Author: sandcastle

The Desert Bar

It has become a tradition among those of us camped near Quartzsite, Arizona, with the Escapees Class of ’08 for Mike & Julie to go out exploring then come back with the name and location of a restaurant we should all go to. This time the place is called the Desert Bar. It is literally out in the desert north of Parker, Arizona. The site used to be a mine and the current owner is building a major complex there all off the grid. So far it’s a bar and grill all powered by solar panels with water from his own well. Come along as we go out for lunch.

You start by traveling four miles of road clearly labeled “primitive”. Our group went in three trucks. Other went by other modes of travel.

  

In the parking lot you have the opportunity to go to church. Since the bar is only open Saturdays and Sundays, some people may use this church to ease their consciences. We went on Saturday but these four members of our group checked out the church on their way in.

This covered bridge is the access to the bar itself. Those towers in the background are the cooling system. Wetting the tops cools the air passing through them down into the rooms below. The weather the day we were there was perfect–needing neither heating nor cooling. 

Nearly everything on the premises is built from scavenged materials and those that aren’t are picked to blend in with those that are. Check out the faucet on this sink in the ladies room. The stalls are made of recycled hammered metal.

Here’s our group ready to tackle that four mile primitive road back out again.

The Desert Bar is a place you go for the atmosphere and the experience. Anyone passing this way should go there at least once. But take a truck not an RV.

TTYL,

Linda

Self-sufficiency

Self-sufficiency. What does that term mean to you? I’ve decided its meaning changes as you live your life. As toddlers learning to feed ourselves and learning to walk we were taking steps to self-sufficiency but for most of us the first time we thought of ourselves as being self-sufficient was when we moved out of our parents’ homes and began paying our own bills.

The most recent update of my own sense of self-sufficiency is when we learned we could live in our motorhome without being plugged into a park’s utility systems. As long as we start with enough food and water and fuel on board we can now live “off the grid” for five days at a time. Then we need to go to town to restock.

Our daughter, however, has spent much of her life learning true self-sufficiency. She once lived in a house with a windmill and enough solar panels to be able to sell electricity to the local co-op. She learned enough blacksmithing to be able to make basic tools. She learned that if you hang laundry outside in the wintertime it stays hard until all the water evaporates from it. She learned to harvest wool and hair from living animals and spin it into yarn to make clothes. She learned how to sew using a treadle sewing machine. She learned to plant a garden that provides food and how to cook that food. Next month she is going to learn to butcher a rabbit and a chicken and to tan a deer hide. She already knows how to shoot a gun. If our world really does go to hell in a hand basket, she will be more prepared than most of us to survive. Is that what self-sufficiency really means?

TTYL,

Linda

Hitches

Today we traveled east on I-10 between Quartzsite and Phoenix, Arizona.  For some reason I was aware of vehicles with trailer hitches on this route.

Several years ago someone passed a law that allowed semi tractors to pull a second trailer if the first one used a 5th wheel type hitch. That apparently has been expanded to other types of hitches. I’m not sure they realized all the implications of doing that. Today we saw a motorhome pulling a car that was pulling a flatbed trailer holding an ATV. As far as I know, there is no special driver’s license required to do that as long as the combination does not weigh more than 26,000 pounds. Most RVers never give a thought to weight limits so I wonder how many of these double tows are over the limit for their driver’s license and/or their tow vehicle rating. And how do they park anywhere?

I saw the left half of a double wide mobile home being towed down the highway so I was watching for the right half when a second left half went by. So I started speculating. Maybe they put a hitch on opposite ends of the two halves so the roof lines would clear curved underpasses. But most mobile homes get backed into the parking sites. How would they place one with the hitch on the wrong end? Then the two right halves went by. Oh, well. That’s not nearly as much fun.

Then we saw a sailboat on a flat bed semi trailer. It was longer than the trailer. Dave estimated the length of the boat at 60 feet.

Then we saw a trailer that was a combination RV and horse trailer with several stalls for the horses. I wonder if the trainer lives in the RV and takes the horses from race track to race track? Maybe they were headed to Santa Anita on Route 66.

