Spot the camping place
I had found a really great spot west of Phoenix that ended up having me return for a second week of boondocking. I had solitude, scenery, hiking, and a bunch of interesting rocks to collect as well! But first, I had a resupply day that included laundry duty. Join me as I head into Buckeye to fill in the last bit of the resource list required to boondock in an area.
Hobo Joe, what a nomad used to be
I had been boondocking east of Phoenix for a few weeks now, exploring mostly west to southwest of Buckeye. My goal had been to stay long enough to have to go through at least one round of everything you need as a boondocker to camp in an area. I had found a great grocery store, with the Fry’s having easy access from the edge of town. There was propane straight north at the I-10, so that was easy too. Water and dump were a bit more of a challenge, having to head 40 kilometers west to Saddle Vista Ranch for a half decent dump – water setup. Yes, there is closer stuff along the I-10 into Phoenix, but they all have water setup too close to the sewer hole. My last need was for a laundromat, with some exploration of eating opportunities nearby as a bonus.
One of the few old buildings in Buckeye
Laundry day is one of the most time consuming chores for me as everything is due for wash by the time I hit a laundromat. I have to strip my bed, which in a Class C with an overcab bed is already challenging. I add to the challenge by having to work around my kayak and some miscellaneous bits that get stored up there too. I could just take everything down, but I discovered it is actually easier to shove stuff around and remove the sheet. Anyone that has had to deal with sheet changes for someone immobile in bed will know what I’m talking about, other than I can just slide stuff willy nilly around rather than rolling a person side to side.
Easy parking. You can park on the street too if all the good big spots in the lot are taken
I rolled into Buckeye and hit Buck’s Laundromat, a newly renovated place that is actually much better than its (as of Mar ’26) 3.1 star rating. Googles reviews are useful, but you need to actually look at recent reviews as old reviews for previous owners or previous facilities can drag down the score unfairly. I gave the place a 5 star review. There isn’t anything really I can fault them for. One advantage of using a laundromat versus a home machine is no matter how much laundry I have, it will all be done in one round of wash and dry. I used up a two load and a three load machine for all my washing needs. The driers come in two sizes but even the small one is huge – enough for everything to go in at once. So I’m done at the actual laundromat in a a couple of hours, but the re-assembly and laundry handling will add at least another hour to the process for me.
Barbon Asadero industrial vibe
I did the minimum laundry processing in order that I could get moving again, but before taking off, I explored down the road to see if there was anything good to have lunch at. I had not had any Mexican yet while down here this year, so Barbon Asadero sounded particularly enticing, since I like Mexican grill food. I’m no expert on Mexican cuisine, I can barely tell a burrito from a taco. So I ordered the Barbon platter, being a sampling of their main dishes, including a Barboncito, which was new to me. I was sitting in what was a generic industrial feel building. It could just have easily been an industrial pub for the lack of decour. So the vibe had me not expecting much of the Margarita I ordered. My expectations were much exceeded – the Margarita was very good, just the right sweet-sour blend I like. A second one was required to wash down my equally good food. With the good service to boot, I’d definitely return here. Perhaps over time they will decorate more and soften the industrial vibe of the inside space.
Hanging out in front of the Fry’s
My day was going pretty good – all I had left was to resupply groceries and then I could head back out. A quick fill with gas at the Fry’s wasn’t any cheaper with points as compared to filling up at the I-10 stations that day. The pricing changes all the time; don’t assume with your Fry’s discount that it will be the cheapest gas. I only used points this time as I know I’ll end up wasting some anyways as they expire a month after earning them. I was sitting on $200 worth of points, so that translates into $0.20 per gallon savings on up to 35 gallons, in this case the i-10 gas stations were all $0.20 cheaper too, so no real savings. One thing I have to remember is to NOT use my fuel savings if I’m filling up my jerry can only. One fill = points used even if it is only 1 gallon. You need to fill your jerry can as part of the same fill, assuming you are not over 35 gallons already. As I’m a 40 gallon tank and I rarely am down to my last 5 gallons I have room to fill the jerry can too within my allotted savings. All of these savings plans are a pain, but if you are willing to jump through some hoops the savings can be worth the pain. If I accumulate a month’s worth of Fry’s shops I’ll be at closer to $0.40 a gallon and can save $12 on my typical 30 gallon fill – that is worth a bit of hassle, keeping in mind some of that savings may not really exist if surrounding gas stations are cheaper than Fry’s.
Trucks lined up venting the back of the Fry’s
I continued to the store, getting my shop done quicker now that I’m used to the layout of this store. That is a downside of travel – new grocery stores pretty much require a wander through all the aisles the first time in to make sure you find everything. I get to the till and the lady is just about to start ringing through my purchases when the supervisor comes over and tells the clerk to stop and get ready to leave the store. A moment later, the fire alarm goes off and we all are instructed to leave the store. My groceries are sitting on the belt. Had I been 5 minutes quicker I’d have been out and avoided what turned into over an hour wait. It was a real alarm.
Barbon Platter at Barbon Asadero
With all the time I had waiting, I wandered about and made friends with some of the firemen. It turns out there had been a CO2 leak that was high enough to be a hazard. They had the hazmat team out purging the air out of the building to get the CO2 levels low enough to let everyone back in. CO2 is a hazard in high enough quantities. In my chat with the fireman at the front of the store, we swapped incident stories. He told me about a McDonald’s in Phoenix where there had been a CO2 leak in the basement. They sent a person down for something and they didn’t come back. A 911 call later at discovering the person and the fire department person collapsed down there too. They retrieved the fire department person, but the other person was too far gone. Only then did the fire department clue in and measure the gas levels off the chart down there.
