Fulltiming Road Runners

We’ll be heading to our homes in Ogden Canyon tomorrow.  The trailer is in the shop getting the carpet installed and should be finished after lunch.  I’m ready to get settled again.  It’s not a lot of fun living in the RV when we have to be stowed and ready to move every morning. 

I forgot to mention we were able to go to my son’s place for dinner on Monday evening.  Tiffany’s (Daughter in law) father and brother were there too.  Mike (son) grilled some absolutely perfect steaks.  Was yummy.  Best part of all, though, was being able to spend time with Coen.  He’s 1 yr old now and  walking, talking (in his own way), and a tremendously happy child.  He had a ball playing with Willow. 

We had a great time yesterday evening at dinner with Mari and Scott.  I so enjoy spending time with them.  They will be coming up to camp a time or two this summer, and are already talking about coming back to Quartzsite.

Time for me to get get out of here.

Ya’ll stay happy ‘n healthy!

Toodles

We arrived in Draper (Camping World) yesterday morning.  Thom got the satellite dish on it’s way up and it didn’t work right.  I did a calibration on it and it gave me an error message after about 5 minutes.  I called Motosat and we learned the Azimuth stop wasn’t working so the dish just kept rotating until I manually stopped it.  We had to manually stow the dish and now have an appt. with the MotoSat factory tomorrow morning.  Parts are still under warranty, but the labor will NOT be free.  Luckily the factory is only about 15 miles from here. 

We thought our trailer appt. was for tomorrow, but found it isn’t until Thursday so that works wonderfully since MotoSat had absolutely no available time except tomorrow.

So…. tomorrow Thom takes the trailer  to MotoSat for the dish to be fixed, I have my annual checkup appt. at my old Doctor’s, and I think we’re going to dinner with Mari ‘n Scott in the evening.  It’s gonna be so super nice to see them!

Assuming everything gets done properly in the Trailer on Thursday, we are scheduled to arrive in our campgrounds in Ogden Canyon on Friday.  I’m excited.

Ya’ll stay happy ‘n healthy!

Toodles

We decided today to not stop in Cove Fort because it was too early and all 3 of us had a lot of go left in us.  We drove on to Nephi.  Now we are only 8o+ miles from Draper where we stop to have the carpet put in the slide on the 5th wheel, which should only take a day.  The appointment is for the 29th.

We arrived in Nephi around 2:30 p.m. (MDT), went into Burger King for a bite to eat and while inside, it started to snow.  Welcome to Utah happy wanderers!  Yuck!

We are parked in the parking lot of a burned out restaurant near the Subway restaurant.  We don’t know if we’re legal or not.  We’ll let you know tomorrow if we are asked to leave.  We’ve heard that trucks and RV’s have parked here in the past, so we’re giving it a try.  With our 3 rigs we’ve pretty much filled up the available space.

Since we don’t have far to travel tomorrow, we’re in no hurry to get started tomorrow. 

By the way, Russ’s motorhome has done wonderfully these last 2 days of travelling.  No problems at all!

Time for me to go finish my other internet stuff before I have to shut down.

Ya’ll stay happy, ‘n healthy.

Toodles!

…but we’re not in a big hurry, it’s supposed to be snowing up there.

Yesterday we had the winds from hell!  I don’t know how fast they were blowing but they sure shook the trailer, all day and all night.  It was still very windy this morning at 6:30 and 7:00, but it died down around 9:00 so we decided to hit the road as planned.

We only drove about 50 miles today and are spending the night in Mesquite, Nevada.  We’ll head out tomorrow morning sometime and head for Cove Fort, which is about 166 miles from here.

We are parked in the free RV parking area at the Casa Blanca casino here in Mesquite.  Since we aren’t going to run our generator tonight and the sun has gone down and is no longer charging our batteries, I better shut down and turn off the inverter.  Besides, I have a date with my shower.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy.

Tah!

