2\/6\/2019<\/p>\n
And the devil can keep it. We even stayed an extra night to take the drive.<\/p>\n
El Camino del Diablo<\/b> (Spanish<\/a>, meaning “The Devil’s Highway”) is a historic 250-mile (400\u00a0km) road that currently extends through some of the most remote and arid terrain of the Sonoran Desert<\/a> in Pima County<\/a> and Yuma County<\/a>, Arizona<\/a>. In use for at least 1,000 years, El Camino del Diablo is believed to have started as a series of footpaths used by desert-dwelling Native Americans<\/a>. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, the road was used extensively by conquistadores<\/a>, explorers, missionaries, settlers, miners, and cartographers. Use of the trail declined sharply after the railroad reached Yuma<\/a> in 1870. In recognition of its historic significance, El Camino del Diablo was listed on the National Register of Historic Places<\/a> in 1978. It has also been designated a Bureau of Land Management Back Country Byway<\/a>.<\/p>\n https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/El_Camino_del_Diablo<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to quit looking at maps what they show and reality are not matching up.<\/p>\n Yesterday we stopped at the Cabeza Prieta National Wild Life Refuge Office. Kind of a good thing because if we wanted to do more, much longer, of an off road adventure we needed to watch a video and initial then sign our life away in order to cross the Berry M Goldwater Air Force Range. The initialing and signing were just warnings that picking up unexploded bombs if we found any, were a very bad idea and we might get hurt or killed. \u00a0The video was a cross between a recruitment video \u00a0and warning not to pick up bombs. It showed the planes dropping bombs then stills of some of the unexploded ones. We turned around well before we reached the air base.<\/p>\n The ranger and a video, different from the one about the bombs, really talked up the area with a description of animals and rock formations, talks about all the people and mummified draft animals that perished along the route, complete with a grave marker along the way.<\/p>\n 2\/7\/2019<\/p>\n The portion of the road we were on runs east \/ west near the Mexican border. After 70 miles of bouncing around we turned around. To us, once you pass through one or two seemingness endless, featureless, deserts you have pretty much seen them all.<\/p>\n The non-proportional map had a few things like a grave, and a dry lake bed. Another map we had even had mileages from one place to the next. Needless to say we found nothing. There were no pull offs or anything indicating where something \u00a0interest might be, there WERE plenty of turnarounds used by Border Patrol.<\/p>\n Bates Well Ranch and 2 Border patrol stations are the only things we found that were marked on the map.<\/p>\n We did find one other feature, one of my original reasons for going, that was a Lava flow. I\u2019m not sure what I was expecting but it was NOT a bunch of round, lava rocks\/bombs, to drive over. We have done that more than I care to think about but we trudged on for many more miles before turning around, knowing that to keep going, through the bomb range, was going to have us 30+ more miles before getting on pavement, that would have been the long way home, then on pavement at I guessed 100+ miles. As it was it was almost disappointing 10 hour long day. From a distance we did see 1 long eared rabbit, 2 very fast moving chipmunks and a couple of birds. Oh yes miles and miles of a cacti and Creosote bushes.<\/p>\n Having driven what felt like several miles in a wash that looks to be made up of a light brown dirt. I couldn’t help myself, along the bank erosion had cut off a few dirt clods. I picked up a clod about the size of a baseball, and with not more that a gentle squeeze the clump designated totally into fine dust. One second it was a clump of dirt the next it was dust on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\t\t