Day 124

Today's hike took under this power tower.  I could hear the electricity surging through the lines high overhead.  It first reminded me of bacon sizzling in a fry pan but it was more like the static of a radio not tuned in to a station.  I doubt standing there was doing the little grey cells in my brain any good.

There were three of these Beavertail cacti here and they are the only ones I have seen in this area.  The blossoms are just about ready to open, probably tomorrow or the next day.  They have the most beautiful magenta colored flowers. I hope to be able to find these three plants again to take a photo. 

Here is another first for me...a bowling ball in the middle of the desert.

I left the bowling ball there.

Day 123

Light showers today so it was an inside day.

A scrambled egg with green chiles and cheese sandwich sounded good for lunch, and it was.

Nothing else to do but read

or work on my current pen and ink piece.

This is my set-up taken in the evening a couple months back.

Day 122

I was riding along and came upon this.  I stopped to see what it was about.

Oh, this will be interesting.  I parked the bike and walked on in.  

Midway through, the top of my head itched so I took off my helmet to scratch it while I continued walking.  I went to put my helmet back on and realized the key to my bike was no longer in my hand. I had dropped it!  Panic set in.  Stupid, stupid, stupid!  Here I am miles away from camp and I have lost the key to the bike.  I back-tracked to where I thought I began to unbuckle my helmet, eyes glued to the ground all the way...nothing.  I was just about to turn around and start all over thinking maybe seeing it from a different angle would help and there it was!  I caught the bright sun reflecting off the metal clip that SHOULD HAVE BEEN CLIPPED TO MY BELT LOOP!  The only thing that really saved me was that I was walking that worn in path you see in the photo.  Had I been meandering around among all those rocks I would have never found it.  Seriously, I need 24 hour supervision.

And guess what?  There was nothing to see.  No remains of dwellings, no pottery shards, not a single sign of anything of archaeological importance.

The bike came with two keys and I never knew what to do with the second key so it has been stashed away inside the RV.  I know NOW what to do with that spare key!  

It's going to be stashed on the bike for when stupidity strikes me again.

Day 121

Today's hike took me across a broad gravel wash, not a place to be in with flash flood warnings.

There are loads of these flowering here.

I'll not try to guess what its name is.

Another geographical survey marker.  This one dated 1954.  

I would be turning 6 years old at the end of the year this was pounded into the ground.

A new addition today at the FREE TABLE.

Day 120

I am at a new camp right near the Arizona/California border, still in Arizona.

Off in the distance from my side yard there is something.

Let's go see what it is.

Why it is a FREE table.

If you have anything you don't need, maybe someone else could use it.

I was hoping for some books but there were only two and they were those Romance Novels.

Fortunately I have a crate full of good books with me I brought from home.

Day 118

A couple weeks back I went to a place I had camped before years ago called Mittry Lake on the Colorado River.  It has individual spots along the river to camp at and as I crawled along the rough washboard road every spot was occupied.  It wasn't looking too good then all of a sudden I came upon a nice spot overlooking the water. 

Behind me was a branch of the lake and then I discovered there was no cellphone service to be had.  This meant no blogging or no nothing on the Internet.  As I ate lunch I thought about it and thought maybe up the road a ways further, so I moved on. Still nothing and no more camp spots.  I couldn't turn around and if I could I wasn't relishing crawling back on that rough road only to find someone took the primo spot.  I crossed the river over into California to go to Senator Wash where again I have been a long time ago.  Well now it is no longer free and there were hoards of people there.  Now what?  I went back out to the highway, turned left and returned to where I was back in December finding it peaceful and quiet once again. 

Its nice to have a plan but always leave room for changes to your plan.

Some patriotic soul swam across and climbed those rocks to plant the Stars and Stripes.

Day 116

I doubt I will ever grow tired of seeing sunsets.

This one at the end of a rainy day.

This the following evening.

This morning's walk revealed another plant in bloom.

I thought I knew this one but after a check in my desert wildflower guide book, nope. 

Not a paper-daisy. Wrong color of flower.  Maybe some sort of poppy although the book doesn't show poppies where I am here in Arizona.

Day 114

Another day, another mine.

I almost missed this one but just caught it out of the corner of my eye as I passed by.

There was a lot of mouse and rat poop in this mine and I thought that a bit unhealthy to be inhaling the dust I would stir up so I went no further.  You can just make out the large midden, the pile of sticks and twigs from countless generations of rodents that have lived here. 

Day 113

This day I rode deeper into the canyon just to see what there was to see.

Looking back down the grade I had just come up.

This was about as much as my little bike could manage.

I parked it and walked the last 100 yards or so thinking there would be some grand view at the ridge.

There wasn't.  It continued on down into another narrow canyon

It doesn't look like much but this is fairly steep and a long hard pull.

Photos never tell the real story. 

On my way back to camp I spotted the first real bloom so far.

I thought this might be Rabbit Bush but after consulting my desert wildflower guide book, Rabbit Bush has yellow flowers.  A plant called Fairyduster has pinkish flowers like this but it only grows a foot or so high, so I don't know what this is.

Day 112

I went back yet again looking for new mines to explore.

This site they were just scraping the surface dirt and rocks for gold.

No mine shafts to explore.

The shacks looked in disrepair and I suspect they were leftovers from long ago when travel to and from the mine wasn't as easy as it is these days.

 Elsewhere I did locate a new mine but decided this one was pushing my comfort limit.

  This one required crawling whereas the others I could stand up in.  

And those big boulders placed in the entrance was enough to deter me from entering.

On the way back to camp I came across this pet cemetery near two small RV "parks" where people live year around it appears.  Of course this made me think of my Sinbad. 

Day 111

I went back to the mines.

To answer SC's question, they are after gold.  I asked some locals.

These two were posted Danger Stay Out.

I had to take a look.

Okay, straight down at an angle.

I decided to mind the sign.

This one was even more so.  

And to think the miners go down into that!

Another mine which was a dead end not too far in.

This mine I hesitated entering thinking as someone commented yesterday When I was young, "Yeah but now I don't think so."  Yet I took a step in to get out of the light, which led to another step and another and soon I was going for it. The shaft eventually open out almost straight up.

I thought I may of been in one of those two shafts mentioned above but I think this was different.

Day 110

Mines!  

The good kind you can walk into.

 This is just inside the entrance.  I intended to go back and get a picture of the opening in the side of the hill and forgot.  I was too excited I guess.

Deeper in the flash on my little camera did quite well.

Farther on was this mummified dog.

You can make your own story up about why he was there.

I have my ideas.

The shaft branched off in two directions, one a short dead end and the other with this screened gate.

I felt I had gone far enough and turned backed.

Day 107

                                           Sunrise this morning at the Indian Casino

I left the previous camp heading west back into Yuma, Arizona to get a few supplies, take care of some business and try to decide what to do and where to go next.  I ended up crossing back over into California thinking of walking into Mexico for the day today at the border crossing.  Now that I am here I've lost interest in that and really do not want to be California so I'll turn back for Arizona once again.  Oh the decesions one has to make living the life of a nomad.

Day 104

Tomorrow I will be moving on from Wild Woman wash.

This is the view I have had for the past week from my front yard.

That's the wash beyond the fire ring.

I've pretty much explored the area around me not ever finding anything of great interest.

I like these little cacti.  They don't poke you.

I did find two old style coffee cans the other day.  You remember the one with the key soldered to the top and you'd peel the metal strip away all around the can and remove the lid. 

 I was able to get the rusted lids off without destroying the cans.  

No money or treasure map inside. 

I liked it here though.

  I was never short-changed when it came to the evening sunsets.