1-26-07 Stronghold, Bisbee
Jeez, what a winter down here in the desert. It has been one cold and sometimes rainy front after another. The little solar panel has been getting a workout just trying to keep my battery charged in the pod. It does well when I am just using a little electricity for the computer and lights, but I had been borrowing DVD’s from the extensive collection down at the Windspirit. If it was a nice sunny day there was no problem keeping the computer charged up with extra juice available to watch a movie at night. We had several days of cloudy skies and that little panel just doesn’t give out enough juice under those conditions. I really should have another panel out or have another battery for those sunless days.
My cell phone doesn’t pick up on that ridge and I have had to go into town to use it. Some of the people down at the commune are able to pick up a weak signal but it is some other phone company than Verizon like I use. The Windspirit has a wifi system set up this year and that has made it really nice to be able to go down and open the laptop and be automatically connected. It is a lot faster than my cell phone connection. I found out that in town there are a couple of wifi hookups that are blazing fast. One is at the coffee shop which reminds me of the Café Ufda in Miles City. They have special coffees as well as some really nice looking pastries. I can say that the ones I have tried were very good. The other hot spot is the public library. I usually just take the computer in and hook up to the power so I don’t have to be on the battery while I am in there. They don’t mind me taking my laptop in at all and almost seemed pleased. It is a lot better than going in and asking to use one of there computers. I have done that too but they only give you 30 minutes that way. They computers are almost always available until school gets out and then the kids come in and play games on them. I put the panniers on the Fatdog so I can haul groceries as well at the computer. I had been having trouble with the Fatdog wobbling at speed when loaded and a full 11.43 gallons of gas in the tank. I finally got some information from Geoff about how to adjust the shock. It has one of the Ohlin piggy back gas shock. After adjusting it to recommended factory specs (actually a few clicks more for the load) the bike handles very well.
Yeah, I know it is getting a little dusty, but it doesn’t seem to mind.
There was a storm front heading my way, so I decided to move camp down to the Cochise Stronghold (Dragoon mountains) which is a little north east of Tombstone, AZ. I have camped here before and sure did like it when I was there.
It rained the day I moved on down but it finally quit during the night. There is a free campground area just outside of the developed campground. They have this area I think for equestrian folks as horses are not allowed in the developed camp. that campground is a fee area and they charge ten bucks plus another five for a trailer. It is a horrible place to camp, or in my opinion at least. They have the camp areas all stuffed in together with paved road/parking area and cement curbs. They do have a nice crapper but no water available. They have this area all set up to gather money from the public. You cant park out side the official grounds and have to go in an therefore pay the fees. There is a equestrian parking area and trail head for the horse folks but no overnight camping. Hell, the sign even says that only equestrian use is permitted. I didn’t see that frigging sign and parked my bike in there anyway because I wanted to hike the horse trail and not the people trail. It was a nice little trail up and over the hill which was good exercise.
That cold front did come in with the rain and it was cold that night and the next day. I finally got my thermometer out and the next morning it was 26 degrees.
The clouds went away and it finally warmed up. I have a really nice camp here. The granite boulder mountains are absolutely wonderful and they have made nice decomposed granite soil. It drains well and the ground didn’t stay wet for long. The sun is really high in the sky down south and it warms up nice during the day.
Yesterday it was still pretty chilly in the morning and the bike wouldn’t start. It has that 20-50 oil in it and these bikes don’t have much of a battery. It was almost ten in the morning before I got it started. I got dressed and headed south looking for the road across the dragoon mountains but missed it somehow and ended up down in Bisbee. The fun never stops in Bisbee and it has turned into an artist community. This was out in front of an artist shop and it was doing a good job of stopping traffic.
I wanted to go see if I could find some friends I met a couple of years ago down there. It turned out that they are friends of another friend of mine in Miles City, Terry Hanson. They are Tom and Helen Suby. Tom is an artist that does iron wood carvings and Helen works at a near by college. Tom was over at a friends but Helen was able to call him and get him to come on home. I had a nice time talking with Helen as we did the dishes. They had had lots of company and the kitchen police needed help. There house is way up on the hill above Bisbee and I walked out on the deck to check out the view. When I was in Miles a few weeks ago staying at Carla Muggli’s place she raked me over the coals for not sending photos of flowers like I did last year. Well, here were some flowers in full bloom so I went back in and got my camera.
You might notice that strange shinny thing and wonder what it is. It is a solar oven and when Tom came home he went out to check the progress. Tom does the cooking in ‘his’ solar oven. He put in a skinned free range chicken, some yams and a little water in one pot and water and wild rice in the other. He was checking the results after about three hours.
The chicken and yams.
Wild rice.
You probably can’t see but they temperature is 240 degrees. The rice was done and the chicken was about there too. Not too shabby eh? Wow, just looking at the pictures makes me hungry. Tom says this would be perfect for trailer camping like I do.
I headed on back to camp via the Tombstone highway. I filled the tank on the Fatdog and put in 9.5 gallons and had gone 336 miles, so I guess it is getting about 35 mpg at a highway speed of 65 mph. I guess I had about two gallons left so it would seem I can go 350 miles pretty safely and more if I slow it down some. Putting over twenty buck of gas in a motorcycle opened my eyes though. It was a Standard station and I thought it was the only one in town but as I left town I found a cheapie station, or at lest one that was cheaper than the $2.90 I paid and that was for regular. Damn those tourist places.
The road over the Dragoons takes off just outside of Tombstone and it was a pretty good gravel road. There are a lot of big houses going in out in the desert all over this country. One person said that there are gated communities going in all over. Folks moving here from all over the cold country I guess. It was a nice ride over the pass and now I know how to get over from the east side where I am. Tom says that there are some really nice camping areas over on the west side and there isn’t the developed campground over there, just camp sites. I think I will take a run over on the bike and check them out but it would be really hard to leave this place as I get some really nice morning sun and on the other side I would have to wait until late morning go get that sun. The road in and out here is a lot better too. I will have to see.
I took a look at a little road this morning that ends here at a big canyon. There was a little trail going down in the wash and I thought it might head on up that canyon but the trail petered out and those boulder are a lot harder to climb over than they look especially when those nice little green bushes are so vicious and want blood.
It was just such a nice sunny warm day I decided to work on my bench and pound on some silver. Darn that silver is sure going up in price lately. Heck, what I make might be worth something some day, if it keeps going up! It was just so nice I had my shirt off and really enjoying the day. It turns out I over did it a little and am have just a slight pink to my skin this evening. I think that is better than frostbite like some of my friends up north are in danger of. Spring is just around the corner, they say……