One fine day, the wind blew just right and the Cordrays had no choice but to honor their itchy feet and hit the road. We chose to front-end-load the autumnal celebrations by heading out for an adventure on the first day of October. We cooked up a bunch of grub to make meals easy and loaded up dogs and gear for a very short leapity-leap to a local favorite, Dome Rock Mountain Road 14 Day BLM Camping Area.
Dan was ready to try out his 80 meter dipole antenna for ham radio. You can see the poles in front of and behind the van. We don’t have this much room at home, so we often come to the edge of town to play radio.
We were also ready to rockhound and look around a bit, to see what changes the monsoon have brought to our slice of the desert. It’s really green out here! The cover photo is an old broken Coca-Cola bottle, of course, but this huge pile of cans (all exactly alike) was a mystery to us. We think it was canned water for mining operations. There were shredded tires in the pile as well.
Every sunrise and sunset seemed more vibrant than the one before it. We spent quite a bit of time calling in “ground truths” as local weather spotters. The humidity was fierce without the relief of rain, but alas, a good rainstorm was simply a mirage here at Camp Cordray.
We could see the lights of Quartzsite-town and could be home in two shakes of a Libby’s tail, but we hung in there and adapted to the conditions, like we would if home wasn’t just a few miles away.
It was nice to be back in the van, brewing ideas for kitting it out for a longer trip and enjoying nature and each other’s company. There were a few bumps in the road that you can only find out about by reading part two of our Dome Rock Mountain Road adventure-stay tuned!
Waving hi from somewhere out there,
Brenda Cordray
“The Desert Rose”
Camping at Dome Rock Mountain Road, Part One