We awoke to a cool but brilliant morning here in Tonto National Forest just North of Apache Junction, Arizona.  It’s hard to believe this can even be called a desert:

We had overnighted on a spur road:

Upon reading the permit this morning, I see that camping off the main road is not allowed, so we moved to a pullout along the main road:

As we got the RV into position, it started to rain and hail.  We walked down to the local wash which was now full of water.  It’s the first time we’ve seen what a wash looks like during a storm:

After breakfast, we drove in to Apache Junction and visited and played dominoes with Grandpa Glenn and Edna for most of the afternoon:

After saying goodbye to Glenn and Edna, we drove to Party City to find some Purim costumes:

We arrived back at the RV just before sunset:

We prepared our shalach manos:

Trish tested out some of her face painting on B:

Trish made a birthday cake for B:

In my opinion, it was about as tasty as it looks, but the kids loved it:

This morning Trish made a special birthday breakfast for B:

We drove down to Tyson Wells vendor area here in Quartzsite.  Unlike our last visit, where we rubbed elbows with half a million other RVers, most of the vendors are gone this late in the season, but a few remain and we did a bit of shopping:

We filled up our propane, mailed some letters, and visited a number of gem and bead shops in town, including Gem World where this fellow lives, an oblique reference to Hi Jolly, who is buried in town:

We were only here in Quartzsite for one night, but it was fun to be back again:

We had a bit of rain last night, so the ground was a bit soft, but thankfully we did manage to get back on the road. As we drove east towards Phoenix, Trish photographed the kids in the back seat being their usual selves:

We arrived in Apache Junction, AZ a bit after sunset.  After stopping my Grandpa Glenn’s house and visited with him and Edna, we picked up some supplies at Walmart and drove a couple miles north to overnight in the Bulldog Wash OHV area of the Tonto National Forest.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Shabbos was nice and cool but quite windy.  At night, we had a campfire and burned off most of the ocotillos the kids had harvested:

This morning we packed up the RV, said goodbye to our great campsite for the last 10 or so days, and drove north a few miles to the site of the ghost town of Tumco.  The Tumco area has been a mining site from the 1600s until as recently as the 1990s.  The BLM has produced an interpretive walk though the ghost town, which was had its peak in the late 1800s.  Our first stop was the cemetery:

Every ghost town has a can dump:

The basement of the miner’s club is all that remains of the structure:

Only portions of one wall remain of the 40 by 40 foot hospital building:

A demolished brick building:

This is the site of the stamp mill for the town.  In 1896, a 100 stamp mill was built here, which cost $200,000 at the time:

Cyanide vats on the hill, used to extract gold from ore:

The vats are now full of sand:

We left Tumco and drove north to Blythe.  We hadn’t dumped our sewer tanks in the last 17 days or so, so we visited a county park and emptied our tanks.  We then continued a bit north of town to the site of Blythe Intaglios, a series of large human and animal figures carved into the ground by pushing aside the patina-covered rocks that cover the ground.  The intaglios are thought to be approximately 1000 years old.  The largest figure is over 170 feet tall:

The first figure we visited as seen from the air:

Here’s a ground level photo from the feet side:

And from the head:

Our second visited figure is the largest here:

This one has an animal alongside it:

Cactus here have these small “fruits” sticking out, probably because of the recent rains:

We met a couple walking around here.  The woman told us she knew a good bit about Native American rock tools, and she was pretty sure that this stone was chipped for use as a tool:

We visited the third set of intaglios on the was back to the RV:

This figure also had a companion animal:

There’s also a spiral shape here:

Leaving the intaglios, we drove back to Blythe and East to Quartzsite to overnight.  We camped very close to the place we camped last time we were here.  B shared with us a rule book she made for herself.  I guess she’s been listening:

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.