…it’s purty durned hot here?!!!  Yesterday got up to 96F inside and out and today it got up to 100F outside and 98F inside.  Last night we got the generator going and ran the A/C while we watched the voting results of Dancing with the Stars and the competition of American Idol.  By the way family ‘n friends, you can call Russ anytime ya want now.  If he wants to see the show, he can turn off his phone.  hehehe

We ran the A/C from 6 P.M. until near 10 P.M. last night.  Today the winds kicked up outside before the sun got low enuff to not shine thru the windows and we had to put the awnings away around 6:15 P.M. and we got the big generator going and turned on the A/C.   The temp inside had dropped to 97F and it’s already down to 95 now at 6:32.  This time I closed the door between the kitchen and bedroom so I think that is helping cool off down here, but we’ll have to switch to the bedroom A/C later this evening.

Tomorrow the high is only supposed to be 94F.  BUT, it is supposed to be very windy so we can’t use the awnings to keep the sun off our windows.

This heat is totally unseasonably high for here.  It should be in the low 80’s, but we’re here, so Mother Nature is showing us what she can do.   I have all the respect in the world for her so I don’t know why she feels the need to show off!

Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit cooler, but breezy.  We intended to leave on Friday, but the weather report says it’s supposed to be windy with gusts up to 41 mph, so it’s most likely we will wait until Saturday to head further north.  We’ll let you know when and where we land this weekend.

Other than the heat, we like it here.  The view to the north is gorgeous (out our back window… I’ve got pics), there’s fun places to explore (Valley of Fire & more), and even the Lost City Museum.
View through back window:

We went to the Lost City Museum yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed.  This is a museum showing the archeological sites and artifacts, in the immediate area, of the indians that settled and lived here.  The Anasazis had built a community that covered about 30 miles.  Of course they were farmers and when a huge drought occured along with other tribes wanting to take over the land, they disappeared with no real explanation.  The Paiutes took over the area in a smaller way. Others may not be as enthralled with this type of thing as I am, but I’m very drawn to Native American history and love to learn more.  Of course, upon the building of Hoover Dam, the majority of the Lost City ended up at the bottom of Lake Mead.

The temp is down to 93F in here now.  With the air blowing from A/C vents and our little fan circulating air, it’s comfortable sitting in here.  Isn’t it amazing how one can adapt when one is living the life they want!

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Toodles!

Temps in the West are higher than normal.  We’re in the west.  Today it got up to above 95F outside and inside.  Tomorrow is supposed to get up to 97F outside… that means 97F inside unless we can find a magical electric hookup to run the A/C.

Yesterday we went for a drive thru the Valley of Fire since it was so close.  Just a quick jaunt.  I did get some pics, but don’t have time to post them now.  Have some pics of the view thru our back window as well.  Just need time to get them uploaded and posted in my blog.

As I said, today we had temps of 95+ inside our RV.  Tomorrow is supposed to reach a high of 97+.  We’re thinking that we’ll sit outside in the breeze as much as we can and when we go inside so I can watch Dancing w/ The Stars vote off, and American Idol contest, we’ll probably get the BIG (diesel) generator going and start the A/C, then the TV.  To start the A/C takes big energy surge (my words), after it’s going the surge (my words) dies down and we can run other items that draw electricity.

Those of you who text and call Russ, please refrain from 7:00 p.m. Pacific time ’til AI is over so he can see Adam perform on American Idol tomorrow night.  He’s missed Adam 2 weeks in a row due to text messages and phone calls and both performances were unbelievable!  I’m thinking it doesn’t bother him so much as it does me… so consider ME and let him watch AI tomorrow night so I don’t have to try to describe it.

Did I mention we’re having record high temps?  Tomorrow is going to be high enuff for A/C.  Will let you know how we fare.  I’m sure we’ll be fine, but I can say it’s not a lot of fun!

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Toodles

Today we moved from Lake Havasu City’s State Campground to the Overton Overlook (my name for it) in Nevada.  It’s about 230 miles so should have been approximately a 4.5 hour drive.  We left LHC just a little after 9 a.m.  We arrived at the Overton Overlook a little after 5 p.m.  According to my calculations it took us 8 hours to get here.

Murphy zapped us good!  Anything that could go wrong, DID go wrong.

