Happy New Year!

what a great beginning to what promises to be a great new year! and how do i know this? because it's a trend in my life. the trend is that each new year is better than the one before it. so with that trend in mind, is it any wonder that i look forward to another? i think not.

so, the new year. we decided to make it another rv desert camping/dirt riding trip. the grandkids weren't available, so we had to go solo. although we enjoy taking them, teaching them and watching them explore and grow, i was honestly looking forward to a little "kick your heels up and don't worry about setting a good example" kind of weekend. and that's just the way it turned out.

okay, so NYE we spent with our neighbors who had invited us over for dinner. it was a nice gathering with another couple who were also neighbors. we had a great dinner and great conversation. but. . .the beast awaits in front of the house.

for the unfamiliar, the beast is a 38ft. wide body bounder of the vintage variety. this thing is a hoot! we have been acclimating ourselves by taking trips and living in it for varying amounts of time. the longest was this summer in prescott for 2 1/2 months. it was a blast.

already we've got more memories than i thought possible. we had 5 flat tires before breaking down and replacing them all. rv tires don't wear out, they rot. at 6 mpg., no one can afford to drive them very far.

so not even close to the crack of dawn, we leisurely got up and loaded the beast with food, drink and our arsenal of weapons. one must always be prepared and both wallace and i were in some form of scouting in our youth.

once loaded, we drove off to our latest camping spot. it is along a power line road south of stanfield, az. it has dirt trails galore and promised to be yet another great weekend of riding. once we got there, we set up camp, threw down our woven mats, unfurled the awnings and promptly crawled back in and took a nap! when naptime was over, we gathered dead wood that lay at the bottom of almost every mesquite tree in the area. the evening was approaching and we needed to have our campfire. can't count as camping if it doesn't involve fire.

and lucky for me, my husband is quite the little arsonist. his favorite saying is "white man build big fire stand waaaay back, indian build small fire, stand very close." wallace is very much a white man when it comes to his pyromaniac preferences. we used to have a gas fireplace that started with a light switch and a big swoosh. that's what his fires are like but with a wooden match instead of a light switch. the kids and dogs know that when "papa" has his wooden matches out, you'd better run for cover or risk losing your eyebrows. . .again.

so we had one of those. talked, laughed, listened, yawned, watched the fire die and then turned in. we had the heater working and it kept us warm enough. morning dawned a bit later than it does when victoria is with us. she likes to come in to the bedroom, hold the shade up, point to the sky and announce "the sun is up! isn't it pretty?" in all reality, the sun isn't up, it is merely getting ready to come up, but yes, it is very pretty. after my obligatory groans, the day begins.

by the time we got up, the sun truly was up. the desert begins to warm quickly once it does come up and after a hearty breakfast, we were itching to hit the trails. first destination was smuggler's trail. that's what wallace calls it as the first time he was on it he said it was littered with broken down bicycles. we tried to do a bit of it the week before, but the kids can only handle so much before it's time to pack it in. today was going to be different and we couldn't wait!

so we head south, slip through a hole in the fence and take the back way to the trail. the trail itself is on the tohono o'odam indian reservation and we're not allowed to be there without permission. that was our first breach. wallace was right, there were bicycles all over the place. some had the wheels torn off, some looked like they'd been left years ago, some appeared to have been left the night before. all over there was evidence of people crossing the desert. water bottles, blankets, serapes, sweatshirts, etc. shed during their journey when no longer needed. it's quite sobering.

okay, back to the trail. . .so we continue to head south. our goal is to meet up with the gasline road. i'm not sure what the plan was from there, and i didn't care, it was the adventure, not the destination. so south we go. . .until the trail ends abruptly. what the heck! so we follow some tracks down a wash. the sand is really deep making the bike difficult to navigate, but southward we push. finally we admit defeat and hop out of the wash. there has just got to be an easier way. i look east, which wallace informs me is really south, it's a darn good thing i'm not out there myself! i point to a hill and say, let's head for that one, there's bound to be a trail on the other side. . .i believe that was my first fall. wallace had to come down and pick up my bike, ride it to the top of this boulder strewn hill for me. okay, no problem, let's go. i point to an area that looks relatively mild. off we go. after cresting that relatively gentle looking hilltop, the declining side was liberally littered with basketball sized rocks.

sheesh. always with the scary stuff.

i grit my teeth and start heading down. those rocks grabbed my front tire several times before pitching me off halfway down. i tried to curl up in a ball to save myself from any bone crushing injuries. it worked for the most part. i smacked my knee cap on a rock when my knee pad decided to rotate off to a worthless angle. but it didn't hurt badly, my husband came and rescued me once again. i walked down the rest of the hill while he rode my bike down. sucks to be him, he had to ride that nightmare twice, actually 3 times as he rode his own back up to save me.

so on we went. continuing to head south, me with a sore kneecap. up another hill, cresting the top reveal a smoother surface and some possibilities of trails if we could just. go. a. little. further. wallace spots quad tracks! woohoo! we followed them for about 50 ft. until they just disappeared. oh this is not looking so good. we know our exact gps coordinates, but since we are now deep in the reservation, nothing is mapped. i guess they don't map smuggler routes. hence, the attraction, i would suppose.

okay, fine. we admit to ourselves that we may quite possibly never see another human being again. our lives may end right then and there, so we decide to head back the way we came and find that stupid wash again. so, yep you guessed it, back up those nasty boulder filled hills we had just come down. before climbing the particularly nasty one, i biffed in the sand of one gentle wash. the bike came down hard on my heel and tried to quite literally nail me to the landscape. once again, hubby to the rescue.

ouch.

back up the hill i fell down earlier. i stalled out in about the same place i had fallen earlier. gosh, sometimes i really hate this sport. . .what was i thinking?!? so after he came back down and rode my bike up for me, we headed off again. i was sick to death of falling, sick to death of not being able to handle what was in front of me.

i'm not a quitter by any means. . .i'm just thinking about quitting. and really, what choice did i have? so back on, finally back to our starting point. there was no way i was going back down in that wash, so we rode parallel to it until we came to the end of the trail that lead to our demise.

once back on it, we quickly made our way back to the rv. we were tired, sweaty and at least one of us didn't smell too good. okay, we smelled like a couple of rancid javelina, are you happy now? we took another nap. had a good dinner and sat in front of the campfire again.

we do a lot of laughing, he and i. and that night was no exception. conversation ranged from the day's events to the meaning of a blue moon, how old we'd be for the next one. . .if we made the next one.

to bed, wake up freezing because *someone* forgot to close her window before drifting off to sleep. the heater had been repaired in the rv, but it was not up to the task of warming the entire sonoran national monument. once closed, we talked a bit, laughed some more, and drifted back off to sleep. it was 3 a.m.

the next morning we rolled out of bed when we could no longer put it off. i think it was 8:30, yikes! breakfast and a promise to each other that we would not veer off the trails again and we were off. awesome fun! we rode until the trail ended and then dutifully turned around. we rode clean up passed i8 freeway on dirt roads. it was wicked fun! there was some wide open sections and we were soaring down them.

what a life we lead!!!