Thursday 2/22, Friday 2/23, Saturday 2/24 and Sunday 2/25

There hasn’t been much going on the last few days. The weather has been on the cool side with overnight lows in the mid to hi 30’s and breezy. Day time temps have been in the low 60 with a cold north wind.

Thursday.

Thursday was cold and windy so we  didn’t do much during the day. Thursday evening we went to Dennis and Becky’s to play cards with the Wednesday jeep group.

Friday.

The last time I worked on the jeep, I noticed that two of the clips that hold the top of the air cleaner on were missing. They were both on one side so there was a slight gap between the top and the air box.
Therefore there is dust getting past the air cleaner and into the engine.
Not good!
I decided to go to Blythe to the Jeep dealer to see if I could by a couple of the clips.

Around 10:00 we headed for Blythe. It was very windy and we were pushed around a lot on the freeway. We made it to Blythe and went to Larry Green’s jeep parts.
I went in and asked if I could buy the clips that I needed. The parts guy looked it up on his computer and told me that I could buy the air box or the top of the air box or the hose that goes from the air cleaner to the engine but I couldn’t buy the clips.
@#$^&&W#%*!!! That sucks!!

So that it wouldn’t be a totally wasted trip we went to the Dollar Tree and spent $3.00 on a some items,
From the Dollar Tree we went to the A&R Bakery and Deli for lunch.
We both had the Turkey Sandwich on spiced Cranberry bread. It was yummy as usual.

We fought the wind all the way home and hid in the RV for the rest of the day.

Saturday.

Around 8:00, we went to the Times 3 Restaurant to have breakfast with Jo Ann and Dave, Doris and Jim.

When we got home I decided to see what I could do about the air cleaner in the jeep.

The clips that were missing were on the right side of the air box.
I managed to remove one of the clips on the left side without breaking anything and put it at the front on the right side. It looks like that will work.
Now there isn’t any gap to let the dust in. I will keep looking for some clips but this will work for now.

Sunday.

Today is chore day.
Patti is going to do laundry and I will do house work.
Our friend Bob is coming down to Quartzsite. I read in his blog that he is leaving home today so he will probably be here Monday evening or Tuesday.

Okay, that catches us up for now.

Tuesday: Dinner with Connie, Bruce, Marvin and Anita. Wednesday Ride to The Cinnabar Mine.

Dinner with Connie and Bruce.

Tuesday afternoon we went over to visit with Connie and Bruce and company. We got there around 2:30 and sat around visiting for a couple of hours.

Connie, Anita and Dog’s.

Bruce put a tri-tip on the grill and and the women did their thing with the rest of the food.

By around 4:30 we sat down to a wonderful meal of perfectly cooked Tri-tip, a couple kinds of salad, fresh baked cheese bread and freshly made pie for dessert.

After dinner we visited some more until the sun went down and it got too cold to sit outside.
We left then and went home to get warm.
I think Winter has finally arrived in AZ. Up until a couple of weeks ago we were having almost spring like conditions with temps in the mid 70 to mid 80. Since then the temperature has dropped a good 20°. Fortunately it shouldn’t stay this way for much longer.

Wednesday.

Connie and Bruce have a jeep so we invited them to go for a ride.
Connie and Anita wanted to stay in town to shop so Bruce and Marvin went with us.

The Ride.

For about the last four weeks, Tom has been going to lead the group to The Cinnabar Mine southwest of Quartzsite. Each week something has come up so that Tom wasn’t able to be there.
This week there was no excuse.
We all met at the Carl’s Jr parking lot at the west end of town.
Once everyone was there we headed west on I-10.
Bruce’s jeep is the one directly in front of us. Then there’s Gene, Dennis, Dennis, and Tom.

We drove about 6 miles and took the Tom Wells Road turnoff.

We left the freeway and crossed over. We stopped at the end of the pavement to air down.

Hit The Dusty Trail.

Once we were all done with that, we headed out the dusty dirt road.
Every where the trails are quite dusty as we have had almost no rain this Winter.

You have to hang back a ways so that you can see the trail in this area.
That is Tom’s dust trail on the left side of the picture.

The only good thing is that it is easy to see where the jeeps in front of you are.

After a while we got on a trail that had a lot of rock in it so it wasn’t as dusty.

We meandered across the desert for a while working our way south.

Eventually we dropped into a wash. At first the wash was pretty dust free.

But that didn’t last.

A Little Breather.

We stopped for a dust  break. Here is Bruce and Marvin.

After allowing our lungs to breath some not dusty air for a few minutes, we continued on our way.

This Way to Yuma.

We passed this rock with an arrow and Yuma painted on it.

It would be a long hard drive to get to Yuma this way.

Another Wash.

After a long dusty meander…

we eventually got into another less dusty wash.

The Old Store.

Eventually we came to this abandoned ruin. Apparently this was the remains of an old store.
When the mine was in operation there was a fairly large settlement here. The only thing remaining is this stone store.

Whoever built this did a pretty good job of putting the rocks together without mortar.

The Cinnabar Mine.

Shortly after leaving the store we could see the condenser tower for the mine.

