February 18th, 2024
Today I left Bullhead City and started the short trip south to my friend Jesse’s house in Bouse, AZ. There were two roads leading south to Bouse, highway 95 and state route 95, and I chose poorly. The state route runs down along Lake Havasu and through Lake Havasu City into Parker, which is an absolutely gorgeous drive. The highway led straight through the desert. While the highway is, in theory, the faster route to Parker, it is by no means the superior road. It was by far the most neglected, bumpy, miserable road I have been on in all of my trips so far. I cannot believe these roads are allowed to remain in such states. It was white knuckle the whole way and it sounded like my RV was about to come apart at any minute. Thankfully, it wasn’t that long of a drive.
I arrived at Jesse’s property in the early afternoon and paused to take it in. It was a typical desert ranch property, and quite charming. Just a nice looking little house in the middle of a massive property fenced all the way around with an old wood and wire fence. The property was ancient, with massive wooden pastures built who knows how long ago. It had that old west ghost town feel to it, very cool.
As I pulled in Jesse came out the greet me. Other than the mustache and cowboy hat, he looked exactly the same. Seeing him standing there the nostalgia came flooding in. Barreling around in the desert in his Ford Ranger, Riding ATVs on the beach in Mexico, drinking too much at the bars on the beach in San Diego, tinkering with our motorcycles in his parents garage. This guy had had such an impact on my life and I had totally forgotten… and now here I was, by the grace of God, to reunite with my old friend after over a decade of silence.
We shook hands and hugged while our dogs introduced themselves to each other and then Jesse took me on a walk around the property. I learned he had still been living in San Diego just six months ago, in the same townhouse that he had when I first met him. In recent years he had been spending more and more time out in Arizona just getting away from the city to do the outdoorsy things that he enjoyed like hunting and fishing. When a job opportunity was presented to him to take a huge paycut to come help manage some cattle ranches out here, he jumped at the opportunity. That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about Jesse. Like me, he doesn’t care about having massive financial success. He just wants enough to be able to do the simple things that bring him joy.
After our walk he helped me pick a comfortable spot on the property next to the house and I got settled in. His wife Trina cooked us a delicious meal of venison steaks and potatoes and we spent the rest of of the evening snacking on melon next to a campfire in their front yard telling stories and reminiscing on old times. The sky lit up with a display of God’s artistry that few people ever get to experience. It was heaven.
I spent the next few mornings with Jesse helping him with his work. The ranch that he works for owns a massive number of free range cattle out here in the desert. The cows have a few “home base” stations that they return for frequently for food and water, but spend most of their time just wandering around grazing in the desert. Jesse’s job is to keep an eye on them. He travels from site to site, restocks the supplies for the cattle, kills coyotes, and basically keeps everything in their lives running smoothly. It’s the perfect job for him. Total freedom, working with wildlife, and shooting guns at things. I helped him a bit with hauling the supplies and hand feeding the cattle, but mostly I was just along for the ride.
When the weekend came, we began tackling a new project that his wife Trina really wanted to get going: a garden. They had a nice large section of old pasture, about 25 foot by 50 foot, that was totally fenced in. Her and her father had already dug up the ground and formed mounds for the crops, they needed us to up the wildlife defenses. We spent a few days digging a trench around the fence and burying some wire mesh about 12 inches deep all the way around the fence to keep out the varmints and coyotes. We also ran out to a local dump where they had a mountain of partially used soil that we could load up for free. Jesse’s friend manned a tractor, filled the bucket, and basically dumped the entire bucket on top of the ranch work truck. It was hilarious, the soil went everywhere, some even in the bed of the truck. Trina went to work making new channels in the mounds with the fresh soil while Jesse and I toiled away on the fence.
On Saturday evening we all piled into the side-by-side ATV and went for a ride in the nearby mountains. It was a blast, Jesse is even crazier in one of these things than Brennan was in Oatman. We climbed up some rocky mountain passages at angles that seemed to defy the laws of physics. I won’t lie, he scared the pants off me. We crawled over rocks and boulders ignoring the complaints of the machine working beneath us and eventually made it to the summit. At the top we were rewarded with some naturally formed caves that we explored as we let the ATV cool off. These caves were much different that the man made ones in Oatman. Those had been claustrophobic tunnels, these were vast, open rock formations and were just super interesting.
