Tag Archives: Lou & Val Petkus

2015/04/26-30 (N-R) Routine Returns

2015/04/26 (N) Bentley

Turning the lights out at 11 PM last night meant I would be awake around 6 AM this morning and ready to get up, and that was the case. Linda was awake by 6:30 AM and we were up shortly thereafter. I was able to light the natural gas fireplace without difficulty. The only thing I can figure is that perhaps I did not have the Off/Pilot/On gas valve in the right position last night.

With the gas valve in the Off position gas cannot flow beyond the valve. In the Pilot position gas can only flow to the pilot flame assembly, and only while the knob is pushed in, until the flame has been lit long enough to cause the heat sensitive pilot valve to remain open at which point the knob can be released. I do not think gas can flow to the main burner tubes, however, until the knob is turned to the On position. There is also a Remote/Off/On switch that has to be in the Off position when lighting the pilot flame (with the built in spark igniter) and moved to the On position to allow the main burner tubes to receive gas. All I can figure is that I did not have the Off/Pilot/On valve turned to the On position. The Remote position is intended to be used with a wall mounted thermostat which we do not have. For us the firelogs are primarily decorative but are useful for taking the chill off of the early morning or late evening. We never have them on, however, unless we are in the living room or dining room where we can see them.

Linda fed the cats while I made coffee which we enjoyed in the living room by the firelogs. It was 33 degrees F outside this morning but in another week the morning temperatures should be such that we can sit on the rear deck and enjoy our morning brew out there. We finally both got dressed and Linda heated an Amy’s Breakfast Scramble and split it between us. We lingered a while longer in the living room and finally got to work on our various chores.

Linda’s focus was to continue cleaning the kitchen, off-loading food and kitchen supplies from the bus, and getting her domestic and professional domains back in order. She made a grocery list as the day went along. We would normally go to the Howell Farmers Market on Sunday morning, but the outdoor market does not start until next week.

I cleaned the cats’ litter tray, which seems to be my job at home but Linda’s job on the bus, and then got to work on revising the draft survey for the FMCA national education committee. While I was doing that I also started up a couple of our workstation computers, installed updates, and kept an eye on my e-mail and RVillage messages. I worked on the survey until dinner time, with a break for lunch, and had Linda proofread it before I uploaded it to my Dropbox and e-mailed the link to the committee. We have a telephone meeting at 3:30 PM EDT tomorrow and I wanted everyone to have a chance to look it over in advance of the meeting.

Linda made Farro with garlic, dried cranberries, almonds, and kale and cooked some fresh asparagus. A green salad and a glass of wine completed a very nice meal. Linda had a text message from her sister letting us know that her housemate, Linda, decided to have Bentley put down. He was the oldest of her three dogs, deaf and arthritic, and on medications that he would not take, and he had lost interest in food. We had both received a text message from Linda regarding our recent visit so I responded to that. We were sad that Bentley was gone, but glad that we got to see him one last time.

I turned my attention to editing photos for my April 10 blog post about out visit to Bandolier National Monument and Santa Fe, New Mexico but the batteries in my wireless mouse needed to be recharged so I plugged it in and called it quits for the night. Linda was watching the first episode of Wolf Hall (PBS) on her iPad so I finished reading the May-June 2015 issue of the Gypsy Journal and played a few rounds of my favorite games. Linda prepared some fresh berries for dessert and we enjoyed them to the glow of the firelogs before going to bed.

2015/04/27 (M) Caller #9

After coffee and cereal this morning I continued selecting and processing photos from our April 10 visit to Bandolier National Monument and Old Town Santa Fe. I ended up with 16 photos so I uploaded the post and put them in an image gallery at the end. After lunch I got all of my documents in order for my 3:30 PM (EDT) telephone meeting of the FMCA Education Committee. I chatted briefly with the committee chair to see if there were any surprises in store. I then worked on consolidating my draft blog posts for April 11 through 15 which included the time we spent in Norman, Oklahoma visiting with my uncle Bob and Aunt Helen, and four additional generations of relatives.

I exchanged e-mails with BCM Publisher Gary Hatt and Editor Dave Rush regarding my article on the redoing of the exterior of our coach. The article is 5,800 words with 71 photos and they would like to split it up and run it in installments over three or four issues. That will require me to go back through the article and identify the places where it can be split, making sure the photos track with the text, and write some additional bridge paragraphs to wrap up each installment and introduce the next one.

I dialed in to my FMCA meeting just before 3:30 PM. I was caller number nine (9) but I did not win anything. The meeting lasted almost 90 minutes. We discussed the survey we have been developing and approved a motion to pass it along to the Executive Board with the recommendation that it be sent to a random sample of the members both electronically and via USPS. I expect to receive minor corrections in the next 36 hours and get a final draft to the FMCA Executive Director on Wednesday so he can have it reviewed by an outside expert (Barry) at Membership Corporation of America (MCA). The FMCA executive board meets in a week so we will see what happens.

After the meeting I finished working on the April 11-16 consolidated post and uploaded it to our personal blog just in time for dinner which featured taco bowl salads. She started with refrigerated tortillas, draped them over ramekins, and baked them to create the shell. She reconstituted an ancho, red Hatch, and pequin chile and used them to season the pinto beans, mixed greens, tomatoes, onions, and olives that made up the filling. Franzia Fruity Red Sangria went nicely with the tacos. Later we had a fresh mixed fruit salad of blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, and bananas. We relaxed for a while, reading and playing games, but were surprisingly tired and went to bed before 10 PM. Change happens, transition takes time.

