June 2023 – TooBusyForWork

Yet more RZR riding in southern Utah

It was a nice day on the trails. We left before 9:00, and we got back a bit after 2:00 – 67 miles. We first drove south to Koosharem, then up a trail along the west side of Mormon Mountain. We crossed UT 24 and headed east along the Paiute Trail. We did take some interesting side loops here and there, but the day was glorious. I am having trouble with the Go Pro battery, so these were all on the iPhone. Be prepared for picture overload!

Not gray rock but a hillside of purple flowers

We saw 8 deer, the first big mammals we have noticed. The RZR is noisy, so we don’t sneak up on things very easily. Besides these three, we also saw a doe and two spotted fawns plus two other solitary deer.

A d lots and lots of flowers. The best were around 7500’.

The center of these reminds me of a shooting star

A lot of clearing cedar trees had been done to the hillsides. It isn’t done by cutting the trees, but by dragging these huge chains between two tracts/bulldozers. It looks pretty horrid right after, but the work will open up the lane for more native vegetation. The fact that it will increase cattle grazing space is also factored in.

There were some old favorites that showed up.

At 7000’, the landscape was mostly sage and cedars.

There were a few surprises like this amazing flower. This was the only one like it I noticed.

We had lunch at Rex Reservoir. Those trees across the lake? Their trunks are 2-3 feet deep in water!

When we got up to 7500’, the scenery changed significantly. Lots of scrub oaks started showing up, and the Mountain View’s improved. If you blow up the picture below and look carefully,there is still snow!

More of the white crepe-like flowers, this time in a clump around Rex Reservoir.

It was the first cloudy day we have had. Ignore the rutted road and look at the lovely sky.

I found only one of this beauty too. An odd cup-like shape.

More sky drama. It wouldn’t be of as much note but the skies have been pristine blue until late afternoon since we arrived.

It was a fabulous trip, but processing this many pictures is time consuming! Just a short drive tomorrow to check out a specific trail, then it will be time to drive into town to get gas.

Southern Utah for a while

We stayed in St. George, Utah just one night on Saturday 24 June. We always stay at the Temple View RV Park, but it is hard to get around their building with the toad. It just isn’t set up for big rigs. The sites are fine though, so we keep coming back. We needed to run the generator for AC pretty much the entire trip since it was still so hot. I was so glad to leave the heat and move to the mountains!

We are staying at the Water Clover RV Park in Burrville, UT, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The campground is owned by the Koosharem band of Paiutes, and it is on their reservation. Definitely a very basic place that has gravel sites and needs mowing, but it is only $150 for the week with full hookups! Can’t beat that deal. It also is right on a big OHV trail system and near Fish Lake, a big recreation spot. There is one other rig here, but I think they a seasonal since no one has been there since we arrived. Nice view over a small irrigation reservoir.

We took Monday to wander around the area and get information. I had to go to the ER on Sunday when my reaction to the gnat bites I got more than a week before got really concerning. I was afraid I had an infection, but it was just a terrible immune response. I got some super duty cortisone cream that is making me feel much better. We also went to the Richfield Visitor Center. What a nice pair of women staffing it! One was a UTVer herself, and both knew a lot about the trails and history of the area. We picked up some guide books and maps.

We then took off on a ride with the RZR. We are in a sagebrush meadow area at the start, but there were lots of flowers.

These orange ones are probably the most prevalent at the lower elevations (7000’)

Not many cactus, but this pink one was showy

Our trip was on the east side of UT 24. We headed up the mountains and crossed into the valley where Fish Lake is located.

Looking across the sagebrush to the west valley

Some of the trails we took were part of the Paiute Trail, a network of roads and trails widely advertised.

A lot of the trail was decent Forest Service roads

We finally got up to the aspens and lusher meadows. This was over the mountain southeast of our Campgroun.

As we continued higher, we got into the evergreens and skinny trees. They get that way due to the harsh winter conditions. Even this far south, the snow is intense.

We finally encountered a snowball we didn’t want to cross. We are much more cautious when riding by ourselves.

We had some dead ends trying to get back to our campsite, but it was an enjoyable day of about 60 miles.

