The Last of the Vendor Tour

 

One more vendor.  K&B is like a one-stop shop. 

It has a little bit of everything that all the other vendors I showed have.

Hardware, kitchen ware, RV parts and pieces, pet needs but no questionable groceries items though.

I noticed this aluminum table.  I have one.  It was free.  

I found it out in the middle of a dry lake in Nevada years ago.

Nice lightweight table.

Out front parking is separated from the vendors by this iron fencing.

See the padlock at the bottom?

 

It is that troublesome lock I used on the motorbike months ago when we first arrived.

This now is its final resting place.  I’ll come each year to say “Hi”.

 

The Scratch and Dent Tent

 

Next I walked across the road over to the alleyway where more vendors are.

Here lies the Discount Grocery outlet.  

There are a couple more of these in Quartzsite but this is the largest.

There are aisles and aisles of grocery goods that have damaged cans or boxes or just plain past their “sell by dates” that grocery stores do not want on their shelves.

I just do not understand how or why pallets full of canned goods are rejected by grocery stores.

Makes me think of all the other food items simply being thrown away.

A shame when so many in our country have little or nothing to eat.

No good food for Beans here.

Some may be past their “sell by date” as I mentioned.

Most all food items past that date still are good for months or a year after.

Expiration dates are for the weak.

Nothing wrong with fresh food items such as bread.

All of these are under the marked date.  Why were they here?

I was tempted here but don’t need all that sugar.

Again I was tempted.

One pound with no shells priced at $7.

Looks like a Costco item to me.

This is what I came for.  To rummage through all the drugs.

I wanted to see if I could find the anti-histamine the vet recommended for Beans.

I haven’t been able to find it in the regular stores here.

 

I dug around a bit and finally gave up.

I’ll get it at Rite-Aid or Walgreens when we roll through a big town soon,

and pay a highly inflated price by the drug companies.  

That’s okay Dad.  Thanks for looking.

More Vendors

 

On down from the hardware tent is a I guess you’d call it an RV supply tent.  Lots of stuff you might think you need for your motor home, trailer or camper.

Next up is kitchen stuff.  I like this spot.

Hey, just like some women like hardware stores, some guys like kitchen stores.

Lots of dinnerware, cookware, utensils and kitchen gadgets.

Good prices too.

There is even a vendor specializing in whatever you may need for your pet.

I didn’t get you anything from the Pet Patio sweetie.

That’s okay Dad, I have this wonderful warm sunshine.

Trash Run for a Magnet

The weather improved enough that I could ride the motorbike up the dirt road for three miles to the dumpster.  Along the way I found a beer can tossed into a bush.  Why?  Why can’t a moron crumple up a can and drop it on the floorboard of their ATV instead of throwing it overboard.  Makes me wonder what goes through their pea-brain when they toss a beer can out.  I stopped, picked it out, let the last of the beer dribble out and stuck it in with my trash.  Oh to have the power of God and be able to zap people like that from the face of the earth.

After the dumpster I motored on to vendor row a couple miles further. 

This guy has all sorts of tools and other man-stuff for sale.

Like a your local hardware store out in the desert under a tarp roof.

I’ve bought several of these carpet pieces over the years.

Two or three dollars a piece.

I had bought magnets before from him.  This year I got four more to secure an insulation panel to the screen door to help hold heat in on these below freezing nights.  One day I hooked Beans up to her harness and opened the door for her.  She bolted out after a lizard and the cord snagged on this magnet and it went flying.  I’ve looked everywhere outside and could not find it, so I bought another.  $1.00

Things are slowing down here in Quartzsite with a lot of people having moved on.  I talked with Larry, the owner of Man Heaven. That’s not what he calls it; I just made it up.  Hey, I’ve seen women browsing around in there and have met women who really enjoy hardware store stuff.  I asked how long he was going to be around.  Usually the end of March he packs up.  This time he said he’ll probably hang around until it gets too hot, which most likely will be the beginning of April the way its shaping up.  He stores a large portion of his goods here at Quartzsite and takes a smaller selection with him on the road to other sales venues around the country.  He is slowly scaling back his business thinking about retirement someday although he still enjoys the vending and interacting with customers.  Larry is a big burly good-natured guy with a large bushy gray beard and long gray hair.  He is 70 years old.

Oh, almost forgot.  The gas tank leak repair worked.  No leaking on the rough road.

Fixing the Leaky Gas Tank...Again

When I bought the Honda Trail 90 almost five years ago the guy who had it had gone through the entire motorcycle fixing and replacing almost everything that needed done.  Later as I had time to really look the bike over I admired his work.  He did a lot just as I would have done.  He and his girl friend were moving to Texas so that is why he was selling the bike.  It was most fortunate for me for it is rare to find them in this good of shape.  He ran out of time and the only thing I found that yet needed to be done was patching a hole in the exhaust pipe.  I did that using JB Weld epoxy and a metal bandaid. 

Later I discovered the gas tank beneath the seat had a leak.  It would only leak out when the tank was full and only when gas was splashing about inside.  Nothing dangerous but just stinky annoying.

The hole was from the seat wearing against the metal making it thin and eventually developing a hairline crack.

