TooBusyForWork

Gonna be home most of the summer :-(

We did get home on Friday, 29 May. We were able to put the motorhome in its new outdoor storage location easily. It is at the end of a row, and is one of the few spots that is long enough for us! Being on the end, we can put a slide out if we need to do things inside which is awfully handy. Then began the long, tedious task of getting it ready for storage. Everything came out of the refrigerator and freezer, toiletries, clothes, etc. I drove the truck home and came back with the new Subaru, and we got it all home in one load! Kevin didn’t unload the RZR until Saturday, but it all went pretty smoothly.

Remember the Navajo rug I bought? I opened it up for a picture. Isn’t it gorgeous?

Sunday was a big day at church. Our pastor is semi-retiring back to his home state of South Carolina, and there was a special service and a big potluck afterwards. The choir got to sing a fabulous spiritual with a soloist, a former member, who came back specifically for this service. I love blues-y spirituals! Pot luck was fabulous as pretty much all Protestant church potlucks are. (Side note: The only potlucks I think I have ever been to that were awful were in Utah. Limited amount and style of food, lots more people bringing chips and dip. My grandmother would have been horrified!)

On Monday we took my poor hail damaged Subaru into the repair shop. It was fixed (mostly) on Thursday and I got to bring it home. They had ordered 3 small pieces of trim incorrectly, so I will have to go back later and get those replaced. That said that would be a quick job. It was nice to get an easy to drive car back instead of the hard to park truck. We also got our new roof on Thursday which was a particularly nice thing. It was a good crew. They were respectful, only broke one plan 🙁 , and cleaned up the site extremely well. We still don’t know when the siding will be repaired, probably a couple of weeks.

I am also still waiting on when the siding will be repaired. It will probably be in the next couple of weeks, but no specific date yet.

And of course there were doctor appointments which will be a continuing theme all summer I am afraid. I was diagnosed with atypical ductal and atypical lobular hyperplasia (ADH/ALH) in the breast I had the lumpectomy for my ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Not cancer, not even a pre-cancer like the DCIS, but it does up my risk significantly. We decided to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. It is only a couple of hours away, and I lost confidence in the folks I used last time. I had my appointment on Friday, and I really liked the doctor. Explained everything, listened well, described alternatives, etc. I am starting tamoxifen and will be having a surgical consult at the end of the month. The doctor said the surgeon might not be recommending surgery since the spot was so small – crossing my fingers! If I do end up deciding to get surgery, I think I will wait until fall. It isn’t an emergency, and that would fit my schedule better.

And the reason to wait until fall? Kevin’s heart murmur turned out to be aortic stenosis. He has 3 days scheduled at Mayo himself at the end of the month for testing and decision making. But it is looking like they will recommend a Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR). It probably can’t take place before mid-July, and it might be later. With the recovery from that, we will be lucky to be able to get to the ukulele festival on 22 August let alone the late July planned RZR 3 day ride. Sigh. Getting older sucks.

We have had lots of rain over the last 2 weeks, and the landscaper says he needs about 10 days of dry weather to bring the equipment in the yard without damaging the lawn or irrigation system. I doubt I will get much planted this year since it is so hard on plants to get started in a hot Iowa summer. But I can start planning! Or at least, my beloved DIL can start planning. She has a tentative plan already, but it will need to be modified. Due to the new tree’s location, the landscaper decided it needed to be included in the bed as the picture shows. My backyard is really pretty small though my front yard is huge (pie shaped lot). The landscaper is going to pull out the current tree that is dead, add drainage and soil improvements, plant the new tree, dig out all the sod, edge the new bed with landscape blocks, and put 4” of mulch down. Big job! But I think I am going to really like it.

Almost home

We are at the Elks Lodge in Cameron, MO for the night, and we will be back in Cedar Falls tomorrow in the early afternoon. A lot of driving in 2 weeks!

But first I am going to add some pictures of the trip on I-70 heading to Las Vegas that I forgot about last time. I finally got irritated enough with my iPhone camera that I pulled out my nice Canon point and shoot. That’s where these photos come from. Note I-70 starts in Denver, CO and runs until I-25 in Utah. It goes through spectacular country in both states. In Colorado it is not completely rural, but in Iowa it goes for over 150 miles with only one spot for services. It is VERY remote there.

