Where’s Nico?

“Can’t Stop the Sun” was the closing tune on one of Petty’s later albums, “The Last DJ”. Thought I’d go with this one, because this week, we put some new solar panels on top of our travelling caravan!

This probably won’t be a big surprise, but as I mentioned in the last blog post, we’re in Arizona, and it turns out, Arizona is quite the hub of solar activity.

Before our last trip, we installed four 190 watt panels on our roof, which did the trick for us, but we found this year, when we left a bit earlier in the season (January instead of March), the sun was at a slightly lower angle, so we weren’t drawing quite as much of a charge. And it turns out, if you want to upgrade your panels, go to Arizona, because you can buy panels for dirt cheap down here. We scored four new 270 watt panels for $40 a piece, which was over a 40% increase in the solar power we’re able to pull each day.

On top of that, Kristen installed a new inverter to convert the DC current from the solar to the AC current we need for our outlets. We still have our original inverter, but we brought a couple of kitchen items with us this year that just required too much juice to power them off the old inverter – a Keurig coffee maker, a rice cooker, and a sous vide.

It’s been great to utilize all three of those things on this trip!

“Enough about the solar cells and the coffee, Ken – get to why we’re all here. Where’s Nico???”

Hold your horses there, cowboy!

Before I get to where Nico is, I have to tell you, I felt a terrible pang of loss after I posted my last blog entry, and I need to address this right now. As you know, I love finding a good meme to toss in when I’m doing my write ups. Well, last week, I finished with an extended discussion of bye vs. buy vs. by. And yet, I let the obvious slip right past me…

Ahhh… that felt good. And you’re welcome for the ear candy you’re now enjoying and/or cursing.

“Arg!!! Darn you and your 90’s boy band fetish! Just tell us where Nico is!!!”

Okay, okay… to finally answer the question, Where’s Nico?

Tonto National Forest!

Before we got to Tonto, we did spend a few more days near Red Rock, Arizona, home of Picacho Peak State Park (not to be confused with Pikachu…)

I told you about that area in my last post, so I won’t go into much detail. We did spend some more time hiking through Sweetwater Reserve while in that area, and had a chance to get together for lunch with an old friend of mine, Steve.

After we got the solar panels installed, we decided to head up to an area in Tonto National Forest near the small town of Superior, Arizona.

This is a really beautiful corner of the world. We found a nice spot to boondock near the Picketpost trailhead, which is a starting point for a bunch of wonderful trails in the area. We’re set apart from any other campers, which is always nice – it gives views like this:

That mountain you see in the third pic (the one with Kristen and Nico), is Picketpost Mountain, and one of the really nice trails here is a loop around it.

We’re in a part of Arizona that has a lot more mountains and valleys, and the hiking is gorgeous. We had a little bit of rain on our first day and a half in the area, but since then, it’s been nothing but sun (much to our new solar panels’ delight) and temps climbing into the mid-to-upper 70’s.

Here are some pics from the local trails:

I love this next pic, but I should mention in advance, when we do long dusty trails and it’s kind of hot out, we need to water Nico down a bit so he doesn’t overheat, and as you combine that water with the dust on the trails, he can get a bit muddy:

He got a good bath that evening, I assure you.

In addition to the open trails, there is an amazing arboretum in the area – the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, named after a former miner and industrialist who ended up feeling some guilt for his mining efforts, which led him to a series of efforts to better utilize our natural resources, including this fantastic arboretum. I wanted to share some pics from this place too:

The arboretum had some areas dedicated to plants of the Chihuahuan Desert. Nico was less amused than we were when we decided it was important to document the Chihuahua’s visit to the Chihuahuan exhibits:

We’ve visited the arboretum twice so far. In our first visit, we were lucky enough to encounter a family of coatimundis wandering through the area. Coatimundis are cousins of raccoons, and they’re good tree climbers. We’d never encountered them outside of a zoo before:

The arboretum is only about five minutes from where we’re camping, and just another couple minutes down the road gets us to Superior, AZ. It’s a cute little town and everyone we came across there was extremely friendly. It even has a little ice cream parlor, which we have visited to score some root beer floats after some of our hikes. I’m sure we’ll spend another week or so here before pushing off, and it’s definitely a town and an area we’d love to visit again. If only they had some draw to give us a specific reason to come back. Oh wait, what’s this???

I think we have a ringer to enter for the Chihuahua race!

Well, I’ve caught you guys up on most of our adventures of the past week. But the truth is, I buried the lead. Those who know me well know I have what can only be described as an obsessive and bordering on psychotic man crush on the actor Sam Elliott. It’s an interest that I’ve even blogged about on this site. Let’s call this ‘foreshadowing’.

Anyway, one thing that we’ve encountered a lot in this area is horses. Most of the hiking trails are also horse trails, and a lot of folks who set up in this area bring their horses with them. There’s a large group of them just a half mile or so from where we are camping. As we were driving by them the other day with our root beer floats, I saw a man who looked a LOT like Sam Elliott. And not just any Sam Elliott – I’m talking Tombstone/Big Lebowski Sam Elliott.

We waved at him, and he waved back in an incredibly cool cowboy wave kind of way.

The next day, we did a hike along the Lost Trail. It was a gorgeous hike (and I included several pics from it above). Anyway, as we were on the trail down by Arnett Creek, we passed a couple guys on horseback, including our Sam Elliott clone. I must admit, I sputtered a bit as I tried to talk to him. “Hi! I’m from Kansas City, and I hope it’s okay to say this, but you’re the most cowboy looking cowboy I’ve ever met!” He politely said “Kansas City? Why I’m from Ottawa, Kansas, just down the road!” He proceeded to spend fifteen or so minutes with us, telling us about some fun trails in the area, and the route his life took to bring him to this area. His name is Lynn, or Jim – honestly, I was so giddy that I may have gotten that wrong. But before he moseyed off, I asked if he’d let me take a picture of him with our proud pooch. And he obliged.

Wow. All I can say is wow. And if you’re wondering, Kristen is incredibly accommodating and understanding of my Sam Elliott fanboying. We went back to the arboretum today and picked up some more root beer floats before heading back to camp. As we drove back, we went right by where Lynn/Jim is set up, and there he was, looking as cool as ever, and he gave us another cool cowboy wave. And that, my friends, is where this week’s story ends.

– Ken, 2/3/25