April 17-19, 2016 Quartzsite-Congress, Arizona

The wind died back to a breeze today. In the mid 80’s and sunny. Very  pleasant.

Stopped by the River Oasis used bookstore today. Great store. Paul the owner is a practicing nudist, but for the store he wears a crochet pouch. Pretty interesting guy, used to travel as a famous jazz pianist.  John at dinner he BBQ’d. I love it when we can eat outside. Sunset colors behind him.

I finished the latest basket today. Patriotic. John filling the fresh water tank with water at the RV pitstop in Quartzsite. The water from the Colorado river this far south is terrible, full of salts, fertilizer, pesticides and all of the stuff people dump in the water upstream. So we got Reverse osmosis water by the gallon.

We headed toward Congress, Arizona. On the way we went through Salome, Where she danced- the town founder says it is so hot here that when his wife, Salome took off her shoes she had to dance to keep her feet from burning. Just past Salome is the Passmore Gas company. It is owned by a Mr. Passmore. Then Harcuvar-photo of down town Harcuvar and past there are lots of farms, and this one has a bus load of migrant workers weeding.

We passed through Hope, and now beyond Hope. Hope was named by the businessmen in town who hoped for more business. We ended up in Congress. Not much to Congress so we visited the old historic cemetaries. The top one is still in use, the bottom one is the pioneer one, which most of the graves are unmarked.

Both were pretty old. Couple interesting head stones, Two with cowboy mentioned and one for Roadkill-no explaination.

The orginial town of Congress was at the gold mine. After the mine gave out the town moved to the crossroads and railroad stop. The old ghost town is gated and has these signs. We are once again camped in free BLM dispersed camping out on the desert. Very quiet.

Sunset from our site. The next day we went out to see the sights around Congress. The first two were huge painted rocks, Frog Rock and Skull rock. Frog rock was painted in the 1920’s by a woman who thought the rock looked like a frog, the town now keeps it painted. Skull Rock is along the railroad . Rumor has it that the rock was painted by railroad workers to surprize the passengers as the train came around a curve. Locals keep it painted now.

Beautiful country near Skull Rock. Stanton is a near by ghost town. The remains of it are in an RV park in Stanton.  This is the hotel.

The Rv park office is in the old stage stop and saloon. The side of the hotel.

Windows on the hotel and the Antelope flats station house. At the original mine area they found gold nuggets the size of potoatoes. The park is now run by a group who still gold mine in the area.

We also went to Yarnell, Where the Desert Breeze meets the mountain Air. It is  about 2000 feet higher than Congress.  Looking down from near Yarnell you can see a mine , a dairy farm and way in the back Congress.

These giant spurs are in a round-a-bout in front of  a huge housing development and golf course they are building called Wickenburg Ranch, outside of Wickenburg, Az.