The final morning of the trip... Not quite ready for real life, to plug back in. We wanted to delay the inevitable if only for a couple more hours.
The last day of a trip is always a bit solemn. I’m sure there are folks that are chomping at the bit to get out of the dirt and back to the real world. It’s not that a shower didn’t sound good, but we consider dirt our comfort zone.
There had to be something to see or somewhere to go before we gave in.
As we traveled along, the trails went from small and barely there to more and more used. It got a bit wider, the ruts got deeper. Eventually we were on a fully graded and maintained dirt highway 4 cars wide. Then we started seeing campers. First with small setups, but the closer we got to pavement the bigger the vehicles. Eventually we saw several groups that looked as though they’d created a city in the dirt complete with satellite TV. “Keep driving! Keep going!”
Now we were on a small pavement road hunting for one last spot to check back out and air up the tires. We saw an overlook of the Gillespie dam that took a bit of a hill climb to get to. Perfect. We aired up and enjoyed the last moments of slow pace before calling the trip “over.”
Even the empty 12 pack of bud light cans someone left at the top of this hill couldn’t get me down. We added the cans to our trash and decided to check out the old Gillespie Dam and bridge.
The fertile valley along the Gila river took on an otherworldly feel with all of the smoke and haze in the air. We stayed in the slow lane and did our best to not let the world let us feel rushed until we got home.
It was a trip of no particular amazement or importance. We didn’t find the holy grail of views or even a new remote epic spot, but we did find some peace and solitude. So, it was still logged into our minds as a “perfect” trip.
Cheers until next time,
Tim