A repair on snoopy, Harquahala Mountain and an Unknown Mine.

Broken Door Handle.

When we were on the ride Monday the passenger side door handle malfunctioned and we couldn't open it from the outside.
Patti said that the handle was getting very hard to operate and then it popped and stayed in the open position. The door would still close and latch and the inside handle still worked.

Tuesday morning I took a look at the problem. I pulled the door panel off the inside and after a lot of struggling to see what was going on I ended up taking the door off and laying it on a table so I could see the mechanism. Once I could see what was going on it wasn't hard to fix. The door handle works through a couple of rods, a lever and a cam. When the handle is pulled the cam moves a lever and the latch disengages. As it turned out the cam had slipped past the lever and stuck. I pried the lever back into its proper position and sprayed the whole mechanism with WD 40.  Now the latch works easily.
WD 40 isn't a great lubricant but it will work until I can get something better.

Harquahala Mountain.

This morning when I was getting things loaded in the jeep it was very cold in Quartzsite. There was even frost on the jeep.
We have been to Harquahala mountain three times before and each time it was very cold and/or very windy so we brought all the heavy jackets we had so we would be prepared for cold windy weather.

We gathered at the Arco station on the east side of town.

There were eight jeeps on this ride. Once we were all there we headed east on I-10.

We drove about 50 miles east and took exit 69 where we headed north.

Mechanical Trouble.

We were the last jeep in the line right behind Jo Ann and Dave. We hit a rough spot on the road and I saw the right rear shock on Dave's jeep drop and was dragging along the road. Patti called Dave on the radio and told him about the problem.

We tried to remove the shock but I couldn't break the bolt loose so we wired the shock up so we could continue and catch  up with the rest of the group.

Eventually we got to our destination.

We pulled into the parking area to air down the tires  and Dennis M was able to get the shock off Dave's jeep.

Once everyone was ready, we headed up the trail. We were  at the end of the line following Dave again.
The trail is pretty rough as it climbs a series of switch backs.

After a mile or so I noticed that Dave's Jeep was  bouncing like a horse  with a bur under its saddle. Eventually I realized that the left shock had also broken loose.
We called Dave on the radio again and he pulled over. After checking the shock to be sure that it wasn't going to do any damage to the  underside  of the jeep, Dave decided that they would turn around and head back home.

Eventually we caught up to the rest of the group and continued up the mountain.

Here is a shot of the trail as seen from above.

When we got to the summit we were surprised that there was no wind and it was actually warm.
There is the wind sock at the top.

We got there just in  time for lunch.

Harquahala Mountain is the highest peak in western Arizona at 5,681feet. The views  from the summit are spectacular.

The white plumes in the center of this picture is steam from the Palo Verdi Nuclear Power Plant.

After about an hour we headed back down the mountain.

A Very Interesting Mine.

Once we were off the mountain we headed east on Eagle Eye Road for about five miles and turned south on this dead end road.

The road took us to one of the more interesting mines we have visited.
You drive into what looks like an open pit mine.

At the bottom of the pit are several tunnels going into the walls.

Of course I had to investigate as many of the holes that I could get to. Here is a few pictures of the inside of the tunnels.

This one gives you some idea of the size of one  of the openings.

Here is what it looks like inside.

Here is another view.

Here I look out and see Patti eating Peanuts.

An other interesting tunnel.

another cool shot.

We did a lot of speculation about what was going on here. There was some writing on the wall that said 'Black Rock Mine". I looked it up on the internet but couldn't find anything on this particular "Black Rock Mine".

Eventually we left this mine and headed for home. 

On the way home Patti called Jo Ann and found out that they got home  safely.

We got back to Quartzsite around 4:45 and met the rest of the group at Carl's Jr. for dinner. 

Joy and Robert finally arrived in Quartzsite for the rest of this season and joined us at Carl's Jr.

Another good ride.