1-9-2021: Quartzsite to DD's
Ok – in an attempt at not getting behind on my blog, I'm setting myself a time limit of 30 minutes for each blog. Another upside to that is maybe I won't be so wordy. I imagine some of these things are hard for the reader to wade through.
It was time to introduce Dan and Teri to Quartzsite. The worlds largest flea market. Dan woke in the previous night in extreme pain that turned out to be his TMJ. He would be staying home on drugs while the rest of us made the trip. Although Dan would have fit right in. Half of the population of Quartzsite appear to be on drugs...and not for any sort of pain associated with their TMJ. Unless TMJ stands for: “Too Many Joints.”
Quartzsite is a unique place, to say the least. From hippies to snowbirds, the populace looks like Woodstock and The Golden girls had a lovechild that failed to launch. Toss in a handful of meth-heads and old biker chic's and you have the makings of Quartzsite.
Dave drove us to the Quartzsite diner formerly known as The Shamrock. It's hard to discern what they call it now. It appears to be something along the lines of Times Three Family Restaurant. Nobody, including the staff...know what the hell that means.
We split up and went on our shopping ways. Dave and Cindy headed one direction, Teri and I the other. We kept finding all sorts of cool stuff we wanted to buy. Collapsible garbage cans for six bucks. Leather gloves for five bucks. Sink strainers for .25 cents and various other nifty gadgets we didn't want to pack around all day. We decided we'd pick them up on our way back...which we never did.
Our favorite store ended up being a biker chic booth. I don't recall the name, if it had one. It was hard to focus past the manikin sporting a set of 34 DD's that pointed toward the Christmas star...had the star still be out. The Maji would have had no trouble tracking down the baby Messiah had those puppies been pointing the way.
I really liked the shirt on the manikin. However, I was a bit embarrassed to inquire about it. “So...how much for the shirt on the manikin? Which manikin? Umm...well, the one with the...with...the one with no arms!” None of them had arms. It was even more uncomfortable when the owner of the booth, a real live biker chic, came around the corner sporting her own set of 34 DD's....also pointing toward the heavens. You know...it's hard not to look! I took a couple steps back. What if those things explode? They could cause some serious collateral damage! I assume they are filled with some sort of silicon, saline mix? If them puppies sprung a leak it could turn the entire Sonora desert into a tropical rain forest.
The biker chic was obviously aware of my discomfort and awkward fascination. “I want this shirt...even though I'm not going to fill it out exactly the same way.” I mumbled. Biker Chic: “You wouldn't want them” she said. “They cause all sorts of unwanted attention. Although they come in handy by distracting the hubby while you spend gobs of money shopping.” I imagine she was all to familiar with that sort of distraction. Nice gal though.
Before we'd gotten out of the biker chic booth – Cindy had arrived. We didn't get out of there without buying two hats each. Teri and I each got a shirt – sans 34 DD's. If I had the money to buy a set of boobs like that, I'd spend it on a really nice horse.
Well, I have three minutes to finish this day's blog. We came, we shopped, we allowed poor Dave to spend five minutes at a gun booth and came home shortly after stopping at “Don's Cactus Bar” in Salome for a drink. I ordered Jeep'in Juice. It came without the “juice.” The bartender said it was dark when she was pouring the fireball so she just kept on pouring and forgot about the cranberry juice. My cheeks were tingling all the way home.
1-10-2021: Live to Ride another Day
Dave had pointed out the Harquahala wilderness trail head on our way to Quartzsite. The trail takes you up to the old Harquahala Peak Smithsonian Observatory build in the 1920's. It was used to study the effects of the sun on climate: “The Quest for Solar Constant.”
Perched atop the Harquahala summit, the location is remote with extremely rugged terrain leading to it. At 5.4 miles from the base camp trail head and over 3300 foot elevation gain – a person wants to be prepared before tackling the climb on foot or horseback. There is another road up the backside accessible by ATV – but from what I've read, it's not much safer than hiking or riding.
We pulled through a gate off Hwy 60 and parked just on the other side. Had we known, we could have driven to the trail head trailer parking and saved ourselves over 2 miles.
The trail head parking area has a nice vaulted toilet. Deceivingly civilized for what was to come, I can assure you. A couple miles past the trail head brings you to the base camp. This camp was used as the jumping off point to pack in supplies for observatory scientists. A barely readable plaque tells of the scientist building a garage here where they parked a Ford automobile. The rest of the journey was made by mule.
Directly leaving the base camp – the trail starts to turn gnarly fast. The horses clamored over large rocks...sometimes needing to navigate stairs of solid rock. The worst was probably the big boulders – which can be slick for shod horses. Still, our horses put their noses to the trail and carried us safely up the steep mountain.
A few of the areas where the trail side-hilled were a bit intense – but as long as you didn't look down, it wasn't so bad. I just tell myself Jack has four feet - hopefully at least one of them will remain on the trail at any given time. inhale – exhale
We found a spot that leveled out and was wide enough to accommodate three horses and two dogs. We stopped to rest and decided this was a good place to turn around. We were a mere two miles from the summit. None of us wanted to make the decision to turn back – but it was the smart thing to do. The trail looked to get worse before it got better. This was no trail to be on in the dark. Had we known we could haul the two miles to the trail head – we would have been at the summit. Live to ride another day; the Harquahala peak observatory wasn't going anywhere.
The horses made short work of the trek down off the mountain. Hungry and too tired to cook – we settled the horses in at home and drove to the Coyote for dinner: the best Santa Fe burger on the planet.
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