Today after homeschool we decided to head into Apache Junction by way of the 8 mile off-road FS10 route that I biked a few days ago.  The “road” is really bad in spots, and coming down a steep hill the washed out trench in the middle of the road was a bit too wide and the SUV slipped in to the trench on the passenger side, crushing the running board up into the body of the SUV.

Oops:

Looking back up the hill:

Truth be told, I’ve always hated the running boards because they reduce ground clearance, so I wasn’t sad to discover that the front of the running board had been sheared off its mount.  I got out some tools and finished the job:

Yup, this one’s done:

Post surgery, the SUV has a lot more clearance:

Not wanting to litter, we packed out the running board.  I’ll remove the other one tomorrow before we leave Bulldog OHV:

Enjoy your last day on the SUV, driver’s side running board, you’ll be joining your starboard friend tomorrow:

We pulled off FS10 to check out an old mine, which now has a modern water gauging station installed:

It took us about 90 minutes to cross those 8 miles to Apache Junction, just a bit slower than by bike.  That’s how bad the road was.  We did food shopping and laundry, and stopped at Grandpa Glenn’s to say hello to him and Edna.  We filled up our 45 gallon water bag for the trip back to the RV, as the RV is almost out of fresh water:

Once we returned to the RV, I drained the water bag into the RV’s fresh water tank via garden hose.  Trish tried out a wall-mounted ball run we recently received:

We will be heading out tomorrow morning for our drive to the Scottsdale community for Shabbos.

We got off to a late start this morning, which is one of the nice things about setting our own schedule.  We did our daughter’s homeschool outside:

More leatherwork too:

This afternoon we went for a hike in a nearby wash.  We were looking for some wild horses I had seen a few days ago while driving by.

We love the Saguaros!  They look soft and cuddly from a distance, but in reality they have a hard exterior and rows of very sharp spines:

We finally found the herd of wild horses.  They were brought here in the 1700s by Spanish explorers.

After observing the horses for a while, we headed back:

An encounter with the Cholla Cactus is not something soon forgotten:

We could see the top of the RV in the distance:

After dinner we did a bit more homeschooling, and then it was time for bed.

Ever wonder what Trish is doing while I’m working on the blog?

Kidding!  Kidding.  Sort of.

This afternoon we drove over to Usery Mountain State Park.  The “Nature Center”, which is really a gift shop, has some native flowers planted out front:

We drove over to the Wind Cave trailhead and started up the mountain.  Once we worked our way up the mountain, we could look down and see the trailhead parking lot below:

Wind cave wasn’t very impressive, but we did the hike for the hike and the views, not the destination, so that was OK with us.

Trish checked ahead of time and saw that there was a letterbox at the end of the hike, so we did our letterboxing.  The letterbox contained a “hitchhiker” letterbox which we are supposed to take and put into the next letterbox we see.

We hurried to get off the mountain before sunset:

We’re low on water, so we drove into the park’s campground and filled our two 4-gallon jerry cans, then returned to the RV for the night.

The kids worked on leather craft this morning:

After completing homeschool, we left a bike near a boat ramp on the Salt River, then drove upstream a couple miles.  The idea was that we would kayak down, and then I would ride the bike to the start and pick up the SUV.

Unfortunately, the Salt River turned out to be pretty low this time of year, so we spent most of our time dragging the kayaks through the shallow parts of the river.  There were a few deep (more than 6 inches of water) parts:

In some shallow areas, a thick mat of biomass covered the surface of the water:

Even with the difficulties, it was neat to paddle by Saguaro cacti:

At the shallow parts, Trish and I would pull our boats through the shallows as well as the children’s boats with the kids still in them, as the kids were wearing shoes that couldn’t get wet.  It was slow and exhausting, and because the river was so low we had to carry all four kayaks about a quarter mile to the road at the end.  I ended up riding the bike back to the SUV in rapidly darkening twilight, and by the time we got the kayaks back onto the SUV it was cold and dark out.  Trish then drove behind me as I rode my bike back to the RV.

This was the worst kayak trip we’ve ever done, but hopefully it’s something we can someday laugh about.