After leaving the Granite Gap BLM area I traveled south-west into Douglas, AZ where I restocked and stayed the night at the local Walmart. As I was nearing town it was clear as day to see that invisible line that is drawn across the desert. One side Douglas Arizona with...
A planned stop before returning to Arizona, Granite Gap is only 11 miles south off the Interstate on Hwy 80. It is BLM land that I had heard of before as a great boondocking area, and Verizon says they offer a 3G signal too, so I came out to see...
After weeks of “van food” I had an urge to prepare a civilized meal for dinner. I was not going to do any shopping, but I would take the time to mix up a proper meal with what I had. Some instant brown rice laid the foundation for a half-can...
City of Rocks State Park was born some 33 million years ago from a volcanic eruption (I’m sensing a trend) 1,000 times more powerful than Mount St. Helen’s. Over time erosion has created the rock ‘city’ we see today. I had read up on the park last year, in hopes...
I arrived in Deming on Thursday, two days ahead of schedule thanks to a lack of places I was willing to camp in the 100 miles between Truth or Consequences and here. I figure, since I drove the extra miles on Thursday, that just meant I had to sit still...
The mining town of Lake Valley was founded in 1878 after silver was discovered. Almost overnight, the small frontier town blossomed into a major settlement with a population of 4,000 people. Today, silver mining has played out and all that remains is a ghost town. BLM has restored the schoolhouse...
Fort Craig, established in 1854, was one of the largest and most important frontier forts in the West. Set in the rugged beauty of Socorro County, N.M., it was one of the eight forts situated along the primary north-south road in the Rio Grande Valley. Fort Craig played a crucial...
Bosque del Apache is Spanish for “woods of the Apache,” and is rooted in the time when the Spanish observed Apaches routinely camped in the riverside forest. Since then the name has come to mean one of the most spectacular National Wildlife Refuges in North America. Here, tens of thousands...
I was directed, by a pamphlet I picked up at the VLA, that there was a small ghoest town just 3.5 miles off route back to the Interstate and I wasn’t going to pass up such an easy target to sight-see and take some photographs. Kelly, misspelled when registered at...
The Very Large Array (VLA), one of the world’s premier astronomical radio observatories, consists of 27 radio antennas in a Y-shaped configuration on the Plains of San Agustin fifty miles west of Socorro, New Mexico. Each antenna is 82 feet in diameter. The data from all 27 antennas is combined...
