Rock Springs... Where?

I hadn't heard of Rock Springs...  Its part of Black Canyon City....

This was the route... And as you can see, anyone going to Flagstaff on the I 17 has driven right by the Rock Springs Cafe...  Its on the West side of the interstate on the frontage road...  They make pie and the largest sticky buns and cinnamon rolls that I have seen for a long while...  Made my diabetes jump just to look at them in the display case....  I didn't take a picture but maybe Chet did...  Our photographer from the club was with us...  It generally takes a couple of days for him to get all the pictures up on the web so if he has some, I'll put them up later..

With both the Super Bowl and the golf tournament in Scottsdale, we had to get creative and take Arizona 51 up thru the center of Phoenix as the reports on the 101 were not good going North this morning..  We had met in the Denny's parking lot at 10 AM....  This is their primary meeting place in old downtown Mesa...  Its a long way from my house, but it was on the way so no problem...

I thought today might be a wash out as it was lightly misting when I left the house, but I rode right out of the rain as I headed West...  There wasn't any rain at Denny's so there were 14 bikes waiting to go out...

With many of the bikes having two people on board, we filled most of the private dining room...  Stories were told for about an hour and a half..  They had a meat loaf diner plate that was on the verge if being obscene...  I had a small hamburger...

The return route was a re run of the way we came back from Wickenburg a couple of weeks ago, but we managed to take a few different turns along the way which kept it fresh.....

Retired Rod

Quartzsite wrap up...

I'm back here in Mesa tonight, after spending the day getting ready and then traveling back here...  And then emptying the motorhome to get it parked over in the storage lot...  Its really in the way if I leave it here at the house..  My driveway is sloped and way too short for the rig to be parked in front of the house..

Things happened so fast while I was parked with the Class-less Escapee group, that I fell into bed at night without the energy to blog.....

So let me mention the events that happened day by day...

Wednesday  Mimosa breakfast for the ladies...  A big camp fire that night for folks to meet and greet... There were other activities, but I was busy dealing with the tow bar folks in town..  Also I was purchasing and fitting LED light bulbs so my batteries would be so flat..

Thursday  Quesadilla Party  This was quite the fun event, as there were gas grills set up with an assembly line of folks making the quesadillas...  You picked your ingredients and type of tortilla and they made your scrumptious treat right before your eyes....  While you were loading your plate with    side dishes, the grill was browning your tortilla... And at the end it appeared...  This was also Margarita night, as all the fixings for the drink were on hand.... I heard that they went thru 7 gallons of the mixer... and an undisclosed amount of Tequila...  Folks were complaining the next morning by the wake up fire...

Also that night they had a pinata.. It was in the shape of an Escapee house on wheels... It had to be custom made.. And it was full of candy...  They didn't blind fold the batters, but it still took quite a while to knock the bottom off of it and spill the candy... The first batter was an 87 year old fellow and he didn't hit it hard enough to break it open...  And then several of the gals had at it, but eventually is succumbed.

The Pinata hung there for several hours before the party began...

IYQ on the forum  (Les) Saying let me at that thing...

But he had to listen to some friendly coaching from Paul before he swung  He never did break it..

Friday was a  Junk Swap meet and Hot dog cook out on the fire..  This was a fun event, as we all went thru our rigs looking for stuff that we didn't want any more...  During the day, the treasures stealthily appeared on the big tables in the center of the camp...  Then at 3:30 sharp, they began the swap meet part of this event...  We drew numbers from a hat, and then had to go make a selection from the big table in the order of our numbers....  One of the things up for grabs was a coleman gas grill, so this wasn't just frivolous stuff...  At the end it was a free for all on the stuff left over... Things that weren't taken will go to the thrift store up town... I got a coffee thermos and a rack for lawn chairs on the back ladder...

There were two of these flying go carts that kept buzzing our camp...

I also became inspired to make a roaster pan full of baked beans for the Hot Dog feed...  I used canned beans but added some ground sausage to the mixture.. And a big bottle of bar be cue sauce.. That turned out to be popular, as they scraped the bottom of the roaster pan clean...  I didn't add my usual amount of hot sauce as I knew many of the folks were from Northern states where such things aren't the norm...

