Fulltiming Road Runners

Today is Friday, tomorrow is going to still be in the mid 90’s, but Sunday is supposed to drop 10 degrees or so.  Yayyy!  I don’t know how hot it got today (our weather station quit sending for a few hours at the hottest part of the day, but it was at least 96F.  I know it got at least that hot because that’s how hot it got inside the trailer.  It’s 91F inside right now (7:00 p.m. PDT).  After the drop in temps on Sunday, it should stay down to comfortable levels for a week or more.  We sure hope so.  I’ve got things I want to get done inside the trailer, but by 9 a.m. lately it’s too hot to work in here.

We have another couple who have volunteered to work the Contact Station.  They will work Fridays and Saturdays.  We need two more couples or 4 more volunteers.  We can get by with just one more couple (or 2 singles), but it would be better to have 4 more people.

Thom had the staples removed from his knee.  There is a little red on the knee, so probably a slight infection, but in just the one day since removing the staples, the red is fading.  Thom says it hurts a lot less now that the staples aren’t there pulling the skin.

We went into Blythe yesterday and applied for our Passport Cards at the post office.  The guy said it will take 1 to 2 weeks to arrive, which means 2 to 3 weeks for us because they are being mailed to our address in South Dakota and have to be forwarded here.  I’m looking forward to a trip into Mexico and getting new glasses.  I’m not enjoying my walks right now because I don’t see with the clarity I’m used to.  I think that since my diabetes is getting better, my eyes are continuing to get better and my current prescription is too strong.

Did I mention that I was going to start beading a 3-D Lazuli Bunting?  I figured I could modify the hummingbird pattern to make a Lazuli Bunting.  I’ve got it all done except for one wing and I think it’s going to be good.  I’ll have to see it hanging in good light to be sure.
I wasn’t happy with the autumn leaves pattern I started on.  It was too wide and just didn’t look right.  After I finish my bunting, I’m going to work on a narrower photo of a sunset over mountains.

Those of you who have been following our blog for the duration will remember that last year we had a friend of Thom’s setup camp right next to us here in Quartzsite.  To be honest, I had problems getting along with him, but we survived the season.  This year we didn’t invite him to camp next to us, we didn’t even tell him where we were going to be.  He called Thom a few times as summer went on and at the end of summer told Thom he was coming back to QZ for the winter.  After we got here in QZ he called Thom and told him he was going to camp next to us again when he got here.  Yay.  He’s been here since last Tuesday.  I’m being tolerant and we are getting along okay so far… but it’s only been 4 days.  I think we’ll do better this year because I’m working hard at not letting the little things get to me.

Our friends Ron and Terry (of Hitchitch fame) should have arrived in La Posa North this afternoon, unless the solar panel installation didn’t get finished, in which case they may be staying in the installer’s parking lot here in Quartzsite.

I’ve done enough rambling for tonight.  Thom has a fire going outside (which isn’t needed other than for aesthetic purposes, it’s 82F out there still), and I think I’d like to go sit (6 to 8 feet away) and get mesmerized by the flames.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Tah!

Dadgum! It’s hot here!  It got up to 99F yesterday afternoon.  It was 95F INSIDE the trailer.  Luckily, we had a nice breeze from the south, which is the side of the trailer with all the windows, so it didn’t feel too hot.  This morning when I got out of bed around 7:35 or so, it was still 71F inside and 68F outside.  It’s now 10:30 a.m. and 91F outside and 81F inside.   I’m thinking we may end up running the generators this evening and getting the A/C going.  The 10 day weather forecast says it’ll stay in the 90’s through next Sunday, then drop to the high 80’s.  Ron & Terry may just want to stay in New Mexico a few more days.

I just went back in the archives of our posts to Oct. last year.  Guess what… the temps were in the 90’s then too.  They were running in the low 90’s then, so they were about 5 degrees cooler than now.  I also noted that I’d mentioned the cost of diesel fuel last October.  It was $3.07 then and is $2.95 here in town & $2.78 at Flying J in Ehrenberg, AZ.  Gasoline is $2.74 in Ehrenberg, $2.95 here in QZ.

