Tag Archives: Curtis Coleman (RVillage)

2015/09/15 (T) Coach Supply Direct

We were awake at 6 AM and I planned to be on the road in the bus at 7 AM but it did not work out exactly that way. For starters, I needed to take a shower. Next, I really needed a haircut, which Linda does for me. Along the same lines I needed to shave. Another factor was that it was still darker at 7 AM than I wanted to drive in. We also had last minute things to assemble and load such as toiletries, technology, shoes, hats, sunglasses, baskets and bags full of essential incidentals, as well as design drawings for the custom woodworking in the coach. We were close to being ready for me to pull out at 8 AM but I still needed to check the tree limbs that hang out over the road near our house. Good thing I did; many of them had grown down and were less than 13’6″. How did we know? We set the extension handle on the pole saw so that the length from the bottom of the handle to the tip of the saw blade was 13’6″. Anything that touched the blade got trimmed.

I finally connected the chassis batteries, turned on the engine air accessories valve, and fired up the bus engine at 8:15 AM. Linda helped me check the exterior lights, all of which were OK. I pulled out at 8:25 AM and worked my way slowly down our street and was able to maneuver so as not to scratch the sides. I had not driven north on Hacker in some time. The road was in very bad condition and I thought the glass tubes in the new light fixtures would not survive the first, short leg of the trip. Two of the kitchen cabinet drawers came open, which they do not normally do. Linda had taped the refrigerator doors closed so they stayed that way. The new pull-out pantry stayed closed and so did all of the drawers on the new desk.

Once I was on M-59 the trip was much smoother but not without some bumpy road sections along the way. I-69S between Lansing and I-94 in particular is a surprisingly rough road. I thought about stopping at the rest area on I-96 westbound just before Lansing but was anxious to make up for the late start. The bus rolled along easily at 68 MPH without the car attached. The difference between towing and not towing is subtle but I am aware of it. The bus alone accelerates a little faster and stops a little easier. It is also 20 feet shorter than the bus/car combination which makes it easier to pass and merge.

I stopped at the rest area on I-69 southbound just north of I-94, as that would be my last convenient opportunity to do so, and called Josh at Coach Supply Direct to update him on my travels. I continued south on I-69 intending to exit at Coldwater and head west on US-12. I was paying attention to the truck in front of me and realized a few seconds too late that I had missed the exit. I drove three more miles to the Fenn Road exit and headed back north towards Coldwater.

Once I was on US-12 westbound, a road I have driven many times, the trip was uneventful until I got west of Sturgis. MDOT was rebuilding several miles of the highway between Sturgis and White Pigeon and had the road down to one lane. I was the first vehicle to arrive at the flagger so I figured I was in for a wait. I did not check the time but the delay was at least 20 minutes. I called Josh and updated him on my location and ETA. Bring first in line made the wait easier as I could see what was, and wasn’t, happening. Eventually it was our turn to go and I got to lead the parade except for a truck hauling dirt who they let go ahead of me. That was just as well; he was in a big hurry and quickly disappeared from site, traveling at what I considered to be much too high a speed for the conditions. All traffic was being routed on the eastbound lane and shoulder and I had to drive straddling the rumble strips to keep from knocking my fillings loose.

I finally made it to Coach Supply Direct in Edwardsburg just after noon. I had talked to Josh on Sunday about how best to get the bus into his place. Following his advice I continued past M-62 to Cass Street and turned left. Cass merged into Elkhart Road and shortly thereafter I turned left into the fenced property where his business is located. Josh had described where other motorhomes were parked and where he wanted me relative to them so I was able to get the bus situated without assistance, another advantage to not having the car attached to the back of the bus as I could back up as needed. Josh came out of the building as I was shutting down the engine.

Josh has several guys working with him at the moment; Jim, Tyler, and Tim. The first task was removing the remaining pleated shades from the side windows and installing the new MCD shades. Jim is very knowledgeable about MCD shades and was the lead installer. The shades are very nice and will be more functional than the old ones. The automatic retract speed was still a little fast on some of them and might need to be adjusted but that is a minor thing.

While the guys worked on the shades Josh and I looked at the new seats and discussed the larger set of tasks that needed to be accomplished. I was very pleased with our choice of fabric and how the seats turned out. The only apparent glitch was that the slide rails for the two captain’s chairs for the living room had come without the actuator handles. Josh made some phone calls and arranged to pick up the needed parts first thing tomorrow morning. We also measured for the Corian desk top and contacted his supplier regarding that.

I needed something to eat and drink and since the coach was being worked on I walked across the street in search of nutritional sustenance. I walked past the Taco Bell and had my sights set on the McDonald’s (French fries and a diet Coke) when I spotted the Subway, which was closer and offered better food options for me. I had a Veggie Delight Chopped Salad, chips, and a diet Coke. I dined in, refilled my drink, and then walked back.

A view of the cockpit of our bus with the old Villa pilot and co-pilot/navigator seats removed. This shot is from the living room looking forward.

Tyler is an experienced automotive technician and was the main guy responsible for removing the two Villa chairs from the cockpit area. He unbolted the 6-way power mechanism from the swivel pedestal but left it attached to the seat. With the seats out of the bus he removed the 6-way power base from each one and installed it on the corresponding new Flexsteel seat. There was more to this mounting than just tightening a few bolts and he was not quite done by the time he had to quit for the day. The controls still had to be mounted, the wiring connected, and the seats installed in the bus.

Josh (R) confers with Tyler (L) as he is working on getting the new Flexsteel pilot and navigator seats ready to install.

Since all of the seat prep work was being done on a work surface in the building I took advantage of the access I had to the cockpit area. I borrowed a scraper and scrapped off small fragments of carpet. I borrowed a spray bottle of Spic-n-Span and cleaned the swivel pedestals. I discovered a small piece of paper blocking the lower left HVAC nozzle and removed it. I also discovered that the fresh air damper was not buried deep in the front end of the coach like I thought it was. The lever by the driver’s left knee, which has been so difficult to operate, actuated a short cable that controls a damper just to the left of the steering column below the dash. I was able to use two cable ties to secure some wire bundles out of the way of the damper allowing it to open wider and to open/close more easily. I finished by borrowing a small shop vac and vacuuming up all of the loose material I had created.

The old 6-way power bases being attached to the new Flexsteel pilot and navigator captains seats. The new seats came with new controls that Tyler had to mount and wire. Both seats also included lumbar support air bladders with their own air pump as part of the seat.

I borrowed a piece of 3/4″ plywood about four feet long and put it across the two pedestals of the desk to make a temporary work surface. I got the folding chair out from under the bed, along with my computer and iPad, and got the “desk” set up to use my computer. I tried to get photos with my camera of the different aspects of the project throughout the day. I also took seven pictures with my smartphone and sent them to Linda’s smartphone so she could see the progress. Josh’s wife stopped by to check on his schedule and I gave her a tour of the remodeling project.

A view of the bottom of the two new Flexsteel “class C” captain’s chairs for the passenger side of the of the living room with one of the slide/swivel bases and its seatbelt attachment bar.

I got our Verizon Mi-Fi online, connected my iPad to the Wi-Fi Ranger, connected the WFR to the Mi-Fi, and then started my computer and connected it to the WFR. I checked my e-mail and there was one from RVillage regarding a new group feature, group home page feeds, and asking that group owners post to their group home page feeds and create an announcement for the group that would notify everyone in the group of the new feature.

As long as I was in RVillage I created a new private, non-searchable group called RVIG (for RVillage Investors Group) and invited Curtis, the founder/CEO of RVillage, to join. He accepted and I private messaged him, which prompted a phone call that resulted in me transferring ownership of the group to him. He wanted to change “Investors” to “stakeholders,” which I agreed was a better term. It also turns out that an a priori “friend” connection is needed to invite someone to join a group and Curtis was the only person who would have such a connection with all of the RVillage stakeholders. I always thought that Curtis should create and manage this group but he has so much on his plate that sometimes it’s easier if someone else initiates something and then hands it off to him. I was glad to be the catalyst in this case.

It was another long day but I spent a relatively small percentage of it on my hands and knees, or on my back looking under the dashboard, which I have not been physically able to do in until today because of the very confined space in front of the driver’s seat. I brought one of our folding Zip Dee chairs inside and set it up on the passenger side of the living room so I had someplace comfortable to sit and use my iPad. I spent several hours finishing yesterday’s post and writing today’s post. All four of the seats are supposed to be installed tomorrow morning and I should be on my way to Elkhart Campground by noon. Linda plans to leave between 11AM drive down in the Element with the cats. She should arrive about 3-1/2 hours after she departs from the house by which time I should have the bus parked and hooked up.

2015/08/31 (M) A Major Sub-Project Done

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We both took Advil PM before bed last night as both of us were sore and tired from a long day of work and needed a good night’s sleep. We awoke at 8 AM to dense fog but it was not unexpected as I saw the advisory on the weather forecast before I went to sleep last night. I made a pot of the Costa Rican half-caff coffee while Linda washed blueberries and got our granola ready. We enjoyed our coffee in the living room with the cats on our laps and listened to Dr. Michael Greger’s daily research summary on NutrionFacts.org.

We were still a bit tired and sore but finally got back to work on the bus at 10:30 AM just as Keith showed up to mow the grass. After opening up the bus and the “workshop”(garage), and getting out the air-compressor and hooking it up, we got the piece of underlayment out of the bedroom that we cut last night but still needed to trim. I cut about 1/8″ off of the passenger side end and cut off the front corner on that end so it would clear the piece of vertical trim. With those adjustments it dropped into place and I stapled most of it to the subfloor. I would have stapled the whole piece but we ran out of staples.

We had already measured and drawn the second piece for the bedroom but without staples we were at a standstill. Linda needed to pick up a few things at the grocery store, so we closed up the house and bus and made an errand run. I dropped her at Meijer’s and drove across the street to Lowe’s. I bought another pack of 1,000 #18 staples, 3/4″ with 1/4” crown because that was the smallest quantity they sell. I also picked up a small bottle of pneumatic tool oil. I drove back to Meijer’s and waited in the parking lot for Linda to emerge. When she did she had eight grocery bags. I guess “a few things” is relative. She got a real hamburger patty and one slice of real cheese from the deli to serve to Kate tomorrow night.

Once we had the groceries unloaded and put away we got back to work on the underlayment. I laid out the next piece for the bedroom which had 11 angles. Even though I worked from a consistent reference point the numbers did not quite work out so I took additional measurements and made adjustments accordingly. When I was satisfied that the layout was close to correct we cut the piece out of the partial panel. I then cut it in half crossways to create two pieces each of which could be installed. We started with the half piece closest to the driver side.

Keith finished cutting the grass and came to get his check so we gave him the inside tour of the bus. He had seen the front part before but never been all the way to the back. He recognized that it was an ambitious project.

The other half of the back bedroom piece, towards the passenger side, took some tweaking but we finally got it in and stapled. The last piece for the bedroom should have been the easiest, a 42″ x 18″ rectangle for the aisle at the foot of the bed/storage box. It wasn’t a perfect rectangle, of course, so it also required adjustments. Things that should be at right angles rarely are and the flanges on the bottom of the HVAC chases do not have straight edges as I assumed they would. The adjustments are usually small but necessary to get the pieces to fit. So it was with the last piece for the main floor.

We thought we were done when Linda noticed a small “L” shaped area around the media cabinet behind the driver’s seat. We still had pieces of underlayment left over that were big enough to cut this piece. After measuring carefully and laying it out the numbers were once again not adding up. We still had the piece of art board that I used to create the templates for the base of the refrigerator alcove so I laid out the “L” shape on that but made it larger than needed. We positioned the template in the bus, trimmed the inside corner (not 90 degrees) and then marked where all the edges needed to be by tracing from underneath. I trimmed the template down and checked the fit. It looked good so I transferred it to the underlayment and we cut it.

We were finally done with the main floor underlayment so we cleaned up the bus by moving stuff to the garage/workshop. I disconnected the DeWalt 15 gallon air-compressor, moved it to the driveway by the garage, and opened the drain valve on the bottom, it had a LOT of water inside which reminded me that I really need to set up a water separator and inline oiler for use with this thing. Linda coiled up the power cord while I coiled up the air hose and stored it with the air-compressor in the front corner of the garage.

Somewhere in the middle of all this work we stopped and had lunch around 3 PM. It was now 6 PM, too early for dinner, so we decided to get cleaned up and go to Lowe’s to look for metal tile edging. As long as we were going to be out I thought we might drive over to Chuck’s shop in Novi to look at the air ride seat base. I called Chuck to see if that would work and he was headed that way anyway, so that is what we did. The Lowe’s in New Hudson did not have what we were looking for but the associate suggested that we try Blakely’s on West Road near Beck Road in Wixom. Chuck was still at his shop when we arrived so we had a nice chat, got the air ride base, and then went our separate ways.

It was 8:30 PM by the time we got home. I spent a few minutes checking e-mails and then we sat down to dinner at 9:15, a simple meal of mock fish fillets with vegan tartar sauce and fresh steamed Brussels sprouts.

I continued checking and responding to e-mails after dinner and then checked into RVillage. I posted a comment on a new topic in the Friends of Curtis YAY! group and a few minutes later got a call from Curtis. After catching up on each other’s activities and whereabouts he e-mailed me a couple of things to read and react to. When we concluded our chat I watched the 3rd installment of the video update series from Technomadia about the renovation of their vintage GM4106 bus conversion at MasterTech in Elkhart, Indiana. I sent them an e-mail regarding a pet friendly hotel that we used years ago when our Golden Retriever (Einstein) was still alive and went with us on a week-long visit to Elkhart to tour motorhome factories. (Einstein’s AKC name was Karie Jame Ricky Ricardo. We got him from the Karie Jame breeders and he was from the Latin Lovers litter.) It was then off to bed to write for a while before going to sleep.

2015/06/19 (F) Roof Box

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The Apex roofers were back again this morning just before 8 AM and we were up and ready for them. I made coffee but we deferred breakfast until after we settled the bill with owner Pat Davidson. By 9 AM he knew what the added costs were over and above the base quote. The major one was the 32 sheets of plywood they used to repair/replace bad areas of the roof deck. He left around 10 AM and took half the crew with him to start another job. The other four guys stayed behind and finished roofing the garage and cleaning up the job site. The job was pretty much wrapped up by noon. Sergio (the foreman) did the final walk-around and cleanup and left around 1 PM. There is very little evidence that they had been here except for an attractive new roof and two skylights in the living room that light up the space in a nice way.

I spent the morning inventorying coaxial cables. We have quite an assortment of 50 and 75 ohm cables in lengths from 1 to 100 feet. I need to have all the necessary cables on hand when I climb the tower next week to remove and install antennas. If we already had appropriate cables I wanted to use those instead of buying new ones.

The custom cable entry box from Chris at KF7P Metalwerks arrived today. I opened it after lunch, which consisted of fresh apples and leftover black beans and rice. We both agreed that the beans and rice dish was even better than when it was fresh. We unpacked all of the parts that were stored inside the cable entry box and checked them off against the spreadsheet I used to order them. Everything was there but I was initially concerned because the box was turned 90 degrees from what I ordered. I specified a 16″ wide by 20″ tall box but got a 20″ wide by 16″ tall instead. I suspect that Chris buys the boxes with the door/hinge already attached but it would have been nice to know that ahead of time.

We took the box outside and held it in place to see if it would be usable. The lower left corner will hang down in front of the basement window in the sump pump room but that will be OK. The horizontal orientation of the box will actually make it easier to get coaxial cables through the access holes in the bottom.

There were two a Morgan Lightning arrestors mounted on the copper back plane for amateur radio use; one for HF and one for VHF/UHF. The UHF arrestor was upside down so I unscrewed it, rotated it 180 degrees, and screwed it back down. The box also had a Morgan M-348 lightning arrestor. I ordered an M-348B, which is the 12-wire version, but the installed arrestor had 12 terminals on top (3 strips of 4 each) plus one on each side. There were no instructions, however, on how to wire it up so I sent Chris an e-mail regarding the anomalies and missing information.

While I was working on that e-mail, and a couple from Josh at Coach Supply Direct, we got a call from Curtis Coleman of RVillage. The development team had launched some new features and he wanted to walk me through them. He had just been to Prevost in Nashville for some repairs on his tag axle brakes and was headed back to Cleveland, Ohio. He thought he might be headed in our general direction after that.

I spent some time thinking about how to mount the cable entry box on the east wall of the house which is sided in a shiplap fashion, i.e., the horizontal siding boards are angled (not plumb) and overlapped. I needed a hole saw and arbor for my 1/2″ drill to drill the holes for the two 2″ conduits that will pass from the box through the bond into the sump pump room in the basement. I probably already have one but I cannot get to most of the stuff in the garage and can’t afford to delay getting this box mounted; there are too many other things that need to get done that require this box to be in place first.