Today we are getting chores done and relaxing. Our bodies feel that many miles in a RZR! Kevin checked a bunch of things on the RZR. He topped off the oil and radiator fluid and just generally checked things out. We have 49 more operational hours before it needs a major service, so this was just checking and cleaning things. I sewed some more. I cut out a bunch of 4” Drunkard’s Path pieces that I really needed to get to, so I did a bunch of those. Well, “bunch” is probably the wrong phrase. These are picky little devils, and they take a LOT of concentration. I did get about 20 done though. It is a good way to spend a lot of time and not get a lot done! They are awfully cute though.

We took a drive into Koosharem to have dinner. Nice little cafes that totally surprised me in such a tiny place! And there were pretty places along a trail head we checked out. It will be on our list of trips while we are here. And of course there were flowers!

Tomorrow we are taking a ride, so expect more pictures.

Lake Havasu part deux

We are back at DJ’s RV Park, a nice older park that is very quiet. Site sizes are decent, and the pool (which we never use) looks nice. It is also $15 less a night than the new place next door! I would not stay here for a season because I would want activities and such, but for a week or so, I prefer a nice quiet place like this.

Kevin got his dentistry done, so that was good. We also got all the basic necessities of laundry and shopping done too. We even got to eat out some! Cha’Bones is our favorite. Upscale, but really good food in a casual atmosphere. We did get some sightseeing done though. We originally planned on Joshua Tree, but they are still recovering from recent fires. We decided to visit the brand new Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. It means “Spirit Mountain”, and is a large swath of BLM land surrounding the town of Searchlight, NV. We visited Nelson, NV, an old mining town that is mostly a privately owned ghost town. Fun place!

The place is full of stuff. While the mill is pretty decrepit, it was obviously really something in its day. The area sent millions of dollars of precious metals out. The owner’s daughter was staffing the cash register, and she described her parents as hoarders who only became respectable after the TV show “American Pickers” became popular! There is a mine tour I wasn’t interested in (claustrophobia), but I bet it would be interesting. There were old workings ranging from small glory holes to more extensive workings all through the area. I would love to come back in a cooler season with the RZR and explore.

On our way back, we decided to explore a part of the Mojave Preserve we hadn’t traveled before. We took the Nipton Road (NV 164) to the Walkng Box Ranch. It was owned by famous silent movie stars Rex Bell and Clara Bow, and they lived there with their family from 1931 until the mid 40s. It was owned by a variety of people before receiving. Atonal Historic Preservation designation. Sadly it is closed right now, though a number of volunteers and seasonal staff have RVs on the property. I did get some pictures.

The ranch house is a long way from the fence

The barn cladding hides railroad tie construction, seen a bit on the far left side

There is a modern visitor center, but closed

The creosote plants had the coolest seed pods like little puff balls

We continued on the Nipton Road to Ivanpah Road then Lanfair Road and then into Goff. Some hard surface road, some gravel, but very little “bad”road, just some minor washboard. We stopped at the Goff Schoolhouse Museum and wandered around a bit. The Schoolhouse itself is impressive, but the surrounding open air mining museum is truly fabulous. They have a walking tour guide you can take, but we just kind of wandered around because it was so hot!

A two stamp mill showing clearly the pistons. I tried to take this in portrait mode. Obviously I failed.

The pride of the museum – a working 10 stamp mill brought from Montana

The have special public days when they operate the stamp mill, and I would love to attend some time. I better bring my ear protection though; the mills were deafening.

I did get some sewing done. My tumbler quilt is completely bound and in the wash. I also got all the Accuquilt cutting done for the next Hunter Star. I decided on a 3×4 layout to make it a bit bigger and more rectangular. I also made some pizza with dough from the bread maker, so I am feeling quite accomplished! We even did some real house cleaning, something g we were desperately in need of.

Tomorrow we head to Saint George, UT on our way to Koosharen, UT up near Fish Lake in the mountains. Lots of trails to ride there. I am definitely tired of the heat here, though I have been pleasantly surprised at how well our two ACs have kept the inside of the motorhome.

Lake Havasu then dispersed camping near Flagstaff then back to Lake Havasu

Odd title I know. We went to DJ’s RV Resort in Lake Havasu to get the RZR set up to carry in the F-150 bed. Kevin had some additions to make to it too like adding a winch, a cargo rack, and some new mirrors. Knowing it might get complicated, a friend in town let him work in his air conditioned garage and use a few big tools he owned that Kevin didn’t bring with us. It took 5-6 days of 3 hours or so a day since they are both retired and worked slowly. He got it all done though! The picture makes the truck seem bigger than it is, but that is just the perspective.

