Tag Archives: Bouse (AZ)

2015/10/13 (T) Desk Alignment

I got up at 8 AM, put on my robe, made coffee, fed the cats, and refreshed their water fountain while Linda got dressed and washed blueberries to put in our granola. We took our coffee to the living room where I turned on the fireplace and we were joined by our feline friends. I put the finishing touches on yesterday’s post and e-mailed it to myself while Linda pulled up the latest video post from Dr. Michael Greger at NutritionFacts.org.

Linda left at 9:30 AM to meet Diane at Kensington Metropark for their weekly walk. As this will probably be their last walk together until spring they planned to go to lunch afterwards. While there was some work I could do by myself on the (permanent) installation of the desk there were other aspects of the job that would definitely require two people. I needed to finish updating the roster for the FMCA Freethinkers chapter so I spent about 30 minutes reading the manual for the new Sony SLT-a99v camera and then got dressed and worked in my office for the rest of morning.

After a short lunch break I resumed working on the roster until Linda got home. She and Diane had lunch at Baker’s in Milford as it is close to the Metropark parking lot where they meet. We removed most of the things from the bus we were not currently using, many of which were stored in the sofa storage box. We got the sofa seat off of the desk pedestals and set it back in place on the sofa base.

I wanted to use pieces of a 24″ X 30″ furnace filter to cover the various air inlets in the desk bases and the air outlets in the OTR HVAC duct. The best way to hold the filter material in place appeared to be with some very strong tape. We did not have any such tape on hand so Linda went to Lowe’s and bought a roll of Gorilla Tape while I cut pieces of filter material to fit the various openings.

The left desk base and passenger side OTR HVAC duct showing the pieces of furnace filter material used to seal these openings while permitting filtered airflow.

We got all of the openings taped up but I still needed to fabricate two tongue and groove alignment devices between the pedestals and the center connector/cover. I make these out of flat mending plates, one on the pedestal (tongue), and two on the connector/cover (groove). The tongue is flat against the back side of the pedestal vertical board and protrudes about 1/2″ beyond the edge. The groove is made from two plates, one stacked on top of the other, attached to the back side of the vertical connector/cover board. The upper plate is just back from the edge of the board and the lower one (next to the wood) is offset from the edge a little more than 1/2”, just enough to create a space for the tongue. The tongue and groove devices match two others lower down on the connector/cover. All four of them are oriented vertically allowing the connector/cover to drop into place and force it to align with the matching pieces of the pedestals. A pair of horizontal plates, one on each pedestal, provide a resting surface for the connector/cover that aligns it horizontally.

With the devices fabricated we were finally able to set the pedestals on the bases, drop the connector/cover in place, and align everything as if the entire desk was a single unit. We then got the Corian desktop out of my car, brought it into the coach, and set it in place. It will require some careful adjustments before we screw everything down but it basically fit properly and looked good. Final positioning of the left pedestal and base, however, would require us to put the front HVAC duct cover in position.

We got the cover out of the library and into the bus for the first time since we brought it home from Jarel Beatty Cabinetry in Logansport, Indiana. The length was perfect but the bump out where the heater hoses were originally going to loop through was too deep. I suspect the mistake was in my design/drawings. Jarel knew this piece was supposed to line up with the left pedestal and base but I no longer recall if he even had the desk pieces in his possession when he was building the cover. At this point it didn’t matter anyway. The misalignment is with the base and is not very visible. Also, the bump out is screwed on to the main cover so it can eventually be removed and trimmed or replaced with one that has the correct dimensions.

Once we had the cover in place I realized that I also needed to fabricate and install alignment plates between the cover and the left pedestal. I had not planned on this and did not have enough mending plates so we went to Lowe’s to buy more. While we were there I bought another can of 40:1 premixed fuel and a bottle of bar and chain oil for the new Poulan Pro 18” chainsaw. We stopped at Walmart to see if they stocked a particular folding chair made by Stakmore that we have seen online, but they did not. We think it would work nicely as a desk chair, and go well with the interior materials and colors in our bus, but we would like to see one in the round before buying it.

Back home I worked on the alignment plates while Linda prepared dinner. We had leftover lentil loaf, microwaved sweet potatoes, and a mix of steamed broccoli and Brussels sprouts. She added a little water to the lentil loaf before reheating it to moisten it a bit. We both like ketchup on our lentil loaf and I added some Pick-a-Poo sauce to mine. All three dishes were served hot, which was comforting on a cool evening, and everything was very tasty including the cup of hot tea.

I returned to the bus after dinner and finished installing the mending plates on the HVAC duct cover. I was not able to put it in place by myself, and there was no reason to have Linda come out and help at this hour, so I set the thermostats back and locked up the bus.

I called Butch and this time the call went through. I updated him on the installation and testing of the fan-coil heat exchangers and asked him about the operation of our new refrigerator. He suggested that I isolate the remote temperature sensors by using pieces of the furnace filter material to keep them from touching an objects or surfaces directly. He and Fonda are wrapping up at the RV Park in Bouse and moving to Quartzsite on Thursday. After we were done talking I worked on this post while we watched a few TV programs and then went to bed.

2015/10/08 (R) A Mighty Hose

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Linda was up before 6 AM to drive to the bakery ahead of the worst of the morning rush hour traffic. I was aware of her getting up but fell back asleep. She is very quiet as she goes about her preparations on such mornings, which I appreciate.

I got up around 8AM, fed the cats, and cleaned their litter tray. I made half as much coffee as usual and measured out a bowl of granola, probably a little more than usual. I took my coffee to the living room and turned on the fireplace, expecting to settle in with my cats and work on my iPad, but the iOS 9.0.2 update was available so I started the installation and read the last few pages of Number Theory and Its History by Oystein Ore. I read from screens more than from paper these days, but I still like to curl up with a printed book.

Jasper used to sit next to me on the sofa in the morning but seems to prefer sleeping on top of one of the back cushions these days. Juniper, who never used to pay much attention to me, has taken his place. She has always sought out warm places to curl up but has always preferred Linda’s lap to mine.

My bus project for today was reassembling the plumbing to the two fan-coil heat exchangers that go in the bases under the two desk pedestals. Yesterday I cut new holes for the supply and return hoses. My first task was to remove the hoses from the bleeder valves and install barbed plastic plugs in the ends to prevent coolant from coming out. I then pulled the hoses back and out through the new openings.

The area behind the desk where the heater hoses emerge from the passenger side OTR HVAC duct.

I worked on the hose for the right hand (rear most) heat exchanger first. I positioned the base, routed the hose to the lower fitting, and marked where to cut it. I put a plastic paint tray liner under the hose before I cut it but more coolant came out than I expected. I got as much of it in the liner as I could and grabbed a bunch of paper shop towels. I got the liner outside without spilling any antifreeze and poured the used antifreeze in a one gallon jug that I keep for just this purpose. I used a funnel that is also reserved for use with antifreeze.

I took the cut off piece of heater hose outside, plugged end down, and set the open end in the tray liner. We already had a bucket of soapy water in the bus as we had planned on hanging wallpaper yesterday. I wrung out the sponge and then squeezed some of the soapy water on the floor and cleaned it up with paper shop towels.

The left and right desk bases and center cover/spacer set in place. The heater hoses are not yet connected.

With the mess cleaned up I slipped two hose clamps over the end of the hose and worked it onto the lower fitting on the heat exchanger. If only it had been as easy to do as that description! The 3/4″ i.d. rubber heater hose did not just “slip” over the 3/4″ o.d. copper pipe even with some residual antifreeze lubricating the inside of the hose and the outside of the pipe. Indeed, it took considerable and simultaneous pushing and twisting to get the hose on. It was also a lot harder than I expected to work with the heat exchangers installed in the bases, even without the desk pedestals in place.

I was interrupting my work as needed to take photographs and as I finished up the first hose the camera refused to trigger the shutter. The LCD screen indicated that the compact flash memory card was full so I went to my office to offload the images from the last few days. My other CF card was empty so I put that in the camera and set it aside. I had not backed up my photos to the Network Attached Storage units in quite a while so I decided to take the time to do that. While I was at it I backed up my blog posts from December of 2014 through July of this year along with several issues of The Gypsy Journal.

As long as I was at my computer I checked my e-mail accounts, logged into RVillage, and logged into my account at B&H Photo. My new Sony alpha 99 and accessories were on their way from New York and due to be delivered by the end of the day tomorrow. I am excited to finally be getting a new digital camera with a full frame (35mm) sensor that will work correctly with all of my old Minolta A-mount lenses.

By this point it was lunchtime so I cleaned up (antifreeze is definitely NOT good eats) and scrounged around the kitchen for something tasty but easy to fix. My “go to” meal is usually roasted red pepper hummus and sourdough pretzel nibblers. We had a little hummus left, which I finished, but I was still hungry so I made a bowl of popcorn. I would probably not make a good bachelor.

I went back to the coach and contemplated attaching the other hose to the left heat exchanger. While I was thinking about it Linda called to let me know she was on her way home. It was 1 PM so I decided to wait for her to get home to help me install the second hose. I had some phone calls to make and used the time for that.

I called Karen at Bratcher Electric to schedule the upgrading of our 60 Amp sub-panel in the garage to a 100 Amp main panel. While I had her on the phone I asked if Mike would itemize the quote. I also mentioned that they had picked up two or three whole house generator customers through my referrals and perhaps Mike could provide some consideration for that in the pricing. Next I called Ferman Miller at Countertop Plus in Shipshewana, Indiana to check on the Corian desk top and table. Ferman answered the phone and said he had called Josh this morning to let him know the pieces were ready for pickup. I then called Josh to see what his plans were.

