02-28-13

My computer has got some problems so I am using Patti’s computer to do this blog. I had to down load a new copy of “Windows Live Writer.
I think this will fix the problem that I have been having with the pictures. Once again you will be able to click on the pictures to enlarge them. “I hope”

The Wednesday ride was a little different than previous rides.
This time we met at the Carl’s Junior on the west side of town at 9:00.
Patti decided to skip this ride and go to Parker with Shirley and Bill to the Blue Water casino and to Wal-Mart to get a few things. Therefore Bob rode with me on the jeep ride. 
When everyone who was going on the ride arrived at Carl’s we took off west to Blythe, CA. We exited I-10 at Lovekin Blvd in Blythe and headed south. We zig-zag’d through the agricultural area until we came to the little town of Palo Verde, CA. From there, we headed west on a dirt road toward some small mountains.

After a while the road became a trail.
We continued west on the trail.

Eventually the trail became more interesting.

The trail wound around the hills until we came to the Opal Hill mine.

For a fee one can dig for opals and Fire Agate. We just wandered around and watched others dig.

 

After a short time we left the Opal Hill mine and continued along the trail.

Eventually we came to a wide dirt road and followed it south.

We eventually turned off this road and followed a smaller trail

until we found a wash out of the wind where we stopped for lunch.

After lunch we continued across the flats.

 

Eventually we came to some low hills

where we stopped at a spot where folks have been digging for Geodes. We walked around the area for a while. Some people found broken pieces of Geodes but nothing spectacular.

After about a half hour we left the Geode area and continued across the gravel pans.

 

We came to a trail that appeared to go over a pass.
Tom (who was the leader) and Dennis (Black jeep) gave the trail a try and decided it was not passable so they backed down.

  

White jeep Dennis (here is where things can get confusing) driving Cheryl’s blue jeep, and Gene in his gold jeep decided to try the trail. They made it almost to the top but the trail was washed out and they had to turn around.

It is a good thing that the rest of us didn’t follow them or we might still be up there trying to turn nine jeeps around on the narrow trail. 

We backtracked to the wide dirt road and headed north. Eventually we came to I-10 and turned east back to Quartzsite. 

When we got back to the motor home, we found out that Patti had won $165.00 so she took Bob and me out to dinner at the Mountain Quail.

02-26-13

The last couple of days have been a little slow.
Yesterday I did some work on the pond pump. I went to Herb’s Hardware to get some fittings to extend the input to the pump.
While I was working on that I had to move a bunch of rocks along the side of the pond to hide the hose. There was no sign of Flash.

I worked on a couple of electrical problems on the jeep.
The windshield wiper is plugged into the fuse block but keeps shaking loose. I tried to reseat it but it didn’t go very far into the block. We will see if it rattles loose again.

The emergency brake indicator light some times won’t go out. I took a look at the connection and the switch but couldn’t find anything wrong with them. I repositioned the wire. It is working now. We will see if it stay’s on again.

Today was laundry day for Patti and House work day for me.
It was bright and sunny but the wind was very cold so we didn’t do much outside. 

We have a plastic frog in the pond and Patti noticed that it was turned upside-down so maybe Flash was moving around and turned it over. 

Tomorrow we are going on a jeep ride somewhere south of Blythe.

02-25-13

Yesterday we went on a jeep ride. We met at the fire station, there were six jeeps in the group. Once everyone arrived we headed for Parker. We stopped for fuel and rendezvoused at the Chevron station.

We were heading for the Presidents Choice trail again. Some of the jeepers, (the ones who had front and rear lockers on their jeeps) wanted to play on some of the more difficult trails there.
White jeep Dennis wanted again, to try the rocks that defeated him the last time we were there. After Presidents Choice we planned to take the Grey Eagle Trail. The Grey Eagle trail is the back way into the Desert Bar. We had gone in to the Desert Bar that way several times but this time we were going to follow the trail in the opposite direction.

Our first stop after airing down

was to take a second look at what is known as “the wall”. It is the outlet of the Presidents Choice trail.

Yes, people actually attempt to climb this with their jeeps. Most have to be winched up.
We took the easy way to the wall but went through the wash coming out. The wash has some tricky rocks to go over.

After we exited the wash we headed up the Presidents Choice trail.

We stopped at a couple of side trails to let some jeeps try their lockers on shelves and rocks.

I tried one of the obstacles but couldn’t get the front tires to grab the dirt on the other side to pull Clifford up.

We played for a while on these trails and eventually got to the big rocks where white jeep tried again to get over them.
He made it over the first rocks

but the big boulders defeated him again.

Black jeep Dennis decided to try his luck and did very good getting over the first rocks.

but decided not to try the boulders.

