IRONWOOD FOREST NATIONAL MONUMENT (AZ)

FRIDAY - We were about halfway through our preparations to leave this morning when another trailer pulled up near our not yet unoccupied campsite.

My first thought was "WTF", but then I saw our campsite neighbor come out of his trailer and give the new guy a hearty handshake and a "man hug". Then I remembered the neighbor telling me his brother would be arriving here this weekend to spend Thanksgiving riding around the dunes with his dune buggy.

I told them we would be outta here in about 15-minutes and he could then move into our vacant site. All was good!

After placing our trash in the cans we headed for the front gate. That's when we noticed the snow on top of the mountains over by the town of Safford where we went to pick up our Amazon packages on Wednesday afternoon.

That snow wasn't there 2-days ago when we went into town.

At about the half way mark of our nearly 200-mile travel day we pulled into a rest area to use the bathrooms. As luck would have it the bathrooms were closed for cleaning, but hey, we've been towing a bathroom around behind us all day.

This particular rest stop is at nearly 5000' and has a wall of boulders stacked up behind it. It kind of reminds me of City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico, but on a much smaller scale.

Tricia grabbed this photo as we were merging back onto the Interstate.

After what seemed like forever we finally made it through to the north side of Tucson, AZ (pop. 542,630) where we left the Interstate behind and headed west out into the desert.

Only this isn't any ordinary portion of the desert! This dispersed camping area is located within the 129,055 acres of the Ironwood Forest National Monument. Like most, but not all, BLM managed areas there are no visitor centers or campsites with utility hookups.

This is just raw, undeveloped land, where you are allowed to pull off the road and camp for FREE. This is what we've done to keep our 7-year average overnight cost below $20. We mix in some FREE nights, so that we can go spend 14-nights in a nearby Arizona State Park at $35 a night with hookups (water-electric).

Entering the Monument Lands to find us a FREE campsite.

This one will do for 3-nights. It's separated from all the other sites.

When enjoying dispersed camping always locate an existing site and not create new ones.

SATURDAY - This morning we're going back towards town to grab breakfast at the Luna Cafe.

After breakfast we're going to scout out the other three designated dispersed camping areas here in the Ironwood Forest National Monument Lands, you know, just in case we ever come back!

We got back to THE POD just as the first rain of the day started and it continued on and off well into the night.

As I was laying in bed listening to the rain and trying to go to sleep, I became concerned with what the conditions of the 150-yards of rutted clay and gravel track that leads from our campsite back to the road and what the 3/4-miles of sand and gravel road outside the campgroud would be like in the morning.

Yeah I worry about stuff like that when it's bedtime.

SUNDAY - When we woke up today we were thinking it was going to be just another ordinary day of being on the road, but it turned out to be anything but ordinary!

I was happy to see there wasn't much pooled water in the single track road leading out from our campsite. The road might be a little "softer" than it was the day before, but at least there's no puddles hiding deeper ruts below the surface.

During our drive into this campground on Friday, just before we crossed into the Monument Lands, we had a glider plane silently come flying over ROVER and THE POD from behind and land about a mile ahead of us.

Once we got set up I looked at Google Maps and noticed there is indeed a location called the El Tiro Glider Port - Home of Tucson Soaring Club about a mile south of where we are camped.

Yesterday the weather conditions didn't allow for any gliding to take place, but early this morning we heard the tiny powerful plane pulling the gliders up to 3000' and then releasing the tow rope to begin their silent return back to earth.

Tricia grabbed her "big lens" camera and went outside to see if she could capture any decent photos. I thought, why not jump in ROVER and drive over as close as we could get and take photos from there?

Tricia was ready to leave in record time. We drove down to where the runway ends and just missed another glider coming in for a landing. We stood there for a few minutes, watching the activity on the runway about 100-yards away from our location to see if there was going to be another takeoff.

I looked to the right and saw a road with a gate that had a Welcome Sign on it. I left Tricia at the end of the runway to take photos and drove down to see what I could find out.