Note this is not a road I would want to do in the motorhome. Not only does it have a lot of steep grades up and down, but the section in Utah has waves in the pavement that would cause the motorhome to porpoise enough to make me seasick! But it is an absolutely beautiful trip for someone in a passenger vehicle, and I highly recommend it.

Now back to more information about our way home. We spent two nights in Gallup, NM. The first night we arrived late in the afternoon, and we quickly got to Richardson’s Trading Post, an historic trading post started in 1913. It is located in downtown Gallup, and I was on the hunt for an authentic Navajo rug. Richardson’s has a huge rug room with all styles of rugs in lots of sizes. We found one we both really like, and it is packaged up in paper until we get home. More pictures when that happens.

The second day in Gallup (Sunday of Memorial Day weekend), we visited the Hubbell Trading Post National Monument. It is about an hour out of Gallup, and I have been wanted to visit for a number of years. Fabulous place. Comments with each picture.

The trading post was built over a number of years as the stonework shows

I like the water spouts and the stone work here

We did buy some things at the store for future birthdays, so no more details there. I didn’t go into their rug room either because after one rug and the ukulele and the HUGE motorhome bill, my pockets were empty.. Kevin said it was smaller than Richardson’s, but that may have been to salve my feelings.

There are other historic sites nearby. The town of Ganado was built up due to the trading post. Hubbell invited the Presbyterian Church Mission Society to set up shop here in the early 1900s. The Presbyterian Church here is lovely.

There is also a nearby mission of the Catholic Church, the historic St. Anne’s. It is still an active parish, so we didn’t do anything but look at the interesting exterior.

So that is pretty much it until we get home tomorrow. We will unpack and I will make a sweet potato casserole on Saturday for a potluck at church on Sunday. Our current pastor is leaving, so there is a big party planned. Next week has some dentist and doctor appointments plus we are taking the Subaru in to get the hail damage repaired. We are also getting our roof replaced! Busy week.

Sorry if you are getting tired of “oops, no posts”

Yeah, I just got rather tied up and distracted about bunches of things. Sadly it wasn’t as warm in Iowa as it was in California and Nevada, so the sandals had to come off for a while.

We did make it to “The Lutherie” in the Des Moines area to get the ukulele crack repaired. He did a fabulous job. I am now religious about case humidifiers. I have even gotten a hard shell case which will keep the moisture inside better. The luthier recommended the sound hole humidifier shown at the bottom of the uke, so I got one of those too. No More Cracks!

Once we got home we were quickly engulfed in grandkids’s end of year activities. All three of the local grandkids had music concerts, and most had two of them! And then came a severe but luckily pretty isolated hail storm.

It came straight from the west and put holes in our siding on that side. We also need a new roof since it was damaged too. We spent quite a bit of time contacting roofers and getting estimates for the roofing and the siding. We definitely weren’t alone either. The roofing company signs were going up the next day, and some roofs are already repaired. Ours will be later in June.

Pella is a small town that was settled by Dutch immigrants. It has a strong Dutch heritage still, and the Pella Tulip Festival is usually the weekend after Mother’s Day. We had friends who visited it earlier, and they warned us the tulips were in full bloom two weeks early. We chose to take a day trip, and I am glad we did. My FB page has a full dump of the pictures , but here is a sample. The windmill is an authentic re-creation, and it is the home of a local museum. The tulips were magical. There are thousands and thousands just in the town square, and more thousands in the parking strips nearby.

For Mother’s Day I told Kevin I wanted a roasted chicken and sweet potatoes. I made the spatchcocked chicken and he did the potatoes. He also bought an adorable little tiny cake. Since I started the Mounjaro for my diabetes, I have very little appetite and small meals are the rule. We ate the chicken for 3 days LOL!

One of the things I am now determined to add to the house are window well covers. In our community, deep window wells are used as access alternatives for the basement living spaces. We have occasionally discovered mice who fell in, but sadly we are discovering baby bunnies now. We found two in the last few weeks. Both were rescued and placed back in the flower garden where they have a hole.

Oh, and I live in a very manicured suburban area without any mature trees. We were one of the first houses here, and ours is just 8 years old. We have planted trees, and neighbors have also as the other homes were built and purchased, but it will be a long time before we get any significant number of big trees. But we do get wildlife! The first year we were here, our cameras picked up a wandering mink, and we have seen possums, raccoons, rabbits, and at least 3 different cats. The deer was a first for us though.

