1-3-07 Quartzite

A couple of days ago a young woman came up to camp and introduced herself as Cherokee’s daughter. She had me tell her the story in detail of what I knew about her father. She is a very beautiful young woman and had her husband with her. He stayed in the background and didn’t say a thing but listened carefully. I don’t know why I am the way I am but it was really hard for me to talk unemotionally about Cherokee. I only knew him for a short while, but somehow I felt a loss just knowing that he was gone. As she was driving away I had a sudden impulse to give her something to remember her father by and hopped in the pod and grabbed a nice little silver hair clip I had just made and got on my bike and caught her before she had gone too far. I told her it was ‘from your father’.

I forgot to mention an interesting thing that happened when Geoff was here. We had just come back from that trip over to Swansea and had traveled back on the road by the campground along the highway. That campground is three miles long and there are folks scattered all over the place as well as the campground that I am camped in. We were just back in camp when he happened to mention how all these old folks that have to live out in the desert and how sorry he was for them. At first I don’t think I understood, but he was really sorry for all these old folks thinking that they were out her because this was the only place that they could afford to live and that they didn’t like it out here. I was stunned! What? Are you serious? Yeah, that is what he thought. It just so happened that one of the Canadian neighbors was not too far off and I called him over and told him what Geoff had said and asked him if he was sorry to be out here. Hell no, he said, I worked 45 years for this!!! We all decided that there are folks that are out here because they might not be able to afford other lives but I think most of them are here because they want to be here in the desert, sitting in the sun, visiting with neighbors and taking walks with those little shit bag dogs on a string. What I find amazing is that I see these people walking these little dogs come by camp and taking them out in the desert to ‘do a little mess’ and they carry a plastic bag with them so they can take it home (?). Civilized people really amaze me. I would have never thought of picking up my dogs shit when they do it in the desert. Hell, I don’t pick up my own why should I pick up dog shit? I do put a rock on mine so it is well hidden and no one will steal it. Folks must just get used to doing that in town and have a hard time breaking the habit.

That guy with the little Scamp trailer came by camp to say good buy. He is even more ‘private’ than I am I guess. I really liked him and we ended up visiting for a couple of hours. He is a gold prospector and has mined or rather sluiced gold from California, Colorado and on up into Alaska. He unfortunately never got rich from it but has never lost the drive. He has been prowling old town sites and mining areas with a metal detector.  I had him go get it and buried a gold coin while he was gone in my ‘yard’. He found several little pieces of wire, can tab and then the coin. He was telling me that when he gets in an area where someone has used a shotgun, he just packs up and gets out of there. His machine picks up those little shot and it will drive you nuts he said. I told him the story about how I was at my cabin in Goldfield when my buddy Ken showed up with a metal detector and when he turned it on, he found an old gold watch right away in my yard. He strolled around my place with the damn thing and I flowed with a shovel and when he finally left it looked like my place had been hit with mortar rounds. There were holes all over the damn yard and we never did find anything else of merit. I told him never to bring it back…….  Dave is the guys name and one of the things that he carried was this cool magnifying glass that he found at a yard sale. I have a couple of those lenses and I am going ot have to make something like that for myself. Dave was off on a gold nugget hunt and I wished him luck.

I took a walk tonight down the entire length of the campground. I have just been going in and out using the back trail to get to town. I noticed that all of a sudden there are more campers here and there have been some that have pulled all the way back to where I am camped. It used to be pretty open back here but now I have neighbors not real close but closer than I like. It was dark and the full moon was up so it was very easy to see with a cloudless night. Down near the entrance there were lots of huge motor homes. Well actually they are all over as well as huge fifth wheel units. Most of these things have pop outs now I see. Jeez, some of the pop outs are as big as my little pod. I remember that when I asked before when I was here, the big motor homes seem to start at around two hundred thousand and often got up to half a million. What the hell are they doing in a free campground? Maybe they don’t have any money to pay for a campground after buying it. There are a few, very few small units here. I think there might be maybe about half a dozen camper vans or suv’s without trailers and about that many smaller trailers. Everyone seems to be into the huge ones. The really big ones mostly have their generators running and the tv is on or they are watching video’s. There were a few campfires but mostly everyone was safely inside. As I was walking down the road a huge motor home came rolling by and the guy stopped and asked me where he could camp. ‘Oh, just pull in next to one of the other ones’ I said. Jeez, they all camp together just like they are in the subdivision where they came from, well except for the ‘weird ones’ down at the very end. Oh, I saw they put up a new sign since I was here last. They now have a no chain saw sign. Why do they always put up a new sign after I leave? Well when I was here before I pulled in and was driving along the road and came across this little desert tree that had died and fallen over, right in the little road I was on. Well, I stopped and got out my little chain saw and buzzed it up and tossed it in the back of the truck and off down the road to find a camp. Well, that is not allowed anymore. I bet that the next time I come there will be a no gun sign after what Cherokee did to himself.

