Kofa Wildlife Refuge – TooBusyForWork

At KOFA for a bit longer

We spent yesterday afternoon probably like everyone else in the US – glued to the TV. I am still enraged at the domestic terrorists and their instigator, the man who is still the President of the United States. We had to turn on the generator for quite a while since we had the entertainment system on for so long. It is a real power hog, equivalent to the domestic refrigerator we have. Part of it is just the way Tiffin sets things up, and part is the way the satellite system keeps track of the satellites. The TV itself doesn’t use much power. By 4:30 we decided to go to Quartzsite again to pick up a switch for a 12v power distribution system Kevin is working on for the GPS and dash cam. Now we have cords running all over the place. Pictures will come when he gets it done. He’s been having fun with the 3D printer to make the packaging.

While we were in town, we picked up a pizza at Silly Al’s, a great pizza place in town. It is usually very, very busy so we called our order in. They have a great Philly Cheesesteak pizza, something I have never been able to get anywhere else. When I went inside to pick it up (masks required – nice!), we also got a growler of their Irish Red Ale.

Today I finished up a quilt top. It was so, so hard! Not for the design, but because it was a scrap quilt. I had to force myself to randomly pick a piece out of a box without making any selection except not to have the same fabric next to each other. I have decided I am not suited to scrap quilts! It drove me batty.

I used a 4” tumbler die with my Accuquilt to cut them. Sadly, I still have a 100 plus pieces! I am sure it will be loved by some child as a “I See” quilts since there are so many designs and colors in it. I also forced myself to sew the rows together randomly too, so you will note a few of the same fabrics in adjacent rows. Luckily the next two quilts I am working on are more more orderly and planned.

We did sit outside a bit today. While there were enough clouds to filter the sunlight, I still got one good picture of the hill behind us.

I am not sure how the data service will be in Quartzsite. Usually it is absolutely horrid because there are sooooo many people. However I had really good service there a few days ago so we will see. If I have good service I will try to post every 2-3 days. If not, it might be 5-7 days. We will see.

Enjoying the sunshine

It is very sunny here. The high temperatures are only in in the mid-60s, but it feels much warmer out of the wind and in the sunshine. We have needed to pull the solar blinds down every day to keep it from getting too warm inside the motorhome. I am soaking it up! I do use a hat and some sunscreen, but I am more lizard-like in my old(er) age, and I love the dry heat.

We took a great trip yesterday to two of our favorite 4WD destinations in the area – Horse Tanks and the King of Arizona Mine which gave its name to the area. Two friends, Vicki and Mark who are camped near us,drove their truck too.

In the desert a “tank” is a depression that holds water. While the four tanks in this area are natural, there has been work by the Wildlife Refuge staff to increase their capacity. The road is a good 2 track for about a mile, but it then deteriorates into a definite high clearance road; lots of rocks and washes. The road ends into a turnaround big enough for 4-6 vehicles.I only went to the first tank which was dry. It was disappointing because last year it had water and was full of life. Vicki and I found a good sitting rock and waited for Kevin and Mark to climb up to the other tanks. Only the uppermost tank had water.

Vicki’s little dog sat in a bag while we waited

We then went back to King Road and headed to King of Arizona area. We visited the Polaris mine area. There are a number of still active claims in the area with a few miners living on the claims. This one is very, very empty. You take a high quality graded gravel road until the last mile, with the last quarter mile being narrow and very rocky. The 4WD and high clearance were necessary then.

We did stop an old processing plant site along the way. We found it last year, but I couldn’t find out much about it. It was definitely for further processing the ore, and the leftovers were a white powder that has been washed and compacted.

Grayish white mounds of compacted something

The road ends into a big parking area with a gate keeping vehicles from going father.

Taken by Kevin at the mill. See me behind the red Grand Cherokee closest to the road?

I hung out at the Jeep soaking up the sun, while Kevin, Mark, and Vicki went closer.

The only surviving cabin. The middle has fallen in.

There were two windows in the cliffs below Portrait Mountain behind the mine.

We wandered around a while, had lunch, then came back to our campsite. We ended the afternoon by having a “Happy Hour” around the portable fireplace before having dinner. Nice trip!

