Here we are, on the road: We in Quartzsite, Arizona

January 19, 2013 Lorraine’s report

Okay, so I’ve been ill this past week. We had a grand time visiting with Joe & Alice at Palo Casino, will see them later this summer. I just love going with them to Palo, it’s a grand casino. The food is excellent, and we had some luck there too.

This cold I got is pretty nasty. It started out with me being totally dizzy, and progressed from there. Today I’m finally feeling like I may live. The cough, the cold, runny nose, etc. are maybe finally starting to abate. I sure hope so…it’s not been fun being so ill…..Chuck covered everything else…Hope you all have a great day…Hugs,

Lorraine

1/19/13 Chuck’s report

We’re back in Quartzsite, for the 6th time in the past 7 years and we are experiencing the best weather in all those years. I know California could use some much needed rain but here in the desert it’s pretty dry too. And the long range forecast has no rain in sight for at least the next 10 days. We’ve been here when the winds were blowing hard and one year when it was raining, I’ll take this over those years!

Last Sunday was football day again, we wanted to watch the San Francisco/Carolina game, the winner will be playing the Seahawks. San Francisco won so it will be the third time these two teams have played each other this year with the home team winning the first two. Sure hope that trend continues, the winner of this game will be playing in the Super Bowl. We would sure like to see Seattle play in that game.

Monday Lorraine started getting cold like symptoms, sure hope it isn’t the flu but she did get her flu shot. We did head over to the local casino for senior day, $5 off the buffet. We both won on the slots, Lorraine more than I did. After we got back to the park, we stopped off to see Mike/Linda at their place for a while.

Tuesday morning we loaded up the car and headed off to Hemet, about an hour’s drive to the Southeast. Our friends Joe and Alice spend most of the winter there and we wanted to see them before we left the area. We got to their place then drove over to Pala casino. They have taken us there before, it’s one of the nicest we’ve been to and I think it may have the best buffet, for sure in the top 5. We had a great meal and they have a desert area to die for, they make banana splits, crepe suzettes, cherries jubilee and the like as well as the normal cakes, pies, brownies and such. I think we all saved some room for desert, I know I went back for seconds, just had to try a chocolate cake, yum.

We spent a good day with Joe and Alice but all too soon we head to head back, it was dark when we got back as it was. But at least the traffic wasn’t too bad, the only bad traffic we ran into was after we left the casino and headed back to their place before we headed back to ours later. We asked them if it would be possible for us to stay at their extra lot back in Blaine when we are back in Washington this spring/summer, they are trying to make arrangements to make that happen. Thanks for spending the day with us, we had a good visit with you two.

Wednesday Lorraine was feeling a bit worse, the cold had started to get to her. I had to run into Verizon to have them check out our new notebook we are using as a Wi-Fi hotspot, it quit working again. The gal seemed to understand our problem and she reset the device and pulled the Sim card, same things I had tried. She did show me a different way to reset the device and it started working after that. I sure hope this works as we won’t be around a Verizon place out here in the desert.

Later I went by Costco to fill the car with gas, I know it will be more expensive than here but with the 1000s of folks who descend to this small town for part of the winter overload all the services around the area and the traffic can be bad too. I figured paying a few cents more per gallon was better than fighting the crowds. I then ran over to Wal-Mart, I had to pick up a few thing for Lorraine.

We had planned on leaving Palm Springs on Thursday, depending on how Lorraine was feeling. She got up and said she was ok with us traveling so we got things put away and ready for travel. The site were were in at 1000 Trails was a back-in site and I had to ask the neighbor across the street if he would move his car so we could back in with less problems. And when we left, I once again asked him to move his car. We like this park but it sure isn’t made for big rigs and it has lots of palm trees that can cause some issues in getting satellite TV service. But once we get set up, it isn’t bad at all plus we usually find some friends we’ve met over the past 7 years somewhere in the park.

After we left Palm Springs, we headed East, stopping to fuel up the rig just after we crossed the state line into Arizona. We got to the BLM area, we pay $40 for up to two weeks for the right to boondock in the thousands of acres. The area we are staying in does have a dump station area but with all the rigs in the area, the wait can sometimes be 4 hours or even longer at the busiest times. Plus they do have fresh water available to refill our fresh water tank after we dump the holding tanks.

We arrived here with our fresh water full and our holding tanks empty. From past experience here we know we can take Navy showers, watch our water usage when washing dishes and make our fresh water last at least a week or longer. The holding tanks are pretty good size too but the grey water tank seems to fill first, even with us taking Navy showers.