While Kevin and Bill were working on the truck and RZR, I went to the local quilt guild “Staycation,” a 3 day retreat in a local community building, 8-4. I didn’t stay that long, but I did get a lot done. I finished the piecing for the scrappy tumbler the night before, and I got it quilted. Still need the binding though.

I got 6 blocks completed of the 9 needed for my Hunter’s Star top at the retreat. Here is the completed top with borders I finished yesterday. I give the credit to Accuquilt for those almost perfect corners and joins! Aren’t they lovely? I felt I was a walking advertisement for Accuquilt since I had so many people come over to see it.

While we were here, we took a drive to Quartzsite where we always stay some in the winter. Lots of changes, but I won’t detail them here. However I saw this adorable line up of little “people”. They really stood out because there were so very few real people in the huge area. It was almost spooky to see it so empty.

We left LHC on Thursday, 15 June, to find a dispersed site in the Coconino National Forest west of Flagstaff. We wanted to do some riding! We found a great place off Forest Road 171, and enjoyed gorgeous weather and some nice riding. I experimented with my new Go Pro, and I got some great videos. This post was later than I intended because I can’t figure out how to post them to Facebook or YouTube! I keep getting errors. But I decided I wouldn’t wait any longer, so you will get no videos until I can figure out how to get them on YouTube. Loading them here is just too resource intensive, and the uploads over a few seconds long always fail. The forest was lovely. It reminds me a lot of the Black Hills with open forests alternating with prairie meadows. We were at 7200’, so it was in the 30s each morning, warming up to the 70s. We took one long day or 60+ miles, and a couple of days of shorter trips.

We would have stayed longer on the forest, but Kevin had another dental issue from his recent tooth implant. He saw an emergency dentist in Lake Havasu the first time we came through, and it happened again when we were in the forest. He couldn’t find a dentist or oral surgeon within 100 miles that could get him in quickly except back in LHC with the same emergency dental clinic he used the first time. This time the oral surgeon back in Iowa coordinated the care with the dentist here, and we are crossing our fingers it worked. We decided to stay around here for 4 nights and do some more sightseeing plus cleaning and laundry. The dirt from UTV riding is no joke! Plus I need some more fabric!

Salt Lake City to Lake Havasu

We got to Salt Lake City on Saturday, 3 June. Easy drive, so we got in before 2:00. We stayed at the KOA on North Temple as we usually do. We thought about Antelope Island, but the biting gnats were out, and those things love to take bites out of me! We connected with a good friend on Saturday, and I made my first pizza crust in the bread maker. It came out pretty well, but I don’t know how to stretch the dough well enough! It was a bit smaller and thicker than I like. Wish I had taken a picture, because it tasted great. The recipe for my 1 pound bread maker makes 2 crusts, so I froze on for later use.

Sunday we went to a fabulous concert held at my old church, First Presbyterian in SLC. They did the Rutter Requiem, and it was fabulous. It is one of my favorite choral pieces. If I had brought concert black attire I would have sung with them, but my black polo with worn blue jeans just didn’t fit the vibe LOL! Even better than the choral music was the first piece, an incredible organ piece performed by Larry Blackburn, my favorite organist. The church is a big city church with a gothic style, and it takes a big pipe organ to fill the space. Luckily they have one, and Larry makes good use of it. I don’t know if this link to the amateur recording will work, but here it is. You might need to copy it and place it in your browser.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NeT4rr9IgR15XZv_B_asjfbsmQ0MLysY/view?usp=sharing

Monday we had dinner with more old friends, and we repeated the joy with different friends on Tuesday. So nice to see so many of the people I enjoyed in Utah. I am not sad we moved, but I do miss the people. We also took the mandatory trip to Trader Joe’s and stocked up on freezer meals and treats. We also had the meeting with our financial advisor that was the official purpose for the trip.

We left on Wednesday, 7 June, and spent the night at the Eureka Casino parking lot in Mesquite, NV, just over the border from Utah. We have stayed there before in January heading to the southwest, and it always had 7-10 rigs of various types parked overnight. This time there was just 3 of us. It was pretty hot when we arrived, so we ran the generator for AC until about 9:00 pm when it cooled off enough to open the windows and turn on the fans. Kevin hates heat, but even he was comfortable with the temps that night.

