Three Month Home Base in Southwest

buckland said:
Presently I am starting a small town newspaper search, Looking at ads. It is tedious so possibly might get lucky.
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You may wish to contact local real estate agents. They have their finger on properties as well as, or better, than anyone.

I agree with your Craigslist assessment. Lots of JackA##es lurking there.

Maybe you can avoid the fate of the woman we ran into in Hanksville Utah. She went down there from Seattle for a couple month break and ended up buying the local Rock shop. Lives there permanently now. Though I have to admit she seemed happy enough.
 
You know Rob, I've always like Tonapah, Nevada, it's sort of in the middle of nowhere, but you can get to allot of places pretty fast but again I like Gerlach, Nevada too-can not beat Bruno's. If you like trees and a real homey little town, try Canyon City, Oregon, really like the brick streets and has good access to allot of places. Make sure you check the fire situation before you move, the smoke will destroy even the best places .

Have fun.

Smoke
 
Thanks for the suggestions Smoke. I will google map and check them out. As we are hopefully going in Jan-March to avoid sleet freezing rain and tons of snow (gee do I sound done with NE winters?) (BTW my nephew lives in Clark CO... N of Steamboat Springs...gets meters and meters of snow... but it is nice snow...fluffy powder...stuff you can play in not hip breaking glare ice!! ... gee do I sound jealous ?) So we are hunting a winter retreat to what we would call warm (above 45). I always assumed the more north one goes the more cold maybe Oregon isn't like that? I want walking without crampons walking !!
Have found a couple cabins in mountains of New Mexico... but the looking is yet young.
 
Hi Again

For whats it is worth pay close attention to Altitude in the west or southwest in terms of the temps you can expect.

On one of our trips Oregon-Big Bend we encountered overnight temps of 8 in New Mexico.....in late March.

Weather Underground has the means to look at archived weather info for past dates...handy tool.

David Graves
 
Sounds like a great plan. Living where we do we are spoiled mostly mild temps year round.
No snow/ice to speak of. But lots of fog which can get old after weeks/months of it.
But I am not going to complain.Been out of the east coast cold (left Pennsylvania 1963).

Just couldn't put up with that now.Also don't want to live where the temps are above the 80s.

We are very picky.
Frank
 
Oregon and Washington west of the Cascadian Mt Range extensions is coastal influenced weather = warmer Winters; with TONS of people...East of that is generally cold, well below zero cold, in winter and hot in summer but with lots of room to roam..., but hey it is a dry cold! :rolleyes: I live in NE corner of Oregon....remember to consider elevation: colder higher in Winter....I doubt if on East Coast considering altitude is significant, well, except on White Mountain...

Gerlach, if not BFE you can see it from there....alkali desert...2022 YTD 1.86 " rain...tough, hard scrabble and isolated; but close to Burning Man if you dig that... :cool: I grew up in Nevada and love the sagebrush country, but in Gerlach the jackrabbits carry canteens...

Canyon City is adjacent to John Day and very hot in summer; I drove through there at end of this June and it was an oven....Winters are as stated, cold...unfortunately drugs are becoming a big issue in many of these small central Oregon towns...mostly meth.

Your quest will be fun....but everyone is looking for what you are looking for; a place to escape to with solitude...currently we are seeing mass exit from the insanity of metropolitan centers in Ca, Or and Wa...but like the song: "sometimes you might get what you need"....

Enjoy the journey! And good luck to you....

Phil
 
We are starting to find "tiny houses" for rent in somewhat secluded areas. still not cheap but at $!500/28 days not too bad for per diem. To keep in perspective as we are a long way from a home base. 4 weeks at a place like that might allow a lot of local exploring as well as time to scout out places to boondock for a few weeks then find another rental for a couple weeks. The first time out will be a learning experience and having a place for a few weeks might make it easier. If it's bad we can always bug out! We are leaning toward more southern higher elevation... a little snow dusting is not winter to us.
 