We’ve been enjoying watching the birds ‘n squirrels at our “watering hole”.  I counted 15 birds trying to drink ‘n bathe at the same time.  I haven’t been getting much in the way of photographs though.  It’s too hot to stand in the sun waiting for a photo op.  Day before yesterday I went out to check the water level in the watering hole and found a drowned mouse in it.  I have rocks in the pan for the birds to stand on to bathe, I don’t understand why the mouse couldn’t climb out.  Anyway, dear Thom disposed of it for me.

I did get a photo of a new (for me) critter on Sunday.  Thom saw a tiny lizard run by so I grabbed my camera and got close enough to take pics.  At first I thought he was a baby Desert Iguana, but upon looking him up at my Sonoran Desert Reptile site I found he is a baby Zebra Tail Lizard.  He was only about 3.5 inches long from snout to tip of tail.  These lizards, when excited or threatened, will  run a bit then stop and lift their tail so the black & white shows and they flick it rapidly.  I’ll post pics that show both the topside of tail and bottom side (black ‘n white).

I don’t know the reason these lizards flick their tails like they do, but my theory is they are trying to make their enemy think they are a rattlesnake.  The diamondback rattlers here are called coon tails because they have black ‘n white striped tails right above the rattles. Here’s a shot of one from last February that shows the coon tail clearly.

It’s now too hot in this trailer for me to sit here much longer.  I’m going to take my beads outside and sit in the shade and be creative.  Or something like that.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Toodles!

Hullo again.  Not a lot going on, just a bit of this ‘n that.

We took the car in to be fixed on Friday.  They replaced all spark plugs and the coil… cost us $435.  Ouch!  The service guy said if the engine light comes back on, it means the ignition module will need replacing, but right now the car is running fine so he didn’t replace it.  That would be another $125 plus labor.  What’s sad is if we were still in Ogden or Salt Lake City, we could have gotten it repaired under a special warranty deal.  If we get the car serviced in one of the Saturn dealers up there, the warranty is extended.  We got the oil changed just before we left… at Saturn of Salt Lake City.  Oh well.

We worked yesterday.  Signed up 4 new campers.  Boring day.  At the end of the day we sweep the station floor.  Yesterday afternoon I was sweeping and saw a funny piece of cream colored paper on the floor.  I was going to pick it up to look at it closer, but as I bent over I noticed it was a dead scorpion.  I still thought about picking it up to examine it closer, but wanted to get the floor done and go home so kept on sweeping.  The first sweep on that dead scorpion and he immediately came to life and scampered!  Thom came in and stepped on him and I swept the evidence away.  Normally we try to move a critter like that to a spot away from us, but there were just too many places in the station for him to run to and evade us.

We have an appointment at the Blythe Post Office next Thursday to  apply for our Passport Card.  The card is a LOT cheaper than a passport and allows you to cross the Canada and Mexico borders.  I really need to get new glasses and they are very inexpensive down in Algadones, which is right outside of Yuma.  I’m going to have to start saving as much money as possible so I can do a bit of shopping down there too.

I’ve started a new beading project.  I have a feature on my Photo Shop program that adds texture to a photo.  One of the textures is Patchwork.  It makes squares on the photo.  I’m using each square as a bead and making bracelets or chokers out of the pattern, just repeating the pattern until it’s long enough for whatever I’m making.  Here’s a photo of Wild Geranium leaves in fall colors I’m working on now.  I’m doing it in the beading square stitch.  I’ll share a photo of the finished product.  It’s quite time consuming, but fun.

Now I’m off to do a bit of housework before it gets too warm in here.  Temps are still getting up to the 90’s during the day, but cooling off nicely at night… outside anyway.  This trailer doesn’t do well with air movement due to the lack of windows on the left side.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Tah!

For not posting sooner.

During the days, something happens or I see something and I think I want to share that on the blog… but then when I sit down at the computer I can’t remember or it doesn’t seem worth sharing anymore.