All kind of other things are happening too. A heart murmur was discovered at Kevin’s annual physical, so he has appointments scheduled at Mayo Clinic in Rochester to further characterize the aortic stenosis the caused the murmur. He might need surgery, he might not, but we both felt more comfortable going to Mayo for a significant issue like that. I had my annual MRI to follow up on the DCIS breast cancer and lumpectomy, and a biopsy resulted showing a small area of hyperplasia. Not cancer, but it moves me into an even high risk status of future cancer. So I have an appointment at Mayo too! Lucky it is only a couple of hours away, and it is a common option for people from my small city (50,000). Sigh.

We did finally get news the motorhome was fixed, and we went to Vegas to pick it up after all the initial medical appointments. We spent one night in Fort Morgan, CO and the next night in Cedar City, UT. This is what we woke up to in Cedar City.

We were better prepared than most of the motel customers, but Kevin did go buy us some lightweight jackets the night before.

I am not thrilled with Velocity Truck Center in North Las Vegas. They did fix the engine issue, but they knocked an electrical wire out of its socket that I had to pay to get repaired (hard to prove it was all working before, but it was!). As usual with electrical issues, it took a lot more time to isolate the problem than to fix it. Then after a couple of nights at the North Las Vegas Elks Lodge again, we headed to Needles, CA for a night on our way to south of Williams, AZ where we boondocked last night and tonight. This area is full of OHV trails! We had a great ride today.

Here is a video of the smoother part of the area.

http://May 22, 2026 https://youtu.be/3bBrOCMV-zI

And another one of a bit rougher OHV section.

http://A bit rougher trail south of Williams, AZ https://youtu.be/lWPNxrN1fNw

We are gradually heading back to Iowa. We will be staying in Gallup, NM the next 2 nights hopefully to look at some Navajo rugs.

I did already make one big purchase though. I bought a new super nice Pono ukulele. It is all acacia wood with the standard goodies upscale ukuleles have – geared tuners, ebony fretboard, bone saddle and bridge. It sounds divine, and I am not yet worthy! I am an advanced beginner, and this is at least an intermediate instrument, so now I have to buckle down to be worth of it. It will be fun!

I forgot to post!

We did make it home, and I guess I was so excited I forgot to post anything! We only spent two nights on the road (La Quinta in Fruita, CO and Comfort Inn in Lexington, NE). Both motels were ok, but we are limited in where we can stay with two cats. The La Quinta was much more expensive, but there isn’t much to choose from in the area, and I guess they knew it. Oh, and just after we got home on 28 March we got a call from Velocity that we needed not just the VGT manifold, but the entire VGT plus the manifold. That is a huge ouch, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I was wrong in reading the estimate last time. Originally they didn’t think we needed the entire VGT, but now we do. Again, it isn’t unheard of for this engine, and I did look at a number of truck fleet sites to see if I had done something wrong. Looks like I didn’t; it was just bad luck. Sigh.

After we got back I got serious about finding a luthier who could fix my ukulele crack. I finally decided on The Lutherie in Urbandale, IA (suburban Des Moines). I had a personal recommendation for him from someone I know, and I always prefer that to generic internet referrals. So my uke is in for repair (since last Thursday), and I am in withdrawal. I have been looking for a relatively inexpensive laminate baritone uke that I could leave outside a case. I asked online for recommendations, and they all pretty much said the same thing – use a humidifier in the room instead. So I am now looking for a small room sized humidifier that is easier to fill and maintain than our old one in the motorhome. I did get a new humidifier for the uke that stays in the sound hole at the recommendation of the luthier. Hopefully that works well too.

I have joined a gym too! The Gentle Gym is associated with the PT I used most recently, and they are really into restorative fitness. I have already started a Chair Yoga class, and I will get a complete fitness routine using the bikes and weights beginning tomorrow. I am looking forward to it! I have lost a bit over 20 pounds on the Mounjaro, and I just feel better all over with it. I never getting diagnosed with diabetes would improve my health and fitness LOL!

