Diamond Rock Campground, AZ...A little spot in Paradise!

Just a quick little update on The Frog!  Living the Life!  LOL!

This past Memorial Day Weekend was not busy at all! All the fire warnings and fires in the area, and the "closures" that the Forest Service has done to keep the chances of a fire started "by man" down to a minimum caused a lot of the "weekend warrior" campers to not come out.

So I only had 9 campers total in both campgrounds for the weekend! It was quite fabulous!! So quiet! And it is even quieter now, since the weekend is done!

Just made a run into Springerville, AZ to pick up a few things that I needed to get. Currently sitting at the Alpine, AZ library. A really nice little library. They even let "seasonal" folks have a card...for free!!

About to head back into the gorge...if you want to have a look at where I am going to be located for the next 5 months, just do a Google Maps search for...."Diamond Rock Campground, AZ"....and it will pull it right up!

I'm 9 miles from pavement, then 11 miles into Alpine, and about 31 miles from Springerville. The run into Alpine take about 30 minutes....to Springerville....and 1 to 1.5 hours!

I'm in my element!!!

C'ya soon!   

"Grand it is...when wandering time has arrived!"

---Inuit saying 

Killing Time!

I'm in the Coconino Natl Forest area of AZ. I'm what they call "dispersed camping"...for us normal folks, it's called "dirt camping"!  LOL!  Just found a spot in the woods, pulled in, leveled Europa (well, mostly level)...and the camping started! 

I'm shocked to be online...can't really upload pics, but have been texting & can make calls ... most of the time! 

I've been doing some major sightseeing! 

I spent four days, I think it was, at Paria (puh-ree-uh) ruins in Utah. There are no "ruins", but the scenery was awesome. Spent quite a few hours running Forest roads there.

Have been thru the Wapukti Nat'l Monument, several sights of 800+ year old Pueblos! Very interesting!  And right now I'm camping a road the road from the Sunset Crater Volcano Nat'l Monument. Very gorgeous scenery with mtns covered with cinders, a massive lava flow & most uniquely shaped trees I've ever seen! Also going to be going to Walnut Canyon Nat'l Monument, another pueblo location.

And needless to say, I've been running along quite a few Forest Service roads in the Coconino & in the Monuments with Sidekick! And she has done an excellent job of getting my through...or out of...all the places we've gone into.  Even when I had to atop, get out, walk up & look at what was coming next, thinking..."maybe I should turn around", then turning around & realizing there was no place to turn around, AND I sure wasn't going to be able back out...so onward we went! And it has been a blast!

I have to be at my campgrounds I'm hosting this summer by the upcoming weekend, I'm going to stay through Thursday night (have some work to do on Europa (have developed an exhaust leak around the manifold somewhere), so I see a couple of days maintenance work in my immediate future!

It will be a week or so, probably, before I'm able to upload pics...but rest assured, there are quite a few waiting in the wings, & video, to be uploaded!

That about does it for this update. Stay tuned...much more to come!

C'ya!  👍🐸🚐 🏕🏔🏞🏜🛣

Morning from AZ Strip & Pipe Springs Mon.

Good Morning from the AZ Strip & Pipe Springs Nat'l Monument!

We made the run to the Grand Canyon on Wednesday! It was an absolutely glorious day!!!  If you really want to know just how big you aren't...then you need to stand on the side of the Canyon...no signs, no fences, no tourists....and you will get a feeling that you have never had and  probably it will change how you look on all the great things done! It is humbling!

I really don't know how to explain just what this trip has done to me and my look upon daily living...but it has been changed. So I guess that the best way for me to try to explain it is....share some of the photos from the Canyon!

Well, all packed up and ready to head out this morning! Might get 30-50 miles under our belts today!!!  Stick around and keep an eye out for updates...we will be hitting Zion Nat'l Park and Grand Staircase Escalante Nat'l Monument over the next 5-8 days...so when I have decent Wi-Fi again, there will be more pictures and maybe even a video or two!!  

C'ya!  Be Safe!!

ARIZONA!!!!

Hi guys! Well, I've made it to Arizona. Can you tell!!  LOL! Right now I'm parked at the Paiute Tribe campground just up the road from Pipe Springs National Monument. And back down the road just about a mile is the turn off to run into the Strip. We just might do a short run into the area this afternoon. Want to scope out a spot to camp at starting probably Wednesday.

The campground here is basically new. They have just recently do a lot of upgrades to it, it has a new "common building" that has showers, a laundry facility ( and I was surprised that they were only $1.75 washer and dryer).  

Spent a couple of nights just east of Jacob's Lake, which is the cutoff to go down to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The North Rim doesn't open for several more weeks.  But did some Forest Road driving in Sidekick. Was a really pleasant day.

I will definitely be doing this type of travels to see the "big" sites either before the season or after the season. The traffic is hardly any!

There will be a couple of more updates over the next two days....so stay turned! 

Arizona for the Summer!!

Still in Texas...and still working on Europa. But we are getting closer each day to being ready for the trip AND adventure to Arizona. This has been a good stop and working visit to the kids here in DFW area. Have gotten quite a few things accomplished with Europa.

Due to all the rain...and I mean RAIN...that has been coming through the area over the past few weeks, I think I have finally found and conquered the leaks that were left in Europa. I even found a couple that I didn't realize that I had! The small ones were easy...there is still an issue with the windows...but my temporary fix has worked, so this coming week I'll be making small "awnings" over the middle of the windows to channel the water away from the bases of the windows...that is where the leaks were coming from.

Also have gotten the antennas for both the SiriusXM Sat Radio and.....

Hard to see, but I also found a "dome" tv antenna that works like a little champ... 

And both are mounted on the ladder on the rear of Europa, and they both work like a charm!

I've also managed to get 3 100watt solar panels mounted on the roof of Europa and still have my 120watt kick-out set, so when parked for over 24 hours or so, I can have a total of 420watts of solar charging my batts...and with a total of 35amps plus at times, I do believe that I will be able to do just fine in the desert!

 

I've also managed to get 4 aux batteries installed, so it seems that I will have the storage to get thru a couple of days of gray skies just fine. My main power drain is the fridge, and at a low setting, enough to keep my cheese and a few things cool....to include a couple of beers!....this should be a peaceful summer!

That is about it for now! Stay tuned for more of our adventure this summer!

OH!!!!!

BTW......

Believe it or not.... After going to the Arizona Strip with my buddy Pete, when we get "done" with that adventure....Pete will be headed to Idaho for the summer, back to the Sawtooths....and I will be headed to the Apache-Sitgraves Nat'l Forest to camphost 2 primitive campgrounds until end of September or so. 

They have a total of 17 sites....all primitive campgrounds...just fire pits...one bathroom each campground....next to the East Fork of the Black River....at an elevation of 7800 feet plus!!!! 12 miles from the nearest paved roads...OFF THE GRID!!!  And I'm just really looking forward to it!

So I'll be doing updates every couple of weeks when I "go to town" to do laundry & get supplies. Should be a fabulous summer!

Take care and more to come!!!

C'ya!!