Camping – Page 15 – TooBusyForWork

Kevin’s 3D printed goodies in the motorhome

My husband is an engineer in his soul, and he discovered 3D printing during COVID. I have been meaning to show the goodies he has printed for the motorhome. He has printed even more for the house, but those are more standard. These are almost all unique and built from custom computer aided design models he created. He uses FreeCAD now, but he previously used TinkerCAD. Note he uses PETG fiber for the items in the motorhomes. During storage on a hot day the more common PLA deforms from heat. He started with an Ender 3 printer, but he also has GEEETech 3 color printer.

Starting from the front of the motorhome, driver side.

On the driver’s side one of the first things he made was a holder for my phone and a pen. Then he added the eye glass holder. Recently he added an on/off switch and holder for the USB items around the dash such as the dash cam and the driver GPS. He added the screw holes to match the purchased switch. Note the passenger does the real navigation in our rig so the driver GPS is just for situational awareness and is an older model.

Combo phone and pen holder next to a switch to turn off USB devices. An eyeglass holder has my reading glasses in it.

Here is the charger and some cord wraps. Note everything is custom sized to fit the commercial hardware. All the items stay put by sliding a small attached “blade” between the wall and the dash.

Holder for USB and miscellaneous chargers

A cup holder with straight sides replaced the ridiculously short one that came with our Tiffin. We like straight instead of shaped cup holders because they fit more of our travel mugs.

Moving to the passenger side, the first item made was, again, a phone holder. Then he added a sunglasses holder and a chapstick/floss holder.

Holder for passenger phone, glasses, and lip balm

This gives a top view of the GPS holder on the passenger side. It is based on a commercial screw on base. Note it sits in the window groove for stability.

The TPMS has its own holder of course. It also sits in the window groove.

Our rig has a small drawer that is pretty useless by itself. Kevin printed this little insert to hold a travel mug, his wallet, a couple of checkbooks, and some miscellaneous documents.

Insert for small cockpit drawer to hold cup and papers

We have now moved out of the cockpit and to the living quarters. Kevin’s watch was always getting bumped off the charger by the cat, so he made a little holder to keep it more stable.

i love Janet Sadlack’ss RV microwave/convection cookbooks, but they are small and we’re always getting misplaced. Here is a spot for those plus a few other small cookbooks. It is glued to a holder for a power distribution center.

Holder for small cookbooks and USB outlet

The wall here is rather cool in cold weather, so I wanted a quilted wall hanging to block some of the cold. I had quilted this wonderful Stonehenge Fabrics panel a few years back, and I think it fits well. While the wood is attached with screws to the backside of the cabinet, the quilt is mounted on a rod made removable with the printed black end cap.

Here is the end cap close up. The quilt holder rod is made removable by the screw.

Moving more to the kitchen is this magnetic cover to go over the ridiculously bright microwave control panel. It was the test item on Kevin’s 3 color printer when he bought it.

I am generally happy with my utensil caddy, but there wasn’t much room for tall items like the spatula. Kevin printed the side car and glued it to the purchased caddy.

An add-on for my utensil caddy to support tall items

There is only one item in the bathroom, a small holder for the translucent box. The holder has clips that slide on the purchased soap dish attached with command adhesive strips. You can also see the wonderful soap my friend makes at Wild Waters Soapery in Salt Lake City.

Back to the bedroom. The electronic control panel made by Spyder is distracting in the night, so Kevin made a cover that slips over it at night.

Remember I mentioned earlier the cat knocks things off? It happens in the bedroom too, so Kevin made a holder for his phone charger that positions the phone for contact charging.

While we don’t watch the bedroom TV often, we needed a way to control the controls. This holds the one for the Dish and the TV itself.

I think that is everything! He’s been busy, and the Ender 3 printer is ready to go with us on our trips. It lives in the cabinets underneath the table in the kitchen area while traveling. When in use it sits on the bathroom dresser.

On the road again, but just a bit

We finally went camping again! On Wednesday we went to a local park that is a whopping 7 miles away – Big Woods County Park. It is a lovely place with long sites. Most are wide, but they have two rows of “buddy sites” where if you pull in correctly you will face the folks next door. Luckily we found a site that backed up on the bike route and lake. We were hoping to dewinterize the motorhome, but the water wasn’t going to be turned on u til Thursday. Whoops! We stayed at home for the night and went back on Thursday to dewinterize. We got everything set up except the water softener which we forgot at home.