We originally agreed that he would pick them up and bring them to our house on his way to visit relatives in the northeast side of the Detroit metropolitan area. His plans had changed and he won’t be visiting his relatives anytime soon. He is leaving on Tuesday for a FMCA area rally in the Carolinas and will be gone for a week. Before he leaves he needs to get something to a customer in Cleveland in addition to getting our stuff to us or deciding that we will have to drive to Shipshewana to get it ourselves. One option is that we meet him somewhere on Sunday. Ann Arbor is a possibility but Toledo or Defiance (Ohio) are more likely rendezvous points.

Linda got home around 2 PM and changed into her work clothes. With Linda’s help I was able to avoid the mess I had with the first hose. The second hose was even harder to get on than the first one but we managed to do it. In part because of the arthritis in the joints at the base of my thumbs I do not have as much grip strength as I would like and often need. The twisting and pushing was hard on my hands and the confines of the base and proximity of crisp wooden edges resulted in lots of small cuts. This was not something I anticipated in the design and construction of the bases and the installation of the heat exchangers.

I took a break and drove to Northwest Plumbing Supply to see if they had a bleeder valve like the ones in our bus system. They did not and had never do seen anything like it before. The showed me a couple of things they did have but I did not buy anything. I got a call from Brighton Honda that my car was ready for pickup so I headed home to get Linda. She drove me to the dealership and then went on to Meijer’s for a few grocery items.

I drove to Lowe’s in Howell and was fortunate to find Lars in the plumbing department. The store was not very busy and he took an interest in showing me various plumbing options that might allow me to replace the bleeder valve with something that would do the same thing while also giving me a way to add antifreeze to the system. What I ended up with was 3/4″x3/4″X1/2″ copper sweat T and a 1/2″ sweat ball valve with a waste port.

Bruce works on attaching the heater hoses to the fill/bleeder valve T assembly he built. (Photo by Linda.)

Back home I cleaned some 3/4″ and 1/2″ copper pipe with 120 grit plumbers sandpaper. I cut two pieces of the 3/4″ pipe about 3″ long and one piece of the 1/2″ pipe about 1-1/2″ long. I brushed the inside of all the fittings and test fit the pieces. I then applied flux to all of the surfaces to be soldered, inserted the two 3/4″ stubs into the run fittings, inserted the 1/2″ stud into the bull fitting, and put the ball valve on the other end of the 1/2″ pipe. I used the lever on the ball valve to mount the assembly in my bench vise. I removed the waste port cap to protect the neoprene seal and opened the ball valve so as not to trap heat inside. I then heated the T and the end of the valve and applied the solder.

I figured there had to be an easier way to get heater hose onto the heat exchanger and that Butch was the guy who would know what it was. I called and he said antifreeze can obviously be used and works fairly well but that a small amount of dish soap would also work as a lubricant and not harm the antifreeze or the Aqua-Hot and its components. As long as we were on the phone I caught up on their activities.

They were still there at the RV Park in Bouse, Arizona but only until the 15th of this month. The terms and conditions of their employment as managers of the park had not turned out to be as described during the interview process and they are wrapping up after only a month on the job. They will move their bus back to Quartzsite and spend at least part of the winter at Joe and Connie’s place where we both spent last winter. I know it was a big disappointment to them that the situation in Bouse did not work out, but their situation in Q will be familiar, comfortable, and inexpensive, as well as convenient to the Quartzsite Gem and Mineral Club which they joined this past winter.

For dinner Linda made a blend of onions, garlic, mushrooms, and power greens and served it over a baked potato topped with Daiya cheese. It was very yummy, and the potatoes kept the dish warm all the way to the end. The weather had turned cloudy through the afternoon and we got the first raindrops during dinner.

The fill/bleeder valve T assembly with the heater hoses connected. The assembly is located between the bases at the floor and will be hidden by the center connector/cover.

I had really hoped to have the hydronic heating system reassembled today so we went back out to bus after dinner to hook up the heater hose that runs between the two heat exchangers. This was actually two pieces of hose with my homemade bleeder/fill valve half way between the two exchangers. Even with dish soap the two hoses were very difficult to get onto the heat exchanger fittings and the bleeder/fill stubs, but I got them on. Linda took pictures while I grunted, groaned, and moaned and I took a few more when I was done.

It was 8:45 PM when we finally quit working, secured the bus, and went inside. I cleaned my hands as best I could but I could not get all of the black from the rubber hoses to come off. We sat for a while in the living room and had the last of the frozen chocolate torte that Linda made a couple of weeks ago. We finally turned in around 10 PM and watched Rick Steve’s Europe, Travel in the Americas, and a couple of cooking shows while I worked on this post.

2015/09/26 (S) A Step in the Right Direction

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We missed our ham radio club breakfast last week because we were at an RV rally and we plan to be at another rally three weekends from now so in spite of all the work we still have to do on the bus we went to breakfast in South Lyon. After breakfast we went to the Lowe’s in New Hudson, which is close to South Lyon, and bought a Porter-Cable 1/4 sheet palm sander. The sander is small enough to get into corners but has an integral dust collection bag. The bag can be removed for sanding in really tight spots, but it cuts down on airborne dust while sanding and reduces the amount of cleanup afterwards. We have several other Porter-Cable power tools and I am generally pleased with them.

Back at the house we took care of a few chores and then got to work on the bus. Linda continued working on stripping the old wallpaper behind the sofa while I pondered for a while about what to do before deciding to concentrate on rebuilding the landing at the top of the entry stairs. This landing is where the pneumatic entry stairwell slide cover was installed. Without all of that “stuff” in place the last step up to the landing was now too short and the step up to the copilot level was too tall. More importantly, the step heights were all different, and would be a built in trip hazard if not corrected.

I determined that the 2.5″ wide poplar boards installed on edge with a 3/4″ thick plywood floor and a top layer of 3/16″ SurePly underlayment would match the top surface of the plywood in the driver’s area. That would (should), in turn, allow me to install the new vinyl floor tiles so they bridge that seam. I will have to reuse the plywood in the driver’s area, but worst case that will require using adhesive remover followed by floor patching compound and sanding before installing the tiles.

The landing was not “square” (of course) so I made and rechecked measurements several times. I then built a four-sided frame that fit snugly and had the front board aligned with the face of the plastic riser. I am going to tile the steps and I am not going to use underlayment so I needed these surfaces as aligned and flat as possible. I will probably use floor patching compound, however, to fill the gaps before installing the tile. I used screws to secure the frame to the adjacent vertical wood that forms the riser to the copilot level and to the base of the landing with angle brackets.

I needed a piece of 3/4″ plywood approximately 31-1/8″ x 27-5/8″ for the new landing as the old piece I took out was not in good shape and I did not want to reuse it. I did not have any other 3/4″ plywood pieces that were large enough so I went to Lowe’s. They did not have 3/4″ half sheets (4′ x 4′) but I bought some more angle brackets while I was there. I then went to The Home Depot. They also did not have 3/4″ half sheets, but they had full sheets of 23/32″ sanded plywood that looked like it would work and a nice panel saw with an employee available to operate it. I waited while he built a complete set of closet shelving for a couple and engaged in some domestic counseling. He then cut the plywood sheet into two 4′ x 4′ pieces and helped me load them into a cart. I was able to get them into my Honda Element by myself and close the back hatches. I had a nice QSO with Steve (N8AR) on the drive home via the South Lyon 2m amateur radio repeater.

Linda had long since finished working on the wallpaper and busied herself in the kitchen preparing collard greens Cole slaw and vegan potato salad. It was somewhere between late afternoon and early evening but I still had enough light to work outside. Linda was still busy cooking so I decided to go ahead and try to cut the plywood for the new landing. Again, it was not a rectangle, i.e., an equiangular quadrilateral (four right angles and four sides with opposing sides parallel and equal in length) so getting the shape exactly right was tricky.

I determined that the right front corner, as viewed from the entry steps, was a right angle, or close enough to one to provide a known starting point. I put the plywood on 2″x4″s on the flat in the driveway to elevate them so I could clamp a saw guide in place and provide clearance for the saw blade. I measured the lengths of all four edges as best I could and placed the right front corner at a factory corner of one of the 4′ x 4′ pieces. I marked the length of the right side and the front on the two factory edges. The left side was longer than the right side and the rear side was longer than the front side so I marked arcs for the left and rear lengths and found their point of intersection. If the right front corner was, in fact, a right angle them this had to result in the correct shape. The key word in that last sentence is “if.”

I tried to confirm my layout by measuring the lengths of the diagonals on the plywood and on the bus but I could not get accurate measurements in the bus. I triple-checked my measurements and layout then marked the guide lines for the setback on my circular saw; 6-5/8″ to the inside edge of the teeth on the blade. Truth be told I initially marked the guide lines on the wrong side of the cut. I started to adjust my guide board to the outside of the blade and then thought better of the idea. The guide needed to be set up so that if the blade wandered off course it would cut into waste material rather than the finished piece. I re-measured and marked the guide lines in the proper place, checked their location with my small square, checked with the saw, made minor adjustments, and finally made the first of two cuts. I then repeated all of that and made the second cut. When I set the piece in place in the bus it was a perfect fit. I was so pleased that I had Linda come out to see it. Sometimes I amaze even myself.

