Road Food

It is great to be on the road once again, on the move, and sampling the wonderful cuisine available along our nation's highway.  I rarely go to Jack in the Box but being one was right where I stopped to do some shopping I thought why not?  Be adventurous.  As I approached the eatery there was a sign in the window advertising a patty melt.  Sounds good.  Well the patty melt was so-so, the fries which I didn't really want but the "combo meal" was cheaper than buying the sandwich and drink separately (figure that one out and get back to me) and the small chocolate shake was tasty.

People!

Just who does this guy think he is parking like that?

Cool Looking Beetle

Looks like an Easter egg.

Happy Easter!

Eggs in a Nest

At our camp there is this bush by the front end of the RV.

The next day I noticed a nest inside the bush.

That seems like a lot of eggs for a little bird.  The eggs were so small I first thought it was a hummingbird but I recall their eggs a bit smaller than these were.  I never saw a bird and feared us being so close had spooked it.  I moved camp, but a whole evening had past by then and I worried the bird had abandoned the nest.

A Scary Day For Dad

One day I took Beans out for a walk.  She immediately chased off after a lizard.  The lizard went for this green bush and Beans dove in.  Notice the sharp three inch long branches.  Beans gave up on the lizard and backed out of the bush and began rubbing her eye with her paw.  Oh no!  I took her inside and checked the eye.  The eyeball looked okay but she obviously got hurt as she kept licking her paw and rubbing her eye.  She wouldn't open her eye.  I was sick with worry.  She settled down for a nap, still not opening that eye.  Later in the day she got up, jumped down and looked at me with both eyes wide open.  I was so relieved.  I think she took it better than I did.  She needs goggles for when she goes hunting from now on.  I'll check on Amazon for Cat Googles.

  

A Bargain Deal

I continued on up the canyon from where I found the beavertail in bloom and was surprised to see this van and trailer up there.  The road in was rocky, somewhat of a climb and little room to turn around.  So I planned on congratulating them on dragging this trailer up here.  I was surprised to find that the owner was a lone woman with her little blind dog.  I met Kat.  She was in her 40's I'd guess. I learned that she had just bought the van and trailer only three weeks earlier from two different private parties in California through Craiglist.  She paid $400 for the van and $100 for the trailer.  Yeah, she checked beforehand to make sure neither one was stolen.  The van runs fine and got her here to Arizona with no problems. The trailer is a bit "rough" on the inside but she's making it work and fixing things as she goes along.  She admits she's not all the mechanically inclined but she's not afraid in trying.
 I admire women like her.

Beavertail Cactus Blossoms

On a little walkabout up from camp I came across some beavertail cactus just beginning to flower.

Just like all beavertail blossoms I have ever tried to photograph the color is so brilliant that camera sensors cannot cope with it and detail within the flower is lost. 

 Now if I were a professional photographer...

Good-bye Jo

The time came where our trails went two different directions. 

 Jo was heading east to Colorado then Wyoming for a camp host job there for the summer.

Beans and I?  We don't know where we are going just yet.

Lone Tree BLM Camp

We left Quartzsite and traveled north for two hours stopping at this free camp area a few miles north of Lake Havasu City near the Colorado River which makes up the border of Arizona and California.

This will do for a short while.

Our Last Sunset

It is time we moved on from our home in Quartzsite.  I had been here since October 10.  Jo was here a couple weeks before that.  It is warming up and we have places to go, things to do, lots to see.

.

Hedgehog Cactus

This is the only hedgehog cactus I have seen in this area.  Being that it is at the junction of two dirt roads in the larger camp area south of us leads me to believe someone planted a small piece there long ago and it thrives to this day.

This was taken later in the day and the blossoms have closed up some.  They will reopen in the morning.  They are not one-day-wonders as are some cactus blossoms.

Isn't that a lovely color?

Stinky Pete's is No More

It had been a few weeks since I was last by Stinky Pete's place. 

 The clean-up was well in progress.

There was so much junk here that the Standard Station could not be seen from this vantage point.

This was the last of it to be loaded up into a container.

It would have been interesting to know just how many container-fulls it took to clean up the site.

Rest assured, there was nothing of any value that went to the landfill.

Next winter when I return it will be interesting to see what new business will be standing here.

These shots were taken from the parking lot of the small grocery store in town.  I'm sure they must be happy to see this junkyard gone.  Pete wasn't really his name.  I believe it was Gordon.  

