Self Isolation in the Desert

After a couple of days in Buckeye, AZ to stock up on groceries and take care of our tanks, we headed for the desert for self isolation. We knew from past experience that we could last 2 weeks with a full fresh water tank and empty waste tanks. We wanted to stay out here as long as possible, hopefully until our reservations for Cave Creek Recreation Area began on April 10th. We are still with our friends, Jim and Corinne, and have been since February 19th. It is certainly a blessing to have such good friends to share this experience with. It would be scarier and lonelier without them.

Both couples had spent time boondocking on Palm Canyon Rd before but only for a couple of nights each. Once we drove into the road far enough, Jim and Dan did their usual reconnaissance of the area to find the perfect place for our long stay. Once found and the rigs positioned the way we wanted them, we all agreed we had the perfect place to isolate ourselves for what would be the next 18 days. Below is a video showing the site and you can get a feel for how well we isolated ourselves from our nearest neighbors.

The first night we were there was the night of a new moon and clear skies. Dan took this opportunity to do some night photography and generate a star trail around the north star with our RV silhouetted in the foreground. He spent more than an hour the next day cleaning up the 180 images to remove satellite and airplane trails. The density of the resulting image gives you a feel for just how bright the stars were.

We had a few gorgeous sunsets while we stayed here and our friends, who are more morning people than we are, told us the sunrises were pretty good too. Other opportunities for photography included some flowering cactus and interesting insects and lizards wandering around. There is an interesting geocache location about a mile from where we were staying that includes a perfect spiral created in the rocky ground. We flew the drone to it from our campsite to get a photograph. Someone is in the center of the spiral and an RV is parked nearby to give scale to the structure.

With all this free time in isolation, Dan and Jim did lots of projects around the RVs. We’ve had recurring problems with screws coming loose on our outside trim in the back corner of the rig. The guys spent a couple days reinforcing and redoing the area and are confident things will be much better going forward. Another project that was less a necessity and more of a desire was tackled as well. Dan had read of a modification to the doors of the basement such that they open more and allow access without bending over as much. This simply required the moving of the anchor for the struts up a little. With Jim’s help, Dan was able to make this simple modification and hopefully reduce the number of head bumps going forward.

All in all, it was about the best way we could have spent these 18 days. We knew we were as isolated as we could get and we had people to share the isolation with and break up the boredom of the situation. We had game nights and movie nights and happy hours every day. We shared meals most days, grilling when possible or using the instant pots for meals. Both of our rigs are equipped with large solar installs and we did not run a generator during our entire stay. We had one very cloudy day and that is the only day our batteries did not get back to 100% but we were back the following day by early afternoon.

We have since left our little piece of desert paradise and after two more nights in Buckeye (our most visited RV park) for much needed tank treatments and grocery resupplies, we moved into Cave Creek Recreation Area campground. Jim and Corinne were able to get reservations for the length of our stay so we are still together. We are not looking forward to the day we must go our separate ways, but that day is coming soon. Until then, we will share meals and movie nights and be glad for each others company.

After Cave Creek? We don’t know for sure. There are many campgrounds in various states that have been closing. Other states have declared campgrounds as essential recognizing the many Americans that have chosen this lifestyle of full time RVing. We belong to a wonderful organization called Escapees and they have put out a video to try to help with this situation. We know some of the couples in this video and thank them for working to make things better for us during these strange times.