Happy Halloween

Part of the cliff dwellings at Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico

Fort Beans

She likes her fort

Stinky Pete's

This junk shop has been in Quartzsite for years, "over twenty" so says the owner.

It sits on the main thoroughfare next to a market and if for not being in Quartzsite, 

any place else it would be an eyesore. 

We wandered in and got to talking with the owner who's name is not Pete.

I just assigned that name to him.   

He soon got off on a rant as to how the town officials and fire marshal were shutting him down "in six days" due to code violations among a long list of other infractions. 

He showed us the letter from the city.   

As he gradually worked himself up into a froth telling us how "they" didn't know the law and how he was going to file suit for millions of dollars, how he knew where the Lost Dutchman" lay hidden in the desert only a few feet under ground, how...I wandered off to take these photos.

The wind must have changed directions while I was away as Jo said the stench from him became unbearable.  "The smell was so repulsive I began to get nauseated."

She finally got away while Stinky was still carrying on

 "...and I don't think he even was aware I left." 

As I walked around all I could think of is how was he going to remove all of this junk?   I thought about a EVERYTHING MUST GO  sign but see he already had one out front...probably for those twenty years.

We plan to go back in a week and see how this issue develops.  All I could think of was bring in several large containers, a skip loader, scoop it all up and haul away to the local dump.

I suggested we situate ourselves across the boulevard as there could be gun fire.

Sidewinder!

The camp host found this guy curled up beneath his trailer one morning. I got my grabber tongs so he could pick it up, put it in a bucket covered with an old piece of carpet then took him for a ride to his new home, a wash far away.

I am now doing daily under the Little House on the Highway morning checks

 making sure it is safe for Beans before she goes outside. 

More Neighborhood Rock Art

I found these across the highway in the other camping area during my morning walk.

The artist hasn't returned to their winter home as of yet.

No campers were around anywhere in sight.

A lot of time and effort were put in creating these.

Just the gathering of all the different colored rock alone would seem a monumental task.

Without a doubt, this was the most impressive piece

A sundial.

It was 10:21 when I took the picture.

My iPhone time must be off.

Now if I wanted to gather a bunch of black rock

I could replicate my shadow.

Too much work.

Beans Likes it Here.

She likes lying in the shade

of the large mesquite tree near camp.

There are lizards here but they scurry off into the protection of the creosote bushes where she cannot get to them.  But it keeps her entertained along with bird watching the doves and quail.

Tornado!

Granted, it isn't up to Oklahoma/Kansas standards as far as tornadoes go but I'll take it.

I've always wanted to see a tornado in real life-from a safe distance-and now I can say I have.

Some may argue it is just a big dust devil but they don't get that tall and go from ground to cloud.

Its a tornado. Don't take that away from me.

It eventually fizzled out and came no closer than this. 

Neighborhood Rock Art

I came across these only a couple hundred yards away for our home site.

Someone has some artistic talent.

They were done last year, or maybe longer, as no one is camped at the site yet.

In fact very few "snowbirds" as they are called are here

but that will change BIG TIME in the next couple of months.

Yep, you have a lot of free time here during the winter

so what else better to do but create some rock art.

Back Home...Our Winter Home

Quartzsite, Arizona

I wasn't planning to arrive here until the first of November but global warming just didn't seem to be happening around where we were.  The weather showed it to be in the mid-eighties in Quartzsite and here we are three weeks early and it is nice. I met up with a friend from last year. She has volunteered to work in the kiosk for two days a week registering in snowbirds (travelers escaping the cold from up north and Canada) at the Long Term Visitor Area here in the desert.  In doing so she gets to stay for free. Those who want to stay long term (Sept. 15 through April 15) pay $180. With that you get trash disposal, use of dump station for waste water and a fresh water fill source. So it is a pretty good deal costing as low as 86 cents a day to camp.  This is the first time I've opted to pay the long term fee.  In the past I have always stayed at the 14-day limit areas around the LTVA areas.  They are free but you have to move all the time.  So I am trying this out and see if I can stay put for months without going bonkers.