Saturday   Desert Bar at 10:30 AM  on Saturday morning.   We  all met for the trip to the Desert Bar North of Parker...  It only opens on weekends during the afternoon and it took almost an hour and a half to get out there...  Its about 5 miles out onto a very narrow, high clearance road East of the highway...  It wasn't just gravel, but rather very large rocks and steep curvy hills..  There were places where it was one way traffic...  That gave the Jeep an opportunity to shine as it fairly thrives for a chance at a trip like that...  One of the other Escapees jumped in with me, so we followed in a big group of trucks.  The one ton dually ram that I was following was jarred so hard that the gals inside weren't too sure they wanted to ride back out...

From the parking lot the bar was down in a draw..

The front door, but there are no walls... All electricity was provided by solar... Lots of solar...!

But we had to leave after only one hamburger and a beer...  The Blogger fest was beckoning..   Straining the speed laws, I made it back only 15 minutes late for the get together..  I was amazed at the number of folks that arrived.. Sandie and Jeri had decided to set it up right out by the road, where everyone could see that they were at the right place...  That worked well.

Waiting for the official part to start...

I think more folks knew me than I knew them...  That made me feel somewhat like I didn't belong to the group, but I spent the time trying to connect all the folks I was meeting to their blogs... Al and Kelly arrived, and I was happy about that, as they knew more of the people than I did...  But then that's why we were doing this...  To get to know more folks... I've added a ton of blogs to my reading list since Saturday, so I will know more folks for next year....!  Of course all I had to say was the Roomba Blog, and everyone had seen that blog....

From my vantage point once the activity began..

Sunday was the Italian supper night, but I didn't hang around for that gathering....  I'm sure that it would have been scrumptious, but I was worn out by then....  I've spent the evening here running the washer, trying to get the desert dust out of my clothes....  And Biscuit is on the list to get bathed as well, because until she is cleaner it won't do any good to clean everything else...

Blue Ox service tent...

Its been busy here in Quartzsite....  I decided to have my tow bar rebuilt and re lubricated... It didn't need rebuilt, but it was super dry in the big ball joint...  The Blue Ox folks have a big display in the big tent..  And it was at the sales display that I learned to take my bar out to the repair tent in the back of the lot...

The tent was hidden on the very back corner of the lot and then was the last tent behind several other tents installing various products...  But I had seen it in previous years and knew where to go...  So on Wednesday I removed the tow bar from the back of my rig and loaded it into the back of the Jeep...

Of course the traffic was awful going South on 95 past the big tent..  But I stayed into the center lane going over the interstate... It moves faster.. Most of the outside lane turns right going to the back side of the tent and out into the wash for parking...  But, if you don't want to park, you can turn into the lot on the South side of the tent...  And that takes you right back to the Blue Ox repair tent...

It was only 10 AM and they had 30 bars ahead of me already...  I don't know how many had come in that morning but the man asked if I  could come back to pick it up tomorrow... I readily agreed...  So for $30 they took it all apart and put a new washer kit inside and lubed the arms...  I thought this was a deal as the whole thing is now tight like it was when it was new..  And the arms are smooth with new lubricant..

So the following morning, I was back up to the show returning to the back part of the parking lot and Blue Ox's repair tent...  It was really a zoo that day getting back to the pickup area, but I stayed patient..  And there was a line of 10 people at the desk.. Some  bringing in bars and others picking them up...  I managed to slip into a double parked line for a few minutes and get the bar before I was railroaded on down the lane...

If you had to carry a tow bar from out in the wash, it would mean for me anyway, that the work just wouldn't get done...  I am pleased with the outcome...  And also I managed to have the tech show me how to adjust the Patriot brake box and get it set up in the Jeep...  I had never been successful in making the brake functional in the Jeep...  He changed a setting by going into the settings screen electronically...  I didn't even know that the setup screen existed....  But it seemed to work when he set it up...

Then he had me set it up from scratch, and of course it errored out in my hands...  So he adjusted some more until I was able to run it....   That was worth the entire trip down here......!

We have had some fun suppers the last two nights, so I will blog about that in the next entry...

Retired Rod

It depends on your perspective..

Its about 7:30 and the thermometer says its 46 degrees outside...  The sun is just coming up... The camp is dead still....  Biscuit is still nestled into the blankets on my big bed...

I jump into my jeans and stoke the fire.............   Uh, well that means turning up the thermostat on its top... LOL

You can see the orange glow of the catalytic element as the propane heats the center block of the heater...

