January 2017 – TooBusyForWork

Out of the warmth

Yesterday was one of those glorious desert winter days. The sun was shining in a clear blue sky, the wind was light, and the air was warm. Ahhh! I did a lot of just sitting in my recliner outside. We also took the bikes out for a ride to pick up a funnel cake for breakfast (don’t judge LOL!) and to visit the Quartzsite Museum, a surprisingly nice place. We also had a nice campfire with some of the RV Forum folks who were still around. Most people had left on Sunday morning, the official end of the rally, but there were enough to enjoy a nice chat.

We decided to leave today, as originally planned. We intended on heading through southern Arizona towards Albuquerque, waiting there until my daughter called to say she was in labor. Well, she called us this morning as we were finishing packing that she was headed to the hospital tonight to start her induction. We finished packing, but instead of just driving a few hours down the road, we made it to Grants, New Mexico after a bit over 9 hours of driving. The roads were clear, though there definitely was snow along the sides of the roads in a number of areas. We are staying the night in a clean RV park called Bar S, only $21 for full hookups. We really needed to dump the tanks and fill up with water. The complication is that it is going to be colder tonight than we have ever stayed in the trailer, 19 degrees! (I almost used a dash instead of a comma, but it looked like negative 19, a bit much even for us.) There is a train that comes by frequently, but it doesn’t sound its horn, so I think I will sleep fine. The cats are just glad to be out of the truck. (I know it isn’t a great picture, but she keeps moving her head.)

Quartzsite, Arizona

Once we got out of the Salt Lake City area, we had smooth sailing. We spent the night in St. George and then left by 9:00 am to head to Quartzsite. We took the route through California instead of Lake Havasu, and it was a good choice. We arrived a little after 3:00 on 25 January, but by the time we got permits, figured out where the RV Forum group was camped, and got set up, it was just after 4:00 and time for Happy Hour! It was a nice way to meet the rest of the group. By 6:00 we were back at our trailer and finishing the setup. It took Kevin a long time to get the satellite activated, but that is generally the case with DISH. Sigh. The service is good once we get it started, but it is painful working with them every time we move to get our address changed.

Yesterday we went to the big Quartzite show. This is a ritual for RVers in the West. There are around 100,000 people mostly camped in the desert with a few in town at crowded RV parks. The “show” is centered at “The Big Tent”, a huge big top tent that houses many vendors. There are also lots of vendors outside the tent, and there are multiple other vendor areas that are mostly flea markets with a few nice vendors of a more artistic bent. There are also a lot of food vendors! Kevin and I shared a wonderful funnel cake, one of my main weaknesses.

Here is a picture of the tent. OK, it is a lousy picture taken from the truck, but you get the idea.

One of the things about camping in the dispersed area the BLM calls “Long Term Visitor Areas” is that hookups are non-existence. There are a couple of places with a single dump station, but that’s not much for 100,000 people! The line at the dump station has to be seen to be believed. This picture was taken at noon yesterday.

In the afternoon we took the electric bikes out for a ride. The scenery is gorgeous. I like this scenic saguaro with the mountains in the background.

Today we went towards Yuma, Arizona. Our first stop was Castle Dome ghost town and mining museum. What a wonderful place! It was quite cold with a hard wind so we only did about half of the available exhibits. I definitely want to come back another year in better weather and do the entire thing. Here are some pictures. You can definitely see why they call the area Castle Dome. The rocks are volcanic, and there were 300 mines in the area, mostly for silver and lead.

We also went through the Yuma Proving Grounds. There was a very interesting dirigible tied up not too far off the road. Maybe used for range communication or monitoring? It looks like an instrument cluster or radar at the bottom. You can’t judge the size from this picture, but I bet it was 30-40 foot tall, based on the hanger it was near. Odd site in the middle of the desert!

On the road again!

(Ok, this post is actually being made on Tuesday, 24 January 2017, but I didn’t have the time zone set correctly in WordPress. Ignore the 25 January date.)

We left the house this morning at 10:00, just in front of a forecast snow storm. We normally get our before 9:00, but we basically had to completely pack the trailer with staples. It took a lot longer than when we just load up fresh food and clothes! We are going to be gone for the longest time yet, probably over two months. Here is what the house looked like as we left.

Kevin had shoveled the driveway before we started to pack, but look at all the snow in the yard. We had stayed at home to see Kinky Boots, a musical at the Eccles Theater (we have season tickets), but the weather has had me itching to leave. We originally planned on leaving yesterday, but a snow storm with 6+” of snow put a stop to that. We snuck out today just in front of another storm.

