Spoiler Alert: There is no perfect boondocking spot. But there is damn close. So when you think there may be a better spot just over the hill, stop looking. The perfect boondocking spot is right where you are. Right here. Right now.

We’ve been looking for that perfect boondocking spot on and off for 18+ years now. We learned long ago that the best way to find it, is to stop looking. Too many times we parked, then moved on down some dusty road a bit further in search of something better. Rarely was there ever, anything more than less time at that first nearly perfect spot. We learned our lesson. Then we watched exactly that happen on our latest camping adventure in The M.

Anza Borrego Desert Boondocking Blessing

After settling in for the whole winter at FOY, we needed to get out in the Project M and do some “real camping” again. And, it’s apparently been at least 12 years since we last visited the Anza Borrego Farmers Market. The area where we used to stay out by Rockhouse trail closed down to camping years ago. And it doesn’t look like they even allow camping at Pegleg anymore. So we decided to check out Anza Borrego Desert State Park. All I have to say is, why didn’t we discover this earlier? And, why has it been so long since we’ve been back to Borrego?

I wouldn’t take the trailer, but that would defeat the whole purpose of this trip anyway. We needed to get away. And away we got. Off to find that perfect boondocking spot, we headed up into the hills. No, I won’t tell you exactly where. That’s part of the adventure eh. Closer to the highway, big rigs and trailers crowded together. As the road got rougher, spaces became more dispersed. We passed what looked like the last camper before the road dipped into a canyon.

Where Is the Perfect Boondocking Spot?

“Looks good enough to me,” we both thought. I backed into a site with a long spur off the road. Camping only in designated areas of course. That camper we passed was at least 100 yards away. Probably thinking we suck, I thought.

We pondered heading over the hill to see what we might find. That perfect boondocking spot perhaps? We both knew better. So I parked, and Rene walked a ways to find out. Sure enough, there is no perfect boondocking spot just around the bend. There never is. But we came damn close to finding it with this spot.

That camper we passed? He must not have learned the lesson yet. Or we destroyed his perfect spot. Before long, he packed up, and headed over the hill.

Perfect! He left us alone to enjoy another “perfect” boondocking spot.

There Is No Such Thing As Perfect

I was always a big fan of Felix the Cat. Whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks. I bring this up because this story reminds me of the first real job I ever had on my first real career path. I took the typesetting job at Charley’s Copy Joynt. The owner needed a graphics guy to run their newfangled Macintosh computer. So I didn’t actually set much type. Though I did my fair share of paste-up. And, I got to shadow Art Felix. Art showed me how to kick around the old AB Dick 360. And on the side of that shop metal green ABD was a sticker depicting Felix the Cat.

So what, you ask? Well, Art taught me one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned in life. With pica pole in hand one day, he was checking the first runs of a job and must have asked what I thought. Always impressed by his work, but ready to leave him to it, I must have said something like, “looks perfect to me.”

Strong, stoic Native American type that he was, Art scrutinized his measurement and slowly shaking his head he said…

No such thing as perfect.

I live by those words to this day. But I sure do like it whenever we settle for damn close.

Another perfect find, after leaving California behind. #nocoincidences