2015/04/28 (T) And now … the rest of the summer

As sometimes happens when we go to bed early, we slept in this morning and did not get out of bed until after 8 AM. It is nice to be able to do that if we want to. Coffee and toast got the day started followed by reading, writing, and cat admiring. It was a beautiful, sunny morning albeit still on the chilly side. In other words, another day in the idyllic paradise we call retirement in the country.

We have both been busy since we got home last Friday, unloading the bus and putting things in their place in the house, visiting family, cleaning and stocking the kitchen, going through mail, and working on bills and accounting, both personal and organizational. And that was mostly Linda! I helped with some of that but was mostly focused on finishing a draft survey for the FMCA education committee, sending it out, and participating in a committee meeting by teleconference yesterday afternoon. I will have some minor additional work to do on the survey by the end of the day tomorrow, but with the meeting behind me I can now concentrate on all of the other things that need to be done. To paraphrase Paul Harvey “And now … the rest of the summer.”

One of the chores that is always there is laundry. Linda seems to take over this task when we are living in the bus, but it is definitely my job when we are at home. Ditto for cleaning the cat litter tray. To be fair, both the laundry room and liter tray are in the basement where my office and the ham radio shack are located, so I am down there a lot more than her. When we first return home after being away for an extended time there is a lot of laundry to do. Not that we don’t do it while we are away, we do, but I like to clean everything that we had with us. This is not a one day task, in part because we like to limit the number of loads of laundry we do on any given day so as not to overload the septic tanks, and in part because I just do not want to spend an entire day doing laundry.

My main focus this morning, however, was to revisit my article for Bus Conversion Magazine on the renovation of the exterior of our bus back in 2011/2012. It needs to be split into 3 or 4 installments and I would rather do that myself, making sure the photos track with the text. I started a load of laundry and then got to work, keeping an eye on e-mail and RVillage. I finished restructuring the article just before lunch, uploaded it to my BCM Dropbox folder, and e-mailed the editor and publisher. Linda reheated the Farro-cranberries-almonds dish for lunch and served it with black grapes.

I moved the first load of laundry to the dryer, put a second load of laundry in the washing machine, and started compiling my posts for April 16 through 20. I got an e-mail from Lou Petkus regarding the SKP Photographers BOF website. Lou started, and leads, the BOF and administers the website while I take care of the RVillage group and someone else takes care of the member database/roster. He found and installed a free system for displaying photo albums. He was setting it up so each BOF member had their own login and could upload their own photos and wanted me (and Linda) to try it out. I did, and found a number of issues which I documented for him. I like the idea, so I hope he can resolve the issues.

I folded and hung up the dried laundry and returned to my blog post which I uploaded, tagged, and published before going upstairs. It was a beautiful day and while Linda was outside on the rear deck reading four deer walked up the eastern boundary of our property. We were chatting back there when the doorbell rang, which is unusual for us. It was Aaron, one of the kids (teenager?) from the house to our immediate east. UPS had delivered our Amazon order to their house instead of ours even though it had my name and our address on the label.

Linda sautéed onions until they were partly caramelized, pan-fried tofu slices, and then added bar-b-que sauce. She served these in tortillas rather than on buns. She also sautéed fresh green beans. I opened a bottle of Barefoot Moscato and we each had a small glass with dinner.

After dinner I called Joe Cannarozzi, the mobile mechanic who has done the majority of the service work on our bus since we got it back to Michigan in 2010. As planned, he is now in upstate New York where he will be working well into the fall. He plans to be back this way the first week in November and we made plans to have him do the routine chassis maintenance at that time. I also discussed our interior renovation plans for the bus and got some tips from him about how to approach that work, especially the floor, as he has done several.

I noticed that I had a voice message from Gary at BCM. He had called earlier in the day after I had uploaded the new 4-part version of the Exterior Makeover article so I called him back and left him a message. Tag; you’re it.

2015/04/29 (W) Bus Lunch

We had a typical start to our day; coffee, breakfast, and iPads (news, weather, games, reading, and writing). Actually, that’s how most of our days in the bus also start, so the only real difference is where we are sitting and what we can see from that vantage point. I needed to order a refill on a prescription medication so I tried doing that on my iPad. No problem iPad-wise, but the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) had switched the mail order prescription drug service from Medco/Express-Scripts to Catamaran Home Delivery effective January 1, 2015. Catamaran was already the third part administrator (TPA) but was now operating their own pharmacy. Even though I already had a Catamaran account I had to register for Home Delivery service. Once I did that I was supposed to be able to see any prescriptions that had transferred over. There weren’t any 🙁 That meant I needed a new prescription. I had a mid-morning appointment and did not want to spend time “holding for the next available representative” so I decided to take care of this task tomorrow.

Linda called last Friday and arranged to have our curbside trash pickup resume this week. Wednesday is trash pickup day, so the trashcan had to go out by the street this morning. (We don’t have curbs here, so I can’t say we took the can to the curb.) The last two years Alchin’s has come past our house around noon. While we figured that would probably be the case again this year we did not want to risk missing the truck, so Linda took it out early.

Linda is the treasurer of SLAARC, our local ham radio club based in South Lyon, Michigan. The club’s bank (First Merit) is there and she needed to make a deposit. I was headed that general direction so I took it with me. The deposit made, I headed on to Chuck Spera’s bus garage in Novi, MI. Chuck and Barbara have the same model Prevost bus that we do only one year newer and converted by Liberty, so fancier than ours. Like us, they spend a lot of time in it, and, like us, there are always projects to be done. Some of those, in turn, require some discussion.