My first attempt to fixing this was using JB Weld after scraping the paint away to bare metal.  This didn’t work.  The epoxy had nothing to grip to and the seat added to the failure.  Gasoline oozed out from beneath the epoxy.  My second attempt was cutting a metal bandaid patch and again using the epoxy to attach that.  It helped.  Still when the tank was full a little gas would seep out along the edge.  I just have been living with it this way ever since.

The other day after filling the tank it seeped as usual.  I decided to try a third time to fix it.  What else do I have to do?  This time I removed the patch and cleaned everything to bare metal again.  First I applied a thin layer of epoxy on the tank and let it set.  I didn’t do that before.  Next I applied a layer over that layer, a layer on the metal patch and set it in place to set up.  Lastly I applied a bead of epoxy all around the edge of the patch.  Then the winds and rain came and I couldn’t test the repair anymore than shaking the bike and leaning it over.  No gas appeared, so I may have fixed it.  

With the very first attempt I added additionally padding under the seat to keep anymore wear from happening to the top of the gas tank.

Oh this sun feels so good.  Now that the wind and rain has stopped whatcha think about going outside some today Dad?

I think we can do that sweetie.

Old Camp

 

A couple weeks ago I was riding around on the motorbike winding up revisiting an old camp where we stayed for almost two weeks.  This was back in 2020.

Someone had created this rock art at the site and for the life of me I could not figure out what it was supposed to be.  I put it on the blog and no one else knew either.  I cleared away some of the “weeds”, debris and such laying around on it.  I then made it into a fire-breathing flying dragon.

It is still there today.

The promised rain arrived in the middle of the night and went off and on into the day.

There wasn’t enough to create even a puddle.

Wind, Wind and More Wind.

 

We have been stuck inside most of the time for the past two days because on high winds.  Occasionally we try to get out a little bit.

I’m not liking this.

The wind is blowing my fur backwards.

Okay, this wasn’t a good idea.  I want back inside.

Open the door Dad.

We have only four neighbors in our area.  One is about a quarter of a mile away.  Two are nearly a half a mile and then this guy barely in sight about three quarters of a mile.

He was away on his motorcycle that he carries behind on the trailer.  Even still I didn’t want to walk right into his camp so took the pictures from a distance.

He has a Tiger Camper.  They look like a standard camper that slides in the truck bed but Tiger differs in that the camper is mounted directly to the chassis.  A standard camper would have the door at the rear but Tiger is on the side like a Class C motorhome.

Inside they look much like a camper converted van.

Not as much room as what we have but more than a van.

Unlike a standard truck camper that has no access to the driving these do have access like a motorhome.

So with a Tiger you get a little bit of both worlds.  

You are driving around in something the same size of a pickup truck or van 

but have the living space of a small RV.  

I like them.

 

Wednesday as you read this the wind is supposed to be gone.  Instead there is a 45% chance of rain showers.  We’ll take that over the wind.  Rain if it does happen won’t amount to much.

If there was a rainy season, this would be it.

Climbing Trees

 

It has been months since Beans last had an opportunity to climb a tree. 

She is in center of photo.  The tip of her tail is all you can make out.

Tall straight trees like pines I give her help coming back down.

I don’t like for her to leap like six feet to the ground.

She’s good about scaling back down to my reach and allowing me to lift her on down.

With this mesquite tree that wasn’t an issue.

She could walk back down the slope of the tree trunk. 

That was fun.  Lets go home.

I heard something.

Nap time.

Washes and Arroyos

 

I received a comment awhile back requesting more about the washes I mentioned.  Yesterday was a good day to go on a walkabout getting some material for the post.  If any of you have any requests let me know and I will see what I can do.

Most all the washes in the area are shallow such as this.

An arroyo is a large steep-sided wash or stream bed.  This is the best I can do in my immediate surroundings for an example.  Just try to imagine that cut bank ten more feet high.

Still, that is a lot of water that had passed through there to eat away at the bank as it did.

That is not quite two feet high.

All of this rain water is collected in the mountains far to the east.

It all comes together making its way down this plain to the west creating many washes.

Interstate 10 is that faint line at the base of the mountains.

California is on the other side of the mountains. 

The water eventually makes its way into the Colorado River if it doesn’t dry up first.

Some washes are quite wide which here you can see the ATVers use to motor along in.

Here is an example of two washes coming together to create a larger one.

I am standing downstream from the confluence. 

This was an unusual find.  Two separate large flows of water over a long period of time.  I have never seen any great flash floods in this area in all the years I have been coming here.  I don’t know when the last flood of any significance ever occurred.  

The water picks up a lot of debris piling it up against mesquite and palo verde trees growing along the banks.  Their existence is from seeds being washed in long ago.  There is one pile up of debris somewhere beneath a huge tree I saw on a previous hike but couldn’t find it again this time.  There was a lot of shade and it was evident animals, deer most likely, bedded down there in the hot summer months.

You may be wondering...no pools of water are anywhere.  No springs either that I know of.

I don’t know how or where animals get their water.

 

Here you can see all the lines of vegetation.  Every one is a watercourse where seeds were deposited.

Now trees are growing there.

Zooming out you can see how the water coming from the mountains makes its way across the flood plain.