Slow Weekend and a Ride to Cottonwood Pass and Tank pass.

Saturday.

It was pretty cold Saturday so we spent the first part of the day indoors.

The passenger side seat belt on Snoopy doesn't retract well. I decided to get a new one so I got on line to see if I could find one.
The best deal was from JC Whitney but the website was unclear. It only showed the rear belt and I wanted the front one. I ended up calling JC Whitney to find out what was up with that. The guy told me that both seatbelts were the same.
I thought that as I have removed the back seat and don't plan on using it I would just take the rear seatbelt out and put it in the front, saving myself about $88.00.
It took  me quite a while to swap the belts as there were some differences in the mounting.

Sunday.

We were bord on Sunday so we decided to go to the dump and the post office and go buy a cabbage for dinner.

Check Engine Light.

First we went to the dump. As we were leaving the dump the check engine light came on in the jeep. This happened once before and I borrowed a code reader from Tom and found that the error was
... "the engine was cold too long". I'm not sure exactly what that meant but we cleared the error.

When it happened leaving the dump, I decided that I needed a code reader of my own.
The nearest Harbor Freight is in Lake Havasu City; 75 miles away. We decided to take a ride up there to get the code reader and have a late lunch.

The ride to Lake Havasu City was uneventful. We went to Harbor Freight, got the code reader and a couple other tools that I needed.

Now we needed a  place to have lunch. Patti mentioned a Mexican restaurant that we had eaten at last year but we weren't sure where it was.  Harbor Freight is in a large shopping center on McCulloch Blvd.
As we were backing out of the parking spot I noticed a restaurant on the other end of the parking lot. It looked familiar.
"I think that's the restaurant right over there". I said.
Sure enough it was the same place 'Fiesta Mexicana'.
We drove across the lot and went to the restaurant for lunch. It is high end Mexican cuisine. The food was excellent.

After lunch we headed for home and got back to Quartzsite around 4:00.
I hooked the code reader to the jeep and found the same error so I cleared it.
Since the error has occurred twice I started noticing that the engine temperature gauge never gets to the normal operating temperature of 210°.
I think that maybe the temperature sensor is faulty. I will have to get a new one and see if that fix's the problem.

Monday. A ride to Cottonwood Pass and Tank Pass.

When we were at the weenie roast last Friday Denis asked if we would like to take a ride to Tank Pass. Of course we said yes.

We met Sue, Denis, Frank and Lise at the Arco station and around 9:45 we headed east on I-10. We took the Hwy. 60 turnoff and drove to Salome where we turned left on Center St. We drove two blocks to the end of Center where we turned left again. About a half mile down this road we came to Indian Springs Road where we turned north. We drove on this trail between freshly tilled fields until we came to where Indian Springs Road turns west.

Here we stopped to air down.

After airing down we continued north on a narrow trail that eventually headed into the mountains.

 We stopped to check out a couple of abandoned mine tunnels. I think they are called the Virginia Mine.
The first one is interesting as it is the only mine we have explored that has Stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

This is the entrance to the tunnel.

 Looking into the tunnel you can see  the end.

 Near the back of the tunnel we checked out the stalactites.

 We left this tunnel and drove up the hill to the next one.

This tunnel has a lot of wooden structures

and a shoot that was used to drop ore down from another tunnel above.

We followed the tunnel about half way back until we  came to a deep hole with a very rickety plank bridge crossing it.

That was as far as we went.
Outside there is still the old ore loading shoot.

Cottonwood Pass.

After leaving this mine we started climbing the mountains toward Cottonwood Pass. This is a narrow rocky trail that was built up with rocks by hand in the old days.

 On the other side of the pass we stopped for lunch near a wash. As you can tell it was a cold day.

In the wash near where we had lunch is an old miners dwelling. The miners were pretty inventive when it came to building places to live out of the desert heat.

Here is a look at the inside.

This must have been the wood stove.

The cave was divided into three rooms.

We left this spot and headed for Tank Pass.

Tank Pass.

Tank Pass goes through some mountains that are mostly composed of gigantic Granite boulders. Some of which  form very interesting shapes.

Naturally the trail is quite rough. The roughest part is on one particular turn.

Believe it or not this spot used to be much rougher. Can you imagine getting through here with a horse drawn wagon?

Just after we got through this spot, we had to pull over to allow a group of ATV's to go by.

Eventually we got over Tank Pass.

Jail Cave.

On the other side we stopped to check out a place where in the old days they used to stop when they were transferring criminals to the Yuma Prison. It is a cave that was a holding cell for the prisoners.
The last time we were here there were still some of  the bars in evidence but now they have been removed.

This has evidently become a party spot for local youths as there is a lot of beer cans thrown around and lots of graffiti scrawled on the rocks.

From here we headed across the flats to Indian Springs Road and eventually got back to the pavement where we headed for home.

This is always a fun ride and this time was no exception.