Southwestern deserts: More than just a warm place

By Bob Difley

This is the time of year when RVers in the northern states and Canada can be divided into two groups: those that are or soon will be headed to the southwestern deserts for at least some part of the winter, and those that wish they were headed for the desert. When the cold wind blowing down from Alaska makes your ears numb, and the specter of  freezing rain and snow looms on the horizon, images of sunny skies, flowering cacti, and photos of smiling RVers in shorts and T-shirts lounging in camp chairs outside their RVs in Quartzsite, Arizona, can be powerful magnets luring us south.

At lot of RVers look at the desert as simply a warm place to get through the winter and take little effort to learn about the desert environment, the critters that call the desert home, and tenacious plants and wildflowers that survive the oven-like summer heat. As most desert visitors do after a couple of seasons, they begin to see beneath the desert’s monotone skirt, to notice the unique characteristics of desert life that enable it to thrive, the delicate balance between rain, wind, heat, sun, and arridity that stimulates wildflowers and perennials to rise from dormancy in the Spring and spread a riot of color across the deceptive lifeless face of the desert floor.

These second or third time visitors discovered the meaning of walking in the footsteps of hard-bitten ranchers whose cattle grazed across the Arizona savanna grasslands, of crusty miners and their trusty burros that dug holes and hauled tons of dirt, sand, and rocks from untold mines in search of the shiny yellow metal, of gunslingers and gamblers, missionaries and Mormons, highway robbers and cattle rustlers, settlers and sinners that crossed this “God forsaken land” from water hole to water hole on the Old Spanish Trail to find salvation, a healthier life, or vast riches. It’s all here in the southwest, famous shoot-’em-up Old West towns like Tombstone, copper mining boomtowns like Bisbee, and the relics and once prosperous but now deserted pueblos of pre-historic Native Americans. So if you’ve thought of the desert as just a warm, dry respite, think again. If you’ve never taken the seasonal snowbird migration, never boondocked in the open desert, maybe it’s time. And even if you’ve come for a season or two, take another look.

Learn more about the desert, some unique boondocking and camping locations, find lots of links to additional information, and tips for boondocking in my new eBook, BOONDOCKING: Finding the perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands