KOFA Wildlife Refuge

Our neighbor wanted to go for a ride with the 4 wheelers so we took him out to the Kofa wildlife refuge.  We entered it on the King road which is up highway 95 toward Quartzsite just north of the border patrol check point.  Kofa stands for King of Arizona which is the name of the gold mine that produced lots of gold back in the day.  There are still a few active mines in the refuge on some private land within the refuge.  People always get confused when they see no trespassing signs in the middle of some government land but there are private holdings in the middle of public lands.  If you have ever been to Glacier National Park you will see some privately owned houses inside the park. 

The refuge has some beautiful scenery and lots of wildlife.  There are desert bighorn sheep, mountain lions, pronghorn antelope, wild burros, wild horses, desert fox and coyotes not to mention all the smaller critters.   We didn't see any but we were out in the middle of the day when you typically don't see much.  The road was fairly good which isn't the case with most of the roads in the refuge.  People can camp out here as long as you don't go more than 100 feet off of the road.  The weather was perfect with sun and no wind.  We went about 35 or 40 miles and our neighbor really enjoyed his first time out there.

Barry Goldwater Range -east of Yuma

Gold prospecting is on hold because it rained so we have been doing more 4 wheeling.  We went over to the Barry Goldwater military range east of Yuma and south of Wellton.  Its about 30 miles from where we are staying for the winter.  We had never explored this area of the Barry Goldwater before so we thought we would check it out.  It had rained a day or two before we went.  We thought it wouldn't be such a dusty ride if we went after the rain.  It was a good day for a ride and the road we took wasn't muddy.  We got quite a ways south but then the road turned into a very sandy wash.  The sand made us sink about a foot and while we could have continued it wasn't any fun slogging through the sand. 

The area is surrounded by very pretty mountains although my picture doesn't do the colors justice.  We also came across three tanks sitting out in the middle of nowhere.  Not sure if they were still in service since they had a bit of rust on them.  I can't believe the military would just leave them out in the desert to "die".  We tried a different road but it eventually got very narrow and muddy so we gave it up but it was still a good day riding.

Spook Canyon

We took a ride out into the Barry Goldwater Range.  It's a military range south of Yuma that allows some public access.  You need to go online and get your free range permit.  When you are ready to go out on the range you go online and check in so they know you will be out there.  The ranger we talked to said that was kind of a joke.  He said that when your relatives or friends start wondering what happened to you they go back and look at the records for the day you entered the range so it gives them a starting point.  There are rangers and border patrol that are out and about on the range so you might get help if you break down.  There are also emergency beacons scattered around the range but if you hit the button you better be in trouble. 

We took the road out to Spook Canyon.  There are two spook canyons in the Yuma area.  One on the range and one in the Dome Mountains.  We have been to both.  They get their name from the funny lights that can be seen when there is no moon which makes it "spooky".  Something in the rocks or soil of the area must give off some kind of gas that glows a little bit.   No one has an exact reason for the "lights."

Birds of a Feather

When we were in Southeastern Arizona on our way to Yuma for the winter we saw these birds near the campground.  The top picture shows Scaled Quail.  They have a funny little "cotton top" on their head and they are more of a blue color than the Gambel's quail we usually see.  It was the first time we have seen this kind of quail although their territory is Colorado, western Kansas, Oklahoma and Arizona.

The bottom picture has a scaled quail and to it's left is a Curved Bill Thrasher.  This is another bird that likes deserty places.  It needs the big curved bill to peck at the very hard parched earth. 

Now that we are back in Yuma we have a couple of Cactus wrens hanging around and they love to eat the bugs that have died on parts of the truck.  They love to get the "grilled" ones off of the radiator. 

Yuma is starting to fill up for the winter.  You can tell by how much the traffic is building.  It gets busy but you just can't beat the weather.  It's in the 80's during the day and 50's at night.

Chloride, New Mexico

When we were in New Mexico we took a trip to a "ghost town".  Chloride is an old mining town that now has about twelve people still living there.  There is a very interesting museum with a small RV park behind it.  The Chloride Bank is now a cafe.   We ate there and the food wasn't bad.  The cook was trying to upgrade the menu.  They can't get deliveries there so he has to drive the forty or so miles to town to get supplies.  They may run out of certain ingredients before the next run.  The waitress told us about a privately owned field a block down where for two dollars you can park and off load your four wheeler.  There is a Forest  Service road/trail that starts at the end of the road in Chloride and goes up into the mountains.  If you take it you will cross a stream over 150 times which may or may not have water in it. 

The other picture is of the "hanging tree or Chloride forest".  Not sure if they really used it for hanging and it is the biggest tree around so it gets the "forest" tag as a joke.  It's a little bit of a drive to Chloride with at least one hairpin tight curve to get up and over so not sure I would want to take the RV but lots of hunters do make it. 

Chasing a Quartz outcropping

We are in Quartzsite, Arizona doing some gold prospecting.  The area surrounding the town is all public land and full of old mines and diggings.   There are pretty white quartz mounds all over the place and pieces of quartz litter the ground everywhere you look.  Here I took a picture of the quartz the old timers were chiseling at and the hole they dug where the fence is.   Gold likes to hang out with quartz so it was tempting to dig where you find these outcroppings.  Mostly we would see lots of digging and smashed pieces of quartz but probably no gold was found or there would have been major digging. 

We found a little gold this time.  Not enough to take a picture but at least we didn't get skunked.  The dirt finally dried out enough so we could use our drywasher but now its time to leave and move on to Yuma.  We are hoping the ground there is dry enough so we can get digging. 

Apache Pass

We took the 4 wheeler up to Apache Pass when we were staying in Elephant Butte, New Mexico.  Apache Pass is in the Caballo Mountains and south of Elephant Butte.  We got high enough to see Elephant Butte Reservoir in the distance.  Seeing some pretty blue water in the middle of the desert is a treat.  We did not go over the pass we just got close to the top and then chickened out of going any further.  The road turned into a goat trail and we were out by ourselves so if we got in trouble it would be a very long walk through the hot desert. 

We left Elephant Butte and headed to Willcox, AZ.  Its a small town just over the border from New Mexico off of I-10.  The town was getting ready to celebrate Rex Allen days -- an old tv cowboy that lived in the area.  We then stayed a few days in Gila Bend which is half way between Tuscon and Yuma.  We visited friends who live in Sun City West one of the Del Web developments.  The area has the oldest population in the country.  The average age is like 78 years old.  The houses in this area sell like hotcakes and sell before they even hit the market.  We have to say it was a very nice neighborhood with nice manicured lawns and very quiet. 

We are now in Quartzsite which was still in the mid to high nineties when we arrived.  It is now in the high eighties but it cools off at night to the fifties.   Very nice!