Thursday, June 13, 2019

Final days in Arizona - then to Montana

So the Yuma AZ. heat finally chased us out of town. Prior to taking off we took a little exploration back road drive in the Land Rover. Friend Dan was our guide as he had been out here before.


After a number a back roads / turns we came to an old neglected cemetery.




The photo below is an old Indian Heritage site where spiritual dances were held so many eons ago.


East side of Gila Mountains:


A few days earlier we had hiked to the top of Telegraph Pass....quite a steep climb...total distance 6 miles or so.


We took off first thing in the AM but it got pretty hot by the time we got to the top. 


Dome Valley above


The trail up to the top is a concrete access road...very steep...probably 20 - 25% in some stretches.
Going down was actually harder due to the steepness.


We arrived in Montana the first week of May, just in time for a lot of rain. Our Daughter accompanied us so we had a co-driver to share the driving with my Wife. We parked at a local RV park for a couple of days while I prepared our Summer parking area with a bit more gravel. Moved out to our site then it started raining. The property we park for the summer is not "RV access" friendly when it gets real wet, so our timing was good.

We've been seriously thinking about buying a small camper van for some road trips. Don't really want to drive our huge RV into rural areas. Found this Ford Camper on Craigslist so plan on taking a look at it / test drive next week. Going to Spokane WA. for a gathering and will sidetrack our trip over to Townsend MT to check the van over. Appears to be a pretty decent rig with under 70k miles on it.


The van is a "3 owner" rig and appears to be pretty clean from the photos. 
Only issue noted was a non working dash AC...hopefully just needs recharged.(?)

I've been watching for such a rig for the past couple of years, but most are well over $20k....Drove over to San Diego and looked at a slightly newer '93 Dodge Class B rig last Fall....they were asking $13k and it was not in very good condition. After looking it over for 5 minutes I passed on it. Well used...well worn. Hopefully the Ford van will pan out and be worth the $10k asking price. Sounds like the seller is pretty well firm on his price.

I performed a bit of final work on the Yamaha XS400 and listed it for sale of Craigslist. It sold in a few days. I put a few "shake down" miles on it and everything worked great. Should be a good bike for the new owner. Plus I made a little profit on it. Win...win.








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Gila Mtns.

Gila Mtns.