This morning I pressed all the strips for my scrap quilt. I don’t like pressing, so I kept an audiobook going. Kevin was 3D printing something too, and that takes quite a bit of power too, so we ran the generator a couple of hours. We have solar panels, but they are mounted flat, and the shallow sun angle of winter doesn’t provide as much power as they get in summer. After we ate lunch, we drove into Quartzsite to look for a sunshade for our awning. There definitely aren’t as many people parked in the desert as usual, but I noticed more small rigs and tents than I have seen before. Parking in town was a zoo as usual, but we found a spot at the far end of “the strip.” Kevin decided on a burgundy sunshade since we couldn’t find a black one, so we are looking quite stylish now! It does wonders for keeping the brightness bearable. We had another Happy Hour around the fire pit, but with the breeze everybody wore jackets this time, even around the fire pit.

I think we will leave here a bit earlier than planned, probably Friday. Kevin is a bit worried there will be a big influx of people for the Rock Show beginning Saturday, and we don’t want to wait too long for the water and dump lanes. Our normal spot was available, and we chatted with a couple we know who are already there – Dan and Marge. They have been coming for 30 years!

And we are settled!

For at least the next week at least. We are staying on BLM land just outside the KOFA National Wildlife Refuge on King Road. It is a gorgeous place with the mountains very close. Prettier than Quartzsite, and a lot fewer people too! It is free camping, but with a 14 day limit.

And how did we get here? Let’s start with Albuquerque. Nice enough place for an overnight, but it was certainly handy for shopping. Kevin got the water softener bought, initialized, and set up nicely. I found the fabric I needed at a great little shop, Ann Silva’s Bernina and Babylock store. Interestingly New Mexico takes their virus precautions very seriously. We saw masks on everyone, and stores had stringent capacity limits. We intended on going to Trader Joe’s, but the line to get in was 20-30 people. Nope on that one. Then we tried an Albertson’s. Nope there too, with just as long a line. Our only serious need was orange juice, so I just picked some up at the Love’s Truck Stop near the campground. We did take a short car trip on the east side of the mountain up to Madrid. Lovely with snow that started showing up about 7000’. I wish I had taken pictures!

We left Albuquerque early, headed to Willcox, AZ. We stayed at a KOA there that was much nicer than the one in Benson where we stayed last year. Knowing we were headed for dry camping, we did laundry and stocked up on groceries. The freezer is again was full, and the refrigerator was pretty full too. We want to minimize shipping trips due to the high virus infection numbers in California and Yuma county.

We again took off fairly early. The road through southern Arizona is lovely. Sadly I didn’t take any pictures of the higher desert, 4000-6000’. It is full of plant variety with saguaros, ocotillo, palo verde trees, and others. I did get some of the lower desert. The vegetation is less dense, and it doesn’t have the variety found in the higher elevations.

The view from the big windshield is one of the big pluses for a Class A.

Since it was a holiday weekend, we really didn’t see much traffic. The roads were pretty good, little construction, and we just cruised along.

We made it to KOFA about 3:00. Ahh! It was sunny and warm, and I sat outside just soaking up the heat. It cooled off quickly in the evening though so the heater gets a workout still.

We didn’t do much on Saturday evening, just relaxed. We have some acquaintances staying at the next site over, so we chatted with them a while. Today we woke up late (6:30 mountain time is late to me!) and generally goofed off quite a bit. Kevin made a needle holder to attach to my seeing machine, and he is at work on a 12v power supply to get rid of a bunch of cords and cables around the dash. I did quite a bit of sewing, and I pretty much have all the rows put together for a scrap quilt made of tumbler blocks.

Scrap quilts are very challenging to my OCD, but I promised myself I will get some of my multitude of scraps used up. This is a decent start – 12 rows of 15 blocks. I will press them later tonight, and tomorrow try seeing the blocks together. I am using the (new to me) 830 sitting outside. Pretty nice way to sew!

A wonderful week at Kofa National Wildlife Refuge

After getting ourselves all cleaned up -laundry, grocery shopping, dumping waste tanks, filling up fresh water – we headed to Kofa National Wildlife Refuge to meet friends. This is yet more classic boondocking. We stay on a spot off of King Valley Road, about a mile from US 95, 30 miles south of Quartzsite. Kofa stands for “King of Arizona”, the name of a significant mine in the area. They stamped their bullion with the initials, and it stuck. And yes, the refuge is capitalized as I show it here (weird I know). We arrived on a Wednesday just after lunch, and we stayed until this morning, an entire week.