TUCSON SOARING CLUB

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This is the road leading out towards the Glider Port.
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There is one of the gliders now coming in for a landing.
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This is the end of one of the runways the gliders land on.
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This is the middle of the main runway when the planes take off from.
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Those mountains out there is what gives the gliders uplift to remain up in the sky.
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There goes one of the gliders now being hauled up into the sky, eventually up to 3000'.
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Tricia zoomed way in tight for this photo as the plane glided by over the runway.
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It looks like they're taking the cover off of this one and getting it ready to fly.
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These gliders are all either one seat or two seats like this one.
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Here's the front seat with all the instrumentations. The seat looks well worn.
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It only takes 3-men to walk this light-weight glider out onto the runway.
I wonder who's going to be the lucky person to ride in this plane?
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Why look! It's going to be the lovely Tricia going for a ride today.
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Getting ready for takeoff. What ever you do don't pull the red handle!
In case you can't make it out it says "Canopy Eject".
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Too late to turn back now!
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Tuscon, we have liftoff!
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Time to cut the cord and start gliding!
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Listen to Tricia, doesn't it sound like she's having fun up there!
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It is Tricia's turn at the controls some 2000' above the Ironwood Forest National Monument.
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Locating THE POD from 1000' feet overhead.
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Here you can see the long straight Pump Station Road we are camped off of.
THE POD is inside the red circle about 150-yards from the road.
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Approaching the Glider Port from the east.
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What goes up, must come down! A safe return to terra firma.
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The Tucson Soaring Club leases the Glider Port from the Bureau of Land Management.
The club owns 7 of the glider planes in addition to the propeller plane, the rest are privately owned.
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These trailers are used to transport the planes to other locations for competions.
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Tricia's plane is going back up for another ride. I wonder who the lucky person is?

It turns out the Tucson Soaring Club offer rides to the public for $160, but only one passenger at a time in the glider with a 240-lb. weight limit.

When I called Tricia and asked if she was interested in going for a ride in a glider, her first response was, "I don't know about that"? About 2-minutes later she called me back and said, "If I don't do it now, I'll probably regret it later."

That's how today ended up being anything but ordinary. At least for one of us!

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HOT WELL DUNES REC AREA (AZ)

MONDAY - We had a 144-mile travel day today with most of that heading west on Interstate 10.

Once we crossed into the state of Arizona, it was a short 34-miles before we reached the town of Bowie, AZ (pop. 406). Here it was time to leave the Interstate behind and begin the real journey for today, the final 19-miles to reach Hot Well Dunes Recreation Area where we will be spending the next four nights.

We headed north out of Bowie on a paved road named Central Avenue. For 2-miles we drove passed huge pecan groves before turning 90° to the right onto Fan Road. Everything was fine until about a mile later when Fan Road made another 90° turn, this time to the left and after we crossed a cattle guard the pavement came to an end. The roadbed changed from relatively flat asphalt to a relatively flat, extra-wide 2-lane gravel road.

After about another mile Fan Road made another 90° turn, this time to the right again and continued on for another mile before it came to an end. All along Fan Road we saw young pistaschio trees in hugh fields, still being held upright with wooden stakes.

When Fan Road ended it kind of just morphed into Donahue Road and this is where the trouble started. Up until now the gravel road was relatively flat, but Donahue Road is anything but flat.

The next 5-miles was horrible washboarded gravel roadway which had us driving at 5-10MPH. Anything faster and the vibration literally ripped the steering wheel from my hands. During this 5-mile stretch is probably where the cabinet under the sink opened up and spilled pots and pans everywhere. Also the cutting boards we have mounted to the wall behind the sink ripped off the wall and ended up on the floor.

Standard procedure on travel days is to place our portable induction cooktop and my laptop bag in the center of the bed while we move. They ALWAYS stay right where we put them on the bed, except not this time. This time they had moved outwards towards the edges of our queen sized bed, but at least they stayed on the bed.

All this is physical proof that this was the worst road we've traveled since hitting the road over 7-years ago and not just our imaginations. The worst part is we scouted this location 2-years ago and don't remember the road being that bad, maybe it wasn't then!

Thankfully Donahue Road is only 5-miles long and soon we were back onto asphalt as we reached Haekel Road for the final 9-miles to the campground. One thing is for sure, we have to find another way to exit this place!

Somewhere out in that direction is where we are headed.

Nothing but a view of the sand and sky behind our site.

It's easy to see why the word "DUNES" is in the title of this place.

