It was finally time to leave the Ironwood Forest National Monument. The massive rainstorm pummeling California was moving east toward us, and I needed to get my tires back on solid ground before it hit. I woke up, made coffee, took my Starlink and weather station off the roof, and hit the road. The ground had firmed up nicely since Friday’s rain, and they even graded the dirt road yesterday, so I had no trouble getting out. I could even maintain a steady 35 mph on the smooth dirt road, which I was doing more like 10 mph over the bumps on when I came in.
I set a course for the nearest Walmart in Tucson. They don’t allow overnight parking, but I knew it was a large parking lot with room for me to maneuver, plus I could connect to their Wi-Fi to do some work. By chance, Yellow Wolf pulled in not long after to “buy stuff she doesn’t need,” as she said. I spent a few hours there while she did her thing, then left to run other errands. Later, she let me know that she was at Cracker Barrel, and there were only a couple of the extra-long “bus/RV” parking spaces left. It was about 2:00 PM, reasonably late enough to drive the half mile over there despite the wind picking up. I don’t get blown around at slower city speeds like I do on the highway, so it was a short, easy drive. I had no problem finding parking when I got there.
There were many other camper vans in the Cracker Barrel parking lot, everything from the Cosmic Cruiser to the Old Van Slow Man. They probably have the same idea we do, parking on the pavement to make sure we don’t get stuck in the mud outside town.
Ironically, despite my entire Tucson stay revolving around the huge rainstorm predicted to come through, I’ve only seen a little wind and a few drops of rain so far. Tucson (the blue pin on the weather map) is right in the middle of a break between sections of the storm, saving us from the severe weather they had predicted as the storm moves from south to north. It’s still hitting points east, like Quartzsite and Yuma, pretty hard, so I’ll stick to my plan to spend a couple of days in Tucson before returning to the wilderness. I need to do laundry while I’m here, and stocking up on groceries at a real grocery store is a good idea, too. I also booked a Harvest Host stay for Wednesday night, and it’s too late to cancel it, even if I wanted to.
While I prefer not to do the urban nomad thing, it’s a means to an end and keeping me safe from bad weather elsewhere. Besides, my old router, which I haven’t used in months, did a great job keeping me online through nearby Xfinity Wi-Fi connections, saving my hotspot data in case I need it later, as well as saving me from putting up Starlink. It was a good opportunity to catch up on work I allowed myself to fall behind on during the Ironwood Meetup. As the afternoon turned into evening, Yellow Wolf and I had dinner together inside Cracker Barrel, both to validate our overnight stays here and because I genuinely like to eat here. We retreated to our vans afterward, and I watched videos and entertained myself for the night.
Smokey Da Van 