03-31-10

Missy and Junior were returning to Quebec on Tuesday so Monday evening we had a Nopalies feed/potluck. Becky and I each made a double batch of Nopalies (a traditional southwest dish made with Beaver tail cactus). For the recipe see blog for Friday April 10th 2009.

Debby made Spanish rice, Suzanne brought Margaritas, Missy brought dip and tortillas and Cindy brought chips and dip.

The group consisted of

Missy and Junior
Cindy and David

When Missy and Junior arrived, they were waring these Canadian "T" shirts.

Debby and Mike

Suzanne and Roy
Becky and Dennis
Patti and me.
We all had a good time and everyone loved the Nopalies.

Yesterday Patti and I decided to take a ride up to Parker in order to see what the RV parks in that area were like. We crossed the Colorado River, turned right and drove along the north shore of the river.
We stopped at a OHV recreation area to check out a map at the Kiosk and after only a few minutes I tried to start the jeep to leave. When I turned the key I could here the starter solenoid clicking but the starter didn't turn. Fortunately there was a guy there and he helped us push start the jeep. It ran fine so I decided to just go back home and replace the starter. We got home all right and I jacked up the jeep. I had to go to the local parts house to buy some "Torx" sockets to removed the starter. I got the starter out but they didn't have a starter locally so I asked Dennis to take me to Blythe so I could buy one there.
I installed the new starter but when I tried it the solenoid clicked but the starter didn't turn.
Then it dawned on me that I had not followed the first rule of automotive electrical trouble shooting "Always check for corrosion on the battery connections first". Of course, there was some corrosion on the connection, so after cleaning it the starter worked just fine.
GRRRRRRR!!
Oh well, I got some new tools, a new starter and re-learned a big lesson on automotive electrical trouble shooting. I poured some oil over the battery posts so maybe they won't corrode for a while now.

03-29-10

Suzanne and Roy have been wanting to go to the Kofa so yesterday we took them to Hoodoo Well and the Hoodoo Hilton.

To get there we had to trailer their rig out to The Vicksburg exit on I-10 which is 26 miles east of Quartzsite. From there we had to go south for about 10 miles to the pipeline road. We stopped there so they could off load the Rhino, then we drove a couple of miles east to Junction 14 where we headed south over Red Rock Pass to the Hoodoo Hilton and had lunch.

Along the way we enjoyed many beautiful views.


Of course there were a lot of wild flowers for Patti to photograph. She also taught Suzanne how to use the "macro" setting on her camera. Now they are both "Macro Maniacs"
I am not complaining though because the pictures are great.
Here are some of her pictures;







We also saw some wild life.

After having lunch at the Hilton we drove down Hoodoo Wash to the Willbanks Cabin.

The hills along the way are very green.

We left Willbanks Cabin, went over Big Horne Pass and down the other side.
That is where things got strange. We crossed the wash at junction 38 and followed the trail going north when we found ourselves in a wash that got rougher and rougher. I mentioned to Patti that I thought the trail was a lot worse than it was last year but we continued following the tracks. I began to suspect that we may had taken a wrong turn when we came to a wider wash where we turned left onto it. At that point I thought that maybe we were back on the right trail. We came to a road going out of the wash to the right and followed it, eventually we got to the top of a hill. I looked around and low and behold, to our right was the "Hoodoo Hilton". We had made a complete circle. It was getting too late to go back down the wash, over Big Horn Pass and try to find the correct road so we decided to go back home via Red Rock Pass. We got back to Roy's car before sunset. By the time we made it back to I-10 the sun was just sinking below the horizon which, was a good thing because we had do drive west on the highway. We stopped at "Best" Mexican restaurant and got home around 8:00.
We had a great time with
"Marty's Cull-De-Sac Tours"
Our motto is
"We GET Lost For You"

03-26-10

I kept telling them, "I'm to young to play shuffle board"!
They finally convinced me to try.
It's fun.
So now, I guess I'll be considered an old fart.

Yesterday, we took a ride with Missy, Junior, Suzanne and Roy.
We went back to Brenda, but this time instead of going south on Ramsey Mine road we went a little farther east and turned north on Perry lane. We went about a mile, where we found a spot to unload Roy's Rhino, then we continued north on the trail.