I met Chuck at his shop at 10:15 AM and had a look at his turbo boost sensor intake manifold pressure hose. It appeared to be intact but old a frayed like mine was. The one on our bus failed on the drive out to Quartzsite, AZ in December 2014. Changing his hose would be more difficult than our as is chassis batteries are in the passenger-side engine bay and make access to that side of the engine much more difficult than in our bus. We have been using the same mobile mechanic for the last few years but he has found longer term employment and cut back on the mobile servicing of Prevost chassis. I indicated to Chuck that we really needed to find someone locally who is in business at an accessible location and plans to continue as such into the foreseeable future. He suggested that we take a drive to Johnie’s in Walled Lake, so that is what we did.

Denny was not there (Johnie was his dad) but I got to see the place and now know where it is. We drove back to the Panera in Novi for lunch and then back to Chuck’s shop which is nearby. By 2 PM we had not only solved all of the world’s problems we had made good progress on unraveling the mysteries of the universe. Wanting to leave something for the next conversation I headed for home leaving Chuck to ponder the mysteries of the bus, which are far more baffling than the mysteries of the universe.

I drove home on Grand River Avenue (GRA) to avoid WB I-96 and the I-96/US-23 interchange construction. I bought gas at the Wixom Meijer’s and found out 20 minutes later that I had paid way too much for it ($2.59/gal). The BP station in Brighton had regular for $2.29 and the Shell station closest to our house had it for $2.44. Bummer. I passed a First Merit Bank on the south side of GRA just west of Old US-23 in Brighton. Not right around the corner from our house, but a lot closer than South Lyon. There is also a Jeep dealership there. We are interested in getting a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, we just don’t like the prices we are seeing.

Our Amazon shipment arrived with the two filter cartridges for the under sink housing in the bus and other things. Hopefully the delivery to the wrong address on Monday was a one-time thing. I had been trading phone messages with Gary at BCM and finally got through to him this time. I then curled up with the new B&H catalog which made it feel like Christmas in April.

Linda made a potato lentil ginger curry for dinner and it was very good. I had planned on revising the FMCA Education Survey and sending it out this evening but I was simply not in the humor to go back downstairs. I think my retirement motto is going to be “there is always tomorrow, and if not, it didn’t matter anyway.” Linda had to get up early tomorrow morning to beat the traffic headed into Detroit so we went to bed earlier than usual.

2015/04/30 (R) Steel

Linda set her alarm for 5:45 AM. The purpose of her alarm is to wake me up so I can wake her up. It worked as planned and she got up and got ready to go to the bakery while I went back to sleep.

I finally got up at 8:30 AM. I’ve been busy since we got home but also a bit tired and feeling the need to just unwind from our exciting winter out west. After breakfast I called the Internal Medicine clinic at the Henry Ford Health System Columbus Center in Novi to see if I could get my doctor’s nurse to get my doctor to write me a new prescription for my nasal spray. Naturally I never got to talk to the doctor or a nurse, but the youngish sounding lady who handled the phone call was very helpful, up to a point. She really wanted to schedule me for an appointment and was not quite piecing together that my prescription, which is for a maintenance drug, is only good for one year but my doctor only needs/wants to see me every other year. I don’t expect the new script to be a problem, but that fact that my MPSERS health care plan changed mail-order prescription providers as of January 1st may add a wrinkle. I’m not due for a physical until the fall but I will go sooner if needed to get my script. Which reminds me, I need to schedule my annual appointment with the dermatology PA.

I focused on making some last minute corrections to the FMCA education survey and shipped it off. I got an e-mail back from Diane Wolfe with some questions. She is not a member of the FMCA education committee but she and husband Brett did review and comment on it. The questions were interesting and answering them gave me a chance to explain some technicalities and cc: the FMCA Executive Director as they were as much for his benefit as hers.

I had several e-mails back and forth with Kate regarding productions at Meadowbrook Theater and an exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), all of which sounded interesting. Our social life is less active at home than on the road so we welcome such opportunities.

I had a phone call from Mike at Rocket Steel Buildings following up on an inquiry I made. He sent me a brochure and a price. It was something but not exactly the quote I was looking for. I still need to follow up with SteelMaster Building Systems and get to work on drawings for the wood-framed basilica design.

I compiled my blog posts for April 21-25, 2015 after finding the one for the 24th. I had e-mailed it from my iPad but it never arrived. I e-mailed it again and it bounced back. The spam blocker even said it was from a white listed sender (me!) but rejected it anyway. Huh ??? I sent it a third time to two addresses, one of which was not attached to our domain, and it came through to both accounts, naturally. I guess this was one of the mysteries of the universe that Chuck and I left unsolved yesterday. Anyway, I finally got it, finished compiling my posts, and uploaded, tagged, and published it.

I also had several e-mails back and forth with Lou Petkus regarding the SKP Photographers BOF and website. Gary sent me a link to a document in his Dropbox with photos and audio files from an interview he did for a featured bus article that never got written. I agreed to take a look at it and see what I can do.

I managed to get more things off of the bus, including bedding, and did two more loads of laundry. I do not like to do more than two loads a day as it over taxes the septic system. Someone rang the front doorbell, the second time this week. This time it was Kaylie, Aaron’s sister, from next door. For the second time this week UPS delivered a package, correctly addressed to me, to the wrong address. I was concerned this would happen and Linda said I was a pessimist. Apparently we were both right.

I called the local UPS store but the only thing they could do was give me the national 800 customer service number. I am a pessimist (just ask Linda), so I was not looking forward to that experience, but I called and fought my through their voice menu system. It did not include an option for my situation (of course) and I finally just kept saying “agent” until the system gave up and connected me to a real person.