I like to quit on a high note so that was the end of our bus work for today. We did not make dramatic progress but we kept moving and got things done that needed doing. My work today involved a certain amount of pondering and on-the-fly engineering combined with careful, repeated measuring and accurate cutting. This kind of work is never fast.

A beautiful sunset had developed, which meant it was getting dark, so I put a few things away and closed up the bus while Linda prepared our dinner. She made a nice salad and heated a couple of Amy’s vegan (non-dairy) lasagna entrées. A glass of Moscato was a welcome accompaniment and we enjoyed a second glass as we relaxed in the living room. We got a Rockler catalog in the mail today so I looked through that. If you are into woodworking it’s the adult equivalent of the Sear’s Christmas catalogs of yesteryear.

I called Butch at 10 PM. It was 7 PM in Bouse, Arizona and I figured they would be done working for the day and probably already had their dinner. The daytime highs there have been reaching 110 degrees F so Butch and the other RV Park employees have been starting work between 6 and 7 AM and trying to finish up by 1 PM. He did not elaborate but said the situation the first two weeks has not been exactly what they signed up for. He had already responded to an e-mail from Linda with more details so we let it go at that and talked about other things. We wrapped up our conversation at 10:30 and I went to bed. I was going to play a couple of games and then go to sleep but there was an update available for the iPad OS so I installed it. 9.0.1 was a big update and took quite a while to install. I was very sleepy by the time it finished and turned out the lights.

2015/03/01-03 (N-T) Wrapping Up In Q

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2015/03/01 (N) Clean Flying

I had coffee and toast for breakfast. That finished the sourdough bread, which lasted two weeks, and the strawberry preserves, which had been around a lot longer than that.

I spent most of the rest of the morning cleaning the inside of the coach, specifically the tile floor, and putting things away so that there was someplace for two people to sit. The floor and kitchen counter looked better than they have most of the time Linda has been away.

Heavy rain over the mountains and desert east of Quartzsite and south of Plomosa Road.

I left a little after 11 AM to drive to Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. Linda’s flight was scheduled in at 2:35 PM MST but was delayed on departure with a revised ETA of 2:56 PM. The weather was overcast with intermittent rain; something we have not seen much of since we arrived here in early-mid December. It is approximately a two hour trip from Quartzsite to the airport so that left me two hours to take care of two shopping errands. That seemed like plenty of time but I had not calculated in the time required to deal with Sunday noon traffic at a major shopping location. I needed cat food and had an address for a PetSmart. I also needed a GE water filter and had an address for a Home Depot.

As I approached the Dysart Road exit on I-10 I saw a Home Depot. It was not the one I had programmed in my GPS, but it was right there. Little did I know that the area around that exit was a massive shopping complex that felt like square miles of retail stores. The Home Depot did not have the GE housing or filter element I was looking for, even though I bought it at a Home Depot in Logansport, IN. I no sooner got on the highway when I saw the sign for a PetSmart on the north side of I-10. I took the next exit and doubled back. In retrospect I should have taken W McDowell Road and snuck in (and out) the back way but I had no way of knowing that in advance. They had the Hill’s Science Diet Sensitive Stomach and Skin cat food and I bought a 20# bag. There was a Lowe’s on the same (north) side of I-10 on the west side of Dysart Road so I went there looking for the GE water filter but they also did not have it.

Although I still had plenty of time to get to the airport the delays associated with dense shopping traffic and finding stores led me to abandon my quest for a new water filter. I didn’t really need it anyway as the filter in question fits in a GE inline housing under the kitchen sink and provides the final filtering for our drinking and cooking water. It’s a 1 micron cartridge that filters for at least five different classes of things and costs $35 – $40 as I recall. I think it is supposed to be good for six months of ‘normal’ use. Our filter has been installed for about four to five months, and has not had that much water run through it, so it should be good for quite a while yet.

I got to the west cell phone lot at 2:38 PM, about the time Linda’s flight was originally scheduled to arrive. I knew it was delayed because she texted me when she boarded. I checked the status on my smartphone and it showed the flight arriving at 3:10 PM. It was a bit latter than that when Linda texted that they had landed. She called me from the terminal at 3:30 PM and I headed for Terminal 3, Door 5. I missed the pull-off and then missed the turn-around, ending up six miles east of the airport before I could exit and head back. I called Linda to let her know but she saw me drive by and knew I was out there somewhere trying to get turned around. Fortunately the airport was easy to get back to and this time I pulled in to the correct place, looped around, and picked her up. Another loop-around and we were headed back to I-10 West.

The first serious weather we had was on our last full day in Q.

Linda picked up a bug yesterday, perhaps just a cold, but she was obviously tired and not feeling well. She dozed off and on the whole trip back to Q. The weather had lifted a bit, with the sun occasionally peeking through the clouds, but closed in the farther west we traveled and we encountered light but steady rain for the last 60 miles. The skies were especially dark, and the rain heavier, as we cleared the last mountain range and made the long descent into the La Paz Valley and took exit 19 into the east end of Quartzsite. I stopped at the Road Runner Market for a bag of salad greens, sandwich bread, and bananas and then headed to our coach.

It was cool in the coach so I made some hot tea. I fixed a big salad for dinner after which we were not hungry enough to have soup. Linda went to bed early while I checked e-mail and then worked on my blog post for the third week of January. I took a lot of photos that week and did not have enough time left to make selections, process them, and upload the post. I won’t have time to work on it tomorrow but I will try to finish it on Wednesday and upload it.

2015/03/02 (M) Our Last Full Day In Q

Today was our last full day in Quartzsite, Arizona unless something prevents our departure tomorrow morning. After our usual breakfast of coffee, juice, and granola we filled out our mail forwarding form for the P. O. Box, signed our tax returns, and got them ready to nail. We left around 9:15 MST for the post office. There was a line so we decided to come back later and headed for the UPS Customer Service Center in Blythe, California. The center is only open for will call pick up from 9 to 10 AM PST Monday through Friday. We pulled into the parking lot at 8:57 PST and were second in line behind a couple from Alberta, Canada. I retrieved my package and then had a nice chat with the other couple in the parking lot.

We stopped at Albertson’s for cat litter and a few other sundry items and then headed back to Q. We stopped at the RV Lifestyles store to buy a repair kit or replacement for the fresh water tank blade valve. They had both 2″ and 1.5″ and I did not know which one I needed so I left empty-handed. By then it was after 11 AM MST and we avoid the Post Office between 11AM and 1 PM as those are the hours for General Delivery pickup. I stopped at the Union 76 station just behind the post office and topped off the tank before heading back to our motorcoach.

Another view of the storm.

We spent the next four hours straightening up the interior of the bus. Linda sorted through all of the brochures and guides we had picked up and designated most of them as trash. I consolidated bus parts in cardboard boxes and put them in the car. I cleaned out the storage space under the bed and we pulled out the air pump for our old Select Comfort air mattress. The pump went in a big bag and we took it over to Butch and Fonda along with some literature on things to do in/around Yuma. I reorganized the space under the bed which created room for us to store things.

At 3:15 PM we drove back to the Post Office. There was a line but it was short and was moving along. We turned in our mail forwarding form, put postage on a letter to the FMCA Freethinkers chapter treasurer, Dan Fregin, and mailed our federal and state tax returns certified mail with electronic tracking.

Back at camp Linda put a load of laundry in the washing machine. Fonda had taken Butch to pick up a “desert bug.” He found a 1969 VW bug for sale that had been modified to be an ATV. Butch drove it to Bouse with Fonda following him and we made the trip a short time later. We got to see the dune buggy and the park where they will be the working next season as the managers.

On the drive back to Q we drove through some heavy rain and pulled over at one point on Plomosa Road to take pictures. We stopped again on AZ-95 to photograph brilliant white RVs against the very dark storm clouds and then finished our return trip to Q. Linda and Fonda had left a few items on the clothesline to dry when the rains came through so she put them in the dryer. The laundry was done by 6 PM and we headed over to Crazy Jerry’s for our last meal together for a while.

I got a call from Lou Petkus. He had just found out that they are supposed to be at the fairgrounds on Wednesday rather than Friday. He wanted us to check our e-ticket which Linda did back at the bus. We were definitely setup for Friday entry which means we will not be able to enter and park together.

On the drive back we scouted out places to hook up the car and decided the ARCO station on the east end of town looked like out best bet. I had e-mails from Stacy indicating that she had finished proof-reading two more of my articles. I retrieved them from our Dropbox and did the final editing on them while Linda streamed the last episode of Downton Abbey for the season on her iPad using our Verizon MiFi. She went to bed to nurse her cold and I uploaded the final versions of the two articles and also updated/uploaded my article tracking spreadsheet. I then headed off to bed too.

2015/03/02 (T) Farewell Q

We arrived in Quartzsite, Arizona on December 12, 2014 with Butch and Fonda Williams and got our buses parked at the Liebherr-Brockner lot on the north central end of town. Our bus remained in that spot for 80 full days and was there for all or part of 82 days. We were up at 7 AM to have a cup of coffee and some granola early enough to have time to digest it before we hit the road.

After breakfast I dumped the holding tanks, flushed out the drain hose, and stowed it away. We were down to 1/2 tank of fresh water so I topped it up. I then disconnected the water softener and all of the hoses and filter housings that go with it and stowed those away.

And another view of the storm.

