Whew, what a summer!

I'm just about worn out.  As you know from earlier posts, we took the Lance trailer to Burro Mountain Homestead, southwest of Silver City, for what we thought would be 4-6 weeks.  We liked it so much we signed a lease agreement and traded the Lance trailer  (22 feet) for a much larger one which we parked on the leased lot.  Within six or eight weeks, a much better lot, leased for decades, became available so we traded the Pinon Crest site for the Sunrise Ridge site, which meant moving everything.  (For you loyal readers, you may remember that Sunrise Ridge was where the cougar was spotted earlier in the summer.)

The new site came with an existing deck and two good-sized storage sheds.  It continues to baffle me how we have so much stuff when the object of living like this is NOT to have so much stuff.  The Hitchhiker trailer in Deming, with its great screened porch and storage shed, is for sale.  

No maintenance to speak of has been done on this site for a very long time.  It came with a 22 year old trailer which we just had hauled away, as the trailer we bought at the start of the summer is 20 years newer.  We did our best to get some of the maintenance done (the deck hasn't been stained for probably 20 years) but we ran out of time.  Lots of projects for next year. 

Many of the permanent sites have either a wooden roof/deck built or they have a car port covering everything.  Our new neighbor down the lane, Sam Bowman, has been incredibly helpful in solving a lot of issues and he told us unless we owned a lumber yard, a wooden structurer was cost prohibitive as well as taking weeks to get built.  He recommended a car port company out of Gallup, NM.  (Usually the first thing that goes bad on trailers is the roof; lots of caulking, a rubber sheet "shingle," and lots of opportunities for disaster.  The car port protects the roof and removes the dangers of leaks.  An additional benefit is the roof is shaded during the hot summer months and the trailer stays much cooler.)

Below are a couple of photos of that crew putting up the car port.  

Giant erector set.

When I ordered the car port, the company said to expect delivery in 6 to 8 weeks.  Although we were going to be in AZ at that time, Sam agreed to project manage it.  A week or so later, Sam got a call from the company that they could deliver it in 10 days (!).  So on the last day we were in the park, the crew showed up and got it finished in one day.  The wind kept rising as the day went on.  I finally quit watching the workmen because they were ON TOP of the rafters and passing big sheets of roofing steel which were like giant sails in the wind. A couple of times the sheet got away from them.  Fortunately no one was hurt but it was a dangerous day to be building one of these.  

We are now at the place in Hope, AZ, which consists of the park, a small chapel, and a closed gas station across the road.  The nearest "town," Salome, is six miles away.  I go to Parker (47 miles) or Wickenburg (60 miles) to shop.  It does encourage me to do a good grocery list because there is no running out to pick up something I forgot.

We have the side-by-sides with us but we haven't yet had time to go adventuring out onto the trails.  I hope we can get ourselves organized soon, as we haven't had much time to ride in a couple of months.