stuck, but it was very weird drifting in a 23,000 pound RV…We have not had our ATV with us on a trip in quite a long time, it was great to get out riding again!Dan & Mel brought their sand rail on this trip, it has long travel suspension and a turbo charged GM V6. What an awesome ride this was!One of our rides was out to Apache Maid Lookout, the views are at least 80 miles in all directions across the Coconino, Apache and Prescott National forests. Today we missed getting to the gate before the rangers went to lunch so our view this time was limited to the west.The distant mountain near the center is Sedona and to the right is Oak Creek Canyon.A small portion of the happy Hour crew posing with Sedona in the background.Alice & I posing with Jerome at the foothills of the distant mountains over my shoulder.On the way back from Apache Maid Lookout we took a detour down a powerline road. One of the rockiest trails I’ve ever been on and Charlotte hit a boulder that made her right foot slip off the peg and the rear tire rode up the back of her leg tearing the ACL. Not knowing how bad the injury might be we had an ambulance take her to the Payson hospital.Charlotte on the left with a new ACL injury, posing with Jessica who just had surgery to repair an ACL just 3 weeks earlier (hers was from a steer not an ATV 🙂 )Chasing the shade and sharing picturesDan and Chris on opposing teams on one of the many Corn Hole games…Bill and Andrea teamed with Dan and ChrisAndra, Jessica and Jasonstill going…after supper gathered around the campfire (those Colorado firemen tend a mighty fire)Several LED light globes adorned the campsite. One of the great things about boondocking is no 9:00pm quiet curfew.yes, more Corn Hole by lantern…Alice playing a little Suduko by the fire.
Most of the crew left on Labor day but three of us couples stayed until Tuesday to avoid the holiday traffic. Also makes it much easier to get a turn a the dump station. The next game we played was Over The Hillopoly, a different take on Monopoly. Dan being the senior camper got it for his birthday a while back.
Over the Hill Opoly takes just about as long to play as Monoply…The rules were similar but the pieces, properties and cards are way different than Monopoly…We play past the sunset and was quite dark when we realized it was time to get supper going. We finally ended the game and counted up assets to determine the winner.
Despite having 3 house batteries we managed to run them down on the last day. Since I wasn’t very good about running the generator at least once every 30-60 days to keep run fresh fuel, we could not charge up the house batteries during the trip. Getting the fuel filter accessible and cleaning the fuel line will be one of my first maintenance tasks when we bring the Bounder home to low elevations for the winter. The only bad thing about storing up north for the summer is that I have not built up a complete tool kit yet.
RV Cheaper! 