I have been busy with the RVForum rally, so that’s my excuse! It isn’t a very good one though LOL! We had folks starting to arrive the Wednesday before the rally officially began on Saturday, 18 January, and we enjoyed a daily Happy Hour around the fire. Folks brought a LOT of wood, so we have had fires every night but two when it was too windy. Wind is a continued issue in Q, but it just goes with the territory.
We added a LOT more wood after this picture was takenSunset from the firepit
We did a really challenging ride with the Arizona SunRiders again – Preacher’s Pass and Hogsback. Glad we were with experienced riders! We would never have dreamed of tacking it ourselves. But this is exactly the reason we like going on group rides; experienced riders in a group can really advance your skills. The ride leader said there wasn’t any ride in the area that was more challenging, and our little RZR did just fine! Some pictures and videos are needed of course. Click on the links to see the videos.
View from the top is always niceWe always have dog buddies alongView of the trailYup, it’s a long way down
The second video shows the ride to one of the passes. It is steeper than it looks!
One of the activities of our rally was a high clearance vehicle ride across the Yuma Proving Grounds to the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge. Lovely ride through pristine desert, though the lack of rain in the last 6 months made it very dry. The only casualty was our own flat tire! Luckily we got it changed in 15 minutes, and we were all on our way again. There weren’t as many birds as usual due to the dry weather. We were told there were more at Imperial Wildlife Refuge south of Cibola. I did get a few shots of the Sandhill Cranes.
A lot fewer sandhill cranes than in previous yearsThey liked the edge of the corn rows this time
I also took a video at Goose Pond. Normally there would be thousands of birds, but this time there were only a few hundred.
Our final formal activity of the rally was a trip to the Desert Bar, aka Nellie E Mine. Absolutely off-grid completely, only opens weekends in the winter. There are pictures of previous trips on other posts, so I will just show the pictures from the women’s toilet, a famous vista (yes, really!).
View from the women’s toilet to the rightView from the women’s toilet to the left.
I admit I am tired and need some quiet time, but I should get that today. Tomorrow evening we will go to dinner at Silly Al’s Pizza, a tradition. Until then I will clean up the mess that is inside the motorhome and get some sewing done.
It rained like crazy here on Monday, so we decided to go to Phoenix to do some shopping. Wow, did it rain! And snow! And sleet! There were quite a few cars in the ditches, and I pulled off the road for about 15 minutes to let the sleet/snow pass me by. We have had light rain a few times since too, but a good desert dweller never complains about rain. It has given me time to get some other things done. For example, I made an Instant Pot cheesecake using the famous “Cheesecake #17” you can find online. As usual, it came out great.
Instant pot “Cheesecake #17”
I also finished the third tumbler baby/lap quilt. The first picture is the teal/aqua one I did before that I didn’t take a picture of, and the second is with a dark blue contrast fabric. The patterned blocks came from a wonderful layer cake (10” squares) I bought on sale a while back. There are deep flowers, dragonflies in lots of colors, and some blenders, all with shimmery gold highlights. Sadly the gold doesn’t show very well, but it is much prettier in person. I have bought backing and 505 spray to sandwich at least two of the quilt tops I made on this trip, and I will start quilting them soon.
Teal background tumblerDark blue background tumbler
On Thursday we went to the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, driving on the dirt roads in the Yuma Proving Grounds to get there. Oddly enough the Army has been very good for the desert with the restrictions on activities along the roads, so it is a lovely section of “natural” desert.
Yuma Proving Grounds desert
Going through the Proving Grounds can be a bit interesting. We got to see an equipment drop by parachute, though we didn’t notice the aircraft that must have dropped them. There are 5-6 parachutes on the big item, and 2 on the small one. There is definitely a lot of training and/or testing going on. We have heard quite a few loud “booms” in the evenings, two of which had such a concussive force my motorhome swayed! The cloud ceiling was quite low, and that makes the shocks greater.
One big item and one much smaller
Another thing the Provong Grounds has is an urban combat practice zone set up similar to towns and villages in Western Asia, especially Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Little Baghdad”
There are small clusters around the area away from the larger “town.”
For Western Asia training
Just outside the western edge of the YPG is the Colorado River. It is mostly a slow moving irrigation canal here. You can see the heavily irrigated fields up west of the river in the picture below. They grow lots of alfalfa, some cotton, and even some produce from the cabbage family, though we didn’t stop to investigate.
The Colorado River isn’t too impressive here
We finally got to Cibola, and it did not disappoint. There are hundreds of Sandhill cranes, though this shows only a few of them.
Sandhill Cranes
There are a few other types of birds including this white heron of some type. This is zoomed in an awful lot, and I can’t tell exactly what species it is.
Some type of white heron
The best part of Cibola is sitting by the large pond that has hundreds and hundreds of waterfowl of all types. Click on the link below to watch a video, and make sure you turn your sound up!
We are in Lake Havasu right now, picking up some Amazon packages and applying for our passport renewals. Mine expires in March, and I almost forgot about it! We plan on staying at Quartzsite until Monday, then heading to a private campground somewhere we can do laundry, clean the tanks, and shop. After that, we are off to Death Valley for a week or two. COVID vaccinations are still to hard to come by in Iowa to worry about, so we will just enjoy the warmth a while longer.
Kevin is actively looking at getting some lithium ion batteries for the motorhome, and that lets him have all kinds of fun. The plan is to put them in at home before our next summer trip.
