Friday, December 30, 2022

December 29-30, 2022 Gila Bend, Arizona

 64, cloudy and a bit of rain. We drove all of 70 miles to Gila Bend for the night.



Gila Bend Welcomes you. Home of 1917 nice people and 5 old crabs. Arizona's solar capital, where solar panels outnumber people. The bus parked at the Sonoran Desert RV park. We came here to plug in and recharge the batteries. We use mostly solar when not plugged in, but John thinks a good deep charge once and a while helps. Also do to laundry and I am baking bread since we are plugged in. nice park, very clean. But right off the highway, so highway noise and a railroad track. 



Lovely pool here. Not quite warm enough for it today. Nice mountains around town. 



I had high hopes for sunset with these cool clouds, but I guess some near the horizon blocked the light, this was all we got. 66 and mostly sunny in Quartzsite. Downtown Gila Bend is home to the Best Western Space Age Lodge, complete with a UFO roof on the lobby. We ate lunch once at the Space Age Restaurant and the food was pretty mediocre, but the menu items had cool spacy names. 



Fuel was only $4 a gallon with John's Kroger card. Not bad. Our generator and furnace both run on diesel from the tank. We used both a bit since the last fill up, so our miles per gallon were not great, but it also includes the utilities. Rain on the plain as we headed north.



We stopped at the Eldorado Hot Springs in Tonopah on our way. The grounds have seen better days, but the water was wonderful. In Quartzsite we stopped at the RV Pit stop and got propane. This place is huge, has 4 propane filling spots and about 10 water filling spots, with deep well water  or reverse osmosis water since the water this far south on the Colorado River is so polluted with and has so many mineral salts in it it tastes horrible and the salts ruin your plumbing. And they also have dump stations, every thing an RV will need. Quartzsite can have up to 100,000 RV's wintering here. I love the safety sign- You only blow up once!



We are staying at the Plomosa Road BLM free dispersed camping area. You can stay for 14 days free. It is a huge place. Most of it is this desert pavement, with washes running though with greenery. The desert pavement is a surface layer of closely packed, loosely cemented pebbles and cobblestones where the wind has swept away the smaller particles. You can drive big rigs on it with no problem. 



The bus in our camp spot. 



Beautiful mountains to the south east. I was riding my bike around and all these headlights started coming at me. I pulled over, not sure where they were headed. It was a herd of ATV"s headed back to their 'compound'. Groups circle their rigs like the old wagon trains did with a fire ring in the middle.



Sunset had some wild clouds. I love tis one with what looks like hair on top.


More sunset. 











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