Tag Archives: Can-Am

Alamo Lake State Park – continued (AZ)

2015/03/01 davidhobden@mac.com

We made it back to Scott and Julie Richardson’s house this evening (Sunday) after enjoying the day with them touring the area. I’ll post about that shortly.

But first, I have to bring you up to date on the rest of our time at Alamo Lake State Park. As I mentioned in my last post, the reason I got behind is because internet connectivity at the lake was almost non-existent. So, to continue on where I left off in my last post from this morning, here’s what we did…

21 Feb (Saturday):

We got invited to go ATVing with some other campers that we got into conversation with the day before. So we graciously accepted their invitation and met the group first thing in the morning. We carried our little dog “Coach” in his doggie backpack. And off we went…

There were seven ATV’s in the group altogether and our first destination for the day was going to be the “Mud Cliffs” that you can see on the right side of the hand drawn map (below) that we got from the ranger station. Our start point is labeled “Camp C” in the lower center of the map.

Stilla took some pics while riding on the back.

And here are the Mud Cliffs.

We rode through the sandy bottom of the gorge between the impressive cliffs.

The trail got smaller and smaller as the cliffs closed in on each side. Most of the group waited at the entrance to the cliffs because they had been there before and many of the side-by-side ATV’s were too wide to make it very far without getting stuck anyway.

We rode until the trail was blocked.

Then we parked and walked a little ways further up the canyon.

Stilla posed (at a safe distance) under an arch that looked like it could collapse at the first hint of rain.

After our “Mud Cliffs” adventure, we rejoined the rest of the group and headed further east. The destination was supposed to be a magnesium mine that some in the group had an agenda to see. However, during a short rest break, one of the side-by-side ATV’s wouldn’t restart. So we ended up spending the next hour or so troubleshooting the problem. We finally got it restarted but it was getting late so everyone decided to head on back instead of continuing on to the mine.

We got back in time to stop at the “Wayside Inn” before they closed for the day. This little bar and grill is in the middle of nowhere but they still manage to serve up great burgers and fries. They also have the only gas for sale within 35 miles.

Little “Coach” was happy to run around a bit after a long day of riding on the ATV. We had gone about 55 miles for the day and still had a few more miles to get back to the campground.

The “Wayside Inn” A small campground bar and grill – miles from nowhere.

One of the other riders in the group had a Can-AM ATV just like ours. His was a year newer than our 2007, but it was the same silver “limited-edition” series… the first one I’ve ever seen like ours. I took a couple pics and took note of how his mirrors are mounted because that’s something I’d like to add to ours in the near future.

We finished up our adult beverages (also available at the Wayside Inn) and motored on back to the campground to call it a day. And what a fun day it was!

22 Feb (Sunday):

We decided to spend the day (Sunday) on the lake to see if we could get some good use out of the $55 Arizona fishing license I purchased at the ranger station when we got here. So we broke out our Sea-Eagle inflatable raft that we keep in the back seat of the truck. It’s the SE-9 model called the “Fisherman’s Dream” with an electric trolling motor. We got ours from InflatableBoats4Less.com. The link to the SE-9 model we purchased is here.

We bought some live minnows at the ranger station / general store ($2.75 per dozen) and went to the boat ramp on the west-end of the lake to inflate the boat. After we got the boat into the water, we slowly motored our way to the other end of the lake while I trolled behind us with the minnows for bait. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the east-side of the lake, which is peppered with dead trees, the wind had picked up significantly. We were told that the “hot spot” for fishing was near the dead trees, however, an inflatable boat, no matter how sturdy, is no match for dead trees sticking up out of the lake… especially in high winds. So, we had to cut our day short and motor all the way back against the wind. We were worried the battery might not hold up, but luckily we were fine and didn’t have to flag down anyone for a tow.

Once we were safely back at the dock, we stored the trolling motor and battery, left the raft inflated and loaded it onto the back of the truck. We then released the remaining minnows on their own recognizance to fend for themselves in the dark waters of the lake.