We were aiming for a 10 AM departure so around 9:30 AM Jim L. read the electric meter and calculated our final bill. Linda added in the loads of laundry and wrote a check to cover our obligations. I shut off the power, disconnected the shorepower cord, and stowed it away. I connected the chassis batteries, turned on the air supply valve for the engine accessories, and turned on the air valves for the auxiliary air system accessories. I also checked the oil level in the engine and it was at the ‘full’ mark.

Butch and Fonda were also supposed to leave today for Yuma but when they checked on their reservation they were told the rains yesterday had softened the ground and they should wait a day before coming down. Larry and Sandy had not returned from Yuma yet, but Butch/Fonda, Jim/Barb, and Jim L. were all gathered to wish us farewell and safe travels. Jim L. was also there to help me get the bus out of the lot with damaging anything.

The engine fired right up, I switched it into high idle, switched the Level Low system to ride height mode, and lifted the tag axle. Once the air pressure was fully up (~130 PSI) I dropped the engine back to low idle and got out to do a walk around, checking the suspension height and securing the bay doors. Linda did her own walk around to verify everything was closed and locked. At that point there was nothing left to do but pull out. Jim L. suggested I back up while swinging the noise gently to the passenger side to get a better angle going forward. I was going to back up a short distance anyway to release the brakes in case they had frozen while sitting. The humidity has generally been quite low here and the brakes were fine.

I cut the steer wheels hard to the right (PS) and pulled forward aiming for the gap between the concrete patio pad on the left and the Palo Verde tree and light pole on the right. Jim L. spotted me on the DS while Linda kept an eye on the PS and I made it through with plenty of room to spare. Once clear of those obstacles I pulled up to the left and straightened out. I then backed between the park model trailer on the PS and the cactus garden on the driver side with Linda watching the rear of the bus and the street and Jim watching the front and sides. I backed into the street and then pulled forward so I was not blocking any driveways. I shut the engine off and then guided Linda has she pulled the car up behind the bus. Hooking up the car usually takes 15 to 20 minutes or a bit longer if we gave not done it for a while.

We were ready to go for real at 10:35 AM, had one last round of “farewell for now, see you down the road” and finally pulled away at 10:40 AM.

Looking east from AZ-95 at part of the Plomosa Road BLM STVA with heavy storm clouds in the distance.

I had some concern about the turn from southbound Lollipop Lane onto eastbound Kenoyer with the car attached but Jim assured me it would be fine and it was. We turned south on Central Ave (AZ-95) to Main Street (BL-10) then east to Riggles Road and south over I-10 to the eastbound entrance ramp. I got on the accelerator and the bus responded nicely coming up to speed as I merged onto the freeway. Leaving Q to the east or west involves long, steady climbs of 700 feet and I wanted the speed, RPMs, and turbo boost up going into the grade.

All of my gauges indicated that everything on the bus was running well except I wasn’t sure the air dryer was purging. When the air pressure in the system reaches the maximum set point the governor actuates the unloader valves, stopping any additional compression, and sends a pneumatic signal to the dryer to open the purge valve and release any water it has removed from the compressed air. The brief puff of air sounds a little bit like a “sneeze” and is often referred to as such. I always listen for the “sneeze” when the chassis first airs up but did not recall hearing it. As we were driving, however, the pressure in the auxiliary air system cycled between ~100 and 130 PSI, indicating that the air compressor and governor were doing their main jobs. Later, as we were getting ready to pull out of a rest stop, I heard the air dryer sneeze so I finally had confirmation that everything appeared to be working correctly.

The other thing that surprised me was that I never saw over 15 PSI on the turbo boost gauge. The old gauge only went to 15 PSI but the needle would routinely go past that to the limit of its movement. I had gathered from the POG and PC forums that 22 to 25 PSI was more like what I should see when asking for maximum power.

The drive over I-10 was nice as the recent rain had changed the appearance of the desert. Just before coming to the western edge of the Phoenix metropolitan area we took AZ-85 south. As we did we could see rain to the southeast and wondered if we might encounter some of it. The run down AZ-85 was flat but there were interesting mountains on either side of us. We eventually reached I-8 and got on going east. Much of the drive across I-8 was through the Sonoran Desert National Monument but we could not locate a headquarters for it on any of our maps. We also drove through rain and started to get a glimpse of the desert in spring.

Not long into our trip Linda used my phone to text Curtis and give him our ETA. He called back and asked if we could delay our arrival until 3:30 PM as he had a meeting at 2 PM. Linda found a rest stop on I-8 not too far from I-10 so we pulled in there, had lunch, and took naps. It turned out to be a picnic area with no facilities but that was OK with us; we are self-contained and it was a lovely day to sit and enjoy the scenery.

The final leg of our trip took 45 minutes. Linda texted Curtis when we exited I-10 at Sunland Gin Road and he texted back that the gate was open. Although wide enough for the bus we decided to unhook the toad before going in. We were going to have to unhook the car anyway as we will have to back up to get turned around when we leave. Curtis came out to greet us, closed the gate behind us and directed us into a parking spot. He let Augie out so he could greet us and run around, which he loves to do. Augie is a small, six year old, white dog who is full of energy but has spent most of his life living in a bus. Having the enormous yard of the house Curtis is renting to run in is very exciting for Augie and he takes full advantage of it.

$Rainbow colors refract from the rain near the center of this scene. AZ-95 looking NE over the Plomosa Rd BLM STVA.$

Rainbow colors refract from the rain near the center of this scene. AZ-95 looking NE over the Plomosa Rd BLM STVA.

Forrest & Mary Clark were already here in their Foretravel U295 so it was good to see them again. When we crossed paths with them at the RoVers Roost SKP Co-op they were waiting to have solar panels and a charge controller installed. Forrest said they did not run their generator once while boondocking for five weeks near Quartzsite so their system appears to be correctly sized and working properly. Randy & Marianne (Boondockers Welcome founders) pulled in about 20 minutes after us. After greetings and introductions Curtis gave us a tour of what is currently serving as the World Headquarters of RVillage.

The house is hexagonal and sits on a bump out into the northeast corner of a man-made lake. The house was originally a bar/restaurant, with the bar on the main floor and the restaurant seating on the second level, which was not enclosed except for railings. The property is extensive because it was once a parking lot. When the restaurant was closed in the early 1990s the owner converted it to a house, enclosing the upper level and dividing it to make bedrooms. He retained a portion of it as an outside deck that most of the bedrooms open onto. Back on the main floor the central bar was converted to a residential kitchen surrounded by an open floor plan with a generous outside deck. The building still has a functioning walk-in refrigerator that Curtis uses as a pantry. It is an extraordinary property and the driveway could accommodate eight buses as long as the neighbors did not complain.

Exciting things are always going on behind the scenes with RVillage so one of the perks of crossing paths with Curtis is hearing about them or even getting a sneak peak at some of them. It is also an opportunity to see the “back end” of the site which has the tools Curtis and his team use to develop and manage the system.

After tours and demos we all stood around on the lawn chatting and enjoying the view and the cool evening air. Too soon the air was chilly. Forrest and Mary returned to their motorhome to have dinner while Linda and I did the same thing. Randy and Marianne had business to discuss with Curtis and hung out with him on the deck a while longer. They may have gone out to dinner but we did not see them leave or return.

I had turned our generator on to bring the batteries up to charge and so Linda could cook dinner. She made a green salad and red beans and rice, which went well with the Franzia Fruity Red Sangria. After dinner we got our technology set up and got online. Linda is still recovering from the cold she picked up just before flying back to Arizona so she went to bed early. I checked e-mail and saw that Stacy had proofread another article so I made the final edits to it and uploaded it to the READY folder in my Dropbox BCM Articles folder. Since we are boondocking I shut off most of the unessential electrical loads and then shut down the generator for the night.

Travel days are exciting but also a bit stressful, especially when we have been sitting in one place for a long time, be that at home or away. But it felt good to be on the road again and to have landed in such a lovely place for the night. It’s harder on the cats, who do not like it when the engine is running and the bus is moving, but they came out of their travel (hiding) spots as soon as we were parked and were fascinated by the change of scenery. We were both tired but it was a good kind of tired.

2015/02/19-23 (R-M) Solo in Q

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2015/02/19 (R) Over-Cranked

I have been busy cleaning/waxing the outside of the bus and writing articles so I have not been able to spend much time writing my blog posts or uploading them to our website. A couple of weeks ago I uploaded the posts through the end of December 2014 but then we got busy and I have not uploaded anything since then.

Here is how my day went. I Got up at 7:30 AM and had granola with fresh blueberries for breakfast. It was cloudy and cool most of the morning, so I tried to focus on the bus cleaning/waxing and was able to clean and wax the passenger side of the bus from the front to the back edge of the dinette fixed window.

Another dramatic sunset reflected off the recently waxed driver’s side of our coach.

The whole house generator at home runs a self-test every Thursday at 11 AM (EST) and e-mails its status to us. Instead of getting a message at 9 AM I got one at 9:10 AM (MST). The message was an Over Crank fault indicating that the Genset had failed to start, had dropped out of Auto mode, and would not attempt to restart until the controller was reset to clear the fault. I did not assume that Linda had paid any attention to the details of the message so I called her. She called Bratcher Electric and they told her how to reset the controller. They also said they had received similar notifications/calls from other customers. Sure, the temperatures have been below negative 10 degrees F, but the whole reason we have the generator is to protect us against power loss which usually occurs under the worst weather conditions. The service technician is coming out on Wednesday to check the unit, which is still under warranty.

