Thursday, 24 November 2016

Week ending Nov 24, 2016 Bullhead City and Kingman

Friday we did a road trip to Kingman, where we picked up the guide to the historic downtown walking tour.    There are over 60 buildings on the National Historic Registry.  Many of them are made of tufa stone like St. Mary's church below.

St Mary's Catholic Church
Mechanical Hare
After doing the walking tour, we returned to Bullhead City via the very curvy road over the mountains into Oatman.  It has signs warning that trucks with trailers longer than 40 ft cannot go on the road.  Not only is it very windy, but in many places there isn't even room for guard rails on the outer side.
Route 66 stop on the hill before Oatman

Saturday morning we walked up the road by the RV park into residential area up the hill.  Then we walked the .7 miles along the highway to Safeway to pick up some bread.  We saw that the Black Bear Diner was being remodeled.  Joan did some research and found that they had a kitchen fire on March 16.  They plan on being open for business toward the end of the year. 
Black Bear Diner being remodeled
Monday, we walked to El Palacio Restaurant, not too far past Safeway.  We had the mini taco lunch special, and the Mexican Flag enchiladas (named because each enchilada had a different sauces, one white, one red and one green. As usual, the servings were large enough that we took home enough for supper.  On the way back, we walked up the hill above the highway to the historic Hardyville cemetery, overlooking the highway.  

Tuesday, Joan ordered a new pair of glasses.  They cost about a quarter of what we paid for the last ones, and they will be ready tomorrow, instead of taking a week.   Afterward, we did a walk up the hill on a road next to the one we are on.  At the top of the hill, a few palm trees were planted around an entrance to a development that is all laid out ready for house construction with all the utilities to the lot line.  However, not one lot has any construction on it.  It looks like a development project that ran out of money just as they were ready to start selling lots.  The development company was formed in 2004, so this situation may have existed for many years now.  Interestingly, the palm trees still have irrigation drips feeding them water. 

Hills North of Bullhead
On the way up the hill, we saw a hare that actually stopped for us to get some photos.
Desert Hare
 When we were back near the RV park, we saw a roadrunner in the open lot next door.  It also posed.

RoadRunner
Wednesday afternoon, we got the call to pick up Joan's glasses.  We filled up our holding tank with water in preparation to head south for some  boon-docking.

Thursday morning we woke up to a high wind.  There was a high wind advisory until 7pm for areas from Bullhead City to Lake Havasu, at least half of our planned route for the day, so we decided to stay put for another day.  This was a bit complicated by the fact that it is Thanksgiving Day, and the office is closed.  Fortunately, we were able to catch up with the manager in the clubhouse, where he was preparing for a potluck dinner tonight.  He told us that he 'didn't see any reason why it would be a problem for us to stay'.  We have come to the conclusion that there aren't many short term stays in this park, as office hours are limited, and unlike most of the parks we stay in, the managers don't appear to live in the park.    Other parks, have a self-registration process for times when the office is closed, with a list of available sites.  Nothing like that in evidence here. 

Thursday, 17 November 2016

Week ending Nov 17, Mesquite to Bullhead City

Friday, we did a little drive through town of Scenic, Arizona.  It is just a few miles east of Mesquite, and we didn't even know it was there until browsing through our Nevada Road and Recreation Atlas.  The scenery is pretty much what we can see from Mesquite.  From Scenic, we drove a few miles west on the south side of the Virgin River.  We noticed a teddy bear structure next to a water tower along the way. 
The 'town' of Riverside, where the road crosses back across the river would qualify as a ghost town.  No glass in any of the windows.

Saturday, we walked the 3 miles from the RV park to Casablanca Casino and played the penny slots for about an hour before walking back.   We had driven along this route yesterday, but walking we were able read historic descriptions of a lot of the buildings. There was a statue we hadn't noticed driving down this road a few days earlier.  It was in honor of  Mary Jane Leavitt Abbott, Mesquite's 'Angel of Mercy' who cared for the sick, fed the hungry.  Any call for help spurred her into action. 