We were doing this to have the three oldest grandchildren out – twin girls, 11, and a boy, 7. We picked them up at lunch after a soccer game on Saturday, ate some take out pizza, then went to the camper. It was much colder than the forecast had shown when we set it up, so I felt bad we couldn’t do the bike riding we wanted to do. A windchill of low 40s just didn’t appeal to me. We left the kittens at home, thinking an introduction to both the motorhome and three children would be a bit much! We did have a lot of fun even in the cold temps. There was a nice playground, a sand spot at the edge of the lake to build sand castles, and a nice fire pit. We made layered green chili chicken enchiladas in a Dutch oven and campfire biscuits on Saturday night. Sunday morning had monkey bread in the motorhome oven along with eggs and fruit. They said they wanted to do it again, so I call that a success!

We picked up the kittens after we dropped off the kids, and they adjusted faster than I expected. Luna was thrilled we could open up the screen door. Don’t worry; behind the grill is a screen!

I didn’t get a picture of Minnie because she was either running around like crazy or hiding out, her two favorite things to do.

The weather was so absolutely gorgeous while we were packing up on Monday that we decided to stay an extra day. We road our bikes around the lake and some of the nearby trails, soaked up sun, and generally had a wonderful start to the camping season.

Once we finally got packed up, we decided to drive to Cedar Rapids to get the motorhome washed. It hasn’t had a bath since July, and it was in dire need! We just don’t have a place to wash it ourselves, so we went to a newer truck wash, AFCS Truck Wash. Astonishingly no one was in line in front of us! They did a good job, and it was well worth the $75 it cost. As we drove out, there were 2 motorhomes and a semi truck in line behind us, so we really were lucky.

Next trip might be Mother’s Day, or it might be a warmer weather overnight with grandkids at a different campground. Time will tell. We take off for the summer right after Memorial Day – YEAH!

Death Valley catchup (plus Iowa things)

Warning – this has a lot of time and variety in it!

To catch up on Death Valley and surroundings, we stayed at Sunset until the morning of 20 February. Since the cellular data service ixps extremely limited there, we were pleased to make full use of the monthly WiFi pass at the resort. $60 gives you 30 days of high speed Internet on up to two devices! I tried to get some pictures from Kevin’s fancy camera of the Funeral Mountains to the east of us, but I wasn’t terribly successful. The mountains are made up of rocks so old and confused they are called “Funeral Chaos”. Twisted, faulted, squeezed, faulted again – they show amazing patterns. I just couldn’t get a good picture though, so I guess I will try again next time.

Searching for phone service and a place to hunker down to care for Lily, we ended up at the Needles KOA. We have stayed there a few times before. The sites are big enough, and there is a resident group of quail that I find adorable. I tried to get a picture of the 20 or so who ran across the road as we were checking in, but they were too fast for me. You can hear them clicking away in the mornings if no one has taken their dogs out yet.

As I said in the previous post, we headed back to Iowa as soon as we knew about Lily’s condition. We stayed at Lavaland RV Park in Grants, NM the first night after we left Needles KOA, Tuesday 23 February. They had a nice brewery that concentrated on porters and stouts, my favorites. Sadly their kitchen was closed, but we did order some pizza delivered to the brewery. Nice to eat pizza and beer inside an almost empty place. Our next stop was Big Texan RV Park in Amarillo. It is a mile or so away from the famously advertised restaurant, but it was an easy in and out spot. We made it to the Wellington KOA on Thursday, much nicer than the dreadful place we stayed heading to Arizona in December. We then headed to the Lakeside Casino RV Park in Osceola, IA for our last night. It isn’t very suitable for big rigs since the turns are tight and the sites pretty short, but we found a spot we could fit into. It wasn’t the one the check in folks had us in initially, but with only 5-6 other rigs we had our choice. It is close enough to home to make it a good spot to winterize the rig, and thanks what we did on Saturday morning before heading out. We are pretty good at it these days, and it too, less than an hour. The ice maker is always the hardest!