I was suffering from a decided lack of patience which is not the proper frame of mind for working on scale drawings of custom furniture so I went to Lowe’s to get a hole saw. The fitting measured 2-3/4″ OD and I decided to get a 3″ hole saw just to make sure the hole would be big enough. While I was at the store I considered how I might use different materials to mount the box. I ended up buying a 36″ length of 1″ square aluminum tube and some stainless steel lag screws, bolts, washers, and Nylok nuts. My plan was to cut the tube into two 18″ pieces and use them in a vertical orientation between the box and the house. They would span multiple boards, creating a plumb mounting surface, and provide support for the lower left corner which would otherwise be unsupported.

When I got back to the house I took the tube out to see how it would work. The idea was a good one but the 18″ lengths would be too short. I bought the only piece of 1″ tube that Lowe’s had so I knew I would have to find another one somewhere else. Linda suggested that we try the Lowe’s in New Hudson after breakfast tomorrow but I was still feeling impatient about the whole thing.

I had a long chat with Michele Henry from Phoenix Paint. I then relaxed with a small glass of Moscato, a nice pre-meal wine, while Linda prepared a wonderful dish for dinner of roasted red potatoes with onions, garlic, rosemary, and power greens. It was a simple dish but so delicious and hearty.

The meal concluded and the table cleared I went to The Home Depot in Howell where I found a 48″ length of 1″ square aluminum tube. If 24 inches turns out to be long enough to support the box the way I want I will cut the 48″ piece in half and return the 36″ piece to Lowe’s. I called Chuck on the drive home to follow up on a text message I sent him yesterday regarding the delivery of our new refrigerator to his bus garage in Novi.

Feeling like I had finally accomplished something today we relaxed for an hour and then settled in to watch a movie. Linda had borrowed the DVD of Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon, from the Howell Library earlier in the week and we reserved this evening as movie night.

My goal for tomorrow is to get the cable entry box installed. That sets the stage for climbing the tower and installing three antennas once I have the proper coax cables and some rope to temporarily guy the tower. But those details will wait until Monday as family is coming to brunch on Sunday for Father’s Day and a belated birthday celebration for our daughter.

2015/06/08 (M) Home for a While

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It rained until well after midnight last night. The rain was not steady but more in the form of heavy downpours associated with thunderstorms. The gutter along the rear of our house was not able to handle the volume of water and it was spilling over onto our deck making a sound that we are not used to. I noted that I should check the gutters for clogs at the downspouts today. My phone chirped, which meant I had an e-mail, and I presumed it was from our whole house generator. When I got up this morning the clocks on the microwave and range were flashing “2:06”, so my first thought was that we must have taken a power hit then, but the messages on my phone indicated that utility power had been lost and restored around 3:45 AM; at least that was the date/time stamp on the e-mails. I got up just before 6 AM and finally figured out that the clocks probably reset to 00:00 when the power blipped (3:45 AM + 2:06 elapsed time = 5:51 AM).

I sat in the living room writing with my iPad and playing games until a little after 7 AM and then made coffee, which got Linda out of bed. We had planned to empty out more of the bus today but the weather was gloomy and we were tired from the rally so we had a long, leisurely morning before busying ourselves with inside chores. Linda worked at her desk and I wasn’t in the humor to work downstairs in my office so I set my computer up on the dining room table. Other than an occasional trip to the bus or the garage I mostly sat in front of my computer and talked on the phone all day.

Linda called Alchin’s, our regular trash collection company, to see if they would pick up the old RV furniture. They do not have a special truck they can send and could not take the steel furniture even if they could get it into their garbage truck. Linda suggested we find a company like “Got Junk” and searched online for one in the area. We decided to call “Chuck It Junk Removal” as they are located relatively close to our house. Keith, from Kish Lawn Care, showed up around 11 AM to cut the grass and Brad, from Chuck It Junk Removal, showed up around 12:45 PM to look at the furniture and flooring we pulled out of the bus and give us a quote on the cost to haul it away. As Keith was finishing mowing the grass dark clouds were rolling in from the west and not long after he left we had more rain, although nothing like last night.

My dentist thinks my current intermittent teeth issues are the result of clenching my teeth at night so I made an appointment to get fitted for a mouth guard to wear while sleeping. I also got hold of Phil Jarrell and he decided that tomorrow morning at 8 AM would be a good time for him to stop by and take some elevation readings for the driveway extension and a French drain for the far west end of the property. Besides the obvious economy of having him do both jobs while he is on site, we need a place to put the topsoil he will dig out for the driveway and we need topsoil to fill in low spots on the west end of the yard.

I managed to finally get some orders placed today. The big one was for a SureCall Fusion5s multi-band cell phone booster (transceiver) system from Cellular Solutions in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. The other was for a window seal from Prevost. This is not the seal that holds the glass in the frame but rather a large rubber part that seals the space between the window frame and the structure of the coach. We may need to unlatch the large fixed window on the passenger side and use it to get the old refrigerator out and the new one in. This window frame has not been opened since we bought the bus and may not have been opened for many years before that, possibly not ever since the bus was built. I want the new seal on hand in case the current one gets damaged trying to open the window frame.

Besides these two purchases I talked to someone at A-1 Upholstery and described our home made sofa plans. She suggested that we would need ~9 yards of 54″ wide material for the sofa seats and back cushions. I sent an e-mail to Josh at Coach Supply Direct reminding him of some things we had discussed at the rally last week and Rick Short at Isringhausen with questions about their 6800 series bus driver seats. I also finally got to talk to Mike at Suburban Seating in New Jersey. As I suspected we cannot buy the seat directly from ISRI, but I may be able to order it through Suburban Seating and pick it up from ISRI USA in Galesburg, Michigan. That would be much nicer than having it shipped to our house on a truck from New Jersey.

I called Rupes/Cyclo to try to get answers to a few questions about the Cyclo 5-Pro Mark II Dual Head Orbital Polisher and its various pads but could not figure out how to talk to a real person. I submitted the online Contact Form with my questions and got a speedy reply from Cory as a result of which I now know what to order. All I have to do is figure out how many of each thing I need. The Cyclo 5 is available on Amazon Prime, by itself, but it did not appear to be the Mark II model. Some of the major distributors claim to give you a set of “free” ProGuard Orbital Backing Plates, but the Rupes/Cyclo website clearly states that the polisher is not sold without one of the three head options. I prefer not to patronize businesses that misrepresent their offerings and will probably order the polisher, pads, and chemicals directly from Cyclo even if I am paying MSRP.

I got a call from Gary Hatt at Bus Conversion Magazine. I had not looked at or replied to e-mails in over a week and he wanted to make sure everything was OK. While we were talking we got a call from Curtis Coleman of RVillage so Linda took that initially until my other call was concluded. I had e-mailed Curtis earlier in the day and he was responding to that communique.

Somewhere in the middle of all that we had chickpea salad on a bed of greens for lunch. Linda then went for a walk, met Chris (K8VJ) at Lowe’s to pick up some SLAARC mail, and roasted vegetables for our dinner when she got home. I sent Chuck Spera a short e-mail inquiring about how to open the latches on our emergency escape window and then called it a night.

2015/06/02 (T) GLAMARAMA 2015 (Day 0)

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We were up at 7 AM and had cinnamon toast for breakfast but did not have coffee. We checked various routes to the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds (EC4HFG) and searched online for information about any possible road construction problem areas but did not find anything that looked problematic. By 8 AM we had started preparing the bus and car for travel. Linda walked over to Curtis’s coach to say “so long for now” but all the shades were down so she sent him a text message that we were on our way. We pulled out of our site at 8:15 AM. I pulled up clear of other RVs and stopped to wipe off the passenger side mirror which was obscured with dew. I am always surprised that I don’t notice things like that before we start to move.

We took CR-4 west to SR-19 and went south, crossing over the Indiana Toll Road, to CR-6. There are times of the day that this intersection would be very busy but traffic was light this morning and I had no trouble getting into the correct turn lane and completing the turn. CR-6 is a 4-lane road and moved along nicely all the way to CR-17 except for a short lane closure for local maintenance. We turned south on CR-17, took it down to US-20, and headed east. As I expected, this stretch of US-20 was still very much under construction with only one lane open in each direction and no wide loads over 11 feet permitted. Traffic was more congested and slower but it moved along. When we got to SR-15 we turned south and ran along nicely until we got to a construction zone that had the road down to one lane with flaggers. We waited patiently and eventually got through the bottleneck. We were routed through a short detour and then finally entered Goshen. We followed the SR-15/US-33 Truck Route and found ourselves in another one lane construction zone with flaggers, and a train thrown in for good measure, but we eventually made it to our turn onto eastbound CR-34 (Monroe Street) and drove the final mile to Gate 5 of the EC4HFG.

We were directed to the staging area where we unhooked our car. We were then led to the area reserved for our Great Lakes Converted Coaches Chapter and backed into our site. The Laughing Raven Touring Co. bus was already parked in our area. We saw this bus at Elkhart Campground while walking but did not realize it was headed to the rally. The owner, Mark Lovegreen, is not a member of our chapter but wanted to park with other buses and we were glad to have him. I reserved 12 parking spaces, the parking crew gave us 13, and I had a least one coach that was not going to show up so we had the space. Also, Pat and Vicki Lintner got parked on hard surface nearby as the ground in our area was very soft when they arrived on Sunday. In addition to being our chapters National Director Pat is the Senior VP of GLAMA would normally be parked elsewhere except that he likes to park with the chapter.

While Linda set up the interior and made coffee I hooked up the electrical power. Our main 50 A circuit breaker did not want to set. I finally pushed the lever hard enough to move it but did not like the way it sounded and did not get power to the coach. I have indicator lights that told me there was power at the coach end of the shorepower cord but I verified that using my VOM. I removed the cover from the disconnect box in our coach and verified that there was voltage present on both the L1and L2 bus but no voltage present on the output lugs of the circuit breaker. Bummer.

Linda turned off the 30A supply circuit breaker and unplugged the cord. I checked with the VOM that there was not voltage present and then unclamped the L1 and L2 load wires, removed them from the circuit breaker, and then removed the breaker from the box. I tested it for continuity and with the lever in the “ON” position and one leg showed a short but the other leg showed an open. That meant I should have had voltage coming through to our Progressive Industries EMS on one leg but I never did. Regardless, we needed a new breaker as at least the one side had clearly failed.

The circuit breaker was a Square D QO style 2-pole 50A model. I knew that Lowe’s carried QO breakers so Linda searched for the nearest store using her phone. There was one on US-33 back towards Elkhart so Linda fixed a “to go” cup of coffee for me and I headed there. They had a good selection of QO breakers including the 50A one that needed. I looked briefly at refrigerators and noted that they had the Frigidaire model we are considering in white, black, and stainless steel. Maybe we will drive up later to look at them.

I took a different route through Goshen to avoid the one lane construction zone. Back at the coach I refilled my coffee and got to work. As bus repairs go this one was pretty straightforward. Getting the two load wires into the circuit breaker clamps was a bit tricky but I got them in. The QO breakers snap onto a mounting rail at the bottom and then the contact fingers snap over two blades at the top. All of that took a bit of pushing but I got it in. I put the cover plate back on, reconnected the shorepower cord, turned on the supply breaker, and turned on the coach breaker. We had power to the coach but it shut off. I reset the breakers (turned them full off and then back on) and everything appeared to be fine and the power did not trip out after that.

With our power problem averted Linda walked over and got us registered and signed up for one of the few remaining time slots to work in the rally office. She had volunteered to work registration but most of the time slots were already filled and the only thing left was Saturday morning. Shortly after she returned to our parking area three more buses showed up: Bill and Karen Gerrie, Mike and Kathy Dickson, and Joe and Mia Temples. Next in were John and Paulette Lingafelter followed by Don and Sandra Moyer. Late in the afternoon Scott and Tami Bruner arrived. That only left a couple of coaches arriving tomorrow.

I borrowed a sledge hammer from Joe Temples and pounded three pieces of rebar into the ground to serve as supports for the clubs three flag holders. A number of RVs around the rally site had the same design and I suspect that there was an article in the magazine, or something online, about how to build these. They are very simple and inexpensive, can be taken apart for transporting, and rotate with changes in wind direction. Our club as a USA flag, a Canadian flag, and a Chapter flag.

We all stood around in small, shifting groups talking about this and that. I laid down around 2 PM and napped for about 90 minutes. We are conveniently located to one of the bathroom/shower facilities so Linda took a shower there so as to not use up the good water in our tank. By 6 PM most of our group had left to go out to dinner. We ate around 6:30 PM, having a nice, light supper of cold chickpea salad on a bed of power greens.

A little before 7 PM we drove back to Lowe’s to look at refrigerators. It turned out that the ones I saw were the 18 cu. ft. models not the 16 cu. ft. one we need/want. The 18 cu. ft. model would fit in our alcove but take up the entire width leaving no space for a pull out pantry. We looked at solar powered spotlights for illuminating the flags at night but at $18 each decided not to buy any as we needed at least three and would ultimately need the approval of the club to buy them. We stopped at the Martin’s market on US-33 and picked up a deli tray brochure and a few grocery items.

Back at the rig there were lots of folks gathered in conversation. Linda and Vicki went for a walk while I chatted with Mark (from Alaska) and Scott. Scott and Tami recently had a new Whirlpool residential refrigerator installed in their bus so I went to see it. It’s a very nice French door fridge with lower freezer drawer but is too tall for our alcove. This is the style refrigerator Linda wanted but we could not find one sized to fit our space. Bill Gerrie helped me get the U.S. and Canadian flags off of the holders. Linda and Vicki returned just in time to help fold them properly. With darkness came much cooler temperatures and everyone retreated to the warmth and comfort of their coaches.

Someone reminded us that Paul’s Seating in Elkhart was a good place to shop for furniture so Linda Googled it and found the website. There were pictures of lots of chairs, including a barrel chair, but no information about dimensions, fabric options, or prices. We will likely go to Martin’s in the morning and place a food order and then drive in to Elkhart and find Paul’s. The critical path for our interior remodeling project goes directly through the selection of furniture and then through the refrigerator replacement so we are starting to feel some pressure about getting decisions made and orders placed.

2015/06/01 (M) Bradd and Hall et al

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The temperature dropped into the upper 40’s last night. Although the temperature in the bus only dropped to about 64 degrees F I was cold and did not sleep soundly. The electric heater pad is still on the mattress but was not plugged in so I could not use it. Linda developed a bad sore throat during the night (there are no good ones) and also did not sleep well. We got up around 7 AM and I made coffee while she got dressed and drove to the nearby Martin’s supermarket for Ibuprofen and Chloraseptic throat lozenges. Sore throats are no fun. We both hope this passes without requiring medical intervention.

We are in the newest section of Elkhart Campground which consists of narrow pull-through 50 Amp full hookup sites that are long enough to leave a towed car connected to a 45 foot motorhome. The section is not full but the motorhome on our passenger side had their GLAMARAMA 2015 parking and volunteer placards in the window this morning. We finally opened our registration packet and found that we also have a volunteer placard since Linda is volunteering at the registration table. We also discovered that we could have arrived at the Fairgrounds this morning and stayed for no charge. Oh well, Elkhart Campground is more convenient to Bradd and Hall and other Elkhart area vendors and if we checked into the rally we would immediately be working and socializing instead of shopping. One must be clear about their priorities.

Bradd and Hall is open from 9 AM to 5 PM Monday through Friday. We got there around 9:45 AM and had just gone inside when I got a call from Curtis Coleman. We was headed east on I-80 from Iowa with his sights set on Cleveland and Columbus Ohio and did not realize we were in Elkhart. He brought me up-to-date on some things having to do with RVillage and we discussed him coming to our house to hang out once he had taken care of some business later this week and we got back home from the rally.

At Bradd and Hall we were assisted by Stephanie. Bradd and Hall had a good selection of Flexsteel Captain’s chairs and Lambright Comfort Chairs but did not have any Flexsteel barrel chairs. That was more than disappointing as we thought the Flexsteel bolt down barrel chair might be just what we need to provide seating, with seat belts, on the passenger side of the coach that can swivel to face anywhere from forward to aft. They had two Flexsteel Captain’s chairs that we found comfortable enough and were not too large. Either one might do nicely to replace the front passenger seat, and possibly to replace the driver’s seat, although I am holding out for an ISRI air-suspension driver’s seat. We took cell phone photos of each of us sitting in various seats, photographed product tags, and got several fabric samples but were no closer to a decision about seating when we left than we were when we arrived.

On the drive back to the campground we stopped at Factory RV Surplus to look for some electrical components but ended up looking at furniture. They had a barrel chair that we liked but no identifying information on it. We did, however, get some free popcorn. We were headed up SR-19 and decided to go on up into Michigan and pay Michelle Henry a visit at Phoenix Paint. There did not appear to be anyone around so we left and went back to our coach and had a bite of lunch. We had planned to also visit Lambright Comfort Chairs in Shipshewana, but we had been there before and figured they would not have anything different from what Bradd and Hall had on display. With both of us being tired and Linda still not feeling well we decided to stick around the bus and continue to do online research.

Sometime during the afternoon I got a call from Jim Marin wanting to know where we were parked. From our windshield I could see their motorcoach parked up by the office waiting to come into the campground. The space to our passenger side was vacant so they registered for that one and pulled on around and in. Jim and Lydia have a 1997 MCI 102DLS-3 Vantare conversion that they bought last September. It’s a nice coach and they got a good deal on the purchase. They got plugged in and set up while we connected our car for towing and then we stood around visiting in the cool temperatures and warm sun.