Being that Beans and I will not be traveling and getting into mischief much during the winter there will not be the daily posting to the blog as I have been doing this past year.  It just won't be that much to blog about here that I haven't already shown in years past.  I'll do my best to get something of interest every few days hopefully. 

  

Abandoned KOA Campground

This is located right off Interstate 40 on old Route 66 between Winslow and Flagstaff, Arizona.

I found this site fascinating.

A lot of paint and effort is involved here.

Amazing that no one has burned it down.

Out here were the camp sites and the electrical hook-up poles still stand.

The campground and other features still exist at the site called Two Guns.

Two Guns has an interesting history and you can read about it here.

People like me will over night here but we had miles to go 

so I'll save that experience for the next time we pass through here.

McHood Park

This was a nice free campground just south of the town of Winslow, Arizona.  It used to be run by the county and then the city of Winslow took it over when the county gave up on it.

Talking with camp host Larry, he felt they would start charging fees next year.

Most people were attracted to the water-side camp sites

down below from where Beans and I were.

I had planned on staying a week or so, in-spite of the noise being made by the dredging equipment on the boat.  But when a cold front moved in and it dropped down in the 40's and 50's and I had to break out the heater and I see the weather is thirty degrees warmer on the western side of the state, we left.

 

Detour

That evening there was a whopper of a storm south of us.  It was a constant barrage of lightning flashes for awhile there, very entertaining.  We only got a smattering of rain and a few gusty winds.

I drove on down to the river for breakfast before heading back south.  This is where the Paria River meets the Colorado River.  The Paria is all that brown muddy water.  The Colorado is clear due to the dam not far north of this point.

Notice the heron. 

This is the first rapid that boaters encounter once they put in at Lees Ferry.

They refer to it as a "riffle" rather than a rapid.

Soon after we got onto Highway 89 south there was a warning sign.  The storm had flash-flooded away a portion of the highway right where we were going to turn off to go back to the Grand Canyon.  All north and south bound traffic was to take Highway 160 east...a 190 mile long detour to or from Flagstaff.

Well Beans, I guess we aren't going to the Grand Canyon after all.

This would prove to be a scenic drive through Navajo/Hope reservation land, only it didn't turn out to be quite that pleasant.  People were pissed about this detour and were driving with rage.  A two lane desert highway, no shoulder, and they are crossing over double yellow lines passing one another.  Same with those going north that had to drive an extra 58 miles east from Flagstaff before even starting north.  It was insanity.  The worse of the careless drivers taking unnecessary unsafe chances....California plates.

We stopped at noon for a night at the Hopi Cultural Center in Second Mesa.  I had had enough of this madness for one day and seen too many close calls for comfort.

It would be truly a miracle if no head-on occurred that day.

Two hours later after writing up the above three police cars sirens wailing sped by heading west.  Thirty minutes later an ambulance with its siren screaming came back in from the west.  I can only hope the idiot just took himself out and no innocents were involved.

Lees Ferry Crossing

Yes, this is one of those places on the highway I just want to get through as fast as I can before something slides down on top of us.

On the way to our campground were these rock formations.

It is difficult to judge the size of this but just figure almost twice as large

as the Little House on the Highway in the distance.

This one?  Well over twice the size.

Our camp with a small bit of the vast Vermilion Cliffs in the background.

I planned on going to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, that is until I did a weather check.  Daytime temperatures were in the 50's due to the high altitude of 9000 plus feet. 

NOPE!

Guess we'll go back to the South Rim Beans.

Marble Canyon

This is the newer Navajo Bridge built to handle today's larger trucks and volume of traffic.

The original Navajo Bridge is now just for pedestrians only. 

The bridge south of Page is the only way you can drive across the Colorado River gorge

 (get from the south side to the north side) unless you drive

 326 miles over to the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas and cross there. 

Good idea.