Ferguson Lake

After spending the better part of two weeks at Quartzite, it was time for a change. It was great at first. We had a whole large chunk of the desert to ourselves (on 14-day BLM = no permit required) — only one white van off in the distance — apparently he likes his privacy too! Everybody was gearing up for the Big Tent affair in Q and suddenly it seemed the RVs were converging on our location like locusts. We didn’t leave so much as we got crowded out. At that point we couldn’t get outta’ there fast enough!

We heard it was warmer in Yuma so that was pretty much the big plan = head South. On campendium.com, we learned about Ferguson Lake. It seemed nice (BLM site — can stay for two weeks) but no reviews. How could there be a FREE lakeside campsite with no reviews? Having never been there before, we followed the signs and our intuition and very slowly idled another 7.5 miles out on a dirt road. Much of the details and directions are captured here as we were the first to review this location: https://www.campendium.com/fergusen-lake.   As we neared the last high ridge before we would drop down to the lake for the first time, we spotted a couple who had been watching us in disbelief for quite a while. They came walking across the rocks as I shut the BBT down and the guy says, “Man, I gotta’ shake your hand. I can’t believe you guys brought your house all the way this far out! We’ve been thinking about it for two weeks and here you guys are doing it!” He warned that the road ahead was even steeper and much *more* treacherous. So I loaded up in his Yamaha Rhino for the tour. Afterward, I had just about talked myself out of it and he announces to the girls, “He thinks he can do it!” Annie responds, “Well, of course, he does!” I was still pretty unsure about the whole deal until they offered to use *their* 4WD F350 (like ours but newer) to lead us out when it was time to leave and give us a tow ‘boost’ with their 30′ strap if we needed it.

I can’t tell you how many hours we both anguished — wondering what kind of nightmare it might be for us to get our truck and our house and pretty much everything we have left in this world up and OUT of this hole we had knowingly driven ourselves down into. When we were ready to move, Dwayne and Deb — true to their commitment — showed up in their truck with a friend to help and it was game time. I’ve learned a lot about 4WD recently that I never knew before. A huge one is that in 4WD low range, not only will the truck slowly crawl up crazy steep slopes but if you *leave* it in low range, it will also creep DOWN those same slopes — requiring no brakes! Who knew? After all that anxiety and worry, the BBT towed herself AND our 7,500 pound house AND all of our stuff up outta’ there without spinning a wheel. If you’ve never experienced low RPM diesel torque in a 4WD, I gotta’ tell ya’ — you’re really missing out — there’s nothing like it! That big heavy engine out front maximizes traction on the front end while the ‘pin weight’ of LCC bears down directly over the rear end. What is most wonderful is now (as long as we have comparably decent highway tires on our truck — nothing all that special) we have a certain level of confidence we CAN get outta’ there under our own power — which means we can visit this FREE and absolutely amazing place again and again every year — hopefully *withOUT* all the worry and anxiety we experienced the first time.