Wednesday, November 26/2014

Once again, the sun is shining and the birds are singing. Another sunny, bright day is upon us.
It is a road trip day today so we piled into the truck and headed out.
We decided to see what the rest of this road was like to see if it was feasible to take the camper and trailer down it or if it turned into something we would rather not venture on. As it turned out, the road ahead has one huge up hill climb and I am sure the truck would be struggling if we came this way so, it looks like we will head back towards I-40 and then access Highway 93 on Monday and finally arrive in Wickenburg.
We took a few off roads and toured some of the desert back country. We managed to see two roadrunners, five quail and a coyote. That was the extent of our wildlife encounters. I often wonder what makes people build their homes in the middle of no where. There were some pretty nice homes out in the desert and there was also several parcels of land for sale as well.
Once we accessed the highway, we noted that there was a terrific mount of traffic and it was only when Kay mentioned to us that this was the start of the American Thanksgiving weekend that the amount of traffic was explained.
We stopped at an awesome roadside restaurant and had one of the best burgers ever. It was phenomenal!! I even had to go and thank the guy we gave our order to and told him to thank the cook for us.
We stopped at the local food mart and stocked up on milk and ice then headed back to the camper.  Hogan was glad to see us again.....gosh he acted like we had not seen him in a month!!
We settled into the trailer, turned the heat on as our 75 degree afternoon temperature had fallen to 55 degrees on the way home and watched some TV.
While sitting there, we heard a horrific crash. Kay and I looked over and saw that John's chair had collapsed and he now was sitting in what one would describe as a "recliner"!!  He had a rather stunned look on his face and all Kay and I could do was laugh!! Well, it was funny!!

Cruising the desert back roads

I guess he has been relegated to Hogan's chair until we get to Wickenburg!!
All in all, it was another good day.

Tuesday, November 25/2014

The sun is shining this morning and it looks like it is going to be an awesome day in the neighbourhood. We are surrounded by trees and scrub brush. Yesterday, I even saw a holly bush. I just may have to take some back to Wickenburg for the Christmas season. I have not seen real holly for a long time. The only thing missing were the red berries.
We are headed out on the quads today to explore some of the many trails around this area. Today, it will be Moss Wash Road and follow a loop trail which will eventually spit us back out onto the main road we drove in on yesterday.
Apparently there is some old "mansion" along this trail that John is interested in seeing.
We started out and soon found that the "road" part of Moss Wash was a huge exaggeration.There is no way one could even come near to classing it as a road!! It was a trail, one that was bumpy and rock strewn.
We travelled this "road" for several miles and eventually made it to the Gold King Mansion. It must have been something to see in its hay day as the structure itself was quite impressive. It was built in 1929 to house wealthy investors to the mining industry. Of course the stock market crashed that year and the mansion was abandoned and left to ruin.
We continued along the trail stopping periodically to enjoy the scenery and even chatted with some other riders along the way.
It was soon time to start heading for home and we accessed a few more trails always heading east and back to the main road.
We travelled a varied terrain today with way too much of it being shelf trail (my favourite!!).We travelled through a few riparian areas and one could see the many animal tracks around. Lots of Javalina tracks today.
We also travelled through some tall evergreen forest, through lots of desert like conditions and over lots of big rocks.  The trail travelled up into the higher elevations of the surrounding mountains and down into the various washes. There was a little bit of everything on today's trail.
I certainly could have used much less shelf trail but all in all, it was a good day's ride.
Back at the camper, John got a campfire going and I quickly did up some potatoes, onions and carrots in tinfoil so that John could get started on cooking our supper. I had taken ribs out of the freezer earlier in the day and they too were ready for the grill.
We sat around the campfire until supper was ready then headed in to eat and called it a day. Hogan kept the few cattle in the area at bay while we sat around the fire tonight. I am sure they will be glad to see the last of him!!

Another awesome day!

Monday, November 24/2014

The wind is blowing again today but not to the excessive degree that is was yesterday. It is a travel day today and I think we are headed to the east side of Kingman today. John wants to check out a few trails there so I guess we will be getting the trailer loaded and the camper into "travel mode".
We had no real need to hurry as we will only be travelling about 50 miles today.
We got showered up, packed the trailer and got the camper ready and we were off down the road, heading towards our next adventure.
We stopped to fill up on water and fuel then accessed I- 40 and headed out. We got off at exit 66, took the Blake Ranch Road and soon found ourselves on a minimally maintained "primitive" road.  Actually, the road itself was in pretty good shape but we found that dispersed camping sites were few and far between.
We eventually found a spot (I am sure it is the only one in the area) and got set up. Before we were even done though, a friendly Game and Fish cop stopped by wondering what our plans were. We told him that we were going to be quadding some of the trails for the next few days and he was OK with that. He was looking for poachers and told us that the only open hunting season was for Javalina so if we saw anyone with a deer or and elk in the back of their truck, we were to call them. Apparently, there were already two incidents of poaching in this area. We assured him we would keep our eyes open and asked him if he was coming back this way in the next few days to bring us a map of the trails. He said he would and he carried on his way.
We spent the evening watching Monday Night Football and John cooked us supper. Mmmmm!!