The news business is slow
Being there for a while, I contemplated abandoning my groceries and heading to another Fry’s not too far away. But I had been told the other Fry’s was a lot busier, plus I hate shopping. I stuck it out for the hour plus it took before they let us back in. I should have checked my cart they had loaded the groceries back into more carefully once I was back in. It turns out a few grocery items were missing, so I was short a few items back at camp. Fortunately, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t live with for a week. Even shopping can be an adventure sometimes!
View of mini mountain plus Saddle Mountain in the back
I was happy to escape back out into the desert. It had been a longer day than expected and I was happy to get to my new spot a a couple of miles west of my previous spot. This time I had a view of the 200 foot mini mountain near my camp, with better hiking opportunities around the area. As in my previous spot, I was on a bit of a ridge, so I could see back to the solar farms and power plants in the distance. The road I had gone up was quiet – there was only a few vehicles for the week passing by.
Mini-mountain, only 200 feet tall
For all the solitude, I did have one truck come up after dark, passing by and stopping a couple hundred of meters up the road, off to the side. Suddenly shooting starts. I’m not even sure they saw me camped, as their headlights might not have hit my rig off to the side as they came up. I had the binoculars out watching which way they were shooting. It was east, where I was south of them. Now, as to what they were shooting, it was dark. Mini-mountain was about a klick away, in the dark – they were shooting at that. I’m sure every shot hit as it’s a big target, but I’m not sure what the point of that round of shooting was. They went at it from 9 to 11 pm, finally leaving me in peace to sleep.
Holey hill down the way was a shooting spot. Why didn’ t they go shoot here?
The next day, I went over and found their shooting spot, marked mostly by the fresh bullet casings on the ground. As far as I can tell, no one else has ever shot there before, so why now I have no idea. Part of the reason I had picked a spot up this road was that there was no ammo to be found from previous shooting. I chalked it up to bad luck on my part and decided I’d stay a second week here. Other than the one round of shooting, it was a nice spot, just a bit challenging to get level without pulling out the levelers. I did make sure to clean up every bit of shell casing I could find. I don’t want the next group to come along and think this is a good shooting spot based on the shell casings laying around.
Rattlesnake Well, showing the tank and trough
I visited Rattlesnake Well a second time while I was camped here. My first visit had been with the motorcycle, with only a quick tour through as someone was camped to the south of the well. It’s a pretty substantial build with the usual cattle corrals. There are a few shade trees, especially where they get a bit of water runoff. The well is the usual solar powered pump you see these days, with the line going off to a round tank surrounded by a water trough. The farmer in the area has built a concrete dam around the whole tank, leaving you with a circle trough that goes all the way around. I made sure to bring a bottle and fill up some non-potable water for use back at the rig. With the heat, it was also nice to splash some of this clean looking water on me, making sure as always to not let any of it near my mouth.
 The well |
 Trough going around, water is spilling out |
My explorations with the motorcycle went further west into the sparsely populated farm country I had discovered the previous week. My plans were to explore around the edges I could reach to see if there was any boondocking. The agriculture in the area was mostly abandoned on the east side where I came from with the Grom. I found some interesting decaying buildings and structures from times gone by when irrigation had still been available in the area. I’m finding in this part of the world that the abandoned farmland is being turned into solar farms. If you don’t have enough water for farming, you might as well use this land for solar. I wonder if this area might be a candidate for Agrivoltaics, the practice of farming under solar panels. If the water savings of growing under solar panels is significant enough, you could replace plain crops with Agrivoltaics to save you from having to abandon land for lack of water.
There was money spent here once
The area did not yield much for boondocking. You really have difficulty accessing Saddle Mountain from the west, the north west was the only access I found. To the south of the farmland, I had no luck either, but my explorations were limited. That area is getting way out there from the nearest town – the scenery didn’t look particularly promising so I gave up after exploring down one road. At least there was a north – south paved road going through the middle of the farmland, so I didn’t have to go down gravel roads the whole time.
Sunset rock work
My boondocking spot was covered in Chalcedony rocks. The surroundings had fields where these rocks were concentrated. I ended up looking for the ones with a light purple tinge, along with hollows and holes going through them to give some interesting shapes. My routine became to collect rocks during my daily hike, then sit and clean them at my RV as the sun went down. Many of the best rocks were partially buried, and required cleaning dirt and scraping mineral deposits off to reveal them. I ended up collecting a fair collection of nice ones, some of which are even worth a few dollars according to the asking prices I was seeing on the selling sites. I wouldn’t get rich doing this if I was to try and make money off of them, but I might pay for my gas if I put a good effort in to collect many more rocks.
Overall I had really enjoyed my spot for two weeks straight. I had mostly solitude, lots of places to hike, some scenery to look at while at camp, and lots of rocks to collect. I’d say I’m definitely coming back to the area again in the future. But in the meanwhile, It was time to try another area – this one much more popular with much less solitude. But it was the closest BLM land to Buckeye so I wanted to check it out and see what it was like. See you there next time!
