Category: June 2020

I feel so lucky to have a camper van! We bought it used, and it didn’t cost any more than an inexpensive car – unlike Mercedes Sprinter Vans, which come already custom outfitted, and cost as much as a small house! I’m lucky to have our modest van, and lucky to have John, who is handy and did most of the conversion himself. The initial conversion was done by the previous owner (I have him to thank for the two large solar panels on top).

As you are all acutely aware, it’s hard to find anything fun to do anymore. There’s no where to go and everything is closed. And we are being double careful because of my health. The van gives us the opportunity to go somewhere safely and still be completely socially isolated.

We packed a tent for Darren, packed up our food and the dogs and headed out. We drove northwest past Cuba, NM, and got off onto a series of forest service roads that John had located on google satellite maps ahead of time.

We didn’t even have to drive very far out before one of the spur roads dead-ended at the perfect camping spot!

The van was a bit crowded all loaded up!

But after we got there and got set up it was perfect.

When we first got there, we were all running around exclaiming how perfect the spot was. But I’m superstitious, so I was saying, “Stop it, don’t jinx us!” Because no place is perfect.

Turns out the downside was the hidden cactus. Our experienced desert dogs are pretty good about staying out of large patches of cactus. But this site had little round balls of cactus hidden in the sand everywhere. They were about the size of a walnut and had spikes coming out in all directions. Over the course of the weekend we had to pull cactus out of their feet, legs, off their bellies, off their faces, and even out of the roof of poor Kira’s mouth! (No, we didn’t take a picture of that, but here is a cute one of Kira – taken either before the cactus incident, or well after.)

Here, if you look carefully, you can see a large patch of hard-to-spot cactus in the lower right hand side of the photo. The dogs can avoid patches like these. What they were getting into was literally invisible, just under the sand.

The best part of the site was – it came with a trail! That’s unheard of – to unexpectedly have an actual good trail off a random at-large camping site. Usually trailheads have signs, parking lots, and plenty of vehicles. I was worried if we set up camp at the head of the trail, we would have people parking and walking through. But the trail was unmarked, so we took our chances. And no one came. We heard vehicles driving by on the forest service road, but no one came up our little spur. We had an-almost perfect camping spot, and a trail, all to ourselves!

On Memorial Day Weekend I was just getting done with two weeks of chemo, so I wasn’t feeling well. In particular, I was having issues with my feet, so I couldn’t walk very far. The first couple of days I could only make it a few yards down the trail. But toward the end of the weekend I made it all the way down to where it intersected with a wash, at about a mile in. It was very beautiful.

John had set up two hammocks in the shade. It was lovely, and the perfect way to rest my feet.

I don’t usually use the word “redneck” because it’s a slur against a legitimate subculture in our country and it’s not respectful. However, one morning I just couldn’t help myself. John and I were busting up laughing at Darren, who is about as liberal as a millennial can get, but wasn’t looking like it at that moment!

Darren was like, “I am not a redneck. I am a nerd.” And I attest that to be accurate, despite appearances!

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