I was walking around some of the venues today and as I was looking over the stock in this guys stall that sells hats the guy asked “what have you heard that is interesting?”  Well, I said “ A friend of mine told me about a party up in Miles City, Montana where two brothers,  both about 250 pounds were put in the hospital, one with a blown knee and the other with a concussion. The guy that did it to them remarked as the ambulance pulled away, ‘Just because I play the cello, doesn’t mean I am a pussy”.  I thought the guy was going to die laughing. He really got a charge out of that. This guy is a hat maker and had been doing it for 35 years here in quartzite. He wanted to know about Miles City and I told him about the bucking horse sale and he would really like to come on up. I doubt if he will but he might as he said he was going to finally give the hat business up and do something. Yeah, I told him I thought the same thing and how I had decided to take a motorcycle ride down south last year. He was amazed that a person could actually do something like that. Well yeah, all you have to do it do it, and before you get too old to do it. He had a little Jack Russell terrier in the stall and I go to play tear the dead squirrel (toy) apart with him. He is a good tug a war dog and sounded serious. The interesting thing is that when I said that I bet there were no rats around his place, he told me that the little dog wasn’t interested in little furry things at all. He said that a mouse could go running by and the little dog wouldn’t even care or give chase. Man, they are even screwing up the little terriers now, when will it end.

Humm, I have been wearing a cowboy hat that I found in Kenny’s trash barrel after a little modification I did on it. Now I read this….fortunately I don’t raise cows to eat…

DENVER: Mel Coleman, founder of Coleman’s Natural Meats, told attendees of the National Bison Association convention to leave their cowboy hats at home if they wanted to sell health-oriented meats to urban consumers.
In his company’s consumer focus panels, a key finding was that urban consumers were turned off by Western clothes and images.
“As a ranch-raised Westerner this finding was a huge shock to me. Apparently, urbanites connect the cowboy look with the rodeo and Marlboro cigarettes.”
He said many urban consumers consider the rodeo inhumane with its televised images of calves hitting the end of a rope and appearing to almost break their necks.
Thanks to years of television commercials and movie characters, he said cowboys are seen as unhealthy people who smoke.

1-5-07

I called for my mail to be forwarded to me here in Quartzite and finally got a package from Anna but not my mail. I called the PO in Miles and they said that everything has to go through the Denver section and it is all balled up from the storms that have gone through there. I will just have to wait until things get back flowing again. I hope it isn’t something like what happened a few years ago when it got sent to Arkansas or someplace weird and had to be returned to Miles and then resent to me. Lets see, I think that was when I was camped at Cochise Stronghold. That is a nice camp, I think I may go back there again.

I did finally get my mail and there wasn’t much in it other than a couple of xmas cards from a couple of friends which was very nice. I was able to just type in the name and address of one of them on google and instantly get their phone number. Jeez, aint is amazing what can be done on the internet? The other friend will have to wait for a hand written letter and that sometimes takes a little longer in my case.

I took my camera in to Quartzite and snapped a few photos to give you an small idea of what is going on here.

This is very typical with acres of this at several places around 'town'.

This is one of the nicer RV parks, Most of them are spaced much closer and no 'yard'.

Lots of China stuff for sale.

This guy makes it down from Montana to sell old farm stuff.

There are several of these vendors around.

lots of this going on. Originally this was what Quartzite was all about, rocks.

A $6,000 rock

Specialty rocks are everywhere.

Lots of flea market stuff.

Pots from Indonesia.

Meteorites

Turned stones

Lots of fossils of all types for sale.

Lots of stuff.