Oh well, there’s always another day. You know what the say; “A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work” 🙂

We spent the rest of the day hanging around the Coach. I used the time to give the ATV a good washing. Then I cleaned and serviced the K&N air filter after removing an old animal nest I found under the plastic cowling in front of the seat. A fellow camper gave me some of the “recharge” oil I needed to properly service the filter.

I know you’re disappointed, but there’s only one picture for the day.

It rained off and on all night.

23 Feb (Monday):

It was still sprinkling in the morning and it was chilly… I don’t think we’ve had temps this cold since we left Colorado. Another ATV ride had been scheduled with the same group we hung out with before, but everything was cancelled due to the poor weather.

We took the inflatable boat off the back of the pickup and drained out all the water it had collected overnight.

Then we decided to take the pickup out to the Wayside Inn to get our 5 gallon fuel can refilled, but that ended up being a short trip because the dirt road that goes out to the Inn was too muddy… I didn’t want to spend another day just washing the truck. We turned around and went back to the campground.

So we ended up taking another trip up to the dam to look for burro’s. We’ve heard the burros almost every night but haven’t seen any yet… Stilla wants to see some burros. Unfortunately for Stilla, no burros were to be found anywhere… just several road signs that say; “Watch for Burros”.

The rest of the day, we spent hanging around the Coach. At least the rain washed some of the dust off the Coach, so I spent some time wiping it dry once it stopped drizzling. Then we closed out the rest of the day with a lot of television.

24 Feb (Tuesday):

It was another chilly morning, but at least it was dry. We got invited to join a different group this time to do another ATV trip. The destination today was a giant Saguaro cactus that someone in the group had discovered on an earlier trip. This time, we left little dog “Coach” in the big Coach since it was supposed to be a long ride.

There were seven or eight ATV’s in our group today.

It was a long way out, but we finally arrived at the giant cactus.

Stilla posed for this picture which gives the huge cactus some perspective.

Pretty impressive, eh?

We then headed towards a distant mountain range… the goal was to see if there was a way across and then back to the campground. That goal was not realized…

Along our route to the mountain range, we stopped to explore around some abandoned mines.

Everyone had brought their own lunch which we stopped to enjoy after checking out the abandoned mines.

We then headed on up the mountain. Check out the long winding road in the picture below.

Here we can see the top of the mountain with all the antennae on top.

Getting closer to the top.

View back towards the lake… way in the background.

We ended up having to turn around at a gate near the top. At least the views were awesome. It’s a shame we couldn’t make it all the way up, or even better, down the other side. The GPS said we had attained an altitude of ~5,200 feet above sea level.

We stopped at the Wayside Inn on the way back. We must have been on fumes after traveling over 70 miles for the day. The fuel gauge was showing empty for miles before we finally rolled in. They close at 4 PM on weekdays, so we were especially lucky to have made it back on time, just as they were closing. Another good day!

25 Feb (Wed):

Today (Wednesday) was another full day of ATVing. We met John the first day we got here and he was with the group from yesterday when we visited the giant cactus. He and his wife offered to take us to the north side of the lake to “Red Canyon”. We took little “Coach” along with us today.

We crossed to the north side of the lake by going through the marsh-like river bed on the east side.

It was dry where we crossed the river, the water was running underground. John said they had to ford through at least six inches to a foot of water when he crossed last week.

After an hour or so we finally reached the “Red Canyon”. Here’s some pics for your viewing pleasure…

We even explored a couple side canyons, but most just dead-ended like this one.

This is truly a “must-see” canyon… and super fun to ride through. We’re going to have to come back here sometime in the future to explore of the area, we only scratched the surface from what we’ve been told. We ended up going about 50 miles for the day.

