DONE GALLIVANTING - BACK TO FLORENCE, AZ

We enjoyed our time in Quartzsite.  It seemed busier in both Hi Jolly and Plomosa Road two week free camping areas so we spent all our time parked on State Trust land close in to Quartzsite.  We enjoyed mostly quiet times there with only a few others who parked near short term.  Friends Jerry and Donna and Jim and Judy brought their RVs over and spent six nights with us.  Dave and Denny came for two nights but stayed in Blythe, CA and commuted in the mornings to ride.  They rode two days while the others rode three.
We moved over to the little community of Brenda, AZ Sunday morning and parked along the Ramsey Mine Road not far from the pavement.  We had a nice quiet spot.  I did quite a bit of geocaching in both Quartzsite and Brenda areas.
Of course while we were gone life kept on doing its thing.  One of our former neighbours passed, my 87 year old ATV friend Blue is in the hospital and another set of Colorado friends arrived in the park.
When we checked the weather forecast, Tuesday had the least wind noted so we came home yesterday.  As the forecast warned, today has been very windy so it would have been a terrible day to be on the road.  We are getting down to just over a month before we leave the park for the season.

Standing beside a geocache I found up on top of a hill near Brenda, AZ.  My RZR is out of site behind that hill at the lowest elevation you can see.  It was a nice walk up.  I scared up three deer on my way down on the left side.  I came up through the pink rock on the right.

Brenda, AZ consists mostly of about seven or eight trailer parks with virtually no retail other than a general store 

It is amazing what grows in this broken lava rock.  The round green bushes are Brittle Bush and soon they will be a blaze of yellow bloom.

Near Brenda, AZ

With the recent rains, the Ocotillo are really leafing out.  Perhaps they will bloom as well.  As soon as the weather turns dry, Ocotillo drop their leaves and go dormant until the next wet spell.   This can happen several times over the course of the year.  

South of both Brenda and I-10, looking across to Gunsight Notch and Twin Peaks

At the Ramsey Mine, I think this was where they stored the blasting powder. The room behind the door was only about four feet square.

Also at the Ramsey Mine,  this shallow excavation had all this weird looking formation.  It looked like dried mud but it was more the consistency of marshmallow.

Mitzy on our morning walk, she says "come on Dad"

Saguaros and mountains near Brenda, AZ

Gunsight Notch from a different viewpoint

For those with old backhoes, you could be worse off!  This is an International Harvester Model M waiting for some love near Brenda, AZ