I took a lunch break at 2PM and had a jumbo tofu hot dog and some hummus with a few Fritos corn chips. For most of the rest of the day I worked at my laptop selecting and editing photos for my Quartzsite 2015 BCM article. I made a quick trip to the Road Runner market for some 26 ounce containers of salt and stopped at Herb’s Hardware store looking for a clear filter housing, but they did not have any.

I made a nice, large salad for dinner and finished up the box of Franzia Refreshing White wine. I continued to process photos for my article late into the evening, taking an occasional break to check e-mail and check out the SteelMasters website. They sell steel Quonset hut style building kits and this might be a more economical way to build our bus barn, and easier as a do-it-ourselves project.

2015/02/20 (F) Touch of Oranges

I was up late last night so I slept in until 8 AM this morning. I awoke to cloudy skies and cool temperatures so I skipped breakfast and got right to work cleaning/waxing the passenger side of the bus, which faces south and gets a lot of sun. I have been working front to back but decided to reverse direction. The reason was to do as much of the side aft of the patio awning as possible while it was cloudy. The area under the patio awning is shaded (by the awning) so I can work there anytime I feel like it.

Butch was working on their new VDO electronic speedometer and needed to borrow my air-over-hydraulic bottle jack so I dug it out of the front bay for him. Mid-morning Lou and Donna Rice stopped by to say “hi.” They were in town looking for newspapers that Lou could use to mask off their motorhome so he could spray some paint. It just so happened that there was a large box of newspapers over by the trash container and they were able to get all that they needed at our campsite.

The sunset in Q backlights Saguaro cactus, a palm, and a Palo Verde tree.

I quit cleaning/waxing around 11:45 AM and turned my attention to the water softener. I have regenerated it twice this week, first with solar salt and then with non-iodized table salt, but the water coming out of it is still testing in the 3 – 7 gpg range. A reading of 7 is considered ‘hard’ so at this point I am not very happy with our water softener.

I filled the filter housing with yet another 26 ounces of finely ground non-iodized table salt and started the regen process for the third time this week. This time I ran the water more vigorously for a short time and then slowly (two minutes per gallon) and checked for salty water from the outlet of the softener. When I got very salty water I shut off the flow and let it sit for an hour. I repeated this a couple more times. When I took the filter housing off there was very little salt left in the bottom. I rinsed it out, reinstalled it, and ran water through the unit at the rate of four minutes per gallon for one hour, figuring 15 gallons of filtered water should be enough to flush the saltiness out of the softener. I tested the discharge water from the softener and it measured somewhere between zero and 1.5 gpg TH. It should have been zero, but I do not know if the test strips are sensitive to residual salinity. This process took all afternoon, intermixed with my computer and bus waxing work.

I had granola with fresh blueberries for lunch and then finished yesterday’s post and started this one. I settled in to work on photographs for my article with periodic breaks to check the water softener. It was more sunny than cloudy from noon to 2 PM at which point the clouds thickened and filled in. The air was warm but not hot and the conditions were ideal for cleaning/waxing the “sunny” side of the bus. That is what I did until 5:45 PM, with a short break to talk to Linda on the phone. I should be able to finish the waxing tomorrow, put a second coat of Carnu-B Coconut Creme on the passenger side tires, and put a first coat on the driver side tires.

I cleaned up all of my supplies and materials, washed up, and had a few corn chips and hummus as an appetizer. I washed some red grapes for later and got out an orange. I have a lot of grapefruit and oranges on board at the moment and try to at least one of each every day.

This was a very dramatic sunset.

Speaking of oranges, Barb has been using a pair of products from Touch of Oranges; Touch of Oranges Wood Cleaner & Re-conditioner, and Touch of Beeswax Wood Preserver; http://www.TouchOfOranges.com. I went to their motorhome yesterday to see how it works and the results were quite impressive. I thought about ordering some but decided not to for several reasons. For one, we already have Murphy’s Oil Soap Wood Cleaner on board. It has orange oil in it and I would like to do a side-by-side test. For another, we are getting too close to our departure date to risk a delayed delivery. Finally, we don’t have time to use it before we get home anyway. I might order some in May if I like the way it works better than the Murphy’s product.

I made a fancy salad for dinner. We bought a large container of mixed salad greens on Monday and I need to have salad every day in order to use it up before it goes bad. I found carrots and mushrooms in the fridge that needed to be used, so those went on the salad along with dried fruits, peanuts, Daiya pepper jack “cheese” and other yummies.

I continued processing photos after dinner. By 10:30 PM I was too tired to concentrate and went to bed.

2015/02/21 (S) Facetime with Madeline

I was awake off and on starting at 6 AM and finally got up at 7:15 AM. The Yuma Hamfest started yesterday and runs through tomorrow but I have too much to do here to spend three hours driving just to window shop. Besides, Butch had to leave early this morning for a rock and mineral swap meet to try selling some of the equipment they have purchased and decided not to keep.

I did not have coffee yesterday so that was my second task this morning. My first task was getting the cats their food and water and cleaning their litter tray. I had granola with raisins and fresh blueberries for breakfast and then sat and enjoyed my coffee while Jasper sat beside me on the couch and groomed himself.

The sunsets in Q were usually good but this one was better than usual.

It was cool again this morning with a thin cloud layer so as soon as I finished my coffee and checked my e-mail I got to work on the outside of the bus. That was at 9:15 AM. It took me until 11:45 AM to finish the passenger side of the bus and apply a coat of Carnu-B Coconut Creme to the driver side tires.

I finished the hummus for lunch with the help of a few Fritos corn chips. Afterwards I called Jeff to check on our coffee order. He said it was in the mail but went out a few days later than expected. He said he expedited the shipping because of that and was supposed to e-mail the USPS tracking number to me. I then went over to Jim and Barb’s rig and asked if I could test their Touch of Oranges products. Barb lent me both the wood cleaner/restorer and the beeswax wood preserver along with pieces of terry cloth for each and a piece of 0000 steel wool. I set those aside and worked on my Quartzsite 2015 article for a while.

I took a break from working at my computer to test the cleaning products. Following the directions, I sprayed the left side of the kitchen base cabinets with the cleaner/restorer, waited two minutes, rubbed it with steel wool (with the grain), and wiped it off. I then applied the beeswax preserver with a piece of terry cloth and let it sit for one hour. While the beeswax product was soaking in I went over and visited with Butch and Fonda. While I was doing that I got a TXT message from Linda asking if I wanted to Facetime. That meant she was back at the house and had grand-daughter Madeline with her. I indicated that a little bit later would be better.

My one hour wait was up so I excused myself, went back to my coach, and wiped down the left side of the cabinet. I then used the Murphy’s Oil Soap Wood Cleaner (with orange oil) on the right side of the cabinet. The results did not compare favorably with the Touch of Oranges products which definitely improved the appearance of the wood.

I turned on our Verizon MiFi, switched my iPad to it, and then called Linda to set up the Facetime session. Either I never configured the Facetime app or failed to reconfigure it but it would not let me log in. Once I got the correct e-mail address and password set up it worked fine. I called Linda’s iPad and when she answered I got to see Madeline. When Linda picked her up earlier today Madeline said she was going to grandma and grandpa’s house to see grandma and grandpa. Linda explained that I wasn’t at the house but Madeline could still see me in the bus using the iPad. It is a fabulous technology, and fascinating to see how completely natural it is for a 2-year old.

I have enjoyed creating panorama images this winter using MS-ICE.

Bill Stewart from our FMCA Freethinkers Chapter had requested to see some photos from the recent gathering at the Peg Leg boondocking area near Borrego Springs, California. Last night I selected seven images, re-sized and processed them, uploaded them to the Freethinkers folder in my Dropbox, generated the “share” link, and e-mailed it to our open forum e-mail reflector. While I was working on that it occurred to me that Lou Petkus is always looking for images for the SKP Photographers BOF newsletter and member album and I had not sent him anything in a while. I was too tired by then to do the work so I put that on my “to do” list for today.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon and evening working on my article and the photos that go with it except for a break to photograph a beautiful sunset. Linda called around 6 PM (8 PM at home) to chat. She suggested that we wait to see if someone at Escapade is selling the Touch of Oranges products. She also suggested that I check to see if Carnu-B is going to be at any car shows near us as they sell the product for a lot less at shows than they do online.

I took a break for dinner and microwaved a jumbo tofu hotdog and a potato. The potato had started sprouting so I figured I needed to eat it or plant it. I had been accumulating dishes and utensils for the last few days so I washed, rinsed, and dried all of them. By the time I finished my chores, played a few games on my iPad, and finished this post it was midnight. Completing the waxing of the bus was an important milestone, and although I have a lot more to get done on the bus this coming week I plan to take it easy tomorrow and try to wrap up my Quartzsite 2015 article and perhaps some other writing. The most I may do to the bus is apply some more Carnu-B Coconut Creme to the tires.

2015/02/22 (N) Q 2015

I did not use up the second package of blueberries fast enough and they started to go bad. I picked out the bad ones, rinsed off the rest, and had some granola with my blueberries for breakfast. I worked for a little while finishing up yesterday’s blog post and then got to work at my computer. It was cloudy and windy when I got up and the winds continued to strengthen during the day. I had closed the vent fan domes last night so I would not have to listen to them rattle. The patio awning was flapping more than I liked so I got Butch to hold the strap while I released the rafters and then rolled it up and latched it. I was able to retract the small passenger side bedroom awning by myself. In the light of day I discovered that I had not wiped the Carnu-B wax off of the body as completely as I thought. That, however, will be a task for another day.