26 Feb (Thursday):

It was time to give the fishing another try. Today, the water was calm with very little wind. We stopped at the ranger station / general store to get some more minnows on the way to the boat launch. We met a guy that was checking out of the campground and he offered to give us his remaining minnows. I thanked him and we hit the lake.

Stilla thought it would be funny to take a picture of my catch. Really, it’s the bait minnow ready to go into service and do his duty.

This time, we stayed on the west side of the lake and didn’t worry about trying to go around the dead underwater trees on the east side. We didn’t want to get caught too far away from the boat launch if the wind picked up again… plus, we didn’t want to fight for space with the other fishermen in their boats.

After an hour or so, I hooked a fairly large fish, but it got off the hook just as Stilla was putting the net in the water. Bummer.

But it wasn’t too long before I landed another one.

It was a male crappie according to a fellow fisherman and our ever-helpful friend; Wikipedia.com.

It was a slow fishing day according to other fishermen that I talked to later. But at least I didn’t get skunked this time 🙂

We cleaned the fish back at our campground at the fish cleaning station with the help of yet another friendly fellow camper that was an experienced fisherman. We got some pretty nice filets for the freezer.

Here’s a final parting shot of the lake, since this is our last day here.

Tomorrow, we plan on moving on, as our weeklong reservation concludes.

And Stilla finally got a picture of some of the local burros. So she’s happy too.

Goodbye and good evening from Alamo Lake State Park. We’ll be back!

27 Feb (Friday):

We left the state park after driving the Coach over to the dump station and taking care of business there. Tire pressures are all still holding… no more slow leaks, at least for now.

Once we drove the 35 miles or so to get back to highway 60, we expected our AT&T service to be back on. But, alas, it was not to be… it seems we used all our “off-network” allowance and can only connect once we get an actual AT&T 3G signal. At least we can still make phone calls, but I guess we’ll have to wait until the end of our billing cycle to get the “off-network” ability reset in order to use WiFi or google maps, etc.,

We decided to head east on 60, and since we were this close to Prescott Valley where my good friend and former coworker (Julie Richardson) now lives, I gave her a call to see if we could stop by.

After ~150 miles, and the help of google maps, we made it to Scott and Julie Richardson’s beautiful retirement home. And guess what – there’s a strong AT&T 3G signal here!

I’ll post more about our visit here at the “Richardson Ranch” later. Stay tuned…

Arizona

Alamo Lake State Park (AZ)

2015/02/28 davidhobden@mac.com

Sorry readers… haven’t been able to post since we got to Alamo Lake State Park last Thursday due to limited connectivity. Our Verizon MiFi Jetpack had zero signal and our iPhones on the AT&T network only had one bar and we were “off network”. We were lucky to even be able to make phone calls.

We are now in Prescott Valley at the home of Scott and Julie Richardson. Julie is a friend and former co-worker from my days at the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). We were both in the MDA Contracting Directorate together at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. Julie retired at about the same time that I resigned from my position back in May of 2014 and moved here to their lovely retirement home in Prescott Valley, AZ. We drove straight here from the lake (about 150 miles) when we learned that they were home and also willing to put up with us for a day or so.

Scott & Julie Richardson at their “retirement ranch” in Prescott Valley, AZ.

Plus – They have great internet connectivity 🙂

But first, let me bring you up to date with our adventure(s) since I last posted. It’s been a fun week with lots of off-roading on the ATV and even some fishing in the Sea-Eagle inflatable…

19 Feb (Thursday):

We got ready to leave Havasu Springs Resort and I noticed one of the tires was low on the Silverado. It was only at 20 psi, it should have been at 35 psi. The truck has a built-in sensor in each tire that alerts the driver on the instrument panel when it’s started or while driving. At the same time, one of the rear tires on the Coach was reading about 85 psi and it should be at 95 psi. I have a tire pressure monitoring system from Pressure Pro that I bought shortly after we got the Coach. It has sensors that replace the valve caps on each tire. Each of these valve caps have a non-replaceable battery in them that send a wireless signal to my display that I plug into a cigarette-type power outlet each time we get ready to roll. This particular tire, a rear inner dual, has been slowly leaking down (2-3 psi each month) since I last filled it in Colorado Springs back in January. I’ve had this problem before on the opposite side inner-rear tire. It seems that Redlands Truck & RV didn’t properly tighten the stainless steel valve stem extenders that I had them install a couple years ago while we were in Quartzsite having new shocks put on. The only way to tighten the valve stem is to remove the tire.