Then we saw a big pickup truck pulling a small travel trailer.

Then what looked like a small pickup truck about to be devoured by the big fifth wheel chasing it. Probably the second pickup was as big as the first one but it was dwarfed by the tall bedroom hanging over the truck’s bed.

We also saw a vehicle with it’s tow bar folded up in front of it looking like a gun sight.  

And we saw some semi-trailers parked by the side of the road being used as billboards.

And a semi tractor pulling an empty flatbed which made us want to warn him he’d lost his load.

And a green tractor pulling a red container which made me think of Christmas.

We saw a car pulling a small U-Haul trailer, then a pickup pulling a small flat bed trailer of household goods, then a pickup with it’s tailgate down to make room for the couch it carried, then a full-sized moving van. Lot’s of people moving in the middle of the month.

Some semi-trailers advertised companies, some advertised products, and some traveled anonymously down the road.

We saw a semi tractor with no tailer, his hitch exposed for all to see.

We saw an RV pulling a U-Haul car dolly with no car on it. It was wagging down the road like a puppy’s tail. I hope the car is parked someplace safe and not also wagging down the road with no driver.

We saw a truck hauling another truck on it’s flatbed.

All those hitches and not a picture of one of them. Sorry, Robert, you’ll have to pretend this is radio instead of TV and see them all in your mind.

TTYL,

Linda

Geocaching, RVing, and Model Railroading

Four members of the Escapees Class of ’08 prepared to go geocaching.

Geocaching is a fun way to get some fresh air and exercise. First, someone else hides a container anywhere in the world then posts the location to www.geocaching.com with some commentary. Then one or more persons, like Dave, Lee, Julie, and Dave, enter that location into their handheld GPS units. Then they go hunting for the cache. When (if) they find it, they sign the log inside the cache. If the cache contains goodies they can trade their own goodies for ones in the cache. When they get back to their computers, they log the results of their hunt on the website. This day this group found 3 of 4 caches they were hunting. They weren’t surprised to not find the 4th one since it had previously been reported missing. It was Julie’s first time geocaching–I think she’s hooked.

Here’s an attempt by an RV dealer in Quartzsite to hook a buyer.

We saw this at a rest area on I-10. The owner of the vehicle was walking a couple of dogs that had a few years on them. I relate to the dogs not wanting to climb the steps back into the truck although, since I got my mechanical knees, at least it no longer hurts to climb steps.

Before we sold most of our possessions, Dave and I built model railroads. Six of them over a period of twenty years. All of them were operating railroads. If you’d like to know more about them you can go to www.sandsys.org to check out our models and other model railroad related things.

While we no longer build model railroads, we still like to see them, especially when they are operating. So we went to visit a friend near Phoenix, Arizona, on a GNC Railway operating night and Dave got to run some trains.

  

I, of course, spent the evening visiting with old and new friends since I am physically unable to operate any more. A good time was had by all.

TTYL,

Linda

Camp Fire

Our campsite in the Arizona desert came with a ring of rocks that just cry out to hold a fire.

But, we are not allowed to gather wood from the nearby forest.

We can buy wood in town for $5.00 a bundle.

Buying several bundles at once brings the price down some. Lee can load his truck for $40. That’s still expensive fire wood. Mike found a place to scavenge cable roll tops and brought back a bunch of them. The gas to bring these back, though, costs about the same as buying a load of bundled wood locally.

IYQ, Mary Jane, and neighbor Bud spent most of a day disassembling one top. There had to be a better way. So, IYQ figured out this set up.

The fire on the cable roll top starts it burning, too.  When it starts to break up, we shove the remains of it into the fire ring.

And we all sit around and enjoy our fire and conversation.

Except Mike.  He was home sick the evening this picture was taken and Julie hadn’t yet come to the fire.  We burned their cable roll top anyway.

From left to right: me, IYQ (another Lee), Mary Jane, Lee, Jeri, and Terry. Dave is, of course, behind the camera.

TTYL,

Linda