Five Days with Friends

 

When we  decided to go to Congress AZ to visit our friends Al and Kelly we went with the intention of dry camping at the BLM  dispersed campground just down the road from them. When you are travelling with three dogs, you don’t stay with people, actually even without dogs we wouldn’t stay with anyone.

After a few minutes at their house on Ghost Town Rd, we  knew it would be fine,   Jake and Pheebe became friends and the Bostons were running free in the fenced yard. Al & Kelly are easy to be around, sometimes we hung out with them, other days we did some touring on our own.

Al and Kelly’s home.

Our Rv spot

On Sunday Skip and I drove around a bit and stopped at an interesting  business  not far from A and K ‘s house.

We think he mills and sell lumber, but we were interested in the  small buildings he had built.

 

The door on this building is carved, there are two little birds in the hole in the cactus.

 

 

This little building is for sale

On Monday morning we left the dogs in the motor home

We don’t want to stay!

We followed Al & Kelly to Stanton Ghost Town, where there are miners ‘living in a RV park, who drive into  the mountains on ATVs, looking for gold.

Following  the jeep up the road to Stanton

We had to register before we were allowed to look around.

 

 

Al just walked by that huge gold nugget, guess he was more interested in reading the sign.

We looked around Stanton for a while and then headed to Yarnell  a small town in the mountains which you reach by driving up  Yarnell hill which is a series of steep switch backs up the side of the mountain. I got this picture from the internet

While we were in Yarnell we  stopped by St Josephs Retreat where they have built a shrine on the side of a cliff with beautiful statues depicting the Stations of the Cross.

We didn’t see all of the shrine but you can read about it here http://www.stjoseph-shrine.org/images/banner.jpg.

We didn’t stay long in Yarnell, we drove back down the hill, and home to Ghost Town Rd,

More tomorrow.

Jean

Hanging Out in Quartzsite

 

One more day in Quartzsite before we leave, we have been here nine days, which is the longest we have ever spent here. We have made a couple of trips to Parker, done a little geo caching,a lot of reading and a lot of walking.

There are not many RVs in our part of Plomosa Rd The ground here is ugly, rocky and hard to walk on.

But the washes are green and lush, there must have been a lot of rain this past summer.

 

We went out in search of a geocache this morning, we found it with no trouble and in the caches was  a trackable  item called a travel bug. These  travel bugs are tracked by a unique number which you can look up and enter where you found it.  This particular one originated in Croatia.

We also found this wonderful remote control airplane flying field.

Complete with runways

Gates

The City of Quartzsite donated the land and built everything including the runways for the club. They also have a hanger in another part of town, where they meet, and some members work on their planes there. Part of the building houses a quilting club.

When we first went there these tables were full of planes and there were  about twenty people flying planes. Some of them were pretty impressive.

We have enjoyed our time here, but we are ready to move on. Going to visit some friends for a few days.

Jean

I Think I’d Rather Have Bobcats Visit.

 

On Monday our last day at  Ajo we were lucky enough to see two Bobcats. They weren’t visiting and kept a respectful distance.

One last thing about Ajo , I thought was interesting, the tailing pond at the old open pit mine, was once the largest dam in the world.

This is what is left .

Now a days the biggest dam by volume in the world is the Syncrude Tailings pond in Alberta, which holds the sludge from the Tar Sands. The pond there is 11 miles long.

 

We traveled to Quartzsite on Tuesday, and  found a spot on Plumona Rd. which is  a free BLM camping area. You can stay for 14 days out of 28 then you  must move at least 25 miles.

Yesterday morning we drove to Parker ( about 25 miles) to get groceries, then in the afternoon went  into Quartzsite to buy some clips for our awning,and to look around, not many vendors are open yet,

When we got back to the motor home, Skip was putting the clips on the awning (to help stop it from blowing in the wind), when I saw something moving at the base of a Creoste bush just a few feet from our rv mat.

I have never seen a Tarantula before and I didn’t like it one bit, when Skip went near it to take this  picture it started coming toward the motorhome. I grabbed the dogs and flew up the stairs into the motor home. Skip picked it up on the shovel and took it a couple of hundred yards away, he said when he put it down it went down one of the million little holes in the desert. Great now, I have keep an eye on every hole when we are out walking.

 

I have always been terrified of spiders, thanks to my oldest brother and my sister who would tell me the spiders  would get me if  I went down the stairs  at night.

 

Jean

Campgrounds, Airport ,Golf Course, Desert, Museum, and Bobcats.

 

We  have spent a couple of days exploring Ajo, and the surrounding desert. Saturday we went in search of two caches, the first took us to the desert west of Ajo.

We had to park the car and walk about one half mile.

Found the cache

Drove through the desert to the next cache, we really don’t want to get lost in the desert, so as well as the GPS,we take pictures just in case.

On the way we saw evidence of  an old settlement ? or garbage dump.

It was all glass and tin cans, for about one quarter mile.

The cache was under the tree.

 

Toda we checked out two campgrounds, the first at  the roping arena,

It appears to be dispersed camping, we didn’t see  anyone there but I read somewhere that it is three dollars a night.

The other camping spot was on Cole Rd at the Denison Park  picnic area of the Ajo Regional Park, this one is free.

We also  saw the Airport

And the Golf Course or Country Club

And then we headed to the Museum…but on the way look at what we saw.

Bobcats!

There were two crossing the road by the tennis courts, they climbed the fence and disappeared into the bush, we stopped and one came back out by the fence.

I had to lighten this one,he started to climb the fence but a truck came and scared

him or her off.

The tennis courts

 

And Then  we went to the Museum  and  had a very informative man show us around and tell us about the mine and the history of the town of Ajo.

.

Tomorrow we move on. We have enjoyed our time exploring Ajo

Jean

Clarkston AZ and Geocaching

 

 

We are new to geocaching, but in the short time  we have owned a a handheld GPS we have discovered a couple of things, it is really good exercise, and a good way to explore new areas both at home and when we are travelling.

For the past three years we have been spending  a few weeks near Ajo AZ, . We camp at a site  on Darby Wells Rd about five miles south of Ajo.

We have noticed a historical monument just off the Ajo  Highway, because the monument isn’t accessible  from the highway we have never stopped to see what it was for.

 

Until today while searching for a cache we discovered that the monument marked the place where the Clarkston Cemetery was and named the people who had been buried and then had their bones moved to  the Ajo Cemetery.

Clarkston was  a town of 1500 people, that was incorporated in 1915  and was destroyed by fire in 1935.

 

 

Another cache took us into Ajo, past the old Hospital to the very top of the town, we saw views of Ajo that were new to us and realized how much more there is to this little town.

I think the orangey colored buildings are being built for the Border Patrol officers.

The old open pit copper  mine is huge. It closed  in 1985.

The good news is the Dairy Queen was open today.

Another cache we found today was well hidden,

Jean