So, I used a can of Fix-a-Flat that I keep on hand, for the Silverado tire and then topped it off with my air hose connected to the Coach’s on-board air compressor. With that done, we hooked up and headed into Parker AZ, only a few miles away, to find a tire repair shop for both vehicles.

After a quick stop at an RV Supply store to ask for recommendations and directions, we were directed to a small garage/service shop in downtown Parker. The tire technician couldn’t find a leak on the Silverado… guess the can of Fix-a-Flat did it’s job. They even pulled off both rear tires and leak-checked them. Although, this was due to miscommunication between their techs. Oh well – Total cost was only $13.

While a tire technician was working on the Silverado, another one made good time removing the rear tires on the Coach. He was amazed that I was able to use the HWH leveling jacks to raise the right rear of the coach when it was obvious his hydraulic floor jack wasn’t up to the task. Once the inner tire was off, we quickly confirmed that the valve stem was leaking by using a soapy water solution in a spray bottle. The leak was evident where the valve stem goes through the rim, and was made worse by wiggling the stem. A quick tighten was all that it needed. Total cost $14.

With our tire situation resolved, we stopped at the local WalMart to stock up on groceries for our week at Alamo Lake State Park. We were told about this state park by our new friend and fellow Alpine Coach driver, Nick Escamilla. We met Nick at the Fireworks Rally that we had just attended (link here). Nick and his wife Romana did an awesome job hosting the rally. They told us they had spent a week at the park prior to going to the Fireworks Rally and said it was a “must-see” for anyone that likes ATV’ing and fishing. But they warned us to take everything we might need in with us, because it’s about 35 miles from the nearest gas station or grocery store.

I made online reservations for the park and was able to find what looked like a good spot in the C loop for the 20th through the 27th. The park has different rates for different areas, depending on whether you want full hook-ups, just electric and water, or are willing to dry-camp. We followed Nick’s advice and reserved a spot in the C loop. Our cost was $22 per night for 30 amp electric and water hook-up.

So, we headed south out of Parker and turned east on 60. We figured we would find an overnight spot somewhere on our way there since it was still the19th and our reserved site wasn’t available until the 20th. However, after passing several opportunities that just didn’t have that “it” factor we quickly found ourselves at the turn-off to Alamo Lake at the town of Wendon. So we decided to just head on up north towards the lake.

After traveling the 35 miles or so up to the lake, we still hadn’t seen any spots to spend the night at, so we ended up at the ranger station and asked the nice ranger guy if a spot was available for the night. Our reservation wasn’t until tomorrow and the spot was currently occupied by someone else, but the site across from them was open.

The park ranger directed us into the site across from our reserved spot and told us that when the current occupants leave our reserved spot in the morning, to just move on over and then come back to the ranger station to settle up the extra night’s cost.

20 Feb (Friday)

On Friday morning, the occupants in the site across from us left early in the morning, so we moved on over, put up the flagpole, set out the tablecloth, and put up Stilla’s chili pepper/cactus awning lights since we were going to stay put for a while… Nice spot with nice views! We even have a few Saguaro cacti in the back yard.

Then we went back to the ranger station / general store to pay for the additional night and got I also broke down and got an Arizona fishing license for $55. The general store portion of the ranger station had plenty of basic commodities, like milk, cereal, drinks and ice cream. But I was certainly glad we had already stocked up on food after seeing the prices.