I stand over this glowing bit of warm, holding my hands out absorbing the warmth...

The roof vent is cracked a bit to let the exhaust out of the coach even though it isn't supposed to put out bad fumes or CO....  Better safe than sorry....  

I don't worry about cracking a window, as this rig has holes to the outside everywhere....

So as I am contemplating making breakfast, I look out the windshield and find some folks are already outside by the big fire pit...  This morning is Mimosa breakfast, so a few of the ladies are already outside preparing things....

The fellow in the middle is Tom....    He is full of stories and general devilment.  As you can see, Tom doesn't have on a tan shirt....  In fact, Tom doesn't have on a shirt at all....  And I am sitting here huddled over my heater?  Obviously I am a pansy.....!  Still its about 48 out there... as the long rays of the sun shine in from behind the motorhomes...

Tom is a rock collector and went into town yesterday to go to a rock gathering...  He was telling me about an agate he had purchased....  And I readily admitted that I knew nothing about rocks...  Saying that I didn't even know what kind of rock we were standing on...

So with a straight face, he said those would be leaverites....  Leaverites, never heard of that..... Well that's because you want to Leave her right there on the ground, he exclaimed...! Uhhhh, I walked right into that one......

Well anyway, I did walk out to see what the Mimosa crowd were doing, but was warned that it was a Ladies only party...  So not wanting to break into a gaggle, I spoke my pleasantries and retreated to the man cave....  LOL

The generators were started, and things are coming alive here, so I had better get myself straightened  away, so for now from Quartzsite.....

Retired Rod

Slow and easy....!

Good morning from the campground on Plamosa road....  After my second night's sleep here, I am alive and well....  We are camped around a fire ring that is in the middle of a large open space...  The motorhomes are in a semi circle with their windshield facing the fire....

Of course the fire is out and no one is around this morning...  But I do hear a few generators starting to purr... so folks must be up and stirring...

This has been the scene of the late night  discussion circle and the warming fire...  It wasn't all that cold, but 58 with a breeze seems chilly when you are sitting solving the problems of the world...

Turning to the left, you have the motorhome semi circle... I'm the second one on the left...  If we all get our generators running at the same time, it can get a little noisy...  So the fifth wheel and travel trailer folks are on the opposite side of the fire....  Mostly these folks have the ultra quiet portable generators, that you don't hear beyond about 25 feet....

Sandie and Jim are tucked back in behind the first row of trailers...  That way they can't hear us noisy generator crowd...  LOL        

I spent yesterday parking in the wash behind the big tent and walking all the rows of the show...   I stopped and purchased a couple of LED bulb replacements for my light fixtures...  I will get more as I learn what I need...  They are pricey, as a small one was $11 and the bigger round one was $18..

The wash behind the tent was very loose and gravelly..  I had to put the jeep into 4 wheel drive to get across some of the deeper washes...  Most of the vehicles parked out there were 4WDs

The rest of the day I sat outside by the motorhome and talked to folks as they walked by...  Or spent time on this computer...

It was slow and easy.....  My kind of a day.....!

Retired Rod

Quartzsite for the show...

Tonight I am camped on the BLM ground North of Quartzsite...  This is a boondock site, with no hookups other than the very dark and starry sky...   Biscuit and I left Mesa about 11 AM and drove right thru the center of Phoenix...

That was kind of slow with a whole lot of traffic all around me, but I just cruise along and don't let it get me down...  Once out on the road away from town, it was still way too busy to enjoy the drive, but it is only about 3 hours total driving time..

I spent the next half hour waiting in line to get some diesel on the East end of Q....  That took some attitude maintenance, as people are not too nice to each other.... But eventually I was filled back up...  My generator uses diesel from the engine tank, so I wanted to be mostly full.  Not that I will use that much, but at about a half gallon an hour, it could add up...

Once here, I announced that I was friends with Jim and Sandie..  They are so famous that that was all it took...  Well they did ask if I was an SKP, so I had to answer that my dues were current.... LOL

This group is called the Class Less group...  Since it is made up of folks that started full timing on many different dates...  And like me, I have never full timed, so there for I have no class of date...

These camp grounds are quite full during the show, so you will get to know your neighbors...  We spent tonight around the big fire in the center of the group.. Biscuit wasn't being very good, as she has to go jump on everyone... I had to hold her in my lap and she whined about that...

