Laughlin Nevada, Here We Come

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After Quartzsite, we had a week to kill before heading to Lake Havasu City for fireworks. We didn't want to go too far out of the way so we decided it might be nice to check off Nevada from our list of states we have camped in. Laughlin Nevada is at the southern tip of the state right next to California and Arizona. There is a state park campgrounds that doesn't take reservations and only has 24 sites. We hope that coming in on a Monday will allow us to get a spot. We have a couple alternative campgrounds nearby as plan B.

The drive was only 150 miles although one stretch of road just north of Needles California was extremely rough - worse than many of the desert roads in Quartzsite. As we pulled in to Big Bend of the Colorado State Recreation Area, the attendant told us there were two spots left. We pick the one that is more level and get situated. There are both pull thru and back in spots. Our back in spot has the utilities on the wrong side of the site so we needed to pull in to it. The sites in the park are huge and those with just a small Class B motorhome, tiny travel trailer or worse a tent look like they could easily support two rigs.  I doubt we would be allowed to sublet some of our site to the many people that come in after us looking for room to stay. The park is nice with water access to the Colorado River and it's not very busy this time of year. Right across from us is Bullhead City Arizona. Technically we are back in the western time zone, but we decide to just keep our clocks on Arizona time. Of course our phones don't know that. They tend to switch back and forth between the two time zones making us question what time it is. The good news is that with our lifestyle, time of day isn't very important.

We really hadn't put much effort into what there is to see or do in this area. After a bit of research, we discover the town of Oatman Arizona. It's only about 30 miles away. An old mining town that should be a ghost town by now but has been turned into a fairly popular tourist destination mainly due to the burros. Yes, the town is overrun with donkeys. We park on the south side of town and headed back to Main St. The town is only a quarter mile long if that, but there are over 100 people wandering the street and the dozen stores lining the street.  The burros were already making their presence known. There were about 30 of them wandering around amidst all the visitors. While not domesticated, they do seem to be rather tame.

Burros in Oatman Arizona

Burro Water is Free

He Knows Where the Food Comes From

The Line for Burro Food

Chris Pets Burro

The burros come to town to get fed. Many of the stores sell what appear to be small compressed hay blocks that may be fed to the burros. In the past, visitors would bring carrots as well, and the burros really like them, but carrots are sort of like candy to them and they can get a bit aggressive when going for them so now there are signs asking to not use carrots. There were a few young burros that, unbeknownst to them, have a label smack in the middle of their forehead asking that they do not get fed! It sort of made me feel bad for them since they would come over for food, but nobody would give them any.

Please Remove My Sticker!

Constant Beggars

Traffic Jam

Oatman is Along Route 66

The shops along Main St sell your typical tourist stuff. We didn't see any "ass" themed items that we really needed although we did get ice cream and watch the people and burros passing by. In the center of town, twice a day, a gunfight is staged by a few cowboys. The crowd is asked to block the street for the ten minutes to prevent traffic from getting through. The drivers are willing to wait and watch the show, but the burros don't understand. All they see are the food sources congregated in one area, so they come over and interrupt the show looking to get fed. Our take on the town of Oatman: If you are in the area, it's a must see but we wouldn't drive the 200+ miles from Phoenix to see it.

Calling Everyone for a Gunfight

The Bank Robber

Mining Museum

Salt Lick for Burros

Looking Down Main Street Oatman

Being in Nevada, Laughlin has its fair share of casinos. We are not at all into gambling, so the draw for us is usually to just check out the interior and people watch. These casinos are along the Colorado River and there is a walkway that goes along the river from one casino to the next. A local geocacher has placed a dozen caches along the walkway so we have added incentive to check things out. None of the casinos are as elaborate as some in Las Vegas but it was fun and something different for us to do.

Sight Along Riverwalk in Laughlin

Just on the outskirts of town is Grapevine Canyon. It is a few miles of dirt road but it wasn't in too bad of shape. From the parking area, it is about a quarter mile walk out to a section of petroglyphs. There isn't much known about these petroglyphs but they were created 100 to 900 years ago. There are a large number of them and they seem to be scattered all over the place on both sides of the canyon. We spend well over an hour just wandering around and seeing what we can find. Given the area is not monitored, we were most impressed that there doesn't seem to be much damage from modern day man. Make sure to click on pictures to see detail of petroglyphs.

