Why is an un-incorporated town, which consists of one gas station, one RV park, one community center and one restaurant. If you blinked on your way to the Organ Pipe Monument, you missed the town. It is the place where two highways meet – 85 & 86. If you had a triangle and Why was on one spoke of the triangle, the other two (equal distance from Why) are Phoenix and Tucson. That sums up the town.
I am outside of the town, in what I refer as glorified boondocking campground. One must have solar to stay here. Running generators is frowned upon, they suggest you go into Why for full hookups if you need that much electricity. Love that! This is high desert camping, we are surrounded on 3 sides with mountains, cactus, creosote is the normal landscape. You see organ pipe goods on surrounding hills. Wild burros, coyotes are frequent visitors. Lots of hiking, bike riding, etc. So why do I call if glorified boondocking? There are 4 dump stations, 4 shower houses, clubhouse with computer room, craft & office), laundry with clothes line available. There are spigots of water available all over the park, but if you want one on your lot, you need to pay for a year to get it. Whoa! There’s no way I’d be here in the summer time… the cost for the year includes a shed you can add as well. How much? $550.00 per year. Or a monthly rate is $130 or a daily rate of $9 a day. Being self-contained – this is an awesome place to park it for the winter. Tons of solar panels galore and people do more here then in other campgrounds I’ve been at.
Grocery store is found in Ajo and they build up stock for all the RVer’s that play down here for the winter. The store also has an ACE Hardware store attached to it. Nice feature. So rarely need to go to the cities for anything, which is even nicer. There a great organic grass fed hamburger joint in Ajo…the best tasting burgers I’ve had in eons. I’ve not eaten at the restaurant in Why, will have to try that out sometime.
Since I’ve been here this year… I have added two new solar panels. I really thought I needed to get new AGM batteries…could not hold a charge for love nor money. Well, the solar folks around here proved me wrong. After doing all the required testing (took 4 full days around the clock) and them adding an extra battery charger to my batteries, full sunshine and the generator running 3 hours in morning and 3 hours in the evening – my batteries finally got fully discharged. That term still confuses me – didn’t they just charge all this? Anyway, once this was accomplished…another 2-3 days of testing and sure enough, I need more panels to make the batteries work better. Now since this hasn’t been happening since I bought the rig… the batteries are definitely showing signs of being tired. The lifetime for AGM batteries is 5-6 years, I’m on the cusp of needing to deal with them anyhow, but… I’m using this time to test thoroughly on the cloudy days, partly cloudy days, full sun days. So I got the new solar panels right before Christmas and its night and day difference. I stand corrected, glad they made me go thru those detailed tests (they drove me nuts! – no comment from the peanut galleries now!!!). So I still have the 2 panels on my roof, that don’t tilt up. And the 2 new panels, they made me a PVC stand to support them to set at an angle on the ground. They fold up and I can move them easily enough.
This next week, I’m getting a Xantrex 2000 inverter installed too. I’m excited about that… Its going to be fun to see what I can run on that. So much that I wanted or like to use, I have left in WA in storage, as I can’t use without running a generator and I hate to run my generator – noise pollution is a major taboo. So with the inverter, this will change, life will get…what? I don’t know, guess I will find out.
A follow up note on protecting my tow car. A friend of mine, when I visited her in Sutherlin, OR before I came south, said “Melinda, having a car is a fun thing to have, but if you have to struggle, you aren’t having fun”. She pointed out she had 2 mud flaps on her rig. One set immediately behind the rear tires, the other about 1/2 way out to the rear bumper. I can’t get mud flaps right behind my tires, as my tanks are in the way. But I do have the mud flap 1/2 between rear tires and the rear bumper. So I started paying attention to fellow RVer’s as I came south… almost all of them, have no protection on the car or between the rig and the vehicle. None!!! No damage to the tow either. All but 2 had two mud flaps on the rig. I managed to talk with one of the 2 about towing with only one mud flap. They have been doing it for 14 years – zero problem! In fact, they had tried the Protect-a-Tow and had the same issues that I encountered. So from Phoenix, I took off my $400 cover, and towed to Why. Zero problems. Was it a waste of money to have gotten the full hood/window cover? Yes and no. I will use it when I next go to AK, because I don’t have 2 mud flaps. But its now being stored in my car. I won’t put it on again, in fact, I can’t put it on by myself. I don’t have the hand strength needed to put it on. Oh the things we learn…
Woven Trails 