Things I Learned: There are no Greyhounds to Quartzsite, Arizona for Quartzfest

We run crystal radios here. The Rockmite is a rock-locked radio meaning it operates on a whopping two frequencies in the amateur 20 m (ours anyway, there are also 40 m, 80m, and probably other bands available). The reason for this paucity of frequencies in the radio is that it has a crystal controlled oscillator. The crystal oscillates at a single, precise frequency based on it's dimensions and what it's made of. In our case, the crystal operates at 14057.6 kHz.

Anway! This is all important because of Quartzfest, the crystal radio ham radio festival in, bet you didn't guess it, Quartzsite, AZ. I found out about it through Jeri Ellsworth, local, (Fremont), engineer, and ham radio operator extraordinaire. And up until an hour ago, I was pretty certain the kids and I could transit our way to the festival. Here's what I learned though.

The Greyhound route promised by Google Maps is a lie:

I looked on Greyhound's website: nothing. I called the Greyhound ticket operator, "No, they do not stop there". Strangely the Greyhound automated phone service says there's a bus stop? Maybe there's something I don't understand yet? The phone robot swears up and down that there's a bus stop at the Pilot Truck Stop, but not a station:

And here's the thing! The bus stop did exist up until two months ago. (I found out by calling the Pilot.) It does not however, exist anymore.

So, that leaves Blythe, and possibly using the Camel Express.

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