Stinky Gordon just didn't sound right.

Laundry Day

It was laundry day for Jo.

She does her laundry by hand.

She's looking for an old wash board to do a better job.

Too much work for me.

I just keep wearing the same clothes.

Not an Aprils Fool's Joke - Brownies From Cake Mix

Another cooking experiment.  This one went much better.

We were gifted several boxes of Devil' Food cake mix.

I thought making brownies from it would be more practical for us out in the desert.

This first try was okay but could be improved upon.

This second batch was denser and more brownie-like.

Yep, this was much better.

Dresy

My long time followers may remember my friend Angela and her sweet cat Dresy.  She is the young lady from Texas who I helped get all the mice out from her van while in Idaho and couple years ago.  We traveled around together for a few months up to the day of the Great Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017.  Angela was in the area and were able to get together and visit last Sunday.  This morning, five days later Dresy passed away.

I remember first meeting Dresy and when I touched him a flood of emotions swept through me. All I could think of was my dear Sinbad who had passed away less than a year before.  Dresy felt so much like Sinbad did in his final years and my eyes welled up.  So I had a deep attachment to Dresy.  Beans got along with Dresy well once she understood he had no interest in playing and romping about.

I took these photos during our visit.  When they returned to the desert a week earlier, Angela took him out for a walk.  He purred right away.  He hadn't purred in a long time she said.  She felt he was happy to be back in the desert.  Dresy looked really well from when I saw him last a little over a year ago.  His medication and new diet seemed to be working.  Dresy was working towards his eighteenth birthday later this year. 

My eyes are watering up as I compose this.  My thoughts are with my dear friend Angela.

Cooking Experiment

Tried making some ??? from ingredients intended for other purposes.

Looked good. Smelled good.

Tasted good.

Even better with jam.

But they soaked up too much oil and our tummies made that known to us afterwards.

On another day we had smoked kippers topped with Himalayan salt on crackers for lunch.

We wished we had bought more kippers!

Yum!

New Awning Arrangement

It does the job.

Much better as I don't have to worry about wind anymore.  I can leave it up all the time.  I can also open the screen door without it hitting the awning.  I can shift the mesh over to the right and still open and shut the door.  It is off to the left in this photo as the morning sun comes in from the left.  Also I won't be banging my head into that awning anymore either.

The two poles holding up the mesh is from the old awning.  The pole leaning up against the RV was a center support for the old awning.  I use it to unhook the mesh from the roof line.  I still have to climb up on top when setting it up and hooking it up to the eye bolts in put in place.  In time I hope to come up with a way to hook it in place from the ground using that pole.  I don't need to be climbing up on top anymore than I need to at this stage in my life.

Very pleased.
I already had that screen mesh which I used to drape off the old awning at times.

Trailer For Sale Update

Now you can also buy the car that tows the trailer.

The little Fiat was priced at $4000.

That didn't seem like much to me but I don't know anything about them.

The trailer is still at $2600.

Two days after this photo was taken the trailer was gone.
Sold?
The car stood there alone.

Climbing Q Mountain

Q mountain from camp.

It is named so for someone has painted a huge Q 

on the north side of the mountain (to the right) facing Quartzsite.

On the way up I passed the trash heap left from the mining operation on the other side.

It takes a lot of cans of beans for mining I guess.

At the summit. 

The elevation mark had been obliterated by some mental deficients.  My GPS registered 1083 feet.  At the base I got a 880 feet reading-plus or minus depending on where I stood-so that makes Q mountain around a 200 foot climb.

Looking west towards California.

What looks like a road to the left is a buried gas line.

Looking north to the town of Quartzsite.

Looking east towards Phoenix.

And south. 

 The mine where the bee attacked me and where the trash heap of cans originated from is in the center of the photo.  Our camp is above that where the brush thins out.

Coming down a different way than I went up.

Spring flowers is here.

Came across some diggings; a trench in nearly solid rock.

Must be some value to this quartz with blue rock embedded within it.

Now why would someone toss a pumpkin out in the middle of the desert?

I Am Losing My Cat

Beans like spending time over with Jo more so than at her own home.

Or hidden beneath the creosote bush near her trailer.

I know, I'm cute.

When she has had enough of outside she comes home to her safe space and her FOOD.