02-11-12

Okay I have some catching up to do.

We didn’t go on the Wednesday ride because I had some dental work done on Wednesday.

I went to the meeting with the BLM on Tuesday. Of course they want to further restrict access to trails in the desert around Quartzsite. There are several plans but it is very confusing. We are dealing with the feds so what else is new. One plan is to leave things the way they are. On the other end of the scale is what they call the “GREEN” plan which would close all access to the desert. I am beginning to hate the word “green”. It always means something ether stupid or restrictive or destructive to our way of life. There is a thirty day comment period but the way they have things set up controls the way you can comment. You can only comment on specific routes not the plan in general. I signed up for some material to be sent to me so maybe it will clear things up a bit.

Okay now for the good stuff;

Yesterday we took a ride lead by Junior to the;

We had to drive about sixty miles to get to the trail but it was worth it. We went about thirty- four miles to the town of Salome on Highway 60 and turned south on another paved road and drove another twenty some miles to the turn off to the Eagle Eye Mine  and a another six miles of pavement took us to the start of the trail.

We stopped on the highway so Junior could get his bearings.

When we got ready to take off again I somehow flooded the jeep and it took a few minutes and much kibitzing to get it started again.

 

We stopped at the staging area to off load Suzanne and Roy’s Rhino and air down the tires on the Jeeps.

As it turned out the trail is a service road for some Kind of repeater station on top of the tallest mountain in southwestern Arizona

The red line is the trail but am not sure what the light blue line is (possibly a county line). The dark blue one (lower right) is the paved road.

Eventually we got on the trail.

We stopped a couple of times for pictures

and continued up the trail.

Eventually we got to the summit where we had lunch.

And took more pictures.

 

After lunch we started back down the mountain.

On the way down,

Patti got a picture of this unusual Saguaro cactus.

and some other nice views.

At the foot of the mountain we stopped to check out a mine with an old ruin.

It was another great ride.

On the way home we stopped at Silly Al’s for pizza.

Clifford is blowing a lot of oil out of the top of the valve cover. I checked it out and there is lots of blow bye. Today we went to Blythe to talk to a mechanic to see if we need to have the engine in Clifford rebuilt and to get an estimate. The shop was closed so we will have to go back on Monday.