Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013, Quartzsite, AZ.

Wednesday is jeep ride day.

I sleep in my van at Marty’s last night so I’d be there to go on the group jeep ride at nine in the morning.

We were headed back to California.

Meeting up with the Jeepers.

We met the jeepers at the Carl’s Jr. place at nine after gashing up at the Pilot station, which was on the way. At nine we were underway west on highway ten.

Stopped at Palo Verde.

I think we had about eight jeeps of different varieties on this trip. Just past Blythe, CA. we turned south on Highway 78 to a little place called Palo Verde, where we stopped for a bit to let the group catch up.

Below is a picture of most of us at the Palo Verde store and station.

 

West to the opal mine.

We headed west from Palo Verde on a dirt road though someone ranch and off to the back country, headed for Opal Hill Mine.

Below is a picture of some of the road we took to the mine.

 

We stopped just below the opal mine to let everyone catch up. Marty took the opportunity to air down our jeep’s tires which really helped the ride on the rest of the trip.

Below is us stopped just below the opal mine.

 

Opal Hill opal mine.

There were some people working the opal mining area. This area had been worked over big time with machinery some time before and is now just worked by hand by a few people.

Below, you can see us parked in the background and the opal digging pits the people were working. The lady three people at the right are at an active digging site.

Another shot of the digging area at the opal mine below.

 

Lunch time in the wash.

After being at the opal mine for awhile we took off and eventually stopped for lunch in this wash which was nicely out of the wind, which was good because the wind was real a blowing out there.

Below is a picture of all of us having lunch in the wash, out of the wind.

 

Just jeeping along.

After lunch we continued on our way down some fairly good roads.

Below you can see some of our group jeeping down a back road.

 

Hauser Geo’s area

We were headed for a place called Hauser Geo Beds which was supposed to be a good place to find geo’s. We made it there and everyone got out and looked around. Most everyone was looking for rocks as you can see their heads are down looking, but not Marty, see him standing in the middle watching all the nutty people looking for rocks.. See Below.

The challenging side road.

After about a half hour or so, we mounted up and headed on our way out, Tom our leader turned off on a side road and started up a hill which Dennis followed and they both came to a stop and retreated down the hill. Another Dennis, the Jeeper, took his jeep up the hill road to show them how and made it almost all the way until he ran into a wash out and had to retreat. . I’m happy to say, the jeep I was in, with Marty sat that one out.

From there we all departed and headed for home.

Had a nice day jeeping.