What the hell are we still doing in Quartzsite..

Ya know when K and B tools folds it is time to get out of town. Anyone who has been here knows about K and B tools. The place to get that must have item you have been looking for for years. Without a doubt they have the number one vender spot in all of Q. Always packed with customers. 
Love their "Stack it Deep and Sell it Cheap" slogan. 

I don't think we have ever stayed here in Q this long in the season. I had to come here as we started to fulltime as this was the IT place to visit.  It was a goal, must go to Quartzsite. But IT became our seasonal landing spot as Terry got hooked on the rock club and later got elected to its board of directors. Since the rock club  building expanded to the old Q fire station next door, he has been busy this last week ripping out walls and redoing a section of the original building which now opened up so that he can expand the casting room. We had to go to Blythe, CA to pick up a load of dry wall for this. While there we took a purchase back to Kmart. While standing in line at the service desk we saw a couple of people making Western Union money transfers. One guy wanted to send $100 to Las Vegas and after it was entered into the WU computer he was told there would be a $66 fee to send $100 to Vegas. Now get this the manager came over to help due to the people in line and was just as surprised. She asked the regular clerk is this correct and he said it all depends to where you want to send money.  WOW can you believe 66% fee to send money just to Vegas. It's not like you wanted to take out out a loan. You pay upfront to just move money. The crazy part was the guy who wanted to send the money wasn't fazed when told the fee, just kept filling out the paper work. The main clerk called him by his first name so this must not be abnormal. Me thinks some of us are being taking advantage of. But you knew this already, didn't you?

We were ready to move on as last Thursday was the last rock club general meeting, but of course the weather alert had to pop up on my computer warning about a weather front that will move through mid week. Abnormal high temps on Monday and then cold, wind and rain mid week. So we are sitting tight till it moves through. And unlike in years past the temps are not bad yet. Quite pleasent if I don't say so. 

Rice Ranch is closed and venders have left for the most part. It looks more like we find it in the fall when we get here before the venders arrive. But this time it's spring and also empty. Seems we watch them come and go. 

Driving around we spotted the CareFlight was about to take off so we stopped to get a picture. This is one the great things about Q. If you need help it's here when and if you need it. This landing spot is right next to the fire station on the north side of Q. 

Great health care is available here in the desert in Q. An EMT will get to you within just a few minuets anywhere around here. Me thinks much better response time than many other areas we spend time at.
And the La Paz Regional Hospital in Parker about 30 miles north is first rate.
 

The day after...   Lots happened yesterday...

No I'm not going to talk about the health care bill that passed late Sunday.
I want to but I won't, just for you. We are progressives, so enough said.
Also I just got access back to this blog site. We changed web hosting server locations last week and the register site for the domain name wouldn't change the domain name server address to the new location. I got the main hitchith site forwarded but this one is a subdomain so it stayed down. But all is resolved now so back on line. 

On Sunday we took a field trip to Palm Canyon in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, AZ which is south of Quartzsite on HW 95. 

Some hikers who had returned from the hike up to see the palms. 

Do click on the Recreation Trails site link to see pictures of the actual palm trees. 
Do you think we were going to hike clear up into the canyon just for pictures to show you. Me thinks not. 

One of the signs in the above picture. 

Now for the disapointment. The reason we went to Palm Canyon is that the latest issue of Arizona Highways listed this as a great spot to view the wildflowers. They are out along the highways but NONE here. All very green but no flowers... Not any, not a one. But the drove was fun and the views were worth it me thinks. 
 
 

Guess I have to change the Blue lead in today to Green... 
 

A Pot O Gold to each of you. 

We took a drive to Parker, AZ on Tuesday afternoon for stuff as they say.  We hit Walmart and later Bashas' for our red meat fix. They have good meat prices.  As an example they had corned beef brisket for $1.29 a lb.. So I guess we will do the Irish thing with corned beef, but I don't think it will include the green beer. Never got into that... 

You do know that Thursday is a another celebration event.

St. Joseph's Day... St. Joseph the carpenter was the husband of Mary and the earthly father of Jesus. Tradition says that March 19th is the birthday of St. Joseph. 

In the United States, red is worn on St. Joseph's Day. There doesn't seem to be any religious significance to this color. It seems to have begun as a tradition to complement the tradition of wearing green on St. Patrick's Day, which falls only two days before.

