February 28th, 2024 Friends and Road Trip

Last year when Andy and I did one of our Parker Dam Byway Road Trips, we stopped at the Rock House Recreation Visitor Center and met Maureen who is taking care of the center.  Since then we have kept in touch and followed her newsletter.  The center is right down the street so we were looking forward to visiting today.

Jeanne (the other caretaker), Maureen, me:

Maureen is an incredible artist and her talents can be seen throughout.  She has made the center into an educational/hands on place for folks to enjoy.  And enjoy we did!

Bird sounds:

Cactus area:

Bone area:

Check out the snake spine and rattlesnake tail:

Last year she was just starting this - it is a miner's cave/shaft to reflect the many mines in this area.  On the left is information on some of those mining towns.

Native fish of the Colorado River:

Many of the creatures and paintings you see were done by Maureen.  She is now working on a life size frog:

She did a life size burro that is now in the BLM office in Lake Havasu City.  

Love the coyote she made:

This is one of the hands-on table for the kids to enjoy - Love the egret:

She made many of those items too.

Her trophy wall - native animals of the area:

Isn't he beautiful - she does incredible work:

I was so fascinated with everything that I did not take any pictures of her artwork..  Next time.

We hung out for a while getting caught up with her and meeting Jeanne for the first time.  What fun!

If you are ever in the area, stop by and enjoy.  And tell them hello from me.

From there we headed on down the Parker Dam Byway: 

Where we met these little ones:

OMGoodness!  Aren't they the cutest!  Sometimes we see them roam thru the campground.

The wild burros have been in Arizona since the 1700's when the Spaniards used them as pack animals.  Many of the miners did the same and when the mines dried up, they released them.  The wild burros around the Colorado River in Arizona are the descendants of those miner's burros. 

There is some great information here:  https://americanwildhorse.org/media/about-burros#:~:text=Burros%20are%20a%20member%20of,borrico%2C%E2%80%9D%20meaning%20donkey.)

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Another part of our journey today was to check out some Day's End sites.  The Day's End Directory is available thru our Escapee Membership and relies on member-submitted low cost parking/camping places.  Years ago,  we would do road trips to check out places and found some really beautiful spots to camp.  We realized that we missed doing that so it is back on our list of things to do for road trips.

Just south of Parker is Shea Road, where many folks camp for the races and also for the "Howling at the Moon" events.  Since we have never been there and it was a Day's End site, we decided to check it out.

The first four miles was a rough road.  Once we crossed the cattle guard, the road was beautiful and we found a large farm.  At five miles out, BLM land starts and the scenery is just beautiful.  There were so many places to camp from there to another six miles out (we turned around then).

The start of Shea Road:

We are on BLM land here. Once we went thru the wash areas, there were many camping sites.

Imagine staying here with a nice campfire - beautiful and it will be on our list!:

We did check out a few more areas then headed home.  What a great day!

We are staying here until Saturday when we will head southeast so stay tuned and enjoy today.