February 3rd 2016 - Rio Grande Village

We woke up to a beautiful cool sunny morning and headed to Rio Grand Village which is close to an hours drive from our campsite. They have a store with gas, basic groceries and supplies, wifi, laundry facilities, and coin operated showers. The showers are $1.50 for 5 minutes. I got coffee and quarters for my much needed shower at the store. I left Francis working on his server after he got a message from a friend that it was once again unresponsive. As I was enjoying the hot shower, I misjudged the time and was still covered in soap when the water stopped. Luckily another woman heard my cry of dismay and passed me extra quarters to restart the shower. I was able to help her out a few minutes later when she realized she was out of shampoo.

Feeling wonderfully refreshed, I rejoined Francis so we could work on our blog. We had been keeping notes about our travels but had not posted anything yet. We got caught up looking at all our pictures and before we knew it several hours had gone by.

We headed back to camp to make lunch and enjoy the beautiful sunny day. We brought a portable toilet and privacy shelter with us for this trip but had not used it yet. As always, Francis did his research to choose just the right one, Cleanwaste portable toilet. I was not sure how I felt about the idea but using the bathroom outdoors is not as simple for women as for men and the desert has no tree cover for privacy. We got it set up and weighted down with rocks. Turns out it was a great purchase. It stayed nice and warm inside and I did not have to go into the scratchy desert in the dark to find a bush.

Pine Canyon 3

Sunrise from the campsite

Our portable toilet