We were showing them what we have done to the inside of our coach and explaining what we plan to do when there was a knock on the door. It was Curtis Coleman. He had decided that Elkhart was far enough for one day and knew we were here as a result of our conversation this morning so he pulled in for the night and was parked one spot up from Jim and Lydia. We made introductions, finished looking at our coach and then toured Jim and Lydia’s bus. I brought my tape measure and tried to quantify the size of their furniture which appeared to fit very nicely in the available space. All of us then went to Curtis’s coach, which is also a 1997 Vantare conversion of a Prevost XL, and got a sense for his seating. Both coaches have ISRI driver’s seats and both Jim and Curtis really like them.

We had eaten dinner earlier so Marin’s returned to their coach for their evening meal and we left Curtis to tend to Augie Doggie and take care of RVillage business. Curtis came over later to visit and we sat in our coach in three lawn chairs and had a great chat. He returned to his coach at 10:45 PM and we went to bed a short time later. It was forecast to drop into the mid 40’s overnight so I closed the roof vents and turned on the electric heater pad on my side of the bed.

2015/04/01-03 (W-F) The Land of Enchantment

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2015/04/01 (W) Hello New Mexico

We were awake at 6 AM, which is not unusual for a travel day, and were up by 6:30. I went in the house to use the bathroom and instead of beeping once the alarm started beeping continuously. I found the touch pad and was able to silence it but it left me wondering if I had disturbed Curtis or when the police were going to show up. Curtis was outside working by 7:00 AM and told me later that he did not hear the alarm and that it “just does that sometimes.” We did not have breakfast or coffee, which is typical for us on a travel day, and targeted an 8:30 AM departure. By the time we took showers, finished preparing the coach for travel, and visited with Curtis a little more we missed that target, but not by much.

We wanted to be out the gate before Curtis’s standing 9 AM RVillage team meeting. By 8:45 we had the bus turned around and lined up with gate and Linda pulled the car up behind it. At 8:50 we were hooking up the car when Curtis came over to open the gate, exchange final hugs, and go start his meeting. We were hooked up and finished our light check by 9:05 and pulled out. As soon as we were clear of the gate Linda texted Curtis while I lowered the tag axle tires and we were on our way. We made the slow trip through Arizona City on Sunland Gin Road up to I-10 and were headed east at 9:17 AM.

Desert flowers in bloom in Hatch, New Mexico.

I set the cruise control at 63 MPH and let the bus roll towards Tucson. Tucson is not a difficult metropolitan area to transit and soon enough we were on the other side. The speed limit on most of I-10 in Arizona is 75 MPH except through metropolitan areas and major interchanges. The bus was running well and as traffic thinned out I bumped the speed up to 65 MPH and then to 68 MPH, and occasionally ran at the speed limit when passing slower vehicles. At 63 MPH the engine turns ~1,800 RPM and I have long felt that the powertrain and chassis, not to mention the driver (me), are very comfortable at that set point. The fact that 65 MPH is often the maximum speed limit in much of the eastern half of the country probably contributed to that impression. What I discovered today was that traveling 68 MPH at 2,000 RPMs also suits the bus, and the driver, very well.

At 12:15 PM MST we crossed the border into New Mexico and entered Mountain Daylight Time, changing the time on my phone to 1:15 PM MDT. Twenty four miles into New Mexico we stopped for the first time at a Pilot Truck Stop and topped up our fuel tank, taking on 110 gallons of diesel fuel. It took less than an hour to complete the last 61 miles to exit 85 on the east side of Deming, New Mexico. From there we had 1,000 feet to the entrance of the Escapees Dreamcatcher RV Park and pulled in. Linda got us registered and navigated us to our site at 2:45 PM. The park was only about 15% occupied so parking was easy.

Linda checked us in to the Park on RVillage and I called Butch Williams to let him (and Fonda) know we were finally on the move. Curtis monitors his RVillage home feed closely, so we knew he would know we arrived safely. Looking ahead to tomorrow the weather forecast for this area was for sustained winds of 25 – 30 MPH with gusts of 40 – 50 MPH. Given that forecast we decided to stay tomorrow and head on to Albuquerque on Friday.

Sparky’s restaurant in Hatch, New Mexico. Funky facade and great food.

Escapees RV Parks and co-ops have a long standing tradition of 4 PM happy hour so we walked over to the club house/office at 4:15 and found seven folks sitting around a table with their beverages plus the couple that manages the office. We stayed for a half hour and then went back to our coach to have an early dinner having only had pretzel snacks while we were driving. Linda prepared a whole wheat linguine with a garlic, onion, and sun-dried tomato sauté and added vegan Italian sausage. It was excellent, as usual.

Our son had texted us while we were driving and said he would call us later. He received an e-mail a couple of days ago asking him to get in touch with the chair of the art history department at Eastern Michigan University. That call took place today and he was offered the assistant professorship for which he has been interviewing these last many weeks. We were obviously very excited, very pleased, and very proud.

2015/04/02 (R) A Day in Deming

Like many (most) places in the southwest there are lots of things to see/do in and around Deming, more around than in in this case. The main thing I knew about Deming is that the company that makes the Steer-Safe aftermarket steering stabilizer is located here. We had their product on our Itasca Sunrise motorhome and it made an enormous difference in the stability and tracking of the Chevy P-30 chassis. This chassis was notorious for poor ride quality and handling, no doubt exacerbated by the stupid way in which manufacturers used it to create much longer motorhomes than it was designed for with long overhangs behind the drive axle. Steer-Safe, Henderson’s Lineup, and Banks have, in particular, all made very good businesses out of correcting the deficiencies inherent in this chassis and powertrain (454 cu. in. Chevy big block V-8). We were obviously excited to find and buy our Prevost H3-40 Royale Coach bus conversion, but I was sorry to see the Itasca go as it handled well and had lots of power by the time we were done spending money on it.

Linda needed to do some grocery shopping and at happy hour yesterday was steered towards Peppers as having better/fresher produce than the Wal-Mart. She went to Peppers this morning but they did not have many of the things she was looking for so she went to Wal-Mart and said she liked it better. I guess we got spoiled having access to Albertson’s supermarkets for most of the winter. Linda called from the store to have me check quantities of ingredients on hand. She then decided to make her chickpea salad and use it as a filling for small roll ups to take to the potluck dinner this evening.

Another flower in bloom in Hatch, New Mexico.

After lunch we decided to visit the Luna Mimbres Museum in downtown Deming. You never know what you are going to find in small town museums but we were impressed with the breadth of the collection and the quality of the space and exhibits. Admission was by voluntary donation so we contributed something. Once we finished at the museum we drove around town just enough to get a feeling for the place which was nicer in some places and not so nice in others. In other words, pretty much what we see most places we go with the exception of places like Scottsdale or Lake Havasu City, Arizona where everything appears to be new and very upscale.

As we headed back towards the Escapees Dreamcatcher RV Park in the east end of town we decided to drive the extra 3.6 miles farther east to the St. Clair Winery’s Deming tasting room. We learned that the Lescombe family has been making wine for six generations starting in France and, for the last 30 + years, here in the Mimbres Valley Appellation of New Mexico. Their wines are made only from grapes from their own vineyards, with the main one being approximately 46 miles west of Deming.

The free tasting is normally two wines but we were the only customers there initial and Elly let us try small samples of several more, including their sweet and dry “tap” wine. For under $4 a bottle they will fill your empty bottles with their red and/or white tap wines; sweet, dry, or blended any way you want. The most unusual wines we tried were infused with red or white chili. Linda did not care for the white chili but we both liked the red chili. We are always looking for something that is unique to an area we visit and the red chili wine was what we have been waiting for so we got one for each of our kids and one for us. Since we got 10% off of six (6) or more bottles we also bought the Mimbres Red, the Nebiola, and the D. H. Lescombe Port.

We had intended to go to the 4 PM happy hour at the RV Park but Linda got busy researching where we might go tomorrow and what we might do there while I worked on another consolidated blog post. We did, however, remember to go to the potluck dinner where we met other park guests including three people who belonged to RVillage.

We went for a walk after dinner and then settled in for the evening. I worked on my consolidated blog post for Jan 27-31, 2015. While I was doing that we both started getting messages from our whole house generator. Linda checked the utility company map and we were in a small outage area do to “local equipment failure.” Before I went to bed I received several more messages indicating that the utility power had been restored, the transfer switch had switched power back onto the grid, and finally that the Genset had stopped. It was good to know that it was performing as intended; that’s why we had it installed.

Hatch Chile Sales in Hatch, New Mexico.

Temperatures back home have been warm enough that we are no longer concerned about water pipes freezing if we lose power. The concern now is the sump pump. As winter gives way to spring the sump pump runs every few minutes and a failure would be a disaster for our basement. In addition to the whole house generator we have a secondary sump pump piggybacked on the primary one and set up to run off of a 12VDC automotive battery.

Before going to bed we decided to stick around Deming for a few extra days and use it as a base to visit some sites in the area.

2015/04/03 (F) The Chile Capital of the World

After taking care of some morning chores we drove to Hatch, New Mexico. Several folks in town (museum, winery) and the RV Park told us that Hatch was THE chile capital of the world and was worth a visit.

We went north out of Deming on US-180 and then NE on NM-26 to Hatch. Our Rand McNally Road Atlas indicated that this entire trip was a scenic route. It was a relatively flat drive up a valley with low mountains on either side, and was certainly scenic enough although not in a dramatic, jaw-dropping sort of way.

The front (outdoor) area of Hatch Chile Sales in Hatch, New Mexico.

Hatch was a small, quaint place but busy with people and traffic. We had checked around and been advised that Hatch Chile Sales was the best place in town to shop for chiles, so we found it and purchased three different kinds. We go a bag of Ancho chiles, which are dried/smoked poblano peppers, and a bag of dried red Hatch chiles. We also bought bouquets of small hot pequin chiles, one for us and some as gifts. Again, this is one of those unique things that we are always looking for as gift items.

We were in Hatch at lunch time and there are several restaurants in town, but we decided to eat at Sparky’s based on the recommendation of several locals and some online reviews. Sparky’s is famous for their green chile cheeseburger although we obviously did not have that for lunch. There was a long line to order, but we waited patiently and studied the menu. We ordered a corn dish, spicy French fries, and chili infused lemonade. All of them were very good. There was also a singer / guitar player performing and we enjoyed his music while we ate.

We drove back to Deming by way of I-25 south, taking a short-cut through Las Cruces and back to the Dreamcatcher RV Park by way of I-10. It was a much longer drive than if we had gone back the way we came, but it allowed us to see that the cut-off through Las Cruces was NOT a good choice for the bus due to lots of road construction with lane closures and shifts. Even so, we made it back to the RV Park in time for some of the happy hour. We also decided to stick around for at least another day and do some more sight-seeing in the area.

2015/03/27-31 (F-T) Wrapping Up Arizona

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2015/03/27 (F) Queen Creek Olive Mill

This is really Linda’s post more than mine. Lou and I stayed in camp all day working with our information technologies while Linda and Val went on an explore. I have been using my iPad2 to go through drafts of blog posts dating back to March 1st filling in details, turning notes into complete sentences, and then e-mailing them to myself. I got caught up as far as that goes and then started writing drafts of posts for the last few days.

Linda and Val made a day if it away from camp. Linda took our car and drove them to the Queen Creek Olive Mill (QCOM) in Queen Creek, Arizona just beyond the southeast limits of the Phoenix metropolitan area. QCOM is a large olive grove producing 17 different varieties of olives. (Technically it is an orchard as olives are a stone fruit.) The hot, dry desert conditions in this part of the U. S. turn out to be ideal for growing olives. They are harvested by spreading tarps on the ground around each tree and stripping the olives off. Olives that fall to the ground naturally are past ripe and are not used.

Once harvested olives are processed within 24 hours. For pressing into olive oil they are simply washed to remove dust and then pressed (ground or milled, actually), pits and all, to extract the oil. The mash that remains is used as fertilizer for the trees. Olives that are destined to be sold whole may be packaged whole in a brine or have the pits removed and replaced with a piece of garlic or habanero pepper and preserved in a brine.

QCOM has a restaurant so the ladies stayed for lunch. Val had a chopped Italian salad and Linda had a quinoa and kale salad, both of which they said were ‘excellent’. The Mill also had a gift shop and Linda picked up several things there.

It was late afternoon by the time they returned and neither of them felt like cooking so Lou suggested we go out for dinner and try the Chinese restaurant we intended to eat at a few nights ago when we ended up at the Golden Corral. We piled into Lou and Val’s pickup truck and set off in search of Big Wa. Linda had checked the menu online so we knew they had several vegetarian dishes we could probably eat.

Lou and Val had been to Big Wa before and knew approximately where it was but Linda pulled it up on her smartphone and guided us in for a soft landing. Big Wa was a small mom and pop Chinese restaurant; the kind we used to patronize a lot back home once upon a time. We rarely go to Chinese restaurants anymore because it is essentially impossible to get anything vegan. We ordered vegetable Kung Pao stir fry and Moo Shu vegetable dishes. We suspect that chicken broth was involved in the stir fry and I think the Moo Shu, which was already made up when it came to the table, contained eggs. We rarely stray from our chosen diet and although doing so doesn’t kill us our systems do not always react well either. In this case our dishes were mostly vegetables and it was very tasty.

We stopped at Home Depot so I could look for a GE Water filter cartridge and then stopped at Walgreen’s so Val could pick up some things. It was well past dark by the time we got back and we retired to our respective rigs for the night. Linda and I watched some TV (Big Bang Theory) and she played online word games while I responded to some e-mails. Linda liked Queen Creek Olive Mill well enough to enter it in the RVillage Marketplace and recommend it.

A panorama of our motorcoach parked at RVillage World Headquarters in Arizona City, AZ.

2015/03/28 (S) Haircuts

Linda was awake by 6 AM and read quietly in bed. I was awake before 7 AM and got up, put on my sweats, and made a pot of coffee. Our two cats climbed up on us to be adored and when they’d had enough of our attention we had some granola for breakfast. Linda got our last bag out of the freezer so if we want this to last until we get home we will not be having it for breakfast every day.

I have been overdue for a haircut for a while so this morning we finally got the clippers out and Linda lightened the load. Not that my hair was long, but the daytime temperatures have risen into the 90’s and it is much cooler and more comfortable with my buzz cut. As long as the clippers were out I trimmed up my beard and shaved. Linda said I cleaned up pretty well. 🙂

Linda is also way overdue for a haircut but I am not about to attempt that. She and Val had planned to go to the mall in Casa Grande today anyway, so she did a quick online search and located a hair salon at the mall. She assembled a short shopping list and added the haircut to it.

While they were gone I pulled together all of my blog post drafts for the period before, during, and after the Escapees RV Club Escapade rally into a single Word doc and attached it to an e-mail to Lou. He plans to use it as the starting point for an article about the Escapade in the next edition of our SKP Photographers BOF newsletter.

Lou and I needed a break from working with our technology so we put two of our camp chairs in a shady spot with a nice northeast breeze and just sat and relaxed and chatted. Lou asked about the barn we plan to build and I described the three approaches I am considering. We were still doing that when the ladies returned home late in the afternoon. They had both done some shopping so I helped carry bags of stuff into our rig.

Linda made a nice salad for our dinner and Val heated up leftovers for them. There is a period of time in the late afternoon when the sun shines into the covered porch of the house and is so hot it us uncomfortable to sit there. Small ants have also appeared with the hot weather so we ate inside at the dining room table. We lingered for a long time talking before finally retiring to our rigs for the night.

Curtis got a good deal on this Fleetwood Bounder. He plans to put it in a rental pool.

2015/03/29 (N) Mexico Connection

I made arrangements on Friday for us to visit with Larry and Orene Brown today. We left at 10 AM to drive to their place northwest of Florence, Arizona. Larry and Orene are members of both FMCA and Escapees and belong to the Freethinker groups of both clubs, along with several related RVillage groups. We crossed paths with them most recently at the Escapade and agreed to get together after we returned to Arizona City. We stopped briefly in Coolidge to buy flowers at the local Safeway and arrived at their place in the Del Webb (Pulte) developed Anthem communities at 11:10 AM.

Larry and Orene are also active in SKP Chapter 8 — Mexican Connection, and will be the wagonmasters for the Chapter’s February 2016 caravan/rally to Puerto Penasco, Mexico on the mainland shore of the Sea of Cortez. We have not had any desire to travel to/in Mexico, but after chatting with Larry and Orene at Escapade we became intrigued with the possibility of traveling with a good sized group and wanted to know more about it.

Larry gave us a tour of their house and Orene poured small glasses of wine which we enjoyed sitting outside under their Ramada. Orene made a green salad and vegan chili for lunch. Both were delicious and enjoyed with some iced tea. By the time we were done eating the air temperature had warmed past comfortable so we went inside where Orene served fresh strawberries and cantaloupe for desert.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in pleasantly stimulating conversation on a wide range of subjects including, but not limited to, the outing to Mexico next year. We got a lot of important insights, most of which furthered our interest in going. We have enjoyed getting to know everyone from our Freethinkers chapter we have had the opportunity to meet and hope to cross paths with Larry and Orene many times in the years to come.