• St. Joseph is the patron of workers and those in need of work. Prayers for the unemployed are often included in the traditions of March 19th celebrations.

Bet lots of red beer will flow this year. 

Now this day is where you can rid your body of greenand go for the redbeer. Looking back from my party beer drinking days don't remember if the color changed from green to red when relieving the bladder during partying. If up to now you have been only drinking green beerthis time of year do check out the history of  St. Joseph's Day.

Perhaps you need more FD&C Red Dye #40, in your system. 
 

Google Alert... 

One of the cool things that Google has to offer is Google Alerts.   On Google you can specify a topic you want to follow and each time it appears somewhere on the web Google sends you an email to its link. Very Cool. You can find out more on this Google Alerts site link.

Well as you might suspect I have a Goolge Alert to anything Quartzsite. 

This morning I got notice of the new issue of High Country News magazine which had its feature article about of all places... Quartzsite.

At High Country News, we think a lot about that overused but still relevant term, "a sense of place." I don't know exactly what it means, either. But I think it involves knowing that we're here, rather than, well, over there. And that we understand at least some of the characteristics that make this place -- the West -- different from other places...  read more of of the editors cover page
By Jonathan Thompson  editor High Country News

Go to High County News and read their feature article Mobile Nation
Every winter in Quartzsite, Ariz., tens of thousands of RVers form an impromptu community in the desert.

by Etienne De Malglaive  Mobile Nation
 
 

It has been a wild season in Q

Remember back on January 21 when we had the huge storm here in Q. Our report of that in our Jan. 19-30 post. Well a couple of other storms have come through since. 

Report from a RVer C Gates out on Plomosa road which is about 6 miles north of Q on March 09 when he stepped out of this camper, low and behold ... a funnel cloud appeared in the skies above him. He ran to his truck to grab his camera and this is what he got....  He posted this picture on rv.net/forum. He is a senior member of that forum.  And you thought all was sunny ALL the time here in Q. Like the rest of the country this has been a wild year for weather. 
 

MOST of the time it has been above average temps and sunny this year in Q. The crush of people for the January shows had great weather and me thinks they will be back again next year. 

It's slow blogging now in Q as the pace is slowed up as the Long Term Visitors are getting ready to close up shop and head slowly north at the end of the month, me thinks. 

I just hope the below snicker post doesn't apply again as we will be on the road heading through real tornado country in a month or two. 

Knock on Wood. 
 
 
 
 
 

I'm learning I shouldn't snicker 

Remember my post a few weeks ago about the Larry Green Chevy dealer in Blythe, CA when we went to them for a front end alingment?  As we were standing at the service desk a Silverado one ton truck just like ours pulled up in the service lane. The guy got out and came inside. I asked how Emery, SD was doing as his lic plate had the same county number as ours so I knew he was a fulltimer using SD as his domicile.  He next talked to the service guy about how his dash cluster readout was not working correctly with the gauge dials were going crazy.  He knew there was service bulletin out on this issue and they said to come back the next day and they would check it out and see if it was covered. I thought that must be a real mess to deal with and thought to myself, glad him and not me. 
That's my snicker moment.

Now MY tach in my dash cluster has started to crash. 

The tachometer works at times or just stays at the bottom or comes up and stops at some point and doesn't change. I did a search on the forums and found out this is a big problem for GM truck owners. They even had the service bulletin for me to print out. They were saying some dealers were covering this past the bulletin warranty extension of 7 years 70 K miles for this issue. We are past this limit. I thought I bet Larry Green Chevy in Blythe, CA or Bradley Chevy in Parker, AZ would never do that for a customer.  So I called my selling dealer in IA and talked to the commercial service desk that deals with diesels and asked them since it is only my tachometer not working at times now will the other dash gauges go out in time also?  They said it might not get worse and just stay with the tach gauge. And when I get back for our visit to Iowa in the spring to bring it in and they will check it out and if I haven't gone over 100K miles they should be able to cover it. Said to call if it changes or if I have any more questions. Now that is what a great dealer is all about. They have covered other issues out of warranty for me as "Good Will" without charge also.  If you youself in central IA and need a Chevy dealer do see Karl Chevy in Ankeny, IA. (Des Moines)

Now if you have a Chevy truck and this becomes an issue for you. See this GM bulletin.