We drove over just over 5 hours to Temple View RV park in St. George, UT. This is where we generally stay when we are in St. George. It is quiet and fairly roomy for a traditional RV park, and the folks who run it are very nice. We got everything put in (almost) the right spots in the trailer, and the cats acted like it was perfectly normal to be traveling again. Tomorrow we take long, luxurious showers, then Kevin will dump the gray water and make sure the fresh water is full before we take off for Quartzsite, AZ. We are meeting a group from RVForum.com. More to come about the RV experience that is known for having 100,000 RV come to camp without hookups in the desert. We intend on staying until Monday. I just can’t believe how pleased I am to be out again.

Baby presents done

I finished up my daughter’s baby quilt a couple of days ago, and I finished a car seat canopy for her today. Lots of pictures of the quilt, but I forgot to take a picture of the canopy! I mailed the package today, and it will hopefully be there for her baby shower Saturday.

Elephant was quilted with random circles.

The background was quilted using a bamboo design.

Some straight line quilting too using rulers.

Back needed to be just a little bit bigger so I added a cute stripe

We also got a Anova sous vide cooker. It is wonderful! One of my sons got one for Christmas, and he convinced us to try it. Last night was pork chops, and tonight is chicken. The meat is evenly cooked and very moist. We do have to brown it after the sous vide, but that only takes a few minutes.

Finally getting ready for travel

It has been a long time since we have taken a camping trip, and I miss it. Our last time out was to Death Valley for the ’49ers Encampment in mid November. We have been busy with family activities, but I like to travel. We are heading to Quartzsite with an RV forum, leaving home on Monday, 23 January, arriving in QZ on the next day. After QZ we will head to Albuquerque to wait the call from my daughter that she went into labor. I made reservations in an Arizona state park for a few days on the way to ABQ. It felt nice to get the plans made. Two months between camping trips is a very long time!

Oh, and we have had so much snow! Kevin is filling up the bird feeder every day, and it is emptied out in 6-8 hours. He even put out a bird bath with an immersion heater that has proved to be very popular, especially with Lily, one of my cats.

Lots of snow but we still went shopping!

We got at least 4″ of fresh snow last night. It was so pretty I should have taken a picture! We are expecting another 5-9″ over the next two days, so Kevin’s snow thrower will get a workout. Today the traffic wasn’t too bad because a lot of people were still off work, but the next storm will be during prime time. It has been a few years since we have had this much snow, and I have totally got out of the habit of dealing with it. For example, I keep forgetting to put on my snow boots before I go out. They are sitting at the door, ready for me, but I just walk right past them in my regular shoes. Sigh.

We waited until the plows had plenty of time to work and went shopping. I finally decided I needed a new iPad. I had an iPad 3 that was about 6 years old with only 16 GB, and it just wasn’t behaving well. I ended up at the Apple Store and walked out the door with a new iPad Air 2 with 128 GB plus a nice case. Since I don’t use the iCloud for my backups, I had to set it up at home using iTunes on my Windows laptop. It took two hours since I had all kinds of problems. However I am using it to write this post, and I am quite happy with it.

After I got the iPad set up, I decided to work on my daughter’s quilt. It took some time to get the tension set up correctly (bad tension was the reason I had to take out the quilting yesterday), but it looks nice now. I need to work on it in short sessions of one hour or so to keep my concentration and to keep my arthritis from flaring up. I will probably finish the background tomorrow and then the elephant itself on Wednesday. I can’t wait!

New Year’s Day

We got back home last night. I must admit that this introvert is hibernating today. I love family and friends, but I need some alone time too. While I was in the Midwest, I also missed the mountains. Here is a picture I took in Wyoming. Yes, there are mountains on the horizon, though they aren’t too obvious. I finally felt like I had space again.

We ended up driving to Gillette, WY again, staying in the La Quinta again. Then we drove to Bozeman (snowy roads most of the way), dropped off son and his dog, then did some shopping. We stayed at the Lehrkind B&B in Bozeman. It was a very nice place with a truly outstanding breakfast. Coming to Utah, we had snowy roads about 1/3 of the time, and the end of the trip was on cold clear roads. Now that I am back home, I have to get working. First I will pull out the quilting I started on my daughter’s quilt. It will be nice and warm on this cold, bright day.