“Chelsea” was apologetic, even though she had not personally done anything wrong, because that’s what customer service people are trained to do. I think someone, somewhere, once upon a time figured out that apologizing diffuses customers who are upset. Well, it doesn’t. And assuring me that it “won’t happen again” is equally meaningless when it comes from a person who is not in a position within the organization to make such a statement. But Chelsea verified my name and address and the incorrect delivery address and said she took careful notes and would make sure they got to the right person. I hope so.

What is perhaps most frustrating is that UPS has a local distribution center in Howell, and I have the address, but it is not open to the public except for limited package pickup hours. In other words, the mistake is being made by a driver who is most likely operating out of that location, or by someone scheduling the routing, but there is no customer support person or facility manager that I can talk to, face-to-face, and resolve this at the point of origin of the problem. We buy a lot stuff now through Amazon Prime, and it all gets shipped via UPS, so having it delivered anywhere other than to our house is a problem.

Linda called at 4:30 PM to let me know she was leaving the bakery at 5 PM and heading to Kathi’s. They were going to have dinner at La Marsa in Farmington Hills and give the I-96 traffic a chance to subside before she finished the drive home. I had some of the leftover potato barley ginger curry for dinner and then called Phil Jarrel to remind him that we are still trying to figure out how to put up a bus barn and still want him to do the site prep and driveway. I then called Butch to see if he was able to locate the front brake drums for their MCI MC-9 NJT bus. He was, and already had the driver side front reassembled. I responded to a couple of e-mails and filled out an online RFQ for SteelMaster Building Systems and went to bed.

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.

2015/03/22-23 (N-M) Why Ajo

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[Photos for this post are in an image gallery at the end.]

2015/03/22 (N) A Day of Rest

After two days of bouncing around in the desert, getting in and out a truck and working hard to capture good images, we were all tired and needed/wanted an easy, relaxing day. Lou and I also wanted time to work on processing images on our computers. Being Sunday, and not being in a hurry to go anywhere, Linda made her yummy vegan blueberry pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast she walked up to the office and switched us to the weekly rate which would allow us to stay through Wednesday morning for just a few extra dollars. We then settled in to read (Linda) and work on RV club and photo tasks (me).

Early afternoon we cleaned out the back seat of our car and took Val with us to see the small city of Ajo and visit the mine museum there. Most businesses were closed but the museum was open and the people there were very knowledgeable. We then drove a scenic road that went west out of town and circled counterclockwise through some very interesting and rugged BLM land before ending at Darby Well Road and AZ-85. The road was good enough gravel most of the way that we were able to do it without difficulty in our front wheel drive Honda Element. The Element, however, has very good ground clearance.

Based on our few days experience in this area I would not venture off of paved roads without a high ground clearance vehicle at minimum. A 4-wheel drive vehicle with tires that can withstand gravel/rocks and also perform well in soft, sandy soil would be preferred or necessary depending on exactly where you want to go. We have been thinking about eventually getting a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited to replace our Element but developed a serious case of Jeep Wrangler envy while we were in Quartzsite. Driving through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and the Florence to Kelvin Road has only served to solidify our desire to have a vehicle that is up to the challenge of being off-pavement.

As we drove the loop there were smaller two-track roads that led off through BLM land and into the Prieta Cabeza National Wildlife Refuge (PCNWR). They were not all closed but we knew from the Visitors Center that they would be before reaching the PCNWR. The PCNWR is the last place where Sonoran Pronghorn Antelope survive in the wild and their numbers are dangerously low. The breeding season is mid-March to mid-May and most of the NWR is closed during that time. Not that it is ever really open. The Visitor Center is on the north side of Ajo on AZ-85 and easily visited. The refuge, which lies to the west and south down to the Mexican Border, is the size of the state of Connecticut. It has no paved roads, a few very rough dirt roads, no human inhabitants, no services (including cell phone signals), and a climate with daily and seasonal extremes. This is why it one of the few truly wild places remaining in the lower 48 states. I would not consider traveling through the refuge without a functioning HF ham radio system; it would be the only way to call for help.

Every drive we have taken in this area starts with a large sign warning you of drug smuggling and illegal immigration activity and advising you of the risks and what to do if you encounter people in the desert. The only evidence we saw of such activity were the black plastic one gallon jugs, that are apparently the container of choice for carrying water, and the U. S. Customs & Border Patrol vehicles, agents, ATVs, and helicopters which are numerous and ever present in this area. One reason is that the main facility for the Customs & Border Patrol in this area is on AZ-86 just east of where it starts in Why and about a mile before the boundary of the Tohono O’Odham Indian reservation and Hickiwan Trails RV Park, filling station, and casino.

The helicopters seemed particularly interested in the mountains just east of our RV Park, day and night, the entire time we were there. Dave, the park manager, told us that the mountains contained many small caves that were used by “spotters” to elude detection and escape the desert climate while the washes were favored travel routes providing cover and easier travel. The helicopters would hover or travel very slowly below the ridge line, apparently checking each known cave and crevice where someone might be hiding. Dave said that on one occasion he witnessed heavily armed agents repel out of the helicopters.

It’s a constant cat and mouse game, but it is serious business. Illegal immigrants risk their lives trying to enter the U. S. through this vast and inhospitable wilderness and some of them do not survive the journey. The drug smugglers are criminals and agents have been killed by them. The Visitor Center at OPCNM is named for one such agent who was murdered patrolling the Monument. He was in his late 20’s. And yet we felt perfectly safe the entire time we were in this area. Like rattlesnakes, cacti, and other aspects of this desert you simply have to be thoughtful about where you go and what you do and be aware of your surroundings. Vigilance is your best/only defense here.