I wanted to make a sandwich for lunch but I was out of onion so I went to the Road Runner Market to get one. I also wanted pretzels and hummus. They did not have any hummus and they did not have the kind of pretzels I like but I was able to get two large sweet onions. Sourdough bread with Tofurkey brand mock deli slices, Daiya cheddar “cheese” slices, veganaise, honey mustard, fresh onion, and salad greens made a tasty treat.

I finally finished my Quartzsite 2015 article for Bus Conversion Magazine, including the 95 photos and captions, and uploaded it to my Dropbox for proofreading. I had an e-mail back from Gary indicating that they would probably use it for the February issue, so very late this evening I uploaded all of the photo files.

A panorama created using MS-ICE from handheld images.

About the time I needed to take a break Fonda left for church and I saw Butch sitting outside with his camera. Another beautiful Quartzsite sunset was taking form so I grabbed my camera and shirt jacket and went out to join him. It had been cloudy and windy all day and was rather brisk. We both worked the sunset until it was played out and got some nice photos considering that they were all handheld in low-light conditions.

For dinner I made a Thai Kitchen Noodle Bowl and added some honey roasted peanuts. I closed all of the bus windows to a crack and made some hot tea. Tea is still my beverage of choice with any type of Asian cuisine and was very satisfying on a chilly evening.

With the Quartzsite 2015 article done (except for corrections) I started pulling together the “featured bus” article on Byron Pigg’s 1985 Model 15 Eagle bus conversion. I went through the photos I took last month of his coach at the Eagles International Bus Rally and was pleased that I had a good variety with good technical quality to choose from. I made my selections, post-processed all of them, and inserted the small versions into the Word doc. The article narrative itself was less than one page in length as I do not know very much about Byron and his wife Betty or their bus. The Word doc template I use for featured bus articles includes two “Specifications” pages, one for the bus and one for the conversion, so the article was three pages. I e-mailed the Word doc (with embedded photos) to Byron and cc:d Gary at BCM. In order to complete the article I need Byron to fill in a lot of the details about his bus and conversion.

2015/02/23 (M) Seizure

Toast with apricot preserves is as close as I get anymore to the Danish pastries that were once one of my favorite treats, but I am OK with that. I am absolutely enjoying retirement more as a result of being much healthier and more active, both of which are a direct consequence of eating better, weighing less, and not having to take a cocktail of drugs every day. Toast, coffee, and a little fruit juice makes a very agreeable breakfast.

I finished up yesterday’s blog post after breakfast and then got into my computer-based work. I had planned to work on the photos of Larry and Carol Hall’s GM PD4106 bus conversion and write a brief narrative, similar to the one I did on Byron and Betty’s Eagle bus, but other things kept interfering with the work. Except for lunch and dinner breaks, and brief chats with Barb, Butch, and Fonda, I sat on my butt most of the day working away at my computer on a template for featured bus articles but had very little to show for it at the end of the day.

I have learned over the years to stick with sunsets until it is dark. Panorama stitched together with MS-ICE.

For lunch I had the last jumbo vegan hotdog in the open pack. They microwave nicely, so they are quick and easy to fix, and are so yummy with honey mustard, pickle relish, and chopped sweet onion.

I had not yet seen the e-mail from Jeff at Teeko’s Coffee and Tea in Howell, Michigan with the USPS tracking number for my coffee order so I call them at noon (2 PM EST) and Mary gave the number to me over the phone. It only occurred to me much later that the e-mail may have gotten trapped by our spam filter. I direct all of the notifications from the spam filter to a special inbox and I have not made a habit of checking that inbox or going into the filter to release or delete the e-mails that are being held.

Butch and Fonda drove over to Bouse this morning to talk with the General Manager and park managers of an RV Park about working there next season. They stopped at our shared P. O. Box on their way back and then went to the main office downtown. When they got back to camp they had my coffee shipment and an envelope from Dan Fregin, the treasurer of our FMCA Freethinkers chapter.

At one point in the afternoon I looked out the picture window by the dinette, where I sit and work at my computer, and Roho was lying on the ground with Jim and Barb and Jim L. gathered around him. He appeared to be twitching and Barb confirmed that he was having a seizure and typically has one once a month like clockwork. We had a dog with Epilepsy (Scout) and it did not turn out well. The standard treatment at the time (18 years ago?) was phenobarbital, the same drug used to control the condition in humans. Scout did not respond to small doses and the amount we had to give him eventually destroyed his liver. But we had no choice; he went into a grand mall seizure one night and would not come out of it. We had to take him to an emergency veterinary clinic at 2 AM and they had to inject him with phenobarbital and something else to get the seizure to stop.

We had just started him on an experimental treatment using potassium bromide (KBr) dissolved in flavored pancake syrup when his liver failed and he died. I told Barb about this but I did not know if the KBr treatment had become standard practice or not. The apparent effect of the KBr was to mediate the uptake of the phenobarbital, allowing much smaller doses to be much more effective. I searched online later and found that KBr has, indeed, become part of the standard treatment arsenal for canine and feline seizures.

For dinner I made a big green salad. While pulling ingredients out of the refrigerator I found a bunch of asparagus that was spoiled so I threw it out. That was too bad because I really like asparagus and this bunch probably came from the farmers market where we have bought very good produce. I also had to throw away some blueberries and carrots this week but managed to salvage some of each. I did, however, finish up the mushrooms in my salad.

Atmospheric conditions make all the difference in sunrise and sunset photography. Panorama stitched with MS-ICE.

Linda called around 7 PM (my time) and we brought each other up to date on how our days went. Around 8 PM I prepped the remaining strawberries for later and then heated an Amy’s vegan tamale with Mexican rice.

I finally put aside the featured bus article template I worked on much of the day and started selecting and processing the photos for the article on the Hall’s bus. By that point, however, I was tired and frustrated and making mistakes so I went to bed. The southerly winds that brought the rain had shifted to the northwest bringing cool, clear air with them. It had cooled off enough in the bus that I turned on the electric heating pad for the first time in quite a while.

2015/02/07-11 (S-W) In and Around Q

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2015/02/07 (S) Bouse, AZ

We got up around 8 AM, got cleaned up, and had coffee and granola. Linda then cut my hair, which seems to be a once every 4 to 6 weeks thing when we are traveling. Butch and Fonda went to Yuma to meet up with Bell, Bell’s daughter, and Bell’s three grand-daughters. Bell’s daughter was in Yuma with her Roller Derby team and the family came along. We wanted to get out and do some more sight-seeing and decided to drive to Bouse, Arizona.

Cholla “teddy bear” cacti at Quinn’s Pass on the road to Bouse, AZ.

Bouse is a small town located in the next valley to the east of Quartzsite, which sits in the La Paz valley. It is on AZ-72 at the eastern end of Plomosa Road. The western end of Plomosa Road is at AZ-95 seven miles north of the city limit of Quartzsite. The first three miles of Plomosa Road heading east from AZ-95 runs through the BLM Plomosa Road STVA. The road is paved its entire length and provided a fun and scenic drive out to Bouse and back. We stopped at Quinn Pass to read the historical marker and ended up going on a short hike. We have wanted to do this little trip ever since friends told us about it, but today provided an added incentive to finally go; the Parker 425.

The Parker 425 is an annual off-road race in the desert east of Parker, south of the Buckskin Mountains, and north of Bouse. The course is a little over 140 miles in length and the race consists of three loops for a total of 425 miles. It begins and ends at the Bluewater Resort and Casino in Parker. Last year’s winner completed the race in just over seven hours. That’s an average speed of 60 MPH, and there are plenty of curves and bumpy areas where it is not possible to go that fast, so the vehicles are really moving every place they can.

When we got to AZ-72 we crossed the highway, drove three short blocks, and made a left on Swansea. I could see from the GPS that it was a paved road that continued in a northeasterly direction. I had looked at a map yesterday and had a general sense that one of the spectator areas was out that way. We did not have to drive very far before we saw Jeeps and ATVs parked on top of a big hill all facing the same direction. We drove past the turnoff for that area and just around the hill was a large parking area full of cars and RVs. The dirt road was closed, the Fire Department was set up there, and there was a checkpoint for the race. I found a place to park and we got out to check out the action.

We stayed long enough to see a dozen different vehicles pass through the checkpoint and I shot photos from several different vantage points. There are different classes of vehicles, but the ones we saw were of two types: highly modified small pickup trucks, and custom built off-road racers known as “grasshoppers” because of their long shape and the suspensions allow them to “bounce” over bumps in the road.

View looking NW from the Quinn’s Pass area between Quartzsite and Bouse, AZ.

The air temperature was pleasant but the sun was very hot so we drove the short distance back to Bouse, stopped at AZ-72, and quickly scoped out the town. We spotted the Coachman Restaurant just northwest of the intersection and drove over there to have lunch. We each had a garden salad and iced tea, and I had French fries. We can pretty much count on lettuce and potatoes in any restaurant we visit.

Bouse was founded in 1908 as a mining camp but as a waypoint between Phoenix and Parker it now survives on tourism, agriculture, and retirees. Measuring 10.1 square miles at 947 feet ASL with 996 residents (2010 census) the area enjoys sunny skies year-round. We saw RVs of all types throughout town and in the dessert along Plomosa Road which is all BLM land. There were also quite a few RVs in the Bouse Community Park.