Kevin put up the little bird feeder/camera I got for Christmas. It now sits on the deck railing, and we have lots of little house finches combing to visit. We live in a very vacant and manicured lawn area with few trees, so there just aren’t a lot of birds. We have had one visit by a grackle and one by a red winged blackbird, but that’s about it.

In music information other than the ukulele, I am fully back in choir. We sang on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and it was so nice. Easter was, of course, full of brass and organ. You could hardly hear the choir, but that’s pretty normal. It was very uplifting until I read the outrageous Truth Social post from the man who was somehow elected the President of the US. If he was a grandpa down the street, we would all be patting him on the hand and saying, “There there, no reason to get riled,” and giving each other knowing looks over his head. Instead this demented and dementia-riddled man holds our nuclear codes. Happy Easter!

The area around Death Valley

We stayed at The Pads until 17 March. The heat wave that hit the Western US hit us hard, so there was limited sitting outside and a lot more car trips. One took us Oatman, home of the (very tame) wild donkeys. They are famous for just walking up to people looking for some of the alfalfa pellets the stores sell. The community supports them through veterinary care and just generally spoils them. This time there were more donkeys on the road into town than in the town proper.

Oatman is a fun little tourist trap. We were there during the week, and it was still so crowded we couldn’t find a place to park. Here’s a video I took of most of one side of the street. The other side is equally crowded. Sorry for the portrait mode.

https://youtu.be/p6asGj36EtI?si=NFXKj76qf8aMSi6t

We also took a trip to the China Ranch Date Farm. It is a working date farm that is pretty impressive. Their date shakes are famous, and are the best we have ever had. In addition to the farm, they have a lovely desert landscaping. They also protect part of the Amargosa River that comes above ground for a while, disappears below ground, and then comes back above ground. Fascinating biology all around it too. We bought a bunch of dates to take home.

One of the interesting views is the wash you drive through to get to the ranch. Here’s a video of that to give you just a feel. There are a number of small mine diggings all around plus a few larger tunnels that are fenced off.

https://youtu.be/tllv9mf88dU?si=Vem-iwdO-_k34t3G

We also visited Shoshone again. Obviously we ate at the Crowbar, but we also visited the old mining dugouts. Shoshone is at the southern end of Death Valley, and the summer temps are brutal. The miners in the area discovered they could dig into the soft rock for a temperature-controlled dwelling. These are mostly protected as historic structures. Note the smokestacks sticking up.

After such an enjoyable sojourn in the Death Valley area, we decided to head out before the temps got unbearable. We took the south route to Baker, CA then up the long grade to Nipton, CA on our way to Needles where we planned to spend the night. But for only the second time in 106,00 miles, I got a check engine light on the motorhome. After some investigation, we decided we should head to Las Vegas and Velocity Freightliner service. They have done work for us before, and, while expensive, they have a good reputation. We stayed at the North Las Vegas Elks Lodge until our appointment on Monday, 23 March. It was one of those good news/bad news things. What was wrong (low pressure at the turbo) was easily fixable, but parts are on a 60 day lead time! We need a new VGT and the manifold needs new gaskets and such (leaking). Sigh. Parts aren’t awful for a diesel (just under $4000), but labor brings the total to over $10K. Ouch! But no one ever said a diesel Class A is an inexpensive hobby. We thought about it overnight, staying in Velocity’s RV spot, and decided to leave the motorhome with them and just drive home in a couple of days. We are now at the Clark County Shooting Range with FHUs and a nice view of the city lights. We got a storage unit for the RZR so we can use the pickup bed for boxes. It is a good thing we decided to get it fixed here. Even driving the 15 miles to the campground put enough stress on the engine that the AC turned off! We plan on leaving Thursday after dropping the MH off at Velocity. They have a very secure storage area surrounded by a high voltage electric fence!

On to Death Valley!

We left Quartzsite on Sunday, 8 March. We spent a night at the Elks Lodge in Needles as usual to get the laundry done and tanks cleared out. We took the route through Searchlight, NV and the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. It has the most amazing Joshua Trees we have ever seen. They are a different species/subspecies than the ones in January Tree National Park – more branches. They look much more like trees! Of course the issue is the road is a narrow 2 lane and we had a very big motorhome towing a pickup – couldn’t take pictures. I did get one picture of a multi-branched yucca that was blooming though. The Joshua Tree blooms were very similar and very abundant.