2015/03/23 (M) Return to Ajo

Ajo is Spanish for garlic. We found a few widely scattered Ajo Lilies blooming in the desert just south of our campground and tried photographing them on several different occasions. The Lilly is not a member of the garlic family, but got its name because the flowers have a faint smell of garlic, or so someone thought when they were named. Regardless of where the name came from they are lovely white trumpet bell shaped flowers that are 6 to 10 inches from the ground, and therein lies the photographic challenge.

Mid-late morning all four of us headed back to Ajo. The central plaza is a three-side U-shaped arrangement of (faux?) adobe buildings that dates from 1917. The two sides of the U house a variety of stores including a cafe and coffee shop where Linda and I got some coffee. The bottom of the U is the old train depot and now houses the Ajo Chamber of Commerce. The buildings have full length covered sidewalks with arched supports. The parking is also U shaped, following the arrangement of the buildings, and the central area has grass, benches, and a bandstand. Ajo is something of an arts community and many of the store fronts were gallery spaces with local artwork for sale.

Just across the main street from the open end of the plaza were two white washed adobe churches, one Catholic and the other Federated, and beyond those the old high school that is now a conference center with 30 apartments that are rented by local artists. Kitty-corner to the left was the only restaurant in town that appeared to be open for business. Fortunately for us our friends at Technomadia had been there earlier in the season and assured their blog followers that it was an excellent little place to dine. Our waitress was charming and our food was good.

Being any artsy community there are lots of murals around town. Some of them were in an alley across the street from the restaurant so we started there. One in particular that we wanted to find was a tribute to the movie “Night of the Lepus” which was filmed in Ajo some years ago. It was a B- Sci-Fi/horror flick about mutant killer rabbits, but it is Ajo’s singular claim to movie fame, so it is remembered and celebrated. We found the mural on the north end of town.

By the time we finished scouting murals and visiting the occasional shop it was 4:30 PM and we were all ready to return to camp. When we got back to our rigs we circled our chairs in the shade of Lou and Val’s 5th wheel, brought out an assortment of snacks, and enjoyed the cool early evening breeze while we talked about our visit to the area. We shot a few sunset photos and called it a day. Lou wanted to take one more stab at astro photography before we left so we checked websites and apps to determine where/when the Milky Way would be visible. The answer was low in the southeast sky from 3 to 5 AM. Given that my camera was not up to the task I decided to pass and get some rest, as we had decided we would leave late Tuesday morning and head back to Arizona City.

: Flowers by the Ajo Chamber of Commerce in the old train depot at the plaza.

: Flowers by the old train depot in Ajo, AZ.

: The covered sidewalk along the southern building of the U-shaped plaza in Ajo, AZ.

: Another flower we spotted in Ajo, AZ.

: Sunset as seen just south of the Hickiwan Trails RV Resort. This is an HDR image.

: One of the many murals in the alley across the street from the restaurant where we had lunch in Ajo, AZ.

: Another mural in the alley. This one was on a door, which I liked.

: The use of words to create this mural intrigued me. Ako, AZ.

: I lie this Ajo mural and it was painted where it could be photographed nicely.

: I find that I am often attracted to doors as photo subjects. This one was the front entrance to the Catholic church across from the Ajo Plaza.

: We finally found the mural for the Sci-Fi move “Night of the Lepus on the north-facing wall of a building on AZ-85 on the north end of Ajo.

: This mural was also on a building on AZ-85 on the north end of Ajo, AZ. It is approximately 70 feet long.

…

2015/03/20-21 (F-S) OPCNM

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[Note: Photos for this post appear at the end in an image gallery.]

Friday, March 20^th, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (Day 1)

We finally made it to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (OPCNM) today. The Sonoran Desert has a beauty all its own and the drive down was scenic. Although OPCNM is a remote place that borders Mexico, and most of it is designated wilderness that is difficult-to-impossible to access, the volume of traffic on AZ-85 surprised us.

We have learned that anytime we are surprised by something it simply means there are aspects of a place/situation that we did not understand or anticipate in advance. AZ-85 runs from I-10 west of Phoenix to Gila Bend, jogs to the west, and continues south through Ajo and Why and then through the center of the Monument to the border crossing at Lukeville. Mexican Highway 2 runs along the border and is a major east-west route that is busy with truck traffic. Puerto Penasco, on the Sea of Cortez, is only 62 miles farther south from the border. Often referred to by “northerners” as Rocky Point Puerto Penasco is a haven for U. S. and Canadian snowbirds from the western states and provinces. We saw at least a dozen businesses in Ajo selling Mexico Travel Insurance and billboards welcoming “Rocky Pointers” to town. Now we know.

This was all of more than passing interest to us. Fellow FMCA/SKP freethinkers Larry and Orene Brown will be serving as the wagonmasters for a SKP Chapter 8 (Mexico Connection) caravan of some 60 rigs to Puerto Penasco in February 2016 and we are actually considering going! They plan to rendezvous at the OPCNM campground and then head into Mexico. With that in the back of our minds we drove to the Visitor Center, which is much closer to the south end of the Monument than the north end, and is the access point to the campground. We picked up a guide for the Ajo Mountains Loop Road and decided to drive that. Linda and Val also bought general purpose field guides.

The Ajo Mountains Loop Road is a 21 mile gravel road that starts on the east side of AZ-85 across from the Visitor Center. Most of the road is a one-way loop that does not require a 4-wheel drive vehicle but does require good ground clearance. We were traveling in Lou and Val’s Chevy pickup truck, which is 4-wheel drive with significant ground clearance, so we did not have any trouble with the road.

