Notes from Nowhere

Kinda Off Grid

Tonto National Forest

Not exactly off-grid. I have a good cell signal and I’m only about 75 miles from Phoenix as the crow flies. But this is the first time I’m *not* overnighting at an RV campsite – other than 2 nights on the street in Flagstaff on my way to somewhere else.

Those 2 nights on the street were very different from this…

I’m so close to Phoenix, in fact, that I scoped out the location with my friend Lori yesterday just to make sure the road was passable with the trailer and that I could expect to find a spot to pull into and stay a while.

What I didn’t take into account was that I’d be pulling thousands of pounds up this mountain. Based on the scouting trip I expected to be a mile or two further uphill but my engine temp gauge was nearly pinned to ‘H’ so I took a little break and then crept a bit further to this spot.

And this spot doesn’t suck. It’s awesome. I could easily live here for a while. Except that I made the worst kind of rookie mistake you can make en route to an off-grid location. I forgot to fill my fresh water tank. It’s reading 1/3 full but I’m pretty sure it reads 1/3 full when it’s anything more than empty. Like a few drops more than empty. I guess I’m going to find out.

Tonto National Forest Alt View

In the meantime, I did bring along plenty of drinking water and I have enough food for a couple of weeks.

I picked the trailer up from repairville in Mesa this morning but need to return one last time in a week or two for final AC work. They’ve finally agreed to add a second battery!

Weather-wise, it’s about 80 degrees right now, but it’s supposed to get down into the high 20s/low 30s overnight in a couple of days…with a chance of snow 🙂

7 Responses to “Kinda Off Grid”

  1. Ljk

    So glad you made it! Looks like a great spot! Enjoy you freedom ?

    • Mark Lipsky

      It’s something I might do on the way out but to go there and come back up here is not in the cards. Too many unknowns including “will my spot still be unoccupied after i’ve done the water thing and trudged back up?” Wouldn’t take too long but you never know. Main thing, though, is should I put my truck through that again (pulling these thousands of pounds up a mountain?) so quickly?

  2. Sherry

    Bucket list… being off the grid. Cheers to your endeavor. Looks awesome!

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