From Craggy Wash Dec 12th 2009

Dec 12th 2009
From Hastings Bookshop parking lot
Lake Havasu City AZ

Hello Group:
Have included a few of my travelling notes in this e-mail, so the usual smooth prose may be a bit jerky

Weatherby Rest Stop (N44 29.687 W117 21.956)
December 1st arrived and, on schedule –I was away from the cabin by 7.45, driving until almost 10 pm, reaching the Weatherby Rest Stop along I – 84 between Baker City and Ontario (city of course, not the province). Several fancy buses were already in residence to give me protection and block any semis from parking next door with their 24 hour motors running. Since I hadn’t been very tired, I just kept trucking for approx 14 hours. Also, clear weather meant no snow on Blue Mountain Summit, so it seemed a good idea to make hay (while the haying was good… ?). Back at Omak, just across the US border, I had dropped by the Walmart to replaced limes and lemons that I had discarded at home and green onions taken by the US border guards (who knows what gets into their minds at the border?). All meat OK this time, and BC potatoes, but the green onions (which the friendly agricultural lady and her assistant noted must have been at least 3 weeks old) were the only rejects.
I
Dec 2nd Alamo Sinclair Fuel Station (N37 21.870 W115 09.851)

12 hours to Alamo from the Weatherby Rest Stop (now having compacted three normal days of driving into two). Still a bit cool at 31° but quite bearable. I bypassed the casino at Jackpot since it was still only late morning at the time of passing, then camped at the Chevron Service Station in Alamo because they told me that Upper Lake Pahranagat campground was closed for renovations. I had had a successful computer check the night before at Weatherby – no wi-fi, so wasted $3 on a megabyte of data connection using “the stick”. Once again, clear skies and bare roads all the way. Having made it south of the snow zone, I tried to raise my rear truck-tire air pressure from 60 lbs to 70 lbs of pressure but the $.50 air pump at Hollister timed out and couldn’t give me the full charge. Let that be a lesson – never pay for something that you normally get for free!

Next morning, after the two hour drive down 93, I managed to miss the early morning rush hour in Vegas – far more hazardous than any snow and ice would have been in the Blue Mountains, and arrived at the Avi Casino, across from Bullhead City on Aztec Road. The Avi has extensive facilities including 6 food outlets, 8 movie theatres and the usual gambling slots and tables. In addition, there is an RV Park, golf course and free RV lot. The free lot is a dirt surface which could blow up dust if windy.

To camp in the free area, one has to check in with Security in the casino, get an “Advantage” Card that, as far as I could tell, simply kept track of how much gambling one did. In theory, one is required to spend at least an hour at the gaming tables or accumulate a certain number of points on the slot machines in order to justify one’s stay in the free area. To spend my qualifying hour playing Blackjack would have been first choice but minimum bets were $3 on most tables, so I could see an expensive hour ahead. Slot machines make a lot of noise and the general indoor atmosphere was very smoky (most casino goers seem to puff) so, in the end, I played no games, slept well enough despite the enormous weight of guilt hanging around my neck, enjoyed some reasonable food and departed for Havasu in the morning. Someone next door kept a generator running until 11 pm and started up again early in the morning – this against the Avi rules which request all generators to shut down between 10.00 pm and 8 am.

Upper Craggy Wash Camp (N34 35.715 W114 20.097 – El 1143’)
North of the Havasu airport, the bottom mile of Craggy Wash is now closed for camping. “Environmentalists” are blamed for this, according one semi-homeless looking guy that I encountered, but the reality is that local authorities probably just wanted to get the messy tents and homeless persons’ camps removed from public view. As a result of these changes, the area in which I normally camp was jam-packed with RVs – not very attractive. My first reaction was to keep on trucking to Bouse where there is plenty of open space and few vagrants, other than people like me, but I carried on for a considerable distance up Craggy to a spot that I remembered from previous bike rides. This is my present camp and is well (at least a mile or more) beyond the last vestige of civilization lower down the trail and 4.15 kms (2.58 miles) from the highway. The location is quite a scenic spot looking down to Lake Havasu miles away and on a slight slope down to the south. In order to level the trailer and keep the starboard steps low to the ground, I dug a trench for the portside wheels (lowering that side) as well as placing a board under the other side to raise it. After setting up the trailer, I discovered a tent-camper, hiding out in a little arroyo not too far away. My man has been in and out a few times with his old beater of a truck. Usually, he went out empty and returned piled high with wooden pallets to burn at the campfire. Where he got these pallets would be of interest to me but I didn’t really want to have a new “friend”, so left him alone.