It’s still pretty empty out here.  Not a lot of campers coming in yet.  We’re hoping people are staying home so they can vote and will hit the road after Nov. 4th.

We have made another new friend.  We wouldn’t have met him if we hadn’t parked in Sandy and Bob’s spot.  He spent a lot of time with Bob gathering gem rocks & metal detecting I guess.  He saw our trailer here and thought Sandy ‘n Bob had got a new one and knocked on the door.  We were at the contact station working.  He stopped there to ask if we knew if Sandy ‘n Bob had come in yet.  We had to tell him that they weren’t going to be here this year.  We also mentioned that we were in their spot.  This guy’s name is Tad.  He works with Terry (Hitchitch fame) at the Gem & Mineral Club.  We chatted for a while at the contact station and since then,  he’s dropped by here a couple of times.  He has such interesting stories to tell about the area.

It looks like the weather is finally breaking.  The highs have been below 90F the last couple of days.  Between my becoming more heat tolerant and the temps going a bit lower we’ve been pretty comfortable, even with the trailer at 87F inside.  I’d still prefer it to be below 80F though.  We got the weather station set up today.  I zeroed all the numbers so the Min/Max’s wouldn’t include Ogden Canyon temps, so we don’t have real minimums for the day because they happened this morning, but the high of the day was 87F… not too bad.

Yesterday we drove to Parker to go to the bank and cash a check I received from selling one of my trees, and to do our grocery shopping.  The car was missing some when we started, but I thought it was because Thom was lugging the engine, making the car bump ‘n jump.  A mile or so down the road, the engine light came on.  This happened a few months ago and it was a bad spark plug.  We were still able to drive with it that way, but I bet our mileage is pretty poor.

I called the Chevy dealer in Parker today (both our Saturn and Chevy are GMC).  The Saturn isn’t under warranty of any kind so we’re going to have to pay.  It is going to cost us $88 just to hook the car up to the computer that tells what and where the problem is.  Then, if it’s the spark plugs like we think, it’s another $170.

I’m beginning to worry about finances.  We don’t have half the cushion we had last year.  We can’t draw anymore money from our IRA this year because taxes will bite us in the butt.  I guess we’ll just have to charge any extras on the credit card and pay interest until January when we can pull from the IRA to pay off the credit card.  You probably wonder why I’m telling you this.  It’s not ’cause I wanna whine.  It’s ’cause I think people should know that financial worries are a big part of fulltime RV’g when you are living on a shoestring.  You get worried, you get frustrated, you get scared and you get very good at juggling.  I’m still working on the good at juggling part.

I’m in desperate need of a shower tonight, so I’m going to post this and head that way.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Toodles!

It feels like summer!
I didn’t mention in yesterday’s blog how hot it got.  I was grateful we had the A/C in the contact station.  The temp got up to around 96F.  When we got home from “work” yesterday, the trailer was 93F inside and the birds were looking pretty uncomfortable.  Before I even changed to cooler clothes I grabbed the birds spray bottle and sprayed them down good, then I proceeded to change to short shorts ‘n tank top.

Today was supposed to get warmer than yesterday and it did as expected.   Our outdoor thermometer (in the shade) registered 98F, and it got to 97F inside the trailer.  Thom did the laundry this afternoon and while the first load was washing and the dryer not running, we were able to run the A/C.  Before we had to run the dryer, the A/C got the temp down to 93F.  After the laundry was finished, Thom left the big generator running so we could try to get a bit cooler.  Temp got all the way down to 86F when we had to shut down & switch to gas generator (no A/C).

Last night when we went to bed it was 88F, tonight I hope it gets a degree or two cooler than the 86F it is now.
I’m amazed I’ve done as well as I have, but I’m still a bit grumpy and poor Thom has to take the brunt of my grumpiness. I don’t deal well with heat.  I sweat, a lot!  They say ladies perspire… I’m not a lady!  I sweat!  Right now my hair is sopping wet and it’s been up in a pony tail all day.