Tomorrow we'll show you why the words "HOT WELL" are also in the title of this place.

See, I told you that mountain was where we were headed.

TUESDAY - Yesterday we qualified the DUNES part of the name of the place we are at.

Today we'll explain the HOT WELLS portion of the name.

Hot Wells sprang into existence by accident back in 1928 when drillers seeking oil under the sand dunes broke into a pocket of hot water at the depth of 1,920 feet. The artesian well, now aided by a solar pump, produces water that reaches 106 degrees Fahrenheit. - From the BLM website

There are two identical mineral water hot tubs on the property to use.

The tubs are filled and emptied each day by a solar powered pump enclosed in the building,
for this reason there is no water in the tubs between sunset and sunrise.

We walked over to the hot tubs just after lunch and soaked for about 30-minutes. Another young nomadic couple were already there and shared the tub with us. They plan to be in South Florida this winter to work the Renaissance Fair at Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach. The event is every weekend from February 7th through March 29th, 2026 if you'd like to experience what it was like to live in the 16th Century.

After being under heavy cloud cover all day they parted just enough for a wonderful sunset.

Meanwhile this mountain to the north was still buried under the clouds.

Better than the horizon to our east where it's being raining quite hard for some time now.

WEDNESDAY - The forecast for today is that about 30-minutes from now it's going to rain hard for an hour and then around 2:00AM it will start again and this time not stop until 10:00AM on Thursday.

The good news is that on Friday morning, when we pack up to leave here, there is no rain in the forecast, just cold temperatures!

6:30AM - Judging by those clouds out our back window I'd say that forecast is just about right.

When I placed my large Amazon order last Wednesday it estimated that all items would be delivered on Monday, which was perfect, because we arrived here on Monday and I could wait until Tuesday morning to drive the 38-miles into town to pick them up. They give you 3-days from delivery to pick items up before they are returned to Amazon for a full refund.

Well by Friday they had changed the estimated delivery on half of the items to Tuesday. Still not a big deal because we planned on staying here until Friday.

On Monday the half of the items that were scheduled to arrive, did in fact arrive. But one of the items scheduled for Tuesday got pushed back to Thursday. Now we are getting into "the danger zone" of not being able to pick it up in time.

Long story short, we are driving into town today to pick up what items are there before they are in danger of being sent back. While we are out, we're going to scout out the two other possible routes out of here, just so we don't have to drive that awful 5-mile stretch of washboarded Donahue Road again.

Both alternative routes means we will being heading north out of here, when we want to be heading south, which will either add an extra 6.5 or 39-miles to our travel day on Friday. The good news is that if we chose the 39-mile detour route we'll have a chance to pickup the late arriving Amazon package that arrives on Thursday in Safford.

After our morning rain the clouds over Whitlock Cienega began to let the sun shine through.

Around 10:30AM we headed into town to pickup our Amazon packages, fill up with gas, grab a few items at Walmart and grab some lunch.

For the route into town we took Haekel Road north out of the campground for 25-miles and were pleased to find out it was paved all the way. We also passed Tanque Road, which would have been the shorter 6-mile detour when we leave here, but found it was nothing more than a sandy single lane road which means it's no longer an option.

The 25-mile long Haekel Road will work out just fine to provide us an exit from Hot Well Dunes and will take us back into Safford where we can pickup our final Amazon package of Friday. YES, it will add 39-miles to our travel day, but it will be worth every mile not to have to traverse Donahue Road ever again.

By the way, you may have noticed a little round red dot [⛔️] on the map above, that was a detour they had set up while working on Haekel Road up until last month. Now the road is completely open and has brand new asphalt for most of the roadway north of Hot Well Dunes.

THURSDAY - For our last day here at Hot Well Dunes the forecast is not looking all that pleasant.

The daytime high is only expected to reach 55°F and we can expect 41°F when it's time to pack up and leave tomorrow.

To add to the displeasure it's supposed to rain on and off until early afternoon. Sometime after lunch we're going to enjoy another soak in the hot water and then scramble back to THE POD before the warmth has a chance to leave our bodies.

It's interesting watching all the different transformations that Whitlock Cienega Mountain
goes through during the course of a single day. This photo was taken at 7:00AM this morning!

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