Current Location: Ogilby, CA
Current Song: From The Start by Laufey
Current Beer: Scottsdale Blonde by Huss Brewing

After a few days in kinda eastern central Arizona, we worked our way through the mountains to get to the other side of Phoenix. Along the way there’s a nice little town called Payson with a great dog park.

Charlie is 27% German Shepherd, and this is the first time I’ve seen her play with one. One that has a good 30 pounds on her, nonetheless.

Confession, we grabbed an official campsite on Saturday night to refill the water tank, recharge batteries, take showers, etc. Then by Sunday we ended up southwest-ish of Phoenix at an area called Vekol Valley.

We stayed around here for a couple of days before heading west on Tuesday, when we promptly hit our first bit of rough patch.

Long story short…

• Charlie got into a fight at a dog park over one of her balls… first time that’s ever happened, not great
• The ride on I-8 was so windy I couldn’t go much over 65mph without the van sliding all over the road… in a 75 zone, so that was fun for all involved
• Charlie drank a FUCK TON of water at the dog park… combine that with me distracted by the wind, keeping the van on the road, and not giving her a potty break in time, she ended up peeing on the bed. Wonderful.
• The wind was so bad, and we were headed to another open desert that I decided to get a motel so we didn’t have to sit there rocking all night. This was actually kinda nice, the only PITA was every little noise outside made them jump up and start growling, but we survived.
• This morning I started backing out of our parking spot when it just DIED. Like, fucking dead. Engine stopped, no power to anything… thankfully the brakes worked or I would have slammed into the car parked next to us. So as we’re sitting diagonally in the road, completely disabled, all I can think to do is disconnect and reconnect the battery. Thankfully it works, and after some weird looks I was able to pull the van off to the side. It’ll be fun to see when that happens again. There’s a ton of stuff hooked up to the alternator, and the delay from engine start to dropping dead seems like it would line up with the alternator kicking on, so maybe something with that? Some Google-fu in my near future.
• Charlie got into ANOTHER fight with a dog over a ball. This time not her ball… because she just barges in and starts taking another dog’s balls… and one finally let her know what was up. Honestly, if it makes her stop doing that it could end up being a blessing in disguise. But for now, she’s cut off.
• WALMART DIDN’T HAVE STROOPWAFEL, WTF IS THIS BULLSHIT.
• Google sent me down some ridiculous off-road path to get to our spot and I damn near got stuck in the sand. Again. Last time I was here I did the same exact fucking thing, except proper fully 100% fuck me stuck. By some absolute miracle an old couple in a 4×4 Jeep just happened to be driving by and pulled me out. And I cannot stress enough how absolutely ridiculous it was they IMMEDIATELY showed up. They had absolutely no business going down this road, they had absolutely no reason to be there. I even asked them “what brought you all the way out here right at this moment?” they said they “just decided to go for a drive.” Still not over it and it was like three years ago or something.

Finally made it to our spot and everything has mellowed out considerably. Well except the wind. Still fucking windy. And I’d put the name of the location we’re at, but I honestly don’t even know what it’s technically called.

I can confidently say that this is my favorite spot to escape from everything in the van. I have to yet to find a place more… absolutely nothing. No people around, no roads, no planes… just nothing. Seemingly forever, in every direction.

Well okay, some planes… and there are train tracks off in the distance. But you get my point. Other places there’s usually at least someone close enough to make me go, “welp, hopefully those people aren’t gonna walk over here and murder us in our sleep.” But here… nada.

And right after pulling up to our spot, I got to do what I’ve wanted to do since this whole fucking thing started.

We’ll be here the rest of the week before heading off to San Diego to bring them to a dog beach out there. Then… umm… yeah. No idea. I’ll think of something I’m sure.