Anyway there is a blogger get together on Saturday here, so if you blog, and are in the area, we would like to see you.......  Read Jim and Sandie's post about it here...

Retired Rod

What we do out here in the desert.....

Things were rather busy around here, and I am just sitting here thinking about all that happened while my friend Roger was here....  He arrived late Saturday night after driving all day thru New Mexico... We kind of chilled out that night but managed to go to Paradise Deli...  For a quick sandwich...  I guess they call it a bakery and cafe.....  Its a regional thing and we happen to have them here in Arizona...

Sunday we went to church and then I learned that Roger wanted to go riding on the Can Am....  He wasn't much interested in the Gold Wing last year, but perhaps the fact that the tricycle won't fall over......  Or he didn't have to rely on my balance skills.....  Or... Well anyway we went to Uncle Bears for the football games...  and a sandwich too....  It was almost dark when we got back..

Monday it was the Iowa Cafe on Higley and Brown...  This cafe is formatted like an Iowa small town restaurant...  Their menu is country breakfast, with all the omelets and sausage.... Bacon is offered on every meal.... LOL.    It was raining that day, so we stayed in town that day..

Tuesday it was still raining and we did the Ray Mine tour that I took pictures of on the previous blog..

Wednesday it was finally sunny, and we took the Can Am out to Tortilla Flat, North of Apache Junction...  We hung around in the outdoor bar listening to the cowboy band, and finally got a seat inside for a bowl of chili...  That place is rustic with saddles for bar stools, and dollar bills on the walls so thick that no  bare walls are visible....  We wound around on the Apache Trail in the sunshine... Stopping at the tourist reader boards... It was about 74 that afternoon...

Then on Thursday we joined the Goldwing Road Riders for their weekly big ride... It was supposed to be to Wickenburg, but like usual we didn't go directly there....

We ended up in Wickenburg after riding out the I 10 into a traffic slowdown.... While the Az Dot was sealing the road way with tar...  We got off and went to Salome thru the open range... Watching for cows on the road of course...

After all of that we ended up back in Wickenburg for the Country Kitchen giant hamburger....  The rest of the ride wasn't any shorter, as we went over to Carefree, Rio Verde and Fountain Hills....  Roger was feeling the distance as the sun began to sink as we passed Saguaro Lake...  Once home we learned that we had done over 300 miles...   I apologized for the distance, but Roger was still positive, but done with the motorcycle for the day... the GWRRA folks are brutal on the rides here in Arizona..

And not to be killed off for the day, we ended up in the Mexican restaurant Tia Rosa which blogger friend ShadowMoss had introduced me to a couple of weeks ago..  Their meals are scrumptious, and they didn't disappoint..

I think Roger was happy to only have to drive back to Iowa at his own pace in a nice car, as a breather after spending the week with me here in Mesa.....   :>)

Retired Rod

Ray Mine

A friend of mine came to visit from Des Moines this past week, and we were going to all the restaurants that we knew of every day....  It was fun, but rainy for the start of the week...

On Tuesday, we went off on the Winkleman loop, like we did on the motorcycles several weeks ago.. But because it was raining, that forced us to the Jeep...

North of Winkleman, we stopped at the Ray open pit copper mine...  I had the DSLR camera with me so we drove down into the mine observation platform..  It was muddy and wet, but hey we had the Jeep....

Even with the bigger camera and the zoom lenses, it is hard to capture the enormity of this place...  The depth  of the hole in the ground is beyond comprehension...

These trucks are enormous, and carry 400 tons of ore...  But even with the lens in its longest zoom, I was only able to capture them as a small dot...  The bucket drag line is behind the truck...

The clouds began to part and the sun peeked thru in spots....

We stopped and ate at Maria's, the small restaurant we had patronized with the motorcycle group...  It was fun knowing where to go in the small town...

Retired Rod

Back in the Mesa groove!!

I had never heard of the Marana Regional Airport or its cafe which is located right at the main entrance from the road...  Its called the Sky Rider Cafe..    And a little research informed me that the airport is listed as the Avra Valley Airport, but was purchased by Marana in 1999..  Well anyway this is a reliever general aviation airport about 15 miles north of the Tucson airport...

The Sky Rider cafe has become popular as a flight breakfast and lunch destination for the flying community, and then the motorcycle folks heard about it...  And there went the neighborhood as us dirty ole motorcycle guys like it too....