As Sunday rolled around, I knew I wanted to attend a church while I was out here. Jesse and Trina had disappeared early that morning so I pulled out my maps program and did a search for nearby churches. Parker was only about 10 miles away and had a bunch to choose from. Almost immediately I felt drawn to Grace Assembly of God. I had spent a lot of time with New Hope Assembly of God in Challis over the last summer, so I had a good feeling about attending another Assembly chapter. That decided I mounted up my motorcycle and made my way to town.
The service was unlike anything I have seen before. That’s one of the wonderful things about experiencing different churches on my travels, they are all so unique. The service started out with a game that they had the children play where they ran up and down the isles collecting tithes in the form of change rolls and placed them in buckets at the front. It was girls vs boys and the boys had a massive numbers advantage. The whole thing was just as wholesome as it could be.
After the boys handily won the game they started the worship music. The music was led by an energetic pastor named Craig who played the piano and sang. He also did the announcements, and the message, and the mid message worship, and the final message. This guy had energy, I have never seen anything like it. He was a southern guy, from Tennessee I believe, and had all the makings of your classic southern preacher from TV. He stomped around the stage dramatically delivering the word with a deep southern drawl and occasionally wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. He spoke as he sang, at the top of his lungs. He never wavered for even a second, the energy was contagious. As he wrapped up the service I really hoped I would be able to meet him afterwards. I waited around a little while as the other members of the congregation filed out, but did not get a chance to catch him. Oh well.
But then it happened again, the Pull.
As I stood by my motorcycle preparing the load up and leave, something inside me said “Wait”. I realized, I’m not in any hurry, and the weather is beautiful… so I pulled out my phone, checked a few emails, and got some directions to nearby stores I wanted to visit while in town. About 15 minutes later, Pastor Craig came walking out of the church and was headed straight for me. Awesome, I thought… I will get to meet this guy!
We talked for about an hour sharing our stories. His story was fairly similar to mine wherein he had at one point a few years ago found himself a slave to drugs and alcohol and received a calling from the Lord. His calling led him to sell and give away everything he owned and move across the country with nothing but faith in God. Now he is the assistant lead pastor at this church and runs a few other ministries near Lake Havasu City. God has really done some amazing things in Craig’s life and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to get to know him.
During our conversation, as I was telling him about my new traveling lifestyle, Craig offered an interesting suggestion. He said that a member of their congregation was in an RVer group called Campers for Christ and that I might want to get in touch with them. They are a group of Christians that get together a few times a year to camp out and worship. I have heard of several of these groups before but never had an opportunity to meet up with them… and due to how often I move from one place to another, I’m pretty much never in striking distance of these meetups. But, all the same, I took the suggestion and filed it way for future research. We finished up our chat and said our goodbyes and then I ran a few errands before heading back home to Jesse’s ranch.
Jesse and Trina were still not back, I later found out they drove to Phoenix that day, so I made myself a little dinner and curled up with Danny and a good book. As I sat there reading my mind was drawn again to Craig’s suggestion about Campers for Christ. I set my book down and punched in an internet search on my phone. As I perused the website I saw that the group had a handful of events planned for the year but they were all over the place. One in Wisconsin over the summer, one in North Carolina in the Fall, and one coming up soon in Quartzsite.
Wait a minute… Quartzsite? Isn’t that near here? It was. About 15 miles away. And the event was taking place in a week.
I couldn’t believe it. How can that be possible? I picked one church out of a massive list to attend today and then waited around afterwards for no other reason then feeling compelled to do so. Somehow that led a crazy southern pastor to tipping me off to a group that just so happens to be having one of their only meetups of the year, 15 miles away, a week from now?
I think God just really enjoys blowing my mind… and I love it too. And I am so grateful when he gives me such clear instructions on what to do next. God drives and I follow. So that seals it, the next stop a week from now will be Campers for Christ in Quartzsite Arizona.
The rest of my time in Bouse with Jesse and Trina was just wonderful. We worked, hung out, watched movies, did some target shooting, hunted coyote, rode motorcycles, walked our dogs for miles through the desert, build campfires, cooked delicious meals, and all but finished the garden. I even got a chance to repay Jesse’s hospitality a bit by repairing a few of the vehicles on the ranch that needed some engine work.
My time with them was an absolute gift… a completely unexpected blessing. When I came down this way to Arizona, I had no idea they were anywhere near here. I thought they were still in San Diego. You know who did know? God. And He led me straight to them. He orchestrated this whole thing absolutely perfectly. And as the icing on the cake, He gave me clear directions to my next adventure.
So ends one adventure just as another begins… and just as I’d hoped, God has taken the wheel. Next stop: Quartzsite!
“If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land”
-Isaiah 1:19