At least the temperature made it easier for Thom to relax & not overwork his knee.

Ron ‘n Terry… it’s just as well you’re not headed this way yet, it’s still hotter than you’d like it.  By the way, your spot is still available, you just have a neighbor closer than you may like.  I tried to respond to your email, but your firewall wouldn’t accept my email.

I set up my “watering hole” today.  I put a rectangular plastic container flush in the ground and filled it with water for the critters.  It didn’t take long for the squirrels, dove, finches ‘n sparrows to find it and take advantage of it in this heat.

I feel I’m really rambling tonight, so I’m going to say g’nite ‘n hope all my ramblings make sense.

Stay healthy ‘n happy!

Tah!

We worked today at the Contact Station.  They’ve changed the hours to be full day (9 a.m. - 5 p.m.) every other day.  Since we still only have Larry ‘n Phyllis ‘n Thom ‘n I to man the station, we are manning the station every other every other day… so we work again on Tuesday.  Business is picking up.  We did 4 long term and 2 short term today.

I got a phone call late this morning that was very good news for us.  I’d just finished signing up a couple of gals for long term and Thom was talking to them when the phone rang.  I didn’t feel bad about answering the phone since I’d finishd all I could do for them.

The call was from Doris, the campground manager at Perception Park in Ogden Canyon last summer.  She and Don have been made the Ogden Canyon Area Managers as well as campground managers fro Perception Park.  She asked me if Thom and I still wanted to work at South Fork campground next summer.  (we’d already told her we wanted that campground next summer if available).  I immediately said yes, without even consulting Thom, and it’s pretty much set.  We get to go back to the canyon and be near my son, Mike, his wife Tiff and our darling grandson, Coen (will be 1 year when we get back there).  We get to see the friends we made last summer again, and for the first time since we left Salt Lake City in September of ‘06, we’ll have a “long term” home with full hookups!   Oh m’ gosh!  We can run the A/C, we can run elec. heaters instead of propane, fridge on elec. instead of propane… we can SAVE bunches not having to use the generators and propane so much!  All we have to do is survive this winter…as in NOT fall down ‘n split body parts, ‘n keep the trailer running properly, no rattlesnake bites, etc.  I called Mike to tell him and he’s excited too.  I also called Melani and she ‘n Kirk are excited too.

Thom didn’t want to get the generator out tonight since his knee hurts, so I’m on the inverter, so I best cut my time short ‘n get offline.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Toodles!

What a day!  Actually the early evening was the worst!  But I’ll talk about the day first.

Thom has worked so very very hard getting things worked out and built for the portable dump tank ‘n fresh water tank to be on the trailer towed by the Saturn instead of carried in the diesel truck.  They are finally in the trailer ready to go to work for us and the straps holding them in place wouldn’t stay in position.  We reworked the positioning of the straps and decided to give it a try… we had holding tanks that needed dumping and fresh water tank needing replenishing.  We dumped the black ‘n gray water tanks into the portable and with fingers crossed headed to the dump site 3 miles down the highway and 1 mile in on dirt road.  The tank stayed upright, so no environmental issues there, but the straps still didn’t hold position.  We dumped it ‘n then went to fill the fresh water tank.  We got home with everything intact and put the fresh water into the trailer.  It all was okay, but nothing gave us the feeling that it was all stable and safe from spill.  We’re going to have to re-noodle the whole tie-down setup and see if we can figure out a better mousetrap.  In the meantime, I’m so proud of Thom for being able to take an old pump and making it work on the fresh water setup.

This afternoon as I was cooking dinner on the grill, Thom decided to get a campfire going early (I think I grumped him into it).  Just as I was pulling the meat and squash from the grill, Thom was going to put another chunk of wood on the fire.  Thom tripped over a rock or something, fell down, ‘n being the ex-sailor he is, sounded like one.  I tossed the tray I was carrying into a chair by the fire ‘n turned to see what happened.  He’d hit his knee on a rock or something and split the skin wide open.  He said that while he was gathering himself, I could put the dinner in the trailer ‘n grab clothes to wrap around his knee, which was bleeding profusely.  We got him off the ground, looked at the knee, which definitely needed stitches and wrapped his knee tightly in dish towels (clean) ‘n drove him to the emergency in Blythe - about 24 miles away.

