The Desert Bar Parker Arizona

The Desert Bar is located just outside of Parker, and to get to it you must travel five miles of dirt road. The fun part is that there are areas where you can go crazy if you have four wheel drive and high ground clearance.
The Bar was once a copper/gold mine, the mine is still visible from the bar but it's no longer used.

The Bar is totally off grid and uses solar panels for their power. The towers in the picture are cooling towers. The top portion of the towers have a mesh that is sprayed with water on hot days. The air passing through the mesh is cooled naturally and passes down the tower to the bar for a natural cooling effect. Really neat, like a swamp cooler.

In this shot you can see the solar panels.

Joyce said that the ladies room that is partially in the side of a mountain, was so nice that she had to take a picture of it. This is the only fancy part of the establishment because everything else was made from reused parts. Example is the windows in the bar were formally glass freezer doors like you find in the grocery store.

The stalls were built to last because they area heavy gauge sheets of steel, hey....who's feet are those?????

The bridge goes from the parking lot to the bar. We are sitting in a dry river bed.

The owner lives in a house that he built. It's next to the bar and also has cooling towers.

This is another piece of construction totally made from steel. It's a church facade that if viewed from either side looks like a church front. A beautiful piece of construction.

Nice truck left over from the mining days.

Ah, the good old Ford flat head V8

And you may remember these. This one was in the parking lot.

A bit of beauty in the desert.

On our way out we had to hit some of the ATV areas. One in particular was a bit hairy, we had to climb a steep hill, ride across the top then a tight right into a sudden drop. Couldn't use the brakes going down because the Jeep wanted to slide so had to hurry and drop it into low 4 wheel. Joyce was holding the camera and her breath.

This is where we started.

Check out the Video!

Some friends here are looking to purchase a deeded lot for their RV at this place so we took a ride to check it out.
We were impressed with the size of the lots. Most were 80' x 125' with a surrounding wall and a gate.

As we left we decided to take an off road route. The majority of these trails are for ATV's but what the heck, we love a challenge. We ran into this redneck sign and just had to follow.

This area is full of small gold miners that were out working their claims.

At one point I had to get out and check the road, it's hard to tell in the picture but the road is very narrow and has a sudden drop from a large rock.

The surrounding terrain is very rocky and rough.

It amazes me what this Jeep is capable of doing.

These guys never made it and had to be shot.

But this little Jeep continued on down this dry narrow river bed. We continued on for a while before coming to a dirt road that took us back to town. A good time was had by all except the Jeep did take a couple of really hard hits that had to hurt.

Swansea Ghost Town

Our trip to Swansea Ghost Town took us through some small backroad towns. I love these places because they usually have some great stuff in their yards. Check out these classics.
And these three still had their last license plates.

We were trying to figure out how that RV got up on top of that hill. Well further up the road was a place that was selling RV pads that were carved into the side of the mountain. Only saw two RV's and there were probably fifty pads. "Build it and they will come" They didn't!!!!

As we pulled off the paved road we had another 30 miles of dirt road through the desert and mountains. In this one area, I had to get out and open a portion of the fence so we could pass.

We finally arrived at Swansea. The remains of the copper mining town were spread out over a large area.

Most of the buildings area eroding away so the State is stepping in and working to save some of what's left.

Open mines dot the area.

The desert scenery is beautiful.

There are even old tin cans from the days.

Some info.

This is shaft #7 which was their main shaft that is over one thousand feet deep.

These are the remains of some of the homes in town.

Sadly there's not much left to those homes.

These are a row of one room quarters where the miners lived, they are being worked on to save them.

On our way out of town we stopped to get this great western shot. We took a different route home and ran the dirt road at speeds we shouldn't have but it was great fun. The poor old Jeep took a beating but kept on going. We also did some areas where they were running the ATV's, cool hills!!!

Back in town it was all you can eat fish & chips. Check out #12 on the menu.

The fish and the live entertainment was great and so was the sunset.

Movie Night Surprise

Last night was movie night at the tent that is located a ways behind us. People chip in and they have a movie two nights a week.
Well we decided to do the movie which is cool because you can BYOB. The movie was "A Leap Of Faith" starring Steve Martin. About half way through the movie Joyce and I noticed something run by us. Note that the movie is held in a large tent that has indoor/outdoor carpeting and propane heaters, it's really quit nice. You bring your own chairs.
So there we were with a dozen other people watching the movie and again something ran by then stopped at our feet. EEEEK, it was one of those Desert Mice or Rats or something. All I know is that it was fast but not as fast as Joyce jumping up on her chair. Then all hell broke out when the other women saw it.
As Joyce knows, I hate mice but there were other men there so I had to suck it up an try to look cool. If you stamped your feet, the little guy would take off only to return later.
So.....we spent the remainder of the movie watching the floor for movement. I doubt that we will do the Saturday night movie.

Most of the activities that Quartzsite is famous for are winding down. There are a lot of RV's still around that the dealer haven't moved out like the Rexhall Trex. This coach has a different European look and the full length slides and awning retract flush with the exterior walls. However the fiberglass work on the exterior was very wavy and cheesy looking. Too bad because I thought the design was really sharp with clean lines.
Continued on into town, had to see what they had in the bakery. Joyce got a loaf of sour dough bread.

OMG, look what I got, it's a giant jelly Bismark! I hope it stays fresh for morning.

I was afraid to ask how much, all original paint wheels etc.

Desert Camp

Took a ride to the Junk Tents as I call them. These are located just about a mile away and they sell just about anything you would want or need.
I bought me another pair of rubber coated gloves for $2.oo, I use them when fueling and figured it would be good to have a spare pair.

We are having our dinner and this is what we have to look at out of the front. As you can see, there's plenty of room between everyone.

This is our view looking out the drivers side from the dinner table, note the large cactus that was blown over by a gust of wind. It happened before we got here.There's a tent set up out here and they have movies on Wed. and Sat. nights at 7PM. We may do a movie tonight.

Goodbye Salton Sea, Hello Quartzsite

While I packed up to leave, Joyce went to take some farewell pictures of the water foul. These are young male pelicans that are getting ready for the mating season. You can tell that they are young mails by the small bump on their top beak.
This is a mix of pelicans and gulls getting ready for their morning flight.

And here they are starting to take flight.

We really enjoyed our stay at the Salton Sea. We met some really great people that were hosting the campground and we spent a lot of time talking to them. We always wish that we could stay longer but it was time to move on. We will be back next year and hope to stay longer.

Here's a bit of information of the Salton Sea.

Here's some more information on the native Americans from this area.

We said our goodbyes to our friends and headed for route 10. There is a great road that takes you through some pretty country.

There are some ares in through here where you can go off roading.

They have to plow the dirt from the road after it rains.

We made it to route 10 and after a few hours, we arrived at Quartzsite, Ar.

This is all BLM land so you just drive out and find yourself a nice spot in the desert. There are many other RV's around us but everyone is really spread out. At night they have the community campfire where they burn pallets. The stars are beautiful!!!