Spent the morning visiting my father in Ontario before heading back to Arizona. This is the tomb of Syrian-born Hadji Ali, who was one of several camel drivers hired by the US Army in the 19th century as part of an experiment to see if camels could be used as beasts of burden in the desert Southwest. Over several years, about 70 camels were brought to Texas along with camel drivers from the Middle East and put through their paces on trips to California and back. While the animals looked promising at first, things didn’t work out for several reasons, one of them being the rising tensions of the Civil War. The camels were auctioned off in the 1860s, and Hadji moved to Quartzsite, Arizona. His friends called him Hi Jolly, and the name stuck. He was so loved by the community that upon his death in 1902, the people of Quartzsite built this tomb of petrified wood and quartz in his honor.

We have seen this view of Quartzsite so many times in the past years as it’s the first sign of civilization after leaving Phoenix about 120 miles before getting to this point on the road. Today, though, we were traveling in the opposite direction, and likewise, after about 200 miles of driving across the California desert this is the first town we come across when returning to Arizona.