We arrived at Death Valley and got a nice spot in Sunset Campground. It wasn’t one of our favorites (the ones on the east end of the campground), but it wasn’t too far from the end. Lots and lots of people in Death Valley for the flowers! It isn’t as big a super bloom as it was 10 years ago, but it is a really nice bloom, more than we have ever seen for sure. Tuesday we drove north towards Stovepipe Wells with a detour to Beatty. Wednesday we drove south towards Badwater Basin. Today we drove south all the way to Ashford Mill ruins. The best flowers were seen today! I am just going to dump a bunch of pictures on you though to give a feel of the area.

Badwater Basin and Lake Manley with the tiny people for scale

Telescope Peak and just a hint of the salt pan

Death Valley pictures are not complete with a view from Artist’s Drive

Swaths of colors, mostly yellow, were everywhere

Yellow, but don’t ignore the mountain colors either!

And we even spotted the lovely Desert Five Spot!

Low to the ground. There is a tiny insect inside if you look carefully

Yesterday we decided it was getting too hot in the Furnace Creek area, so we moved to “The Pads,” a boondock area just outside the park on the way to Pahrump. It contains the concrete pads used for worker housing at the nearby Billy Mine. The housing itself is all gone, but the pads remain. It is a beautiful spot and 3000’ higher than Furnace Creek. That means temperatures a good 10 degree cooler. We actually had to turn the heat on for a short while this morning, mostly because I am a wimp.

I will end with sunset this evening from our campsite.

Quartzsite still

We are still in Quartzsite, but we will be leaving soon. The last Greater Quartzsite Ukulele Orchestra concert will be on Saturday, 7 March. We will either leave on the next day or we will wait a couple of days. I will decide when we find out if there will be a party for the ukulele group.

It got really hot in Quartzsite last week, so we chickened out of boondocking in the desert and went to a campground. This time of year places are really clearing out, but there were also a number of folks like us who came in from the heat. While we absolutely can run our AC when needed using the generator, I really dislike doing it for hours on end. But I kind of stop feeling comfortable when the temps get much over 85, so in to town we went! We stayed at Rice Ranch again, the place we will be staying seasonally next year. The temps were only high for 4-5 days, but we stayed a week on a discounted rate (7 days for the price of 6). We got all the laundry done, enjoyed having power available, ran the AC as needed, and we were able to heat the rig with the built in electric fireplace heater. Even when the desert gets to 90 degrees in the summer, it can be in the 50s at night so a bit of extra heat is needed for this temperature sensitive gal. I think I could get used to just how easy it is to stay in a real campground!

We took a side by side ride of course, even with the heat. We went out on just a semi-local around the Dome Rock area. There is still an awful lot of gold mining going on around Quartzsite, and here are some pictures of some of it.

This is actually six active claims. You can rent If you want

We also took our yearly trip to Cibola National Wildlife Refuge. We usually go in late January or very early February, so it was interesting to see the differences 5-6 weeks can make. There were a lot fewer birds for sure! In a good year we can see hundreds of duck and geese of many species plus another few hundred sandhill cranes. These time of the year, not nearly as many.

Pond has 1/2 or less the number of birds

Great White Egret in foreground with some sandhill cranes behind

We took a trip to the more remote Island section of the refuge that is located between the current Colorado River and the historic Colorado. I love the mountains contrasted with the flooded ponds.

Island section of refuge shows how important water is in the desert

And of course I will end with sunsets, these from Rice Ranch.

Quartzsite then Havasu then Quartzsite

I am sorry my links didn’t work in the last post. Here they are for another try. Click on the highlighted link, then click again on the small text link. First, the Greater Quartzsite Ukulele Orchestra: “Under the Boardwalk” 29 January 2026
https://youtu.be/KjdSw8vy4N4

And what the Desert Bar looks like on a random Saturday. https://youtu.be/6OTLGvKubn8

Now on to new stuff. We were so busy with everyone visiting that we took it easy for a few days. I tried a new ukulele jam group on Sunday, 1 February, but it wasn’t quite my thing. Very churchy with praise music I didn’t know. It was nice to be able to do more than just listen though I probably won’t repeat it. One Tuesday, 3 February, we took a ride with the SunRiders that was just a half day ride. We wandered around to the Quartzsite letters, a big guzzler we hadn’t seen before, and we noted a number of military-related locations from WWII. It was nice to have a relaxing ride instead of full-speed ahead!

