Monday, February 28, 2011
Chapter Nine
On Saturday February 26th we left around 10:00am in the tracker for the Superstition Mountain area and the Lost Dutchman Mine, about 1 1/2 hours away. In the 1880's the Lost Dutchman (who wasn't even Dutch) found a bunch of gold and prospectors have been searching the area for over a century, where it is rumored a fortune in gold still exists within these mountains. From 1893 to 1897 the gold strikes sparked the Goldfield Mining District and a town soon came together and flourished at the base of the Superstition Mountains, not far from the original strike, until it flooded because they drilled down to the river. Today, you can enjoy all of the flavor of the authentic mining town, with shoot outs, mine tours, saloon, blacksmith, shops, and a train ride around the town complete with the engineer telling the history of the town and area. We enjoyed a late lunch in the saloon, finished all the tours and looking around, and were back home around 6:30 to watch a little T.V. and play cards, I actually beat Larry at Spite & Malice for the first time!
Chapter Eight
On February 18th our rent was up at the Desert Gold RV Resort, so we packed up, drove back to the Vulture Peak desert and set up camp down the road from John and Marie, hoping to surprise them. Just before we were ready to drive to their place, Marie drove up, she was on her way to Surprise to pick up Ben and found us out! I went with her and Larry went to visit with John until we got back with Ben. After Ben went home we cleaned up and went into Wickenburg for all you can eat fish and chips at the 7 and karaoke at the Rancher. Saturday and Sunday were rainy and cold so we stayed inside the motor home playing Kaiser (girls rule-those boys never stood a chance!) and visiting. It cleared up enough Sunday evening for John to build an awesome fire, we sat around 'til after midnight, then we scraped the frost off the windows on the tracker to drive home. Monday morning Trueman came by to look at the rock I found at the Swansea mine and told me there was gold, silver, and copper in it, it's not the mother load, but it is a keeper! After he left we were loaded and set off down the road for our week stay at the John Wayne RV Park and Ranch near Stanfield AZ, arriving around 4:30.
On Tuesday morning after breakfast we jumped in the tracker and went to Coolidge to visit Georgie (my friends mom), and Jackie (John's mom), but they weren't there. We decided to tour the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument located up the road, got some groceries at Walmart, and tried them again later. They're still out and about, so I left a note and we headed home. Georgie called the next morning and we made plans to meet up for lunch the next day, and spent the rest of the day relaxing (if you can call doing laundry relaxing), and catching the blog up. Thursday morning we drove into Casa Grande and went for lunch at the Cracker Barrel with Georgie and Jackie, a long 3 hour lunch. After we went with them to Walmart for a few things, and coffee at McDonald's, another visit, and made plans for them to stop in before they start their trip back to Saskatoon on Monday.
On Tuesday morning after breakfast we jumped in the tracker and went to Coolidge to visit Georgie (my friends mom), and Jackie (John's mom), but they weren't there. We decided to tour the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument located up the road, got some groceries at Walmart, and tried them again later. They're still out and about, so I left a note and we headed home. Georgie called the next morning and we made plans to meet up for lunch the next day, and spent the rest of the day relaxing (if you can call doing laundry relaxing), and catching the blog up. Thursday morning we drove into Casa Grande and went for lunch at the Cracker Barrel with Georgie and Jackie, a long 3 hour lunch. After we went with them to Walmart for a few things, and coffee at McDonald's, another visit, and made plans for them to stop in before they start their trip back to Saskatoon on Monday.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Chapter Seven Quartzsite continued
Our next big adventure was on Tuesday February 7th when we packed a suitcase and drove the semi into Yuma to meet up with Blaine and Linda Haubrich. They were now on their way home from their tour of Arizona and we all agreed this would be a good place to meet up and explore together for a few days. After lunch, a little shopping, checking into the hotel and unloading our gear into our rooms, we decided to drive south and explore Mexico, we took the scenic route (we never got lost), parked in the parking lot and walked across the border. I purchased a jacket for full price and then listened to Larry haggle the price of a genuine made in Mexico leather vest down by $30.00 and realised that this is what one does here-I am a fast learner and my next puchase I haggeled down by $45.00! We all had a great time exploring and making deals before getting into "the line" to go through customs and back to Yuma for supper at Olive Garden and then some card playing in our hotel room before bed.
