Out of the Desert

Wednesday  afternoon we decided that after dumping our waste water tanks, and filling the fresh water tank, that we would move into town for a couple of days.  As long as we had to pull the slides in and raise the jacks, we thought lets just move into town, but before we did Ann decided that she would like to take this opportunity to drive the motorhome.  Since this is a huge area with little or no traffic it is the perfect place to learn how to drive the motorhome.  She started pretty slow, but it didnt take long for her to get the feel of how this almost forty foot peice of machinery handled.  She made several turns, some straight line runs, and even backed the monster into our spot.  Pretty impressive for the first attempt at driving something this big.

When we were staying at the Holiday Palms RV Park in Quartzsite, before we went to the desert, we had found a place that charged $5 a night or dry camping right behind a BBQ place which is next door to Silly Als, a pizza place that has Karaoke on Wednesday nights.  So we decided this would be a good place to camp, go have some good food, a few drinks, and Ann can sing Karaoke, and we dont have to worry about driving after having an adult beverage or two. It is not much of a park, but it served it's purpose.

After Ann finished working today, we went for a short walk around the campground, then decided to go for a drive in the car to take a look at a free campground north of town.  It is about five miles out there, and a state road runs through it that goes on up to Bouse, Arizona.  Going through the campground didnt take long, so we dedided to go on a little farther, a decision that was reinforced when we noticed that the car only had a range of 51 miles left of this take of gas, and Bouse was about 25 miles away, and we werent sure it had a gas station.  We went a couple more miles then pulled over, climbed up a rock and took some pics of the area.  Nothing great, just pretty neat for a winters day in Arizona!

 

  

 

 

 

Then it was back to the rig where Ann is now preparing a dinner of garlic roasted chicken breast, rice pilaf, and lima beans, while I am having a MGD, and writing this blog.  Life is good so far.

Paul

And I Thought Sunday Was Quiet!

Monday and Tuesday have been just gorgeous days!  Sunny, little or no wind, and temps in the 60s!  But wow, it is really quiet out here!  At one time last week there were over 40 rigs in our group, seemed that something was always going on, but today(Tuesday) we are down to only 4 rigs still here, and the peace and quiet is deafening, and wonderful!  Save for an occasional 4-wheeler, or a car driving by, or the coyotes at night, there is hardly any other sounds out here.

So not having much to do, I took some pictures yesterday evening about sunset.

 

 

 They are not the most spectacular pics of a sunset, but at least there no sun dogs in them, and there is no snow in the pictures!

I also took one of the moon, but not having a long range lens it is nothing spectacular either, but it sure did look nice at the time.

Tonight another couple that is still here has invited us out to dinner at one of the local Mexican restaurants.  We havent visited with them much, but I am sure we will get to know them better tonight.

That is about all for today, maybe tomorrow will be more interesting, but maybe not:)

Paul

A Quiet Sunday

After a fun day of potlucking and playing some group games and some great fellowship we are just kicking back and relaxing this Sunday morning.  The sun is bright, there and  is very little wind.  Makes for a nice winter day in the Arizona desert.

Yesterday was the grand finale of our RV Forum Rally.  We started out a 2:00PM with a group picture.  Several pictures were taken hoping that in least one of them everyone has their eyes open and is smiling.  That was followed up by some formalities of honoring some of the people who make the website and these rallies possible.  Next was a great potluck dinner with a wide variety food available.  It was great to try some different foods, including a delicious southwestern rice salad, and some tamales cooked in corn husks.

After the meal we played some games and some "prizes" were awarded to the "winners", and other deserving people.  The "prizes" were donated items by the rally members consisting of gag gifts and items from their rigs that they no longer wanted or needed.  The first "prize" was for the best walker on our morning two mile walk.  I was awarded the "prize" which turned out to be two picnic trays.  Ann will love them as the tray is compartmentalized which will prevent her different foods from touching one and other.

Then we played a game of pass the balloon with your knees.  I was fortunate to have Ann and three others who played this game quite well, and we were the winners.  Our "prizes" this time was a bottle of spray air freshener, and a white sock for Ann, and a Woodalls bag with toilet chemicals, and a spatula for me.

The next game we played was a type of poker where each person had a playing card in their party hat. Where we were divided up into groups of five, and if the five didnt feel they had a great poker hand, you were allowed to move to a different group, or something like that.  Anyway I had an ace, and Ann had a joker, so we shuffled around until we found three others with aces.  Five aces was a good enough hand to win, despite the fact that one team ended up with eight sevens! This time Ann and I decided not be "prize" hogs, so we let two people on the second place team take our prizes.