As we wrapped up our visit at 4 PM I got a call from Curtis letting me know that he would probably be arriving tonight between 11 PM and midnight unless he decided to pull in to rest area, in which case he would arrive early tomorrow morning. Either way it meant that Lou would have to move their 5th wheel trailer so Curtis could park his bus in its usual place. It also meant someone, most likely me, would have to open the gate when he got here. I tend to stay up late anyway, but we would obviously do whatever was required to get him in and settled.

As we were getting back to our encampment around 5:30 PM Linda called Lou to have him open the gate. After we were in and settled we let him know that Curtis would be returning late this evening. They were in the spot where Curtis parks his bus, so before it got dark Lou hitched up their 5th wheel and pulled it around 180 degrees to the east side of the driveway and pointed towards the gate. He plans to take their rig to Casa Grande tomorrow morning to buy some tires for the truck and the trailer and have them installed so the rig is positioned for an easy exit.

Having had a nice lunch Linda and I just had hummus with chips and grapes for dinner and watched several episodes of The Big Bang Theory. Curtis called at 9 PM to let me know he would be arriving around 11 PM. Linda headed off to bed while I let Lou and Val know that Curtis was definitely arriving yet this evening. I then settled in to watch TV while I waited for the call to open the gate. That call came a little before 11 PM. I opened the gate, waited for Curtis to pull in, closed the gate, and helped him get parked. I returned the gate fob and house key and we chatted about RVillage and the FMCA rally while Augie got reacquainted with his yard. Curtis asked if I would take some interior and exterior photographs of his Fleetwood Bounder before we left so he could use them to help advertise it for rent and of course I agreed. I then retired just before midnight, leaving him to finish unpacking a few things from his bus and car

Another view of Curtis’s Bounder.

2015/03/30 (M) Re-Tired

Since we knew at 4 PM yesterday that Curtis would be returning late last night, Linda started doing several loads of laundry as soon as we got back to camp. We watched TV and snacked for dinner while the loads washed and dried. She took the last load out of the dryer around 9 PM and we then folded clothes and made the bed. She turned in while I waited up to let Curtis in the gate.

I slept in until 8 AM his morning and finally got up when I heard (and smelled) the grinding of coffee beans. Breakfast was toast and fruit juice. As planned, Lou and Val left around 9:30 AM to take their truck/trailer to Discount Tire in Casa Grande. He needed two tires for the truck and two for the trailer.

Although Curtis did not leave Pomona, California until 4 PM yesterday he managed to make the 400 mile drive back to Arizona City in seven hours. In spite of what was obviously a long day for him he was up and working this morning, although we did not see him until later than usual. Launching a company is exciting but hard work.

Linda sat at the outside table and chatted with Curtis while I worked on blog posts at my computer in our bus. By 11:45 AM the temperature in the bus was 85 degrees so I turned the generator on, turned on all three air-conditioners, and closed up the coach. That kept it cool enough for the cats but I decided to take my computer into the house and work at the dining room table as the house is air-conditioned and quite comfortable.

I had copied all of the posts for January 15 – 21, 2015 into a single Word doc but by the time I finished editing it I decided it was way too long so I split it back up into individual daily posts. The other reason for doing this was that this was a very busy week during which I took a lot of photographs. I managed to upload posts to our WordPress blog for the 15th through the 19th. It was a small dent in what I need to accomplish, but it was something.

Val brought over a glass of fresh squeezed lemonade at 4:30 PM. By that time my computer battery was run down a bit and I was tired of staring at the screen so I took the computer back to our bus and plugged it in and then joined the others on the veranda to enjoy my glass of lemonade.

Although it gets pleasantly cool after the sun sets, and a bit chilly by sunrise, the hot days have brought out ants and midge flies, compounding the notion that we have probably lingered a bit longer in southern Arizona than is ideal. On the other hand, we are experiencing this for ourselves rather than trying to understand it second hand. Also, highs in the mid-to-upper 90’s are not typical for late March in this area, running 15 or more degrees above normal. That is the old (historical) normal, of course, not the new normal.

Curtis eventually rejoined use around 5:30 PM. We asked if he wanted to go out to dinner but he was not up for it so we all made and ate our own dinners. While Linda was cooking and I was wrapping up a conversation with Lou and Curtis I got a call from Butch Williams. He and Fonda had just arrived home having driven all the way from the Wal-Mart in Forest City, Arkansas. That same drive took us two days on the way out west in December. It was 7:30 PM here and 10:30 PM there.

Linda had the TV on while she was cooking and we watched NCIS Los Angeles and other Monday evening programs during and after dinner. She made a red beans and rice dish and added greens (kale) and crushed red pepper flakes which definitely kicked it up a notch. I continued working on blog posts while half paying attention to the TV programs.

One last look at Curtis’s new Bounder.

2015/03/31 (T) Farewell Arizona

As March draws to a close so does our time in Arizona. We have, and more specifically our motorhome has, been here since December 11, 2014 when we drove from the Escapees Dreamcatcher RV Park in Deming, New Mexico to the RoVers Roost SKP CO-OP near Casa Grande, Arizona. From there it was on to our winter “home” in Quartzsite where the bus remained parked until March 3rd.

On March 3rd we said our “so long, see ya down the road” to Butch/Fonda, Jim/Barb, and Jim Liebherr, our host/landlord while we were in Quartzsite. We drove to Arizona City and boondocked at the rental house of Curtis Coleman, founder and CEO of the RVillage social networking website for RVers. From there we relocated to an RV park in Tucson for a night and then went to the Escapees RV Club Escapade at the Pima County Fairgrounds where we worked very hard as event staff.

After the Escapade we drove back to Arizona City with Lou and Val Petkus, stayed three nights, and then drove over to Why, Arizona for a week to visit Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The four of us then went back to Arizona City to decompress for a week and try to catch up on some computer/Internet-based work.

While we were in Arizona City we managed to drive the Florence-to-Kelvin scenic road with Lou and Val Petkus, tour Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West (just the two of us), visit an Olive grove/mill (Linda and Val only), visit with fellow FMCA/SKP Freethinkers Larry and Orene Brown (me and Linda), and visit with Curtis when he was there as much as his work permitted. The daily high temperatures the last few days have been in the mid-to-upper 90’s while only a couple of hundred miles to the north they were just reaching 70 degrees F with lows at or just below freezing. Our Aqua-Hot is working better than our air-conditioners and we are ready to start moving east and north.

Lou and Val pulled out today at noon for the short drive to Tucson and checked into the Prince of Tucson RV Park where we stayed for one night just before going to the Escapade. We will depart tomorrow and head to Deming, New Mexico, or thereabouts. From there we plan to head over to Las Cruces and up I-25 to Albuquerque where we will look for a full-hookup RV park for a few nights so we can explore the area a bit.

From Albuquerque we will push on to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to visit my only uncle. A long day’s drive from there will put is in an RV Park near Edwardsville, Illinois not far from where Linda’s sister (Marilyn) and her housemate (Linda) live and a reasonable driving distance from my sister (Patty), niece (Amanda), and her family. We plan to hang out in the area for a while if folks can make time to visit with us and keep an eye on the weather and road restrictions in southeast Michigan.

Another day’s drive will put us at Butch and Fonda Williams’ place in Twelve Mile, Indiana; the place from which our two two-bus caravan departed for the southwest on December 3rd, 2014. We will likely linger there a few days and try to figure out what is going on with our two front air-conditioners. Once we leave there our final stop will probably be an overnight at the Turkeyville Campground south of Lansing, Michigan where we can dump our holding tanks in the morning before driving the last 80 miles to our house.

With the hot temperatures have come bugs so we spent a long evening inside the house having a relaxed conversation with Curtis and getting to know each other better. It was the first time we have had a chance to talk to him without RVillage being the focus of the conversation. We opened the bottle of Black Currant wine we bought at the Forestedge Winery in Laporte, Minnesota in July 2013 and remembered why we bought it and why we brought it along. It was nice to share it with our new friend. We finally went back to our coach at 9:30 PM, had an easy, light supper, and went to bed.

2015/03/24-25 (T-W) RVillage WHQ Redux

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2015/03/24 (T) Return to Arizona City, AZ

[Note: There are no photographs for this post.]

We targeted a late morning departure from Hickiwan Trails RV Park. The normal checkout time is 11:00 AM but that had nothing to do with our target as we were paid through Tuesday evening and the park was empty enough that the manager did not care when we left. The timing mostly had to do with the necessity of having some agreed target time when traveling with other RVers, not wanting to feel like we had to get up at the crack of dawn and get on the road, and not wanting to drive into the morning sun but wanting arrive at our destination by mid-afternoon. There is a lot that goes into something as simple as answering the question “what time are we going to leave?” which was preceded by answering the apparently equally simple question “what day are going to leave?”

We only had 120 miles to travel so an 11 AM departure met all of our requirements. We pulled out of our site about 10:45 AM and hooked up our car. I tried to adjust the driver’s side rearview mirror and could not position it where I wanted it. The mirror had loosened and moved on the support arm and needed to be repositioned. Lou got out his small step ladder and I found a star bit for my screwdriver. It took a bit of back and forth but I got the mirror repositioned and tightened so that the correct view was near the center of the motorized travel that I can control from the driver’s seat. By the time we put everything away and were ready to pull out it was 11:20 AM. 11 AM was a target, not a hard and fast requirement.

It was a warm day and Lou decided that he wanted to keep his speed at 50 MPH because he was unsure of the spare tire he had installed on their trailer on Thursday. That is slower than optimal for our bus, especially when the speed limit is higher than that. He suggested that we travel at whatever speed was comfortable for us and they would meet up with us sometime later at our destination. Once we cleaned Ajo we had a good run up AZ-85 at 55 MPH. The road is posted 65 MPH but it is a 2-lane highway with very little shoulder, so 55 felt just fine. Once we got on I-8 headed east the speed limit was 75 MPH. I set the cruise control at 63 MPH and let it roll. The bus likes that speed which has the engine turning ~1,800 RPM in the top gear of the transmission.

We did not need to stop for fuel or to rest so we rolled slowly through Arizona City to our destination and got ourselves parked at the RVillage headquarters. Lou and Val stopped to eat lunch and take on fuel and finally arrived an hour or so behind us. We circled our camp chairs, slumped into them, and said a collective “ahhhh.” It was beautiful and peaceful here, as always, with warm sun and a cool breeze. Linda captured a gorgeous sunset over the lake and mountains to the west on her cell phone. It cooled off quickly after the sun set and soon enough we retreated to our rigs for the evening.

Curtis is a very gracious host and even though we are boondocking he lets us use his wireless Internet connection. I wasted almost 4 GB of our 10 GB Verizon data plan last billing cycle trying to download a map update for our Rand McNally RVND 7710 GPS that failed after most of it had been downloaded. The GPS is an excellent device but the download/update protocol is one of the most stupid I have ever encountered. Why do I say that? Read on.

Almost 1,000 files are involved in the update and even at that a few of them are gigantic. The entire download of 4.4 GB has to succeed or everything is lost and you have to start over. Even on a good Internet connection it takes one-to-two hours for the download so the chances of having it fail are definitely non-zero. By 11 PM no one else was using the Internet and I was able to get everything downloaded in a little over an hour. It took another 30 minutes to install the updates into the GPS, after which it indicated there were more updates available. Thankfully those only took a few minutes to download and install and I managed to get to bed by 12:30 AM.

2015/03/25 (W) Chill’n at the Lake

In a switch from our normal routine Linda got up before me and made coffee while I slept in until 8 AM. We have our customary ways of doing things, but they are not hard and fast rules. We had toast and jam for breakfast with fresh grapefruit and coffee. We opened up the windows and turned on the exhaust fans to keep the inside of the bus comfortable for the cats and then moved to the shaded table on the porch by the lake. I took my iPad and worked on drafts of posts for the last two weeks.

Linda made up a nice lunch platter for each of us and brought it to the table where Lou and Val eventually joined us with their mid-day meals. Mid-afternoon Lou wanted to go find some tire stores and get prices for two new truck tires and two new trailer tires. I was ready for a break so I went along. That proved useful as I was able to use Google voice on my smartphone to research places and request navigation. Linda uses this feature all the time, but I rarely do. It’s pretty cool and I should probably use it more than I do.

Our first stop was the local SpeedCo truck tire and lube facility in Arizona City but they only sold 22″ and 24″ truck tires. We stopped at the Love’s truck stop across the street where I found the 12 VDC cigarette lighter style plug I needed to wire up the TireTraker repeater we got from Darryl Lawrence at Escapade to try out. We stopped at Discount Tire in Casa Grande next and that turned out to be the best quote Lou got. We stopped at the Arizona City Post Office at 4:30 PM on our way back to camp so Lou could mail something.

The rest of the day and early evening was spent by the lake quietly using our technology. Once the light faded and the temperature started to drop we returned to our rigs to have dinner.

2015/03/18-19 (W-R) Why, AZ

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2015/03/18 (W) Hickiwan Trails

Why, indeed? Or perhaps Why Not. You can go there too.

Looking east from Hickiwan Trails RV Park at sunset.

Bonnie left yesterday headed for New York (eventually) and Curtis was planning to leave today for next week’s FMCA national rally in Pomona, California. We were invited to remain at RVillage WHQ while Curtis was away, but we had our sights set on Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (OPCNM).

An Ajo Lilly at Hickiwan Trails RV Park.

Our original plan was to stay in the ‘modern’ campground at the Monument. It is strictly boondocking (no hookups) which would have been fine except that the section where generators are allowed is limited to only four hours a day with two windows from 8-10 AM and 4-6 PM. We could have managed on the four hour limitation for a few days, but the unequal spacing of the two windows would have drawn our batteries down more than we wanted during the 14 hours from 6 PM to 8 AM.

Linda searched for websites and found Hickiwan Trails RV Park in Why, Arizona. It was 10 miles south of Ajo, the nearest/only town of any size, and would locate us about 20 miles north of the north entrance to OPCNM. Linda called to make reservations, which were not necessary as it was past prime season and the park was mostly empty, and confirmed the availability of full hookups and 50 Amp power. The price was $19/day or $85/week with bathrooms/showers and a laundry. It was located just inside the Tohono O’Odham Indian Reservation behind their combination casino, filling station, and convenience store.

Wild burros on the trail leading east out of Hickiwan Trails RV Park.

We left Arizona City around 1 PM and traveled back west on I-8 to Gila Bend where we headed south on AZ-85 through the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, a beautiful drive through yet another part of the Sonoran Desert. We wound our way slowly through Ajo (25 MPH speed limit) past an enormous open pit copper mine (shut down) and continued on to Why, AZ where we took AZ-86 (the left branch of the “Y”) for two miles. We pulled in to the RV Park around 3:30 PM after missing the (poorly marked) entrance, finding a turn-around spot, and unhooking the car so we could turn around. Linda got us registered while I parked the bus. We drove through the campground and selected a 50 Amp back-in site facing east. Lou and Val took the site just south of us.

A group of wild burros watching us watching them.

Hickiwan Trails turned out to be a hidden gem. The park was clean, the roads and sites generous in their size, the bathhouse and laundry clean and fully functional, and the view in all directions amazing. We had barely finished making camp when we heard the braying of burros. The park manager, Dave, and several of the campers confirmed that there were wild burros in the area east of the campground and all we had to do to see them was hike out a wide, clear trail about 3/4 mile to the wash where they like to hang out. Or wait for them to come through the campground at night. Linda hiked out and found them and took a few photos with her cell phone.

The wild burros were obviously used to the presence of people.

Somewhere before pulling into the RV Park the driver side rear tire on Lou and Val’s 5th wheel trailer went flat. We got out our Dewalt air compressor and aired it up and the leak was immediately obvious, a 1/2 inch gash at the edge of the tread. It was likely not repairable but the condition of the tire tread, which was badly worn in one spot, ruled that out anyway. They had a spare that had never been used but was 10 years old. Not ideal, but it’s what they had. We discussed several options and Lou decided to sleep on it.

A nice family grouping of wild burros.

We took some sunset photos and let ourselves be awed by the dark night sky and plethora of stars before turning in for the night and using the park Wi-Fi which had initially been a bit fussy and not very fast. I discovered, however, that the connection stability and performance increased the later it got. By midnight I may have been the only user and was seeing a rock solid connection and almost 12 Mbps, which is outstanding for RV Park Wi-Fi.

It was a real treat to get such a good look at this wild animals.

2015/03/19 (R) First Things First

We came to this place to see and photograph nature; western landscapes, flora, fauna, and night skies. But our homes on wheels always take precedence over everything else except our personal health. Until the flat tire on Lou and Val’s 5th wheel trailer was fixed we were not going to be doing anything else. After thinking about it overnight, Lou decided to call Coach-Net. Yes, they could send someone out to take care of it. The guy arrived an hour or so later and in less than an hour had the bad tire/wheel off and the spare tire/wheel on and inflated.

I know they are wild animals, but this is just too cute.

You just can not have too many pictures of wild burros.

