PREACHER'S PASS RIDE

On Saturday when just us and Jerry and Donna were left here in camp, Jerry called over wanting to go for another ride. I thought that was a great opportunity to check out whether I could make a group circle ride utilizing Preacher's Pass.  We had a great ride with just two machines and w didn't meet many others all day either which made it nice and peaceful.  Following my nose for the most part, I only took one dead end road but that was some of the best scenery of the day.  Too bad it didn't go through.  Eventually we found our way to some country I recognized and then I knew just which trails to take.  I was very impressed that Aileen was able to make four days in a row of riding. 

Some beautiful Arizona desert scenery

Rock Daisy growing in a wash

Looking back from partway up to the pass

Jerry and Donna in one of the lumpy areas

Looking north from the pass where we had come from

Looking east from the pass to where we were heading

We found a Crested Saguaro

I'll let you come up with the title of this one

Brittlebush

We came upon some large boulders with nice vibrant Lichen

There were lots of these little arches 

The last four images were taken up the dead end road we took

Much of the rock up in the end of this valley was patterned thusly

ATV RIDE MARATHON

As planned for the last several weeks, a group of friends from the Recycles Quad Club in Florence, AZ joined Aileen and I for several days of riding.  We had met a nice couple in the campground here who are from Alberta and invited them to join us.  Day one had eight machines riding on Wednesday, day 1 then fifteen on Thursday, day 2 and twelve yesterday.  We went mostly different directions every day and each day had quite different terrain.  I think most riders went away quite pleased with their experience.  John and Micky brought their Class A and parked near us and rode all three days.  Jerry and Donna came later on Wednesday and parked close by in their B+ motor home.  Since they only rode Thursday and Friday, they came along with Aileen and I today on an exploratory ride looking for ideas for next year.  I was very impressed that Aileen was able to ride four days in a row.  I kept the ride lengths down so we had lots of time to stop and look at things as well as socialize and I think most people were fine with that.  Today's ride was longer and somewhat faster than I would take a larger group but it seemed to work fine with just the two of us.

We are staying over in the Quartzsite area for a few more days before heading back to Florence for the rest of our time down south.  We are planning on leaving shortly after the middle of March and hope to do some exploring on the way north before we get to the cold climate.

We were fortunate to see three nice Bighorn rams on day 1 and they did a pretty good job of posing

This was our day 1 lunch stop

This was the end of the road for day 1

This was a good spot to rest while some of the others explored the area

On day 2, we went south, the opposite direction.  We went along those hills to the right and around the end through Boyer Gap then through Diablo Pass which took us behind those hills making a nice circle route.

Looking back as we approach the hills

We had some beautiful ridges to ride

As well as some gnarlies

In my scouting, I had stumbled on these out of sight of the road, thus mostly undisturbed, diggings, which yielded some nice coloured rocks

Our afternoon stop was at another mine with some more very interesting rocks

We started day 3 playing in some small dunes.  Sandi was having a great time.

Our friend Dave used my camera to take some photos of me so I could get some images to share

Yes, I am having fun!

After the dunes, we carried on along the west side of the mountains until we were able to pass through them this side of the Four Peaks, this being the dominant peak with the others strung out behind it.

We had an afternoon stop at these red rocks

This is looking north along the eastern side of the hills

At the end of day 3 Micky, Aileen and Donna contributed supper for all of us.  Our motor home is barely visible through the tree behind Dave in the orange shirt.  This is our big patio!

FEELING MUCH BETTER

Aileen and I have both recovered quite quickly once we turned the corner with that nasty bug.  We took the motor home to the dump station in Quartzsite yesterday to empty our waste tanks and fill the fresh water tank.  We are now parked in the very back end of Hi Jolly BLM campsite.  Jacquie and Jim and Maurice and Dian are parked out closer to the front and we joined them last night for two games of Sets.  Jacquie and Dian were the winners shutting the rest of us out.

I went on another ATV trail research ride today and came up with another dandy trail to take the group on next week.  Unfortunately, it tied into my second ride so I will combine that section into ride two.   Now I have to check out another part of the area to flesh out that third ride.  There is lots of area to work with out there and I heard about an interesting trail yesterday that I must check out.

Our weather is finally getting to be more like it should be for this time of year.  Still pretty cool in the morning but the sun has some genuine warmth in it once it gets up and heating.

The road to the west of Plomosa Rd goes through several small sand dunes

My target is the pass just this side of the dominant peak 

That white square in the center is a game watering collector.  Rain falls on the metal and is funneled into a large holding tank underneath, then trickled out to a water trough for the wildlife in the area.

