9/3 - 9/9/06 Interlude - Cooling it at the Rim

9/6 - Another gorgeous morning here on the Rim. If you're from Arizona you know what I mean. Otherwise I'd better explain that the Rim is the Mogollan (Spanish pronunciation here, Mog-yawn) Rim, the edge of a vast plateau about 100 miles north & east of Phoenix. At 6000 feet, the Rim is delightfully cool when the southern part of the state is broiling in 100-plus heat for weeks on end. The afternoons have been mostly coudy here, cutting into our solar quota somewhat. Thundershowers have mostly passed us by, sometimes floating across the valleys stretched out below us.

We're camped in the Rim Lakes Recreation Area at one of several free camping areas. These areas are designated by the Forest Service, but have no services, strictly boondocking. Great camp sites though among tall Ponderosas, lots of space between sites, picnic tables & great views. Things were pretty crowded when we arrived (Labor Day weekend), but there was a mass exodus Monday & we now have no nearby neighbors at all. I was glad when the host of noisy generators disappeared too.

Timmy & I arrived Sunday after spending a week cooking down at Liz's house in Glendale. She has stuff to take care of & we needed to escape before we melted. And I need get to caught up on a lot of stuff too. Our summer tour of the Continental Divide was awesome, but it took its toll on our keeping up with everything. As I write this, I still haven't written up our adventures & published photos from Wyoming & the return trip through Utah. Hope to get to that soon.

At this point in time, it's not clear when our next voyage will begin, or where we'll be headed. We'll be returning to Glendale in a few days & will be taking a break from the road for a time. We'll need to escape the city from time to time for our mental health, so we'll probably be exploring more of Arizona in the months ahead.

9/9 - Thursday dawned dark & cold. The world was shrouded under a charcoal gray blanket of clouds. By 10 AM our battery bank had dropped into the red & the sun was MIA. It was raining steadily & it was cold. Glendale in the 90s started sounding very appealing. I decided to cut & run after finishing up some morning work. It was still raining after lunch as I climbed atop Gypsy to take down & secure the solar panels. I had a vinyl rain jacket on, but still got soaked by the time we were ready to hitch. The rain began to let up as we headed back down SR 260 & by the time we turned south on SR 87 it was warming up. I shed my sweatshirt along the way & by the time we reached Scottsdale I had switched from heater to AC.

With late monsoons still dampening the Phoenix area every few days, the temperatures have been in the 90s, still warm after a summer spent mostly above 7000 feet, but at least tolerable. Our next adventure is undecided, but we may be traveling to Sedona in a couple of weeks.

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