While the tire was being taken care of Linda and I hiked out the trail in search of the wild burros. We found them about a mile out, a group of 12 and another group of 5. As best we could count we saw and photographed between 17 and 20 wild burros in a beautiful, natural setting. On the way back we left the trail as we neared the edge of the campground and headed through a sparsely vegetated area, watching the ground carefully for snakes. We were strolling along when I heard a rattle and looked to my right to see a rather large snake coiled up and staring at me. It was only about 7 feet away and Linda had passed by it on the other side by about the same distance. It decided I was not a threat, uncoiled and slithered off under a large, nearby bush. That was when I could positively identify it was a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake that I judged to be at least five feet long, which is close to the maximum size they attain. It was so well camouflaged when coiled up that either of us could have easily stepped on it even though we were looking carefully where we were going.

They never took their eyes off of us.

Look carefully. That is, indeed, a very large Western Diamondback Rattlesnake.

By the time the tire issue was resolved it was too late to head down to OPCNM so we decided to scout out a good place to photograph the sunset. It turned out that there was a BLM 14-day STVA just south of Why on the west side of AZ-85. It was a maze of makeshift dirt roads and washes but we kept working our way west trying to get beyond where most of the campers were located. We were surprised at how far back some of them had gone and the size/type of rigs they had brought back there, including large tag axle motorhomes and a full-size tractor towing a huge 5th wheel trailer. We could not have gotten our bus in here without scratching the paint and risking getting stuck.

Panorama of a desert thunderstorm at sunset near Why, AZ.

We finally found a suitable spot and set up our cameras on tripods. Rain had passed through the area and there was a thunderstorm in progress over the mountains to the northwest. Lou concentrated on shooting HDR images with his small Sony camera which has excellent low light sensitivity and records colors very nicely. I concentrated on shooting panoramas and got several nice ones with rain falling from the storm clouds. We hung in as long as the color was good and then packed up our gear and found our way out while there was still just enough light to see.

Sunset as viewed from the BLM STVA just south of Why, AZ.

2015/03/14-16 (S-M) Escapade to RVillage

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2015/03/14 (S) Wrapping Up; Signing Up

I spent most of the day and evening processing photos, although I took time to dump the holding tanks and fill the fresh water tank. Linda and Val did Laundry and then went grocery shopping after which Linda started preparing the inside of our coach for travel. It was a long, busy, productive day but it was mostly chores and work, so not much to write about. We did, however, sign up to be staff at the July 2016 Escapade in Essex Junction, Vermont. I signed up to be the assistant staff photographer again while Linda signed up for any job that was in a quiet environment so she can hear. We really do enjoy the Escapade rallies.

Sunset as viewed from our campsite at the Pima County Fairgrounds near Tucson, AZ.

2015/03/15 (N) Back to RVillage WHQ

Today was our scheduled departure date but we did not need to vacate the Pima County Fairgrounds until noon. We would be caravanning a relatively short distance with Lou and Val and targeted 11 AM for our departure.

The more time we spend in our bus the less anxious we are the night before we are going to move to a new location, but there is still a certain anticipation about it. Moving the bus is not like getting in a car to go to work. It’s a big, complicated, machine and there are many details to attend to before we can move it. It also rarely travels the same route twice so we spend time researching and planning travel routes. Fortunately, we enjoy these aspects of the RV lifestyle and had most everything in order by the time we went to bed last night. We both slept well enough having worked and played fairly hard all week.

We had a leisurely morning and took care of the final preparations for travel. As it was getting to be 10 AM we had to ask someone to move a car so we could pull out. Paul Evert’s RV dealership had moved some of the rigs they had sold during the rally to the full hookup area where we were camped all week and had folks pull there trade-in units there so they could transfer their belongings. As a result the area was getting crowded and obstructed with cars parked wherever it was convenient (for the owner). The RV Driving School was also busy in one of the parking lots near us teaching people how to turn, back up, and park, including teaching the “spotter” (co-pilot/navigator) how to give hand signals to the driver. (This is actually the more difficult job requiring judgement, proper positioning, and clear/timely signals.) As long as the driver can see the spotter all they have to do is follow directions. Many of the Escapade staff were still at the fairgrounds and attendees who signed up for HOPs (Head Out Programs) were still camped there as well. The HOPs are organized outings that sometimes involve a tour bus for transportation, a tour leader/guide, admission to one or more venues, and possibly food.

We pulled out roughly on time with Lou and Val right behind us. We headed out of the fairgrounds and then north on Houghton Road to I-10 where we headed west. They needed fuel so we took an exit on the west side of Tucson where there was supposed to be a truck stop, but it wasn’t there. Lou pulled into a station where we could not get in/out so we found a spot a little farther down the road where we could turn around and waited for them to pull out of the station.

We followed them back on to the highway and then retook the lead. We exited at Eloy where there were both Pilot and Flying J truck stops. We topped up our diesel tank while Lou filled their propane tank. We got back on I-10 for another eight miles and then exited at Sunland Gin Road and headed south into Arizona City. A few miles, and a bunch more minutes, later we pulled into the rental property that currently serves as Curtis Coleman’s residence and headquarters for the RVillage social network. Good things are happening for RVillage and it was good to be back here to spend a little more time with Curtis and his adorable dog Augie, a Bevar (sp? may be Biewer) Yorkshire Terrier.

A panoramic view looking west from the deck of RVillage World Headquarters. It was very peaceful here.

We got settled in and then visited a bit. We eventually went to Duffer’s Restaurant at the golf course and then went back to the house for movie night. The film for this evening was “The Social Network” about the founding of Facebook; a most appropriate choice given where we are boondocked.

2015/03/16 (M) Florence, AZ

Someone at the Escapade told Lou about a road that runs between Florence and Kelvin Arizona. They said it was mostly good gravel and very scenic and Lou was determined that we find it, drive it, and photograph it. Linda and Val packed a picnic lunch while Lou and I prepared our photography gear. I grabbed the Garmin GPS out of our car (just in case) and we took off, leaving Curtis some peace and quiet to attend to RVillage.

I managed to navigate us to Florence where we decided it would be prudent for Lou to top off the fuel tank in his truck. We pulled into a Circle K (Kangaroo?) and took care of that. When Lou tried to start the truck the starter would not engage. It would turn but made a really bad grinding sound. Sometimes the throw-out gear binds and we tried tapping on the starter with a long stick and hammer but it did not help. The starter had just been replaced a month ago in Mesa, Arizona and had a 60 day towing policy in addition to the parts and labor warranty.

Val, Lou, and Linda having lunch by the fuel pump island at the Circle K in Florence, AZ.

Lou called the repair shop and they dispatched a tow truck. I then called Curtis to see if he could fetch Val, Linda, and me from the Circle K and he graciously agreed to come get us. We let the station attendants know what was going on and they were cool with the whole thing even though we were blocking one of the pumps. It took a while for the tow truck to arrive so we ate our lunch standing in the shade at the end of the fuel island. We must have made an interesting sight to passersby. The tow truck eventually arrived, pulled the pickup truck up onto the flatbed, and drove off with Lou riding shotgun. A little while later Curtis arrived. We loaded our picnic supplies and camera gear into the back of his SUV and he drove us back to his place.

Lou photographs their pickup truck being loaded onto the flatbed hauler at the Circle K in Florence, AZ.

I expected to get a call from Lou letting me know that I needed to drive to Mesa to pick him up. What we got instead was a call that the truck was repaired and he was on his way back. The problem was that the starter mounting bolts had not been torqued tight enough and had backed out about 1/4 inch. As a result the throw-out gear was pushing the starter back rather than engaging with the gear teeth on the flywheel. As we thought about it we were realized we were very lucky this did not happen on the road from Florence to Kelvin.

Bonnie was also staying at the RVillage compound and joined us for dinner last night. This evening we did a pot luck thing and dined at the outside table by the lake.

2015/03/06-12 Escapade Images

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Here is a gallery of additional images from the 2015 Escapees RV Club Escapade. Most of them are of our friends, old and new.

: Dennis and Carol Hill used to own the RV Driving School. We bought our Honda Element from them a few years ago.

: Bob and Molly Pinner, Escapade Directors, with Dortha Hall, one of the Escapade Coordinators.

: Friends Nick and Terry Russell of The Gypsy Journal.

: New SKP/RVillage friends Marianne Edwards and Randy Sturrock of Boondockers Welcome. We joined as host members during the Escapade.

: Friends Chris and Jim Guld of the Geeks On Tour. Yeah, they really are that much fun.

: Our RV insurance agents, Charles and Chris Yust, at the vendors dinner.

: Friends Don and Kim Greene of Harvest Hosts at the vendors dinner.

: Bill McGrath and Anna Johnson from Park of the Sierras SKP CO_OP. Bill was one of the volunteer photographers. He and Anna are fellow members of the SKP Freethinkers BoF.

: Steve Pinn was the other volunteer photographer. He and Carol were camped off site having service work done.

: Friends Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia sporting their Xscapers shits in front of their bus Zepher.

: Travis Carr (SKPs RV Club) and Curtis Coleman (RVillage) at the Xscapers launch party.

: I don’t remember his name, but this guy also cleaned our holding tanks. He is working on someone else motorhome here.

: Lou Petkus, who started/heads the SKP Photographers BoF, on “the row.” I run the RVillage group for this BoF and my friend Kate de Fuccio designed the logo.

: Our friends and fellow SKP/FMCA Freethinkers, Orene and Larry Brown, representing SKP Chapter 8 Mexican Connection on “the row” They are leading a caravan in Feb 2016 to Puerto Punesco (Rocky Point) Mexico.

: Jason Snow, Forrest Clark, Kristin Snow, Mary Clark, and Cherie Ve Ard. Jason and Kristin are the “Snowmads.” Forrest and Mary are involved in the DOVES BoF (American Red Cross). Cherie is one of the Technomads.

: The creators of the Xscapers club-within-a-club. L-2-R: Melanie Carr, Cherie Ve Ad, Travis Carr, and Chris Dunphy.

: Friends Cherie Ve Ard and Chris Dunphy of Technomadia having a quiet moment at the end of a very busy week.

: Sky Renfro (SKP staff) and Melanie Carr at the RVillage Social / Get-Together.

: Escapees RV Club president Cathie Carr (SKP#3) and RVillage founder/CEO Curtis Coleman at the RVillage Social / Get-Together on the 1-year anniversary of the launch of RVillage.

: The Escapade ended with a very dramatic sunset as seen looking west from our bus.

2015/03/06-12 (F-R) Escapade 2015

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2015/03/06 (F) SKP Escapade Arrival

Linda sitting with Val Petkus at the opening staff meeting.

We unhooked our car last night so we could go grocery shopping and left it disconnected as the Escapade prefers that folks arrive with their toads unhooked if possible. We only had a 28 mile drive to the Pima County Fairgrounds so driving two vehicles was not an inconvenience. There is, in fact, an advantage to having the car follow the bus as it can create space for lane changes in dense traffic.

Lou and Val drove over from their RV Park on the other side of I-10, turned their rig around, and positioned it so we could follow them onto the highway. We pulled out at 9:15 AM.

Kay Peterson, SKP#1, is recognized at the opening staff meeting.

We had arranged to rendezvous in Tucson so we could park together, which requires us to arrive together, or so we thought. It turned out that staff parking was pre-assigned and since Lou was the head photographer and I was the assistant photographer we were assigned parking in different areas. Our location was not that far from Lou and Val’s and actually afforded us more privacy, a better view, and 50 A electrical service, so we had nothing to complain about. We were a bit less convenient to the activity buildings, but the Pima County Fairgrounds was compact and very walkable. Besides, we were parked next to Travis and Melanie Carr, who were next to Cathie and Bud Carr. Cathie is the president of the Escapees RV Club and Travis is Bud and Cathie’s son.

Linda puts a pin on the map to mark our home town.

And walk we did. Even though the Escapade did not start until Sunday afternoon, and regular participant arrival was scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, the fairgrounds was already abuzz with activity. Besides the staff arrivals, which were spread out over several days, the vendors were arriving and setting up, seminar rooms and hospitality areas were being prepared, and there were two pre-rallies taking place. One was the Escapees RV Boot Camp and the other was the Geeks On Tour Camp Re-Boot. And the job of the staff photographers was to capture all of this activity.

Things quieted down by dinnertime. A bit later Brendan (our son) called to update us on his interview at Eastern Michigan University where he is a finalist for an art history professorship. He is also a candidate for a curatorial position at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor Art Museum so we are excited at the possibility of him securing one of these jobs.

2015/03/07 (S) Escapade Setup

I was up and dressed before 7 AM and slipped out of the coach while Linda was still asleep. Today was the final day for the RVers Boot Camp. Their day started with breakfast from 7 – 8 AM and I wanted to take a few photos of their meal. As long as I was up I wandered around the fairgrounds taking pictures of the facilities and RVs and occasionally a person or group of people. The parking crew was in position and started parking rigs at 8 AM. The parking process went on until 2 PM but most of the arrivals were solo rigs that dribbled in. I was told that 300 rigs were scheduled to arrive tomorrow and they expected it to be a bit crazy, so I will look for photo ops of groups of arriving rigs tomorrow.

I went to Old Pueblo Hall to get some free coffee and wandered around to see if any more vendors, chapters, or BoFs were setting up but there was not a lot of activity. I talked to Wanda Lewis about our missing event shirts. Lots of folks were apparently aware of the situation and several of them had looked through the “specials” packaging but ours were nowhere to be found.

SKP Chapter 6 displays their banner on “the row.” We have been members of this chapter since the 2010 Escapade but have yet to make it to a rally.

I went back to our rig and had breakfast. I then resumed my photo rounds, still looking for shots of RVs arriving and being parked. I ended up back at Old Pueblo Hall by which time the participant registration desk was open and there were very long lines. The Escapees Mail desk was also open along with the Store and other specialized SKP functions. Teresa Moore, the COO of the Escapees RV Club, was in the Store so I talked to her about our missing shirts event shirts. They had shirts for sale and I suggested that she give me our pair before they were gone. She agreed, albeit a bit reluctantly. We won’t wear them while they continue to look for the rest of our order, but my guess is that this was not really a priority for anyone and I doubted that they would find them because I don’t think the shirts ever got ordered even though we were billed for them. They would have refunded the cost of the two shirts but we really wanted the shirts, that’s why we ordered them in the first place.

Bill McGrath and Stephen Pinn from the SKP Photographers BoF contacted Lou Petkus, the head photographer, and Lou arranged for all of us to meet briefly with Lora Newby, the Escapade coordinator under whom Photography falls. I ended up having a long chat with Steve afterwards about mobile communications. He also let me use his 18% neutral gray screen and color checker squares to shoot a series of exposure compensation test shots. When looking through some of the images I had shot over the last 24 hours I noticed that a lot of them had the highlights blown out, especially when using the on-camera flash.

We stayed at the RoVers Roost SKP CO-OP on our way to Quartzsite for the winter.

I copied photos to my computer and worked with the color checker and gray scale images. Many of my photos from the last 24 hours seemed to be overexposed and I was using the color checker and gray scale images to determine if I needed to make an exposure compensation under bright sunlight, shadow, or indoor flash settings. I was using Lou’s older Canon 50D, so I had no prior experience with how the exposures might need to be tweaked. I did not arrive at a definitive conclusion other than deciding that I should figure out how to enable automatic exposure bracketing, which Lou eventually showed me how to do.

2015/03/08 (N) The 55th Escapade Begins

Our motorcoach, parked in an out-of-the-way place with Cathie & Bud Carrs motorhome, Travis & Melanie Carr’s Airstream, and the Rivolli Review’s motorhome.

Although the Escapees RV Club Escapade officially began at 3:00 PM (MST) today the event is really multi-faceted and aspects of it have been taking place since Thursday with the Escapees Boot Camp followed by the Geeks On Tour Camp Re-Boot. Some of the staff have been here for weeks, but most of us arrived on Wed, Thu, or Fri. The staff appreciation dinner was Friday and the Vendor appreciation dinner was Saturday. Early arrival for attendees started Friday and continued Saturday with regular arrivals starting at 8 AM this morning. The registration desk opened at 10 AM on Saturday and the vendor area opened at 9 AM this morning. The “first timers” meeting was held at 2 PM. The opening ceremonies commenced at 3:00 PM and lasted a little over an hour. We had time for dinner and then headed back to Thurber Hall for the evening slide show, door prizes, and entertainment. The Rivolli Review, a husband and wife team, was the evening entertainment. Their motorhome is parked right next to our bus but we have not seen much of them, or had any conversation with them so far, as all of us are usually busy away from our rigs.

L-2-R: Chris Guld (Geeks On Tour), Cathie Carr (SKP President), and Linda chatting at the informal Xscapers launch party.

2015/03/09 (M) Seminars & Socials

Today was the first full day of the Escapade. That meant a full schedule of seminars during the day and a full slate of social gatherings in the late afternoon. The vendors were open for business and “the row” was open to greet attendees and explain the joys and benefits of SKP CO-OP Parks, Chapters, and BOFs (Birds Of a Feather, a SKP special interest group).

Linda with Howie & Nora Glover, fellow SKPs and RVillage Vegan RVers.

