Arizona – Page 6 – TooBusyForWork

Quartzsite with 200,000 of my closest friends

We drove from HB on Friday to the desert south of Quartzsite, AZ. This is the snowbird capital of the world for a week or so during their RV and Big Tent Show each winter. The rest of the winter the desert is still popular with snowbirds, especially if they can dry camp. For a $40 fee the BLM will let you camp on their land for 14 days. There is access to water, a sanitary dump, and trash bins. They also have a $180 fee for those who want to stay for the season – as long as 7 months. I can’t imagine doing that, but this is a great place for a couple of weeks. We met up with friends from RVForum.net, and we have daily Happy Hour get togethers plus a potluck planned for today. Nice folks.

Saturday was the first day of the Big Tent Show, and it is a BIG tent (picture from last year).

We should have waited. The show was dreadfully crowded, and parking was a mess. Kevin kindly dropped me off near the door and parked a 5 minute walk away. Did I mention it was crowded? We still haven’t bought anything but two USB charging cords, funnel cakes, fry bread, and ice cream. The last three were over three separate trips, so it wasn’t quite as bad as it looks in writing. We finally figured out the best time to go was mid afternoon, around 2 or 3. Much less crowded, and it is a great time for funnel cakes (a not so secret vice of mine).

The specific area we are in is called La Posa Tyson Wash. The surface is mostly gravel so it isn’t hard to get around on. We have a number of OTA TV channels plus my Verizon phone gets good data service except when everyone else hits it by mid morning and again in the evening. We bought a 14 day pass, and we intend on staying until,after the lunar eclipse next week. When I mentioned the 200,000 other people here, I might have both understated and overstated the impact. Yes, there are actually more than 200,000 people here in the desert, but they are mostly spread out quite a ways. It feels much less crowded than a state park, and if you want solitude you could find it. We intended to camp with a group so we are in an area about 200 x 75 yards with 25 rigs or so.

BAA9A014-8234-4DD5-BF7A-E4E2ABD6EDE7 — Sunrise at Quartzsite

We also continued to look at Class A RVs. My latest favorite is a Tiffin RED 37PA. Nice kitchen, good storage, big bath and closets, plus big water and waste tanks so we can continue to dry camp easily. This one is certainly in the running. We also looked at about 10 other coaches, and nothing else hit our fancy.

Last hurrah of the 2017 season

Today was our last real day camping in 2017. We head home tomorrow. Even though we will spend one night on the road, I don’t really consider that “camping,” so today was it.

We went back to the Mohave to visit the Goff Schoolhouse Museum on the southern edge of the Reserve. This place is totally misnamed! It should be called the Goff Railroad, Mining, Ranching, and SchoolhouseMuseum since there are more exhibits in the first three categories than the last. Here is the namesake Schoolhouse.

28BA11CA-BDFB-4066-AED2-45ADA5A14E81

It is prettier than this picture shows. The big porch provided a cool place to sit on an unreasonably hot day. It also has a number of palo verde trees surrounding it, but they are just outside the frame. The museum is free though we dropped $10 in the pot. It would have been well worth twic that amount. Here is just a sample of the neat sites.

36273203-4DF2-4562-8411-F232D634C4DD A68BFE8F-8A81-4EA1-85EC-7354ADA1ED96 5695E30F-0918-47E4-8CB1-B1666021E972

These three pictures are of a two stamp mill mill that was disassembled, brought to the site, and lovingly restored by volunteers.

E3ED3D9F-01E2-433F-B106-30718FBA36B0

This is a ten stamp mill, also brought back to life by volunteers. I guess my pictures sow I was particularly impressed by the mining exhibits.

We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Lake Havasu City. We also went to see the Christmas lights on the canal next to London Bridge, quite nice. We filled the truck with fuel, and we are back cleaning up for tomorrow’s drive to Cedar City. We will stop at the KOA there are get everything ship shape to put the trailer to bed for a month and a half until our trip to California and Arizona in mid January. I always take this chance to wash everything I can in the trailer, both inside and out. We pull the rugs, quilts, sheets, bedspreads, towels, etc. These things get washed as needed on trips, but this is the time of year they all get put back completely clean. Kevin has decided to winterize the trailer back home since the weather is still so warm.

Next at home is a lot of sewing and quilting. I am making myself finish quilting a bedspread for our queen sized guest bed. I also need to finish a couple of Quilts for Kids kits. We will see how much I get done our the quilt for our king sized bed. It should keep me busy!