They cleaned the wound, put 3 staples in it (stitches would just pull out on the bending of a joint like that), ‘n we headed home.

We were home by 9:15 p.m.  You get quick service at the Blythe emergency room, but I’m not sure about the quality.  Nobody seemed to know what needed to be done or where the supplies were to do what they were finally told to do.  I think that the extra 7 miles to drive to get to Parker would be worth it.  If the situation were life threatening, we’d, of course, call 911 and let them help us make the decision… but for stitches, or that type of thing, we’ll go to Parker.

Thom will be forces to slow down the next few days, and I’m not sorry.  He’s been pushing himself really hard to get the portable tanks setup and workable.  We’ve nothing really pressing now.  We do want to get the generators secured so Thom doesn’t have to work so hard to keep them from being stollen.  He’s thinking about building a box… just not in the next few days!

We work tomorrow, and it is to be a full day’s work, but then we’re off until Tuesday.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!  We’re workin’ on doin’ the same.

Toodles!

I took some photos yesterday so I could give ya’ll a better idea of where we live, and maybe they’ll help you understand our lifestyle better.

This is a shot of our home at a distance.

A closeup of the home

We have to keep our awnings low to shade the windows from the sun and keep it cooler inside.  The front awning is at an angle because the doors rub on the awning if we don’t raise that end.  The back awning is raised mostly so I can see the bird feeders at the trees from inside the trailer.  I’ll probably take another photo a month from now to show changes we’ve made.

The Long Term Visitor Areas of the BLM are a community of people who come back year after year.  Most of the people here are willing and even anxious to help their neighbors.  We form special friendships that last forever.  People come back here and camp in the same place they’ve always camped (unless someone gets here earlier and takes the spot - grrrr), and they often camp in groups.  Here is a photo of a horseshoe pit just a little ways from our trailer.  It’s been here at least two seasons, maybe even longer.  There were two or 3 friends who camped by it, but I don’t think they’ll be back this year.  Last season one of them succumbed to lung cancer.  He loved to play horseshoes.  He was well loved by all.  His friends put up a memorial at his campsite.  A photo of that follows the horseshoe pit.

This next photo is a shot of the other side of the wash looking towards the Contact Station.  The truck and trailer belong to a Canadian, Bruce, who was in that same spot last year.  The little trailer to the right of Bruce’s truck wasn’t there last year.  Ron & Terry, if you’re reading this, the little trailer is parked at the tree right behind your two trees.

I look forward to our friends arriving and filling in some of the empty space out here and will dearly miss Sandy & Bob who were here last year.  Hopefully they will be back next winter.

The wind is picking up pretty good, so I need to check the weather report to see just how windy it’s supposed to get, and, if necessary, get the dish down so it doesn’t get damaged.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Tah!

As a matter of fact, I feel downright cold sitting here in the trailer in my shorts ‘n tee shirt.  It’s only 67F in here.  LOL  When I’m done with this, I’m going to go for a walk in the sun and warm up.

We worked 1/2 day yesterday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  We signed up 2 long term campers and 1 short term.  I had forgotten a lot of the procedure for registering, so am glad Phyllis happened to be in the station with us when the first “customer” came in.  Feels to good to be back.

The weather cooled down yesterday.  The wind blew like crazy Friday night and the temp dropped considerably.  I think the high yesterday was only 77F.  Today is supposed to be about the same, but a lot less windy.  It’s only 68F outside right now.

We had our first critter visitor yesterday afternoon a little after 5:00 p.m.  He/she looks quite healthy, so must have faired well during the heat of the summer.