We had gotten COVID vaccination appointments on Sunday, 28 February, and we had our follow up vaccination yesterday (Pfizer). I am anxiously awaiting my 2 week time for feeling comfortable again! We are having two of the kids and their families over for Easter (another son heads to his cabin every Easter), and I am soooooo wanting to hug them all!

Kevin’s big job this time was installing new LiFePO4 batteries. He chose three 200 amp hour LifeBlue batteries with their integrated heater. Lithium’s don’t charge below 35 degrees or so, and we stay in those temps too often to not get the more expensive heater version. He needed a new solar controller, and luckily this one has Bluetooth so it is much easier to see what is happening. They see to work fine, and I am anxious to try them out on a real trip, not just sitting outside the storage unit. Our solar system will be able to punch more power into the batteries because it won’t be throttled by the lead acid charging curve.

We have been doing work on the house too. We bought a pergola to go on our very hot west side deck. It has a nice adjustable shade cover that will help with keeping the house cooler too. We even bought a propane fire pit to put under it!

i also finished the three quilt tops I sewed while we were out. I got them quilted pretty quickly, but I procrastinated on the binding because it is the task I like least. I got them into the wash yesterday though.

The first two were made from a layer cake I bought on sale. I love the water lilies and dragonfly theme.

Bound and backed with a green Grunge fabric

Bound and backed with a light turquoise fabric with yellow dots

This one was way outside my comfort zone! I just don’t “do” scrappy well. It will make a fun ”I Spy” quilt for some child though.

Enough for now. More going on at home, but I will leave that for later.

I do love Death Valley!

After a long convalescence from my horrific attack of sinusitis, I am almost well again. It took prednisone and lots of OTC meds plus lots of sleep, a humidifier, and personal steamer, but I am probably as well as I ever will be in this climate. I love the desert, but the dust is a major irritant to me, so something bad happens most years we are out here. I put up,with it because I love this place so much. We spend at least a week in DV every year, and most years 2-3 weeks, so we have visited pretty much all the standard tourist spots. It is hard to come up with pictures I haven’t posted before, but I think I have a couple of unique ones this time!

Need to keep your distance from a Storm Trooper!

Yup, Kevin found a father and son doing cosplay in Golden Canyon, site of some memorable scenes from the Star Wars movies. Isn’t the little Jawa adorable? He was more than willing to put on his mask for a picture of his fierce side.

It just isn’t DV without Artists Palette, is it?

And then there are just more layers, this time close to our campsite.

It is really hard to grasp just how vast the landscapes are out here unless I throw a few people in the pictures for scale.

There is a guided horseback ride from the Furnace Creek stables every morning. They are headed down from Texas Spring here

Badwater Salt Flats are awesome and huge

We are camped at the far eastern edge of Sunset campground. You can’t beat $7/night (senior pass rate) looking east. The sun warms us early, and the bulk of the motorhome shields out “porch” on the hot afternoons. We also have a nice view of the Oasis at Furnace Creek Inn, a very upscale resort. I keep saying I will get lunch here some day (dinner requires dressier clothes than I prefer), but I haven’t done it yet. The winter sun and temperatures in the 70s in the day make just hanging around an awful nice idea.

Recovering from sinusitis and heading into Death Valley

We left Quartzsite on Sunday to drive the short way to Needles, KOA. It is a nice enough park, and a good spot to use for laundry and tank cleaning. However we didn’t do either! I was feeling truly horrid with massive sinusitis, something I am sadly too familiar with. Fever, chills, massive drainage, cough – uggh. In these times, we looked to find a drive-through COVID test site, just because, and we found a rapid test one in Las Vegas. So off to Las a Vegas we went! It is not really out of the way to Death Valley, and we go through it quite a bit. I got the test sample submitted, and we headed to Pahrump, NV, our traditional rinse waste tanks, fill fresh tank, check up on propane and fuel spot. We reserved 3 nights at Preferred RV Resort which is, not surprisingly, not a resort at all but filled with working folks and long term snowbirds. Not bad for the price, but not as nice as Lakeside. But we are just hanging here quarantining until I got my test results Tuesday (negative, as expected). My lovely ENT back home sent me a prescription for a prednisone 6 day dose pack, and I am feeling much better (but not well) here on the morning of day 4.

