We’ve been having a lovely time hanging out in the Anza-Borrego desert these past couple weeks, our spot for observing the holidays last year.
It’s a stunningly beautiful area, with ample free and unlimited boondocking nearby the darling town of Borrego Springs, which has all the basic amenities you might need – a post office, market, a few cafes, a laundromat and a hardware store.
We’re now on day 14 of being consecutively off-grid – the longest we’ve done in one spot in the bus. The solar fully deployed is more than ample (we have half our 800w of roof panels tilted, and all 600w of our flexible ‘ground’ panels tilted). We’ve been splurging on heating water off electric, running personal space heaters, and even baking a cheesecake in the convection oven – just to use the energy that is more than we can store.
Getting back to our water conservation ways of boondocking years past, our holding tanks are also serving us well. We don’t have gauges that work, so it’s all guess work – but we have about 100 gallons of fresh water, 90 gallons of grey and 45 of black. In ‘normal’ usage we’re usually good for 10 days in-between dumps.
But we hope to eek out at least a couple more days before we have to pull up stakes and head off to a dump station. We suspect it will be the black tank that will be our limiting factor, which on a visual inspection it seems we might have 3 or 4 days left on it.
Aside from watching our solar panel readout like kids in a candy store, we’ve been keeping busy with lots of exploring and interestingly enough, socializing.
Parked out here is like being in a huge spread out ranch style suburban neighborhood – you have lots of space between lots, but also a lot of lots. As the new year approached, it’s filled in quite a bit since our arrival – but nothing even close to bordering on ‘packed in’.
With more people, of course brings more new friends to make – including many other fellow bloggers such as Al & Kelly of The Bayfield Bunch, Nan & John of Trippin With The Talleys, Lynda & Howard of stillhowlyntravels, Gaelyn of GeoGypsy, Dianne & Tom of TD HOMESTEAD, Dan & Marlene (and kiddos) of Mali Mish, Kerri of ASoloJourner and Jeff & Deb of Rolling Recess. And of course, we’ve shared this time with Nina of WheelingIt – Paul just got back yesterday from his trip. (Whew, I hope I remembered everyone… and there are rumors of more heading in soon too!)
I’ll tell the rest of our story out here in pictures… because this area is worthy of pictures. Lots of them.
One evening earlier this week, we had a blog reader write and invite Chris, Nina and myself out for a little off-roading to view a spectacular sunset at nearby Font’s Point. Thank you for the amazing experience:
A white New Year’s…
Wishing you and yours a 2015 filled with adventures and magical memories! Thank you for being part of ours!
What’s Next?
As soon as our tanks tell us we should depart, we’ll likely pull up stakes and seek out our next location. We’d like to explore more boondocking locations in the southwest – seeking amazing places to be. We’re also craving something a little less social for a bit to recharge.
We’ll probably try to drop by the big thing in Quartzite later in the month, and other than that – we have no firm plans but being in Tucson in early March.
If you have suggestions for us in southern California or western Arizona – let us know (in comments, or e-mail to contact@technomadia.com works too)! Despite all our years on the road – the desert southwest is mostly all new territory for us.
Nice to see you’e enjoying the Anza Borrego desert. I currently live in Borrego Springs and am making plans to go mobile myself in the Spring. Found your site from Bob Wells’ site.
Keep it up! Love all the inf and stories. 🙂
We absolutely loved Borrego Springs.. such a lovely lovely area! Best wishes in your journey to the road.
On the North edge of Tucson you will find Catalana State Park. Beautiful foothills setting, great hiking and many conveniences close by. Water and 50 amp plus the best public showers you will ever experience are in Campground B. There is a short hiking loop with interpretive information on the Indian dwellers with some exposed walls from their village visible now. Several much longer hikes take you to natural streams and pools with incredible vistas along the way. There are online reservations available 6 months in advance.
Generally, how do you find boondocking areas? Specifically, I looked at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park website because I was so enticed by your blog post. We are going to be out west late Feb., early March and have some time between things and this looked like a lovely place to be! Thanks for any info.
Here’s our guide to finding campgrounds and boondocking locations: https://www.technomadia.com/2014/10/guide-to-finding-rv-parks-campgrounds-and-boondocking/
Hi Cherie! New reader and fulltime RVer here – love your blog!! I’m currently holed up at Mittry Lake in Yuma and it’s a wonderful change of pace from the desert boondocking you’ll find in most of southwest Arizona. I can’t speak to how it compares to other BLM spots in this immediate area, and it has a 10-day-per-calendar-year camping limit, but it’s worth the stop if you happen to stay in town a few days. I would avoid the VFW boondock spot on the road from Yuma to Quartzsite though — it’s super crowded right now, not the place to recharge.
Borrego Springs looks lovely. Best of luck on the rest of your Southwestern adventures!
Hi Kate.. and welcome to the blog, so appreciate you taking a moment to share about Mittry Lake too. We had spotted it in some of our research, but getting a first account is awesome! Enjoy your time there!
HEAVEN! Looks like the perfect place and people to spend the holidays with! So thrilled to hear how successful your solar is and thank you so much for the lovely images to warm my soul in the frigid north! LOL
Keep warm!
I guess when the tanks are full and empty it’s time to roll. This, however is a great place to just hang out. I still have a few places to explore before heading to the Q mid-January. Great meeting you and hope to see you down the road somewhere.
