A warm(er) week
November 27, 2016


The trailer is packed, cleaned and winterized, and we are on the road.  The Bradshaws have just come into sight.  The promised storm clouds hover along the ridges; our plan/hope is to be home and unpacked before precipitation begins.  At the beginning of this week, the weatherman assured us of a benign sojourn, but somewhere along the line, that forecast gave way to the reality of a winter storm at home in the mountains, so now the race is on.

Boondocking with kin . . .

Wrapping up a week in the desert brought an opportunity to meet up with seldom-seen Oregon & Arizona fam.  They met us halfway at Wenden, a wide spot in the road, for a jaunt out through the desert.

Chris chose a random dirt road heading into the Harcuvar Mountains and we halted at an equally random spot for a tailgate picnic amidst a hefty stand of cholla and saguaro cactus.

Some photos defy explanation.

With bellies full, we all crammed ourselves into the Toter.  When my pard appeared ready to drive us down a steep road drop, I had a bit of a freak-out, for which my kin gave me a good bit of flak, rather unkindly, in my opinion.  Maybe Chris agreed with me that our trusty steed might not be able to get back up that slope or he also thought two stucks in one week would have been two too many.  At any rate, we halted there and commenced to set off on foot.  I suspect the abuse, good-natured though it may be, about my shrieking for Chris to stop may not cease as easily.

Having no plan whatsoever after we were fed, mine tailings that we spotted up on the mountainside became our on-foot destination.  Why not - after all, Shannon requested a boondock and that was as good as any.

There was the small matter of that ankle I busted up and dislocated and had surgery on a couple of months previous, but I had my trusty walking stick and willing helpers all around, so away we went.  What an awesome and amazing feeling to set off on that very rough and rocky steep climb when a few weeks ago, the most I could think of doing was gingerly clod-hopping around at home!

In all, I got in a mile or more of a real hike, albeit with great care not to slip on the steep slopes.  Alas, all deemed that final stretch to be beyond my current capabilities; they got me enthroned on a wide rock and there I stayed while they completed the trek.

All my sweet ones gathered around my rock throne for a shot before we headed back down the mountain.

If you look very closely, you can see the truck waaaay back down there whence we came . . . and I lived to tell the tale of that hike.

Harvest time. . .

The drive over to Wenden gave us an opportunity to see the modern method of cotton picking.  Huge theshing machines harvest a field so fast it makes your head spin to imagine it in comparison to the non-mechanical way.

The monstrous contraption moves quickly through the field and when it has accumulated sufficient cotton, it bales and wraps it.  The round bale is then carried on the back of the machine that continues to harvest until it deposits its load at the end of the field.

Ehrenberg . . .

The Colorado River had many moods in days gone by, periodically flooding vast areas of land.  Even though its tempers have now been tempered by huge dams, it can and does continue to have a mind of its own.

An example of the water's power can be seen just offshore of our RV park where there is a large island created when part of the flow cut it off from the mainland.  Out in the main channel are the weathered pilings, remains of the former Blythe-Ehrenberg ferry.  In addition, there was a steamboat landing at the site.

This 1926 photo from the Mohave museum of Bradshaw's ferry illustrates the method that allowed travel across major rivers.  It was one of many ferries that crossed the Colorado River in various places.  This probably would have been taken from just about where our travel trailer was situated.

That leads us to believe that the main section of Ehrenberg was right about where Arizona Oasis, our temporary RV perch, now sits, which would certainly have been in the flood plain prior to the river being dammed.  Evidently, any historic structures that were spared from flooding were demolished to provide snow bird roosts.

The town had a post office from 1869 until 1913.  It was named for Henry Ehrenberg, a German surveyor and mining engineer who pioneered and adventured in the western United States.  He surveyed the town's site, then called Mineral City, and prospected for gold in the Little Harquahala Mountains and elsewhere.  He was robbed and killed in California in 1866, never having known the place was named for him.

In 1862, Michael Goldwater, a forebear of Barry Goldwater, established a mercantile at Ehrenberg after moving from La Paz because of the river changing its course.

Never much of a metropolis, Ehrenberg seems to have been mostly a collection of ramshackle structures and truthfully, is not much more now.  Barring recreational vehicles and dune buggies, there's just not a lot going on.  One mini-mart suffices for supplies; a jaunt across the river to Blythe is required for just about anything commercial.

Pioneer's resting place . . .

Up the hill from there, in a spot safe from water's ravages, is the burial site of many of the early residents on that side of the river.  Most of the graves are unmarked; of the identified, almost all are Daniels, which is one of my ancestral lines from the South.

The Eherenberg cemetery is the epitome of desolation even in its well-maintained condition.

Here lies Robert Daniel, known as Cinco (and I of course I can't help but wonder just why he was so called.)

Vanished Arizona . . .

An interesting excerpt about Ehrenberg from Martha Summerhayes' memoir about her 1870s sojourn at various western military forts:

"From Jack’s diary (her husband): “Aug. 23^rd. Heat awful. Pringle died today” He was the third soldier to succumb. It seemed to me their fate was a hard one. To die, down in a wretched place, to be rolled a blanket and buried on those desert shores, with nothing but a heap of stones to mark their graves.

The next day I asked Jack to walk to the grave-yard with me. He postponed it from day to day, but I insisted upon going. At last, he took me to see it. 

There was no enclosure, but the bare, sloping, sandy place was sprinkled with graves, marked by heaps of stones, and in some instance by rude crosses of wood, some of which had been wrenched from their upright position by the fierce sand-storms. There was not a blade of grass, a tree, or a flower. I walked about among these graves, and close beside some of them I saw deep holes and whitened bones. I was quite ignorant or unthinking, and asked what the holes were.

“It is where the coyotes and wolves come in the nights,” said jack.

My heart sickened as I thought of these horrors, and I wonder if Ehrenburg held anything in store for me worse than what I had already seen. We turned away from this unhallowed grave-yard and walked to our quarters. I had never known much about “nerves,” but I began to see specters in the nights, and those ghastly graves with their coyote-holes were ever before me. The place was but a stone’s throw from us, and the uneasy spirits from these desecrated graves began to haunt me. I couldn’t not sit alone on the porch at night, for they peered through the lattice, and mocked at me, and beckoned. Some had no heads, some no arms, but they pointed or nodded towards the grewsome burying-ground: “you’ll be with us soon, you’ll be with us soon.”

When I told my friend, Carol, that we spent a week in Ehrenberg, she wondered "What broke?"  Quick with the quip she is, and understanding that as a destination, it is not considered prime, but we have yet to find a place that doesn't have some interest.

A Thanksgiving potluck . . .

Our first-ever RV park Thanksgiving - the proprietors provided the main dishes and the RVers brought side dishes.  Our corn casserole was pretty well devoured, with just enough for us to enjoy leftovers the next day.  Nice though it was, it did not come close in comparison to last year's holiday at cousin Barb's when she served her scrumptious Hungarian goulash, nor the previous year in Golden Valley where we were graciously invited to the Conger household at Horse Nut Stables.

Perhaps next year I will again host Thanksgiving.  It certainly didn't seem in the cards this time with the ankle recuperation in progress.

Chris played for the occasion, and they even turned off the sound from the game on television.  As always, his music was much appreciated and we have been invited back to do a concert.

Ma Nature provided us with a right nice send-off.