Here’s a layout of the parks campsite loops. We are now in site C34.

And here’s a bonus… it’s a hand-drawn map of the area ATV trails and significant destinations, courtesy of the nice ranger guy.

We took the pickup and toured around all the campgrounds and quickly decided we liked our choice of spots. We even drove over to check out the dam.

Here’s Stilla and little Coach with Alamo Lake in the background. You can tell the water level is low.

After we got back from touring the campground loops and the dam, we downloaded the ATV and rode down to the lake.

We found out that there is a dirt road that bypasses the state park campground and leads to many boondocking spots. Oh well, maybe next time… it’s nice to have electricity sometimes.

Back at our campsite, we relaxed for the evening. Nice view eh?

And Stilla made us some Nacho plates for our own personal “Happy Hour”.

Well, gotta go now… Scott and Julie are going to show us around the Prescott Valley area… maybe Sedona…

Will finish updating you later… stay tuned.

Arizona

Winter Blast – Day 3 (Lake Havasu City, AZ)

2015/02/16 davidhobden@mac.com

Sunday morning found the Alpine SoCal family enjoying another continental breakfast courtesy of our fine rally hosts. Another warm and sunny day was on tap.

After our continental breakfast, coffee, and chit-chat… folks started heading off to begin their individual planned activities for the day.

As we headed back to our coach, we met a couple of our fellow Alpiners returning from their morning hike. Jack had returned to “The Crack” to conquer the route he had attempted the day before. I reported in my last post that Jack turned around yesterday when confronted with the dry waterfall “cliff” that I wrote about. This time, he reported that they had conquered the canyon and had basically taken the same return route that we did.

This park has some very neat trails, hopefully we can get the opportunity in the future to check out some of the others.

However, we had already decided to spend the day checking out the ATV trails on the east side of US 95 that we’d heard so much about. There was reportedly a massive network of riding trails waiting to be explored.

David Guhse took a photo of us – all geared up and ready to go…

We put little “Coach” in his doggie back pack and after a short drive through the residential area across from the SARA (Special Activities and Recreation Area) Park where we are staying, we soon hit the network of trails and were on our way.

Luckily, we had taken our hand-held Garmin GPS so we can find our way back by following our “bread-crumbs”. Otherwise, with the many forks and criss-crossing trails, we might still be trying to find our way back 🙂

Lots of beautiful desert scenery:

After stopping at a particularly difficult section – deep in one of the many valleys. We decided to stop to eat the lunch (sandwiches) that Stilla had packed for us.

We were soon joined by another couple that were out exploring on their Can-Am ATVs. They are also staying at the SARA Park to enjoy the fireworks. Since we also have a Can-Am ATV, we already had something in common. We chatted with them while we had lunch and they shared the location of a mine that they had just found.

They were also carrying along their own little dog, so Coach had someone to talk with as well, while we ate lunch.

After our lunch break, we followed the directions our new acquaintance(s) had given us and soon found the abandoned mine.

It turns out there were at least three separate mines in the immediate vicinity. We walked a little ways from the ATV to check them all out.

Here’s a few pics of some holes in the ground… in case you didn’t know what those look like 🙂

I dropped a rock into this one and never even heard it hit bottom.

More holes:

We used the GPS to keep us on somewhat on track but took an alternate route to get back near our starting point.

What a cool area… so much to explore… definitely have to come back here.

We made it back without incident with plenty of time to spare before our scheduled chicken dinner, also courtesy of our rally hosts.

Here’s some fellow Alpiners enjoying their chicken dinners.

Looks good, doesn’t it? Tasted good too!

After dinner, we had our general membership meeting to discuss old and new business. We successfully dodged (I think) being nominated to host any future rallies. Unfortunately, we just don’t know what our long-term plans are until we can get the house sold, and can’t afford to make any commitments just yet.

Alpine SoCal general membership meeting/session.