The beginning of Murphy zapping us was when we got to the California border inspection station south of Needles.  This time, instead of putting the birds in their travel cages in my car, we left them in their big cages in the trailer by the bathroom sink (short trip, right?).  When stopped by the “inspector” both birds were screaming at the top of their lungs.  He asked Thom if we had parrots.  Of course, Thom couldn’t say no.  Mucuy is a Quaker Parrot.  Quaker Parrots are not allowed in California… not even to transport 40 miles from AZ into NV via a small corner of CA.  I pulled in at the inspection station behind Thom and when I saw 2 inspectors go into our trailer I cringed!  When I saw one of the inspectors come out of the trailer with Mucuy’s cage I was on the virge of hysteria.  To make a long story short, they “rejected” our parrot and denied us entry into California as long as we had him.  We had to turn around, go back to Arizona, and get to Nevada via Bullhead City and Laughlin.  Lotsa extra miles, lotsa slow roads, and big hills.  (We coulda left him in their hands, but they would have killed him)

THAT’S NOT ALL!  Further along on the trip, I looked out my rearview mirror and noticed the BBQ on my trailer was leaning forward with the top broken loose and the lid open.  I hollered on the walkie talkie that we needed to stop.  We got that rearranged and headed down the road again.  Just a few miles down the road and my rearview mirror revealed one of the 4.5″ PVC pipes tied to the back of the trailer had broken loose and was about to be launched out of the trailer onto the window of whatever vehicle was behind me (the pipe is 5′ long).  Another stop to retie it.  A few more miles and the pipe came untied again.  This time we bungie tied it lengthwise. This pretty much fixed everything in my trailer and we were able to head on down (up) the road.

More Murphy!!

We’re in Nevada, back on I-95 and Russ’s motorhome started crapping out on him (frustrated person speak for backfired ‘n lost power).   He’d stop, turn off the engine, let it sit a bit and head out again, it’d go fine until we hit an uphill climb and it would do it again.  We had to stop several times to let it gather it’s energy before we could continue.

We finally made it here and are here until next Friday, so hopefully we can dig into the motorhome and find out what the problem is.  We’ve got a few good climbs getting from here to St. George, Utah.

It’s really lovely here.  The views are great!  I’ll take pics when it’s clear and try to post some.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!  ‘n remember, it’s all part of the adventure, so enjoy as much of it as you can.

Tah!

I can’t believe it’s already Friday and we are back in the state campground.  This time we are parked in a site with a view of the lake.  I’m going to try to get a photo a bit later.

Poor Russ hurt his back this morning lifting a box, so he’s not able to enjoy the day at all.  I believe he’s in bed resting his back.  It’s not a very enjoyable day anyway.  It’s sunny, but the wind is blowing hard enough to be quite annoying — and cool.

We’re doing laundry again today.  Only have 1 load today since we did it last Sunday, but we wanted to get it all done before heading north tomorrow.

Having spent 2 weeks in Craggy Wash, the BLM free camping  area, I wish to share some of my thoughts on it.
It’s nice enough.  Wherever you park you have a nice view of the crags.  Unfortunately, it’s dirty, and I don’t mean dusty dirt.  A lot of the people camping there are sleeping in their cars, or tents.  There are no bathroom facilities whatsoever there.  These people who don’t have self-contained rigs are using the land as their bathrooms.  Some of them do a good job of digging holes and filling them back in when done, others just leave their waste on the open ground with toilet paper flying around, still others do their thing then pile a rock or two on top of the waste and TP.  There is broken glass everywhere you look, there are old pop cans, beer bottles, water bottles, and trash of every kind scattered thru the wash.  There are very windy days at the wash which scatters the trash all over.

Will we go back there?  Probably, but we will try to get further back where it’s a bit cleaner.  I’d love to spend a week at this state park, but at $15/night/vehicle, cost is a bit prohibitive.  The truck & trailer is considered 1 vehicle, but our car and trailer is considered a 2nd vehicle, so we pay $30/night.

Yesterday Thom saw a huge lizard on the rocks by our trailer.  He called me over and I managed to get a couple of good shots.  He is called a Chuckwalla.  He’s about 10″ from nose to vent, and his tail is another 8 - 9″.  His body is about 2.5″ wide.  Here are a couple of shots of him.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Toodles

First I’ll post that pic of the butterfly I took the other day.  It’s called a “Sleepy Orange”.