The drive to Vegas and then to Pahrump was awfully pretty with snow on the mountains. Sadly the pictures I asked Kevin to take out the window of the motorhome didn’t work for some reason. Highway 160 from Vegas is an interesting road crossing the mountains on a deceptively steep and very long grade. Luckily the 9% doesn’t last very long, but there are miles of 5-6%. This is where I end up appreciating the diesel, its exhaust brake, and the Allison transmission that does a lot of the hard work for me.

Kevin and I may not like the RV park over much, but Lily thought it was wonderful! There are pine trees on either side of us with doves in residence cooing. She has been enthralled.

There is a bird on the other side of the window.

We leave this morning for Sunset Campground in Death Valley. I know there won’t be enough cell data service to post, but I will buy WiFi access at the resort occasionally. The weather for forecast to be spectacular (highs in the upper 60s to upper 70s), and the weather at home is abysmal (lows well into negative numbers for 10 days) so we aren’t in any hurry to leave.

Sewing, a bit of cooking, and wildlife

It rained like crazy here on Monday, so we decided to go to Phoenix to do some shopping. Wow, did it rain! And snow! And sleet! There were quite a few cars in the ditches, and I pulled off the road for about 15 minutes to let the sleet/snow pass me by. We have had light rain a few times since too, but a good desert dweller never complains about rain. It has given me time to get some other things done. For example, I made an Instant Pot cheesecake using the famous “Cheesecake #17” you can find online. As usual, it came out great.

I also finished the third tumbler baby/lap quilt. The first picture is the teal/aqua one I did before that I didn’t take a picture of, and the second is with a dark blue contrast fabric. The patterned blocks came from a wonderful layer cake (10” squares) I bought on sale a while back. There are deep flowers, dragonflies in lots of colors, and some blenders, all with shimmery gold highlights. Sadly the gold doesn’t show very well, but it is much prettier in person. I have bought backing and 505 spray to sandwich at least two of the quilt tops I made on this trip, and I will start quilting them soon.

On Thursday we went to the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, driving on the dirt roads in the Yuma Proving Grounds to get there. Oddly enough the Army has been very good for the desert with the restrictions on activities along the roads, so it is a lovely section of “natural” desert.

Going through the Proving Grounds can be a bit interesting. We got to see an equipment drop by parachute, though we didn’t notice the aircraft that must have dropped them. There are 5-6 parachutes on the big item, and 2 on the small one. There is definitely a lot of training and/or testing going on. We have heard quite a few loud “booms” in the evenings, two of which had such a concussive force my motorhome swayed! The cloud ceiling was quite low, and that makes the shocks greater.

Another thing the Provong Grounds has is an urban combat practice zone set up similar to towns and villages in Western Asia, especially Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are small clusters around the area away from the larger “town.”

Just outside the western edge of the YPG is the Colorado River. It is mostly a slow moving irrigation canal here. You can see the heavily irrigated fields up west of the river in the picture below. They grow lots of alfalfa, some cotton, and even some produce from the cabbage family, though we didn’t stop to investigate.

The Colorado River isn’t too impressive here

We finally got to Cibola, and it did not disappoint. There are hundreds of Sandhill cranes, though this shows only a few of them.

There are a few other types of birds including this white heron of some type. This is zoomed in an awful lot, and I can’t tell exactly what species it is.

The best part of Cibola is sitting by the large pond that has hundreds and hundreds of waterfowl of all types. Click on the link below to watch a video, and make sure you turn your sound up!

IMG_4619

We are in Lake Havasu right now, picking up some Amazon packages and applying for our passport renewals. Mine expires in March, and I almost forgot about it! We plan on staying at Quartzsite until Monday, then heading to a private campground somewhere we can do laundry, clean the tanks, and shop. After that, we are off to Death Valley for a week or two. COVID vaccinations are still to hard to come by in Iowa to worry about, so we will just enjoy the warmth a while longer.

Kevin is actively looking at getting some lithium ion batteries for the motorhome, and that lets him have all kinds of fun. The plan is to put them in at home before our next summer trip.

