Vulture Mine Road Archives

Tag: Vulture Mine Road

29 January 2020

Coddiwompling south watching birds and desert sunsets

After temporarily solving the propane problem, I continued coddiwompling south into desert, stopped at a dam, and then more desert beyond.

Seems one of the propane tanks I purchased last March and never got to use has a bad valve. The person I bought it from will deal with that, but in the meantime I needed a backup tank. Sadly, the 5-gal vertical tank is too tall but the cute little 1-gal fits in a compartment. It truly is just a backup. I will have to pay closer attention to the other tank that lasts about a week. Not good to run out of propane with ice cream in the freezer.

Next stop, Wickenburg for supplies. First Goodwill for probably an hour and all I bought was a sweatshirt. Then groceries, mail, fuel and out of town on Vulture Mine Road. The first pull off, nearest to the tower, is signed State Land permit required. Saw a few RVs, one in particular looked like it should be towed away. The road was horrible so I continued on to the next pull off. Now on BLM with an intermittent weak signal and only a few neighbors on beautiful desert thick with Jumping Cholla and Saguaro cactus.

I only plan to spend one night, I told my nearest neighbor when I pulled in. But then I decided to stay. And turns out she left instead, but not before reading my blog, introducing herself, and leaving me with the best home-baked cookies I’ve ever eaten. Turns out she was on her first ever boondock christening a new to her yet older popup camper. Right on girl!

It was so delightful I did stay an extra night, worked on last week’s Foto Friday Fun even knowing I couldn’t post it from there. I even considered driving back towards Wickenburg for a better signal and coming back to this camp. But what the heck, not the end of the world if a post doesn’t go out as planned.

I walked a bit late in the afternoon and as carefully as possible because of all the Jumping Cholla and still had them on my shoes. Used pliers to pull them out. Never want to touch them with any body part or clothing. Lovely to look at but definitely want to avoid getting close.

Yes, that’s a couch

Left camp by 8:30am, early for me, and stopped at a couple of places to see about signal strength as I skirted Phoenix to the west.

Such an interesting contrast seeing fields of unknown agricultural green, irrigation ditches full of water, solar farms, and huge power-line towers sometimes within sight of each other.

Drove the old highway to the Gillespie Bridge and glad there’s never much traffic so I can drive slowly and enjoy the bridge construction.

I’ve parked on the west side and walked to the dam but this time I crossed the bridge then walked towards the east side. Great place for bird watching but I was majorly surprised to see White Pelicans.

Also saw Cormorants, Egrets, Herons, Coots and, Mergansers.

The Gillespie Dam is a concrete gravity dam located on the Gila River between the towns of Buckeye and Gila Bend, Arizona. The dam was constructed during the 1920s for primarily irrigation purposes. A portion of the dam failed unexpectedly in 1993 during unusually heavy rains.

After a quick stop in Gila Bend for lunch, and a signal strong enough to post, I continued coddiwompling south to Ajo where I stopped at the 3 Nation’s Market & Swap Meet and bought a book and some sage.

Then, finally, to my next destination. Love this space along Darby Well Road, near where I camped before but that’s full of trailer.

All the desert components are in sight. Iconic and recognizable Saguaro cactus, towering rock formations, mountains, windmill, and sadly huge mine tailings. Also sadly, near a rusty tin can and broken glass pile. I am heartbroken about the trash. Why?

I was welcomed that first night with a fantastic show of colors. And a lagging camera shutter with lousy auto focus. Maybe I should take it off back-button focus.