We decided to take the slower route from Mesquite to Lake Havasu by driving NV 169, the Northshore Road that is mostly in Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Lovely drive. Here are a few pictures.

Lots of little islands in the lake at this low water level

The bathtub line is >100’ above current lake levels

We arrived in Lake Havasu City to a reserved site at DJ’s Campground on the north side of town. It is a well-kept, older, very quiet place, but handy and priced well. It is HOT here, so boondocking wasn’t an option; we both wanted AC. We picked up the RZR from the Needles storage lot where it had been living since we left the SW, and Kevin is off today with a friend in town doing updates and modifications to it and the truck for transporting it without the trailer. The friend has an air conditioned garage, and all the tools known to mankind. I am sure they will have a blast.

I intend on starting a donation quite out of scraps cuts with my tumbler die. It is nice, mindless seeing, but the result is cute and for a good cause. However I never seem to get the scrap pile lowered!

Summer 2023 trip is begun!

There was a lot of prep work to get this trip started. First we had to get the motorhome repaired. We found a guy who does upscale fiberglass boats, and he did a great job with a quick turnaround. He said we were lucky it was before Memorial Day, because he gets busy as soon as people put their boats in the water! Then Kevin ordered the new solar panels, and my lovely son in law Nick helped him put them on the motorhome. They were luckily able to McGyver an approach to use the old mounting hardware on the new panels which saved him having to drill new holes in the roof, always a good thing.

I finished up the quilt I started at the quilt retreat too. It was cut with an Accuquilt Hunter’s Star die. I planned for it to go into my stash of baby quilts for future needs, but a friend I have been camping with for 8 years was diagnosed with cancer, so I sent it to her instead. It is PINK, way more PINK than I anticipated when I bought the fabric. I tried to tone it down with a dark quilting thread, but it didn’t do much for the PINK. I did experiment with my rulers on this quilt, and I like the result.

One thing I did differently on this little quilt was to sandwich it using pool noodles and basting spray. Why did I wait to long? It was so much easier to keep things straight and wrinkle free. I made Kevin buy me an extra set of pool noodles to I can do the bigger quilts I have too.

I also finished quilting 3 quilts for my quilt guild donation program. It is enjoyable, and I get good practice. I am still learning about my quilt regulator table, so practice is needed. I also had time to make a sample block from a new die I bought from Blue Wren, a circle in a square. It is basically a Drunkard’s Path variation where the circles adjoin each other. The fabric is not my favorite! I grabbed two fat quarters I didn’t like, and here is the result. I never would have tried this without the cutter, but I love it!

In preparation for the summer, I cut bunches and bunches of tumblers for a scrap quilt. I also cut 20+ bowl cozy sets out of a variety of fabrics for a class I am going to teach at the FMCA convention in Gillette, WY this August. The class size is 12, but there always seem to be a few extras, and I wanted some variety for the students to choose from.

Another preparation step was to buy a small bread maker. This makes a 1 pound loaf, just the right size for Kevin and me. It is quite easy to use, and we are taking it with us on the trip.

Really nice garlic butter rolls (we ate the others)

We tried to leave on Tuesday, 30 May, but we had to wait for an Amazon package that was late. We did get out on Wednesday, and decided to make it a long day. We drove all the way to Kearney, NE, about 450 miles, in order to sneak through a nasty wind storm forecast. We spent the night in the Cabela’s parking lot there, a place we have stayed in before. Lots of trains coming close by, but I put in foam ear plugs and crashed.

Thursday night we stayed in a fabulous National Forest Service dispersed campsite at Vedauwoo Recreation Area about 20 miles west of Cheyenne, WY. What a fabulous place! It is a popular climbing destination with a small campground but lots of dispersed but designated campsites. The rocks are amazing. We will definitely be coming back with the RZR to ride some of the trails. Absolutely no cell service, but the Starlink was ok with downloads of 8-15MB.

Lots of these rocks looking like giant building blocks

We are in Rock Springs tonight at the Walmart. As usual a bit noisy, but very convenient. Tonight’s dinner is salsa chicken in the Instant Pot and frozen Trader Joe’s Mexican corn. I better get going on it!

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