1-8-07

I had to move camp at that campground when a couple of big motor homes moved right in on top of me. Hell, one of them almost ran over my little solar panel that I had sitting out in the sun. Damned if they didn’t pull up and set down their leveling pods right in the place where my sun comes up in the morning. Boy, I was hot about that and mumbled to myself about all kinds of mean, vicious, sneaky, destructive and deserving things I could do to those bastards. There were plenty of places to camp where they wouldn’t be right on top of someone. I finally moved down a ways and made a new camp. The guy on the other side of them moved down too. I visited with him and he said he didn’t want to smell the bastards and I didn’t want to hear their damn generator but the most irritating thing is getting in my morning sun. I am still pissed…..

As I was getting near Phoenix I came into this big farming area and this time there were these huge cotton stacks out in the fields. There wasn’t much farming activity that I could see, but I did see some Mexicans in one of the little towns wearing irrigating boots and carrying their lunch boxes so the farms must be getting ready to grow something.

The grubby little towns that are along the road seem to be mostly populated with Mexicans and in between these towns are some RV trailer parks. What I found interesting is that the old motels were either out of business (because everyone has a motor home or trailer) or they had been turned into housing for the farm workers.

I headed over north of Phoenix where I spent the night out along a little road. I suppose I was about ten miles from the city but the night sky was totally illuminated to the south. It was hard to see the stars to the north with all the light pollution.

I had to finally get into the freeway system to get on through the city. I made it through at about ten in the morning and it was good sailing right on through. I didn’t recognize anything along the route until I got out past most of the development and saw the renaissance fair site. It looks like they have a regular little town built up out there. When I was here before they were just about to start the fair and I remember folks telling how very expensive it was to go and how everything there was very expensive as well.

I stopped in Globe and picked up a few groceries and then headed out south of town and am up at my ‘regular’ camp on a ridge not far from the Windspirit farm/community in the Dripping Springs wash. Ah, it is nice to be back in this camp. Globe is only about twenty miles away and over one very nice pass that should be really nice on the bike. I think there is a back road on gravel to town too but have never done it YET. This is mining country so there are lots of little roads going all over the place. I have a friend across from the Windspirit that has a quad and I know he has explored all the trails. I went on down this afternoon but he wasn’t here yet. He lives in Utah and usually comes down after new years but so far he hasn’t been here. I hope all is ok with him.

1-11-07

The weather has been really nice. Yesterday I took a walk down a little road past camp that goes down in the big wash below camp. I worked my way back down the wash until I was close to where my camp is on the ridge. I then found a nice cow trail up the steep bank. In this country it is almost impossible to just cruise cross country as all the bushes, trees and cactus is out to get you. There is no just pushing your way through the branches as everything is covered with thorns, hooks or needles  and they all are looking for blood. The other day I took the bloodhound up another little road and I sure was glad I had on my ridding gear otherwise I would have come back without pants or shirt or probably any blood. I am doing well with my knee now. This walking in the desert and especially in the sandy washes and going up and down hills is really good exercise for it. I sort of over do it now and then when a rock will roll under foot and put a twist on the knee but it is getting stronger and stronger all the time. After I got back from my walk I started some copper clip projects on the bench. It was such a wonderful day I just want ahead and took my shirt off. The radio is saying that it is a little warmer than usual now but a cool front is headed this way. Cool it ok, cold, not so good….

The other day I took my dirty clothes into town and while I was at the Laundromat I noticed that they had several copper chamber of commerce pieces that they were selling and several copper clocks, and plaques on the wall. This is copper country for sure. It may be a good place to sell copper hair pieces, or at least a good place to give them away….

I have been checking down at the windspirit to see if my friend Don had shown up. Today he finally did show up. He was on a trip to Tucson and vicinity picking up supplies for the community. It was good to see him again and he looks good even though he was somewhat tired from his ‘city’ trip. I had a chance to visit with him for a while along with another guy that recently came here. Actually I met a couple of other folks that have recently moved here. Don said that they went through a period of cleaning out the folks that did nothing, paid nothing and weren’t a motivated part of the community. Don said that there were a couple of times when he was the only one here. There are several people that are visiting now and ‘looking’ over the place to see if it is something that they want to get involved in. It is such a beautiful place and has so much potential I sure hope this new crop of folks can make a dynamic, fun, healthful community. There is a lot of work that needs to be done just to keep a community functioning.

 1-14-07

It has turned cold here and it must have got down to mid twenties last night. I just checked the thermometer and it is 45 now this afternoon. We also had a little rain here but I think we only got a tenth of an inch or so but it was enough to coat the top of the mountain with a little dusting of snow.