After we got our pass to enter/park in the BLM area, we found the Tiffin owner’s group where we were staying. We got parked and with no utilities to hook up, my job when pretty fast. Lorraine still was feeling under the weather but got the inside set up with a little help from me. Then we walked over and visited with some of our friends and met some new friends too.

Later that evening a service center truck came by to give a seminar about the parts and service they supply. We have been discussing getting 4 new tires on the back and replacing the shocks on the rig. Most motor home folks find they don’t wear out tires but need to replace them due to age instead. The experts say it’s best to replace tires somewhere around 6 – 7 years, even if there is good tread, we fit in that category so we made arrangements to have 4 new tires installed and change out the shocks on Monday morning. After the service, we plan to move over to join with the other group we stay with in Quartzsite, RV America.

Friday Lorraine work up and was really feeling bad, we decided to just stay around the rig, only going outside to visit a little and enjoy the sunshine. There was a scheduled meet & greet with this group, everyone was to bring an appetizer to share. This was to happen at 3:30 and another service center guy came by to give another seminar, this one on hydraulic jacks and slide outs. I learned a bit from this guy too, even after having/using these items on our rig for the past 6+ years.

Saturday was the opening day for the big tent, the start of RV week here at Quartzsite. We have gone to the big tent on opening day before but the crowds are too big so we usually don’t go on opening day anymore, instead we will wait until later next week to tour the vendor area and see if they have something we just have to have. We usually have some items in mind but this time I don’t know have any one item I’m looking to purchase but we’ll see.

So Saturday we hung around the rig most of the day, only going out to visit and meet other folks. It’s amazing, if someone is having issues it seems all the guys show up to “help” and offer suggestions. And folks like to show off the modifications and improvements they have made to their rigs. Today was like that for most of us although some folk did brave the crowds and head over to the tent.

Once again, at 3:30 we had a pot luck dinner with the folks here. I think there are 35 rigs here, plus a few others that are staying in different areas around the area that walk-in to share some time with us. There was a raffle planned for after dinner, they use this as a fund raiser to offset the costs of setting up this get together. There are lots of prizes, some are gag gifts, others something for RVers. We actually had our number picked three times, got a couple of RV items and even an envelope with cash, good deal. Everyone seem to have had a good dinner and a good time with the raffle too.

Today we have a “breakfast in a bag” scheduled for everyone. You put what you would like to have in an omelet in a quart freezer bag, most folks put ham, sausage, bacon, onions, peppers and the like in the bag. The hosts then add two or three eggs to the bag and it’s put into a pot of boiling water for 13 minutes. The result is just like an omelet cooked in a pan on the stove, plus this is lots of fun.

After breakfast there will be time for more visiting before the football games start at 1:30. The first game is the AFC championship game between New England and Denver. The second game will be the NFC championship game between San Francisco and Seattle. The winners of these two games will meet in the Super Bowl in two weeks. These championship games are usually better games than the Super Bowl game, the teams are trying to win these but in the Super Bowl it’s more like they are trying to not lose.

We had our freezer repaired when we were in the Bay area and it’s been running good ever since. I did unplug it when we traveled and plugged it in as soon as we were stopped for the day. Not real sure if that is necessary but I don’t think it can hurt so will continue to do that.

Like I said, the weather has been really nice. We’ve had temperatures about 10 – 15F above normal, getting to low 80s or high 70s everyday with no clouds and very little wind. The temperatures do start to drop as soon as the sun sets, it gets down to the 40s at night. We haven’t been running our air conditioners during the day but open the windows and turn on the vent fans instead. But we do have the heat on at night, don’t want Lorraine to get cold while she is fighting her cold. That means our generator does start/stop throughout the night as needed to keep our batteries charged and give power to the heat pumps when needed. At least we are parked in such a manner that the generator doesn’t face directly at a close by rig.

Our travel plans are firming up for after here. Our friends in Yuma, TJ and Sharon, have offered us the use of their extra lot they own in Yuma. We contacted them today and told them we would take them up on their kind offer. TJ called shortly after we sent the email and said to come on down, the lot is open and ready. Thanks, we’ll see you two next week.

Lorraine hasn’t taken too many pictures this week, just a few on our travel day and some of the activities here so it shouldn’t take too long to go through them and pick out a few to add to this blog. Guess I’ll do that now.

On the road heading East, lots of nothing out here but still pretty on its own way.