Our rally hosts (Nick & Ramona Escamilla) and co-hosts (David & Nicole Guhse) now officially get an A+ rating for their outstanding performance… after the meeting they broke out “make-your-own sundaes” with all the fix in’s.

Everyone crowded in for the dessert. No one was to be denied.

What a treat! I topped mine with the Snickers crumbles as well as the Butterfinger’s chips… yumm.

And what better way to enjoy our dessert than with some more fireworks!

Yes, it’s official… you can get tired of fireworks. After 4 nights – they were still spectacular but were wearing on us just a little. Even little Coach hardly noticed them at all tonight.

It’s been a great rally! A big thank you to our host(s), co-host(s), and all the great Alpine Coach Association members! Tomorrow morning everyone will be going their separate ways… see you down the road 🙂

Stay tuned to see where we end up next… even we don’t know.

California

ATVing & Los Algodones, Baja Mexico (Winterhaven, CA)

2015/02/04 davidhobden@mac.com

On Tuesday morning, we jumped on the ATV to check out some of the trails behind our campsite. Stilla carried our dog, Coach along for the ride.

We ran into a lot of “dead end” trails:

At one point, we rode down through the “wash” below our camp site. You can see our Coach on the hilltop.

The Urban Escape Vehicle is 2nd from the left.

We found a lot of hidden campsites… some occupied, some not.

We even found a Pet Cemetery. We stopped to look around and pay our respects. It was rather unexpected to find this as we were riding along one of the more improved roads. Some folks put a lot of work into their pets’ final resting place.

There were even a couple gravesites marked “Unknown” that some caring folks took the time and effort to do. I thought that was nice.

One of the trails we followed ended abruptly at a cliff-edge overlooking the canal.

After backtracking a ways… we got on a trail that went as far as the border which you can see in the pictures below. The parking lot is the one we paid our $6 to park in when we visited Los Algodones last Saturday.

We had worked up an appetite, so we decided to spend the afternoon on another trip into Los Algodones, Mexico for a late lunch. We left little Coach in the big Coach with some windows and vents open for cool air circulation, and took the Silverado to the $6 dollar parking lot, which is just a couple minutes down the road from our campsite.

It wasn’t long before we were sitting in the shade at one of the restaurants in Los Algodones, Mexico.

I took pictures of the menu in case any of you “blog-readers” want to place an order for delivery… might take a while tho 🙂

I ordered a Pacifico beer with my meal expecting to get a normal size one… this guy was huge, but it was OK, Stilla helped me finish it.

Stilla ordered one of the combo plates – burrito, enchilada, and tostada.

Stilla also ordered the tortilla soup that we shared.

I had the fish tacos, they were delicious. I’m becoming a fan of these.

After, lunch we ran the gauntlet of vendors again… I couldn’t count the number of times we heard; “look here – almost free”.

I was thinking of Cheryl and my brother Steve when I saw this horse sculpture:

I was thinking of myself when I took a picture of these neat stained glass items:

When we had enough of the vendors and peddler’s, we headed back to the border crossing, which to our surprise and amazement, had a line that stretched for blocks… it wasn’t at all like this last Saturday! We walked right out as quickly as we walked in the last time we were here. We overheard some folks say that they hadn’t seen it this busy since 2008… it was like some sort of weird star alignment and everyone decided to come visit at once on this Tuesday.

Here’s a picture of the front of the line. The border crossing building is at the end of this covered walkway and to the right where there is still more covered walkway up to the checkpoint.

Here’s a picture of the middle of the line. You can see more vendors and peddlers trying to get everyone’s last dollar up to the last minute.

And here’s a picture of the end of the line… way back in the distance is the end of the line. As you can probably tell from these pictures… Stilla and I sat at the outside bar section of one of the restaurants, took pictures, and waited until the line became more reasonable. We sat there for almost two hours while we nursed a margarita. Sometimes, you just have to do, what you got to do 🙂

It was almost dusk again by the time we got back to little Coach. He was just fine again. What a good guard dog. Sadly, we missed “Happy Hour” with our neighbors today since it took so long to get back out of Mexico.