Heading Towards Petroglyphs

View from Petroglyphs

Just south of Bullhead City is the Colorado River Nature Center. It sounded interesting and had a good number of geocaches hidden there. What we found wasn't at all what we were expecting. It's a fairly desolate location with lots of "trails" that have good signage. But the trails are created by simply laying sticks along the sand. They do have a nice concrete path that looks a bit out of place. Possibly the park is just being created since it doesn't seem to show up as a park on most maps?

Yes, It's That Desolate

Looking Across Colorado River into Nevada

On our last full day in Laughlin, we drive up to the north side of town to check out the Davis Dam which creates Lake Mohave. We pick an extremely windy day to be there and the place is pretty empty. There is a nice park area on the south side of the dam - shelters, picnic tables, restrooms and a playground. There are a couple of RVs parked here that appear to be work campers or volunteers. It isn't perfectly clear what their job entails, but it does look like a nice place. It is possible to walk (or bicycle) up and over the dam but they have it barricaded so you cannot drive up to the visitor area which seems to only be accessible from the Arizona side. There is a massive tractor trailer combination sitting along the road. I suppose it it to be able to remove or deliver one of the turbines that make up the hydroelectric portion of the dam. The trailer itself has 8 axles, each with 8 tires. The axles appear to be steerable which probably is needed when maneuvering this behemoth. Not surprisingly, there were no people out boating on the lake side of the dam on such a windy day. They visitor area is fairly simple with just a handful of signs. They do not offer tours of the facility - bummer!

Hydroelectric Portion of Davis Dam

View of Dam and Park

Overlooking Five Turbines

Lake Mohave

Impressive 64 Wheel Trailer

We enjoyed our stay at this campground. There were enough things to do while spending a week there. I suppose if we were into boating or off road vehicles, there would be many more things to do. We did find it nice to be back to having full hookups. Especially since our next stop will be another weeklong boondocking stop in Lake Havasu City.

Back to Quartzsite

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I guess all good things must come to an end. Even after spending 5 weeks at Sam's Family Spa, we haven't managed to see all the different places we would have liked to see in the Desert Hot Springs area. But since we really enjoyed this place, I can definitely see us getting back here again when we are in the desert southwest. Our next destination is a repeat stop for us - Quartzsite Arizona. We were there a year ago for our first true boondocking experience since overnight stops at Walmarts or Cabelas don't really count as boondocking. Even though there are probably thousands of acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land to camp on, we will be heading back to pretty much the exact spot we stayed at last year. Our destination is the "Gathering in the Desert". It is a very informal rally of Newmar owners in the Roadrunner BLM area just a few miles south of town. It is held just before the big RV show that is held each January in town. Last year we came with our fresh tank full of 105 gallons of water and lasted 12 nights before needing to go dump our holding tanks. We figure to try for a repeat performance and last at least that long.

Welcome to Quartzsite - Yes There's a Geocache There

The drive is only 150 miles or so east along Interstate 10. A quick stop in town to fill up with diesel fuel for our generator, before heading south on US-95. Having been here last year, we don't have the same trepidation we had then, trying to understand the instructions to just turn off the paved road and follow the flags a half mile into the desert. This time we were smart and unhitched the car before the desert drive. The Jeep was a complete dusty mess last year. There isn't a whole lot that can be done about the rear end of the rig getting dusted. Driving slowly helps but doesn't eliminate the cloud of dust kicked up by the side radiator as it blows massive volumes of dust into the air. Chris keeps her distance, realizing she need only follow the dust cloud.

We arrived a couple days prior to the official start of the rally but there were probably over a dozen rigs already there. After dinner, we sit around the fire and chat with early arrivals. The Newmar Kountry Klub Arizona Chapter Presidents, Ted and Ruth Ann, put on the event. They have things planned for the 5 official days of the rally. We both volunteered for some of the "assignments" that they need help with. I will be taking photos of the event and Chris was to help fill out the BLM registration forms as the people come in. The Roadrunner BLM area is free to stay at but you need to fill out a form to basically let the powers that be know how many people take advantage of the land. In past years, the BLM camp host would allow us to have a booklet of the forms and return them all together. This year, they were told they couldn't do that so we all needed to go over the host's site and fill out the form in person. This freed up Chris to work the rally registration table. The rally hosts are providing several of the meals for rally and asked for a $35 donation. A pretty good deal in our opinion.

