Ride to Blythe CA, Taxes, High Winds, Pipe Repair and Loading the Jeep.

 

Thursday. 03/30

A Ride to Blythe.

We drove to Blythe, Ca yesterday to get our Taxes done.
As we were heading west on I-10 the wind was coming from the southwest at about 20 MPH with strong gusts that were knocking us and the other vehicles all over. It was hard to stay in our lane.

Taxes.

We made it to Blythe safely and went to see our tax lady. For the first time in many years we are getting a refund. A mixed blessing as the reason for the refund was that we had a bunch of losses in our IRA’S. Of course the refund doesn’t make up for what we lost. Oh well, that’s life.

Sizzler for Lunch.

After leaving the tax place we stopped at Sizzler for lunch.
We had the Salad Bar. By the time we finished lunch we were stuffed.

A Stop at Ace Hardware.

After lunch we went to the big Ace Hardware store. I wanted to see if they had anything that I could use to help with the pipe repair job. Unfortunately in these big stores it is hard to find any one with any expertise to answer questions. I ended up purchasing the largest “Easy Out” they had. for $16.00.

Heading home.

By the time we left Blythe the wind had increased. We drove very carefully and made it home without being blown off the highway.

Borrowing a Pipe Wrench.

I don’t have a pipe wrench with me so I had to stop at Becky and Dennis’ to borrow one from Dennis as he has a lot of tools down here.

Hair Cuts.

After leaving B&D’s we went to our friend Debbie’s so I could get my semiannual hair cut. Patti also needed a trim.
We visited with Debbie for a while and headed for home.

Hot Temperature and High Winds.

By the time we got home the temperature was in the mid to high 80’s and the wind was howling. With gusts in the 40 to 50 mph range and blowing dust.

I decided that this was not a good day to work outside so I stayed inside for the rest of the day.

Friday 03/31.
Pipe Repair.

The wind howled all night shaking the RV but this morning it had calmed down a lot.

I got out early (around 9:00) to work on the pipe project. I decided to just try and unscrew the broken pipe from the tee. Of course as I expected it would, the pipe broke off at the tee.

I tried the expensive “Easy Out” that I bought at ACE but it was too small.
Now what?

I love Herb’s Hardware.

One thing that Quartzsite has that a lot of other towns don’t, is a really good hardware store. I don’t know why I go to any other hardware store when I need some thing special down here.
They have a bunch of friendly older guys working there with a lot of expertise.
When I walked in one of the guys asked if he could help me.

I explained my situation to him and after looking at some plastic slip connectors that I would have to cut the pipe to install, I asked him if they had anything like an large “easy out” that I could use on 3/4 inch pipe. He said that they had what he called a nipple extractor that would probably work to get the broken piece out of the tee.
I checked it out and decided that that was exactly what I needed.

It is officially called an internal pipe wrench. It works with a cam action that grips the inside of the pipe.

I bought it for $4 and change and took it home.
I inserted the tool in the pipe, got my long breaker bar with a couple of extensions and a 3/4 inch socket and it worked perfectly to extract the broken piece of pipe out of the tee.

Now I needed to re-thread the end of the long piece of pipe so off I went back to Herb’s. It turned out that they had a pipe threading machine there and put new threads on the pipe. It only cost me a buck for the new threads.

I went back to the RV and after putting some Rector Seal on the threads I screwed the pipe into the tee and waited for a while for the sealer to set. After about a half hour I turned on the main water valve and checked the connection at the tee.
NO LEAKS!! 

I filled the hole in and let the water run to get any dirt out of the pipe that may have gotten in during repair.

Okay, that’s done.

Loading the Jeep.

I took a short break and then it was time to load the jeep.
We had a bunch of stuff in the shed; extra chairs, my old compressor, the camp boxes and the plywood platform that is normally in the jeep when the back seat isn’t installed and a bunch of other stuff. I was able to get it all in the jeep so now we are ready to head back to California.

Leaving AZ.

