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.

Cool Looking Bugs

I have never seen these bugs before.

  They were beautiful. 

These two were making more bugs.

They needed a bucket of water thrown on them.

Return to Dirt Bag Campground

For the first visits to Dirt Bag Camp click here and here.

It has been a little over a month since I first visited this area.  I thought I would go back and see how things were.  I was pleasantly surprised to see how cleaned up it was.  Rest assured, those responsible didn't clean up their mess.  The BLM rangers and maintenance people did.

There were still a few odds and ends of trash scattered about but it was much better than before.

The "Pigs in a Trailer" trailer was here somewhere.  

It was so cleaned up I could find any trace as to where exactly the trailer and trash were.

Here you can see the spots where piles of trash, rugs, tents and garbage was abandoned.

Hey, along the entire stretch from the trailer site to here I found forty-four cents in change.

They are very careless with their money. 

And here was where the car up on blocks once stood.

Job well done BLM personnel!

Yes folks, that was your tax dollars being spent to clean up after the Dirt Bags.

House For Sale

Trailer For Sale

This looks like a homemade trailer.

The wheels and tires are too small and it sets too low to the ground.

Surely it must drag the ground in places.

Kitchen area is within the fold up rear deck lid.

Something to consider if it is windy or raining.

Price is $2800.

I think the owner will be dragging it back to Texas with him.

Good-bye Awning

Fortunately one of the camp areas has a large dumpster.  Rather than drive two miles to the land fill on the highway with the awning sticking out over a foot on either side from where I had strapped in down on the rear bike carrier, I went to the dumpster driving the dirt roads.

 This meant I would have to heft the awning up into the dumpster instead of being able to toss it into a big crater in the ground at the land fill.  I was able to stand it up on end, push it up some so that it teeter-tottered on the edge, climb up the ladder on the right of the dumpster and then drag it on the rest of the way inside the container.

And there it rested against the side.

Good-bye awning.

There were no tears; just a big smile to be rid of the troublesome device.

The Things People Get Rid Of.

My camping friend Jo found this on a give-away table.  

It looks like it had never been used!  

She likes to do wood carving so it was a great find for her.  

A nice addition to her other wood working tools.

On a Wing and a Prayer

I had to go into town to fill up with propane.  

This was parked nearby.

The guy towing it with a large diesel tractor said he only had a mile and a half to go.

He was going to go for it.

A mile and half north is the local landfill and I assume that was his destination.

Rain!

Yes, it rains in the desert.

We were trapped inside for the better part of the day yesterday.

The road by our camp.

Out our side door.

Behind us.

Beans' hunting grounds.

She wasn't too happy.

Where Have You Been?

Some people like to buy these stickers and put them all over their RV.  I'm not one of them.  I have my collectables inside on the walls of the RV.  Most are postcards or bookmarks from various places.  At any rate, I sat in there trying to see how many I could identify.

Olympic National Park, Grand Canyon NP, Zion NP, Yosemite NP, Joshua Tree NP, Bryce Canyon NP,  Organ Pipe National Monument and Mt. Rushmore only because I zoomed in the photo and could make out the four Presidents.  I couldn't come up with the rest although I most likely have been there.  AZ might just be Arizona.  Can't think what CR, CC National Parks are without looking them up.  No fair cheating now. 

Salad Season

Come spring and summer I am more into eating salads that I am during the winter.  Here is my first salad for 2019: Couscous, purple onion, red and green bell pepper, apple, Mandarin orange slices, tomato, lemon juice and red wine vinaigrette. 

Yes, it was VERY good.