The Desert Bar | Parker, Arizona

Saturday | 10 February 2001 | Earp, California: Today we had a little adventure. And we also had beautiful weather - warm and sunny - with little wind. First, my Dad repaired the door latch on Beckey's motor home and repaired her satellite dish. Beckey thinks my Dad is pretty swell.

My Mom had heard about the Desert Bar near the old Nellie E. mine, across the river near Parker, Arizona. She had read that a man is building a town, and he said, "If you have a town, you must have a bar and a church". So far, he has built a bar and the church is just a facade and only seats 6 comfortably. We decided to check it out. The Desert Bar is up a dead-end 5-mile dirt road. There are no signs and it was quite difficult to find, but you would not believe the traffic generated on this little road in the middle of nowhere! From about 1/2 mile away, the church comes into view and it looks like a very pretty chapel... until you get close and see it is only a facade!

The first view of the church


The church at the Desert Bar
 

Little Chapel in the Desert

The bar is an interesting combination of buildings, covered verandas and open patios. There was a band playing, so there must have been some sort of power system/generator, but no electricity is wired up to the "town" yet. The Desert Bar actually closes at dusk and is only open each Saturday - and New Year's Eve... if it falls on a weekend.

A view of an outdoor area from the parking lot

I guess, since the Desert Bar is in the middle of nowhere, you couldn't really call any of the 200-plus patrons "locals". We were a diverse group of customers - cowboys, RVers, families, off-roaders, tourists, red necks and assorted dogs.

Inside the Desert Bar

Inside the Desert Bar, they have a fireplace that hangs from the ceiling - it burns cardboard beer boxes and they were selling beer faster than they could burn the boxes!

The Desert Bar


The outside bar

After quenching our thirst and listening to the music for a while, we went back towards Parker, Arizona where we stopped at the local airstrip to watch the Birthday Boy. The head of the local community college is a parachuter. He jumps out of a plane whenever he can. He and his wife jump into playgrounds of the local schools dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus during the holidays. Today he turned 60 and decided to celebrate by jumping 60 times. DT had read about his plan in the local Parker paper yesterday. When we stopped, at about 2:30 in the afternoon, he had already jumped about 50 times. We watched him jump 3 times - and it took 9 minutes from the take-off to touchdown! He would put on a chute, run out to the end of the runway and hop in the plane. (The plane had its side door removed.) The plane would head down the runway, climb and he would drop out and parachute down and land back at the end of the runway - where they had parked a motor home and a small support crew. His wife was re-rolling his chutes and he had to use his emergency chute on his 5th jump! It looked like the wind was going to cooperate and he would be able to finish his challenge.