We mostly just relaxed, but we did do some 4WD roads in the area. The trip to the North Star Mine (and driving by the nearby King of Arizona) was the highlight.

Lots of these too in big bushes, especially near the road

The ocotillos were mostly past blooming. I find them the most interesting structural plant.

Oh, and there were some interesting ruins too.

North Star Mine. Much larger than it appears in this picture. The tanks were probably 10’ high or more.

A big picture view of the part of King of Arizona we could see

A very old “tank” along the road to North Star used to hold water for wildlife

An old well bore, maybe 8” in diameter. We put the cap back on

Pile of soft white material, maybe 30’ x 20’.

I have no idea what the white stuff is. The best I found out is a reference to a well 5 miles south of King of Arizona and supported an ore concentrator. I saw no signs of a mill, but there were some old metal fragments characteristic of the time. The well and white pile were right next to an obvious spring, so my guess is this is the concentrator.

We took a trip on another day to the Horse Tanks. They are natural water holes that have been enlarged by the Wildlife Service for game. Another gorgeous area.

The water from the hills comes down the wash resulting in lush vegetation

The Jeep in the landscape. Love the ocotillo

Just an interesting weathered area in the rocks

The lower Horse Tank. There is another above the pour over shown.

I have also been sewing. I have completed 3 quilt tops to be donated at the FMCA rally, so I haven’t only been goofing off. Oh, and I have gotten Kevin addicted to the Australian series Brokenwood Mysteries. I either download them (poor service spot) or stream them (good service location).

Sunset campground in Death Valley

Part 2 of our Death Valley trip.

We moved to Sunset campground in the Furnace Creek area. I was astonished to get what I consider the best site in the entire place – F1. It faces East so you get the morning sun but you have protection from the hot afternoon sun. It is also at the end of a row with nothing but a driveway between you and the mountains. We stayed for 7 nights, and we considered staying longer.

We did the must-see drive to Badwater Basin after a rain. Note the reflections.

Looking to the south shows the snow touched Panamints

Artists Drive and the Artists Pallette

Kevin took a trip to the Keane Wonder Mine again. I stayed at the coach and quilted.

We took what is probably my favorite backcountry 4WD road, Greenwater Road to the old mining communities of Furnace, Kunze, and Greenwater. Furnace had nothing left except a few sun bleached pieces of wood since it had been a tent city. Kunze was the small town, but had some great stone remnants.

Still with part of its roof timbers at Kunze

Someone has carefully selected some artifacts for the inside

There were other ruins in not as good of shape

The town of Greenwater was full of artifacts. This was the biggest of the communities, and it obviously spread out over a large area.

This is the “monument” to Greenwater at what was the towns main intersection

This type of debris was all over the square mile or so of the town

The Greenwater road had more animals than we had previously seen with numerous lizards running across the road and quite a few antelope squirrels. The squirrels look like small but very round ground squirrels except their very short tail (creamy white on the underside) held curled above their backs. They were very fast, and I never was able to get a picture. They were new to me this trip. The road was also a real 4WD road with big rigs that needed a high clearance vehicle and good climbing ability. The Grand Cherokee Trailhawk handled it like a pro. I am feeling more and more confidence in the vehicle’s abilities.

The weekend we were there was the Dark Sky Festival. There were scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Goddard Space Center, and more plus two local astronomy groups. The talks ranged from deep scientific topics to a kid’s activity of building their own Mars Rover model (quite popular I might add) to guided hikes to Star Wars filming sites (Golden Canyon). Death Valley has been used to test extraterrestrial vehicles for many years, and there were lots of stories about them. Most of the astronomy and astrophotography activities got rained out (DVNP got almost 1/4” of rain on Saturday), but we did go to one ranger program on Sunday night. Kevin has been playing around with astrophotography, and I love looking at his shots. Sadly I can’t show them to you in full glory due to size.

The Dark Sky Festival was very interesting, and I think we will plan on going again next year.

We left on a Monday and headed to Needles, CA as I noted in the previous post. We stayed for two nights at the KOA, and caught up on laundry, shopping, and the internet! I hadn’t had unfettered access for weeks which is the reason for the delay in posts. We are now at the Kofa Wildlife Refuge in a boondock site on King’s Road, about halfway between Quartzsite and Yuma. We don’t know how long we will stay, but it is glorious here.

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