Catching up: Moving into Arizona

We are now at Route 66 Golden Shores RV Park at Topock, AZ. It is a quiet, older park and has the nicest people! We had Thanksgiving dinner with the other residents, a potluck with lots of food. My contributions were smashed red potatoes, made in the Instant Pot, and my new favorite dessert – Upside Down Apple Bread Pudding. I found it at https://recipeforperfection.com/upside-down-apple-bread-pudding/. Take a look:

C92D205B-B613-4302-993A-D71E44E07D04

Isn’t it gorgeous? For the potatoes I cut up 5 pounds of red potatoes into 1-2 inch pieces, added 1 c. water, then pressure cooked for 8 minutes. I drained the potatoes, smashed them some, added sour cream, butter, some milk, garlic flakes, and salt. It was so easy!

Other than Thanksgiving, we visited Oatman on Route 66 to see the donkeys.

89DB3ED5-C0BA-4CCE-BE74-82BBE47CAEDE B23E92E7-6D3E-49B5-B0AA-4AD58FB8E597

The donkeys are definitely part of the experience. They stay in the middle of the road and beg. A number of the businesses sell donkey food so they are spoiled rotten. I particularly like the picture of the baby nursing.

My birthday was on Monday, but I gave Kevin my nasty cold so we just stayed home. On Tuesday we decided we felt well enough to get dinner so we went to Lake Havasu to do some sightseeing, eat, and get groceries. The lake has a bunch of miniature light houses, so I took a picture next to the miniature Split Rock lighthouse. The original is along Lake Michigan.

839F1CB7-7F95-4CA7-84F8-4FD2D1D69C19

I apologize for my wind blown hair!

We also went to the marina to look at the boats. While there we found a huge flock of quail, probably 75 or more. They were obviously after some bugs that were hanging around the parking lot. A few pigeons were in the mix too.

224D390A-6A49-40B1-8BE9-25777795E08B BA8446D9-7361-46E4-A72B-8636A6FCD90B

The first picture is pretty bad because we didn’t want to disturb the birds. The second is much better at showing the quail plus a friendly rabbit.

We went to dinner at Cha’Bones, and it was wonderful. I had prime rib, a baked potato, and mixed roasted vegetables. Kevin had a T-bone with the same sides. It was some of the best food we have had in quite a while. The service was good, and the bottle of Malbec we shared made it even better.

Today we went to the Mohave National Preserve which was ok though not as nice as Death Valley. Here are some scenes.

D86E6C9F-DD6C-4F6A-BED8-323FADA7ECFC 4F07EEA9-23FB-4E17-AC29-CC8B4A23837A B12CCC05-CF8D-446C-AD57-44DE3A688B04

Kelso Dunes. I can’t walk far on sand (bad Achilles’ tendon), but they are big quite tall – 600 feet.

50C4E85D-EBEB-4464-BBEB-495057A61288

This is the old depot/Harvey House at the railroad town of Kelso. It was renovated by the Park Service, and is now the Visitor Center and Park Headquarters. Seriously cool. B0A1056D-B512-47AF-8B4F-9D80D3FF75DC

It turns out there are a lot of Joshua Trees in the Mohave Preserve. These are shorter but have more arms than others, and they are actually a separate subspecies from the ones in Joshua Tree National Park.

B445D6FC-EC49-4628-947F-794F4468C73D E91F2F35-FE2A-4910-BD41-76A3848E05A2

The last two are of the Hole in the Wall area. We got to it from the north on a bone rattling dirt road, but the road from the south is paved. Lesson learned.

i am officially caught up.

Home (and getting there)

After a nice Brueger’s bagel, we headed from Tucson to Payson, AZ and Houston Mesa campground. It is a Forest Service campground run by a concessionaire just north of the town and set in the pine trees. It is just gorgeous, and there were only a couple of other campers. The camp hosts were very nice, and obviously rather bored with the limited number of campers. They talked to us quite a while, and were helpful in identifying places to go. The only problem with the big pull through site was the road noise; there was a lot of it!

We ended up just spending the night and decided to head to Utah. We drove through a wonderful scenic area with a huge copper mine. I live in the town with the Kennicott mine, the biggest open pit copper mine in the world, and I was still impressed with this one. Oddly the tailings were very colorful and interesting – all the shades of tan, brown, gray, along with green and pinks.