Looking toward Quinn Pass

Quinn Pass is atop that road 

From atop the road at Quinn Pass looking back to where I have come from.  I came through that low pass this side of the pointy peak

STILL AILING

We're still mostly hiding out in the motor home trying to get rid of this nasty bug.  Aileen seems to be improving finally.  I don't know if I'm going to get it worse of not.  It seems to be staying the same right now or maybe a bit better.  We sure hope things change for the better pretty soon.    

We have started playing Crib again.  It was so long since we played, it took us a while to remember how it went.  I think Aileen remembered a lot better than me as she has won seven of the eight games played so far.  I did skunk her in the only game I won.  Maybe it will be my turn next time.

I took the RZR to town yesterday, going to both grocery stores and stopping at the Pit Stop to fill both five gallon water jugs.  Today my big RZR outing was to the garbage dump accessed by a back road from here and it is less than a mile each way.

This bird keeps visiting us everyday.  I shot this through the window from the couch this morning.  I still think it is a Northern Mockingbird.  If anyone knows differently, please advise.

There are several of these Desert  Shaggy Mane mushrooms in the wash across the road.  It always seems so strange to see mushrooms in the desert.   They are about six inches tall.

I played around with several of these Black-Chinned Hummingbirds this morning.  This was taken with my Canon SX50 handheld at the equivalent of  4788 mm.  I took the digital zoom out to 195 times the nominal 24 mm of the lens.

This was an immature Black-Chinned.  I was surprised at the loud cry he made.  I thought I was creeping up on some critter behind a bush when he suddenly called from the tree beside me.  Same magnification as the above.  When he flew off with one of the parents, I was amazed at how fast he went.

This was one of the concerned parents who kept flitting around while I was taking the above shot

A PAIR OF SICKIES

We moved over to Quartzsite Tuesday morning and I spent the next three days doing some intensive exploring and route finding, getting a start on putting together three ATV day rides for some members of our club in Florence.   I was thwarted in creating a great circle ride in one spot as the whole mouth of a valley is private land and they have totally blocked the access even though a through road shows on the map.  Too bad but that's how it goes.  I have two of the rides laid out now and whenever I recover from this nasty bug we both have, I will work on the third one.  I have it planned out in my mind but will need to go over the ground to make sure the trails are still open and refresh myself on some of the access points.

Aileen was coming down with something for a few days before we left Florence but it just was sort of there.  By the time we got to Quartzsite, it was now more than something.  She is still doing lots of heavy coughing but we're hoping it is about to improve.  I am part way through the symptoms now but not into the heavy cough although feeling kind of blah.

It didn't help that we had a good wind storm yesterday and last night creating lots of blowing dust. Last night in fact, was quite the night.  The wind kept rocking the motor home and the wind was shrieking in all the things attached to the motor home such as solar panels and awnings.  Aileen said some violent gusts would wake her and then the wind would suddenly calm and that would wake her. We are currently parked on State Trust land which our yearly pass allows us to park on for free for up to two weeks.  We are hoping to move to the Hi Jolly BLM free camping area later ithis week and use that as our base for the ATV rides which are to take place next week.  If that is too crowded, Plan B is to move to the free BLM camping on Plomosa Rd, a little further north but still central enough for the rides. 

I was able to capture this Red-tailed Hawk from the RZR my first day out.  He allowed me to turn the RZR and position myself for a clear shot.  He is perched on a rock as there are no shrubs or cactus in this area.  I took the opportunity to wander around this area and found some old diggings that have some very nice specimens of Chryssocola which will make a couple of ladies in my ATV group very happy.   The diggings are out of sight of the road so mostly undisturbed.

There is a lot of historical mining activity all through this area so there are many interesting trails to ride and explore.  This was up above some old mine shafts on a narrow dead end road that would have room for only three or four ATVs to turn around.  I had walked up it and found this neat looking rock.

The view down to my parked RZR from the above photo, looking out over the valley north of Quartzsite, AZ

Some neat exposed rock near an abandoned mine shaft

I managed to find one blooming Ocotillo in all my riding

Another shot from the driver's seat in the RZR

I managed to get one decent closeup before he scampered away

This shot was taken from the passenger seat in the motor home while I was at my computer.  I think this is a Northern Mockingbird.  It was about the size of a Robin.

While looking for a bypass around the blocked access to Marquetta Pass, I drove up one valley and then followed an old trail up to this great viewpoint that actually looks down into the pass.  However, this was as close as I was to get.

On day three, I took this shot in Quinn Pass looking back toward Quartzsite.

Many of the boulders in this area have beautiful lichen on the shady sides

I named this Red Hill and you can probably see why.  There are some huge boulders and I climbed up to the top of the highest ones for this view.

Looking north from Quinn Pass, the Red Hill is in the top left and this is part of the area for one of my rides.

I couldn't come up with any names for this mining area on the several maps I looked at so I took the liberty of naming it Ibex Mine since it is under Ibex Peak.