The Monument Rangers and the printed guide said the road would take two hours to drive, an average of only 10 miles per hour. There were places we could go faster than that (but why would we) but also places where we had to go much slower. The two hour time estimate also did not account for the time needed to take photographs or go on even short hikes at some of the trailheads. It took us 4.5 hours to drive the road but we stopped often and took a lot of photographs. Lou continued to work with his small Sony camera and concentrate on photos of flowering plants and cacti. I tried photographing those subjects as well, but I don’t seem to have a natural talent for taking pictures of flowers. I did, however, get some nice landscape images, including both panoramas and HDRs. I entered one of my HDR images in the RVillage spring photo contest, which was unusual for me as I do not enter my photos in contests as a rule.

When we got back to the Visitor Center it was still open so we did some more shopping. Linda bought a T-shirt and some jellied (soft) Prickly Pear Cactus candy that turned out to be excellent. The only other drive through the Monument is a 41 mile one-way loop on the west side of AZ-85. It was too late in the day to start that drive and we had been bounced around enough for one day anyway.

We drove down to Lukeville to check it out. We were told there was a restaurant there where we might want to eat dinner, but changed our minds after getting there. Lukeville is a Port of Entry with a filling station, a restaurant behind it, and an RV park (of sorts) across the street. We drove back to Hickiwan Trails RV Park, stopping along the way to take more photos in the warm early evening sunlight.

Long after dinner I tried taking some night sky photos but may Sony alpha-100, which is 8 years old, was not up to the task. Lou, however, went out around 3 AM and got some excellent photos of the Milky Way in the southeast sky.

Saturday, March 21^st, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (Day 2)

We had originally planned to only stay at Hickiwan Trails RV Park for Wednesday and Thursday nights. With tire repair taking up Thursday we extended our stay by one night on Friday morning. We were not able to see as much of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (OPCNM) yesterday as we wanted, so we extended our stay at the RV Park for another night. The lady in the office said she would retroactively switch us from the $19 daily rate to the $85 weekly rate if we decided to stay longer. The longer we have been at Hickiwan the more we like it.

Linda and Val packed picnic lunches, we loaded up the truck, and headed back to OPCNM. We stopped at the Visitor Center again to get information about the 41 mile west loop road. This road is more isolated and less traveled than the Ajo Mountains Loop Road we drove yesterday and a 4-wheel drive, high ground clearance vehicle is required. The Ranger indicated on the map an area where we would probably find wild poppies in bloom and we knew there was a picnic area with a modern pit toilet about half way through the drive.

The ranger told us to allow at least four hours for this drive. There were fewer places/reasons to stop but it still took us almost seven hours to get back to the Visitor Center. And yes, we found and photographed the poppies. As we were driving along the border with Mexico near the end of the loop we were looking for Senita cacti. The Senita cactus is similar to the Organ Pipe cactus, but is a different plant. We saw some at the Sonoran Desert Museum west of Tucson, but the southern part of OPCNM is the only place in the U. S. where they occur naturally.

OPCNM is a biosphere preserve and has a sister preserve on the Mexican side of the border. The Senita Cactus is indigenous to the Mexican Sonoran Desert but a few plants are found just north of the border. We had not seen one all day when we noted a spur road on the map that ran up to the Senita Basin. Surely that must be where they are growing. We still had plenty of daylight so we headed up. We had gone about a mile when Val spotted one so we stopped to examine it and take pictures. Having accomplished our objective, and having grown a bit weary of the long, bouncy ride, we returned to the main road and completed the loop, taking AZ-85 back to the Visitor Center.

As long as we were at the Visitor Center we took the opportunity to drive through the campground and check it out. The campground is beautifully designed and landscaped. They claim to have sites for RVs up to 40 feet in length but our assessment was that they had maybe two or three sites that we might be able to get in and out of without scratching our paint or damaging some aspect of the campground. Unless/until we outfit our rig with a serious solar system we will not be staying here anyway because of the restricted generator hours.

We made the drive back to Hickiwan, passing through the northbound Border Patrol checkpoint at the northern boundary of the Monument. After dinner I transferred my photos to my computer and started processing them. Between yesterday’s visit and today’s visit I took a LOT of photographs so I had quite a bit of work in front of me.

: Flowering Hedgehog cactus.

: Saguaro cacti.

: An unusual Organ Pipe Cactus.

: An unusual Organ Pipe Cactus.

: OPCNM is full of beautiful views like this.

: In spite of its harsh climate OPCNM is very much alive.

: A “wild” Organ Pipe Cactus.

: The Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument landscape is superb.

: Looking south towards Mexico from the Ajo Mountains Loop Road. This is an HDR image.

: A view looking south towards Mexico from the Ajo Mountains Loop Road. This is an HDR image.

: A mixed stand of Saguaro and Organ Pipe cacti along the Ajo Mountain Loop Road.

: Most of the wildlife we saw was small and skittish or soaring too far overhead to photograph.

: An HDR image along the Ajo Mountain Loop Trail.

: Another nice sunset on the drive back to Hickiwan Trails RV Park from OPCNM.

: An Ocatillo Cactus bloom on the 41-mile western loop road, OPCNM.

: An Ocatillo Cactus in bloom.

: A desert bush in bloom.

: Lovely flowers.

: Different stages of blooming.

: I do not know what plant produces this flower.

: A panoramic image taken along the 41-mile western loop road.

: A panoramic image taken along the 41-mile western loop road.

: The desert was not in full bloom but there were plenty of plants and cacti flowering.

: Amidst the barren rock there is much life in the Sonoran Desert.

: This particular cacti was in bloom all over OPCNM and produced some of the loveliest flowers.

: Linda tells me this is a Hedgehog cactus.

: For me it is all about shape and color, light and shadow, and being in the right place at the right time.

