Most drove. Many had fixed up the old family car into a cross between a 60's hippie bus, and a 70's van. I remember a '38 Packard with plywood rear windows and a wood-burning stovepipe stuck through the roof. Also inmy memory is a "woody" station wagonthat had been modified by a master cabinetmaker. He was proud to show off the drawers he had built into his "kitchen," with separate compartments for sugar, salt, and beans.

I had a good look at the outfits of a few others by stopping at a spring that flowed down into the muddy Colorado. As this was the only source of clean drinking water—other than a very busy filling station—the site became a home away from home for "prospectors" who had quit good paying jobs, left wife and kids, told off parents, or dropped out of school to set off to make their fortune.

It wasn't, as in days of old, a tent city. Since everyone seemed to have a beat up car, it was more of a junkyard junction.