Campfire at Sunset

By the time the rally officially started, we were up to 102 Newmar rigs and a handful of SOB's - not what you think! Some Other Brand. The SOB's are often friends or family of somebody with a Newmar that happen to be traveling together. This was about 20 or so rigs more than we had last year. The weather last year was not that great, chilly and rainy at times. This year, it was pretty spectacular. Right around 80 for highs with evenings in the 40's to 50's. I suspect the weather forecast brought in the extra people. Every day of the rally consisted of happy hour at 3 and dinner around 4 or so. That might seem early, but you really want to be finished eating while the sun is up because it gets dark out here after sunset. The evenings always finished with us all sitting around the campfire exchanging stories or tips while trying to gauge the wind to avoid the smoke.

Group at Dinner

Fancy Cake for Rally

View from Up High

Musical Sunset

Grabbing Grub

There were a couple days where they had people come in to give short presentations. A few were sale pitches for products they sell while other sessions were big round table discussions coving all sorts of aspects of RV'ing from water purification to satellite TV issues. In all we had a good time and found it nice to catch up with some friends we met last year and meet many new people. One day before dinner, there was an announcement that one of our group was having a slide issue and could not get the slide to come back in before they travel. Before you knew it, the whole group heads down to the rig to give a push. We had twice as many people show up as could fit along the side of the rig. As photographer, I didn't get to push but it didn't look like there was any issue or struggle to push the slide back in. Hopefully the owner gets the motor repaired since it might be difficult to muster up that many people at each place they camp.

Having a Laugh at a Presentation

On Three - PUSH!

With the nice weather, it was much more pleasant to get out and enjoy the area. Quartzsite is a geocache rich area. Last year we found about fifty caches while we were here, but with warmer weather, bike riding is much more pleasant. Often I would go out for a solo bike ride and do a power trail of caches often getting 30 or 40 caches in a 5 to 10 mile ride. There are numerous Jeep/ATV trails that crisscross the surrounding desert. Not all of them are easily ridden on bicycle. Many are too rocky or sandy for the bike to negotiate. Those that are in good shape work out quite well until a string of ATVs or Jeeps come driving by, leaving a huge cloud of dust. The good thing is they can be seen and heard from quite a distance so I can often place myself on the correct side of the trail based on the wind direction.

View from Hill While Caching

Saguaro Swallowing Horseshoe?

One of the Creative Geocache Hides

Geocache Brings Me to Pet Cemetery

We had the pleasure of meeting up with two other couples that we have met in the past year but aren't part of the Newmar rally. It sometimes seems strange that in this vast country, we can run into people we know often in these desolate spots like Quartzsite. Of course there are tens of thousands of other rigs out here for the week long RV show. We headed up to the show twice this year and although there are huge number of vendors, we found very little we really wanted or needed. Many of the vendors would be what we classify as "snake oil salesmen". They have some sort of lotion, herb or gizmo that is guaranteed to fix what ails you.

Just near the end of the rally, the government went into a shutdown. Since we are camping on federal land, it wasn't perfectly clear what if anything this would mean for us. We noticed the volunteer camp host took down the canopy he had up to use as his office for signing in people. Since they were no longer issuing BLM permits, he didn't need to register people. We figured they wouldn't come and chase us off the property mainly because there are so many of us here. Plus being in shutdown mode, who would come to shoo us away? We did hear that the long term area were lots of people go to dump their holding tanks, fill up with fresh water or dump the trash wasn't being serviced anymore so the trash was piling up but no other ramifications seemed to come from it and since the shutdown was short it turned out to be a non-issue for us.

We went to a meet and greet for a couple that full time in a 25 foot Airstream with their 3 year old daughter. They have a very popular YouTube channel "Less Junk, More Journey". We have been watching their channel for some time and it feels like we know them even though we have never met them. When we arrive at the park they were to be at, we discover there were easily 50 or 60 people there! I realized they have a big following but didn't know this many of the viewers would be in Quartzsite. We ended up talking to lots of the other fans and eventually get to chat with Nathan a bit about his videos and life on the road with a youngster. It was fun but right after that we had a geocaching event to go to that was setup by a geocacher near the Hi Jolly monument in town. We had met up with the cacher in Washington state last June. There were probably a few dozen cachers here and afterwards we headed to a nearby restaurant to eat with one of the caching friends we had met in Tucson last year.