We enjoyed our time in the State Campground last Sunday.  We dumped our holding tanks and flushed them as best we could, filled with fresh water, then parked the trailer in a nice pull-through spot just across the road from the lake.  Thom did the laundry, there were only 3 loads.  I guess when we know there’ll be a lot of time between fresh water fills, we are pretty durned conservative with our water consumption and changing of clothes.  A little sponge bathing, a little deodorant, and we can wear our clothes a couple or three day.

We walked Willow down to the lake after the laundry was done.  I went wading in the lake and encouraged Willow to join me.  There were little waves from the boats going by and she was a little afraid of them, but she came out into the water with me.  I splashed water on her back and got her good and wet…. sorta gave her a soapless bath which she seemed to enjoy.  She’s a couple of shades lighter in color now that the desert dirt is rinsed off of her.

Checkout time at the state campground isn’t until 2:00 p.m. so we took our time leaving on Monday.  There were swarms of mosquitoes outside on Monday so I wasn’t too unhappy about leaving and coming back to the relatively bug-free Craggy Wash.

We’ll be going back to the state campground this Friday to dump both rigs, fill up with fresh water again, spend the night, & head off to Overton (Nevada) Saturday morning.  We’ll stay in the free area just south of Overton for about 5 days then on to Mesquite, Nevada for a night or 2 at the Casa Blanca Casino parking lot.

It was super windy again yesterday.  The internet satellite dish was down all day long so we had oodles ‘n bunches of email this morning when we got back online.  It’s windy today also, but not nearly as bad as yesterday.  It’s pretty cool outside also, only about 67 or 68F outside.

I kinda like it when it’s cool in the trailer because I can cook/bake and not worry about heating up the trailer too much.  This morning I made muffins for breakfast and this afternoon I’m going to oven fry a chicken.  With any luck the chicken will be tomorrow nights dinner as well so I won’t have to cook and can get everything pretty much stowed for the move on Friday.

In closing for the day, I thought I’d share a couple of shots of Willow’s exuberance when Thom takes her for a walk.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Tah!

We’re still at Craggy Wash.  We’ve gone 11 days on one tank of fresh water (100 gal) and not over filling the holding tanks.  The black tank is ready to be dumped though, so tomorrow morning we are going to go to the State Park to dump, do laundry, SHOWER, walk a couple of trails, and spend the night.  We’ll dump on our way back to Craggy Wash.  We’ll stay here until Russ needs to dump, or it’s time to head on, whichever comes first, then head on to Lake Mead for a week or so.

I worry about driving through Nevada and making do with our fuel.  We refuse to stop in Vegas for fuel unless it’s an emergency and it’s a long way to another gas station from Lake Mead.  We do plan on filling our 27 gal. portable gas tank with gasoline for the motorhome and/or the Saturn, and a couple of 5 gal. tanks of diesel for the truck.  We don’t know yet what kind of mileage the MH gets, but it has a very big gas tank which will be topped off when we leave Lake Havasu.  The Saturn gets 26 MPH towing the trailer, and it has a 15 gal tank, so I should be able to get to St. George, no problem.  The truck only gets 8 - 10 mpg so it may or may not be okay to St. George.  Heck!  I probably worry too much!

We had a lovely thunderstorm last night, complete with lightning and pouring rain.  Of course, the rain didn’t pour for very long, but it was wonderful while it lasted.  Only 30% chance of the same today, so it’s cloudy and a bit breezy, but not bad yet.  We discovered that Willow is a bit nervous when we have heavy winds and or thunder.  She seems to think she needs to be outside to protect us from the demons, but is afraid of the noises so she whines at the door to go out, but when we let her out, she wants right back in.

I got a photo of this beautiful deep yellow butterfly, puddling in the wet dirt where I dump my dish water, so I’m off now to try to identify it.  I’ll show ya’ll when I can give it a name.

Ya’ll stay healthy ‘n happy!

Happy Easter