We have also started getting birds at our feeders.  So far we’ve only seen Anna’s Hummingbirds at the nectar feeders.  This is a male Anna’s with the sun making his red head and chin look more gold.

I’ve not downsized the photos of most of the birds, but this one is one of my favorites so I downsized two of him so I could share him today.  When he shows up, all the other birds scatter!  He’s the Gila Woodpecker, he’s not aggressive at all, but his size is enough to scare the others away.

I got an email from Sandy (she and Bob were parked in this spot last winter).  She wants pictures of the area, so I’ll be shooting some today and sharing them soon.

Our bathroom sink has been draining quite slow and getting worse so Thom took the trap apart to clean it out and it was pretty clean already.  That made us worry a bit!  We couldn’t figure out how to get the plug piece out of the sink, so Thom ended up using a coat hanger to stick down the sink between the wings on the plug, then ran water with a catch basin under the sink and got a big glob of hair out of the drain.  We’re going to have to be more careful.  I try not to rinse hair down the drain, but I don’t always see the hair to wipe it out before running water.  Both of us have long hair and Thom’s is white, kinda hard to see against the white sink.

Time for me to go for that walk and take a few pics.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy.

Toodles!

We decided to go to bed early last night so we could get up early this morning ‘n get things done before it got too hot.  I got up at 6:45 this morning ‘n the trailer was still at 73F.  I didn’t even really want to make coffee because that meant turning on the burner (flames = heat).  It got up to 100F again today ‘n dear Thom just kept on truckin’ trying to get things done.  He needed to unload the truck rack so we could get the water tank down to go get water so we could do laundry.  It was 90F by 10:30 this morning.  Thom had all these things he wanted to accomplish so he just kept on going and pushing himself, and by this evening had made himself sick from being out in the sun and heat.  From now on, we should be able to take our time and do what we can when we can and not have to push.  I guess I’ll have to tackle ‘n hogtie Thom to keep him from overdoing!

We went into Ehrinberg this morning for diesel for the truck and the 2 five gallon cans for the generator ‘n while there got gas in the two 5 gal cans for the other generators.  Diesel is 3.39/gal in Ehrinberg and gas is  3.24/gal.  It’s worth the drive into Ehrinberg (about 12 miles or so) for diesel, but we find the gas is a penny cheaper here in town at the Pilot station.  We’ll gas the car locally, but continue to get diesel in Ehrinberg.

We also stopped at the contact station here to get the paperwork to fill out for our volunteering this winter.  We’ve filled them out and will take them down to La Posa South coordinators to get our permit stickers, and will start working on Saturday.  Right now, until the 15th the Contact Station is open every other day from 9 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.  We will alternate with Phyllis ‘n Larry to man the station (every other every other day. LOL).  They need a minimum of two more couples here, but until they get them we will work extra to help them out.   On the 15th we will still only be open every other day, but will go to full days from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.  Then when business picks up, Thom and I will work Monday’s ‘n Tuesdays (& any other days they may need help if new volunteers don’t come in).

Today I dug out my hummingbird feeders and one of my bird seed feeders and got them filled and hung outside.  We don’t have any Ironwood trees close enough to my liking to hang the feeders, but have a couple of very nice Palo Verde trees right behind us.  I hung one hummer feeder in one of those trees and put my seed feeder on a “shepard’s crook” very near the Palo Verde tree so the birds will feel comfortable having the tree to retreat too from the feeder.  We didn’t get any traffic to speak of at the feeders yet, but I did have a Verdin & later a hummer checking out the hummingbird feeder and another bird (couldn’t see well enough to identify) checking out the seed feeder.  I imagine we’ll get some birds at both of them tomorrow.

We’re supposed to get some cooler weather the next few days, so maybe I’ll be more inclined to get out and take photos & explore.

I’ve got a couple of bracelets that need the finishing touches put on them… glue on the tied off knots, so I think I’ll go do that and then play games on the computer until it cools off enough to go to bed.  It is currently 88F in here, and that is after running the A/C for about 45 minutes.

Stay healthy ‘n happy!

Tah!