The Southwestern Sojurn - Day 17: Fiery Sunrise and the Quartzsite Museum

Sunsetwx had forecasted good Sunrise conditions for this morning.  I woke even before my alarmat 6:15AM and leisurely made coffee while awaiting the pre-dawn color show.

I'm glad to report sunsetwx got this one right.

After work, with the weather remaining overcast and cool, I went to check out the Quartzsite Museum in town.  It's a little place, filled with your typical pioneer day and later paraphenalia of life in the southwest.

The building is the old stagecoach stop, now surrounded by a brick outer wall to protect the delicate dirt/mud walls.  You can see the original wall as you enter.

It's a neat museum but its obviously sustained by volunteers and visitor contributions so no flashy displays or exhibits.  I was there mainly to seek more on the US Army's brief dalliance with the use of camels as transportation animals back before the civil war.

The story is basically centered on the man who was hired to herd these unusual animals for the US Army of the time:  Philip Tedro was his name but he goes into history as Hi Jolly, the name he was known by.  More details here:  LINK

 I'm a fan of old time maps, note what they used

to call the area now known as Texas

 Camel Bells!

I guess stealth wasn't one of the objectives

 Camel-borne!

 Camel Saddle

 Hi Jolly's grave and monument at the

Hi Jolly Town Cemetery

I next explored the BLM area bordered by Dome Rock Road to the west of Quartzsite.  Pretty open spaces as well but with nearby hills and small mountains for scenery.  Decent 4G cellular signal was evident.

Returning to the La Posa South LTVA, I went past my usual turn to my campsite and kept going south on FR 0059 as it left the LTVA behind.

Several miles of dirt track later, I got slightly turned around and lost for a bit but finally oriented myself by finding Cunningham Mountain.  Keeping it on my left, I finally found the track back to the La Posa South LTVA with 30 minutes or so of daylight to spare!

The overcast skies prevented any kind of a sunset viewing; in spite of Sunsetwx's predictions for one.  Oh well, mustn't get to too greedy about such thiungs.  Another good sunrise is forecasted for tomorro morning, we shall see.