I made some LavAzza coffee and let it brew while I went up on the roof to stow the solar-electric panels. We left at 7:05 with me in the RV and J following in the Jeep.

I had Clif Bars for breakfast as I drove ...

To the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center to drop off the RV around 7:30 so we wouldn't have to backtrack before leaving town today.

We first photographed some killdeer right there in the RV overflow parking lot, then we photographed a burrowing owl nearby.

We went looking for white-faced ibis by driving up and down a lot of roads along the green fields. We didn't find any, but found three new burrowing owl burrows. One of the owls was very cooperative and perched at a perfect location. I was able to get my best burrowing owl portrait ever (below left). It was standing at the top of the berm around its burrow, it's feet were showing, the background was extremely uniform, and there were catchlights in both eyes — it doesn't get much better than that! We drove our usual route along the Salton Sea through the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge and stopped at one of the points to photograph the birds as they flew by. I got some nice images of Caspian terns (below right), California brown pelicans, and double-crested cormorants.


We returned to the RV at 10:15 and I hooked up the Jeep to tow as our hot water heater heated some water for a shower. I took a shower, then downloaded the images from this morning while checking gas prices. We left around 11:00.

We headed south on CA-111 and got on I-8 eastbound at 11:49. I had Clif Bars for lunch. We reached Arizona at 12:43, and there was no time change because Arizona doesn't do Daylight Saving Time.

We went to a Liquid Fuel (gas station) and Wendy's in Yuma at 12:51. I fueled the RV and Jeep at $2.739/gal while J went into Wendy's for some take-away. We left around 1:30.

We went to a WalMart SuperCenter on the east side of Yuma around 1:45 to do some grocery shopping. I returned to the RV around 2:15 and let J continue to wander the aisles. I processed two images for the blog. We left at 2:54.

We went to Barney's Flying J east of Yuma at 3:04 to dump. Unfortunately, they no longer have a dump station. Instead of going back to town to try another dump station, we decided to keep heading east.

I listened to an episode of Car Talk while J rested in the bunk.

We stopped at the Love's Travel Stop in Gila Bend around 5:05 to dump, and they wanted to charge money so we passed. They had a cool setup with an electrically locked dump cover and a pay station right there, so it would have been interesting to use. However, we hate paying to dump and it wasn't pressing.

We went to the Circle K (gas station) in Gila Bend at 5:12 to get a few gallons of gas in the RV at $2.879/gal so we'd be able to make it to Tucson — without stressing — where gas is much cheaper. We got underway at 5:20 and headed south on AZ-85.

We stopped at the 100 Estrella Restaurant in Ajo for dinner around 6:30. I had Italian Sausage & Peppers and J had Quesadellas and Black-and-Tan Onion Rings. We split a piece of Berry White Cheesecake for dessert that was most tasty. :) We finished eating around 7:20 and J walked to the nearby Post Office. We left at 7:30.

We stopped to unhook the Jeep at 7:48 because I pulled off the road into what I thought was the entrance to a boondocking spot, but it was actually a very short dead-end spur. We left in the Jeep to go look for the boondocking spot. The boondocking spot was just down the main road. We went back and got the RV.

We selected a site in the boondocking spot near Why and were level by 8:20. You might be wondering why we're boondocking near Why — it's near Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. We had a relatively fast Verizon Wireless National Access signal — faster than some of the slower Broadband Access signals we've had before. I worked up a blog entry then downselected images from this morning in iView.