After a quick breakfast on Wednesday we were off to the Arizona Territorial Prison, which was in operation for 33 years, from 1876-1909, with over 3,000 men and women serving time there. The institute was constructed largely by the convicts themselves, growing from 2 cells to a penitentary designed for 330 inmates. Despite its infamous reputation, it was a model prison for its time providing a hospital, library, schooling, even a band, and after 1885 electricity for lighting and ventilation. After the Yuma high school burnt down it was used as the high school from 1910-1914 until a new one was built (the kids were nick named the Crims, short for criminals, which they still use to this day). During the depression the homeless moved in until 1940 when the prison became a Museum operated by the City of Yuma, and in 1961 it became a State Historic Park. A late lunch at Cracker Barrel, some more exploring of the city, shopping and we were back at the hotel to play cards and visit for the evening. On Thursday morning, after breakfast and checking out of the hotel, Blaine and Linda are on the road and we are off for groceries before heading back to Quartzsite-Oops, maybe not-we blew an air brake canaster! Around 3 hours later, with a new air brake canaster, we're off for those groceries, a quick burger for supper and home at 8:30, not bad!
After a quick breakfast on Wednesday we were off to the Arizona Territorial Prison, which was in operation for 33 years, from 1876-1909, with over 3,000 men and women serving time there. The institute was constructed largely by the convicts themselves, growing from 2 cells to a penitentary designed for 330 inmates. Despite its infamous reputation, it was a model prison for its time providing a hospital, library, schooling, even a band, and after 1885 electricity for lighting and ventilation. After the Yuma high school burnt down it was used as the high school from 1910-1914 until a new one was built (the kids were nick named the Crims, short for criminals, which they still use to this day). During the depression the homeless moved in until 1940 when the prison became a Museum operated by the City of Yuma, and in 1961 it became a State Historic Park. A late lunch at Cracker Barrel, some more exploring of the city, shopping and we were back at the hotel to play cards and visit for the evening. On Thursday morning, after breakfast and checking out of the hotel, Blaine and Linda are on the road and we are off for groceries before heading back to Quartzsite-Oops, maybe not-we blew an air brake canaster! Around 3 hours later, with a new air brake canaster, we're off for those groceries, a quick burger for supper and home at 8:30, not bad!
Chapter Seven Quartzsite continued
My first remembrance of camping is the Saskatoon Sailing Club at Redberry Lake. I might have been as old as six, Renee and I slept in the back of mom and dad's Volvo station wagon while they enjoyed sleeping in a musty old canvas tent, until we graduated to a home build trailer dad found somewhere. We hauled water and used the outhouses that were, it seems, everywhere. As a young couple, we slept in a one-man pup tent that we hauled on the back of our motorcycle. When Steven and Collin came along we camped in everything from a pop-up tent trailer to a class A motor home. Our kids grew up spoiled, we found a chunk of heaven, a private beach/camping spot we shared only with our closest friends and family. Jace, Casey, Steven, and Collin would get up at 9:00 in the morning and run out the front door into the lake skinny dipping, and do what they wanted, when they wanted, without having to worry about any neighbors complaining. Marie and I would dig holes in the bush, empty the tanks into buckets, haul them to our holes, dump, and repeat every few days during the 3 weeks we stayed there every summer. That was camping. Why am I sharing all this you ask? Because, now that we are retired, travelling, and exploring, "camping" in these Luxury RV parks in the middle of the desert, I think, this is the life! Within this RV Resort there are activities every day (craft classes, the spa, cards, pool, to name a few), and in the evenings (concerts, bingo, dances, potlucks, and more) if you want to partake, it is a long way from the bush camping we are used to. Everybody says hello or waves when they walk by, to me, it's what I think living in a small town would be like.
We arrived here on January 18th and have settled into our new way of life, Larry finds someone to chat with every day and I have discovered the beading classes on Monday afternoons. Some of the reasons we stuck around here for the month, was because the Big Tent RV show that started the weekend we arrived, for a week, then the Jem show, for 2 weeks, and finally the car show. We enjoyed going into Quartzsite every day for the first 2 and 1/2 weeks, walking around for 5 or 6 hours every day seeing all the stuff, noticing new stuff every time and of coarse buying all kinds of stuff! During these 3 weeks Quartzsite swells (with RV's of every shape and form parking absolutely everywhere) from a population of around 1,000 to I'm guessing, over 20,000. It is truly something that can't be described-I still have a hard time imagining it-maybe it's what Larry encounters when he goes to Sturgis! I have no pictures to share, you'll just have to trust me on this one.
