Wednesday 10/29, we went out on the quad all day with Jerry and Pat from Redding, California. More desert friends. They went to Mexico with us last "snowbird season". We drove 65 miles and that sure was a LONG 65 miles. Most of the miles were getting to the destination and getting back home. We headed out around 9am to the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. Dan and I hadn't ever been there although we had seen signs for it. We were not aware that we could ride our quad on the land when we seen no trespassing signs on it last season. We learned that as long as we are a licensed vehicle, we can take the quad out onto the Kofa land on the trails and roads. Cool. I was reading about Kofa and was wondering where the name came from. Here is what I found out when I was reading a pamphlet. "In the early part of this century, numerous mines were established throughout the refuge. One of the most notable mines was the "King Of Arizona Mine." It gave the Kofa Mountains their name - "Kofa" which is contracted from "King Of Arizona."" Interesting. We have 664,300 acres to explore. Thats alot of quad riding!!!!! We seen some really neat rock formations such as skull rock and ape face. I do not capitalize these names as they are not legal names on the Kofa map. They are made up names from people that ride the back roads on the land. You can see how these name came to be. You can see a face for skull rock and the shape of an ape's head. It seemed like it took forever to get to these places and when I looked at the map of where we were, holy moly, it was only the tip of the ice burg going onto this land! I think in order to explore more of the land, you'd have to have a camp out and be out there several days. Dan wants to do that with Jerry. Thats fine. I'll give Dan the camera and he can go and sleep out in the wilderness and commune with nature and take all the nature shots. hahahahahaha.......I'll be home with my comforts in the desert. No more "tenting" or sleeping bags for me! Anyway, it was a fun ride. The farther out into the Kofa land you go, the prettier it becomes. So nice that there is a place that people can't ruin. There is suppose to be all kinds of wildlife such as big horn sheep, winged dove, desert tortoise, desert kit fox, and all the nasty little crawly things, but all we seen were some ground squirrels and a roadrunner. Mmmmmmmmmmm......beep beep....hahahahaha.......Oh, we also seen alot of tarantula webs. We didn't see any of them though. I think they were all taking a siesta waiting for night time.......We both came back a little pinker in the face and tanner on the arms. It was very hot out when we were stopped. Didn't take long to become a sweat ball when we weren't moving. Sure glad we took alot of water and ice tea with us! Taking lots of cold liquid is a must when out riding like that. Next on my list to buy is a small insulated ice/soda/tea holder.....By time we got back home, I was soooooooooooooooooooo sleepy. We were dust from head to toe, so a nice shower was in order. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh........It was a nice day, seeing new places, and being with nice friends......http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/bhsheep/maps.shtml
Check out the Kofa with this web-site.
Thursday, 10/30 we had a "stay at home day" and "do chores" day. We went to get water, gas for the generator and quad, and propane. Then we were home the rest of the day. Canadian Jim and Kathy came over for Dan's homemade pizza. Canadian bacon and pineapple. The other pizza he made was out of elk sausage. An elk that Jim had killed in Canada. It was yummy. Dan used the sausage, red pepper, onion, olives, sauce, and cheeses. Mighty tasty!!!!!!!!
Friday, 10/31. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dan, I, Jim, and Kathy went out quad riding. We drove to where General Patton's troops had set up camp. "A" Company, "B" Company, and "D" Company. You can see where the troops had made rock walkways and where their tents had been placed. All the rocks that they lay out for their camping area, are all still in the same place where they had placed them about 70 years ago. LOTS of history here! We have no idea why there wasn't a "C" Company. You can still see tank tracks in the ground. I can't EVEN imagine staying in a canvas tent out in the desert back in the late 30's. 1938 or 1939 I believe. There are still old cans laying around that had been rations for the men. No electric can openers or nice hand held openers for these old cans. You can tell that they had been opened with the old fashioned P-38 can opener. Check this site out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_can_opener....There is a picture of the opener on there. Interesting. We also went Geo Caching and found 4 caches. Its fun to follow the GPS with the longitude and latitude keyed in and find each cache. We're really liking this Geocache thing. Dan also played a little bit with the metal detector. Didn't find anything worth saving. Always hoping for that "big find". Maybe someday.....On the way home something happened to Jim's quad. Thank goodness it was close to town and not out in the middle of General Patton's camping places. We gave him and Kathy a tow back home after stopping for much needed refreshment at a gas station. You can see in the picture the tow line hooked up to his quad and the last picture of the two guys just kind of staring at the two quads and probably pondering over why it broke down. I'm sure he'll have it fixed soon so we can be off riding again with them.
Thursday, 10/30 we had a "stay at home day" and "do chores" day. We went to get water, gas for the generator and quad, and propane. Then we were home the rest of the day. Canadian Jim and Kathy came over for Dan's homemade pizza. Canadian bacon and pineapple. The other pizza he made was out of elk sausage. An elk that Jim had killed in Canada. It was yummy. Dan used the sausage, red pepper, onion, olives, sauce, and cheeses. Mighty tasty!!!!!!!!
Friday, 10/31. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dan, I, Jim, and Kathy went out quad riding. We drove to where General Patton's troops had set up camp. "A" Company, "B" Company, and "D" Company. You can see where the troops had made rock walkways and where their tents had been placed. All the rocks that they lay out for their camping area, are all still in the same place where they had placed them about 70 years ago. LOTS of history here! We have no idea why there wasn't a "C" Company. You can still see tank tracks in the ground. I can't EVEN imagine staying in a canvas tent out in the desert back in the late 30's. 1938 or 1939 I believe. There are still old cans laying around that had been rations for the men. No electric can openers or nice hand held openers for these old cans. You can tell that they had been opened with the old fashioned P-38 can opener. Check this site out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_can_opener....There is a picture of the opener on there. Interesting. We also went Geo Caching and found 4 caches. Its fun to follow the GPS with the longitude and latitude keyed in and find each cache. We're really liking this Geocache thing. Dan also played a little bit with the metal detector. Didn't find anything worth saving. Always hoping for that "big find". Maybe someday.....On the way home something happened to Jim's quad. Thank goodness it was close to town and not out in the middle of General Patton's camping places. We gave him and Kathy a tow back home after stopping for much needed refreshment at a gas station. You can see in the picture the tow line hooked up to his quad and the last picture of the two guys just kind of staring at the two quads and probably pondering over why it broke down. I'm sure he'll have it fixed soon so we can be off riding again with them.
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