I spent most of the day capturing images of the event. We then attended the Xscapers launch party at Technomadia’s bus where I got some additional photos. We wandered over to Thurber Hall around 6:30 PM to catch the pre-entertainment slide show, much of which was built using photos I shot the prior few days. The door prize drawings started at 7 PM. We did not win anything. Once the drawings were done The Mentalist was introduced and kicked off his performance. We stayed long enough for me to take a few photos and then went back to our rig. I off-loaded photos onto my computer and backed them up on our NAS, post-processed the ones I considered usable, and loaded them onto a thumb drive to give to Lou. It doesn’t sound like much, but it was a long, full day.

2015/03/10 (T) More Escapade

L-2-R: Val Petkus, Lora Newby, and Linda. Have you noticed that Linda always seems to be having a good time at the Escapade?

Today started with “Donuts for CARE.” CARE (Continuing Assistance for Retired Escapees) is the Escapees RV Club subsidiary that provides assisted care for club members at Rainbow’s End in Livingston, Texas. One morning during each Escapade donuts are made available for a donation rather than a fixed price. Up until today the largest amount donated for a donut was $500 but this morning someone (a vendor) presented the Executive Director of CARE with a check for $2,000!

The rest of the day followed the same pattern as yesterday with the five seminar rooms busy every session, the Ladies Luncheon, line dancing, music jamming, vendors selling, socials, and entertainment. We attended the SKP Freethinker BOF social at the rig of fellow photographer Bill McGrath and his wife Anna. It was a smaller gathering than the previous day and we missed the Boomers social, which apparently had 150 people in attendance. As with so much in life, it was just a matter of timing.

L-w-R: Melanie Carr, Marianne Edwards and Randy Sturrock ( of Boondockers Welcome), and Linda.

There was no entertainment this evening so I took pictures of the cards and games activity and the music jam. Big RV rallies, including Escapades, are exciting but intense experiences. An evening without major activities gives attendees an opportunity to go out to dinner or just relax with a few friends.

2015/03/11 (W) Free Day

Today was “free” day at the Escapade. Not for me, of course, I had to work harder than ever. No, today was “free public admission” day, and the public came in droves. By one count 700 people took advantage of the opportunity to check out what was going on at the Pima County Fairgrounds.

For the photographers it meant more crowded venues but also the opportunity to get more photos of crowds of people. Otherwise it was business as usual except for the “row party.” From 10 AM to 1 PM all of the Chapters, BOFs, and CO-OPs put extra effort into staffing their tables and talking to attendees about their group.

The attendees at the Xscapers Social (except me, of course).

4:30 PM brought another round of socials, including one for the new Xscapers club-within-the-club. It was well attended and I got lots of nice photos including one of the entire group of about 100 attendees.

The evening entertainment was the Ham-O-Rama, the amateur talent show that has been a feature of Escapade for many years. With 851 rigs and 1,400 people staying at the fairgrounds, plus additional attendees staying at other venues, there is always plenty of talent to form a show. Lou covered the event photographically and I went back to our rig to process my photos from the day.

Chris Guld (Geeks On Tour) and Linda with big smiles for the camera. Escapades tend to make people happy 🙂

2015/03/12 (R) RVillage Birthday

Today was the last day of the Escapade, sort of. Closing ceremonies were at 3 PM but there was still a lot going on before and after that, some of which had to be photographed. I spent much of the morning, however, processing photos.

The big daytime event was the Chili Cook-off. There were at least 18 entries including a vegan chili (yum) and a chocolate chili (which everyone claimed was incredibly good). Some were hot/spicy and some were not; something for every taste. Attendees got a small sample of any chili they wanted to try (until it ran out) and voted for their favorite(s) by putting money in a jar at each table. The jar with the most money was declared the winner, and all of the money raised went to the CARE program (Continuing Assistance for Retired Escapees).

Some of the attendees from the Xscapers Social gather for a sunset photo.

The closing ceremonies are always fun and touching. Attendees, volunteers, and staff (especially staff) are tired, but it’s a good kind of tired. It’s been an exciting, intense week and folks are ready to move on and slow down, but always with a bit of reluctance at parting company with old and new friends. Those who have worked to make the event happen get recognized, which is always appreciated.

After the closing ceremonies there were more socials. RVillage launched one year ago today and founder Curtis Coleman scheduled an RVillage get-together / Escapade social for 4:30 PM. We went to that one. It was well attended and he announced that the beta status had been removed from the website at midnight, a significant accomplishment for only one year of being online.

Some of the Xscapers looking to new horizons and the future of a new generation of full-time and extended-time RVers.

There was bingo and a farewell party at 7 PM (two separate events) and I photographed both activities. I spent the rest of the evening post-processing photos but turned in earlier than normal as Lou had planned a SKP Photographers BOF photo outing for tomorrow.

A panorama of the sunset. This is what we saw out the windshields of our bus.

2015/03/04-05 (W-R) RVillage Stopover

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2015/03/04 (W) RVillage World Headquarters

World Headquarters of the RVillage Social Network and residence of founder/CEO Curtis Coleman.

We pulled into the driveway yesterday of the house that currently serves as the World Headquarters of RVillage and home of the founder/CEO Curtis Coleman. Forrest and Mary Clark were already here and Randy Sturrock and Marianne Edwards, who run Boondockers Welcome, arrived about 20 minutes after we did.

Augie doggie strolling on the sidewalk by the lake.

We were not in a rush to get up this morning, made coffee once we did, and enjoyed the lovely grounds and the view of the lake. Curtis had work to do, some of which involved Randy and Marianne, so we visited with Forrest and Mary and just relaxed and read or worked on our iPads and computers.

RVillage founder/CEO Curtis Coleman at work on his patio office.

By lunchtime Forrest and Mary had left, followed by Randy and Marianne. Not long after that Dave and Vicki McKenna arrived. They handle membership for the Escapees RV Club SKP Boomers BOF, so it was nice to finally meet them. We all had a nice chat with Curtis and then left him to work.

Forrest and Mary Clark visiting with Augie by their Foretravel motorhome.

The five of us went to dinner at Duffers, the bar/grill/restaurant at the local golf course. Linda and I had nice garden salads with fresh ingredients and a basket of sweet potato fries. We sat and talked until we were the only folks left in the restaurant. We took the conversation back to the house and continued it there much later into the evening than is normal for us.

2015/03/05 (R) Prince of Tucson

Linda holds Augie for a beauty shot.

We spent the morning visiting with Curtis Coleman (RVillage) and Dave McKenna (SKP Boomers BOF) and then started getting ready to leave. We turned the bus around, hitched up the car, and finally pulled out around 1 PM. We had a relatively short drive of just over 50 miles to get to the RV Park in Tucson where we had a reservation.

Marianne Edwards and Randy Sturrock with Linda (holding Augie).

RVillage is run by Curtis, and Curtis runs on coffee. 🙂

We had an easy run with good access to the RV Park. Tucson is not a kingdom, and it does not have royalty, but it does have a street named “Prince” and it has an RV Park at the end of that street by I-10 named Prince of Tucson RV Resort. The park was clean and attractive enough and there were some aspects of the park that were better than usual, especially the road leading in and the check-in lanes. It was right up against a retaining wall for the entrance ramp to eastbound I-10 which we thought might be a noise problem, but it wasn’t. The pull-through spots, which are intended for overnight guests, were very narrow, but they had full hookup 50 Amp service and were easy to pull out of when leaving, so they served their purpose.

Lou and Val Petkus were going to stay at Prince of Tucson but changed their plans and stayed at a Passport America park just on the other side of I-10 from us. We called to let them know we were in and see if they wanted to go to dinner. They were both tired and settled in so they took a pass on dinner. We needed groceries so we unhooked the car and drove to a Whole Foods Market about 8 miles away and stocked up on some items that are difficult to find elsewhere.

Forrest Clark and Marianne Edwards talking on the lawn at RVillage WHQ.

Back at the rig we got the groceries put away. We then scanned for TV stations and found some!!! We could not receive OTA TV in Quartzsite and were not able to pick up any stations in Arizona City, either.

Linda, Curtis, and Dave McKenna discussing details of RVillage.

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.

2015/02/07-11 (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.

2015/01/20 (T) Buses, A-C’s, and a Get-Together

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Today was another day of variety. After our usual coffee and granola I drove over to the Quartzsite Market Place dry-camping area where the Western GM Bus Rally was still taking place. I met with Larry and Carol Hall and spent over an hour photographing their GM PD4106 bus conversion. It was very nicely done and they had straightened it up so that there wasn’t anything extraneous lying around inside. Larry was also kind enough to move the bus several times to allow me to get an angle of view with a good background and lighting. An article on this bus conversion will appear in a future issue of Bus Conversion Magazine.

Larry & Carol Hall’s GM PD4106 bus conversion at the Quarzsite Market Place.

When I was done with the photo shoot I returned to our coach to transfer the image files from my camera to my computer, organize them, and back up them up to our NAS device. For lunch we had tofu hotdogs wrapped in tortillas with mustard, onions, and pickle relish. I then talked to Butch briefly about the TPMS vendor Linda and I spoke to yesterday in the “Big Tent” and discovered that we had talked to different vendors about different products. I also let him know that I was going to work on our air-conditioners.

The three house air-conditioners (A-C) in are bus are Cruise-air split units and are initially controlled by three 12 VDC switches on the lower right dashboard. Those switches get their power from a single 2 Amp fuse in the low voltage distribution panel. The A-C’s did not work the last time I tried to use them (at Martin Diesel) and I found that this fuse was blown (open) so that was the place to start.

I pulled the old 2 A blade style fuse out of the distribution block and checked for voltage on the supply side and no voltage on the load side, and that is what I found. I then checked for resistance from the load side of the fuse holder to ground with all three switches off and with each switch turned on, one at a time. The resistance was infinite (open circuit) with all three switches off (as expected), ~45 Ohms for A-C switches 1 and 3, and ~450 ohms for A-C switch number 2. All three switches control relays in the DS rear corner of the bus that switch on AC power from the breakers in the AC distribution panel. Two of the switches also control the solenoid air-valve that controls the air-powered shutters for the two condenser units in the front spare tire bay. So it was reasonable that one of the switches might show a different resistance from the other two when closed, but at this point I did not know if any of these measured values were correct or even reasonable.

I borrowed a 6 Amp auto-resettable circuit breaker from Butch and inserted it into the fuse slot. Our testing revealed that switches 1 and 3 caused the breaker to trip but switch 2 did not, and it did not matter whether the 120 VAC power for each unit was turned on at the circuit breaker. The evaporator units and control panels in the house, however, did not come on unless the 120 VAC power was on along with the 12 VDC corresponding dashboard switch. That confirmed that the dashboard switches are controlling AC power relays. I knew from previous work that those relays were in the driver’s side rear corner of the bus/bedroom but our testing indicated that they were probably not the problem.

The common element for switches 1 and 3 was the MAC solenoid air valve on the air panel in the bay under the driver’s seat. This valve controls air-powered shutters at the front of the spare tire bay where the living room and kitchen A-C condenser/compressor units are installed. The shutters are held closed by air pressure and held open by a spring in the absence of air pressure. I keep the air supply valved off when we are parked to minimize air leaks and reduce how often the auxiliary air-compressor runs, but when compressed air is applied to the valve, which is ‘normally open’ when the front A-C units are off, the air pressure closes the shutters. If either front-located A-C unit is enabled at the dashboard the MAC valve closes off the air supply and vents the pressure on the shutter actuator, allowing the spring to pull them open.

I disconnected the wires from the solenoid and confirmed which wire was the +12 VDC supply to the terminal strip. I checked the resistance of the solenoid coil and it appeared to be shorted, so I left it disconnected. We rechecked the A-C units and the two located in the front bay would still not turn on. Butch figured that there was probably a limit switch on the shutters to prevent power from being applied to those two A-C’s unless the shutters were open. I loosened the fitting at the valve to relieve the pressure and the shutters opened up.

With the shutters open and the solenoid disconnected we finally got all three A-C’s working, so we have fixed the problem for now but not permanently as the system not does function as designed. As a side note, it appears the three control switches are incorrectly wired. Switch 1 is the front A-C, switch 2 is the center unit, and switch 3 is the bedroom. Switches 1 and 3 are wired to control the shutters for the spare tire bay but the compressor/condenser units for the front and middle A-C’s (1 & 2) are located there. My guess is that this has been miswired since the coach was built. The wiring needs to be corrected and I added it to my project list. Until then, the “fix” is to just make sure all three switches are ‘ON’ anytime we are going to use any of the air-conditioners, ensuring that the shutters are open and the units will operate.

Camp Lieberville in Quartzsite, AZ (our coach is not shown).

We left around 3:40 PM and drove over to the Quartzsite Yacht Club for the 4 PM RVillage get-together that founder/CEO Curtis Coleman had scheduled. Curtis was already there with Patti (the Village Tart) as were Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard (Technomadia), Jim and Chris Guld (Geeks On Tour), and our friends Butch and Fonda Williams (MCI MC-9 NJT and W9MCI and K9MCI respectively). Lots of other folks showed up including Forrest and Mary Clark, the first two RVillage Ambassadors.

We left a little after 6 PM and drove out to the WINs area on Plomosa Road to deliver a birthday card to Mara. Her sister and brother-in-law were there but left shortly after we arrived so we stayed until after 8 PM visiting with Mara. When we got back to our coach Linda heated up the leftover root vegetables for dinner. She read while I updated my BCM article status spreadsheet, checked e-mail and RVillage, and worked on this blog post.

2015/01/19 (M) The Big Tent

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I got up at 7 AM, made coffee, and had some while Linda slept in. I left at 8:15 AM and drove to Lloyd and Verda DeGerald’s motorhome on East Kuehn Street. Lloyd was still there so I was finally able to purchase the Webasto flame sensor (photocell) I needed for our second/spare Webasto DBW2010.75 burner. I then drove the short distance west on East Kuehn Street to the entrance of the Quartzsite Market Place camping area and drove in to the Eagles International rally.

This GM bus conversion tows a VW bus with matching paint. I wonder if they use the VW to pull the bus out when it gets stuck?

I grabbed some general purpose bus photos while Byron Pigg cleaned up the area around his bus so I could photograph the exterior for Bus Conversion Magazine. While I was working Butch called to let me know he was almost back from Blythe and wanted to meet Gary, the owner/publisher of BCM. Before Butch arrived Neal Sunderland, VE6NL drove up and looked over Gary’s MCI MC-9 Moose Creek Motor Cabin. Gary was over talking to the GM bus owners but came back and had a long chat with Neal. I exchanged contact information with Neal and we agreed to meet later at our coach so he and his wife could see it.

Eagle buses certainly make very nice motorhome conversions. This one was pulling out of the Eagles International rally at Quartzsite.

When I was done “working” I returned to camp and had a bite to eat. I then transferred the photos I had just taken to my computer, organized them according to subject, and backed them up to our NAS device. By the time I was done Linda was ready to go to the market area.

Quartzsite is a place with a sense of humor. Central Ave I-10 overpass.

Quartzsite is, metaphorically, a “big tent” but there is literally a Big Tent set up here that houses the Big Tent Sports, Vacation, and RV Show. The Show started this past Saturday but today was our first chance to go. Besides, our RV insurance agents (Charles and Chris Yust of C&C Marketing) had advised us at the SKP Happy Hour to avoid the weekends and come during the week in the afternoon. Because traffic was so congested on Central Avenue heading south from Main Street to Kuehn Street we decided to walk the 1.4 miles from our coach to market area. Along the way we ran into Mark and Emily Fagan. They are photographers and writers and I recognized them immediately from Escapees Magazine and their blog. We introduced ourselves and had a nice chat before continuing our separate ways.

At least they are in agreement about the size.

We walked through the Big Tent, stopping at a few booths and quickly passing by many others. There was a much higher percentage of non-RV vendors than we normally see at RV rallies, and significant duplication of others. There were at least 18 vendors selling some kind of miracle pain reliever and a dozen vendors selling LEDs. We did, however, spend some time with the TST TPMS vendor who was from the factory and will probably go back and buy a complete system from him. We also stopped at the FMCA booth and chatted with FMCA President Charlie Adcock and ran into RVillage founder/CEO Curtis Coleman there. We lingered awhile at the Carnu-B booth watching a demonstration of products for cleaning, polishing, and waxing the exterior of a motorhome. We spent a few minutes at the Escapees RV Club booth and talked at length with the folks at European Motorhome Tours and The Ultimate Road Trip (Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, and Alaska). If money were no object we would do the European Tours. They are typically 30 days and sometimes more than 40 and include the motorhome rental, all of the overnight stops, admission to key attractions, and some of the meals. The main added cost, besides flying there and back, are groceries and fuel.

Charlie Addcock, FMCA National President, in the Big Tent at Quartzsite, AZ.

Charlie Adcock, FMCA National President, in the Big Tent at Quartzsite, AZ.