Our spot for a week

Heading down Blake Ranch road

Leaving Clhoride

BBQ chicken breast......
It was so quiet here - no noisy highway around!!  Life is good.

Sunday, November 23/2014

The wind started to blow during the night and it continues to do so this morning.  Man, it is very breezy out there today!!
It is football Sunday today but Kay and I are going to head into Kingman to pick up some dry ice for the frozen food cooler and of course there are a few groceries that we need to pick up.
Hopefully this wind settles down as the day progresses.
We got to Kingman and our first stop was The Cracker Barrel restaurant for breakfast.  Now, that was quite the eating experience.  Not only is it a restaurant, it is also a country store!!  My meal came with "grits" - a rather aptly names food as it tasted like I was eating grains of sand!!  Good thing I only had to have a taste!!  It also came with apple butter, fried apples in a wonderful sauce and, biscuits and country gravy.  Not to mention the over easy eggs, hashbrown casserole, a piece of bacon, ham and sausage.  Wow - It was called the "sampler" breakfast!!  There was enough food on our two plates to feed three people!!  I was not crazy about the gravy but the apple butter and the fried apples were awesome.  All in all, it was pretty damn good and when we left, I must say.....we were no longer hungry!!
We stopped at the grocery store, picked up what we needed to and headed back to the camper.   The wind continued to blow all the way into Kingman and all the way home.  We were both glad that today was not a travel day as the wind was buffeting the truck pretty darn good!!  We could only imagine what it would do with the truck and camper!!
We arrived home only to realize that we had forgot the ice for the beer cooler.  We remembered the dry ice for the food cooler but the beer cooler had been sorely forgotten.   So....it was back into the truck and down the highway a mile or so to get some ice at a roadside food mart.
We were soon back at the camper and ready to start watching football.  It is Football Sunday you know.  
The wind was still screaming like a banshee and it was good the sit in the trailer, get the heater going and turn on the TV.  We watched both CFL and NFL today.
It was a football filled day but,  I did manage to get some reading in though.
Although the wind remained, John was able to keep the bbq going and we all enjoyed steak, baked potato, caesar salad and fried mushrooms.   A feast fit for the queens that Kay and I are!!
All in all, it was another good day although I could have used some 40mph hairspray today!!  Instead, I had to settle for a hat!!

Saturday, November 22/2014

The sun is shining this morning and it looks like it is going to be another great day. This is the second time we have not needed the heater running to stay warm. Life is good!!  Since there is no restaurant close by, I guess I will actually have to think about cooking breakfast. Kay and I have gotten into a real nice habit of going out for breakfast but I guess that stops today!!
John got busy changing the oil on the quads and I started cooking breakfast. Kay was busy being the "go for" for John while he was lying on the ground.
The oil got changed and we all enjoyed breakfast.
Then, it was on to the quads and we headed for the nearby Cerbat Mountains where we accessed an trail that took us up along the upper ridge of the mountain. Much of the trail was "shelf" trail with a million feet below and I spent most of the time looking at the wall next to us.
Kay was driving, I was in the passenger seat so it really made no difference when I closed my eyes!!
The wind was blowing like crazy for most of the day and at an elevation of at least 6000 feet, there was a bit of a chill to it as well.
We stopped along the trail at one point where there was a U.S. Fee Area where one could pitch a tent and camp if they wished. I am not sure who would want to camp way up here in all this wind!!  I am sure it must blow all the time.
We carried on down the trail, passed a rather well preserved mining site and eventually came down the mountain and into the Murals of Chloride.
They looked to be painted again as the colours seemed to be much brighter than when we saw them two years ago. There was another couple there looking at the murals as well. Apparently they were riding a Harley and had left it at the start of the trail. They were told that they could easily hike to the murals and they did...... all 1 1/2 miles of trail that they could had ridden.
They didn't look like they were looking forward to the walk back so I offered to drive them back down to their bike.

On the  Rim trail in the Cerbat mountains

It is a long way down

Lots of switchbacks

Shelf trail - my favourite!!

Beverage stop.  I think I need two after all this lousy shelf trail.

Cactus - must be in Arizona!!

U.S. Fee Area.

Recreation area way up in the mountains.  Nice spot but for small campers
(very small campers) and tents.

Not sure what kind of tree this was but the bark was an
awesome colour.

Kay and Marie under a pinyon pine tree at the
recreation area.

The trail ahead

At one of the many old mine sites.  This one was particularly
well preserved.

Further down the trail.  Some sort of  mineral
deposit on the face of the rock.   Calcium perhaps?

The Murals of Chloride

Sunset starting

The trail home.

More sunset

There was lots of room on the quad for the three of us and they were very happy with the ride.
Once I got back to the murals, we decided to take the trail back to the camper so we started our ascent up the mountain and back along the same trail we had just travelled.
We managed to get a few nice shots of the sunset and before too long, we were back at the camper.  It was a good day on the trails and Kay enjoyed riding my new quad.  She loved the power steering and the quietness of the machine.
Hogan was glad to see us back too.