Quartzsite 2021

We finally got our T-Mobile/Sprint hot spot, and it works soooooo much better than our Verizon hot spot here. I can post again! So be prepared for a LOT of pictures.

Monday we rode our bikes to the Big Tent for a funnel cake. I am addicted to good funnel cakes, and one of the vendors outside the tent has very good ones. I am a purist – cinnamon sugar only. This is the stand that is always set up on the west side of the tent.

The area around the Big Tent was remarkably uncrowded. There were numerous parking spots in the lots nearest to the tent at 10:30 in the morning, something unheard of in regular times. Pretty much everyone was wearing masks, and almost everyone was walking the correct direction on the one way aisles. Kevin went in to take a look around, but we didn’t stay long. My e-bike was all messed up, and it took a while to get the battery monitor reset. Otherwise it was a lovely ride from our spot in La Posa Tyson Wash into town, about 3 miles.

We have done a lot of just hanging around in absolutely gorgeous weather – warm and sunny. We also reveled in some rain on Wednesday and Thursday. It out a damper on our evening campfires, but it sure cut the dust which had been pretty overwhelming. Lily decided she had enough of life during one significant shower.

We went to Lake Havasu on Thursday to do our laundry (such excitement), and to go to a couple of quilt stores there. Sadly I couldn’t find the adhesive 505 spray I use to sandwich quilts, so I will just have to keep sewing tops until we get to Yuma next week. We also picked up some groceries since the shops are better than closer to Quartzsite.

Today was a much more enjoyable day. Terry and Betty Brewer took us on a 4WD trip along with Bill and Pam. We went northeast of Quartzsite on BLM “roads”. We took off on Paloma Road and followed some combination of 80, 82, 90, and 92 before we came to Hwy 72 and headed back. The trip was somewhere between 25-30 miles of back country, and it was a workout for our Grand Cherokee Trail Hawk. It was fully Class 2, with a couple of sections that were marginal, but Kevin and the Jeep made it fine. I admit I don’t want to do roads much higher rated than this one though. As a passenger, I really got thrown around. The country was beautiful though, and the scenery made it worthwhile. Here comes the photo overload:

Vistas were dry due to no monsoon this year

A great example of the Palo Verde tree and Saguaro shading and helping each other hold water

Part of the ride was near the hills with great views

Looking into the valley where US 95 runs

The ocotillos were turning the tiniest bit of green tint.

Coming close to the end with fearless Terry and Better in the lead

Probably enough now with the pictures. I will post some more sewing stuff next time.

Short post from Quartzsite with lousy data service

We got happily settled into our regular spot at Tyson awash LTVA. Not as many people here as usual, but the data service is still as bad as usual! This will be really short because of that.

We really haven’t done much but relax in the sunshine. Kevin has been printing a number of little things to help organize, and I sewed a small quilt top, 40×48”. Pictures of those later when I have better service.

I did get a morning shot. See Venus?

A nice evening shot. I know the focus isn’t great, but this photo had the most accurate colors. It was beautiful.

We will eventually go into Parker or Lake Havasu, and I will put up some other photos then. Now to “publish” before the data service goes out completely!

At KOFA for a bit longer

We spent yesterday afternoon probably like everyone else in the US – glued to the TV. I am still enraged at the domestic terrorists and their instigator, the man who is still the President of the United States. We had to turn on the generator for quite a while since we had the entertainment system on for so long. It is a real power hog, equivalent to the domestic refrigerator we have. Part of it is just the way Tiffin sets things up, and part is the way the satellite system keeps track of the satellites. The TV itself doesn’t use much power. By 4:30 we decided to go to Quartzsite again to pick up a switch for a 12v power distribution system Kevin is working on for the GPS and dash cam. Now we have cords running all over the place. Pictures will come when he gets it done. He’s been having fun with the 3D printer to make the packaging.

While we were in town, we picked up a pizza at Silly Al’s, a great pizza place in town. It is usually very, very busy so we called our order in. They have a great Philly Cheesesteak pizza, something I have never been able to get anywhere else. When I went inside to pick it up (masks required – nice!), we also got a growler of their Irish Red Ale.