And that’s all for now… it’s late morning on Wednesday as I finish up this journal entry. We’ll probably hang around the Coach today and maybe go check out the casino at some point later this evening.

Stay tuned…

Arizona

More Desert Fun – Vendors and ATVs (Quartzsite, AZ)

2015/01/30 davidhobden@mac.com

As mentioned in my last post, my brother Steve and his longtime girlfriend Cheryl as well as my Mom and Stepdad Jim arrived Friday evening from Casa Grande to camp out with us for the weekend.

On Saturday, we drove into Quartzsite to check out all the vendors. This was their first time here. We literally spent all day walking through the “big tent” and adjoining vendor areas. I didn’t take many pics – so, if a couple of the following look familiar, it’s because I reutilized the same ones from the last time we were here. Trust me – it didn’t change much… just as crowded as ever 🙂

Quartzsite vendor area near the “big tent”

Vendor area near the “big tent” in Quartzsite. Notice the Beer Belly Adult Day Care bar area 🙂

We found a vendor that sold the same dog pack that Stilla and I purchased when we were in Oregon. It’s really handy for those times when it’s crowded and you can’t use a leash. So my brother and mom each purchased one of the packs called; “Outward Hound“. Too bad we didn’t see the cheaper price on Amazon.com. Oh well, someone has to support those local vendors or else we wouldn’t have any shows to go to, right?

I also found a decent deal on an ATV flag which I am carrying in the picture above. I guess I felt that I was missing something because the last time we rode with a group, because everyone had one of these flags except me. I understand it is a requirement if we go to the sand dunes near here.

After we completed our Saturday shopping day, on Sunday we took the ATVs into the hills just East of our campsite. Cheryl didn’t feel up to it so she stayed at the campsite and watched the dogs.

We primarily stuck to the major trails and found a few abandoned mine shafts that we briefly explored.

After a while we came across one of the many dry river beds, aka “washes” and followed it until we lost any evidence of a trail. We ended up using the GPS to “bushwhack” cross country to get back to a road. Good times… loads of fun!

Brother Steve only knows one speed – Fast!

Here we are taking a snack and refreshment break.

And all good things have to come to an end 🙁

Here they are packed up again and ready to roll back to Casa Grande on Monday.

It was great that they were able to come out here for the weekend. This was the first time in ages that they got out on the ATVs. They just get too busy at the “dirt farm”. I wish they could have stayed longer. We’re not sure when we’ll get back to Casa Grande. We signed up for the Fireworks show in Lake Havasu starting February 11th. So we plan on just killing time in the Yuma area until then… maybe we’ll head back to Casa Grande after the fireworks.

For my next post, we headed on down to Yuma because; 1) we’ve never been, and 2) we got 3 free nights at the Fortuna de Oro RV Resort. A few of our fellow Alpiner’s are already down there taking advantage of that, so stay tuned…

Arizona

Eating Some Dust, ATVing (Quartzsite, AZ)

2015/01/30 davidhobden@mac.com 3 Comments

On Thursday we got a call from fellow Alpine Coach Association member (Tom Polk). He had left the Rally Site the previous day to join some other friends at a RV Resort in the town of Quartzsite. He invited us to go on an ATV ride with himself and some other friends that were at the resort. So, on Friday, we got an early start around 8:30, and rode the ATV into town to meet the group.

For those of you that haven’t spent any time in the desert before, trust me – It can get really cold at night and in the early morning! We rode the ATV about 10 miles to the designated start point, and it felt like our fingers had frozen, even with our gloves on! Of course, we were doing about 45 mph or faster at times in order to get there on time.