Neal Sunderland called while we were still at the Tent and we agreed to meet him and Nora at our coach at 4 PM to see it and chat. Lou called while we were visiting and we agreed to meet for dinner at 5:30 PM at Crazy Jerry’s. We had vegan pizza and sat until almost 8 PM talking. While we were there I got a call from Curtis Coleman of RVillage inviting us to drinks at the Quartzsite Yacht Club. He was there with Patti and the Gulds (Chris and Jim). The QYC is across the street from Crazy Jerry’s, so that was easy. The Amber Bock on tap was very tasty and we were there until 9:45 PM.

2015/01/8-14 (R-W) Q 2015 W2

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2015/01/08 (R) Up On The Rooftop

A panorama from the roof of our bus. Left edge is NE, center is S, right edge is NW.

As forecast, we woke up to cloudy skies and milder temperatures. The clouds to the southwest looked like they might produce rain but the winds were blowing gently from the southeast so the rain would not be for us. This was the day we’ve been waiting for, the perfect kind of weather for washing a bus. But not first thing in the morning. Coffee and breakfast come first while we wait for slightly warmer temperatures.

The waste water tank level sensors are not accurate but our fresh water tank sensors are OK. The fresh water level gauge was showing less than 1/3 tank and the grey water tank gauge was showing full so it was probably time to dump and fill. When I checked the fresh water level visually we were at 1/6th tank. I dumped the black water tank and then the grey water tank, both of which were fairly full, and then filled the fresh water tank. I have the city water regulated to ~50 PSI (static) which drops to ~30 PSI when the fill valve is fully opened. At that pressure it takes about 40 minutes to fill the tank.

I last dumped the waste tanks on December 30th and added 25 gallons of (hard) fresh water. On December 31st I added another 30 gallons of (hard) fresh water. On January 2nd I recharged our water softener, drained about 1/6 tank (~20 gallons) of (hard) fresh water and filled the tank with 120 gallons of soft water. I checked the hardness of the water coming out of the softener after that fill and it was 1.5 grains/gallon (25 ppm). I checked it again after today’s fill and it was still 1.5 gpg. Since we are keeping a log of the dumps and fills I plan to check the hardness after each fill so can regenerate the water softener before it gets depleted and we end up with really hard water in our tank and system.

Butch happened to be at the Post Office Annex today checking the P. O. Box at exactly the same moment a postal worker was about to put something in the box and then stopped because of the forwarding tag. The “something” was our package of water hardness test strips from Bristol, Indiana and the worker was kind enough to give it to Butch to give to us. He also learned that they still have P. O. Boxes available so he went to the main post office to find out more about that. He came back with a form to fill out and it had room for all of our names so the six of us are going to share the box and the cost, which is $56 for six months, or just under $20 per couple.

While the fresh water tank was filling I started getting ready to clean the roof by getting out our Little Giant step/extension ladder and various cleaning supplies. The dump and fill was done by 11 AM and it was warm enough by then to start working. Swim trunks, a white T-shirt, and Kean sandals was the uniform of the day. I carried the hose sprayer up the ladder with me and then lowered it down to use as a hook and lift wash water bucket, scrub brush, and other paraphernalia up to the roof.

It turned out to be sunnier than I had hoped but I worked for about four hours, not including a lunch break, and scrubbed the entire roof. I used McGuire’s red automotive soap and rinsed thoroughly. I had already washed the roof once using Dawn dish soap (a big ‘no no’, apparently) and a long-handle soft brush. That washing had removed surface dirt and revealed the full extent of the dark “spotting” that gave the entire roof a mottled appearance. The roof looked a lot better after I scrubbed it but a lot of the spotting remained.

We are anxious to clean the sides of the bus but there is no point doing that until we are done with the roof. We want the roof “like new” clean so dirt doesn’t run off it onto the sides, but we also want it clean because we are seriously considering having Discount Solar (here in Quartzsite) install solar panels and a charge controller and do all the wiring. As long as we had the hose, brushes, and soap out we decided to wash the car. It was even filthier than the bus, if that’s possible, and it was nice to finally have it clean.

After cleaning up our equipment I got cleaned up and then sat and visited with Butch for a while. Linda came over and announced that she wanted me to take her to dinner. Butch and Fonda decided to go too so we went to Crazy Jerry’s, which is not to be confused with Silly Al’s. Silly Al’s is supposedly the #1 eatery in Q, at least for pizza, but they have karaoke every night starting at 7 PM. Thank you, no. Crazy Jerry’s also has pizza and we tried the vegetarian, hold the cheese. Very thin crust (the way we like it) and lots of topping. A couple of side salads and a side order of French fries. FWIW, we did not eat the entire pizza and brought home the leftovers.

Linda split a pair of Scrabble games with her brother, the first one he has won in quite some time. She had an e-mail reply from Mara. She is camped about 70 miles south of Q and is headed here in the near future and is going to camp with the WINs (Wandering Individuals Network). I checked e-mail, updated my BCM article spreadsheet with two more story ideas, played a few games, and worked on this post before turning in for the night. We will have been here a month as of Sunday.

The Hi Jolly Daze Parade. Quartzsite, AZ

2015/01/09 (F) The P. O. Box

I left the ladder setup yesterday so I could check the roof again this morning and determine what additional cleaning measures, if any, I might want to take. I also wanted to get back up on the roof and measure the space we have available for solar panels. I was expecting two packages via UPS; one from B&H Photo (Manfrotto nodal panoramic tripod head) and one from Sure Marine Service (Webasto repair parts). I had a nice view of the mountains surrounding Quartzsite from the roof of our bus and wanted to shoot some panoramas with the new head when it arrived.

Butch, Fonda, Jim, Barb, Linda, and I all went to the U. S. Post Office in Quartzsite this morning to sign up for our very own P. O. Box which means we finally have a way to receive USPS mail while we are here. Just in time, too, as Q has really filled up in the past week and there is more to come. I have an FMCA national education committee meeting on Monday and need to write a few items for a member survey and review other materials. Gary (from BCM) is also due to arrive on Monday, and both Curtis (from RVillage) and Mara Culp (HFH build acquaintance) may be headed this way as well. I believe Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia are already in the area. The big RV tent is up and those vendors are arriving and setting up.

Once we were done at the post office I went to Discount Solar to discuss a possible installation on our coach. The Kyocera panels are 26.5″ W x 59.0″ L. They are “12 V panels” but are rated at 140 Watts putting out 7.9 Amps. They cost $350 each. Those numbers compute to an output voltage of 17.5 VDC and $2.50/W. (If a 140 Watt panel was operating at 13.8 Volts it would produce just over 10 Amps.) Because we have a 24V battery system we would need to install the panels in series-connected pairs. The preferred installation for the rectangular panels is to have the long dimension lined up fore-n-aft to either side of the centerline of the roof. Tilt mounts are available ($45/panel) but we would probably not install them due to the difficulty of getting onto our roof to use them.

“12 volt” batteries typically charge at around 13.8 to 14.1 volts. Our “24V” system charges at 27.6 to 28.2 volts and a series-connected pair of panels produces 7.9 A at 35V (full sun) for 276.5 volt-amps, which is essentially “watts.” Two pairs would produce 15.8 A (553 V-A), and three pairs would produce 23.7 A (829.5 V-A). The higher voltage output of the panels is reduced and regulated by a solar charge controller before getting to the batteries. Discount Solar carries Blue Sky and Trimetric maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controllers and the Blue Sky Solar Boost 50 would handle three series-connected pairs for about $550. The MPPT controllers are DC-to-DC converters so they convert the excess voltage into additional current. With full sun this six panel system could supply up to 30 A of charging current at the proper voltage, which is why we would need an MPPT controller that can handle more than 30 A of charging current. We would also want room for expansion or replacement with higher wattage panels if they were available at some point in the future. One of the nice things about the solar system is that it would always be on and would “play nice” with our other charging systems. Another nice feature is that they are silent when operating. Ahhhh.

Because of the size of our house battery bank (400 A-Hr at 24 VDC) and the fact that we have a residential refrigerator, auxiliary air-compressor, and other AC loads, we would need/want at least six panels. (I have not included the four Group 31 wet cell batteries that are used to start the engine and power the chassis as part of the solar system.) If the batteries were discharged 50% (200A-Hr) it appears that it would take just under seven hours to bring them back to full charge based on the 30A charging current. In actuality it would take longer in a boondocking situation as the sky is not always clear, the sun is rarely directly overhead (perpendicular to the panels), there would be devices using some of the energy, and the amount of current the batteries can accept falls off as they get closer to being fully charged.

Installation is $90/hour plus mounts ($15/panel), wire, connecting blocks, and other parts, and would take 4 – 5 hours to complete. The owner assured me they would have it in and out in one day so we could be back in our parking spot before dark. The last three weeks of January are the busiest time of year for Discount Solar and since we are plugged-in to shorepower we do not need the solar system right away. If we have it installed in early February we would have a month to make sure it works and resolve any problems. The system would cost about $3,300 installed. We have at least a month to think about it.

When I returned to our coach Linda was out walking. When she got back I went up on the roof with a tape measure to see if/how the solar panels might fit. With a four-n-aft orientation we could put two towards the front outside edges, one just aft of the kitchen skylights on the driver side, and one aft of the hall skylight on the passenger side. We could put two more somewhere in the rear. The options for the rear appeared to be inline (almost touching) on the driver side starting just behind the bathroom skylight or putting one there and the other one sideways across the back just ahead of the dropped portion of the roof and aft of the bedroom vent fan. Placing the panels in these locations would leave the center of the roof open so I could climb up on the driver side front and walk all the way to the back.

Barb stopped by to let us know there was a mattress in the house (park model trailer) if we wanted to try it out. It had been in their rig for about two years until they removed it yesterday and replaced it with a thicker one they got from Connie. It is a regular queen size mattress about 6″ thick, so not one of the oversized behemoths that have become the norm. They also had a 1.5″ thick memory foam pad to go on top of it. We took a look at it and decided to give it a try.

We have been using our old Select Comfort adjustable air mattress in the RV since summer 2013. One side (mine) has a slow leak so I have to adjust it every other night. I could live with that indefinitely but what we really dislike about it, and have for a long time, is that we tend to roll into the center or off the edge. It also takes up valuable storage space under the bed for the pump, has wires and hoses to deal with, and has a controller for each side. We were definitely ready to try something else so we stripped the bed, disconnected the two air hoses, and carried the mattress out of the bus. It was surprisingly heavy and bulky for an air mattress and lacking in self-supporting structure, but that also made it easier to bend it around the front passenger seat, down the entry stairs, and out the door. We stored it in the bedroom of the house trailer pending a final decision about the replacement mattress.

We carried the new mattress in, which was definitely easier than getting the old one out, and got it positioned on the plywood bed platform. We put the memory foam pad on top and put our mattress topper over that which added another inch. We put our electric heating pad on and then the sheets and the blanket. We will try it out for a while and if we like it we will see if the Salvation Army wants the old one. If not, it may end up at the Quartzsite dump as we really do not have any way to get it home or a reason to do so. We will leave the pump, hoses, and controllers under the bed until we decide on its final disposition.

The suspension on the bus had settled slightly in the driver side rear since we parked and leveled it almost a month ago. It would not have been enough to require an adjustment except that our bed sits crosswise with the head on that side and I find that sleeping with my head even slightly downhill is not comfortable. Rather than start up the main engine we got the Dewalt portable air-compressor out of the car and connected it into the brake system fill port in the passenger side engine bay. I had to connect the chassis batteries and turn the ignition on (without starting the engine) in order to activate the leveling controls, but that allowed me to raise that corner up and get the coach level side-to-side. At some point we will re-position the bus, but not until I have completed some work on the turbo boost sensor mounting plate and hose and the level low system components for the front end.

We put the air-compressor back in its special storage divider in the car and decided to rearrange a few things so we could put the rear seat down. Starting next week we will need to be able to carry a passenger. We thought about heading down to the market area but remembered that we were expecting UPS deliveries. I started working on two more articles for BCM instead while Linda went for a walk. It was warmer today and so it was warmer in the coach and I ended up taking a nap.

Our UPS and FedEx shipments usually arrive late in the afternoon or early evening but had not shown up by dinner time. I had planned to disassemble the Aqua-Hot burner and replace the bearings, nozzle, and perhaps a few other small parts tomorrow but it now appears that will have to wait until Tuesday, assuming our shipments arrive on Monday. I will likely need to clean the unit as well, given that it has been running so rich, and that may include pulling the combustion chamber.

Linda made two cold salads for dinner; chickpea and wild rice Waldorf. Both are favorites of ours, especially in warmer weather. We had some Barry’s Basic Bread with our meal and another glass of Lamb’s Valley organic sweet white wine was a most agreeable accompaniment.

Yup, that’s a real, live camel in the Hi Jolly Daze Parade. These animals are strongly linked to the 19th century history of Quartzsite, AZ.

2015/01/10 (S) Hi Jolly Daze Parade

Today was the annual Hi Jolly Daze Parade. As first time winter visitors to Quartzsite there was no way we were going to miss this event. I was up at 7 AM to make coffee and we were done with breakfast by 8 AM. We checked the parade route online and figured we would go to the Quartzsite Improvement Association grounds as the parade ended in the parking lot there. It was scheduled to start at 10 AM so we snagged Fonda about 9:40 and headed that way in the car.

When we got to Central Avenue and Main Street the police had Main Street closed so we could not turn left to get to the QIA. I stayed on Central down to Kuehn Street and took it east over to the exit 19 overpass and back to Main Street. On the way we saw Lloyd DeGerald’s motorhome parked along Kuehn with a big banner advertising his Aqua-Hot technician services. I am hopeful that I will be able to repair both of our burners myself but if not Lloyd is the guy I would call, so I was glad to see that he is in town. But back to the parade.

The police had Main Street closed on that end too. We knew the parade started at Plymouth Avenue and Quail Trail so we headed in that direction and parked at the Quartzsite Library. We were surprised that no one else was parked there as it was a short walk from there to the start of the parade route which turned out to be an excellent spot from which to view the parade. What we realized after we got there was that the west side of Plymouth Avenue was lined with cars from the starting point all the way to Main Street. I suspect that Main Street was similarly lined with people, most likely in cars, but we were not able to observe that directly.

We had a few drops of rain leading up to the start of the parade. There were plenty of grey clouds around, but the sun was also shining and the parade did not get rained out. In fact, a full 160 degree rainbow formed behind the parade and lingered until most of the participants had passed us. The highlight of the parade was a live camel.

“Hi Jolly” was the Americanized pronunciation given to Hadji Ali, who came here in 1856 as part of an experiment by the U. S. Army in the use of camels. There are conflicting accounts of his exact place of origin but it seems clear that he came to the U. S. from the Middle East as one of the first, and the lead, camel driver. For a more complete account check the entry in Wikipedia for “Hi Jolly.”

The experiment did not work out as the Army’s horses, mules, and burrows were apparently terrified of the giant animals and would panic in their presence, but Hadji Ali remained in the U. S. and eventually ended up in Quartzsite where he died in 1902 and was buried in the local cemetery. We got the impression that he was something of a living legend in his own time and in the 1930’s the governor of Arizona had a monument erected at Hi Jolly’s gravesite. It is a small pyramid made of local stone with a metal plaque on one side and a metal profile of a camel on top. According to Wikipedia the monument is allegedly the most visited location in Q.

When the parade was over we returned to our coaches. Linda went for a walk and I wrote another article for Bus Conversion Magazine. This was another short one, less than two pages and only 11 photos, on the installation of the new speedometer in our bus. When Linda returned from her walk she made a broccoli-potato mash. In addition to the broccoli and the potato it had soy milk, vegan butter, salt, and pepper. The potatoes were not completely mashed and the dish was both tasty and had a nice mouth feel.

After lunch Linda made a shopping list. We headed to the Kuehn Street market area and stopped at Barry’s Breads but our timing was bad, again. We drove south on Central and found the entrance to the parking lot for “the big tent.” This is where the RV vendors will be in another week or so, but nothing was open yet, so we went over to the Tyson Wells area west of Central Avenue and found some miscellaneous items and a pair of Crocs for me. For all the shoes I brought I did not have something that was easy on, easy off. We are parked on gravel and I needed something I could slip on quickly and easily to step outside the coach.

Most of Linda’s list was groceries so we drove to Blythe, California to do our shopping. To vary our trip and see some new sights we stayed on Kuehn Street heading west past the edge of town where it became West Dome Rock Road. The road parallels I-10 on the south side for a long way through BLM land and eventually ends at an interchange with the Interstate. We saw lots of RVs, and a few tents, spread out on either side of the road, but not nearly as many as we thought we would. There are probably a lot more RVs here than we realize, but the desert is a vast place.

When we got to Blythe we took a few minutes to drive through town and get a feel for the place. It had a more developed, modern, and prosperous business district than Quartzsite and more houses, as opposed to park model trailers and mobile homes. The houses were not fancy but they were in decent condition. Schools and municipal buildings were also nice, and there is nothing in Q to compare to the two supermarkets and name brand stores like Auto Zone, NAPA Auto Parts, and K-Mart. We started at Albertson’s and got most of the items on our list. We then went across the street to Smart and Final Express and picked up a few things there. Once again we were not able to find the Silk brand Soy Coffee Creamer, which has us wondering if we last bought it at Wal-Mart in Parker.