This was followed up by the awarding of  "prizes" to other who deserved them, including those who were nice enough to use their vehicles to pick up the garbage each day and take it to the dumpster so each of us didnt have to make individual trips.  Other "prizes" went to the RV Forum staff members, ladies who baked cupcakes for desert, Bob Buchanan for his efforts in organizing the rally, and taking of the group pictures, and some other deserving folks who I cant recall.  Did I mention that one of the members of the group brought a "handle" of Wild Turkey? 

By then it was time to call it a day, so back to the motorhome, a little TV, and some computer time, and the end of another great day in the Arizona desert.

Paul

Is This the Arizona Desert, or Iowa in April?

Wow!  Some weather we had on Wednesday the 21st!  High winds, rain, and even a tornado watch!  It seemed more like weather you would find in Iowa in the spring, that you would find in the Arizona desert in winter.  People who have been here for years say this is the worst storm they have ever seen.  One of the members in our group measured the wind speed at a high of 61 mph.  Someone in the city of Quartzsite measured a gust at 78 mph.  We havent heard of too much damage other than a few damaged awnings, a few tripod mounted satellite dishes tipped over, and a few of the vendor tents damaged.  Also, there was some deep water in a few areas, but overall not as bad as it could have been, and certainly nothing like the damage we have been reading about and hearing about in Iowa.

 

Today is bright and sunny but cool, only about 57 degrees here at Noon.  We are having a group potluck at 2:00PM and things look good for that.  Probably get up to about 62 later today.  Certainly livable!

Our boondocking is going well.  We had to dump the gray and black tank on Tuesday, and refill with water, but all in all it is about what I expected, and Ann now feels more comfortable that she can work without problems while we boondock, so we may do more boondocking than we had originally planned.

More later,

Paul

Out of the Park, and into the Desert

On Friday the 15th about 11:15 one of the employees of Holiday Palms Rv Park came by and reminded us that we were scheduled to check out today by noon. When we checked in  we somehow had the idea we were good till noon on Saturday, but a check of the paper work confirmed we needed to be out by noon on Friday.

So we immediately started the process of preparing to move, and by 12:06PM we were pulling out of the RV park and on our way to the desert to join a group of RVers who all belong to www.RvForum.net.  It was only a short drive, about 3 miles, and the directions we had were excellent.  There were no problems finding the place except we had to remember to turn where the "dusty road" sign used to be:)

There we only a couple of rigs already there, so finding a place to park was not a problem beings that there is about 11,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in the area to park on!  It costs $40.00 to park for 2 weeks, and you can renew your permit as often as you want.  Another option is to pay $180.00 for a 6 month permit.  No hook ups out here, but it a beautiful and quiet desert!  For people who like to four wheel or ride dune buggys, it is an idyllic place. Here is a shot of a few rigs that are with our group.

After getting set up, we decided to go up to Parker Arizona, about 35 miles north, to stock up on groceries at the Safeway, and a stop at Wally World to get some rechargeable batteries for our walkie talkies.  It was an easy drive, as there is not much between here and there except sand, rocks, and scrub brush.  When we got back to our camping spot, after stopping at the local RV supply store to pick up some glide tape to repair one of our front curtains, a few more rigs had shown up, and because another group had set up close to our group, we all decided to move our group a little to the east. So after we moved the motorhome, unloaded and put away our groceries, we settled in for a quiet evening, and looked forward to meeting new people and making new friends in the morning.  Because of our new and larger battery bank, we didnt have to run the generator, and were still able to run the computers and a few lights till we went to bed.  Here is Ann putting up our front curtain after replacing the glide tape.

When we woke up Saturday morning it was pretty cool in the motorhome, as we didnt run the furnace during the night.  So first thing I started the generator, kicked in the heat pumps that are built in the AC units, and to speed the warming, I also started our propane powered Kozy World heater. In about 10 minutes is was up to about 74, so I shut down the propane heater, and let the heat pumps keep us warm. I also turned on the electric heating element in the water heater,and  we we both charged our cell phones.  One thing boondocking teaches is to be efficient!  I didnt have to run the heat pumps for long as it warms up pretty fast in the morning, and then it is opening the roof vent and a window or two to keep it nice in the motorhome, while it is about 70 or so outside most days.

