Feb 13 - 17 Desert boondocking at Quartzsite

Feb 13
The weather this year in Arizona is colder than other years. They are talking about it on the news fairly often and we are seeing it first hand. Today and the forecast for the next few days is cool and windy. Out here in the desert the wind is the difference. It can be sunny and warm out of the wind but step out of cover and it's not very nice anymore. Ah whatever. It's not -40 with a wind so we'll live.
I wanted to find a couple things online. I found the exact burner tube for our fridge on Amazon so I will ask Dianne to order it for me. It says 2 day shipping but we'll see. The other thing is information on my leg bruising. Leslie is looking online too, to help out, as she has better medical knowledge after 22 years as an X-Ray tech. It's coming up on 2 weeks since I strained my calf and I'm still limping and that concerns me. Like I said last post, we talked to Rachelle, a registered nurse, and she thinks we are on the right path as well. Put those 2 opinions together with Dr. Google and the answer is always the same. It's a grade 2 strain/tear and will take 4-6 weeks to heal. It's getting better but I want it to heal faster. Enough about my leg.
We got together with Steve and Dianne to head into town in our truck. A few errands to do and I want to drive through Rainbow Acres again to get some better pics for the blog. We did a couple stops in town and did another tour of Rainbow Acres. I really like that area but, no, I'm not thinking of buying a lot. Would like to rent one sometime but I don't want property in the USA just yet. The rest of the day was just doing normal everyday stuff. Some easy chores, a nap, happy hour, supper and watch TV. I love being retired and am not finding it boring at all so far.
Feb 14
 Happy Valentines Day to my favourite girl..... yes, I mean Leslie ;) !!

Love you Leslie :)

We had a quiet morning and I made us a nice breakfast. I was going for heart shaped pancakes but that didn't happen. Cereal and toast is close right? Both Leslie & Dianne want to do some grocery shopping so I'm driving them to Parker to shop at Walmart and Safeway today. Steve is staying home to work on blog pics for them. It was a nice drive to Parker on a cloudy, windy day and we got all the shopping done as planned. We all want some lunch and we decided on a Mexican place but which one. Spicy food is not Dianne's go to meal but she's willing to play along with us. Thanks Dianne! We settled on Maya's Mexican Restaurant, it looked good online and looked good in person.

Good Mexican food in Parker.

The interior was nice too, very Mexican themed and it had all the faves on the menu. I'm buying lunch for the girls for Valentines so their first order was a Margarita! lol. Dianne ordered Carne Asada which she found was quite spicy while Leslie and I ordered shrimp dishes. Leslie's was spicy garlic and mine was freakishly hot shrimp in sauce that was "El Diablo" something. Holy mother of pearl that was spicy hot!! I don't think Dianne would run back there because she isn't a fan of spicy but I think Leslie & I would go back. I know better than ordering anything El Diablo though. Leslie's daughter Sam would love it as she loves spicy hot food.

We drove back to La Posa South and unloaded groceries and then over to Steve and Dianne's for a beverage to see how Steve's day went. We didn't even bring him a burger, sorry buddy. The weather is bad again so we went home to have supper and watch TV. Depressing weather :( We got lots of rain with a flood watch and higher elevations got a foot of snow! This is Arizona right??

This rain came in and it stayed most all night.

Feb 15
Leslie has a morning of cooking planned. We are having pasta and spaghetti squash for supper tonight so Les wants to get her fantastic sauce together early so all the flavours come together. It's honestly one of my favourite suppers. We are looking forward to it. Leslie is also making another batch of dog food right afterwards so she will be busy for a few hours. I'm going outside with Margaret and working on some stuff out there. Mostly just staying out of Leslie's way while she cooks. I came back in and helped package the dog food and then we all went for a short walk. Steve invited me to go on a quad ride this afternoon for a little bit just to see the area. Awesome! That will be great. Another part of their full service Quartzsite guided tour. They even carry a spare helmet for me. How great is that?? We took off about 1pm for our ride. Leslie is getting on to the mountain of dishes and Dianne is working on their blog.

Steve getting the quads ready to go.

Our first stop, a short mine tunnel.

The top of a hill overlooking Tyson Wash.

Native mortar holes used for grinding corn etc.

Me and the mortars, gives a better size perspective.

I'm having a blast! I haven't ridden a quad for a while, well over a year for sure, so it's like a brand new toy. Steve lead us over to the back side of Rainbow Acres and I took a pic of the back side of the 2 story house from our driving tour a few days ago.

Front side from before....

Back view from the desert.

Next stop is the Erdman Mine. We have driven to that before as well but it's way more fun to get there on the trails.

You can tour the site and see the old equipment.

Back on the quads, Steve is leading the way back to Quartzsite past some old cabins from the mining days and through some nice hills just outside of town. We stopped for some photo ops at the cabins and then he suggested Beer Bellies for a beverage. These tours are great! 

Still in not terrible shape. They fence it off because of stuff falling.

Happy guys!

Looking left.

Looking right, so green in the desert this year. 

There is lots of grass which almost never happens.

Looking toward town. Still lots of rigs in the desert.

Another great stone cabin complete with fireplace. 1954 scratched in the cement.

