Jan 26 Quartzite AZ

We have spent the last few days in Quartzite at the RV, Gem, and Craft show. 

Lots to see and a fun way to spend a few days

This monster of a unit was parked near us on the BLM. Most likely 75 feet long combined.

Down town there was a bank of 36 Tesla Chargers in one set up.
There were 6 being used when we happened to stop by.

Behind Rose is a camel constructed of roots and branches. Very cool piece of art. The camel is 
part of the Quartzite logo . I think it was in the 1930's  that they experimented with camels here
 to be used instead of pack horses. After a few years the experiment died out.

A lot of beautiful crafts on display. This is made from feathers, absolutely 
beautiful.

Same artist. All made from features , but I wasn't able to get a good picture
because of the glare on the glass.

This is all wood burning carving, on interesting shapes of wood.
Touched up with paint for color after.

Same artist

The skulls are cleaned by putting them in a container with some type of 
beetle. They clean off all of the flesh and cartilage. This process takes
approximately a month. Peroxide is used to whiten the bones.

Not sure who would collect these but they are all small animal skulls. Skunks, racoons,
squirrels, etc. They even had bat skeletons, mounted in picture frames

This would look cool on a patio. It holds 3 bottles of liquor and you just
open the tap to serve.

 

Jan 21 Quartzite RV and Gem Show

 Not much to report as we have been just hanging out at the Yuma BLM for the last while with friends. We have now moved on to Quartzite to the RV and Gem Show.

Cool looking bike

We got a kick out of the sign on the bar.
"Adult Day Care"

Jan 10 BLM land near Yuma

 We are back at one of the camp sites that we always stop at when we arrive in Yuma. It is almost like a home coming, as many of the same people are here that we have met in previous years.

We see this guy flying his ultra lite every year

Denis from Sherbrooke brought his horse for the winter. 

Jude and Jacques preparing the steaks for supper.

Enjoying our evening meal with the neighbors.

There isn't a better way to finish off a nice meal and a camp fire
 than having a marshmallow roast

Jan 9 Yuma regional medical center

 We spent the morning at the Yuma regional medical center. Rose has had a high temperature and head aches for the last 4 days.  It is a very large complex with teaching facilities, as well as a cancer center and a heart center. Wait time was about 10 minutes, and she was being attended to by a nurse, then a doctor shortly after. They determined that she had a urinary trac infection so she was given antibiotics and was released about 3 hours later. Great service , and really nice caregivers.

Notice the sign on the bottom of the door.
No fire arms allowed.

Immediately inside the door  was an armed security guard and a airport style metal detector that everyone had to walk through.

Jan 8 Holbrooke AZ to Yuma AZ

 The drive from Holbrooke to Yuma is very interesting and varied. When you leave Holbrooke you are at 5000 feet , you climb to just over 8000 feet and then descend into Yuma that is actually at or  below sea level, depending upon where you are.

At 8000 feet there was complete snow cover at least a foot deep, and banks on the side of the highway 2 to 3 feet high.  People travel to this area to ski and snow shoe and there are snowmobile trails everywhere. I wasn't able to take any pictures as the sun had not come up yet.

 

Not sure of the elevation at this spot but a lot less snow than at the peak

Once you get to the lower elevations you start to travel through dairy country. These mega dairy farms have upwards to 10,000 milk cows. They are housed in open barns with just a roof. Each barn probably has a 100 to 200 head with barns all lined up beside each other. Because the water table has been depleted so badly over the years the wells to water these animals are drilled about 2500 feet deep.

Jan 7 Elk City to Holbrooke AZ

We have arrived in Arizona

A truck with 7 horses passed us on the highway, and later when we stopped for gas 
they had unloaded the horses and were walking them around for a bit of exercise and
to give them some water.

This guy was hauling them to a movie site, 3 were bucking horses and the others were 
quit tame. They were traveling 16 hours to the site so they had to stop to give them a break.

Typical scene as you travel across New Mexico. Very baren with some scrub brush
and the mountains in the back ground.

 

Jan 6 Collinsville Ill to Elk City Oklahoma

 

We have been a few days behind in posting to the blog as we got the wrong phone data package from AT&T.  All fixed up now, not exactly what we wanted but it will do for now. 

Star link is on the to do list!!

Gas was around 2.99 per gallon, in Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. About $1.00 Canadian per liter

Windsor to Collinsville Illinois (Just outside of St Louis MO)

Good weather all of the way except for a few flurries for about 10 minutes

Trivia question of the day

Where doe the best fudge in the world come from???

For many miles along the highway they have this signs, I thought it was a town called Uranus, but we discovered that it was the name of the fudge factory, and gift shop

 

Jan 4 Almonte to Windsor

Our day started off with cloud cover but good dry roads. 

We had rain from Peterborough all the way to Windsor, but no snow so the traffic moved well
 and we arrived in Windsor on schedule.

Caesars  Casino in Windsor offers free overnight parking  so it is always out first stop 
on our way south . The parking holds about 50 vehicles enclosed by a 6 foot high iron fence
 that gets locked every night. 

 

The main foyer as we entered the casino

A funny thing happened
We puttered around the casino until around 9 pm. When we returned to the parking area they
 had closed and locked the gates so we had no way to get back to our RV. The gates are normally locked at midnight but for some reason they locked them early last night. Eventually we decided to walk the perimeter of the parking area in search of a way to get back to the RV. The parking lot wasn't level underneath the exit gate so there was a small opening under the exit gate about 10 inches high at one end so we crawled under the gate  and made it back to the RV. 
The gate attendant had seen us crawling under the fence on the video when returned this morning, he apologized for the gate being closed early and we had a good chuckle.

We are off to Arizona and Mexico

 We are all packed and ready to go, tomorrow we we will be on our way to Windsor, hopefully St Louis Mo on Thursday, Amarillo Texas Friday,  and Holbrook AZ on Saturday. If not we will be someplace in between. 

The plan  is to go to Baja California in Mexico for February.  

My cell number will not work after Wednesday night, but you can reach use on our US number at 315 244 9058.  Our emails addresses have not changed.

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