We followed several trails.

It was like being on a merry go round. You know, "around and around and up and down".
The views were nice.

We saw a Saguaro with an arrow through it.

It wasn't a real arrow but one that someone had put there, I guess for a laugh, or maybe to mark the trail.
Then, we saw some hugging Saguaro's.

There were a lot of cacti in bloom.

Here is a series of photos of Hedgehog cacti blooming.

And then there are the wild flowers.

We found a nice shady spot in a wash for lunch.

If it seams like we always have lunch in a wash. The reason for that is simple. When it is windy and cold the The washes are usually lower than the surrounding desert and the vegetation helps protect us from the wind. The largest trees are usually found in the washes and they can often provide the only shade on hot days.
The last trail we followed took us into a steep sided canyon (on the map I labeled it a box canyon but it isn't really). We had been in this same canyon in January.
See the blog for Jan. 17, 2010.
I tried something different on the way back. I followed the track on my GPS instead of just using dead reckoning. It worked pretty well and we got back to Roy's rig around 4:30.

It was another good ride but probably the last one for Missy and Junior for this year. They will be going back to Quebec Canada next week. We had a lot of fun with them and will miss them. I hope they will come back to Quartzsite next year.

Here is the map;

03-24-10


A pair of Doves have been making a nest in the Grapefruit tree just out side our window.

I will keep you updated as they raise there babies.

We invited Patti's sister Dianne and brother-in-law Wayne to come up for a trip through the Kofa with us.

Dianne and Pailai

Wayne

Yesterday we met them at the "Stone Cabin" on AZ-95 and took them to the Horse Tanks and then over McPherson pass.
I have blogged about this trail several times (see post for 02-24-10) so I won't spend a lot of time on it here.
We did see some flowering cactus,

and other wild flowers on the ride.


We didn't stop at the museum because it isn't very wheel chair friendly so Dianne wouldn't be able to see much.
That was just as well for us as we have been there three times already.

It was a long day for them but I think they had a good time.

03-22-10

Yesterday, Suzanne, Roy, Patti and I went back to the Ramsey Mine road.
On the way we noticed the wild flowers in full bloom.

Roy was trailering their Rhino so we stopped at the Kiosk on the south side of the freeway so they could unload. From there we followed a frontage road east until we came to an intersection, where we turned south, into the mountains.

We drove around the east side of "Twin Peaks". As we traveled up a particular wash I noticed some tailing's along the side.

We stopped to investigate and found a vertical shaft that of course we had to drop some rocks into. It was very, very deep.
Further along, we turned onto a trail that led to a large mining area.

I think it was a copper mine because of all the blue-green rock scattered about. I think the rock is called "Crisacola" (I'm not sure of the spelling)


Clifford was finally defeated by a hill.
We were going south after leaving the blue/green rocks when we came to this very, very steep hill that was all broken shale and some steps in the middle of it. I thought it was going to be a challenge when we started up it. When we got to the steps Clifford could not get enough traction on the shale to get over them. We tried several times but just kept spinning the wheels in the loose rock. I tried going around the steps with out success. Finally I backed down to the bottom of the hill. I guess I could have tried storming up the hill but I didn't want to take a chance of breaking some thing.
The picture doesn't even come close to showing how steep the hill is.

Or how high the steps were.

We turned around and went back down to the wash where we stopped in the shade of a Palo Verdi tree for lunch.
After lunch we followed the wash further south but after a short distance we came to the "New Water Mountains Wilderness" boundary.
So, even if we could have gotten over the steps we couldn't have gone very far before we would have come to the wilderness boundary on the other side of the hill.
We headed back down the wash and tried some other trails that all came to dead ends. As we rounded the north end of the mountains we got another view of the "Eagles Eye"

At a distance one of the mountains look like it had a water fall coming off it.
Once we got closer (at the wilderness boundary) we could see that it was a vertical seam of lighter material on the darker background rock.

Patti got some more nice macro shots of very small flowers.

We got home around 4:30 and went to Silly Al's for dinner with Suzanne and Roy.
Here is the map;