: The predominant colors of the Sonoran Desert are brown, green, and blue, so when plants bloom the color is striking by contrast.

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.

20150317 (T) Florence to Kelvin

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With the starter problem on Lou and Val’s pickup truck resolved we decided to give the Florence to Kelvin Road a second try. Bonnie was pulling out today so we said our goodbyes before we left for the day. We took a different route than yesterday, heading west on I-10, which runs more north-south at this point, and then heading due east to Florence on AZ-387. It still took 45 minutes, but the scenery was more interesting than the route we took yesterday through Eloy.

As we approached Coolidge we saw the signs for the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument and decided to stop. It was getting to be lunch time so we spread our items out on a picnic table under one of the Ramadas and enjoyed our meal in the shade. A park employee wandered by checking the area for rattlesnakes and we ended up having a nice chat with him about the Monument and the local area.

After lunch we gained admission to the grounds using Val’s Senior Access Pass. We spent a few minutes in the Visitors Center and then went outside to see the ruins. It was a small but interesting site that is still being actively examined and preserved. We learned that it was the second driest national monument in the country; only Death Valley NM was drier.

We finished the trip to Florence and started looking for the road to Kelvin. Even though we had a GPS and knew approximately where we were headed it took us two tries to find the road. We were glad we did. The Florence-Kelvin Road is gravel for most of its length and runs through some amazing country that is, indeed, very scenic. It was a good road in most places but had some washboarding, pot holes, and small boulders. Along the way we did our best to photograph what we saw. We also rescued a Desert Tortoise by removing it from the road in a construction area and putting it in the brush just off the road. Hopefully it continued on into the desert instead of back into the road.

Kelvin is a dot on the map with a huge strip mining operation. We eventually wound our way out of the high country, past the mine, and back to Florence. From there we headed west towards Casa Grande and a Chinese restaurant that Linda had found through a Google Search. Before we got to the Chinese restaurant we saw a Golden Corral restaurant and decided to go there instead. We ate at one in Yuma back in December so we knew they had things we could eat. It was dark by the time we got back to our rigs but Curtis was still up and we visited until we were all tired and turned in for the night.

Following is an image gallery of some of the photographs I took today along the Florence to Kelvin Road.

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.

2015/03/13 (F) Sonoran Desert Museum

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We were up at 6 AM and left the fairgrounds a little before 7 AM to drive to The Sonoran Desert Museum west of Tucson, Arizona. That meant we missed the hitch-up breakfast, which is the last official activity of the Escapade. We also missed the SmartWeigh operation, an activity run by the Escapees to determine individual wheel weights for RVs, toads, and toters. We were not going to have our coach/toad weighed, but it would have been nice to get some photographs of the operation.

We drove separately from Lou and Val Petkus and were running a little ahead of schedule so we stopped at a McDonald’s about seven miles from the museum for coffee. We met up with Lou and Val and another couple from the SKP Photographers BOF in the parking lot. We needed 12 people to get the discounted group admission price so we all paid full price and went in.

The museum is spread over 21 acres at a mean elevation of ~2,800 feet. Most of the museum is outdoors and is a magnificent collection of Sonoran Desert flora and fauna that was worth the price of admission. We did not mind paying the asking price for this museum, however, as it is undoubtedly an expensive operation to run.

One of the highlights of our museum visit was the raptor demonstrations at 10 AM and 2 PM. We went to both and took a lot of photos. We were surprised how many people were there to see both demonstrations, especially children, as it was Friday (work/school day). Perhaps the area schools were on spring break. We had lunch in the cafe and it was very good. Reviews for the restaurant were excellent but it had white linen tablecloths, so we took a pass on that.

We left around 4:30 PM and drove up to Gates Pass where we parked and took photos of the mountains and sunset. The light was fading as we pulled out but we made it down the mountain road before darkness fell. It was way past dark by the time we got back to the coach; a long but very productive and satisfying day.

Sunset from Gates Pass west of Tucson, AZ.

Following is a gallery of some selected photos from our visit to the Sonoran Desert Museum. Some of the photos were taken by Linda. Photos were taken with Sony alpha 100 DSLR and Canon 50D DSLR. The photos are presented without captions.

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.

2015/02/07-11 (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.

2015/02/01-05 (N-R) Another Month in Q

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2015/02/01 (N) Hola February

Yesterday would have been an excellent day to continue cleaning and waxing the outside of the bus—cool and cloudy without a lot of breeze—but it was also an excellent day for the inside computer work that we both needed/wanted to do. I downloaded the free version of the Simple:Press forum WordPress plug-in the day before yesterday and was going to make a priority of installing it today on the FMCA Freethinkers website I have been developing until the activation of the Jetpack Site Management feature caused the admin panel (app) to crash. We have had a problem for a while with one member who was unable (or unwilling) to interact appropriately online via our e-mail reflector. The reflector does not require a login and does not have any way to moderate discussions or block/remove posts, so our options as a chapter were very limited. A WordPress-based forum would give us all of those features.

I had an e-mail reply from support@ipower.com indicating that the Wordfence plugin had caused the problem. They needed the answer to the security question in order to authenticate my support request and fix the problem. Bob Pelc provided me with that information which I supplied back to ipower.com. Later in the day I got an e-mail indicating that the problem was resolved and I was, in fact, able to log in without any problems. The e-mail said the Wordfence plugin had caused the crash and that they disabled it, but after I logged in it was still activated. I did not, however, take the time to check if it was functioning correctly. I also did not install the Simple:Press forum at this time.

