Mt. Lemon and Quartzsite

No, they aren’t anywhere near each other, but I realized I didn’t post about our trip up the mountain to Mt. Lemon outside of Tucson. Nice ride with a variety of scenery and environments.

The road leaves town and quickly heads to an incredible saguaro forest.

Saguaro Forest on Mt. Lemon road

It then climbs through some interesting rocks.

View of the road
Lots of hoodoos
Had to zoom for this. Sorry for the fuzzy.
Lots and lots of hoodoos

Eventually we leave the desert for true mountain surroundings.

Vegetation changing
We reached snowline

It was a nice trip, well worth the 2 hours or so.

We moved to the Hi Jolly BLM area north of Quartzsite. We haven’t ever stayed here before. It is free camping for up to 14 days, but no access to water, dump station, or trash. It was much more crowded than the LTVA areas we stayed in before, and I am not overly fond of it. We did meet another Tiffin owner who came by to chat. Nice guy, and he had Kevin hit it off. He was quite excited by some of Kevin’s updates, especially the new printed door handle. Kevin also showed him the DC to DC charge system he has on the alternator. He was kind enough to take us on a side by side UTV ride to a couple of historic areas to the northwest of us.

The first place was called “Lead Well”, a not too auspicious name! It was an established watering spot for the pack trains from the local mines in the early 1900s, before the railways.

Old watering trough
Lead Well

We also visited a marble mine. It only closed a few years back, so it was in good shape with soolid fences, interior roads, and the office still standing.

Office at marble mine
Surroundings
Interesting window above the office

I have been careful to keep up with some of the local activities in town. We went to a Peter, Paul, and Mary tribute band concert at the Quartzsite Improvement Association. Not bad at all. I was surprised at the song selection. Here we are in heavy conservative grumpy old men Trump country, and they sang a lot of quite subversive Bob Dylan pieces. Interesting dynamics, and I quite enjoyed it.

“Mary” even had the right wig on!

Today we hunkered down most of the day with a heavy wind. Gusts were 40-50mph, and they really rocked the MH. We ended up pulling in the big living room slide because of the noise it made. There is a metal cover over the LR awning, and when the wind catches it right, it makes an awful racket. We also made a trip into Parker for groceries, and saw the wind storm just getting started. I only had my iPhone, but I think you get the idea.

Dust blowing as the front comes in

Toorrow we pack up and head somewhere towards Death Valley. We haven’t decided whether we will sleep there tomorrow night or whether we stop in a FHU campground along the way. It will depend on the wind and how early we get out. I am waiting for an Amazon package delivery that will be delivered tomorrow in Parker, so we will decide after we see how late it comes.

Death Valley has extremely limited cellular data, so I don’t know if I will post anything until we come out Monday or Tuesday. We are heading for the Dark Sky event they are putting on, and Kevin has the telescope and camera ready!