Monday we carried on to Government Wash in Lake Mead NRA, where we stayed in the spring.  For $40, twice the weekly pass, we got an annual pass, which we can use for a stay next spring on our way back, and again sometime before the end of Nov 2017 if we go this way again.   After getting set up, we headed into Henderson to do a bit of shopping at Kmart, and Vitamin World.   In the evening, we saw a  'super moon', the closest the moon has been to the earth since 1948.   Unfortunately, our camera only got pictures that are a white circle on a black background.
Tuesday we decided to do a walk up a nearby wash we had seen from the highway coming in.  We thought we could get to it walking about a mile across from our campsite, since we could see an arm of Lake Mead to the west, and figured the wash came into this arm.  However, since there were many little inlets on the lake between us and the wash, we walked up over little ridges between washes,  and sometimes up a wash to find a reasonable place to get over the next spine.  Walking up one of the washes, we saw 3 coyotes heading up ahead of us.  They hurried out of sight when they heard us coming.  Eventually we went far enough to turn around.  Even though we didn't get to the wash we wanted to find, we did get some nice views of an arm of Lake Mead. 

We used our Garmin etrex 20 hiking GPS to find shorter routes back, and to confirm in other places which way we had come.    There was a really nice sunset in the evening.

On Wednesday, we walked up Government Wash, which parallels the road into the campground.  It was kind of interesting just walking up a wash for about 2.5 km.  We encountered a fellow with a couple of friendly collies coming back down the wash .  We had a nice long chat with him.  
Government Wash
There were some interesting bushes which had gone to seed, and the wind was blowing the seeds along the wash. 


Wednesday afternoon, we called River City RV in Bullhead City, and left a message on their voicemail.  They hadn't called back by Thursday morning, so when we stopped for a snack in Searchlight, south of Las Vegas on highway 95.  we called them again.  They did have room for us or a week.  When we arrived, she found out there was someone in the site that she had planned for us.  Fortunately, they did have another site open for a week.  This looks like an older park, with fairly short sites.  A fellow across the road from us kindly moved his car to give us more room to back in.   We had to park the truck beside the trailer, and it came back right to our steps.
  

Thursday, 10 November 2016

Week ending Nov 10, 2016 Millard County (Fillmore)

Our travels around Millard County for this week were based on information in the guide Adventures in Millard County Utah which has some maps showing the locations of the sites, day guides which describe the various attractions.

Saturday we did a scenic loop north to Delta, where we found the Topaz Relocation (Internment) Camp.  This camp was created in 1942, as one of 10 camps to house Japanese in the USA.  At the time it was the 5th largest city in Utah with 8316 people.  We parked in the middle of the camp since that was the first entry we saw after signs in the corner of the area.  After doing a loop around the east side, we noticed a flag further west.  We headed there, where we found a few interpretive signs.  Interestingly, many of the men interned in the camp, served in the US military in later years.  While walking through the camp, we saw three hares racing out of sight.  They didn't pose for pictures.
Coal chute at Topaz Internment Camp
We returned to the Great Basin Museum in Delta, which wasn't open yet when we went past it earlier.  We were warmly welcomed by a volunteer.  The museum covers a 'billion' years of history in the area.  It used be part of Lake Bonneville, a huge lake south of the glaciers from the ice age.  They had amazing collections of trilobites and other animal fossils, and plant fossils as well. There were also a large number of minerals, as the area had several large volcanoes.  In addition, they had an extensive collection of pioneer artifacts, including a cabin built by pioneers.   And all of this was for a voluntary donation to the museum fund.
Ammonite fossils
From the museum, we drove south through Deseret to Fort Deseret.  This was a mud wall fort, about 6 feet high, built by the Mormons during the Black Hawk Indian war.
Part of Fort Deseret wall
Fort wall structure
Further south, we stopped at Sunstone Knoll Rockhounding site. It was a nice little walk up and around the knoll.  We saw another hare.  There were quite a few very small sunstones on the ground.
sunstone
As we were leaving a mother, two kids, and grandmother arrived to look for some minerals.  As we arrived back at the truck, we heard a train coming up the tracks we had crossed to get to the knoll.   
UP Train
From there, we drove by the Clear Lake Bird Refuge, where we saw a number of trucks of hunters with dogs.  We didn't see any water, or any birds.    On the way back through this area a few days later, we were able to see a small strip of water in the distance to the south end.
Dry area of Clear Lake

Beyond that, we took a one lane (ATV?) trail to Pahvant Butte (5761' ft), a volcanic peak that rose through the waters of Lake Bonneville.  At the north end of the Butte, we came to the Lace Curtain lava flow. 

