Short visit to Saddle Mountain area

Note: Attempting a blog post again using LiveWriter, to see if is working again?
Nope, it didn't work :-(  Unlike the past '400' error this time, it didn't even seem to try.  About 1/2 second and it timed out with no error messages or any feedback! Everything copied over to Blogger to try again.

After spending about a week at Burro Creek, north of Wickenburg, Az, we moved down to an old regular spot, Saddle Mountain near Tonopah.
It is a very scenic spot with good cell service, and there are lots of possible camp spots.  Unfortunately, it seems to have become quite popular, and the available choices this time were more limited.

But, we found a spot along a small wash between a pair of distant neighbours.

As luck would have it, the sun rose behind Saddle Mountain itself, and set behind the mountain we were parked beside, leaving limited hours of sunlight, specially at this time of year.
Hailey apparently had a visitor come by to see her!  A neighbouring camper had a cat, but I’m not sure if this was it?

I’ve always wanted to see what was on the back side of Saddle Mountain, so because of the relatively crowded conditions here (for me), I spent a couple days exploring the backside.  I drove through from the Harquahala Valley side first, and found a good supply of firewood.  I also ran into a guy who was missing a blue-tick hound.  He’d been chasing a mountain lion with his hounds and one had gone missing …  I managed to circumnavigate the mountain, coming out near the Palo Verde nuclear power generating station – largest in the US, I think I read.  I assume that accounted for the multiple ‘air raid’ sirens scattered through the area.

I did find one pretty tempting spot not too far from pavement back there, but there was just not enough cell service to survive!  Maybe if I had a booster or could attach an antenna to my Mobley, but not this time.

 

Even more neighbours kept arriving, and it started to feel even more crowded, but at least everyone there had solar, so it remained thankfully quiet.
Nevertheless, it was time to get gone, so we packed up and headed back Quartzsite way.  We moved into our usual area of late, south of town, but picked an even more remote spot this time.  It is very quiet, very peaceful, and the weather is so far cooperating, if a bit on the cool side.  And of course, there is great AT&T signal here.

 

Lots of room here for Al & Kelly, if they can find a suitable rig!  Or even Wandering Willy, who seems to be skulking around the Ogilby Rd area with Jean & Skip.  And a little bird told me that John & Brenda have escaped the latest round of storms and highway closures in southern Alberta and BC, and are due to arrive in the general area any day now!