After they were through playing on the rocks we headed back down the trail.
There was one more spot that we tried to climb the rocks. Everyone made it but Tom and I (no front lockers).
We stopped for lunch in a narrow canyon at the bottom of a “waterfall”

After lunch the jeeps with front lockers climbed the waterfall.

Tom and I met them on the other end of the trail.

Once we were out of the P C trail we headed for The Grey Eagle trail.

The trail is fairly easy and scenic

Dennis (White jeep) must have gotten bored with the easy trail so we took a side trail down a nasty little wash

with a couple of tricky obstacles.

Below is the first obstacle.

  
Below is the second one.

The rest of the trail was pretty easy. We got to the end at hwy. 95 and after airing up the tires we headed for home.

Dennis’s black widow sustained a bit of body damage when he went down a particularly steep rock.

Wow, what a great ride!

02-23-13

Friday was pretty low key.  I went to Herb’s Hardware to get some hose for the pond pump. The original hose kept crimping so I bought some that is reinforced. I also bought some hose to extend the filter so I can put it on the opposite end of the pond from the pump. Hopefully that will cause better water circulation. The only problem is, the hose I bought was two small. I will have to get a small piece  of larger hose and some reducer fittings.
When I pulled the rocks away from in front of the pump I found “Flash” the turtle. We are very happy to find it alive.

Today we went with a bunch of our friends to a casino near Lake Havasu City to celebrate Sue’s 55th birthday.

We had to take a boat to get there. The boat left from a dock just north of the London Bridge.

The boat was a large Catamaran.


It was about a twenty minute ride to the casino.

You can tell by the pictures that we weren’t having any fun.

We had lunch at the casino.

After lunch everyone except Dennis, Denis and I went into the casino to Gamble.
I found a bench in the sun and communed with nature until they were done loosing their money.


It turned out to be another good day.

02-22-13

For those of you who are in to cute, Patti took this picture during the snow flurries on Wednesday. I forgot to include this picture in Wednesdays blog.

The chipmunk is chewing on a piece of orange peel.

Yesterday we went to Parker to pick up our meds at Wal-Mart. We saw Jo Ann and Dave in the Wal-Mart parking lot and had a late lunch at the Cross Roads with them.
Last evening we went to Cheryl and Dennis’s to play cards Jo Ann, Dave, Becky and Dennis were also there.

We haven’t seen “Flash” the turtle since we put it in the pond. I hope it is just hiding behind one of the rocks. The weather turned very cold the day after we got Flash so I hope it didn’t freeze.

02-21-13

Yesterday was the Wednesday ride.
We met at the Shell station in the middle of town at 9:00. There were 9 jeeps in the group.
After everyone arrived and got their coffee etc, we headed out of town going south on 95.
Before we had gone very far, two of the jeeps had mechanical difficulties and dropped out.

We continued south for about 50 miles to Castle Dome Road.

We turned left and followed Castle Dome Road to the east.

Along the way we passed the eye in the sky; the governments border surveillance balloon. It was tethered to its trailer close to the ground.

After traveling about 8 miles we came to the turnoff for the Big Eye mine.

We headed south on the Big Eye mine trail.

 
Along the way we stopped to check out an interesting mining area.

 
There were a couple of deep vertical shafts,

A pioneer cemetery,

and a tunnel that went through a hill

 
and out the other side.

 
We left the mine and continued along the trail enjoying the beautiful scenery.

 

The two picture below are of the Big Eye from which the the mine gets its name.
In the first picture you can see the eye on the right side of the mountain.

The next picture is a close op of the eye.

The Trail took us up a wash with lots of beautiful rock formations along the sides,

and an interesting spire in the distance.

Eventually we got to the end of the road and stopped for lunch.

It was very cold and while we were having lunch it started to snow occasional small flakes.

After lunch some of us took a hike to the Mine and cabin.

After about a half mile we could see the cabin.

By the time I got to the cabin the temperature had dropped and the wind had picked up. I didn’t hike all the way up the mountain to the mine.

The cabin was very snug with two rooms as you can see in the following photo’s.

The first three pictures are of the main room.

The next pictures are of the kitchen.

I didn’t hike all the way up the mountain to the mine. While I was hanging out in the cabin it started to snow in earnest.

I tried getting some pictures of the snow falling but wasn’t very successful.
Here is one picture looking out of the back window at an out building.

 
Patti stayed with the jeeps and was a bit more successful with the snow pictures.

When we got back to the jeeps everyone was cold and damp so we all jumped into our jeeps and headed back down the trail toward Castle Dome Road.

Originally we were planning to go home via McPherson Pass which would add another twenty miles of rough trail travel.
By the time we got back to the intersection we were all pretty tired so decided to just head home on the highway.

It was a very interesting ride what with the snow and all.