The Desert Bar

Today's rally schedule read....trip to The Desert Bar. That sounded like fun. The majority of the group were to meet at 10:30 for a drive to Parker and then out a dirt road to the bar for lunch. A group of adventurous souls met at 9:00 and took their 4 wheel drive vehicles way past Parker and drove through the desert and mountains on an off-road vehicle ride. Guess which group we were in!


If you guessed the 4 wheel group you were right. Doug can't resist a challenge. So, bright and early, we left Quartzsite and drove to a staging area just past Buckskin State Park. At that point we all reduced the pressure in our tires to prevent damage from the numerous and large rocks in our path ahead.



And off we went. The day was gorgeous and everyone was excited about the trip. We went uphill quickly on a decent road.



The road was narrow but everyone kept pace with no problem.


Until we came to the place where the lower clearance vehicles couldn't get through. So, the group split in two. The real off road vehicles went down into the canyon where the path got rough.


While the rest of us continued to climb to the top of the hill where we could look down on the tough guys.



We continued on assuming that we would join the other group in a short distance. That's when things got interesting. The road disappeared and in it's place was what appeared to be a very rocky river bed. (Bad picture...but you can get an idea of what we were driving on.)


The road again smoothed out except for the washouts. In several places we almost high centered the jeep and had to stop to rebuild the road so the cars behind us could get through with no damage.



What a beautiful drive through the mountains and valleys. Doug didn't dare take his eyes off the road most of the time, but we moved slowly and enjoyed the views.



We also stopped often to remove dangerous rocks from our path. The guys all took turns guiding each other through rough patches.



Finally, the two groups merged just before this old mine site. We took a short break before continuing on to The Desert Bar.



We were assured that we were almost to lunch, but the road ahead seemed to stretch out forever.


And then we arrived. Three hours after leaving the highway, we found The Desert Bar! It was built in 1983 on the land of an old mining camp. It is only open on weekends and was absolutely mobbed. After a bite of lunch and some loud music from the band, we decided to head back to the coach. This time, we took the easy road home. It was five miles on a level, dirt road and five miles on the highway to Parker. We stopped to air up the tires to their proper levels and continued down the highway to Quartzsite.



We took care of our recycling duties upon arrival. Then cleaned up and prepared for the evenings entertainment.


A huge screen was set up amongst the coaches and we all brought our chairs, popcorn and jackets for the viewing of the movie "The Long, Long Trailer" with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez. We were told that this was followed by the film "RV" starring Robin Williams, but we were so exhausted we gave up after the first show.

All in all, a pretty spectacular day!