We drove back to Quartzsite the way we came, a distance of 30 miles, because the only other ways back were via Parker (64 miles) and Phoenix (at least 250 miles). Linda wanted to walk through the Tyson Wells market area one more time as this is the last weekend for the Craft Show. We bought a cute hand puppet that we think grand-daughter Madeline will find very interesting. We drove over to Barry’s Breads to get a loaf of his Barry’s Basic Bread but he was not open. In fact, it looked like he was done for the season. Activity really has slowed down here and he is presumably getting ready to move to his next venue.

We stopped at the Road Runner Market and bought a loaf of French bread and some red grapes. We then drove to the Quartzsite Cemetery to take photographs of Hadji Ali’s (Hi Jolly’s) gravesite, which is marked by a small pyramid with a silhouette of a camel on top. As long as we were there we wandered around the rest of the cemetery, which was an interesting and well-kept place.

Once we were back at the coach Linda sat outside and read while I transferred photo files from my camera to my computer and backed them up to our NAS. I then continued selecting and processing images from yesterday’s outing to KOFA NWR Palm Canyon. I was starting to work on the images from today when Linda cane in and started making dinner.

She decided to make “Mustard Greens and Beans” using Great Northern beans. In addition to the usual onion and garlic, it had vinegar, a little sugar, and honey mustard. It was very tasty and we agreed it was a keeper. She served sautéed green beans on the side, cut up some of the French bread, and poured a couple of glasses of Franzia Refreshing White wine. Sliced fresh strawberries and cookies for desert completed the meal.

Butch and Fonda got back from Yuma while Linda was cooking. I gave Butch a call after dinner to discuss our TireTraker systems. He needs to charge their monitor this evening and I asked him to check on the behavior of the LEDS on the 12/24VDC plug.

As we do most evenings, Linda read and played online word games while I worked on this post for a while and then resumed editing photos on my computer. I checked e-mail again and had several regarding the upcoming Freethinkers gathering at the Liar Peg Leg Smith Monument boondocking area near Borrego Springs, California. One of them posited the question of how often Friday the 13th occurs? I did a quick online search and the answer appeared to be 1 to 3 times per year and every 12/7 or 1.714 times per year, on average. That is 171.4 times per century or 1,714 times per millennium. I posted that back to the e-mail reflector and went to bed.

Rocks and flora at Quinn’s Pass, AZ.

2015/02/08 (N) Another Meetup

I was up at 7:30 AM this morning and got the coffee made right away. Linda did not sleep well last night but got up as soon as she smelled the coffee. Breakfast was toast and preserves. I was planning on putting in a long day at my computer and Linda was planning on doing laundry and some work for the bakery but our plans changed before we got started. When I checked my e-mail I had one from Lou and Donna Rice of our FMCA Freethinkers Chapter indicating that they were at Mile Marker 2 on Plomosa Road. We drove right past them twice yesterday on our visit to Bouse but had no idea they were there.

Plomosa Road is about seven miles north of Quartzsite on AZ-95. We left at 10 AM and were parked next to their Jeep before 10:15. We sat and talked for four hours before returning to our coach. As soon as we got back I took our TireTraker monitor and charger over to Butch’s coach. We tried our charger on his monitor and it worked fine. We then tried his charger on our monitor and it did not work. Between our four devices it was clearly our monitor that was defective. I will have to call Darryl Lawrence tomorrow and see what we can figure out.

We each had a pear, some red grapes, and something to drink. Linda gathered up laundry and I got to work editing consolidated blog posts. In between loads she sat outside and read.

Fonda had two Poblano peppers she got at the Farmers Market on Wednesday and gave them to Linda. Linda found a recipe for stuffed grilled poblanos. The stuffing was white rice, scallions, black beans, tomatoes, vegan sour cream and cheddar cheese, and cumin. It resembled Mexican rice but with a creamy/cheesy dimension. She cooked the stuffed peppers on Butch and Fonda’s little grill and cooked the extra stuffing on our cooktop. She served the dish with Clementine orange wedges and a glass of Franzia Refreshing White wine to make an outstanding meal.

After dinner we sat outside Butch and Fonda’s bus enjoying the cool desert night air and watching the lights of airplanes flying overhead. It eventually cooled off enough that we returned to our coach where I continued to work on blog posts and Linda worked on the bakery accounting. She eventually went off to bed and I uploaded survey items to the FMCA Education Committee folder in our Dropbox and sent an e-nail to the committee. We have a committee work session tomorrow at 4 PM EST (2 PM MST).

Vehicles positioned east of Bouse, AZ to watch the Parker 435 off-road race.

2015/02/09 (M) A Bright Idea

Butch called around 8:20 AM to let me know that our light bulb order was at the Post Office awaiting pickup. He and Fonda were headed to the Quartzsite Gem and Mineral Club for a day-long class on faceting, so he gave me the parcel slip so I could go pick up the package.

While we were eating breakfast it suddenly occurred to me that we should visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West while we are camped near Tucson next month. Linda went to the website and discovered that it is in Scottsdale which is a northern Suburb of Phoenix and is closer to Quartzsite than it us to Tucson. We selected a couple of possible dates and she went online to get tickets. The “Behind the Scenes” tours are only done on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. She tried to get tickets for Monday February 16 but they only had one left. She called but they would not sell us two tickets. We waited way too long to think of this and painted ourselves into a corner so it may not happen on this trip to the southwest.

I drove to the Quartzsite Post Office after breakfast and retrieved the package, only my second trip to the Post Office to transact business since we arrived in Q. The first trip was to sign up for the P. O. Box. Linda usually takes care of the mail while she is out walking and Butch usually checks the P. O. Box, which is at a different location that is not quite as convenient a walk from our camp as the main building. We have not used the P. O. Box very much, but it has been invaluable when we have.

I worked most of the day on some of my blog posts for December 2014. I took a break around 12:30 for a bite of lunch and then called Daryl Lawrence and left a message regarding our TireTraker TT-400C monitor which appears to not be recharging.

The Parker 425 checkpoint east of Bouse, AZ. This race is a BIG deal with fire, EMS, and helicopter coverage.

Gaye Young called around 1:30 PM to make sure I was going to participate in the FMCA Education Committee work session at 2 PM. (Gaye is the chairperson of the committee.) There were only two items on the agenda and I had to give the status report on both of them. Our work sessions and meetings are conducted by telephone conference. They usually last an hour and today was not an exception. If committee members provide me with additional input this week regarding an education survey we are developing I will have some work to do the last two weeks of the month in addition to working on articles for Bus Conversion Magazine, completing some minor repairs on the bus, finishing the cleaning/waxing of the exterior of the bus, and cleaning/waxing the car.

I managed to upload consolidated blog posts, including some photographs, for December 5 – 8, 9 – 12, and 13 – 16, 2014. I did not take very many photos while we were traveling but once we got settled in Q I got the camera out and started using it.

I got a call back from Jeff at TireTraker support. I explained what the monitor was (not) doing and he agreed to mail me a new one along with a new charger. We will return the defective one to Daryl at Escapade next month.

Linda cooked up a couple of Tofurkey brand vegan Italian sausages with sweet onions and sweet red bell peppers and served some broccoli as a side dish. After dinner I removed my bulbs from the Bulbtown shipment and checked the quantities and prices against my spreadsheet. I then took the remaining bulbs over to Butch. He had ordered 10 #4003 bulbs to use in his bay fixtures and realized when he saw them that he should have ordered #4004s. Both are 24VDC bulbs but the #4003s have a single contact base whereas #4004s have a double contact base. I think my bay light fixtures may take #4003s. I will check tomorrow and if so I will buy them instead of Butch.

We sat outside with the lights off enjoying a glass of wine while watching the long lingering sunset backlight the mountains to our west. As the sunset faded we looked at the stars and watched aircraft lights moving east and west high over the desert. It still cools off here after the sun sets but not as quickly, nor as dramatically, as it did just a week ago.

I combined the blog posts for December 17 – 20, 2014. I had selected and processed photos for this post earlier so it was ready to upload at 11 PM but I did not want to go through the process at that late hour. I dealt with a couple of e-mails and then went to bed. A short time later Jasper threw up a large quantity of food so I had to get up and deal with that. It looked like it had some hair mixed in with it, but I don’t know if that was the root cause.

2015/02/10 (T) Deionized

We were planning on heading to the Peg Leg Monument boondocking area on Thursday, spending the night in Indio, California and visiting Joshua Tree National Park (JTNP) on Friday before driving home Friday evening. Ken Harrison from the FMCA Freethinkers indicated that he and Linda would not make it to Peg Leg until Friday. That prompted us to consider flipping our plans, doing JTNP on Thursday and Peg leg on Friday. Either way we will stay in Indio as we already have reservations at a motel.

The Polaris RZR (“razer”) was one of the most popular 4-wheel ATVs in and around Q.

We had another stay-at-home day relaxing while getting things done. Linda was going to drive to Blythe for groceries, but decided to go on Sunday as we will be away from camp all of Thursday and Friday and much of Saturday. She is going to see if the Farmers Market is still operating tomorrow morning. If not she will stop by the Road Runner Market.