Today I finished up a quilt top. It was so, so hard! Not for the design, but because it was a scrap quilt. I had to force myself to randomly pick a piece out of a box without making any selection except not to have the same fabric next to each other. I have decided I am not suited to scrap quilts! It drove me batty.

I used a 4” tumbler die with my Accuquilt to cut them. Sadly, I still have a 100 plus pieces! I am sure it will be loved by some child as a “I See” quilts since there are so many designs and colors in it. I also forced myself to sew the rows together randomly too, so you will note a few of the same fabrics in adjacent rows. Luckily the next two quilts I am working on are more more orderly and planned.

We did sit outside a bit today. While there were enough clouds to filter the sunlight, I still got one good picture of the hill behind us.

I am not sure how the data service will be in Quartzsite. Usually it is absolutely horrid because there are sooooo many people. However I had really good service there a few days ago so we will see. If I have good service I will try to post every 2-3 days. If not, it might be 5-7 days. We will see.

Enjoying the sunshine

It is very sunny here. The high temperatures are only in in the mid-60s, but it feels much warmer out of the wind and in the sunshine. We have needed to pull the solar blinds down every day to keep it from getting too warm inside the motorhome. I am soaking it up! I do use a hat and some sunscreen, but I am more lizard-like in my old(er) age, and I love the dry heat.

We took a great trip yesterday to two of our favorite 4WD destinations in the area – Horse Tanks and the King of Arizona Mine which gave its name to the area. Two friends, Vicki and Mark who are camped near us,drove their truck too.

In the desert a “tank” is a depression that holds water. While the four tanks in this area are natural, there has been work by the Wildlife Refuge staff to increase their capacity. The road is a good 2 track for about a mile, but it then deteriorates into a definite high clearance road; lots of rocks and washes. The road ends into a turnaround big enough for 4-6 vehicles.I only went to the first tank which was dry. It was disappointing because last year it had water and was full of life. Vicki and I found a good sitting rock and waited for Kevin and Mark to climb up to the other tanks. Only the uppermost tank had water.

Vicki’s little dog sat in a bag while we waited

We then went back to King Road and headed to King of Arizona area. We visited the Polaris mine area. There are a number of still active claims in the area with a few miners living on the claims. This one is very, very empty. You take a high quality graded gravel road until the last mile, with the last quarter mile being narrow and very rocky. The 4WD and high clearance were necessary then.

We did stop an old processing plant site along the way. We found it last year, but I couldn’t find out much about it. It was definitely for further processing the ore, and the leftovers were a white powder that has been washed and compacted.

Grayish white mounds of compacted something

The road ends into a big parking area with a gate keeping vehicles from going father.

Taken by Kevin at the mill. See me behind the red Grand Cherokee closest to the road?

I hung out at the Jeep soaking up the sun, while Kevin, Mark, and Vicki went closer.

The only surviving cabin. The middle has fallen in.

There were two windows in the cliffs below Portrait Mountain behind the mine.

We wandered around a while, had lunch, then came back to our campsite. We ended the afternoon by having a “Happy Hour” around the portable fireplace before having dinner. Nice trip!

This morning I pressed all the strips for my scrap quilt. I don’t like pressing, so I kept an audiobook going. Kevin was 3D printing something too, and that takes quite a bit of power too, so we ran the generator a couple of hours. We have solar panels, but they are mounted flat, and the shallow sun angle of winter doesn’t provide as much power as they get in summer. After we ate lunch, we drove into Quartzsite to look for a sunshade for our awning. There definitely aren’t as many people parked in the desert as usual, but I noticed more small rigs and tents than I have seen before. Parking in town was a zoo as usual, but we found a spot at the far end of “the strip.” Kevin decided on a burgundy sunshade since we couldn’t find a black one, so we are looking quite stylish now! It does wonders for keeping the brightness bearable. We had another Happy Hour around the fire pit, but with the breeze everybody wore jackets this time, even around the fire pit.

I think we will leave here a bit earlier than planned, probably Friday. Kevin is a bit worried there will be a big influx of people for the Rock Show beginning Saturday, and we don’t want to wait too long for the water and dump lanes. Our normal spot was available, and we chatted with a couple we know who are already there – Dan and Marge. They have been coming for 30 years!