[encantotom]

we will do our best to keep them here till then

tom

[whatsnewell]

We finally escaped the gravitational pull of Newell House (we loved our 23 days with Tom and Darlene) and moved 100 miles north to Cottonwood, AZ where were have been boondocking the past 10 days on National Forest Land about 6 miles east of Cottonwood, where you can camp free for 14 days out of every 30 days.  There are no designated sites, no hookups, but amazing views, and it is so quiet my ears were ringing the first few days.  We are only about 25 minutes from Sedona, and have been there several times already, and I spent a day mountain bike riding some local trails with friends who drove up from SoCal for the weekend.  We see hot air balloons almost every day passing overhead, some close enough that I have had conversations with the occupants as they pass by!

We used less than 50 gallons of fresh water in the first 10 days, and yes, we did take showers.  Our black tank (we have separate black and gray tanks) was only 2/3's full after 10 days.  We managed to get our batteries back into the mid 90 percentile range virtually every day with our solar panels (300 watts), and less than 2 hours of generator use each day....some times none.  I use a Honda 1000 watt generator for boosting the charge first thing in the morning if needed.....it burns 1/2 gallon of unleaded every 3 hours......more efficient that the 7.5 kw on board generator which consumes 1/2 gallon per hour of propane.  We'll be boondocking a lot more over the next two months in northeastern Arizona, and southeastern Utah. 

Temps at night have been getting into the high 30's, and into the mid 70's during the day....wonderful weather!

[HoosierDaddy]

Thanks for the update Clarke! We drove through that area a month ago..So many beautiful vistas! If you head up towards Vegas check out the Valley of Fire State Park if you have not been there before.