We met at the Denny's on Chandler Boulevard and the I-10 at 10 AM and went from there straight down the interstate to Marana... It began to spit rain once we passed the Picacho Peak State Park..  And it was several miles out into the country past the little town of Marana...  But I was amazed that there were numerous lunch patrons when we arrived..  Airplane traffic was quite light as the overcast was right down against the ground...

Since it was quite cool, chili was a very popular option for the lunch order, while a group of the guys were still outside disassembling one of the trikes which had no tail lights...  Our leader is a retired motorcycle mechanic, which has come in handy on many days...  And it was only a few minutes until he found the offending blown fuse...

I often wonder if any of us are listening during these lunches, as it seems that we are all talking at the same time....  We returned on a little different road taking 87 up thru Coolidge, Az where the actual Casa Grande ruins are located...  and finally into the South end of Chandler, where we all went our separate ways...

Wednesday evening, I was the guest of a fellow blogger, Shadowmoss, who also lives in the Mesa area..  She and a neighbor were headed to the Streets of New York restaurant which is right North of my home here in the East end of Mesa..  They were after the restaurants's spaghetti diner, which they had eaten before and remembered as quite good...  Predictably, I had a gourmet hamburger but included steamed broccoli rather than french fries....  Way too healthy to catch on I'm certain..

ShadowMoss also has a blog which we have exchanged comments on for about the last year...  We finally met several weeks ago, and have become friends...  So a big thank you goes out for a fun night out at the Streets of New York.....

Retired Rod

I'm still here

Well....... here on the web anyway...  But physically I am sitting in my recliner in Arizona...  And as usual, I was watching the weather up in KC when I determined that the storms were too close together to not be effected by one of them....

And, the cold weather was due to arrive on Saturday...  That meant I was leaving on Friday..  I packed up the car Thursday night after bidding the family so long...   I had gone to breakfast with my motorcycle buddies, that morning...  And perhaps I was a bit vague, but we did take Al's big Buick out there and enjoyed toasty inside conditions all the way...

I left the house at 10 AM and drove right along making the 570 mile trip to Tucumcari by about 8:30 PM...  But now being in Mountain Time zone, it was really only 7:30...  Kansas is long and tedious.. Especially in the winter...

The desk clerk, asked if I knew there was a forecast for snow....  And yes I did, know that, realizing that I had to cross the line of weather somewhere...  May as well be while I was sleeping....  Uh, in retrospect I should have kept on driving....

When it became light in the morning, I peeked out of the motel window, and was surprised to find about 10 inches of snow on the top roof of the Jeep.....  Which I had to remove with my gloved hand, since I no longer own a snow brush....  I packed rather quickly and headed out since with the snow, going would be a tad bit slow...

No one had left the motel when I forged the new path thru the un shovelled driveway in four wheel drive..  The roads weren't much better, as I met another Jeep who was spinning all four wheels as he made his way thru the un plowed city streets.... Then it dawned on me that I was also spinning all four wheels while following him....  And that there weren't any other cars on the road.......

Once on the interstate, which was somewhat plowed, but the road was hard packed and traffic was moving about 45 miles an hour...  It slowly improved as I worked my way along to Albuquerque.. Clines Corners, wasn't any trouble as the road was mostly slush by that time even though you are at 7800 feet in elevation there..   I was worried that I would have trouble during that stretch...

The rest of the trip was mostly uneventful...  The snow was gone on the west side of Albuquerque, but by then my Jeep wasn't white anymore..  There was snow on the sides of the road from the continental divide all the way to Payson, Arizona..  It wasn't until I descended below 3500 feet south of Payson that the snow disappeared...  Still it was barely 50 when I arrived here at the house..

So after 1150 miles in two days, I am back to the valley of the sun...  Where my sensitive Arizona bushes are all dead and shriveled in the back yard, due to the several nights of below freezing weather we had while I was back in Kansas...

Sunday, I never left the house....  Except to go about a mile to church in the morning.  Oh, and to the car wash to make the Jeep white again...

I do think the Jeep made it here without too much fanfare even thou it was less than stellar road conditions...  I would have probably made it in a more normal car, but not as quickly, as I would have had to wait for the roads to be plowed..  That probably wouldn't have hurt me any, other than my ego...  LOL

Retired Rod