Lace Curtain
We returned to the south end of the butte, and walked up a switch-backing ravine to a spot above the caldera of the volcano. 

Caldera at Pahvant Butte
On the way back down, we saw a snake slither into the bushes from almost under our feet.  Fortunately, we saw another one further down the trail which didn't hurry under a bush.  We looked them up, and they are Great Basin gopher snakes.

Great Basin gopher snake
Then we returned to Filmore, a round trip of about 200km. On the way back we saw a small herd of antelopes.  Great weather, with a high about 17C.      

Monday we headed out to Tabernacle Hill and the Lava Tubes. After picking up some chocolate muffins and cheese onion rolls at Duanes Food Town, which has a bakery, we followed the directions in the Millard County guide, and wound up at what looked like a rock plant.  A fellow came out to see what we wanted, and directed us to turn south at the junction just below the yard.
Small portion of lava beds
Once on the road, we saw the same Pahvent Valley Trail signs which we had seen on Saturday, so knew we were on the right route.  We saw directions to the lava tubes, and followed the roughish road the two miles to the lava.   Part way up, we stopped and walked up a short steep hill, where we saw a couple of sink holes in the lava flow. We walked back down the more gradual side of the hill, a loop of about 3/4 km.  Then we carried on to a point below a hill where the road looped back.  We saw a large hole on the east side of the road, so went to check it out.  It was about 200 ft long, with a small cave at each end.   Joan wandered over to the west side of the road, where she could see another series of holes.  John was able to go down into the hole nearest the road, and then walk through the tube all of the way to the big open channel to the south west, under three open vent holes you can see on the google satellite view below.  The walls of the big area were too steep to climb out, so he had to return back through the tube.
View down the lava tube (dark area with small vents in the middle)
Google view of the lava tubes with several vent holes on the left side, 
larger collapsed tube on the right side.
The scales are 100 feet.


We walked to the Tabernacle Crater area behind the hill, and decided that the road that went through there wasn't good enough to proceed on.  
Tabernacle Hill?
We did see a squirrel leaning on a rock, that never moved while we were in sight.

Squirrel
After eating lunch back near the tubes, we set the Garmin to take us to the town of Meadow, on the interstate south of Fillmore.  It showed that we could either return the 2 miles back on Lava Tubes Road, or a short distance through the crater area to a road on the south side, but didn't have any roads to get to either side including the Lave Tubes Road we had come in on.   John decided that since we were so much closer to the route on the south side, that we should carry on through the crater.  That didn't work out too well, as we couldn't see a better road once we got to the south side of the crater, even after doing a loop around a small hill on the south west corner.  Any tracks heading off looked even smaller, and rougher than the one we were on, so we wound up returning the way we had come in.   When we got back to the trailer, we checked out the area on Google satellite view.  It clearly shows that the road at the top, where we came in, is the best road.



By  the time we got back to the interstate, we decided that was enough excitement for one day, leaving other site-seeing for another day.

On Wednesday, we decided to head to the obsidian beds near Black Spring.  Google told us to go south to Kanosh, then 28 mi west on gravel roads across toward Black Rock. There were a variety of side roads which John thought could be confusing.   We checked whether the GPS would take us across that way, but it routed us north to Delta, then south on 257, even when we started it from Kanosh, so it wouldn't be any help in making sure we didn't wander off on some side road. We did know we could cut of some of the distance by taking the Clear Lake Road across to 257, because we had come back from Delta that way on Saturday.   So off we headed.  On the way south on 257, we drove past the Graymont Lime Plant, which is similar to the one in Exshaw. 
Graymont lime plant
A little further on, we saw a cow warning sign  with flashing lights.  Apparently it doesn't work, because just past it we saw two dead cows in the ditch.  