Nathan of Less Junk, More Journey

The Talking Continues as We Leave

Some of the Geocachers at Event

Hi Jolly Monument in Quartzsite

After the Newmar rally, the rigs slowly departed. After a few days, there were only a handful of us that were staying around longer. Technically the limit for staying here is 14 days. At which point you need to move to some other place BLM place that is 25 miles away or one of the long term BLM areas. From what we understand, that rule isn't really enforced. Which is good for us since we have a geocaching event to attend less than 1000 feet from our location. We have come to really like our spot. It is far enough from any of the often used paths so dust seems to be minimized. Plus it is nice and quiet here. The closest rig is maybe 500 feet away. After 14 days, we find our holding tanks need to be dumped so we pack up the rig and drive 6 miles into town to a place called the RV Pit Stop. They apparently offer camping but this place is predominantly used by folks like us that need to either dump our holding tanks or fill our fresh water supply. For our size rig, it costs us $20 to dump and fill. We managed to pick a time that wasn't too busy. We have driven by here when the line extends 10 rigs or more along the road. We come back and only reposition ourselves slightly before setting up for a few more days.

One of Many Nice Sunsets in the Desert

Our timing for the Super Blue Blood Moon wasn't planned at all as opposed to the solar eclipse in August. But being here in the desert south of Quartzsite does give fairly dark skies. On the morning of the lunar eclipse, we set our alarm to wake us up at 5 AM for the eclipse. It was neat to see the moon phase through to the "blood" stage where it is in full eclipse and gets a reddish tinge to it. At one point, we could hear the coyotes howling in the distance giving us a shiver up our backs. At this location, the sun rises prior to us seeing the moon come out of eclipse, so we just head back to bed for another hour of shuteye.

 

 

The daylight hours after the eclipse was the geocaching event we stuck around for. We walked over and talked with several of the geocachers we already knew and a few others we hadn't met. They had a few people give short talks on different aspects of geocaching. One of them was a guy from Apache Junction. We had done many of his caches last winter/spring when we were camping in Lost Dutchman State Park and had run into him in eastern Washington state. From the sounds of it, there are numerous other ones that sound very creative, so we need to fit that area into our plans again if possible. Many of them were going to head out on ATVs for a caching run so we headed off on our own to avoid their dust. We ended up finding just over 300 caches during our several week stay here in Quartzsite.

Lots of Caches Found but Lots Remaining for Next Trip

We hadn't really done much sightseeing during this stay unless you consider biking in the nearby desert sightseeing. So we decide to take a day trip south towards Yuma to Castle Dome City and Museum. Basically an old mining town from the late 1800's that is now privately owned and maintained for visitors like us. It's about five miles off US-95 along a bumpy and dusty dirt road. There were quite a few visitors already here but it wasn't crowded. It cost $15 each to enter and includes the museum area as well as a walk around some old mining district just down the road from the city. We enjoyed spending an hour or so to check out all the old buildings and relics. Then we moved the car to the other area, ate our lunch, then toured the mining area.  The loop is less than a mile long but there is lots to see. This wasn't the type of place I would need to visit a second time but was worth the time and money to see something different and learn a bit of the mining history of the area.

Part of Castle Dome City

Reading, Writing and 'Rithmetic

The Old Ball and Chain

Fancy Bottles

Stained Glass in Church

 

Church with Castle Dome in Background

Map for Old Mining District

View of Mining District from Up High

Creative Colored Bottle Stained Glass

Danger

Our plan was to drive up to a Nevada state campground in Laughlin but we were not positive we would have television reception there. We actually don't remember having any TV reception here in Quartzsite last year but this time we ended up with all 4 major network stations. We decided to stay through the weekend so we could be sure to see the super bowl. I'm glad we did since it turned out to be one of the more entertaining games in recent memory. By lasting until Monday morning, we ended up staying here for three weeks. By filling up with diesel on our way out, I was able to determine how much we spent on running the generator during our stay. $3.90 per day for fuel. With the $20 to dump, we ended up spending $4.85 per day. Not truly free, but pretty good. It was a fun time but I think having friends and good weather to keep us company helped a lot.

Symmetrical Saguaro