Mesquite-grilled

We are still at our lovely and free digs on BLM land in Box Canyon, east of Mecca.

Tomorrow will mark one full week since we arrived here and set up camp; it's been a great spot. Traffic on Box Canyon road has been very light -- just a handful of sand-toy types heading up-canyon at the start of the weekend, and down-canyon at the end, and maybe a dozen other cars a day. Only a pair of ATVs today, and a motorcyclist last week, approached our camp closer than the paved road, unless you count the three vans from some college or other, that literally drove right through our site Saturday on their way to who-knows-where, then right back again an hour later. I had set out our orange cones for just such an occurrence.



We've been enjoying fresh home-cooked meals nightly, but today we basically ran out of fresh veggies, and, horror of horrors, cheap wine. We hopped on the scooters and rode the ten miles back into Mecca, where Louise found some great fresh veggies -- cheap, too -- at one of the three Mexican markets in town. While the market had beer, we had to cruise over to the AM/PM at the Arco truck stop on the west edge of town to find table wine, for which we paid probably three times the supermarket rate. But the nearest supermarket is in La Quinta -- not really a scooter ride from here.

Now we're all set for up to another week -- we're still above half on our fresh water supply. I don't expect we will actually stay that long, though.

One thing we have no shortage of here is mesquite. We are parked in a triangle more or less defined by three mesquite trees, and the desert is littered with dead and dry mesquite branches. Some previous group even did the work to collect a fairly large pile of it fifty feet or so from here. All I needed to do was take the reciprocating saw over (we also have a chain saw that runs on the same battery packs, if needed) and cut the branches to an appropriate size for the small fire pit I made, and we've enjoyed nightly campfires.

We brought a couple of steaks with us, and tonight will be the second night for mesquite-grilled steak. I simply take one of the three small pieces of grate from my LP grill, perhaps 6" x 8", and support it on two rocks over the mesquite coals. I cover it with the lid from our wok while grilling, which, over the years, has made the wok cover brown with smoke char, but it helps the meat cook evenly, and it's a cheap wok lid anyway.

We've had some visitors while we've been here. Last week, readers Shelly and Karen stopped by to chat for an hour or so, and yesterday we had a visit from long-time reader Ron, a.k.a. "Spyderman," who rode out on his Gold Wing, making me miss my old ride just a tad -- I had the same model and year. It was a great visit in both cases.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go flip my steak.