It always works out for the best. I keep reminding René (and myself) of that whenever we’ve been driving along time in search of the perfect place to boondock, and the day is getting long.

Recently, while visiting El Morro National Monument, we kept searching for an inconspicuous place to pull over for the night. Good thing we didn’t find one.

After we passed through Zuni Pueblo and almost stayed at an abandoned gas station, we discovered the campground at El Morro was open! We also discovered there was snow on the ground.

We put our four season Arctic Fox to the test. And we were quite comfortable, even without hookups. Jerry’s outside water bowl might have frozen, but we were cozy inside. It helps to dress in layers – Jerry had three, including his fur and the sweater René knitted him – but we didn’t even have to keep our coats on.

We only ran our heater for a short while before going to bed because the blower really runs down the battery. I prepared the generator for use in the morning, and prepared myself to go start it in the freezing dawn cold. The morning was indeed freezing cold, but we jumped out of bed got dressed, and went for a hike to check out the inscription wall and pueblo ruins.

Returning to our site, I knew we might need the heater and was glad the generator was all set up. Being in serious solar country, however, we didn’t even have to run the generator at all. By the time we got back to the rig, our system had fully replenished the batteries and then some!

Another pleasant surprise we discovered at this stop: there are no fees for camping this time of year! We had planned to stay for free somewhere, and we did! But this was no Dillard’s parking lot, like our night in Lake Havasu Shitty. Uh, I mean city. This was a beautiful campground. And we were the only ones there. Perhaps the only full-timers dumb enough to go to the snow in winter. Our only regret is we couldn’t stay longer.