Desert experience

We were invited to take the drive out to King Valley that is part of the KofA (King of Arizona) National Wildlife Refuge. We were told to bring a lunch as there was no where to eat. We met up promptly with everyone at 10 a.m. There were about seven vehicles that headed out to King Valley. We ended up traveling 29 miles in to the desert. The road was packed gravel most of the way but had deep sections of gravel that caused one to fishtail. Everyone was in 4x4 vehicles except us and Bob and Brenda who were in their Mustang. Boy, if we had known what kind of road it was, we would have declined going out there. Going out wasn't a problem but coming back, we almost got stuck. Thankfully, John kept the pedal down and got us out of there. Whew!

Near the King of Arizona Mine, we stopped for lunch. Here is a shot of all of our vehicles lined up. Notice the trailers and such in the background. There is at least one woman who lives out here. More about her later.

Everyone brought their dogs along. We were the only ones without a pet.

The area we were at had no cactus in the immediate area but Bob (Dee) still managed to pick up a Cholla ball. Needlenose pliers took care of pulling out the thorns out of Bob's leg. Bob said his leg felt much better after they were gone.

Here we all are enjoying lunch and each other's company in the glorious sun.
Here is beautiful shot of the mountain views that we had out in the middle of nowhere.

Lunch wrapped up and everyone but John and I and Bob and Brenda decided to drive up to the King of Arizona Mine. We stood around visiting and just waiting for everyone to return for our trip home. We noticed this woman all dressed in layers with leggings and a hat come walking up to us. We were informed that we were on private property and that the designated road was our only access and that we needed to get going. She was rather curt and to the point and wanted us gone ASAP. She said what she came to say and turned and walked back from which she came. It was rather strange. The four of us kind of looked at each other but it became a moot point as we saw that the others were coming back down the road.

All of us headed out and as we were in front of Bob and Brenda, we gave them heads up about gullies and deep washes. It was in one of the washes where we almost got stuck. Everyone split up at the main road as some were heading for Yuma and others were going in to Quartzsite to shop. We just went home. We had enough for the day.