If you want, go ahead and snicker (like I did) about all this...  But beware snickers can come back to haunt you, me not thinks, me knows! 
 
 
 
 
 

What have we been up to, you ask.

Well... let me think... Its been breezy and cool so I have been spending inside time playing on the computer (I mean working). I of course worked on Hitchitch.com and my other sites. 

That site is starting to be more than just a labor of love, more like a pain in the ass. It has grown in popularity to a size where people look at it like it is more like a public service. That's fine but...

From time to time I get e-mail from people who think it is their god given right to have their blog listed. Or why it has taking so long to get listed. They after all sent their listing to me several times now. I try not to write back with a nasty gram, but boy would I like to at times. 
I did send this one out to a person who was grumbling they weren't listed. Also pointing out to me listings that she thought didn't deserve to be listed. Guess she was applying for editor or something. 

It went something like this... I did wordsmith it for this post. 
 

FYI... When we receive a request we place the site in a review status mode... and from time to time take a look at it to see if it has progressed to a stage that we feel our readers will take a liking to.  This is what judgment calls are all about. And sure our opinion may not agree with yours but we pay the web hosting fees, and like in the old days as they say we buy the ink, so it's our call.  We used to write when a site was listed but gave up on that for the most part. Many times didn't get a reply of thanks. They'll see the increase traffic and know. We never did acknowledge when a request was received. Who has time for that.  As we got to the current size of listings we have become as you might say more picky...  We are now not as we were in the beginning just a site for RV blog listings, but listings that have a little special flair to them. Like a publishing house that rejects more than it lists.  That happens... as we are now looking for sites that stand out so to speak.  So many people are doing blogs, and some are not great works of prose just yet. That's why we don't just discard them, we watch them to see if they improve over time.  Sure some of our older listings may not meet our new standards but they are now kind of grand fathered. Once listed, just try to remove one. We hear about it if we do, so we have become defensive. Hitch Itch started out as a fun project and is turning out to be more like work.  As for your site it is still under review.

Terry said I was too nice.
Guess that sort of sums it up. Don't get me wrong I love doing the site, but it's only a web site after all, meant to be a fun place where we can share our stories and learn from each other. 
 

The other thing that I've been working on is Taxes. (Maybe that's why I did the above web site rant, Ya Think) I do my own taxes and have used TaxAct for years. Only $12.95 for the Deluxe Version. Imports info from past years returns. They are a home grown company from Iowa that made it big time. This year I'm going nuts trying to figure out Schedule M "Making Work Pay". It's a $400 tax credit as part of the stimulus plan and confusing to be sure. 
I started to get Social Security late last year. Only got a few payments but now I can tell next year I am going to have to increase my quarterly estimated tax payments by at least double what I paid last year. Ouch.. Guess that's the price for having all this income... LOL 
Another gripe is I have to pay Income Tax on the value of the Health Ins. that I get that covers Terry my partner, provided by my former employer. They even send a W-2 for that value and call it Imputed Income to me. I've talked about this before so enough said. Now we are extremely grateful for the coverage I still get as a retired employee. I know just how high even shitty coverage is costing others, if they can even get it. Those people who say don't mess with Health Ins. drive me nuts. Must be nice for them to have never been to a doctor or had to go to a hospital and see what it costs. 

Boy O Boy the whole post turned into a rant.  Just the way I like it, me thinks.
 

Road trip report to the Freeport-McMoRan Mine at Bagdad, AZ 

Bagdad, AZ which is wholy owned by the mining company. It's a true company town. You read about them in history, but right here in AZ one still exists. They own it all, the land, homes, stores, fire station, health clinic, schools, parks, power and water company.  Me thinks you would have to live there to understand how that all works. Wonder if you get promoted do you get to move to a better house. Now to be fair all looked to be pretty clean and nice school sports fields etc. I didn't probe with many indepth questions but people looked happy enough. I hope so. You would have to treat people good to get them to come here to work as this is well off the beaten path. One way in and one way out. Any city of size (Prescott or Wickenberg is over 60 or so miles away). But after all it is an old mining town that didn't turn into a ghost town, but still going strong. Employment is down but with Copper now about $3 (we hear the break point is about $1.40) so they are making money and are fiinding ways to extract ore from fields that many said were not viable anymore. 

