Boondockers at Ehrenberg

Dramatic clouds

  After leaving Jojoba Hills, we headed on to Ehrenberg, AZ to meet up with the Escapees Boondockers Birds of a Feather (BOF) group. We had shopping to do first, so we drove north into Palm Desert, stocked up and spent the night at Spotlight 29 Casino.


hiking back up from  the canyon

red cactus seen on the hike

  On Tuesday, we arrived in the early afternoon, our first time to actually meet up with the Boondockers group, although we have had their newsletters for the last year. The have meet-ups for 14 days in various places usually one right after the other, with different combinations of people. It was a nice sized group, plenty of people to talk to, but not so big you didn't get to know the names everyone. There were several old-timers and we enjoyed hearing their stories of life on the road and how things have changed. There were a few newer people like ourselves and several in between. Many are early risers and get up to have 'cowboy coffee' over the fire at 7:00am. I made it out there one morning when there were still people hanging around talking. I'm not that much of a morning person! Happy Hour was earlier than we were used to at 3:00pm, but that's because in early January, the sun sets so quickly. A couple of nights there was a fire, so I sat out and chatted with the few hardy souls who were out there. There were some days too windy or cold to sit by the fire, but some days were beautiful.

We are parked on top of the mesa

   The view from up on the mesa where we were was quite beautiful, overlooking the valley into the town of Blythe, CA, a mere 4 miles away on the other side of the CA/AZ border. It made for some interesting moments when we were trying to figure out which time zone to use! Our phones were using Pacific Time, but I changed the rig clocks to Mountain Time.
   The day after arriving, we joined the group in Blythe at the Sizzler Steakhouse for dinner. It was a large bunch and fun to see most everyone in the group at once. I was hoping it would help me to figure out who was who, but it still took me several days to get everyone sorted out.


desert artwork

   On one of the days, several of us went on a hike down into the canyon and along the dry wash and then back up. We saw coyote prints all over, some scat of varying kinds, and likely javelina hoof prints. Someone saw a lizard, which I missed, but I was able to see one another day.
  Another day I went shopping with a few of the ladies in Blythe. We checked out the Walmart and a thrift store and then got groceries before heading back. They also drove by the best place in the area to dump tanks and fill the fresh water, always a good thing to know!
  Jerry and I went into town one day to do the laundry and brought back some damp clothes to hang dry, rigging up dry lines from the ladder on the back to the truck. One experienced RVer who washes their own laundry using a hand crank washer and spinner came over and offered the advice to use tent poles for stringing the drying lines up. I will have to look into that! Clothes dry quickly here, and the dryers eat up quarters.