We then headed to an Anasazi Chapter of the FRVA rally in Benson, AZ on Wednesday, 4 February going to Gila Bend the first night. The rally began on Thursday. It was really busy, but enjoyable. One of the highlights was a visit to the Mescal Movie Site. They made a lot of old Westerns there, and it is a smaller version of Old Tucson movie set. Not in great shape, but it is now being run by a non-profit with volunteer docents who give you a great tour. They are trying to keep it from further decay plus improving it where they can.

The “hotel” was in the best shape because it was brick on a real foundation

We headed back to Quartzsite on Sunday morning early. I wanted to get back to Quartzsite to join another ukulele virtual group. This one is run by a guy in Melbourne, Australia! It is a 3:00pm MST on Sunday in the US but 9:00am on Monday in Australia. Nice group, and I am definitely going to continue with them.

On Tuesday, 10 February we drove to Phoenix to visit Costco for a hearing aid test for Kevin. Turns out that even though he has significant high frequency hearing loss, it isn’t bad enough for a hearing aid to really help. Good to hear that from a professional who was paid to sell hearing aids! We also went to the Guitar Center to look for a ukulele for Kevin. I have been having so much fun, he decided he needed to get one too. They had a very limited selection, and we didn’t end up buying one there. But he was able to try the difference between a tenor and a concert, and he decided the larger tenor worked best for him. We eventually found a barely used one in Quartzsite at a good price, so he has joined my new obsession. He is still working on getting his fingers limbered up though.

On Thursday, 12 February, we took a tough ride with the SunRiders. It was labeled “moderate, 3/5” and it probably was for wider rigs than ours. For our little 50” it was difficult. Then again, this is why you can safely ride harder trails when you are with a group; if something happens, you have a set of experienced folks who can get you out of trouble. One spot we visited is called the “Movie Set.” This isn’t a real movie set, but is a tourist spot built by the nearby town of Bouse.

https://youtu.be/tTjurF7sscA

I also liked this one looking at the volcanic cores
https://youtu.be/NTfKzsSRU8Q

On Sunday, 15 Feb, we went to Lake Havasu for a SewCation with their quilt guild (I’m a member). Had a fun time as usual. I finally finished my 2025 Kona Block of the Month with the last two blocks, sashing, cornerstones and borders. Originally I was going to add another piano key boarder, but this thing is big enough already!

I had so many of the Kona charm squares left! I cut a bunch of triangle blocks for another donation a quilt, and I started sewing the piano keys I cut into strips for the binding of the BOM. This is going to be a massive lap quilt for Kevin. He always says he is cold, and the other quilts are too small. He will be able to wrap up in this one pretty well!

We are now back in Quartzsite in a wind strong enough to keep us settled inside the MH. Minnie seems to be quite happy to cuddle on my lap. One last video of the laziest playing by a pair of cats. Silly kids. It’s a long one, so if cat videos aren’t your thing, feel free to skip it.

Lazy cats
https://youtu.be/ApOV–KTu0E

Miscellaneous around Quartzsite

We are mostly just hanging around Quartzsite. I was rally master for a small rally of the RVForum.net folks, and the last ones just left today. It was a small group, and I don’t think we will continue next year. Kevin and I have decided we will look for a seasonal RV site in town, leaving the motorhome and RZR in Arizona for October through December without us (no winterizing!), the coming back down after the Christmas holidays. It will be a lot faster drive in the truck than the motorhome even though I will have to stay in a hotel a couple of nights each way (boo).

I did get a picture of both of my quilt tops that went to the long arm quilter for basting when we did show and tell at the Quartzsite Quilt Guild meeting. Pretty proud of them actually. The jewel tone one will be for our bed at home, and the green/brown one will be for the bed in the motorhome. Note the green/brown one doesn’t have the same number of borders all around; the bed is a big odd sized.

