20 February: Quartzsite was advertising free produce at its food bank today. Let’s take a step back to last night to find out why:

Boom.

DH and I looked at one another; this wasn’t a distant explosion from the Yuma Proving Grounds or a mine, but something close by. We started putting on shoes and coats.
Boom…louder, this time. I went outdoors in ( Read more... )

February 17 Remember that potential snarf I spotted using my snarfage super-powers from the saddle of Q Mountain? It turned out to be a real snarf.

The BLM marks historic places with a plain “Do not molest the historic places” sign. In my book, that makes it worthy of Markeroni.

Such places are called historic resources and are usually fenced off ( Read more... )

13 February: I set out to find a geocache today, and ended up climbing a mountain. I found a trail that seemed to lead in the right direction, and followed it.
It was a bit sandy


( Read more... )

01 August: It’s time to leave our dusty desert location and get to the hills. The clutch is going out on DH’s bike and leaving our spot is terrifying. The bike keeps stalling out and is also quite reluctant to start. I’m used to pulling in the clutch at low speeds to control things, but with it acting like it does, the bike tends to surge forward ( Read more... )

24 July: I shop at Walmart again in the morning and buy a pair of dusky pink slip-on shoes. While I was still working, my socks started to rub the inside of my foot and the heat has been making it itch like crazy, I scratched, and now it’s raw again. So, I want shoes that won’t rub so the thing can heal. Pink isn’t my color but I thought the blue ( Read more... )

23 July: We leave the casino after Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge present their newborn son to the world. This location has served its purpose as a place to regroup, and has been hotter than hell. There has been a storm system sweeping through and we wanted that to pass before leaving. Rain has fallen, thunder has thundered. But it’s ( Read more... )

10 July: I start the day doing a jigsaw puzzle, knowing that Mick won’t be back until 10, then start a novel. I’m well into it when he returns, and then go and read most of the rest of it.

Later we decide to go into town, dodging raindrops. Rain is coming, more tomorrow than today, and we get our laundry done at the laundromat in downtown. I pick ( Read more... )

03 July: I join Mick for coffee this morning, then take the motorcycle into town. I just want to do laundry, which is duly accomplished.

There’s an older guy in there who asks me (with helmet and jacket by my side) whether that’s my motorcycle out there.

“Yamaha?” he asks.

“Honda,” say I.

“400, 450cc?”

“1100. V-four.”

“Oh.”

;)
This was cross- ( Read more... )

02 July: It’s our day off, and I wander up to the “front office” to hand over paperwork for the group camp, which is supposed to be getting at least one of its legal signatories in today. The surfer dude leader wanders up to fill Mick in and get trail information, then Jack shows up and we talk a while. The campground is going almost entirely ( Read more... )

19 June: DH is up early, a rare occurrence, so we decide to make our trip down the mountain to stock up at Big City. It’s our first time down the mountain since we arrived, and I take lots of pictures. We stop at a vista point to let our brakes cool and the commute to finish; cars are zipping along the highway at an alarming rate.

There is a ( Read more... )