The rest of the morning and part of the afternoon we just chilled, and enjoyed the peace and quiet of the desert.  At 4:00PM the group had its first "happy hour" where we all introduced ourselves, visited, and got happy till after dark.  It is really a diverse group that belongs to this forum.  One of the members is a retired phlebotomist from Des Moines.  The rest are from New York, Washington, Arizona, and places in between.

On Sunday we decided to go into town, do some laundry, and then go to "the big tent".  That is where most of the booths are set up for the RV show.  The laundry went pretty easy, the place was busy, but we didnt have to wait.  Finding a parking place close to the "big tent" can be a challenge, but we lucked out, and found one pretty quickly, and not too far to walk to "the big tent".  We cruised around the tent, lots of non RV stuff for sale, and there was also a lot of booths advertising some camp ground, city, or Canadian Province.  There was not near as much RV "stuff" that I expected.  We did buy a shut off valve for our shower that lets you set the water temperature, then shut the water off while retaining he temperature setting.

You do this so you can shut off the water while showering, and not waste water by either letting it run, or readjusting the temperature.  This is a handy way to save water while boondocking. This is good as it seems that water is going to be the limiting factor on how long we can boondock without either moving, or bringing in more water.  The new battery bank is performing as expected, batteries are still showing full this morning, while not running the generator for almost 24 hours.  The propane is doing well too.  We are only using the on board propane for cooking and the refrigerator.  The propane heater runs off a separate 20 lb. tank, and so far we have only run the heater about an hour total.

Out here in the desert TV reception is poor to non-existent.  We have either been using park cable systems or "over the air" channels to watch TV the last month, but a couple days out here without any TV, we decided to subscribe to Directv, so at 4:30PM today an installer is supposed to be here to hook things up, and get us going.  We have single LNB dish on the motorhome, which we plan to use for short stays, but we will be getting a triple LNB dish and tripod when we stay long enough someplace to make in practical to put it up. Also, when we get home Directv will install a triple LNB dish on our house and run the necessary cable for a house system.  As it is 2:30, it is now only "two hours till Wapner" :)

The last purchase we made yesterday was a 300 watt inverter for Ann to use in her "office" to power her laptop,  and her work lamp.

 We hoped it would also run the laser jet printer, but upon further review the printer takes about 500 watts.  So we will have to run the generator, or get a larger inverter when we need to print something.

When we returned from our day of laundry and shopping there was still quite a group at "happy hour", so we joined for while.  As rain was expected last night and today, before everyone went their own way for the evening, we covered up the wood pile, and everyone took their "happy hour" chairs back to their rigs.

In our "happy hour" spot we have built a fire ring.  In order to build it, everyone is to bring a couple of rocks to each get together, and by the end of the rally, it should finished.

Because we had eaten a late lunch while shopping, we decided to fore-go dinner, and just spend some time on the computer before calling it an early night.

Hopefully, that should bring us up to date with the rest of the world.

Paul

Thursday January 14th already!

Another busy week of not doing much.  We are still at Holiday Palms RV Park in Quartzsite, Arizona.  I really like this area, at least at this time of year.  It is a little cooler here than in Phoenix, but still highs about 70 everyday, but is does get into the 40s, or even the 30s at night sometimes.  However the last two nights the lows have only been in the low 50s.  This town is not all that big most of the year, but during January there are a couple of shows that attract a lot of people.  One is huge gem show, and then there is the RV show.  I have heard that as many as a million people pass through here during January.  There is also a huge flea market going on here most of the winter I guess, and if it is made somewhere in the world, you can probably buy it here.

Since we have been in Arizona we have been busy spending money on adding things to our RV that make it more livable, especially when we go "boondocking" in the desert on Saturday for a few days.  The first thing we did was replace our two Interstate 12 volt coach batteries with four Sam's Club 6 volt golf cart batteries.

  This will double the amount of amps we have available when we dont have the generator running, or are not hooked to shore power.  In order to make room for the four 6 volts, I had to move the chassis battery to another compartment.  A pretty easy job, and I was able to use the same cables.

Another purchase we made was a new Black and Decker fully automatic battery charger.  This will do double duty as a regular batter charger, and will also be used to charge our coach batteries until we replace the current   Paralax 7455 on board charger/converter, as the on board charger/converter is not designed to rapidly charge batteries, but is designed to be used when you spend most of your time hooked up to shore power. 

We have also purchased a Kozy World 10,000 BTU propane heater that is made for indoor use, with proper ventilation, of course.