Now that the excitement is over in town, we are hanging around home more, getting caught up on all we have been neglecting here. In the park here they have lots of trips you can partake in for free, everything from shopping in Parker, Blythe, or Phoenix, to tours of Wickenburg, Lake Havesu or the desert. On Thursday February 3rd we joined the monthly desert tour, known as the Pinzgauer tour, that took us to the old mine/town sites of Swansea. Pinzgauers are Army trucks, that they have brought from Sweden, that come pick up those adventurous people waiting at 8:00 am with their water and lunches for the 7 hour tour of different historical sites around this area. It was a riot! We drove 105 miles, in 4 and 1/2 hours, over all kinds of terrain and were gone for 8 hours in total. We walked though box canyons, picnicked by a river (yes, in the middle of the desert we found a river to lunch by), toured the copper mine and town remnants of Swansea, and we even managed to see the ever illusive wild burrows we've heard so much about. Of this I have pictures, lots of pictures!
We arrived here on January 18th and have settled into our new way of life, Larry finds someone to chat with every day and I have discovered the beading classes on Monday afternoons. Some of the reasons we stuck around here for the month, was because the Big Tent RV show that started the weekend we arrived, for a week, then the Jem show, for 2 weeks, and finally the car show. We enjoyed going into Quartzsite every day for the first 2 and 1/2 weeks, walking around for 5 or 6 hours every day seeing all the stuff, noticing new stuff every time and of coarse buying all kinds of stuff! During these 3 weeks Quartzsite swells (with RV's of every shape and form parking absolutely everywhere) from a population of around 1,000 to I'm guessing, over 20,000. It is truly something that can't be described-I still have a hard time imagining it-maybe it's what Larry encounters when he goes to Sturgis! I have no pictures to share, you'll just have to trust me on this one.
Now that the excitement is over in town, we are hanging around home more, getting caught up on all we have been neglecting here. In the park here they have lots of trips you can partake in for free, everything from shopping in Parker, Blythe, or Phoenix, to tours of Wickenburg, Lake Havesu or the desert. On Thursday February 3rd we joined the monthly desert tour, known as the Pinzgauer tour, that took us to the old mine/town sites of Swansea. Pinzgauers are Army trucks, that they have brought from Sweden, that come pick up those adventurous people waiting at 8:00 am with their water and lunches for the 7 hour tour of different historical sites around this area. It was a riot! We drove 105 miles, in 4 and 1/2 hours, over all kinds of terrain and were gone for 8 hours in total. We walked though box canyons, picnicked by a river (yes, in the middle of the desert we found a river to lunch by), toured the copper mine and town remnants of Swansea, and we even managed to see the ever illusive wild burrows we've heard so much about. Of this I have pictures, lots of pictures!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Chapter Seven-Quartzsite
After a month we left John and Marie's on January 18th and turned west on the number 60 highway looking for a campground to dump the all too full tanks and stay for a couple of nights. I picked an RV Park in my trusty trailer life book and decided to call ahead to see if they had a pull through for us, good thing I did. Apparently this time of year pull throughs around Quartzsite are booked as much as a year in advance, there's this Big Tent RV Show and the Gem Show for two weeks, starting in 3 days. Go figure, nobody told us! When I phoned they said come on by and we'll see what we can do for you. As it turns out they had a back-in that was empty, we could drive through unhook, unload, and hook-up and drive out when we want to leave, perfect. And, the longer you stay, the cheeper the rent, so we're here at the Desert Gold RV Resort in Brenda, 10 minutes east of Quartzsite, until February 18th.
Chapter six-Dry Camping in the Desert-Pictorial
During our month visiting Marie and John I took pictures of everything, always thinking this one was better and more beautiful, than the other one. You know the feeling, thank goodness for digital, can you imagine how many gorgeous pictures I would have missed having to stop to change film? Here is my "artistic" view of the Sonoran Desert.
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