Happy New Year! Snow and all.
I’m sure our paths will cross again… do love this spot, for sure!
Thanks guys for the in depth knowledge you have shared. My wife and I are planning to be on the road later this year. Might even run into you on the road.
In reading the post about the batteries you said you were looking to expand the bank to 1000-1200ah. What are your plans on charging that large of a bank (hopefully without the generator) and how long do you think it would take to charge from say 50%?
While we (Peggy) and I are still working I have budged for the 1000-1200 ah bank along with the same new inverter nina and paul just bought. Your thoughts on this…..
So take care and thank you again for the indepth information.
Hi Ken… when we planned our inverter/charger and solar setup, we had the larger bank in mind as a possible upgrade. You can see our full setup at https://www.technomadia.com/lithium and https://www.technomadia.com/solar
Our charger is 100AH, charging 500AH would take.. 5 hours. But the cool thing about lithium is that you don’t need to charge to 100% to keep the bank’s health.
As far as the inverter Nina & Paul got, it’s a solid device. However Magnum just got bought out by a Brazilian company.. so further support and evolution is unknown. We’re fans of Victron ourselves.
Check out Brenda and Hector’s latest blog on Island Girl Walkabout. They just left Coyote Howls East and have info on their blog about Why and Ajo. Plus their always cool pics!
Awesome.. believe we’ll be meeting them soon too.
Great pics of that beautiful valley. How fun to enjoy nearly unlimited power in such a remote location! I think black tanks are the universe’s way of making us keep moving 🙂 A consideration for solitude is the area around Desert Center, on the way to Quartzsite. Most of it is BLM land and a lot of it is hard pack ground very much like Borrego. A couple years ago Al and Kelly boondocked near the Desert Lily (Sanctuary or Reserve, I can’t remember now) just north of I10 from Desert Center. My school bus took me to high school (40 miles one way) on that road and it is still wide open space in all directions.
Thanks for the suggestions Jodee.. that could be right on our way, and sounds like just the solitude we crave. All our best for a bright new year!
Hi Cherie and Chris,
I don’t know that you will remember but We (Jeff and Joan) met at the RVillage get-together last summer at Cape Blanco State Park. Jeff and I love the BLM area off Darby Wells Road south of Ajo. Very beautiful Sonoran Desert there with lots of saguaro and other cactus. There is more BLM further south by Why. I believe Nina and Paul have stayed there so can probably share more about that specific spot. There is an interesting private rv park just east of Why called Coyote Howls East. It has large, large rv spaces with water but no power or sewer. Coyote Howls West is in Why proper and has full hookups. If you head to Tucson from Why on Highway 86 you should definitely have lunch at the Desert Rain Cafe in Sells. It is on the Tohono O’Odham Nation. A restaurant that uses Tepary beans, cholla buds and other traditional ingredients. Evidently the Tohono O’Odham people have a very high incidence of diabetes and this is a way to show how to use these desert ingredients plus make some money also. We are in Ajo right now but heading off to Tucson soon for RV repairs. Enjoy your time in the desert southwest.
Thank you Joan and Jeff… so lovely to hear from you again. And many thanks for all the wonderful suggestions! We look forward to roaming in that area and checking some of it out.
Have a blessed new year.. and hope your repairs go as smoothly as they can.
Absolutely beautiful photos of some of your outdoorsy home area. What a place to have for the Holidays! Thanks for posting them.
And a Happy New Year to both of you! I look forward to vicariously taggin’ along thru the coming year again. Cheers! 🙂
It has indeed been a beautiful spot for the holidays… especially with so many wonderful friends around. Cheers to many adventures ahead!
Sounds like a great time you have been having…I love Borego Springs area including the snake, font’s point and many other places near there…your photos are gorgeous…kind of hard to stop taking them there…wishing you the best in the New Year..perhaps we will see you at the Escapade…
It is so beautiful here.. just loving it! And yeah, very photogenic area.
Hope to see you guys at Escapade (or elsewhere) as well. Have a great new year!
That’s a really wonderful spot. Thank you for the inspiring photographs. Happy New Year to you and Chris from Ann and me…
Elliott
Happy New Years guys… wishing you both all the best!
I’ll throw in a boondocking vote for KOFA Wildlife Refuge southeast of Q. I like Crystal Hill because of reduced traffic, but I think the access road to Palm Canyon is in better condition (and gets more traffic.)
Thank you for the suggestion… sounds like our kinda place!
“baking a cheesecake in the convection oven — just to use the energy that is more than we can store.” Best excuse for having cheesecake I have heard all year. ☺ Happy new year y’all.
ronspradley
The sacrifices we make 🙂
I would really appreciate your posting the lat./long. coordinates for the snake sculpture. I’d like to check it out on Google Earth and also save it for future reference. Thanks! Bob
Hi Bob… check out the Bayfield Bunch’s blog post today (http://thebayfieldbunch.com/2014/12/saw-movie-unbroken-today-all-best-to.html), Al posted some satellite shots with the coordinates.
Thanks, Cheri. I used the coordinates on Al’s first post and could not find the snake. That’s why I asked you the question (I didn’t want to call out Al’s error.) But today he posted a correction and I got to see the snake on Google Maps. We will be in that area next winter and I have saved the coordinates for our own personal “discovery” visit. Happy New Year. Bob