Camp Bouse revisited

Now that we'd been on the guided tour and had the lay of the land we decided to go back out to Camp Bouse on our own and look around a bit.  I decided that we'd take a bit different route though.  Unfortunately it turned out one of the road sections shown on the map was closed so we wound up doing a little cross country on a quad trail.  Was still interesting, but it did eat quite a bit into the time we were going to spend at the camp.

Just out of Utting, we followed an old irrigation ditch from a hayfield/feedlot.  

And past an emergency spillway for the Central Arizona Canal.  

I think this old man was trying to point us the right direction... but the message eluded me.  

We had a little cross country trip.  

Kinda reminds me of a jack-o-lantern a couple days after Oct. 31st.  

Finally we made it to the camp.  

We did a quick tour of the shooting range, 

found the mine shaft behind the range, 

and the camp's potable water cistern (now known as Butler Well - the steel tank is the reservoir for a cattle water on the far right).  

That was all for this trip. though.  

Camp Bouse

Just as we were planning a trip out to the top secret WWII Camp Bouse we learned that the annual dedication ceremony was coming up.  What a great coincidence!  So rather than head out on our own we signed up for the guided tour on Sunday and went down to the ceremony in Bouse on Saturday.

A couple airborne decided to drop in as well.  

Sunday morning we formed up and about 35 units headed out on the backroads to Camp Bouse. 

The cost of the tour was a $10 donation, and we also signed up for two provided lunches at $5 apiece.  I dunno why we did that, because we'd been packing a lunch ourselves for every outing.  

The tickets for the lunch were also put into a bucket for a prize draw, and both were drawn!  

Pretty decent, I'd say we broke even PLUS got fed.  

Or, maybe we should have gone to the casino instead...