Mystery quilt with a lot of added borders

The ukulele concert was fun. It definitely wasn’t professional, but the audience and the performers (including me) had a great time. I am going to experiment with using YouTube to post the video instead of directly on the blog. If you hold the cursor at the end of the URL, you should be able to follow the link. This is (most) of the song I led – “Under the Boardwalk.”http://“Under the Boardwalk” Greater Quartzsite Ukulele Orchestra, 29 January 2026 https://youtu.be/KjdSw8vy4N4

The crack in the ukulele is getting much better. I ordered a sponge-style humidifier and hygrometer to keep in the sound hole, and it is staying at about 50% relative humidity. The crack is mostly closed, so I am going to wait until I get back to Iowa to get it repaired. That gives me a lot more time to find a good luthier.

We had some more friends show up for their first trip to Quartzsite, and, of course, we had to go to the Desert Bar (aka Nellie E Saloon) north of Parker, AZ. It is only 4-5 miles off the highway on a rough grave/dirt road, but it feels a lot farther than that. The place is completely off-grid with no cell service and no electricity except what is generated by the huge number of solar panels. There are backup generators just in case, but they aren’t used much. They have really good food, but only a so-so bar. They also have live music each weekend. They are only open Saturdays and Sundays from October through April. Here’s another YouTube video to give you an idea of the inside. There is also a LOT of seating outside in the sun.

http://Desert Bar outside Parker, AZ on 31 January, 2026 https://youtu.be/6OTLGvKubn8

And since I love pictures of my kitties being adorable, here you are.

Hanging around Quartzsite

[I somehow didn’t publish this on, just left it in draft. Not sure why, but here it is.]

We have just been doing normal Quartzsite stuff. Kevin has been doing some 3D printing too. I now have a nice setup to keep my new jewelry box on the shelf while traveling instead of having to put it on the bed. He’s also made a some small fit samples for some more things he wants to print. He really loves his printer!! And the one we have with us is just his original Ender 3 printer, not one of his newer and nice ones which are at home.

After the “design choices” I made in the October Block of the Month (code name for “mistakes”), I figured it couldn’t get much worse. It did. First, I seem to have lost the pattern for November. I cut pieces for it a week ago and sewed a few components, but now I can’t find the card with the design. Oh well, I’ll just work on December. December did not like me! I can’t tell you how many components I sewed wrong. I ended up putting the block into time out for a couple of days before finally finishing it. I’ll get a picture of it and the November one together later. I have arranged for my two king sized quilt tops to be based with water soluble thread by the quilt shop in Havasu I like, Fabrics Unlimited. She is going to use a wool batting for them. One is for our bed at home and the other is for the bed in the motorhome. I have them carefully folded up, so no pictures of those either.

And for yet more disasters, the surface of my ukulele had a rather rough feel, and I realized it was getting really dry. Duh! Humidity has been running around 15-20%, so of course it is dry! I put the humidifiers I bought at the guitar shop before we left Iowa in the case, but they are really too big to fit in the sound hole. I ordered a new one which shows temperature and relative humidity too. But it was too late! The day after I added the humidifiers I found I had a tiny crack in the front of the ukulele! It runs from the bottom of the guitar to the bridge. I am heart broken. I am looking up luthiers now, and I will be calling one in Yuma tomorrow morning. The ukulele orchestra is going well, and I am even going to lead one song – “Down on the Boardwalk>” Turns out the leader didn’t know it very well, and I started singing out on it. That was enough to get me to lead that song LOL! Our concert is in 9 days, and I am hoping to get the ukulele fixed right after that.

One of the interesting things that we have seen here is a Vandenberg AFB satellite launch. Interesting views of the first stage coming back into the lower atmosphere for recovery. It took a 2 second capture to get this view, but wow! There are two other launches this week. I am hoping they have a better launch angle.

Kevin and I took a ride northeast of Quartzsite to a mining area north of I-10 that was quite nice. I prefer mountains to dust, and this trip delivered.

A saguaro being very classically “saguaro!”

Cabin ruins. Note the little side rooms on the right.

We went on a UTV ride the SunRiders today after I went to quilt guild. We took a very round about route to the Cyprus Mine then drove around it. It is a big mostly open pit gold mine that is still actively being worked. It was HUGE! It was 2-3 miles to drive around the pile of overburden they had piled up. Sadly you can’t see the pit; that would have been nice. There were a few nice flowers like the sand verbena below, but it was mostly driving on sand/dust that wasn’t my favorite locale. Oh well, the mine was nice.

Water is pumped from the tunnels to here.

And I will end with a classic Arizona sunrise. Absolutely stunning.