We spent our last night on the road at the Beaver KOA. Nice folks and only one other campsite occupied. It is a nice little place, very well kept and far enough off the highway to be very quiet. We took our time leaving, making sure the tanks were clean and empty before heading home. I even dusted! I still need to sweep the floor and wash the rugs, but it was pretty clean as we pulled it in the side yard. We started laundry (a never ending task) and cleaned out the refrigerator. Now the trailer will sleep for a few weeks.

We aren’t making any plans for April until we find out what is up with Kevin’s knee. It is very painful and makes these weird popping noises. He had this rather silly idea that he could wait until he went on Medicare in September, but it is just too sore. He saw our family practitioner today, and he has a MRI scheduled for Friday. By mid next week we will hopefully know what he has to do to be better since the PT and meds aren’t working. I am hoping it is a quick arthroscopic clean up of the tendon, but that is not based on any specific knowledge. If he can get better quickly, we may go to a high school get together in Oklahoma City on Easter weekend. If not, we will stay here (or at least close) until mid May when we have reservations for the Yosemite area.

Desert beauty

We decided to go to the Tucson area today. We are staying at the Pima County Fairgrounds, just south of Tucson proper. The site is fairly cheap, $25 for full hookups, but it is a crowded gravel parking lot. Of course it is just for an overnight stay so I don’t mind. We got in around 1:00 and chose a well-reviewed Thai restaurant for lunch. “Luckies” was wonderful. My green curry was loaded with good stuff, and just spicy enough to leave a tingle on my lips. It was deliciously warm today, upper 60s, so after lunch we took a trip to the Saguaro National Park’s east unit. It was glorious! I enjoy desert plants in general (such textures!), and I have a special fondness for the Sonoran desert flora. These are the types of plants I had in my yard in Albuquerque – yuccas, barrel cactus, chollas, sotols, etc. Here is a somewhat fuzzy picture of the area.

I never had ocotillos in my yard since they need warmer weather. I do think they have the most wonderful shape though!

The chollas looked like little fuzzy trees.

And of course there were lots and lots of saguaros.

We keep heading gradually northwest. Where we stay tomorrow depends on when we get out of camp. There is a Brueger’s Bagel bakery not too far away, so we have to have breakfast there. They do real boiled then baked bagels, something I can’t get in SLC. I adore them!

Quartzsite, Arizona

Once we got out of the Salt Lake City area, we had smooth sailing. We spent the night in St. George and then left by 9:00 am to head to Quartzsite. We took the route through California instead of Lake Havasu, and it was a good choice. We arrived a little after 3:00 on 25 January, but by the time we got permits, figured out where the RV Forum group was camped, and got set up, it was just after 4:00 and time for Happy Hour! It was a nice way to meet the rest of the group. By 6:00 we were back at our trailer and finishing the setup. It took Kevin a long time to get the satellite activated, but that is generally the case with DISH. Sigh. The service is good once we get it started, but it is painful working with them every time we move to get our address changed.

Yesterday we went to the big Quartzite show. This is a ritual for RVers in the West. There are around 100,000 people mostly camped in the desert with a few in town at crowded RV parks. The “show” is centered at “The Big Tent”, a huge big top tent that houses many vendors. There are also lots of vendors outside the tent, and there are multiple other vendor areas that are mostly flea markets with a few nice vendors of a more artistic bent. There are also a lot of food vendors! Kevin and I shared a wonderful funnel cake, one of my main weaknesses.

Here is a picture of the tent. OK, it is a lousy picture taken from the truck, but you get the idea.

One of the things about camping in the dispersed area the BLM calls “Long Term Visitor Areas” is that hookups are non-existence. There are a couple of places with a single dump station, but that’s not much for 100,000 people! The line at the dump station has to be seen to be believed. This picture was taken at noon yesterday.

In the afternoon we took the electric bikes out for a ride. The scenery is gorgeous. I like this scenic saguaro with the mountains in the background.

Today we went towards Yuma, Arizona. Our first stop was Castle Dome ghost town and mining museum. What a wonderful place! It was quite cold with a hard wind so we only did about half of the available exhibits. I definitely want to come back another year in better weather and do the entire thing. Here are some pictures. You can definitely see why they call the area Castle Dome. The rocks are volcanic, and there were 300 mines in the area, mostly for silver and lead.

We also went through the Yuma Proving Grounds. There was a very interesting dirigible tied up not too far off the road. Maybe used for range communication or monitoring? It looks like an instrument cluster or radar at the bottom. You can’t judge the size from this picture, but I bet it was 30-40 foot tall, based on the hanger it was near. Odd site in the middle of the desert!