We rode right up to the entrance of Beer Bellies and Steve bought me a beer, the bill for these tours is going to be huge ;)

A quick beverage and back home to clean up for happy hour and then Leslie's power pasta! We invited Harry to join us also for dinner. He's by himself now that Vicki is in Pennsylvania with her mom.

Haha that's how we fit 5 at our table. Nice pic Leslie.

Of course Leslie's pasta was great and everyone had seconds. With full bellies we moved to more comfy chairs and chatted for a while. Margaret had to bug Steve and Dianne until they brought out the laser light to play. She expects them to have treats and play the game every time now! Geez.

We visited for a while and then everyone went home for the night. Another pretty great day here in the desert.

Feb 16

Another chore day today. Leslie and Dianne are taking the truck into town to do laundry, ugh. Steve is working on blog pics and I am doing our dishes and vacuuming. The glamorous part of RV life.

Leslie gets all the fun stuff !!

At least the sun is out and it's a fairly nice day. Take the good with the bad. I got a text from Derek with a picture of our mail and he asked if we wanted anything opened. There was a couple that we wanted open and one of them was from Alberta Justice? Leslie has been selected for jury duty and it says to respond within 5 days!! We don't get that much mail and Derek doesn't check every day so the letter was dated 3 weeks ago. Hmm hope they have some leeway with the time limit. It's Saturday today and it's a holiday Monday in Alberta for Family Day so we can't call until Tuesday. We'll see how that goes. ( Turned out okay, Derek could sign it for Leslie and decline because we are out of country, phew.) 

Feb 17

It's another quad ride day and Steve asked if I want to go, why yes I would love to! Dianne says she doesn't want to go today and I really appreciate that she let's me use her ATV. I'm being as careful as possible so I don't do any damage to her quad. 

Checking the oil and getting ready.

Thanks Dianne! I'll take good care of your ride.

It's a bigger group today with Steve, me, Roger & Cindi, Jim & Cec, Randy & Jen all going. Randy and his wife are on a Can-Am two-up with a 1000 cc motor, what a monster quad! They are very experienced riders from Vancouver Island where Steve is also a club member so they handle that rig really well.

We followed a similar path as the other ride from La Posa to the mine tunnel and past Rainbow Acres to Erdman Mine where we stopped for a look around. Great day for a ride, the sun is warm and the wind is just right to blow most of the dust out of the way as you ride behind another ATV.

Checking out the Erdman Mine.

There is a line of old toilets, I'm thinking ;)

From the Mine we are going to Copper Bottom Mine and a place called The Footprint. Steve explained this place earlier and it is an actual ancient barefoot print in the stone. Can't wait to see it. How cool is that? Jim and Cec took the lead and after a great ride through some canyons on a trail that had a couple technical parts we arrived at The Footprint. 

Look closely in the center, you can see a bare foot.

How awesome is that?

Bosco wants a closer sniff while everybody looks.

When we got back up to the machines Randy noticed one of his tires was flat. Rats! With this bunch of seasoned riders a flat is no big deal. Out came the plugs and the glue and a spare air compressor. Randy's Can Am has a built in air compressor too. That's a cool touch. The tire had a small cut on the side which can be a tough patch but it was small and Jim gave it extra glue. It was a good fix.

Plug installed top center of wheel, blowing it back up.

With the tire fixed up and holding air we are off to Deer Run next. The ride into Deer Run had some larger hills and some more technical riding over the rocks on the trail. Dianne's quad made it over the suff easily. I was surprised to see this place. There is quite the collection of "stuff" here lol.

Games, chairs and a couple tables and all sorts of stuff.

People hang items in the tree too like ornaments.

We relaxed at Deer Run for a while and then continued our ride back towards town. We passed the stone cabin that Steve showed me a couple days ago and stopped briefly for a last break before town.

Last stop before town.

Steve was back in the lead and we headed into Quartzsite to Beer Bellies for a quick beer. I didn't get a picture but it was a nice warm day and it was a great day to stop there. We headed back to La Posa South and cleaned up a little before happy hour at home. What a great ride and awesome day out! Thanks Dianne for letting me ride your quad and thanks Steve for bringing me along with the crew from Cowichan Valley ATV Club.

While I was out having a great day Leslie was at home working!! She did get out for a walk with Dianne and Margaret for a bit to enjoy the sun even though it was crazy windy.  She even managed to sew up the hole in the couch cushion that we have had for about a year or so. Good work Leslie! 

We got together with everyone for happy hour until the sun got low and it cooled off lots from the crazy strong wind. It has been super windy here for a week or so and way colder than normal. We put together supper at our house with Steve and Dianne. The good times continue. 

Another great day with these awesome peeps.

The time is just flying here in the desert. We are having a great time and really enjoying boondocking thanks in no small part to Steve & Dianne helping us out a little. We need to really think about our set-up and make some decisions on whether we need to change the truck or the trailer so that we can bring a quad or side by side. We need to take our time and do the right thing for us. Not 100% sure what that will be just yet. We really like our trailer and the truck and any decision won't be cheap due to depreciation on both units. We'll just go slow and hopefully do it right. First world problems right?  Cheers everybody.