February 2nd Parker, AZ

Today started out early enough that we can let our friends all know we actually saw the sun rise! Yes it was early, but we wanted to get up the hillside to see the 1st racers from the Parker 425. We figured out after about 40 minutes we still had plenty of time before they got to our location. We ran to the motor home and got a few additional layers on. Of all days it was a bit cloudy the first few hours, but it turned out to be a pretty day with plenty of sun.

I will add some action pictures Bill took of the Parker 425 just above our camp ground. A couple the RV's actually sit below the mountain ridge the racers went up that they fashioned plywood over their windows to insure no breakage as these guys can throw plenty of rocks as they come plowing thru on the trail.

Saturday Sue and Jim came over and we drove out to the The Desert Bar. It was an interesting place. It is located just out of Parker located in the Buckskin Mountains which once was an old mining camp. The owner previously owned a bar on the river for which he lost his lease and he purchased the land where the mine once was. The inside of the bar is unique in many ways. It's windows are from old glass refrigerator doors, the bar stools are made of steel, the bar top is brass and the ceiling is stamped tin purchased from a factory in Missouri. The bars only electricity is solar power stored in batteries and ran through inverters.

They also built a "church" made of solid steel and the ceiling is the same stamped tin as in the bar.

The bar has an outdoor area used as an outdoor bar and cooking area with cooling towers. The cooling towers work similar to evaporative cooler except it doesn't have a fan. When you wet the pads on top, cool air falls and you get a nice cool airflow.