KING OF THE ROAD

Roger Miller said it best, even though his title song doesn't quite describe today's Kings of the road, it smacks pretty darn close. 

 Not one of these rigs has a mortgage, nor will you find them carrying a lawn mower or snow shovel. 

                                                               This is living large in a small way.

                                                                      A mans home is his castle.

      "Going down the road trying to lighten my load."

BIG RIVER, CA

On the extreme eastern edge of California, just a few miles west of Big River  and up the road from the Colorado River is where we've spent most of our time this winter.  The people out here on this little chunk of BLM land are few but friendly, rock hounding is handsome and flowers are frequent.  High on a hill, better than a mile off Highway 75, we see the town of Big River's lights sparkle 5 miles to the south along the river and the Whipple Mountains silhouette on the horizon to the north.

Beaver Tail Cactus

Copper Globemallow

White Busy Bloomer

White Star Burst

SHEEP ON THE FORT MOJAVE INDIAN RESERVATION

                          

When a herd of sheep, accustomed to quiet of cactus and mesquite,  are confronted with RV's, pavement and people, they tend to get a tad nervous.  Here on the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation at the AVI dry camping parking lot that is just what happened.  The sheep being herded across the desert had to cross the casino area and that's when all hell broke lose.  They eventually made it through the congestion and found their way up a rise to continue on north. 

   Even the herding dogs were at a loss as to what needed to be done.

  A thousand little sheep feet can create a mighty big dust cloud.

WATER SPEED SKIING

Last week we visited our friends Richard and Donna, Boondocking on the Colorado River, just north of Parker, AZ,  for the International Water Ski Races.

                                                                         The Colorado farmer.

The weather couldn't have been more agreeable. High 70's and light winds.

Camped on the river for one evening.

I've been up on water skis a couple of times in my life and thought it to be great fun...But...a               hundred miles an hour????   I don't think so.

The short time on the river was fun but it was just a bit loud with the big motors of the boats echoing off the shores.  Jackie wasn't impressed with the show, she said it was sort of like watching paint dry.  I guess it's a "boy-thing,"  motors and speed, it's part of our DNA stamp.

WHO'S ZOOMING WHO?

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/

The march north continues, seemingly unabated, with increased ruthlessness on the part of Mexican drug cartels. Heads and limbs lopped off living humans, bodies set afire to torture and kill. Journalists shot like fish in a barrel, bodies tossed from highway bridge overpasses onto moving traffic and all this right at our back door, Mexico…and it’s creeping north onto our soil. San Antonio, TX., murder and dismemberment. Law enforcement and the Mayor of Columbus, NM arrested for gun and drug running. Drug attacks in Tucson, AZ. Cross border shots in San Diego, CA. Organ Pipe National Monument Park issues warnings and their rangers are armed with automatic rifles and wear bullet proof vests….The list continues and grows longer and larger every day.

Money talks and civility walks. The big fish control the destiny of the minnows. Corrupt Mexican politicians taking profit from the misery of it’s own citizenry. It all leaves one to wonder, “ Who’s in bed with who and how complacent is our own Government? “

WORKING MAN'S HANDS

Wayne from Spencer, IA tells me in his Midwestern drawl, “I sit here in the sun to warm my old bones shelling pecans for something to do. I never took to reading or sittin’ idle, got to keep my hands moving,” He tells me with the soft voice of a man dreaming of yesterday.  “I had a big farm back home, 640 acres, cattle and corn, worked it from the time I left high school back in 1941, now my boy runs the the old homestead and for thanks he put me out to pasture 25 years ago as soon as Uncle Sugar started sending me my rocking chair check, been cracking nuts ever since,”  Flashing a wide grin at me through sun weathered lips.

We’ve moved from the Parking lot of the AVI Fort Mojave casino, where roaring generators, barking dogs and the neighbor’s nighttime snoring snorts are apt to bring you from a deep sleep.  Now it's absolute tranquility where dancing dust devils and a hushed quiet of the desert demands little but a look within one‘s own soul.

  5 miles to Stepladder Mountain and Chemehueui Wash

We're five miles west of California Highway 95, south of Needles by 25 miles into the Stepladder Wilderness camping next to a dry wash called Chemehueui..   Like a column of soldiers, a solitary line of Palo Verde trees stretches dozens of miles along the banks of the wash calling us to come visit.  The trees give a stark reminder that without water life is not sustainable and look somehow out of place here in the dry creosote-bush landscape.  A false hope of water for the thirsty traveler.  Only when it rains, and rains hard, will water deluge down the wash, rolling rocks with it’s muddy torrent and changing the landscape by inches but will be greatly altered and shifted in another million years.  The heavy, land-altering rains fall  maybe once a year leaving behind a sustaining drink for the Palo Verde and returning back to dust in a day or two.

                               Teddy bear cholla cactus