Once we were in town, I noticed that one of my front tires was really low on air. I could feel it wallowing around when we took corners on the asphalt streets. It wasn’t so noticeable when we were still on the dirt and rock trails. Luckily, one of the riding group members had an air compressor in his casita/garage. The mini-compressor that I have been carrying around in the back of the ATV all these years didn’t work when I plugged it into the cigarette lighter-type outlet on the dash of the Can-Am ATV. 🙂 Good thing I found out it didn’t work while we were still in civilization – instead of when we were out in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, we hit the trails with the group without further delay. Stilla was able to take some pics while we were riding throughout the day:

This portion of our trail was like a super-highway… not entirely typical of the trails that we rode that day.

We had four ATVs in our group for the day.

We had to keep a little distance between vehicles to keep from eating too much dust.

Here we are traveling through a scenic wash. We did that several times throughout the day. Good thing it wasn’t raining, eh?

We even did a little boulder hopping.

Here are our ATV’s in a circle, during one of our breaks throughout the day.

The town of Quartzsite is in the background behind that hill in the middle.

Everyone had a side-by-side ATV except for us. It seems that most folks are trending towards these type of off road vehicles (OHVs) nowadays. I still like to have the ability to “jump off” the ATV when you get into big trouble… you can’t do that with a side-by-side. Those side-by-sides are sure cool though… almost makes you wonder why anyone would buy a Jeep anymore. I said “almost”.

One of our “breaks” during the day was at a lonesome “cabin” in the middle of nowhere. It even had a name – I believe I was told it’s called “Moe’s Cabin”. We took time to eat the lunch we had packed with us. There was even a picnic table and a couple lounge chairs outside the cabin. Fellow Alpine Coach driver “Steve” is on the left and “Tom Polk” is on the right.

Undergarments hanging on the porch at “Moe’s Cabin”

This cabin had all sort of bric-a-brac and memorabilia inside. It seems that folks leave odd items all the time. Someone said that there used to be a couple mannequins there, but they probably got swiped. I added one of our non-business “business cards” to the collection on one of the walls.

Strange and unique items left inside “Moe’s Cabin”

The cabin even had a satellite dish 🙂

We ate a lot of dust but had a lot of fun… what a fun day! Thanks for inviting us along Tom Polk!

We made it back to the starting point in town by 3 PM. It was about a 45 mile trail ride, but when we add the distance traveled to and from our campsite out in the desert North of town – we had put on 65 miles for the day!

After we said our goodbyes to the group, we headed back out to our campsite in the desert. We made it back by 4 PM and let our little dog “Coach” out of the Coach. Boy was he happy to see us! He did just fine during the day.

By 4:30 or 5 PM, we heard from my brother Steve, his long-time girlfriend Cheryl, along with my Mom and Stepdad, Jim… they were enroute to join us for the weekend! They had left Casa Grande earlier in the afternoon with their pickup camper towing a trailer full of ATV’s. They found us without much trouble and we had a happy reunion.

We all piled into my pickup after I emptied the back seat and drove to the Grubstake Restaurant in Quartzsite for dinner. Almost a big mistake… it was great food, especially the fish dinner. But it was so crowded that we had to sit outside in the chilly evening air and we waited about 2 hours to get our meals! We didn’t even get the meals at the same time, they brought them out piece-meal. Oh well, it was still great to have them join us here in the desert 🙂

We made plans to visit the “big vendor tent” in the morning (Saturday) and decided to save an ATV ride for Sunday… but I’ll put that in my next post. Stay tuned for more desert fun…

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Tag Archives: Can-Am

Alamo Lake State Park – continued (AZ)

Alamo Lake State Park (AZ)

Winter Blast – Day 3 (Lake Havasu City, AZ)

ATVing & Los Algodones, Baja Mexico (Winterhaven, CA)

More Desert Fun – Vendors and ATVs (Quartzsite, AZ)

Eating Some Dust, ATVing (Quartzsite, AZ)

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