Winter Camping!

It was a beautiful sunny morning yesterday, so before we hit the road we went for another hike. Black Canyon Trail is a great place to stop for a short or long walk because the trailhead is right beside Interstate 17 at Black Canyon City just north of Phoenix.

But the trail runs through a river bed that's normally dry at this time of year.

Enough of the big city - back on the road!

We enjoyed our time with Jeff and Star (thanks again guys!), and our first experience with Boondockers Welcome , however we had had enough of the big city. So fortunately, the cold, wet, rainy, windy, and snowy weather system to the north of us has now passed by, and we were happy to be able to head out yesterday morning.

Still, it took us hours to get out of the built up area. We had a few stops to make along the way...

Biggest Booze store ever!

Our Boondockers Welcome hosts, Jeff and Star, had to stock up their booze cupboard, so we went along with Jeff to the biggest booze store ever. Well, I don't know about that for sure, but I am pretty sure it's the biggest booze store we've ever been in.

And great prices too, so we did some stocking up of our own!

February Expenses

Well that was a little better!

Coming off the almost record high month of January's expenses where we did a lot of driving and bought a lot of RV items as well as a new laptop, just about anything would be better.

And it ended up that we spent $1,200 USD ($1,568 CAD)...a full $2,000 less than we spent in January! Let's have a look at how it all broke down...

The big Mesa flea market

Our hosts Jeff and Star were taking us to the big Mesa flea market, but Star has a bad foot and decided it would be too much walking for her. But Jeff said he still wanted to go, so off we went!

Mesa sure takes up a big area. In fact, the whole Phoenix metro area just doesn't seem to stop. There are somewhere around 4.5 million people!

Great first experience with Boondockers Welcome

Yesterday, we drove down from Payson to Mesa to escape a cold front weather system that was forecast to eliminate the sunshine from Payson for the better part of five days. We could have dealt with the colder temperatures...but our electricity supply comes from our batteries, and when there is no sun, our solar panels can't charge our batteries!

And there was definitely no sun when we woke up yesterday morning!

Heading south!

Yep, with this cold front coming through with wind and rain, we're turning around! Heading down to Mesa for the next four or five days to wait for the weather to improve. It's only about a two hour drive, so it's not putting us out of our way too much.

We did enjoy our day yesterday here in Payson though...and it ended with a bang!

Heading north!

Which it turns out is not such a good idea.

Our plan was to spend some time at  higher altitudes and get out of the desert for a while. You know, fresh air, pine trees...that sort of thing.

So yesterday, we drove from 2,100 ft to our current location at Payson, Arizona at around the 5,000 ft mark.

Last day at Burnt Corral Campground

Almost caught up on the blog posts. We'll do another one later this afternoon, and then we'll be current again!

This post was written Thursday Feb 26th 7:30am.

Almost caught in a storm!

We're getting caught up on our three days away from internet, so if you missed this morning's post you can read it here...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2015/02/back-to-civilization.html

The following was written Wednesday, Feb 25th 7:30am.

Back to civilization!

Just back online after three days in a remote campground. So we have to get you all caught up! We'll start here, and post again later today with another update...

Written Tuesday, Feb 24th 7:30am

Yesterday morning, we said goodbye to our great free campsite overlooking Roosevelt Lake. We had seen and done everything we wanted to in the area, so no point in hanging around just for the sake of it.

After all, Sherman has wheels and we have more exploring to do!

Spring is in the air!

I know that those of you in the north eastern part of the continent don't believe it, but here in the Arizona desert, they are saying that we're in for an early spring!

And on our guided hike yesterday at Tonto National Monument, the wildflowers were blooming.

Glad we have the bikes again

One of the reasons we don't tow the little blue car when we're traveling with the motorhome is that we like to use our bicycles. And if we had a car with us, I know that we wouldn't use the bicycles as often as we do.

Yesterday (and today) was a good example of that!

What's around the next corner?

A bit of an overcast day yesterday, but still nice...high of around 75F (24C).

We decided to go for a walk, and left around 11:00am. We weren't planning on being gone long...just heading up the road that leads towards the mountain in behind where we're parked. Still, Ruth brought the small backpack with water and snacks because we have been known to get sidetracked sometimes!

Why do they make it so confusing?!

Yesterday morning, we got up and started driving right away. We were in a cellular dead spot where we had parked in Mammoth, so we had no internet. It was the first time our Verizon mi-fi had let us down.

Plus, by putting on a few miles right away we could use Sherman's engine heat to warm us up instead of using up  propane.