We had a relaxing Shabbos here in the Bulldog OHV section of Tonto National Forest.  A ranger was out looking for the owner of a tent camper that has been abandoned here for four weeks.  I’m surprised they don’t just tow it.

It was another beautiful morning:

After homeschooling, we decided to go for a bike ride.  Initially we headed south on the road the RV is on (FS 10):

I played with my phone’s “drama” photo mode which creates a single photo with multiple copies of a moving object:

After riding out and back on FS10, we rode down to Bush Highway and rode east to the Stewart Mountain Dam, which backs up the Salt River to create Saguaro Lake.  We peeked through the fence and then headed for home:

I did another ride with my son to explore westward on Bush Highway.  We were treated to another fantastic sunset:

We intended to do more homeschooling tonight, but our daughter was up very late last night after drinking what turned out to be a caffeinated beverage, so we put the kids to bed early.

Goodnight from the Bulldog OHV area!

After homeschool, I went for a bike ride south along Forest Service road 10 to it’s southern terminus in Apache Junction.  Classic desert scenes were available along the entire route:

The road became worse and worse, and was a bit much for the cyclocross bike with its comparatively narrow, albeit knobby tires.  The steep rocky sections were especially rough:

The road was so bad that I decided to ride back via pavement, even though it was more than twice as far.  There were great views on the way back:

It turns out that the road we’re camped on is part of the Great Western Trail:

Good Shabbos from Bulldog OHV!

This morning we packed up and said goodbye to Grandpa Glenn and Edna.  We stopped at Walmart for some groceries, then headed to a local Chevron for a $5 tank dump.  We then stopped at Target for some new shoes, and then visited the Tonto National Forest administrative offices to get a permit for the Bulldog Canyon OHV area.  It’s a free 6-month permit, and in exchange for submitting driver’s license information, the permit has the monthly combinations for the gate locks for all the entry points to the OHV area.  We entered from the North, and after some bike scouting I found a great spot about a mile in on unpaved Forest Service road 10 (also called Phon D Sutton road) off of Bush Highway.  See the trip map for details.

The sun had already gone down when I took these photos.  Our nearest neighbor is over half a mile away and out of sight.  I love the isolation of sites like these:

The views aren’t too shabby either:

With the directional cell antenna deployed, we’re getting 4G with three bars.  We’re looking forward to spending some time here!