We will be leaving here tomorrow morning and going to Bullhead City, AZ where we will spend the night. On Sunday we will drive to Bakersfield, CA. We will spend the night there and on Monday morning we will drive from Bakersfield to Santa Rosa and home.

It has been a great season down here. We lad a lot of fun but it seemed to go by way to fast. We are looking forward to what next season will bring. 

Back to Quartzsite.

 

Left Coolidge.

We left Coolidge at 9:00 Wednesday morning heading back to Quartzsite.

As we drove out I-8 we could see that the Palo Verde’s were in full bloom.

So far I haven’t had too severe a reaction to them.
Most years I have had a very strong allergic reaction to the Palo Verde’s.
I have been taking antihistamine so maybe that is helping.

Broken Pipe.

When I was backing out of our spot the day we left Quartzsite I ran over a water pipe. Water was shooting out of the ground and it took a while to get the water shut off. Eventually I found the main shutoff at the street and turned the water off;
then we left to go to Coolidge.

Now we are back in Quartzsite and I have to try and fix the pipe.

Digging the Pipe.

Yesterday, after we got set up and I had a little nap, I started digging around the pipe. It was still to hot to do much so I waited until after supper to finish digging.

I assumed that the underground pipe was made of plastic but when I got it uncovered it turned out to be Galvanized metal pipe.

You can see that the vertical pipe is broken at the tee. I don’t have any plumbing tools with me so I guess I will have to buy a pipe wrench. I hope that the pipe will unscrew from the tee. If it breaks off I am not sure how I will fix it.
Maybe I can use a large easy out to get the rest of the pipe out of the tee.
I hope that isn’t necessary.

Taxes.

This morning we are going to Blythe to get our taxes done.

Patti got a call from our friend Becky and while she was on the phone with her I asked if Dennis had a pipe wrench that I could borrow. He does, so I won’t have to buy one.

Okay that’s it for now.
I’ll let you know how the pipe job works out tomorrow.

The Last Weenie Roast.

 

Wood to burn.

We talked to Denis Sunday evening and he suggested that we have one final Weenie Roast at the Gila River. He still had a bunch of wood to burn.

Heading Out.

Monday, about 10:30 Sue and Denis showed up at our place.
We headed out Florence/Kelvin road to Cochran Road.

Cochran Road.

We turned north on Cochran Road.
The scenery from Cochran Road is always spectacular.

The Wash.

We turned off Cochran Road into the left side of the big wash.

The Best Beach.

We followed the wash to the first beach. This is the best beach along this part of the river and is usually crowded with people.
Fortunately, today it was empty.

We were surprised to see how much of the beach has been eroded by high water.

A Shady Spot.

We found a spot under some big Willow trees with a fire ring.

Lunch in the Shade.

We got a fire going and sat around waiting for the fire to to burn down to coals.

Once the fire had burned down we cooked some brats and had lunch.

The framework behind us is someone else's garbage.

We sat around in the shade visiting until around 3:00.

It was a good relaxing day.

We will be leaving Coolidge tomorrow (Wednesday) and heading back to Quartzsite.
Today, we will be getting ready to leave.

We have had a lot of fun here this season but all good things, etc.

A ride to Globe and the Pinal Mountain Recreation Area.

Saturday:

We haven’t been taking any jeep rides on the weekends because there are too many people on the trails then.
Saturday, Patti did laundry and I did some housework.

Sunday:

Sunday morning after breakfast we decided to take a ride to Globe, AZ.

On Our Way.

We headed for Highway 79 north of Florence and followed it to Florence Junction where we got on Highway 60 heading east.

Still enjoying the wild flowers as we drive along the highway.

The highway goes through some beautiful canyons.

Globe.

We got to Globe round 11:30.

The area around Globe is all about mining.
There are several large open pit Copper mines around the towns of Globe and Miami.

As we were driving through Globe we noticed a sign pointing to the right that read Pinal Mountain Recreation Area.

We continued through Globe and entered the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. When we got to their casino we turned around and headed back to Globe where we stopped at the local DQ for lunch.

