Unusual Rving

We spotted this unusual RV on our way to visit friends who camphost at Palm Canyon.  The "bus" turned RV has a dragon mural on the side.   Of course what makes it the most unusual is the VW bus that has been welded on the roof.  They wanted an observation area so they added more "bus" to the top.  The other thing about this rig that made us laugh is they actually tow a VW bus behind this bigger bus.  They use their smaller "tow vehicle" as their driving around town vehicle. 

They were camping out on the Palm Canyon road where you can dry camp for free for up to a week or so.  It is beautiful out there and very quiet.  You get beautiful mountain views but the road is a little rough and there are no facilities.  The nearest town is at least 25 miles away.  You are out in the desert surrounded by saguaro cactus, creosote bushes and many other prickly or scratchy things.   

Our friends camphost and live out here on Palm Canyon road.  They help the other campers and hikers that come out by answering questions, etc.  They have a big water tank and a generator but have to move their whole rig to town to dump the sewer about every 10 days.  No thanks, we like having full hookups - water, sewer and electric and we enjoy as much quiet where we are as they do way out in the boonies on Palm Canyon road. 

Colorado River

The poor Colorado River is very low now.  They have been working on a dam on the California side of the river by the Imperial Dam and had to draw the water down to work on it.  This has made it pretty tough fishing and most of the boat ramps around are almost unuseable.  As they work on the dam they keep finding more wrong with it so its taking much longer than expected.  Its getting to be bass and sunfish spawning season which is when everyone loves to fish.  The pressure is on to get the work done on the dam so they can raise the river back up.

The sandbars in the river are popular for partying on during the summer.  Right now the water is in the 60's and the air temp is in the 70's -- not quite warm enough to play in the water.  This holiday weekend lots of people came to play on the water but didn't get to enjoy it as much as usual.  Its tough going for anything but the shallowest draw boats.  We miss not having our boat down here but as it turns out we wouldn't have gotten to use it much at all.    

Red Cloud Mine Road

When you drive through the refuge you are following Red Cloud Mine Road.  This is a county road but it does not get much maintenance.  It will not show up as a road on a map at least not past Red Cloud Mine but for some reason it will show up on some GPS units as a road that will take you all the way up to Interstate 10.  You can go up that way but you better have one heck of a jeep or better yet an ATV.  Many Jeeps do try to see how far they can go up the road and make it an all day adventure.  We have been up the road as far as the Red Cloud Mine and seen the various sites along the way.  There are caves the miners used to use as cabins.  There are many mine shafts where they dug for silver.  There is a cemetery and a sign where a town used to be back in the 1800's.

The more recent sights along the road include what is left of this white van.  The story is that a group of illegal aliens came up the river back in the 80's and somehow got from the river to a waiting van.  The van then took them up Red Cloud Mine Road where the border patrol gave chase to them.  Why they were on that road is hard to understand since they would not have made it far anyway in a van.  The unfortunate chase ended with the van sliding down a steep bank into a wash and rolling over a few times.  The passengers didn't survive.   The bullet holes in the van are from passing hunters who just like to shoot things up and not from the original chase.

Since the wall was built along the border by Yuma the "traffic" up the river has stopped.  The "traffic" is almost nonexistent now in this part of Arizona.  Its too bad the rest of the Arizona/Mexico border east of Yuma is not as secure.   Now its mostly drug traffickers coming across and these people are far more dangerous than the poor illegals just looking for a job. 

Castle Dome Mining Museum

We took my mom and stepdad to the Castle Dome Mining Museum when they came to Yuma to visit us.  The museum is on a small acreage of private land surrounded by the KOFA wildlife refuge and the military's Yuma Proving Grounds.  The owners of the museum have done a fabulous job of preserving the buildings in the area from the 1800's mining era.  Castle Dome mining district started in the 1860's and silver was mined in the area up until 1979. 

The museum is actually over 50 seperate buildings with authentic antiques inside and outside from the era.  There are so many different kinds of buildings its hard to remember them all.  Of course there were several bars, a brothel and a hotel.  There is a church, a jail, barbershop and several stores.  Many of the buildings we saw were just tin shacks because wood was scarce in the desert.   There is also a whole seperate section to explore where the mine shafts were.  There are many shafts and they are deep some were 450 feet deep.  The shafts were surrounded by barb wire to keep you from getting too close because the dirt around them could easily cave in with some even having steel grates over them.  The grates keep the large rocks form falling in and protect the bats that are probably using the shaft as a roost.

The people that work at the museum put on a little show dressing in period costumes and pretending to be some of the more noteworthy people that lived back in the 1800's.  They helped bring some of the history alive with their little show.  It took us a couple of hours to walk through the two areas because there is so much to see.  The road to get there was a little rough especially with our truck which has a very stiff ride when its not pulling a load.