We arrived at the town civic center the mine built (inside and outside pools and meeting hall and park. 
It was an old middle school remodeled. 
The Free tours (must call to make an appointment 928 633 2642)  is run by the retired Delgado family.
Paid for by the mine using company vans. 

Doesn't Terry look good all decked out  in his safety glasses, hard hat, and bright orange vest. 

We boarded the vans and off we went. First stop was an overlook to get the big picture. 
Hard to grasp the size of this huge hole in the ground. 

Since this group was from the Q rock club they seemed to spend  more time looking at the rocks than over the side. They even allowed them to pickup a couple of boulders to take home. 

Now for a little zoom action to the working mine part. 

They are drilling to blast which they do Monday- Thursday at about 2 PM. 

This mine runs 24/7 365 a year.  Never takes a break. 

Robert Delgado on the left was our guide and we hit him up with many questions. Since he has been doing the tours for the last 13 years he had the answers to be sure. Larry Clark, center right in the bibs organized this field trip as a member of the rock club and we thank him for putting it together. 

Terry picked up this rock, see the copper in it. 

On a later stop we went into the monitor shack. This guy controls the truck traffic and the conditions around the trench. They use radar  and GPS to watch for ground movement. Don't want a landslide now do we. He knows where every truck is at all times. The shack was high up over looking the open pit. 

Now this is one of the way to extract the copper. 
They run tubes and drip acid over the ore to leach out the copper. Who knew.

Leaching
In leaching, copper is removed from ore using weak sulfuric acid solutions.  In a first step: low-grade ore from the mine is either stockpiled for treatment or is crushed before stockpiling. The ore is placed in these large stockpiles or "pads" in 15- to 30-foot-high levels or "lifts." As each level is built, a network of plastic tubing and drip systems or sprinklers is spread over the top of the pad to deliver "raffinate" to the stockpile. A slightly acidic solution, raffinate percolates through the stockpile, dissolving copper minerals contained in the rock surface. This copper laden water, called pregnant leach solution, exits the bottom of the stockpile and flows into collection ponds. From there it is pumped to tanks at a solution extraction plant on the site.
You can read much more about it below.

We stopped at the maintenance building. Now this was huge. It was orig. built for use at the Hoover Dam site  and when that was done they took it apart and move it here and reassembled it. 

We (our tour are the only ones wearing these orange vests)

Just little Tonka trucks to play with...

Now back to process... This is the end result of the leaching. 

The copper sheets pilled up ready to ship. The one in front is for show. 

They also crush the rock in another process to concentrate it and haul it to southern AZ for smelting. 

Follow the process each step of the way from Drilling to Electrowinning to Market. Take an inside look at how the raw ore is sifted, refined and manufactured into copper products. 
If you are at all interested on how they get the copper out... Very cool presentation.
Click here for greater detail and explanation.
Nice text detail with optional videos that load quick. Go for it you might learn somthing. I sure have.
You will be able to click on each step of the process to see how it is done. 

 

That's the end of our field trip. We stopped at the company store for a late lunch. The mine owns the building, but Bashas, a large grocery chain, runs it. It was going on 2:30 PM. Snacked on some fried fish and onion rings from their deli. Sounded better than our meatloaf sandwiches we had brought with us in the cooler. Let me tell you I was tired when we got back to Quartzsite. About 250 miles round trip. Just in time for 5 PM happy hour. 
 
 

Future Road trip report this Friday...

We have plans to go on a field trip this Friday... The trip is to Dodge Philps Bagdad Mine
We tried to do this one last year but the weather didn't cooperate and it was cancelled. 
It's a 125 mile one way trip from Q and when we get there they load us up in 12 passenger vans (36 people max) and show us around for 2 1/2 hours. Must wear long pants, no open toe shoes, and need sleved shirts. 
You can bet we will have many pictures and verbiage of this event. 

Can you see me getting up to meet in Q at 8 AM for a 125 mile drive one way in a caravan. I might have to get coffee with caffeine in it. That's a no no for me. But we shall see. It should be a fun outing to say the least after I wake up a few miles down the road. 

Stop back for a road trip report when we get back. 
 
 
 
 

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