Eventful end to Summer 2023 camp trip

The second week in our campsite on the Rim, I discovered mouse droppings in Minnie. I got out my electric rodent zapper and caught one the next morning. Just in case he wasn't a solo RVer, I reset the zapper. Since I found more droppings in multiple locations, Dale brought over his zapper and I set both of them, moving them around each day. Meanwhile, Dale & I went on a hunt for small openings where they might be getting in. We stuffed steel wool in three different holes we found, though not being certain any of them were open to the outside. Over the next few days, I caught three more mice, then I had a quiet night with no activity and no mice in the traps, so thought I might have gotten them all. On Tuesday evening, as I sat reading in my recliner, I heard the zapper on the engine console go off. Sure enough, there was a mouse in it. I tossed it out the front door and re-baited and reset the trap. Fifteen minutes later, I heard it go off again. After the third one an hour later, I knew there was some super highway into my rig that the whole mountain mouse community had discovered. I crawled in bed with my covers up to my chin, but didn't sleep well. Each time I heard the zapper, I would get up & toss the dead mouse out the door and reset the trap. By morning, there was a pile of five mice plus another one scratching in my oven, and I decided to pack up and head home.

No, not this mouse. This mouse would have been welcome!

I pulled up in front of my house at noon. After unhitching the Fit, Minnie wouldn't start. I tried jumping it with the Fit, but got nothing. Daryl was out and about and I called to ask him to stop by on his way home to double check my jumper cable connections. He started to reconnect them, but told me to first try the key one more time. Sure enough, Minnie started right up. I pulled it around and up the driveway into the back yard, when Daryl noticed one of my back (dual) tires was flat. I remembered either hitting a bump or pothole, or something hitting me as I came through Mesa. Just then, I noticed my gas gauge was also reading empty. It had been over half full just a few miles out of Mesa. I was then very concerned something had put a hole in my gas tank.

All of my electrical system seems to be down. and my brothers suggested the empty gas gauge might be a result of that instead of really empty. Now I'm thinking I might have had a blowout on the tire, and the electrical outage is a separate issue, possibly related to mice chewing wires. I sure hope that's the case or it could be a big expense, not to mention the complication of getting it into a shop to be repaired. It would likely have to be towed. Since I don't have any camping trips planned in the next few months, I'll wait until it's a bit cooler to start making some calls.

Meanwhile, I slept soundly last night in my cool block house, and I'm glad to be home. It was a fun camping trip (up until that last night!) but I'll be ready to hit the road again as soon as Minnie is healed up.

Two weeks on the Mogollon Rim

After exhausting our 14 day camping limit in the White Mountains, we moved back down to the Rim campground and back into the same space we had occupied two weeks earlier. I positioned my Minnie so I'd get afternoon shade this time instead of the bright sun shining in my front door. 

 

Dale had an eye appointment on Monday the 31st, and we drove down to Mesa together in my Fit. We stopped at Daryl's to pick up some Amazon deliveries, then I dropped Dale at the doctor's office. While he was getting his injection, I filled up our one gallon water jugs, did a load of laundry, and took a nice long shower at home. After picking up Dale from his appointment, we turned back north and chugged back up the mountain. We made a quick stop at the Safeway in Payson (we had to take turns going in to shop so we could leave the car AC running for Hanna), then back out to our camp.

One of the Amazon items we picked up while in town was this little portable propane fire pit. We love to make S'mores in the evenings, but the Stage 1 fire restrictions in the forests prohibited us making a campfire. This little pit is far from a real log burning campfire, but it did provide warmth and ambience, and worked surprisingly well at roasting marshmallows and hot dogs. We managed to make our way through several packs of graham crackers, half a bag of large marshmallows, and dozens of chocolate bars.😂 Plus we had chili dogs two nights.

What do you think it means that one of us skewers our dogs vertically and the other one crosswise?

Chili cheese dog!

One day we heard helicopters flying overhead, but couldn't see any evidence of a fire. So we got in the car and drove up toward Willow Springs Lake. We still didn't see any smoke, but there was evidence of some firefighter activity to the northwest, so we stood there watching for a few minutes. Soon we heard a helicopter coming over the trees, and this happened while we watched.

 

Since there was nothing more to see, we headed back to our camp, and then noticed a couple forest service fire trucks in the parking lot of the Mogollon Rim Visitor's Center, so we pulled in beside them to ask where the fire was. They said it was just a few miles away on the reservation. We asked about potential fire danger to our campground area, and they said it seemed unlikely. We drove back to our campsite more relaxed.

 Another day, we drove up to Rim 9350 dispersed campground where we stayed a couple years ago. The roads were a little better than before, and about a third of the campsites were filled. The most disappointing thing we saw was many of the trees had been cut down, and many more were marked for removal. We pulled into our favorite site to walk around, and saw that the majority of the trees were destined for the lumber mill. In speaking to a docent in the Visitor's Center a couple days later, she told us the lumber had been sold. While we can understand managing the forest, especially during drought and high fire season, cutting over half the trees in one campground seemed extreme.

Most of the trees in this site will be cut down.

You can see the orange ring designating removal

We had a lot of thunderstorms both in the White Mountains and on the Rim. Hanna never used to be bothered by thunder, but as she has grown older, she's gotten more and more nervous of the big booms. During one evening storm we heard a big crack, and she ran over under the chair. 

For the most part, we stayed close to camp and just enjoyed the cooler weather and quiet days. Hanna and I walked up and down the dirt road a couple times a day, and took note of the constant in and out of campers. With 50 spaces in Rim 171 Campground, there seemed to be plenty of room for everyone.

Lazy days of summer

Week two in the White Mountains

We took a few outings in our second week in the White Mountains. We drove down to Big Lake one day. I remembered little about the area from our family camp trips in the 1960s, but the name Rainbow Campground pinged my memory as where we stayed when we went there. It's a large campgound, and was about 1/3 full. Nothing else about it seemed familiar. We drove over to the marina, and walked around the dock and little camp store. Dale bought us both an ice cream treat.

Another day we drove down to Hawley Lake. The road to the lake was in terrible shape, and so were the campground roads. We stopped in to the little store/cafe on the lake front and asked about campground rates: $9/night for primitive sites, and $26 for full hookups. When we came back to Carnero Lake, we saw a little rainstorm over on the hill.

It did hit our campsite later.

On our way past Sunrise, we popped up the hill to the Lodge, which we had missed on our first drive through. It is being totally remodeled and was closed, of course. If we make it back up to the area in another year, we'll stop in to see what it looks like.

Our time limit was coming to an end in the high country, and it was time to head down the mountain.