We left our comfortable site in Yuma at Del Pueblo Resort at the end of December and moved on to do some boondocking at American Girl Mine in Winterhaven CA. about 15 miles west.  This was a good spot for our follow up visits to the doctor and dentist in Mexico.

The only drawback with staying in this isolated area was anytime we went for supplies we had to cross the CA/AZ agricultural inspection border which prevented us from purchasing any fresh fruit and vegetables, and there were no towns or shops within 35 miles on the CA side, so we just made do with the food we had

When we’d scouted the area a few days before, there were several groups of campers out here. But when we arrived after the Holidays everyone was either gone or packing up, and the area was back to desolation.

American Girl Mine was an active gold mine until around 2000. Up until then more than 205,000 tons of ore was discovered, until gold prices declined and it shut down.

it was there that our friends Jimmy and Kelly stopped by to overnight while on their way to San Diego.

Plenty of room.

We drove a couple of trails in the Jeep while we were there, but after 2 days we were ready to move on .

We left American Girl Mine and headed to Kofa National Wildlife Refuge to meet up with Heidi and Mark, another couple we met in Quartzsite last year, before our Lake Havasu balloon festival stay.

We headed north on route 95 about 60 miles to the Kofa mountain range and the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, which is a protected area for bighorn sheep. We met up on the Palm Canyon Rd BLM area. Fortunately, Heidi and Mark arrived first and managed save us a spot near them, whew!

Palm Canyon Rd, (off Rte 95) has 7 miles of dry camping area before you reach the Palm Canyon trailhead which is home to the only native grove of palm trees in AZ.

Sunrise

Sunset

The Kofa (King of AZ) Wilderness makes up about 82% of the National Wildlife Refuge.

In the north lie the Koa mountains, to the south, the Castle Dome mountains.

The airspace over the refuge is controlled by the military and close to the Yuma Proving Grounds so military jets are a common sight during the day.

We all had reservations at the State Park in Havasu for later in the week, so we spent a couple of days re-visiting Quartzsite and chatting around the campfire at night.

Very relaxing and enjoyable.