We pulled into a wide spot near the tower and stood around for a while looking at stuff.

Lunch.

After a bit we got out our chairs and lunch boxes and started eating our lunch.

We were kind of blocking the road so of course as soon as we started eating our lunch, we could hear a bunch of ATV coming along the trail.
Fortunately there was a way around us on the uphill side of the tower.

Here you can see the ATV’s on the other side of us.

By the time we were done with lunch we had a group of ATV’s in front of us and another group behind us. The only way we could get out of here was to climb the steep hill to the upper trail.

You can see the hill to the left of Gene’s jeep.

The ATV’ers were surprised that we all made it up with no problem. They think that only ATV’s can do that kind of stuff.

A Look at the Mine Shafts.

A little ways down the trail we took a left that goes up to the mine shafts.

These shafts look pretty dangerous.

Not to long after we got to the mine shafts one of the ATV groups showed up.
That was when we found out that they were surprised about how easily we climbed that hill.

After checking out the shaft area we headed back along the trail and at an intersection we turned east.

Tyson Wash.

Eventually we came to Tyson Wash, the largest wash in Arizona.

We turned north and followed the wash for a few miles.

Eventually we came to a trail that went out of the wash we turned to the right and followed the trail to Highway 95 where we turned north and headed for home.

Rib Dinner.

It was Connie and Bruce’s 42nd Anniversary so we went to Heaven’s Kitchen, Santa Maria style barbeque, where we had a wonderful rib dinner.

Okay that’s it for now. Another fun ride.

Monday Ride 2/19/18. Back to the California Side.

Background.

On Friday 2/9/18 we took a ride to the California side of the river north of Parker to do some exploring. That ride opened up several possibilities for future rides.
We decided for this Monday 2/19/18 ride we would go back to that area.

Getting Started.

We met at the fire station at 8:30. It was a very cold and windy morning.
Once everyone arrived we headed north to Parker, AZ where we stopped to top off the gas tanks.
The last time we did this trip we all were close to empty by the time we got back to Parker. This time we all brought extra gas cans to make sure we had enough to do some exploring.

At Parker, we crossed the river and turned west on 62 toward  Vidal Junction, CA.

Here we turned north and drove about 30 miles up US 95 to the road that goes to the Havasu Landing Casino. Here we headed east.

Nice views of mountains to the north.

Just before the casino we turned south on the small power line road. This is the same road that we came out on the last time.

We stopped here to air down then headed south on the trail. We can see Lake Havasu from the trail.

We went through the slot that Johnie came up the last time we were here.

Looking for a Particular Canyon.

The last time we were here we saw a couple of canyons that looked like they would be interesting to explore so we were trying to find them on this trip.
The problem is we were going in the opposite direction so everything looked different.

We drove up and down the hills.

And zig-zaged along the ridge tops.

We crossed the chalk lands.

Fortunately with the high winds, the dust we churned up was blown away so we could see each other.

We stop for a break in the chalk hills.

We were crossing a wide wash…

when we came to a trail going to the right in the wash so we followed it to see if it went into one of the canyons we saw last time.

We followed the wash.

After a mile or so the trail left the wash and climbed out of the canyon.

Looking down the side as we climbed we saw this rocky gorge. Patti and I thought that it may have been one of the canyons we saw before but it looked like it would not be navigable by jeep.

City by the Lake.

At several places we got views of Lake Havasu City across the lake. This view always blows my mind; it is hard to realize that Havasu City is so large. It almost looks like we were looking across the San Francisco Bay.

Yes, those are all houses and it is only a small part of the city.

Back in the Canyons and Burros.

We dropped back into another canyon.

Coming out the other side of the canyon we saw our first Burro’s of the day.

On the other side of the hill we saw a bunch more.

They all look pretty healthy.

A Cold Lunch Break.

Around noon we found a flat spot for lunch.

We circled the jeeps to try and block the wind but it didn’t help much.  It was to cold to sit around and BS so as soon as we were finished eating we loaded up and left there.

Back on the Trail.

We got back on the trail and followed the ridges for a few miles.

The trail is taking us toward the rocky hills to the west.

A Beautiful View.

We came around a corner and were treated to a beautiful view of rugged mountains.

A little farther along the trail we see another view.

A Rocky Wash.

We dropped into a rocky wash…

and followed it for a while.

We drove along some nice red cliffs.

We exited the wash on the left side.

This was probably the roughest part of the whole trip and it only lasted for about a hundred yards.

The Main Power Line Road.

When we exited the wash we came to the main power line road. This is one of the trails that we wanted to explore. You can see one of the towers on the ridge.

We climbed to the ridge…

And got another view of the lake.

The trail wanders all over through some great scenery.

It drops down into deep canyons…

and past some neat red cliffs with lots of caves in them.

Stop to Check Gas Can. Nice View.

It looked like the strap that holds Frank’s gas can on was coming loose so he stopped to check it out.

Back to the Pavement.

We dropped down another canyon…

and ended up on the pavement where we aired up and headed for home.

We had a great ride and there is still more stuff up there to explore so we will be back.