Our GPS guided us across on Twin Peaks Road to Black Spring (based on co-ordinates.  As we drove into the area, a herd of 11 antelope ran away from the spring. 
Antelopes at Black Spring

Pool at Black Spring

We walked up to the spring where we saw some small pieces of obsidian on the ground.   But we didn't see what was labelled as the obsidian rock-hounding area.  However, the guide map showed a spot labelled obsidian beds up a little road nearby.   We found the little side road, with sign to Clark Ranch.  We parked the truck at this corner, and walked up that road.  We came to a smaller side road that looked like it had more obsidian on it, so we walked about 1.5 km up this road until we came to an obsidian pit.  Along the way we found chunks of the mahogany, snowflake and black obsidian that the Millard guide described.  
Snowflake, mahogany and black obsidian

After having lunch back at the truck, we followed Twin Peaks road east toward Kanosh.  Eventually the GPS agreed it would guide us east to Kanosh rather than trying to return us to Highway 257.   Back in Fillmore, we decide to drive up Canyon Road to some hill country campgrounds.  Along the way, we saw a sign to a hierglyph site.   We drove down what we later decided was an ATV trail since two truck wouldn't be able to pass.  We parked at a little unofficial campsite on the creek, and walked the 3/4 mi up a 'most difficult' ATV trail to the hieroglyph site. There have been many theories about the origin of the hieroglyphs, from Aztec refugees, to Spanish explorers, American miners,  Mayan traders, Nephites (descendants of Morman prophet Nephi) fleeing from a battle, or a hoax.

Hieroglyphs (click on picture to enlarge)
Thursday, we headed south, planning to stop at a campground in Beaver Dam Arizona, just south of St. George.  We called them from a rest area, only to find they had no space.  So we made a reservation at Sun Resorts RV in Mesquite.  We stayed here a few years ago in the spring on our way back from Texas.   

Thursday, 3 November 2016

Week ending Nov 3, 2016 Magrath to Fillmore


Sunrise in Magrath

On Tuesday, we packed up and headed south to Coutts.  The border crossing went pretty quickly.  The drive through the Missouri Breaks between Great Falls and Helena is very beautiful.  We keep saying we should spend some time in this area whenever we drive through, but it is a bit cool in early November, and again when we return in early April.  We saw some deer, coyote, and Joan saw a herd of antelopes.   By 2 pm, we arrived at Lincoln Rd RV park in Helena.  We didn't bother unhooking the trailer, as we plan on heading further south.  We were planning on staying in Idaho Falls again, but the forecast is for -5C the next morning, so we will carry on about another hour south to Fort Hall Casino, near Pocatello.

Wednesday morning, we got up early, packed up,  and headed to Walmart to refill the fridge and freezer.    Between Whitehall and Dillon, we couldn't believe how many sheep there were in the fields.   We even saw a few cranes.  This is the first time we have headed south through Montana with the trailer, so we stopped at a bunch of historic markers that we haven't stopped at here because they were on the wrong side of the road when we were heading north pulling the trailer.  We didn't realize that 'history'  was about 'tertiary mammals' that existed in this area between the extinction of the dinosaurs and the beginning of the ice age.   Other signs described the Lewis and Clark trip up the Jefferson River, looking for the Shoshone tribe to buy horses to cross the Rockies.  They expected to meet them at Beaverhead Rock, but did find them further south.   There was also a beautiful bronze of a couple of cranes.

Beaverhead Rock


We stopped for diesel at Safeway in Dillon, and talked to the attendant, who figured about 90% of Canadian customers couldn't use their credit cards because of the zip code.  I said I would try it anyway, using the  first 3 digits of our postal code followed by 00.  It worked just fine. South of Dillon we saw many antelopes in several herds. We parked at Fort Hall Casino's RV park.  A few other RV's pulled in shortly after us, including at least 3 that were at Lincoln Rd in Helena last night.   This reminds us of our trip to Dawson City in the Yukon when we saw the same group of people at each park.  One of our neighbours told us that he was heading down to Las Vegas from Twin Falls through Ely.  We have heard other people recommend this route, but will have to leave it for another time, since we want to return to Fillmore this trip.

On Thursday, we got up fairly early again. It was a bit below freezing, so things were a bit stiff.  We got our thermometer station that monitors the temperature inside the utilities in the trailer so we could see if the wind chill from traveling was cooling off the trailer too much.  We managed to get over Malad Summit just north of Utah, without it getting too cold.    We stopped at Red Robin in Provo for a Bonzai and a blackened chicken burger, before carrying on to Fillmore.    We are staying here at Wagons West for a week to check out some things in the area that we read about when we stayed here in the spring.