After an interesting day of looking at a Land Rover belonging to a young woman who also owned a bunch of dogs and a camel (really, a damn camel!), I set out for the Chiricahua Mountains. My plan was to drive into the mountains themselves and most likely camp at the Rustler Park campground before returning to the national monument for a hike of the 'Big Loop.' However, given the time and the enormity of the hike facing me the next day, I decided to see if there was any camping available in the monument itself.

Fortunately there was camping, and it was quite nice. The way it was occupied upon my arrival I had the choice of setting up next to either a small family enjoying a campfire, or a raucous group of young people playing acoustic guitars and loud music out of pickup trucks. I chose to be nearer the family, and what an enormous mistake that was. At 8:00pm exactly the guitars were put away, the music turned off, and everyone began to enjoy a campfire talking in low tones. Around the same time the children in the family were apparently stricken by demons and pretty much spent the night moaning and convulsing in their unusually 'swishy' sleeping bags...

Just when I thought the adventure was over, we discovered something very interesting on the way out of the campground in the morning... the only way out was completely blocked by a HUGE tree which had fallen apparently some time during the night. Fun!

The day I dreaded was drawing closer and closer - soon the trip would be over. We were to cross into Arizona today, a symbolic end to our journey. Because of problems with gated ranchlands near the border, we were on pavement for much of the day. We passed this HUGE mine... here you can see one of those dump trucks that are the size of a house.

The plan was to break down camp early and leave via an offroad route Miss R2 had devised which would lead us through Pine Canyon. In order to do this and have enough time to hit the dirt all the way back to Oracle we needed to get up a reasonably early hour. To my surprise, we were all up around 7:00 with the exception of one who I had to rouse by ringing a pot and making loud turkey calls. By 9:00 the trucks were lined up and ready to pull out.

The jeep trail through Pine Canyon was fun and went through a dense forest.

Sunday morning we took down camp with the intention of finding a more primitive and remote place to stay, setup, and spend the day wheeling. On the way out, James from New York in the recently purchased Expeditions West Tacoma was having problems keeping the truck running. Funny how it's always the most uber rig that breaks down! James decided it was best to cut his adventure short and head back to the main road.

They see me rollin'... (rolling because the engine stopped?)

After a hearty (read, HEARTY) breakfast at the Triple-T Truckstop, I met up with the gang from Phoenix and the folks from Tucson in the parking lot. The necessary oogling of the rigs took place as always with many people sporting cool new toys. After that and being accosted by a guy with a nice Tacoma (check out my black headlights!) we were off.

Reaching Wilcox we met up with spertierra from California and gassed up for the last time. With one more truck in the group, we had to re-oogle.

Looks like Jim had a lil' Captain in him that morning!