Camping in the Boondocks

We’ve been slowly making our way from Holtville up towards Tempe and our son, Chris, where we’ll end up tomorrow. First came Benson, which is worth a blog entry of its own (see “Home Sweet Home?”). Then we headed to the town of Bowie and Fort Bowie, which was a favorite place of ours several years ago when we did our first “Tour de Arizona” to celebrate our retirement. Fort Bowie, in case you don’t remember, is a National Historic Site that can only be reached by a 1.5 mile hike each way. It was built and occupied in the 1860’s to protect mail routes and emigrants from Cochise and his Apaches. The hike itself follows the path that the soldiers took to the fort, and includes an old cemetery, ruins of a stagecoach stop, and the site of a battle between the army and the Apaches for control of a spring in the area. Once you get to the fort, there are foundations and partial walls of buildings as well as many photographs and artifacts from when it was operational. We found a great campsite at Indian Breadrocks National Recreation Area , about halfway between the trailhead to the fort and the town of Bowie. I have no idea why it is called “breadrocks,” but the rock formations there are truly unique and beautiful.

Our next stop was Florence. There were no boondocking sites listed in our trusty free camping guide, so I dug out our Arizona atlas. The area map showed some state trust and BLM lands off highway 79, about 20 miles south of Florence, so we set out to find them. We turned up Freeman Rd., a very good dirt roads, and soon found smaller dirt roads branching off it. We chose one at random, and struck gold! Although I had never thought of using the word “lush” to describe a desert, that’s exactly what this place is. I’ve never seen so many cactus and desert plants in one place--all huge and healthy. We were there two nights. The only downside was that the dogs attracted cactus like red flowers attract hummingbirds; they’d pick it up on their legs, feet, and pads, and then get it stuck on their noses, chins, and in their mouths when they’d try to pull it out. Naturally, neither of them liked us “helping” get the spines out. Ellie bore it with a fair amount of patience, but Tex, as soon as he saw us coming at him with the hemostats, took off in the opposite direction.

Today we drove north from Florence to Florence Junction and found another good boondocking site. We’re camped by a wash, under some trees. The desert is still nice and green here, but there seems to be less of the “jumping cholla’ that plagued the dogs at our last camp. Or else they’ve finally gotten smarter about where to step.