Yet another purchase was 4 walkie-talkie radios.  Our Winnebago came with these radios, and a built in charger, but the radios were missing when we got the motorhome.  As a result of spending many hours on the internet reading about RVs and RVing, I read on an RV forum that a place here in Quartzsite sells new charger units with radios for less than the price of replacement radios alone, so we just had to get it.  Here is a pic of the built in charger in the motorhome.  It is just to the left at floor level when you come in the door.

Here is a pic of the new charger and radios.

Well, that is about it for now.  Ann has been very busy with her work the last few days, and spent most the day yesterday on conference calls on some huge project that they are trying to wrap up.

I will post more later, and hopefully get some more pics up of our travels to California.

Paul

Back to Blogging January 8

Wow! It has been quite some time since we have blogged.  Time is flying by!  Quite a bit has happened since Ann posted on December 20.

We stayed in Shiprock RV Park in Apache Junction till Tuesday January 5th, when we moved to Holiday Palms RV Park in Quartzsite Arizona, which is about 140 miles west of Phoenix. We came here to be a part of the annual RV show which attracts 50-60 thousand RVers to the area.  We plan on staying in this park till January 16th, then we are planning on going out on BLM land and "boondock" with a group of RVers for a while.

Our time at Shiprock went by really fast as we were pretty busy and did some really fun things.  Ann's daughter Ali flew out from Iowa on her way to California to meet up with a sorority sister during semester break from Iowa State University.  We picked her up at Sky Harbor Airport about 10:00PM on Christmas Eve.  As neither she nor us had eaten dinner, we looked for a place to eat; not an easy thing to do on Christmas Eve, but we managed to find a Village Inn that was open, and had a good meal.

We didnt do much on Christmas Day, as we had already celebrated Chistmas with family before we left Iowa.  On December 26 we drove to Los Angeles to do a little site seeing and have Ali meet up with her sorority sister.  It was a pretty long drive, but not bad, as I like driving.  We really didnt have any plans for what we were going to do when we got there but Ann and Ali did want to see Hollywood Boulevard.  So we took the appropriate exit and drove down the boulevard, we were all pretty disappointed as there really isnt much to it, and looks mostly like a tourist trap.

After that we decided it was time to start looking for place to stay for the night.  Without being too sure of where to start looking we jumped back on the freeway, and in a couple of minutes we saw a Sheraton and a Hilton at Universal Studios....good enough for us!  After checking in and having a nice meal at the hotel restaurant, we were ready for a good nights sleep.

We got pretty early the next morning to go to Universal Studios.  We got there early, and stayed till about 2:00PM, when it was time to drop Ali off and then head back to Apache Junction.  It was a great way to spend a day!  I had been at Universal Studios in 1972, but now it is more of an amusement park than studio tour, but still a great time.  We got some really nice pics that I will post soon. In quite a coincidence, Ali's sorority sister's dad works at Universal Studios, and lives nearby, and offered to come to the hotel to pick up Ali!  That was really nice, and saved us sometime, and some city driving.  He was also nice enough to tell us a better way to get back out of LA than we came in.  The drive back to Apache Junction was fairly uneventful, and we arrived back at the Winnebago about 10:30PM on the 27th.

In a phone conversation with my daughter Shanda,and her husband Matt who, is an Iowa State alum, before we left Iowa, they said they would be coming down to Arizona for the Insight Bowl on New Year's Eve, and may have extra tickets.  It turns they did, and invited us to join them and some of there friends at the game.  I cant say it was the best played game by either team, but Iowa State was able to come away with a 14-13 win...not bad for a team that only won a couple of games last year.  It was my first college football game, and we sat right next to the Iowa State Band.  Between watching the band, and the game we were pretty well entertained.  On the way back to Apache Junction from Tempe we stopped for dinner, went to a place that had live music, had a drink, but after a day of tailgating, and the game we were ready to head back to the motorhome.  We let others celebrate the New Year as we slept.

On January 4th Ali stopped off overnight on her flight back to Iowa and the snow and cold, to return to classes at Iowa State University on January 11.  So in the four trips to Sky Harbor Airport  within a couple of weeks, we learned more than we though we ever would about this airport. So it has been a busy and fun few weeks here in Arizona.  I am sure I have forgotten something I should have included in this post, but maybe I will add more when I add the pictures.

Ah ha, I just remembered one thing.  Ann mentioned something about smuggling in her last post.  Well, unknown to us when we booked our stay at Shiprock RV Park, it is a 55+ park.  That means that at least one person be at least 55, AND the other half of a couple must be at least 45! Hence the smuggling.

More later

Paul