Day: January 26, 2020

From Quartzsite and the environs

With me being hobbled by my hand, we haven’t been doing a lot. Then again, beautiful sunny skies and temps near 70 (or more) have made doing nothing very enjoyable! There has been a lot of sitting in the sun during the day and sitting around a campfire at night.

We did go to Cibola National Wildlife Refuge on Tuesday. We took a slow but scenic route through the Yuma Proving Grounds on a gravel road that wandered through beautiful country.

YPG is a wildlife sanctuary and desert plant refuge in the barrier areas.
Lots of green here plus a (Afghanistan?) “village”
Of course I don’t recommend going off the main road!
Cibola NWR attracts a lot of birds to its ponds
There were huge numbers of sandhill cranes too
This guy decided to show off
Oh, and this style of saguaro was plentiful

Click on this link to hear the birds in a video.

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Saturday our group had a potluck meal. As usual my Dutch oven green chili chicken enchiladas were a hit, but there was a lot of other good food too.

Sunday we took a trip to the Desert Bar again, a totally off grid bar and music venue that is only open 12-6 on Saturday and Sunday during the winter. Amazingly cool place.

The last 5 miles are on a very rough dirt toad
The last 5 miles are on a very rough dirt and gravel road
The roads in the area originally led to mines
A number of old dead cars along the road
It isn’t a “real” church, but you can have weddings there
A mandatory view of the women’s toilets built into the hill
View looking out from the women’s toilets
Totally self-contained and off grid but with a 1000 people means lots of solar

We have decided to stay in Q until we head to Yuma on 3 February. I am sure I will have at least one more post from here. Hopefully the cell service improves with thousands of people leaving.