AZ Day 27

Day 27 -- Leave Apache Junction, go back to Tucson

I haven't posted to this blog in over a week. I have a thousand pictures and almost no memory of the little things. I am sure my brains are going to pop back and forth between notes and these blog pages in order to catch up.

Last night after the Renaissance Faire, I stayed at the Lost Dutchman State Park at the foot of the Superstition Mountains. I was lucky to get a spot because of the Faire, because it was a weekend, and because it is prime Snowbird/Tourist season in Arizona. I pulled in after hours and was able to get a spot in the overflow area. Not much to say -- it was too dark to do much.

These two pictures are of the Superstition Mtns with morning fog. As is my usual, it looked fabulous with a cloud lying low in front of the mountains, but by the time I grabbed my camera and went back to the same spot, the clouds had shifted.

I was meeting JamiLynn and Raith for breakfast at the Village Inn, and in the meantime, I had to make an emergency appt with a dentist. I had a toothache on Saturday and by Sunday, my whole jaw ached. A slight toothache is one thing, but the jaw made me very uneasy. I was able to get an appt with a local dentist at 10:00 in the morning. The verdict: My upper tooth may have shifted slightly, causing the upper and lower teeth to not sit properly. Added was the fact that I clench my teeth, the Dentist said I had tendonitis -- in other words, I pulled or strained the muscles that surround my teeth. He filed down a bit of the cap on my lower tooth and set me free. He was such a cutie -- looked like he just graduated from Dental college.

Jami, Raith, and I had a wonderfully, leisurely breakfast (brunch?) and I got to know Raith a bit more. Once the Faire is over, they will both be packing up -- Jami from here gypsy life and Raith from his New Jersey home -- and setting up life in Salem, MA for awhile.

I don't think I left Apache Junction much before 2:00. This didn't give me much lee-way as far as travel stops and I had no idea where I was going to stay once I got back to Tucson. My intention was to try out boondocking in a Wal*Mart parking lot.

This is a picture of the green desert along Highway 79 between Apache Junction and Catalina. Some I have talked to said it looks like this for a couple of weeks every year during the rainy season. Others said it hasn't looked this green in 2-3 years and is due to all the rain AZ has had this year:

The Wal*Mart Debacle:

I have been RV'ing for about six years now and have never stayed in a Wal*Mart. After two weeks of campgrounds and shelling out $15-20 per night, I decided to try the Wal*Mart thing. There was a huge Wal*Mart in a huge shopping complex in Catalina. This complex has every store and restaurant imaginable, security cameras, a 24-hour McDonalds within the Wal*Mart store, picnic tables around the complex and even a public restroom building in the middle of the complex. So, I went in to Wal*Mart to see if I could park there overnight. Nope; they don't allow overnight parking. There's nothing like the hurt of first-time rejection.

But, I had a plan ... the Catalina State Park is directly across the street. It was still early in the day so I went over there. That fizzed out, too. The campsite was filled and there was no overflow area. I ended up staying at a Passport America campground way across town that is not Passport America active during peak season. Sigh!

If I am going to full-time, I really, really, really need to get this boondocking thing working.