Pinal Peak.

After lunch we headed west through Globe.
We had decided that we would check out the Pinal Mountain Recreation area.

We turned south on the road to the recreation area.
We drove through a residential area and continued on a paved road heading south into the mountains.

Eventually we came to a dirt road that went off to the right. We turned onto this road.

As we climbed we left the scrub land and entered a lush pine forest.

As we continued to climb we had good views of the mountains.

Snow Along the Road.

At around 7000 feet we encountered snow banks along the side of the road.

Fortunately there were no snow drifts across the road.

Towers.

We continued to climb the mountain and eventually came to where all the communications towers are located.

We drove to the highest towers.

The highest towers were at almost 8000 feet

There are some great views from this altitude.

After checking out the view we headed back down the mountain.

Back on the Highway

Once we were back to Highway 60 we headed for home.
As we passed through Miami, Patti took some pictures of these poppies.

On the north side of the town are some large, what appear to be,  processing plants.

This looks like the superstructure atop a vertical mine shaft.

Looking north from the highway we see a massive open pit mine.

Palo Verde Trees.

The Palo Verde trees are starting to bloom. That means it won’t be long before my allergies start acting up.

We got home around 4:00. At around 6:30 Patti got this nice picture of the sunset.

It was another good day.

County Fair and a Farewell Weenie Roast.

 

Pinal County Fair.

Around 1:00 Jean, Don, Patti and I went to the Pinal County Fair.

We got there before 3:00 so our senior tickets were half price, $4.00.

As you go through the gate you enter the food court.

We will com back to that later.

The Animal Shed.

We took a right turn here and went to visit the FFA exhibits in the animal shed.

Kids and their prize goats.

A girl blowing dust off of her Calf.

This is why she was doing that.

A nicely sheared Lamb.

A young man showing off his prize belt buckle.

Healthy looking pigs.

A Magic Show.

After walking around looking at the animals for a while it was time for a magic show.

Here is Godfrey on stage.

He wasn’t David Copperfield but he was really good with the kids. Having them be a part of the show.

Exotic Food.

As we were going through the food court on our way to the magic show I noticed this booth.

I couldn’t resist so I went over and bought an order of Alligator.
I brought it to the Magic show so I could share it with Patti, Jean, and Don.

The alligator was pretty good. Of course it tasted a lot like chicken. Unfortunately there was more breading on the pieces than meat. Still, it was something different.

The Midway.

After the Magic show we headed for the Midway.
Jean wanted to play some of the Midway games.

She checked out a few of the games. This was some kind of Dart game. Of course the darts didn’t have points on them (we wouldn’t want anyone to get stuck with one.)

Another game that used to use darts now uses bean bags with nails in them.

Jean finally settled on the Horse Race.

She won but she was the only one racing.

Here she is with her prize.

Exhibits.

We went into an exhibit building to check it out.

The most interesting exhibit was at the animal rescue center.
They had a large African Tortoise…

A local Desert Tortoise.

and a couple of fat Rattlesnakes.

These were the only Rattlers we have seen this season.

Blue Grass Music.

When we came out of the exhibit building we could hear some Bluegrass music so we walked over to the stage area and took a seat to have a listen.

We sat around there listening to the music until 4:00 then decided that it was time to go.

Farewell Weenie Roast.

From the fair we went to the RV park where Johnie, Diane, Lise, Frank, Sue and Denis were staying.
Diane and Johnie had invites us to a Farewell Weenie Roast at their place as they and Lise and Frank were leaving this weekend to go home.

We sat around in the shade of Johnnie’s RV and visited for a while.

Frank was drafted to cook the hot dog’s.

We lined up for food.

We had a good time eating hot dogs and visiting until around 8:30 when the ladies decided that it was too cold to sit around any longer so the party broke up.
We said our goodbye's to Diane, Johnie, Lise, Frank with promises to meet again in Quartzsite next Fall. 

Jean and Don were also leaving tomorrow so we said our goodbyes to them as well. It was fun having them with us for the week.