We bought our 2004 Chevy Silverado 2500HD new. It was only a few months after paying it off in 2010 that the rust began showing up. The first place that it became evident was on the tailgate. I had the truck in for some body work after hitting a deer in 2011, and the guy said he wouldn’t even give me a price on fixing that rust. He said that he could make it look good as new but it’d be back in two weeks. He blamed a defect in the design.
New Bumper
The first update that I attempted to make on the truck was the one that seemed straight-forward enough: replacing my rusted-out rear chrome step bumper with a new aftermarket one that I found online.
The new bumper came with the plastic step cover trim already installed, and included four brackets and a handful of nuts and bolts (though one nut short of having everything needed for installation).
Reversed Polarity
We’ve been getting the itch to go camping, and the mandated social isolation seems like a perfect opportunity to change our scenery. We made reservations for next week, and will be getting a full-hookup site at a campground a little under one hour from home. The full hookup site will be nice to un-winterize the water system. Today I uncovered the camper, installed the propane tanks and hooked up the battery.
When I went to hook up the battery, I made a mistake that could have caused a lot more damage than it did. I am thankful for strategically-placed fuses that protected the electrical system and appliances, and prevented this from becoming a much more expensive mistake than it was.
Truck Updates Coming
When we bought our diesel Chevy Silverado 2500HD in 2004, it was a necessity for work. By 2012, the work I was doing no longer required a heavy-duty truck. However, it was paid for, and I’d gotten very used to having a pickup truck, so I did not want to get rid of it for something more “sensible”. Justification for keeping the truck was cemented by the purchase of our 2016 Sunset Trail 33′ bunkhouse travel trailer, which has an approximately 7000 lb. dry weight.
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
A couple of hours south of Tucson lies Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The southern boundary of the park is the international border with Mexico. The visitor center is about six miles from the border crossing station on Arizona Route 85.
This park has a broad variety of cactus species, including Saguaro, Ocatillo, various types of Cholla, and obviously the Organ Pipe. This is the only place in the United States where the park’s namesake cactus can be found naturally.
Casa Grande Ruins National Monument
When we rearranged our agenda to have a second day at Saguaro National Park, we pushed our visit to Casa Grande Ruins back a day. Rather than seeing it on our way out of Tucson, we went a little out of our way when heading from Phoenix to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
Cienega Creek Bridge, Arizona
The Union Pacific double-track main line splits in Vail, Arizona. East of the town, the lower track follows Cienega Creek, and the other track crosses over the lower line and the creek, making for a great spot to watch trains go over and under you (sometimes at the same time)!
Saguaro National Park
Rincon (East) District
This is the second installment of Saguaro National Park, and one that we did not even know about until we showed up at the Red Hill (West) District two days prior. We decided to hang out in the Tucson area for the day instead of heading back toward Phoenix and doing a couple of smaller points of interest there. We still drove to Phoenix in the evening and stayed at the hotel that we had booked for the night.
Chiricahua National Monument
I wish we had several days to spend at Chiricahua! My decision to try to include a quick stop to Fort Bowie before we came to Chiricahua, combined with the short daylight hours this time of the year, wound up preventing us from going on most of the hikes here. We did a couple of quick hikes, but they were really just whetting our appetite to see more than we had time to see!
Fort Bowie National Historic Site
When planning our trip, I wanted to include Chiricahua National Monument as part of our agenda. I noticed Fort Bowie NHS on the map nearby, and thought that we could stop to visit here for maybe an hour, grab another stamp for our NPS Passport Book, then move on to Chiricahua.
Make note, Fort Bowie cannot be very well appreciated in a hurry!
We spent three hours, and that was rushing. With several trails and lots of interpretive signage, we could have easily spent an entire day at Fort Bowie.