Wandering Sagebrush said:
Rob, check out Borrego Springs, Ca
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I am checking this out now Steve. I have a sister who taught in Riverside (Botany at UC) she now lives in Bay area but loved heading into desert to see flowers bloom. I sent her a message to see what she knows as well. Appreciate the help.
Rob
 
Well I feel like I have been in a time warp. I guess the world has kept on getting more complex as I have been' circling the airport'. I have found there are many places to rent but since the AirB&B etc thing folks are really charging $$$ for ship container tiny houses! This is gonna make it more of a tedious search to find a place. The rates are high relative to my thinking. I better get over that quick. The month long rental seems not feasible in that where we'd love to spend a month like Sedona or Taos the prices or even availability is out of our range. So maybe shorter rentals and more of them might be feasible with more time in the camper in boonies.

We have a rough track outlined. We'd beeline it out of the frozen north down to Nashville and hop on the Natchez trail highway. It's 400 miles long and has 3 free National park campgrounds open all year. Tennessee, Alabama, and ending at Natchez Mississippi on the river.Wed'd go straight across Louisiana on blue highways and cross eastern Texas on same to Austin area. ( we have a friend in Buda TX where we can chill and regroup)\. From there east to Big Bend State park area, Terlingua TX. I am hoping to rent a "cabin" for a week to get a place to plan out camp sites in the park. I bet we can easily do 10-14 days in the park. What I have found of my nature is I have to consciously put on the brakes and not worry about spending too much time in one place thinking the next might be needing more time. I have to struggle to enjoy every mouthful not thinking about the next bite. I am researching Carlsbad Caverns and the area around that spot. A friend has told me he spent 3 days in the caverns and is going back. From there I have a basic idea, So nothing is even close to set but a loop around southerly west then northerly east here are some ideasin no real order: Painted Desert NM, Monument Valley NM,Bears Ear NM,Canyon of the Ancients NM, El Malpais NM, Taos NM, Cibola Nat Forest NM, Gila Cliff Nat. Mon. NM, Maybe SW Arizona if possible???? Getting home I will not even give one iota of thought as it will no doubt be "flat out on the slab" (but thankfully home is good).
So fellow wanderers with great thoughts, all ideas will be given consideration and research. I will be doing a blog while underway mostly because I am Irish... I gab. It relaxes me to write about the day no matter how bad... so will be sure to scout out. One very important place to me that I want to go and have wanted to go for ever is a small church where a spiral staircase was made by a wandering carpenter. I have info on it and I will be sure to go see. It appears to float. After making it at the mission for his board, he just left. Gotta see it.
 
Rob you have got a lot on your plate.Though you are thinking it all out.

I have to agree with you about the prices of renting.From a rentees point
I feel things are in the "scalping" range,but then again I am not a renter.

It's still what ever the market will bear I guess.
I know where we live rents are unbelievably high.
Sign of the times.

Keep up the planing.
Frank
 
Thanks Frank. I am just getting into the planning in a serious way... all before was piddling about but if it is going to happen I have to suss it out as apparently 6 months ahead is actually cutting it close as far as reservations etc. I am fortunate in that I have the camper and truck absolutely ready. So no need to have two fronts to worry about. I am holding on to the idea you gave me that getting into the nitty gritty with maps and possible points to stay are fun in themselves... at first a bit daunting but after a beer and some porch sitting one gets lost following a trail of possibilities.
 
buckland said:
Thanks Frank. I am just getting into the planning in a serious way... all before was piddling about but if it is going to happen I have to suss it out as apparently 6 months ahead is actually cutting it close as far as reservations etc. I am fortunate in that I have the camper and truck absolutely ready. So no need to have two fronts to worry about. I am holding on to the idea you gave me that getting into the nitty gritty with maps and possible points to stay are fun in themselves... at first a bit daunting but after a beer and some porch sitting one gets lost following a trail of possibilities.
Click to expand...
Maps and Google Earth to see places of interest. I always like checking the "from space view" of
places I am thinking about.

I especially like street view in looking for places in some of the foreign cities we might visit.

It's all fun.

Have another beer and keep planing.
Frank
 
Howdy

Your post will win an award for the all time greatest trip planning thread ....and we all know why.

I fear your underlying premise of "rent a home base and explore from there." is inherently flawed because what you are hoping to find does not exist.

The Southwest has for many years been a winter neighborhood of the Northwest.

Yuma is a section of Seattle. Secluded beaches I know in Baja are so saturated with Canadian pee that the smell is now year round.

The hard cold fact seems to be that corporate tourism promotion has polluted the entire landscape.

In our area of Oregon business interests own lots and lots of "local" houses and rent them nightly for big dollars.
One short term rental management agency puts its house cleaning staff in bunk houses because there is so little rental housing here for "normal" working folks.

Lately, local management agencies are being bought out by national interests......profit seeking has always brought out the worst in us as a nation.....something the local politicians can call "economic development."

Nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.

I dunno, keep it simple and enjoy what you can and ignore the rest.

David Graves
 
Dave nails it.

Still the best option for us is to find some solitude in an unfettered location is to seek out the places few wish to invest the effort to find or get to.....in our Tundra/Hawk we purposely look for and find beautiful scenery and hiking locales without crowds and the attendant insanity...peace and quiet still does exist, but in the not to near future I fear even that will be gone...

Primitive camping, solitude and outdoor experiences are not everyone's cup of tea...but if you look and probe for them they still are there....'seek and you will find' whatever floats your boat; good luck.

Phil
 
Dave and Phil have it right.

Our solution is to visit as few paid campgrounds as possible and stay as far from crowds as we can. Only going to town for gas, water, laundry and fresh veggies. No problem with a month or so on the road in the back country.

I always study google maps and Earth, watch YouTube videos if any exist for places on our general route and plan, plan, plan, which usually lasts the first couple of days if that long. As I drive, my wife carefully studies maps, paper and avenza on a gps capable samsung tablet. I have learned to be flexible and follow her lead when she spies something I did not notice when doing all that planning. We end up in some amazing places, such as a two-site USFS camp, with a clean pit toilet, that we had all to ourselves in the central Oregon forest last month.

Our near month in and around Death Valley this spring had us camping away from people pretty much all the time. Once some guy came by & camped about a quarter mile away. And we chose to spend a nite at Tecopa, where we met some interesting people... otherwise we may as well have been the only people overnighting in the park, by all appearances. We have had similar experiences in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

I don't know how firmly attached you are to having a rental 'base camp'. We think of our pop-up as a portable cabin in the wilderness.

Good luck in your search.

Tony
 
Oh not firmly attached at all. But being that we come from afar we thought it would be nice to start as though we were starting fresh. 3000 mile drive in winter prior to the three or four week out in remote was just a gentle way to begin in an area we are new to wandering in. We are very experienced and confident in our rig and prefer to be out in the quiet world alone as can be.
As this is the first SW foray just wanting to meter it a bit. We are now leaning more on liness of a week stay in an area populated then bug out to where we prefer to be.... move on to another area repeat. This is an exploratory trip.

I envy the folks who say "we decided to take a week and head out to a new place to explore" .....Wandering the West is truly a remarkable concept and real privilege. As one said above and we know all too well back east... respectfully finding that quiet is getting harder to do. From where we live and it is quiet and rural... we have vaulted into Labrador and Newfoundland, northern Quebec and Ontario; the north Maine woods is still wild but the same is happening there... people. That direction is only good in the warm months ( 3 or 4). Hence our hope for warmth and quiet south. Our first choice was Mexico and Central America and will be in the future as we have both lived and worked in South America and really enjoy all the cultural discoveries too.

I appreciate all sides of thought in this. Can't learn without listening! This trip plan is totally fluid!
 
Rob, regardless if you pick it as a base, or just a place to explore, I do recommend spending time in Anzo Borrego State Park/Borrego Springs when you get an opportunity. From Ricardo Breceda’s sculptures on Dennis Avery’s estate (Galleto Meadows), to citrus stands, to true desert wilderness, it’s a delightful place to visit.
 
Thanks Steve you bet... it is on the list. My sister insists it is a great place to explore as well. She love s the desert flowers and has enjoyed going there many times. I better just hurry up and get out there ...so many places and so little relative time. I'd go now but with my Irish genetics I melt at 90 degrees!
 
If I was planning a trip as you describe, I'd drop the idea of renting a house. For a "rest" from the road, I would get a nice motel room for a night or two. We'd resupply with groceries, do laundry, a long shower, and go out for a romantic special dinner. For us, that would be our only touch of civilization.

Now, to be honest, I've never been able to talk Julie into this. She prefers the camper always.
 
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