As has been our pattern recently Linda went for a long walk (5 miles) while I continued to work on blog posts. We had a light lunch when she returned. I then called Teeko’s Coffee and Tea in Howell, Michigan and ordered six pounds of roasted coffee beans to be shipped to us here in Q. We are approaching the midpoint of our snowbird season and are almost out of the five pounds of coffee we started with. Jeff is going to roast two pounds each of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe half-caff, Sweet Seattle Dreams half-calf, and Cafe Europe Blend half-caff. He will let it out-gas for a couple of days and then vacuum seal it in one-pound portions and mail it to us in a USPS flat rate box that will go to our P. O. Box in Q. That should be enough to get us home even if we do not get there until late April.

Butch is always looking out for us and trying to help us spend our retirement dollars so he sent me a link to a portable two-tank water de-ionizing system that is available from RVupgrades.com. The system is intended for washing/finishing cars and RVs as de-ionized water has had all of the dissolved minerals removed and does not leave spots on surfaces when it dries. It is not, however, considered suitable for drinking. The two tanks are plumbed in series and use special resin beds that have to be replaced when exhausted rather than recharged. The first tank removes cations and the second removes anions, leaving the water completely deionized. The cations are the positively charged ones typically “removed” by water “softeners”, such as calcium, iron, and magnesium, through ion exchange with sodium. The anions are the negatively charged ones that water softeners typically do not remove, including fluoride and sodium. The dual tank system is about 33% more expensive than a single tank portable water softener, but given the time, expense, and frustration I am experiencing trying to clean and wax our motorcoach I am seriously considering ordering one tomorrow.

I uploaded two consolidated blog posts yesterday and another one this afternoon. I consolidated the posts for December 21 – 26, 2014, selected and processed the photos, and then took a break to sit outside and just enjoy the weather. No book, no iPad, no computer; just ahhhh. It was 78 degrees F with 19% relative humidity, a steady breeze from the northwest, and a hot sun shining through absolutely clear blue skies. Linda and I agreed that it was the most perfect weather day we have had so far this winter.

Linda had some seitan ‘mock’ beef in the freezer that she heated in a saucepan and served with basmati rice accented with soy sauce. Very simple but very tasty. After dinner I uploaded the December 21 – 26 consolidated blog post along with 12 photos, entered all of the tags, and published it.

I got an e-mail yesterday from Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia asking if we would be interested in previewing/testing another new website. I said ‘yes’ and she responded with the URL for the development site. When I was done with our website I went to the new one and created an account. I got an activation e-mail, clicked the link, and was able to login. I spent an hour looking around the site and captured my impressions and suggestions in an e-mail back to the development team. I took a few minutes to investigate portable water deionizers but by then it was too late to get involved in any serious research so I went to bed.

2015/02/11 (W) Update This!

Hi Jolly’s (Hadji Ali’s) gravesite in the Quartzsite Cemetary; allegedly the most visited place in Q.

Linda’s cell phone rang just before 8 AM. It was Barb. She and Jim were up, dressed, and had the golf cart out and ready to go to the Farmers Market. When we mentioned it yesterday Barb said she wanted to go and Linda indicated that it was open from 8 AM to noon. Somehow that got translated into leaving at 8 AM to go to the market. Linda, being a good sport, got up, got dressed and walked over about 8:15 and said she was ready to go. No breakfast, no coffee, just the “git er done” spirit of the old west. I stayed behind and got the coffee ready to brew when she returned. I then got to work on computer stuff in the true “git er done” spirit of the new/virtual west.

They returned from the Farmers Market around 9:30 AM. Linda bought another Romanesco brocciflower, some Brussels sprouts, grapefruit, and oranges. To our delight Barry’s Breads was also there and had a few loaves of Barry’s Basic Bread. He told Linda he will be around, at least at the Wednesday Farmers Market, through the end of this month.

As much as I would like to have de-ionized water available for rinsing the coach as I wash it, I decided not to speed hundreds of dollars without first doing deeper research into the available technologies and their life cycle costs. I had enough other stuff to do today that I did not want to make time to dig into this new topic.

Linda saw a photographers vest at the Salvation Army resale store the other day but did not buy it as it was $15, pricey for the SA, and she wasn’t sure it would fit me. We drove over to the store to see if it was still there. It was, and it was too small for me. It also had a defective zipper. For a moment I thought we were going to have to buy it so I could take it home and cut it off. I managed instead to pull it off over my head like a t-shirt and Linda was then able to get the zipper undone and put it back on the rack. This was my first time in the store so while we were there I found two pairs of shorts for $2 each, a third pair for $0.50, and a lightweight, lined, waist-length London Fog jacket for $0.25. Linda found a white hand-held mixer with two beaters for $4. Deal.

When we got back Linda called the Prince of Tucson RV Park and made a reservation for the evening of Thursday, March 5th. Lou and Val Petkus will already be there and this will allow us to caravan into the SKP Escapade at the Pima County Fairgrounds first thing Friday morning. By coming in together we will be able to park together which will make our staff photography work more convenient.

My computer indicated that it had a large number of updates to install; 34, to be exact. It was a 334 MB download so I turned on our Verizon Mi-Fi and switched my computer over to it. The Mi-Fi is much faster than the Wi-Fi and I find that with large downloads the faster I get them done the more likely they are to complete successfully. When those were done downloading and installing I had to restart my computer to finish the installation. I also had an updated driver available for the NVIDIA GeForce graphics processor, so I downloaded and installed that.

I figured that if I had updates for my computer Linda would have them for hers. I switched her computer over to our Mi-Fi and checked for updates. She had 20 recommended and 4 optional. I selected all 24 and the download was 980 MB. That’s a lot of updates so I started it and let it run. As always, finishing the installation required the computer to be rebooted. When it restarted her computer the screen was once again functioning normally. Go figure. She also had an Adobe Creative Cloud update so I started that. It failed at the 29% point so closed it and restarted it. The second time it ran to completion.

Linda needed to work at her computer so we both sat at the dinette table and did our respective computer things. She brought our financial records up-to-date in Quicken and I compiled and then uploaded a consolidated blog post for the last six days of December 2014. I had e-mails going back and forth with some of our fellow FMCA Freethinkers regarding the Peg Leg gathering and ended up joining the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I’ve meant to do that for a while and the electrons finally aligned just right this afternoon.

Hi Jolly’s pyramid gravesite marker is a State Historical Site.

Somewhere during the course of the afternoon we had sandwiches for lunch and snacked on dried fruits and nuts. Kathi Slater called to check on Linda’s travel arrangements, after which I made popcorn. Linda borrowed a small cooler from Butch and Fonda for our 2-day trip to California and back. Fonda came over to go through the chores involved in caring for the cats while we are away and Linda gave her a set of keys to the bus.

I had seen a quick notification from the RV Internet Resource Center (Mobile Internet Aficionados membership website) that WiFiRanger had finally released their new firmware upgrade for the WiFiRanger Mobile. Using my iPad as the control panel I switched our WFR-MT from the Wi-Fi/DSL connection to our Verizon Mi-Fi. Again, I wanted to make sure this upgrade got downloaded as quickly as possible through the most reliable connection we have. The download was reasonably quick but the installation took quite a while. My iPad eventually lost contact with the WFR-MT and I just left it to finish and went over to visit with Butch and Fonda and Linda. We came back to our coach when their dinner was ready and the WFR-MT firmware upgrade had finished installing successfully. I switched the connection back to the Wi-Fi/DSL that we get to use as part of our “rent” while we are here. I switched our laptops back to our internal Wi-Fi network and then shut the Verizon Mi-Fi off to let it recharge.

Neither of us was very hungry after snacking late this afternoon so Linda sliced the remaining tofu and pan-seared it. She caramelized onions, added BBQ sauce, and served it open faced over the tofu. After dinner Linda made a list of things we needed to take tomorrow while I made a final check of e-mail. I e-mailed Lou Petkus to let him know that we were booked into the Prince of Tucson RV Park for March 5th. I sent a message to Curtis Coleman via RVillage to accept his invitation to boondock in his driveway and see if March 3 and 4 would work for him. He phoned back to confirm that it would be OK and then sent his address via TXT message. I also had an e-mail from Kate de Fuccio and replied to that. I checked for updates and my computer had several more to install so I started that process. I checked Linda’s computer but she did not have any updates pending. Although we got a lot of other things done today it felt like I had mostly dealt with computer updates. Update days are often like that and you cannot schedule them because you never know when Microsoft is going to drop a big ‘update bomb’ in your lap.

Linda went to bed around her usual time. I turned in shortly thereafter and much earlier than I have been. We plan to get up at 6 AM tomorrow, have a light breakfast, finish packing for our trip, and be on the road at 7 AM. We will stop at Albertson’s in Blythe, California for some water, ice, and other snack items to get us through the day to dinner at Native Foods in Palm Springs and give us something to eat on Friday while we are at the Peg Leg gathering. Albertson’s opens at 6 AM PST, which corresponds to our 7 AM MST departure time. We should arrive at the south entrance to Joshua Tree National Park around 7:30 AM PST which will give us a good, long day to explore the park.

The Phase Place

Welcome to the next phase (hosted by QTH.com)

Tag Archives: Bouse (AZ)

2015/10/13 (T) Desk Alignment

2015/10/08 (R) A Mighty Hose

2015/09/26 (S) A Step in the Right Direction

2015/03/01-03 (N-T) Wrapping Up In Q

2015/02/19-23 (R-M) Solo in Q

2015/02/07-11 (S-W) In and Around Q