Ruby, Arizona, used to be a mining town, built after the first strike to its ore in the 1870s. Along with a shaft mine—that produced gold, silver, and then lead and zinc—came the company town, including a handful of houses, two barracks, a nine-bed hospital, a cement jail, a school for up to 150 children, a […]
Tag: Arizona
Blogging in Dark Times
As I write this, I’m thinking about the war in Ukraine. Yet, almost two years ago, I wrote about the weirdness of “living on vacation” and writing about it when the rest of the world seems like it’s on fire (George Floyd had just been killed). I’ve blogged about my nomadic life during the worst […]
Compelled by the Desert, Again
Tracy and I were driving due south from Tucson to find a campsite almost on the border with Mexico, when I realized something important. We’ve been letting the idea of where we spend next winter percolate in our plans (as well as actively brainstorming, searching, wracking our resources and hearts) but—no dice. We have no […]
Tamarind Sour, Gliders, Goodbye Tucson
It’s our last evening right outside the Ironwood National Monument Lands (northwest of Tucson), and I’m feeling the Sunday blues just as if I had to go to work tomorrow instead of picking up and moving on to the next interesting place. It’s true the desert here is flat and mostly creosote bushes, but I’ve […]
Strip Mall Tourists
We’re the lamest tourists ever when it comes to visiting cities. We’ve traveled nearly all over the country by now, so why haven’t we immersed ourselves (or even just dipped our toes) in urban culture? Covid Could Still Mess with Us I’ll be quick about this because I’ve belabored the point many times: If Tracy […]
A New Week, A New Desert
We’re actually still in the Sonoran Desert, but we moved east—from the lovely Ajo, Arizona, toward the city of Tucson, trading a green area for a brown one. But we need city stuff so we bit the bullet. The travel day to get here was another humdinger, too. After hitching up and maneuvering out of […]
Water Conservation While Boondocking
We may get rain today in the Sonoran Desert just south of Ajo, AZ, and if it’s more than just a drizzle, it’ll be the first rain we’ve ever seen in the desert, and I’m pretty stoked. The washes (dry “river” beds) might fill with running water, and we might see blooms on cacti and ocotillo […]
Mines, a Desert Cemetery, and One Awesome, Useless Map
We’re having a delightfully quiet week (or longer, if our tanks will last) here in the Sonoran Desert just south of Ajo, Arizona. We’re only about 30 miles from where we were last: Organ Pipe Cactus Nat’l Monument, so the landscape is pretty much the same, but there’s no campground, and thus fewer people around. (We did […]
Tracy’s Parking Skills for the Win Again
We made it into a great boondocking spot in the desert just south of Ajo, Arizona, thanks to a wee bit of luck and a lot of work. Here’s kind of a technical post about finding a boondocking site and actually getting into it. Finding a Site in Hilly, Cactus-covered Desert Here’s the rundown on […]
Saguaros and Sunrises
So, in an earlier post I think I said that saguaros are old enough to start sprouting limbs after about 35 years, but I just heard from a National Park tour that it could take them up to 65 years. How fast they grow and mature depends on the rainfall in the area. We’ve walked […]
