Sunday, June 28, 2015

June 27 Quartzsite, Salome, Aguila and then Congress

I am writing from Borro Jim Motel on Hwy 60 about 80 miles west of Phoenix AZ. I have stayed at the Quartzite Yacht Club and Shefflers Motel in Salome. By far my stay at Borro Jim Motel has been the most fun due to the friendliness of Bob Cartwright, the owner Kim, and the others who work here. It’s the type of place you pull into for a night stay along your journey and end up staying for 5 weeks as one couple did a few years ago.    Aguila has not much to recommend it, a hot desert hamlet, no restaurants, and a minimalist grocery store.  As I rode into town I was uncertain that this one motel would be open and it reminded me of a complaint I had insufficiently expressed while still in Los Angeles. My trip down Hwy 101 brought me through endless shopping centers filled with the national chain stores and not much else. I had expressed my sense of alienation from this modern life. I have been passed by. These last three towns, and for that matter also Blythe, have uniqueness lacking in all the malls on the West Coast. Friendly folks, unusual businesses, and even some in this very conservative part of the world who do relate to my journey and its mission. 

The motel manager in Quartzsite, her grandfather was a cat-skinner for portions of Hwy 101. “I know California, I’ve hiked up and down the length of 1 and 101 and many other places also.” I hope to have that title correct, a cat-skinner being one who drives the grader that smoothes the highway surface before surfacing. And the Quartzsite Yacht Club is a real trip in itself. I had read that it reminded one reviewer of the old Route 66 places, like the Wigwam Motels, one of which I saw near Pomona. There are no bodies of water in Quartzsite. And in fact I found it difficult to find the promised motel even while standing in front of the office. The QYC is a collection of mobile homes divided into rentals and named after various ships. I stayed in the SS Minnow, of Gulligan’s Island fame.  There was one boat that was also available as part of the motel.

Between Quartzsite and Salome there are several small places mostly RV parks. Hope Arizona is such a place at the crossing of Hwy 60 and 71. It has a gas station where I was able to take a break from riding and from the sun. Salome has the best Southwest Salad I can remember eating from the Cactus Cafe and Bar. I arrived in Salome’s Sheffler’s Motel and was greeted by what appeared to be a family run affair. But the big draw was the food across the street. 


I leave these hamlets or villages at 4:45 in the morning. At dawn nearly an hour before sunrise. I wonder how I might fit in to such communities. These are conservative folk  mostly, bound together for protection from a harsh environment as a historical placard in Quartzsite states. Now, at 9:00 PM this evening the grocery down the street is barbecuing for the locals who are partying quietly enough. I watched all day as four people worked in the hot sun doing maintenance and cleaning of Burro Jim. 
Posting from Congress AZ

2 comments:

  1. Shedding that liberal Marin fur and loving the world......good going....keep going....not too hard though. A leisurely jaunt down the road.

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  2. I enjoy your observations, Dan.

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