Relaxing at Oxbow

It’s been a good week at the “free” (technically, already paid for) Oxbow Campground. I did my laundry in Blythe on Tuesday morning. It helped that my next-door neighbors from British Columbia had gone the day before, recommended Country Wash, and confirmed that any non-functional washers, dryers, and change machines were well marked, unlike the Google reviews said. My neighbors were absolutely correct, and the laundry went without incident.

Lister’s up to his old tricks again.

I found the green rock outside the nearby bathroom, while I found the monster rock on my neighbor’s picnic table after they left. I looked up and tagged Rocks on the Road with my pictures of them. I chose to leave them behind. I’m doing pretty well these days, and I think other people need a good luck charm more than I do right now.

There was a tree nearby where I could set up my hammock. By luck, the trees overhead put it in the shade during the middle to late afternoon, the hottest part of the day. We’re seeing temperatures in the 80s regularly now, and the nights are warm enough that I can usually leave the vent or window open a little bit for fresh air. I’m already planning my next steps north and up in elevation to keep the temperature I’m in reasonable, but for right now I’m doing pretty well. It’s certainly a far cry from cold and snowy at this time last year in New Hampshire!

I took a bike ride along the Colorado River, because I could. A bunch of dirt roads run up and down either side of the river, so I made my way down one side until I found a bridge, crossed, then came back on the other side. This took me through the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge. I didn’t see a lot of wildlife, but I did have to put on the brakes a few times to give a few roadrunners and wild rabbits some space.

I also found bees! Lots of bees! I don’t know if this is an official repopulation project or someone’s private farm. I stopped long enough to take this picture. I wanted to shoot a video clip so you could hear the non-stop buzzing, but that’s when the bees started flying around me. I know they won’t attack me unless they perceive me as a threat, but soon there were so many of them I was worried about accidentally threatening them and getting stung, so I left.

Last night’s sunset was pretty amazing, both the colors in the sky and on the mountains on the other side of the river.

The full moon was pretty amazing as well. I became a bit of a shutterbug after the sun went down. I just took these with my iPhone 11 Pro, with longer exposures and little if any filtering.

This morning was a bit less pleasant. Workers have been trimming the bushes along the edge of the water all week. They started across the water from me, but have been working their way around, closer and closer. Today they were nearby, and their trimmers were quite loud, to the point where I had a hard time concentrating on work. Before long they were going to be trimming straight through my camp. I took that as my cue to pack up and move onto my next destination: Quartzsite, again. But I have a good reason to go back. More on that next time.