ATVS, SCENERY AND WILDLIFE IN THE DESERT

On our Tuesday ride, we hit heavy rain before we even got off the highway across from the park.  After stopping to put on rain gear, I carried on and within minutes ran out of the rain.  Aileen said it continued to rain hard at the park but seven miles down the road all we had was this sky.  There were storm cells all around us but we managed to zig and zag in between them with only one light spit of rain for about a minute.   

Micky is dressed for the worst

By lunchtime, it was back to tee shirt weather

Playing in the wash below where we had lunch.  85 year old Blue on the right was just a spectator

Wednesday morning when we took the neighbours out, we had a gorgeous morning and no dust.  This is looking up toward the bottom of Box Canyon.

Just after taking the above photo, I spotted this big old buck running way in the distance.  I managed to pick him up for about five seconds on video at a high magnification.  I didn't get a chance to capture a photo so I played the video on my laptop and clicked away with my big camera.  This was the best I could achieve. 

We had a good day for wildlife as we quietly poked along lesser used trails with our four machines.  This, of course, is a Red Tail Hawk.   A little earlier we had spotted three javelinas but they would not stay for a photo.

Further along we found these five deer who actually stayed put for a few minutes

Two were bucks, a spike on the left and a two point on the right.  Note the Cholla cactus ball stuck to the spike's flank.

On Thursday, a large group gathered for the ride over the mountains to Superior.  There were 30 machines at the marshaling point by 9 am.  24 of them, at least, made the trip.  It was only 35 miles but it took over 3 1/2 hours because of the very rough road in spots.  We took a more round about route home covering 46 miles in 2 1/2 hours.  We did split into two groups to be more manageable.

From the high point on our way over the mountain looking back down on the Ajax Mine site then out into the flat land where we started from

Neat rock formations along the route closer to Superior.  I can make them into several different animals, a snake being most dominant.

More scenery along the way

Part way home, my ATV turned over this big number.  There aren't too many machines in our group with this high a mileage.  

These are our friends Char and Ken from Billings, Montana who were cruising by in their golf cart just after I had tried for some sunset pictures.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PAST WEEK JANUARY 25, 2015

On our Tuesday ride, some of us went through a more exciting area while the others bypassed it 

Over the hill and into the valley on Tuesday

Our Tuesday group.  That's 85 year old Blue in the center with the white shirt.

New riders Gayle and Danette with Rocky on our Friday neighbour's ride.  

Mountain scenery on Friday

Saguaros above our Friday lunch spot

The Friday group in front of The Thumb

Looking east from The Thumb area

While driving up the upper Box Canyon Wash, Aileen spotted two Javelinas.  I was able to get one decent shot as they are masters at hiding.

Yesterday we took a quick visit to Quartzsite.  We stopped and saw Jacquie and Jim for a little while then I took a few minutes for a really quick look around the RV show.  Aileen stayed visiting.  One of the vendors does restoration work and this was their display model.  It is a 1974 Winnebago completely redone including two slide outs.  Simply amazing.  I couldn't get any interior photos as it was always full of people.

And why did we drive 652 kms (407 miles) round trip to Quartzsite?  There was a blogger get together in the desert targeted at those close by.  I thought it would be neat to meet up with some of the people whose blogs I read.  That was interesting.  Some of them were nothing like I had pictured in my mind but they were all very friendly and outgoing.

There were lots of animated conversations between new friends.  It was well past 4 pm when we departed the gathering and I had planned on taking Aileen for a nice supper but PF Chang's was lined up to the door so no luck there.  Since it was so late, we ended up going to In N Out Burger for our supper.  After our twelve hour drive day, bed was very welcoming.

COPPER BASIN ROAD TRIP

Don't forget to click on an image to enlarge it for better viewing.  We are back at Caliente probably for the duration of our winter stay.  I haven't gotten out riding yet as there were many things requiring our attention and today is a US holiday which means the trails are way too busy with city riders.  Metro Phoenix has such a large population base that even just a few of them spilling out onto the trails means a lot of riders.  Many people take their RVs out in our riding area also on holiday weekends.

All three of our ride days over near Quartzsite were under beautiful skies.  This was the next morning.

Our neighbour's had a yard sale on Saturday and it looked like this much of the day

Heading up Queen Creek Hill east from Superior, AZ toward s Globe you gain about 3,000 feet.

Lots of neat rock art on the Queen Creek Hill

Easter Island relative?

Is that a turtle or snake head?

Pinto Creek Mine

Miami, AZ mine tailings mountain

A different looking feedlot in the Miami area

South of Globe on #77 this looks like a fault line

Just north of Winkleman, AZ lies this area with these wavy lines of rock

A little caboose at Hayden, AZ.  I love the whitewalls!

Another tailings pile at Hayden showing the erosion that happens to them.  They tend to become works of art.

At the base of the pile

Overview of the tailings pile and erosion

Part of the tailings pile at Kelvin, AZ at the Ray Mine

As we were heading up the Florence Kelvin Highway from Kelvin, a bit of nice evening light developed so I climbed up on a little knob for a look back at the Ray mine.

QUARTZSITE DONE FOR ANOTHER YEAR

The weather finally warmed up enough that three of these machines flew over our camp one evening.

On a dull cloudy morning while I was walking Mitzy, I saw these hills over in California lit up so I zipped back to the motorhome for my camera.

We had some beautiful clouds yesterday morning

$15 Cactus shirts and lots of socks in this market stall in Quartzsite

I was impressed with the amount of shoring up they did in this mine.  I don't know about the sanity of some of these old miners although I suppose some of them didn't live to be old miners!  I went out by myself for a last day of geocaching yesterday afternoon and had neat experience.  I caught up to two other couples who were also caching.  One of the couples was Tugman &Wifey.  I told them how I had seen their signature in many caches on Vancouver Island.  When Wifey saw my geocaching name, she said the same thing!.  It turns out they live in Parksville on Vancouver Island which is where we moved from in 1977 and where my seven siblings still reside, scattered around there.  Tugman was born in Duncan where I was also.  We had a great visit and cached together for a few.  I gave Wifey a ride in the RZR to get two caches they couldn't get near in their truck. 

At the furthest back point in my day, there were a whole mess of mine shafts and I enjoyed the view looking out from the mountains to the open plains.  If you look closely, my RZR is just below center.