Cochise County

Cochise County is the Arizona setting for a turning point in Linda May’s search for land: although inexpensive property and permissive building codes seemed to offer a path toward an off-grid Earthship, the area’s isolation made her reconsider what she wanted a home to be. The county becomes less a destination than a test of whether self-sufficiency would give Linda the life she hoped for—or separate her from the people she wanted to bring together.

Setting and Appeal

After leaving her friends, Linda traveled 380 miles southeast to the deserts of Cochise County. The region appealed because land was cheap and building codes were loose, conditions that seemed favorable to her plan to find a few acres and build an Earthship. The practical attractions of the county, however, did not settle the larger question of where she could make a home.

Linda’s Search

Linda spent hours exploring the area for a suitable parcel. What initially looked like an opportunity became a source of disappointment: the land felt too isolated. The problem was not simply distance from services or the difficulty of building. Coming directly from the community and connectedness of the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous, she did not want the project to consign her to a solitary life.

Family, Access, and Retreat

As she considered the land, Linda imagined whether her family would be able to visit and gather there. She wanted the proposed home to make those visits possible; accessibility to family was central to the project, not an afterthought. The county’s remoteness therefore undercut the purpose of acquiring land, despite its favorable cost and building conditions. Linda spent one night in a parking lot near the Mexican border, then returned to the road rather than commit to a place that seemed unlikely to draw her family to it.

Place in the Wider Journey

Cochise County marks a contrast between the possibility of settling on inexpensive desert land and the relationships that made a settlement worthwhile to Linda. Elsewhere in the book, public-land camping around Quartzsite is organized through defined stays: free sites allow up to two weeks before campers must move at least twenty-five miles or pay to stay in the La Posa Long Term Visitor Area. Linda’s Cochise County search concerns a different kind of permanence—private land and a planned Earthship—but it likewise shows that space is meaningful through the conditions of access and use. In her case, a place could be affordable and buildable yet still fail if it left family too far away.

The county episode leads into a wider clearing-out of Linda’s stored possessions in the Phoenix suburbs and her move to a friend’s property in New River, Arizona. Her departure from Cochise County thus belongs to an ongoing search rather than a completed homesteading plan: she keeps moving, testing whether a place can support both practical independence and the company she values.