Intaglios and Camel Corps

We all need a change of pace right?

Dave and I have been off-roading the past few weekends, partially because it’s fun and partially because I’ve been convalescing a minor foot injury which makes hiking a bad idea. This past weekend we decided to do something entirely different…check out the geogylphs or more correctly, the intaglios near Blythe, CA.

Ninety minutes after picking up much needed coffee and chai (we started today’s expedition earlier than normal so we had to secure our morning necessity on the road) we arrived at the Blythe Intaglios. In layman’s terms, they are large, simplistic designs carved into the earth. Here, the “carving” is more like scraping a hard packed, pebble filled black ground (one thinks of how concrete looks before mixed with water only darker in color) as the depth is minimal yet the fact that they are intentional drawings, estimated to be between 450 and 2000 years old, is unmistakable.

Sadly, human nature has made fencing all of the intaglios a preservation necessity.

Viewing from ground level, they are interesting but the angle of the camera doesn’t do these justice as the human eye is more readily able to discern the patterns over such a large expanse. One really must have an aerial view for these types of things and we lack a drone for taking better pictures. It’s debatable if the nearest hills are close enough to have a better view as we didn’t check those out. Motorized vehicles are restricted in this area.

The first three fenced pieces are simple enough to find, there’s a clearly marked road with two parking lots allowing visitors easy access to them.

The largest of the intaglios, 170.6 feet from head to toe, along with a horse are a bit more difficult to locate. There are no markers or breaks in the fence suggesting which way to head. It took us a bit but we finally realized you have to hop the fence across from either parking lot then take a brief hike up the hill in front of you.

Don’t worry. The fence is low and meant to keep motorized vehicles not people out.

Since we were in the area we headed to Quartzsite lunch. The town itself is small though in January it explodes as more than 750,000 people who stop by to check out it’s shows for rock, gem and mineral plus it’s Sports, Vacation & RV Show. Not too mention there are flea markets everywhere you turn.

We knew the RV show started the following week, if we had known how many people it attracted we would have avoided Quartzsite. Fortunately for us, we didn’t know because while there were a few spots of congregated people, for the most part it was church mouse silent.

We stopped to look at the gem show that was currently in progress. We were told a larger gem show would also take place next weekend.

Wow. Just wow. The one we were in was huge with long aisles of vendors stretching as far as the eye could see. I think I would be overwhelmed by a much larger one. Before anyone feels the need to chastise us for even attending this open air piece of heaven, we wore masks, our temperature was taken before entering but most importantly, this was the crowd level.

Crickets.

I felt bad for the vendors so I bought a couple of gifts for two of our daughters. I mean, feeling bad or not, I still would have bought stuff. I love these types of shows.

I didn’t buy one of these but I wanted to

We saw a couple of signs for a Hi Jolly monument in town when we were driving around. With a name like that, you have to investigate what it is.

Did you know the US briefly had a Camel Corps?

I didn’t. The things you learn when you decide to wander around without a plan. The Camel Corps experiment existed from 1857 – 1861 and is a story unto itself. One you can find on the US Army history website. Hi Jolly aka Philip Tedro and Hadji Ali was the camel herder for this unusual military Unit. When the Camel Corps was disbanded he returned to Quartzsite. His monument sits inside a cemetery and personally, I think it’s one of the more interesting ones I’ve seen. It also makes sense to use camels instead of mules or horses for wagon trains going through Arizona and New Mexico not to mention parts of other states. Sadly, it was not to be and the camels were set free to roam the desert.

Still, can you imagine living in the mid 1800s and running across a wild camel in Arizona?