Amidst all our other activities the jeep has mostly stayed placidly on paved roads, occasionally venturing off onto gravel roads. We have never quite gotten to a place to venture a bit further into back country. Yesterday the mail came with our permit for Arizona Trust land access and I decided to see if we could take advantage of it now that we are about to leave AZ behind for a year.
Just north of us is Boulders Staging Area with many trails and jeep tracks scattered across acres of BLM land – thank you fellow taxpayers. I downloaded this map and we set off to see what we could do. I will admit we were foolish. We went alone, we told no one where we were going. We trusted Ruby to do whatever we asked of it. We had a great time and other then some new AZ pinstripes we had no incidents. Looking at the map you can see the approach road from Highway 74 and Loops 6 and 8. That is all we did, about 4 miles once we got on to Loop 8. That took a couple of hours. Here is Ruby with me at the wheel climbing over some steep narrow boulders:
The picture almost does this climb justice.
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| Where we came from |
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| Where we are headed |
Carol took the wheel when we got into the Wash at the end of Loop 8. Oh yes those are burros out the driver side window. Here are some more:
Well at least it’s part of a Burro and some Orange Mallows. Speaking of bloom in the desert here are another picture or two:
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| Have to have at least one picture of Carol taking a picture 🙂 |
We made it back in time to clean up and go to Shabbat services at Temple Chai. They had a “Nosh” before services and then a wonderful service with the assistance of a guest soloist who is a talented opera singer with a wonderful selection of liturgical music. It was quite “haimish” (homelike, friendly for those whose Yiddish is lacking). We returned to the coach for a restful evening.