Dec 6th was pleasant and reasonably sunny, so I went to visit Hugh and Christine Richards, who were staying at Windsor Beach State Park (have now moved to Quartzsite for three days after which we rendezvous on Plomosa Road (Cattle gate junction). With them were friends, Dave and Gail, as well as Gillian and Ian (met them all last year). Windsor Beach is a campground not far from downtown Havasu (where the upper classes camp). They had a very nice spot, right on the lake, their dogs love the water and it only costs $10 per day if one stays a full week (dry camping). With their new solar panels proudly tilted, the Richards are no longer outcasts (pariahs of the desert), though I would wager that, during recent stormy weather, they were “generating” as well. One can walk quite easily from one of the parking lots to the Sunday flea market and the drive into central Havasu is only a km. I restrained myself in the flea market, buying nothing more than a replacement hasp for a broken closet door. Lunch, always an item when out with others, was had at the Cha Bones Pub, next door to the market (would recommend). Lake Havasu has a new Super Walmart by the airport (not too far from Craggy), so food supplies are now very accessible. After my visit with H & C, I got a good wi-fi signal in the street outside the Travelodge motel, so caught up on the few e-mails that had arrived. Non-responders are being noted, so I look forward to a surge in correspondence the next time I check – thanks, though, to those that did write.

Dec 7th was overcast - more accurately - socked in, cool (48°) and raining, so my camping comrade may not have been all that comfortable. Local radio predicted snow (12” - 24”) at 5000’elevations (well above me), so it was a good day to sit around indoors, update the trip log on my computer and even check the news on TV. The maximum hourly charge produced by the solar panels on a day such as that is about 2 amps - not enough to recover from an evening of television, so I used the generator to hasten recovery, plug in the computer and watch daytime TV, not a normal occurrence. This is something that one would certainly not do if camped in the neighbourhood of my acquaintance, Handy Bob, but I’m sure my new tenting friend didn’t mind – in fact, I think that I heard his own generator going at nights. I doubt that he has a TV in his little tent but may have been using power tools to cut up his pallets or even run an electric blanket.

The night of Dec 7th featured a big storm with winds and rain, snow at higher elevations. Power lines down south of Phoenix (radio clip), I - 40 closed east of Kingman and the storm described as “massive” – up to 2 feet of snow in places.
50 hunters had been lost in mountains near Flagstaff, so rescue operations were ongoing for a few days – most have, apparently, been found by now. Here, at Havasu, temps running around 50° daytimes, mid 30s at night, so not too bad.

Recently, I caught, in one 24 hour period, four fat mice – don’t know if Lords a’ leaping (would prefer Ladies a’ waiting) come next but mouse entry into the trailer a mystery as I have power-line access plugged with a piece of rubber. Since tossing the cadavers out as coyote bait, the invasion appears to have ended.

I have discovered one minor flaw in the charge-monitoring system, and that is that Amp-hours accumulated by driving do not register on the monitor, presumably because they bypass the shunt somehow. The battery voltage, of course, still shows. The net result here, for techies only, is that the batteries can be fully charged, even with the monitor still showing a deficit of amp-hours below zero. Once reaching full capacity (14.2 V at 4 A for 30 minutes, the monitor resets itself to 100% and a zero balance of AHs. I’m sure that someone out there will be able confirm my observation re: the truck hook-up.

Malcolm Koch (friend from LL days) is coming to stay at Christmas for about a week. He flies in to Phoenix late on the night of Dec 25th and will rent a car, We will meet in Ajo on Boxing Day morning (unknown in the US and therefore not a holiday). I’m sure, at some stage, we may have to find a golf course and rent a bicycle unless I can find a Mexican clunker in the desert. Anyway, will be nice to see M. – he can hold down the couch. Today, I used up almost a Mb to check e-mail and respond to Malcolm – better than driving all the way into town to use the Travelodge wi-fi signal.

My neighbour, the tent man, has disappeared, I saw his old truck depart, loaded high with gear. Possibly, the storm on Dec 7th chased him away. I checked his campsite and noticed that he had dug a drainage trench around his tent, so maybe he survived and has just gone to pick up and spend his veteran’s pension cheque.

Three years ago, I bought some Teva sandals on the Internet, good ones that are designed especially for river rafters. In May, while travelling with Darch to Tucson, I twisted a buckle in the step of his Motorhome and broke it. All summer, I have had a dialogue going with Teva, mostly by e-mail, to get replacement buckles, A comedy of errors ensued, starting with buckles of the wrong size arriving; then after a lengthy delay came an envelope that someone had ripped open, hence no buckles at all. A shoe store in Havasu (“Famous Shoes”), had some similar Tevas and also a sale on with a second pair of footwear at ½ price, so I now have two new pairs of sandals, plus the ones that I have been wearing (quite comfortable cheapies from Costco). In addition to a variety of indoor, patio-lounging and other sandals that have accumulated, I am now set for life. My discourse with Teva is not yet over but I can hike in comfort while planning the next move.

On that same trip to town, I found some AG 12 batteries for the hot-water tank thermometer. Now, I can tell the temperature of the water as it heats. To save on propane, I try to shut down the burner when I reckon the temperature has reached a point adequate to perform whatever hot-water functions might be required but not much more – no point in heating the atmosphere unnecessarily!

Most of the above was originally written as a “ship’s log” for my own use - hence a few, somewhat mundane details (sorry, but there are no other types of details in my life), along with truncated grammar forms. My opportunity to send it out on a wi-fi signal from town today was too attractive to pass up, so I’m setting off down the wash to visit the big city.

Off to Plomosa Road tomorrow, Sunday Dec 14th and heading to Ajo or Why approximately Dec 24th.
JW