I’m typing this after a long day on the road. After I posted to the blog last evening, Donna and I sat up and watched two episodes of House of Cards – season three. When I went to bed, I slept like a rock. Donna was awakened by the sound of a car pulling into our spot at 2am. The car departed shortly after pulling in. She didn’t hear any doors open, just a strange muffled sound. Today we think it was probably law enforcement – a cop or border patrol car. The sound may have been a radio receiver in the vehicle. They probably just did a drive-by to see who or what was in the area.

The boondocking spot we found off AZ85 south of Gila Bend had a ramada and a sign that said “overnight parking permitted, no camping.” We took that to mean “don’t pitch a tent or get in a sleeping bag under the ramada.”

It was a fairly quiet spot and we couldn’t beat the price – free.

Sunset at our boondocking spot in the desert

We were up early this morning. We had breakfast and coffee and had the slides in and jacks up by 8:15am. We changed our plan and decided to go the extra 30 miles and maybe add 45 minutes to our drive by continuing south on AZ85. This would take us through the towns of Ajo and Why before we headed east on AZ86 to Tucson. There was very little traffic and it was more interesting than droning along on I-8 to I-10.

Our boondocking site after sunrise

We eventually hit I-10 at Tucson. We stopped at a rest stop east of Benson and ate lunch, then motored on. Donna was working at her laptop while I drove. After about 300 miles of driving in windy conditions, we crossed the border into New Mexico. I’ll need to update our states visited map. I’ve been to New Mexico many times, but we only count the states we’ve visited since we started full-time RVing.

I don’t know if the sign was messed up or the picture pixilated

After a stop at the Flying J in Lordsburg, where we topped up the tank with 55 gallons of diesel fuel, we crossed the Continental Divide at an elevation of 4,585 feet above sea level. For those of you who don’t remember what the significance of the Continental Divide is – it marks the difference of where watersheds drain. West of the Continental Divide, water flows to the Pacific Ocean. East of the Continental Divide, it flows to the Atlantic (via the Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean Sea in some cases). From there we drove on to Deming. We are currently dry camped at an SKP park here. The day’s total mileage was 377 miles. I usually like to limit my drive to 250-300 miles per day. We’ll push on again in the morning and drive about 340 miles to Fort Stockton, Texas.