When we got back to camp I unloaded the car and Linda put the food away. I wandered over to say high to Butch and Fonda and play with their dogs, Daffy and Rascal, for a few minutes. I then went over to say high to Jim and Barb’s dog, Roho, which brought them out of their motorhome and got me invited in. Linda eventually wandered over looking for me and the four of us had a nice chat. It was the first time since they got here that I had been inside their rig, a Country Coach Intrigue, and it was very nice. It has one slide on the front half of the driver’s side, and there is no doubt that it really opens up the interior. Before we bought our bus we were looking seriously at Country Coach motorhomes (but not their Prevost bus conversions) and the Tiffin Allegro Bus (which is a purpose-built motorhome, not a true bus). But in the end we were bitten by bus fever and we still have it.

We stopped to visit briefly with Butch and Fonda on the way back to our rig. Butch has always had an interest in metal detecting and has developed an interest in rocks since arriving in Quartzsite. If you had the slightest inclination towards rocks, gems, and minerals then being in Quartzsite during the winter would likely push you over the edge into a full-blown hobbyist. Sometime in the last couple of days Butch bought a used contraption that consists of a table saw, two grinding wheels with a water delivery system, and an electric motor. He and Fonda acquired a bucket of rocks, including a piece of petrified wood, and they are setting up an area outside their bus to work on their new hobby.

For dinner Linda made pan-grilled tofu slices with caramelized onions and bar-b-cue sauce, but with a twist. Instead of hamburger buns or slices of bread she heated 12″ tortillas and made wraps. Of the various ways she has served this simple, but delicious, dish this was definitely my favorite so far. As much as I like a nice, fresh bun the tortilla wrap kept all of the ingredients contained so that I got onion and BBQ sauce with each bite, and they did not end up all over my plate and all over me.

As we do most evenings, we relaxed, played games, worked puzzles, read, and wrote. We are always a bit surprised at how tired we are after dinner, but we are up and about during the day and the fresh air and sunshine just seem to wear us out.

The roof of our bus after cleaning looking SW as viewed from the driver side front corner. Quartzsite, AZ.

2015/01/11 (N) Swimsuit In January

I turned the lights off last night at 11 AM and was up at 7 AM this morning which seems to have become my current routine. Because of the new (to us) mattress I was able to get up without waking Linda up. I turned up the heat in the front of the coach but not the back as Linda does not sleep well in a warm room. I started getting the coffee ready but did not grind the beans because of the noise it makes. I worked at my computer on organizational tasks such as copying files to the NAS, copying blog posts from e-mail to Word, and backing up website and photo files to the NAS.

Linda got up around 8:30 AM and set the microwave convection oven to preheat in convection only mode. When it was ready she heated up the leftover cinnamon raisin rolls she took out of the freezer yesterday and put in the refrigerator. While the rolls were heating I finished making the coffee. Although they are not gigantic, one of these rolls would probably be plenty of calories for breakfast. Two rolls, however, made for a very satisfying meal. Still, they take about four hours to make fresh and about 25 minutes to reheat. She makes a batch of eight, so if we each had one for breakfast her efforts would cover four meals instead of two.

Today was another bus cleaning day, but first Linda went for her morning walk while I continued to organize photo files on our network attached storage device. It was forecast to be a cloudy but mild day and by late morning the clouds had moved in, so when Linda got back we got busy. Even with the cloud cover it was warm enough that I was able to wear my swimsuit and a T-shirt, my preferred outfit for working with water. We bought some CLR Mold & Mildew remover yesterday and I tried using it on the lower rear roof. It did not appear to have any effect so I abandoned any further roof cleaning and we got started on the sides.

The upper sides of our bus are not easy to clean. Even with our Little Giant extension/step ladder set up as a step ladder at its maximum height I cannot quite reach the top curve of the side walls. Knowing that was the case I cleaned all the way around the edge of the roof, where it meets the side walls and the front and rear caps, from the roof. Once I was done with that we took the Little Giant extension/step ladder and converted it from extension configuration to step ladder configuration.

We worked all afternoon until after 5 PM and managed to clean the front and the passenger side. We wanted to get the passenger side done because it faces south and we wanted to do this on a cloudy day. Working a section at a time we used McGuire’s red automotive soap, scrubbed with an automotive microfiber sponge, rinsed thoroughly (with Q’s incredibly hard water), and dried with microfiber clothes. We could not get all of the hard water stains off but it was a lot cleaner, and looked a lot better, than when we started.

The weather forecast for tonight was for heavy rain sometime between 9 and 11 PM with accumulations of up to 1/2″. For a place that typically only gets 4″ of rain a year that would be a lot of rain for one storm. We put our lawn chairs, mats, and other outdoor items in the carport for the night just to be safe. Shortly after 6 PM we had our first sprinkles.

For dinner we had chickpea salad and wild rice vegan Waldorf salad with strawberries and peach slices and some Barry’s Basic Bread with a small glass of Franzia Fruity Red Sangria. I responded to some e-mails after dinner and deferred work on possible survey questions for the FMCA national education committee until tomorrow.

Linda makes her selections at the Quartzsite Farmers Market.

2015/01/12 (M) E-mail Groups

It has stayed warm enough the last few nights that I have not needed the electric heating pad and we have been able to leave windows slightly open. We both sleep better in a cool room with fresh air. The deluge of rain that was forecast for last night did not develop but it was still mostly cloudy when we got up this morning. After breakfast, coffee, morning puzzles, and checking in with the world we got on with our chores.

My major tasks for the day revolved around preparations for, and participation in, a 2 PM FMCA National Education Committee work session. While I worked on that stuff Linda went for her morning walk, made an appointment to get her hair cut tomorrow, and made garlic naan (Indian bread) from scratch. When the phone meeting was over I transferred photographs from my camera to my computer and then joined Linda over at Butch and Fonda’s coach for a late afternoon visit.

Jim L. showed up while we were chatting, read the electric sub-meters, and figured out our bills. Linda had to write four separate checks to cover our site fee, electricity usage, laundry, and the rental for the apartment, which Jim gave to Barb to cover the cleaning before and after Marilyn’s upcoming visit. Butch placed an order with PartDeal.com for a VDO speedometer so I had him order a VDO Cockpit Series 0-30 PSI Boost Gauge for me. The UPS truck also showed up and had the two packages I have been waiting for. All too soon the sun dropped below the western mountains and it turned chilly so we retreated to our coach.

Linda made curried red lentils for dinner and served it along with the garlic naan bread she made earlier in the day. Warmed and energized by this fabulous meal I launched into my second major task of the day; the creation of an e-mail group in Microsoft Outlook for our FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches chapter. I got the latest roster from Linda, who is the treasurer, and was able to rearrange it, save it as a CSV file, import it into Outlook, and map it to the standard contact fields. It was then easy to create a Contact Group and select all of my new entries to go in it. Once I got the group set up I wrote an e-mail to the members, my first since being elected President of the chapter back in October. I was up much later than usual, but I got it done.

Escapees RV Club happy hour SE of Q in one of the BLM STVAs.

2015/01/13 (T) Geekiness

Today was a day for Geeks and geekiness. Chris and Jim Guld, AKA The Geeks On Tour, arrived in Quartzsite yesterday and are staying at an RV Park not far from our encampment. Butch knew they were headed this way and after he and I were unable to get EchoLink working on his computer yesterday he contacted Jim to see if he would be willing to stop by and take a look. Jim is a former network administrator and knows a lot more about stuff like networking, protocols, ports, port forwarding, and proxy servers than we do. But before he came over Linda and I had breakfast after which she walked over to the beauty parlor and got her hair cut while I worked on a seminar classification task for the FMCA National Education a Committee.

Jim G. arrived on his bicycle around 10:30 AM and stayed for a couple of hours. He re-checked the things Butch and I had already tried and tried some things we had not, but we could not get Butch’s system to let the EchoLink program connect successfully to the EchoLink servers. For the record, Butch’s system consists of a Windows Vista laptop that connects to the Internet one of two ways: 1) through a Verizon MiFi or, 2) through a WiFiRanger Go2 into a WiFiRanger Mobile into a DSL WiFi gateway of unknown make and model. Jim also tried connecting through the WiFi hotspot on his Android-based smartphone. Same result. Mixed in with work we had a great visit with Jim and hope to meet up with he and Chris at least once while they are in Q.

After Jim left Linda and I were headed in to have a bite of lunch when an unfamiliar car pulled into the lot. Barb was by the road and pointed the driver in our direction. We quickly realized that it was Mara. She had called Linda first but Linda did not hear the phone ring so it was a wonderful surprise when she showed up. We visited for a couple of hours while we snacked on hummus, pretzels, and red grapes.

Mara is camped on BLM land north of town with the WINs (Wandering Individuals Network) and has been traveling off and on with groups of WINs since we last saw her in Gillette, Wyoming in July 2013. Since that time she has also gotten a different motorhome, a 35′ Fleetwood Bounder, with which she is very pleased. She invited us to join a group of WINs on Sunday to go to The Desert Bar and I think we will. Linda checked it out online and it is a completely solar-powered, off-the-grid, place. You have to take dirt roads or ATVs to get there.

It appears that things are finally going to get busy for us. Gary, from BCM, is supposed to arrive tomorrow and Curtis, from RVillage, is supposed to arrive on Saturday. Forrest and Mary are already here as are Chris and Cherie of Technomadia. The Escapees RV Club has happy hours scheduled tomorrow and Thursday at one of the BLM areas east of town. Blythe, California has a bluegrass festival starting Friday and running through Sunday. We will probably go on Friday as there is also a Balloon Festival in Lake Havasu the same three days which we will probably attend on Saturday. Somewhere in there I need to repair our Aqua-Hot and I am thinking that it will probably be Thursday. The “Big Tent” Sports, Vacation, and RV Show starts on Saturday (17th) and runs through the Sunday the 25th. Marilyn arrives on the Thursday the 22nd and leaves on the Thursday the 29th. The last full week of January really is the peak of the winter season in Q.

After Mara left I used my macro lens to photograph the front and back of both of our amateur radio operator licenses. I post-processed the images to improve the readability and reduce the file size. Once I had the photos ready I downloaded and installed the EchoLink software on my Asus laptop. I went through the initial configuration for my license and tried the server connection test. As with Butch’s installation, two of the four UDP port tests failed. I ignored that for the moment and went ahead with the validation procedure for my ham license.

Anyone can download and install the EchoLink software but only licensed hams can legally use it. That is because it can, and often does, connect a computer to a ham radio repeater that is “on the air” and only licensed hams are allowed to transmit on those frequencies. Validation was a multi-step process. When first starting EchoLink I had to supply my FCC callsign, name, and (base station) location. That information was transmitted to a database on the EchoLink servers but the EchoLink organization needed to validate that I was actually the person to whom that callsign was issued. Through a separate process on the EchoLink.org website I had to upload JPEG image files of the front and back of my wallet license. Once someone examined the images and made sure the call was active in the FCC database they “flipped the switch” on the server side and I was finally able to connect to stations if I wanted to. I repeated the process later for Linda’s license.

While I was waiting to have my license validated I started trying to figure out how to get the EchoLink program to connect successfully to the EchoLink servers. When the communications test with the servers runs it identifies the IP address assigned to the computer. I went into the WiFiRanger Mobile and enabled UDB port forwarding for ports 5198 and 5199. The TCP test was successful so I did not set up TCP port forwarding for port 5200. Enabling port forwarding, however, was necessary but not sufficient.

What I ended up doing was switching the operating mode on the ESET Smart Security program from “Automatic” to “Interactive.” With that change, the program would pop up a message box every time another program had outbound or inbound traffic through a port and ask if I wanted to allow the communication and optionally create a rule for it. Several of those messages had to do with EchoLink and after clicking “Allow” to all of them the server/router tests were finally all successful and the program was fully functional except for the license validation.

Sometime in the late afternoon another motorhome showed up and backed in to the property with Jim L.’s help. It was Larry and Sandy, who normally stay at Jim L.’s RV Park near the QIA. Jim’s park is full so he put them over here in the spot by the laundry where Jack and Maria parked for a couple of nights a week or so ago.

We had leftover red lentil potato curry (thick soup) for dinner with the rest of the garlic naan and a glass of sangria and it was very good, again. I finished up my FMCA education committee task and e-mailed it off. I received an e-mail that my ham license had been validated so we played with the EchoLink program and User’s Guide for a while but did not try to connect to any stations.

While I was working on all of this I noticed that nine updates were pending for Windows 8.1 and there were four optional ones as well. Installing updates is often an iterative process and so it was again this evening. One of the optional updates was a roll up from November 2014 that was 723.9 MB. That’s a big update. I started downloading it at 23:52 MST and then went to bed. My hope was that fewer people would be trying to use the local DSL system to get online at that hour and the update might actually load and install successfully. But I would have to wait until tomorrow morning to find out.

L-to-R: Travis & Melanie Carr from the Escapees RV Club and Cherie Ve Ard & Chris Dunphy of Technomadia.

2015/01/14 (W) SKP Happy Hour

As soon as I got up this morning I checked the huge Windows 8.1 optional rollup update that I started last night. It had completed successfully except for restarting the computer, so that’s what I did. While the update finished installing I made coffee and got the juice ready and Linda prepared our cereal.

Once the update finished I checked e-mail and websites. Linda made white bean hummus to take to the SKP Happy Hour later today. She then remembered that the Farmers Market at Desert Gardens was this morning from 8 AM to noon so we drove over there. There was only one stand selling produce, but they were from Blythe, California only (20 miles away) so the produce was very local and very fresh. Linda bought an assortment of veggies and a grapefruit.

We had parked at the south end of the western parking area and from there we could see a road going back towards “Q” Mountain and a well-defined trail going up the western side. We drove back there and determined that we could park there when we decide to climb the mountain and do some panoramic photography.

We drove to Barry’s Breads and bought a loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread and then continued east on Kuehn Street to confirm Lloyd DeGerald’s location. We took Riggles Avenue back over I-10 to Main Street and headed back towards Central Avenue, stopping at the Road Runner Market for a few things. When we got back Jim and Barb were aggressively trimming the Palo Verde trees in the cactus garden.

As we often do most mornings, Linda went for a walk and I worked at my computer, installing three more optional updates and taking care of some e-mail. We gathered up chairs, food, and beverages at 12:45 PM and drove over to the SKP Happy Hour on East Dome Rock Road. There was already quite a crowd when we arrived and everyone was in a good mood. And why not. The sun was shining, the air temperature was pleasant, there were tables arrayed with food, people had beverages of their choice, Johnny Cockrum was performing, and lots of folks were meeting old and new friends. We had a thoroughly pleasant time, but we always do when we are with groups of Escapees.

On the way back to camp we spotted Lloyd DeGerald and his wife out walking their dog and stopped briefly to chat about our Aqua-Hot. We then stopped at the trailer for the Two Crazy Ladies and ordered engraved hang tags with our call signs and a sign asking emergency responders to rescue our cats.

When we got back to camp Linda went for another (short) walk and I sat down to work at my computer. We lost our Internet connection while we were away and the DSL gateway would not re-associate with our WiFiRanger Mobile so I had Barb open the house and I power cycled the gateway. I was then able reestablish the connection to our WFR-M. That is the second time this has happened since we arrived here but so far has not caused us any real difficulty.

Butch has been having problems with their Progressive Industries EMS cutting off their shorepower due to high voltage. We noticed during dinner that our PI-EMS was also showing a PE-3 (previous error – high voltage). I do not know if our Magnum inverter switches on “instantly” when outside power is lost or if there is a delay but I am now wondering if we lost our Internet connection due to loss of power to the WiFi Ranger Mobile after which it was not able to reconnect with the gateway. The next time this happens I may try powering the WFR-M off for 60 seconds and restarting it. It’s also possible that the high voltage is wreaking havoc on the DSL gateway.

After dinner I sent a TXT message to Gary at BCM inquiring if he had arrived in Q as planned. He called back and said they had just cleared Indio, California. I suggested they find someplace to stop and rest and finish the trip tomorrow morning in the daylight. They are headed to the Quartzsite Market Place dry camp area for the Eagles International bus gathering. I spent the rest of the evening working on five different articles for Bus Conversion Magazine before finally turning in around midnight.

The Phase Place

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

Tag Archives: Curtis Coleman (RVillage)

2015/09/15 (T) Coach Supply Direct

2015/08/31 (M) A Major Sub-Project Done

2015/06/19 (F) Roof Box

2015/06/08 (M) Home for a While

2015/06/02 (T) GLAMARAMA 2015 (Day 0)

2015/06/01 (M) Bradd and Hall et al

2015/04/01-03 (W-F) The Land of Enchantment

2015/03/27-31 (F-T) Wrapping Up Arizona

2015/03/24-25 (T-W) RVillage WHQ Redux

2015/03/18-19 (W-R) Why, AZ

2015/03/14-16 (S-M) Escapade to RVillage

2015/03/06-12 Escapade Images

2015/03/06-12 (F-R) Escapade 2015

2015/03/04-05 (W-R) RVillage Stopover

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

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

2015/01/20 (T) Buses, A-C’s, and a Get-Together

2015/01/19 (M) The Big Tent

2015/01/8-14 (R-W) Q 2015 W2