For breakfast Linda improvised a potato tofu scramble with nutritional yeast, garlic, and other seasonings. It was a hearty and flavorful start to the day. After breakfast I called Jim A. back to discuss the FMCA seminar listing categorization document we have been working on.

I settled in to work at my computer on the consolidated blog post for November 10-16 while Linda settled in to work on accounting for the bakery. She is also approaching the time of year when she has to pull tax returns together. She uses Turbo Tax and needs an updated version each year. The products she needed were on sale through Amazon Prime. She purchased and download them, which also placed them in her Amazon software library, and they installed and opened without a hitch.

I got an e-mail from Harvey Carter (AC8NO), president of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC), asking me to update the officer listing on the club website. I took care of that and also changed that contact form (Contact Us page) to e-mail him instead of former president Mike Sharpe (WX8H).

By 2:30 PM I was tired of sitting in front of my computer so I changed into my work clothes and spent an hour trying to clean and wax a couple of windows on the bus. The passenger side, which faces south, was so hot I cloud not touch it for very long, so I worked on the north side in the shade.

Jim/Flo L. and Jim/Barb B. disassembled the Select Comfort air mattress we had put in the park model trailer and divided up the parts. We were going to donate it to the Salvation Army but did not get it done fast enough. Jim B. would like the pump and controllers but Butch and Fonda need them to replace the defective unit on the mattress in their guest bedroom. Since that is where I sleep when I am there, it is in my best interest to give it to them.

We invited all of our neighbors to come over for happy hour at 4 PM. Barb B. came over with a glass of wine at 4:20 PM, so I poured a glass for Linda and me. Jim B. was taking a nap as were Butch and Fonda. (Hey; retirement is hard work!). Butch and Fonda eventually shook the cobwebs out and came over. Jim and Flo L. arrived but busied themselves with dinner preparations. They were joining Jim/Barb B. for a belated Christmas dinner. Jim B. eventually awoke and Barb left to join the other three for dinner. Fonda left just before 6 PM to go to church but returned a few minutes later. Apparently the evening service had been cancelled because of the Super Bowl. She and Butch visited as the sun set and eventually it got chilly enough that we all decided to go inside.

I e-mailed Chuck Spera and my long-time friend John (J. C.) Armbruster earlier in the day but had not gotten responses from either of them by bedtime. During the evening I had e-mails going back and forth with Steve Willey regarding the upcoming informal FMCA Freethinker gathering at the Liar Peg Leg Smith Monument boondocking area in Borrego Springs, California. I also e-mailed Jim Ellmore regarding the same event.

A typical sunset in Quartzsite, Arizona as seen from our campsite on the north end of town.

2015/02/02 (M) Market Day

The last 24 hours have brought into focus why we are here for the winter. It will be sunny and 80 degrees F today. Detroit got 16.7 inches of snow from the storm that hit over the weekend, with 12 inches in Ann Arbor and similar amounts in Dexter, Howell, and Brighton. When we checked this morning it was 7 degrees at home and going up to a high of 14. Yeah, we are not missing that.

Breakfast was the bland store-bought bulk granola we have had to eat since running out of Linda’s homemade granola some weeks ago. I wish we could carry a five-month supply of her granola; it’s that good. Right after breakfast Linda started putting together menu ideas and a shopping list while I reviewed the latest seminar listing from Jim A. and e-mailed it back to him. He called later to discuss it briefly. I started working on yet another consolidated blog post for 17-23 Nov 2014 and did that until I could not stand to sit any longer. The antidote for was go outside and work on cleaning and waxing the rear cap of the bus.

Butch and Fonda left around 9 AM and drove to Parker to go shopping at Wal-Mart. Back home they shop at the Wal-Mart in Logansport and are familiar with the items there. Not long after they left Linda drove to Blythe, California to do our grocery shopping for the week. Of the supermarkets available to us we prefer the Albertson’s in Blythe, followed by the Smart & Final Extra at the same intersection.

Butch and Fonda returned from shopping and so did Jim and Barb. Butch asked if I had ordered the coil for the MAC solenoid air valve that controls the a-c shutters behind the front bumper. I hadn’t, so I took a break from cleaning and waxing the outside of the bus and called MAC Valve to order a replacement coil for the 111B601BAAA solenoid valve. (I still have the old valve but I do not think I have it with us in the bus.)

Jim L. stopped by with some very fresh grapefruit and we got to talking about automotive detailing. He recommended Finesse from 3M for polishing paint without leaving marks. He said it works so well that the paint looks “wet” when you are done. Butch had also suggested that I look at the Cyclo 5 dual head orbiting buffer/polisher. Apparently this machine can finish paint with no swirl marks.

The FMCA Freethinker website /WP-admin/ panel was back up and running. I logged in and checked the plugins. They were all there but they had ALL been deactivated. Tech support at ipower.com had indicated that they were going to disable the Wordfence plugin. I re-activated most of them, but not all, and specifically did not re-activate the Jetpack plugin. It is a large, feature rich plugin and the only thing I use is the Carousel feature to manage native WordPress image galleries. Unfortunately I need that feature and have not found another plugin that does what I need.

I worked for most of the evening on the consolidated blog post. By the time I finished it was too late to start selecting and editing photos, so I will do that tomorrow if I have time.

2015/03/03 (T) Wax On, Wax Off

I knew there was something else I was supposed to do yesterday, but I could not remember what it was. I sometimes put “tasks” on my calendar, but that does not help if do not check it. I remembered this morning what it was; I needed to call Sunset Sportswear in South Lyon, Michigan and follow up on an e-mail I sent last Thursday regarding our order for personalized SLAARC jackets. I made that call and Pam took our credit card information. Barb handles sales but had not made it in yet due to the snow. Sunset Sportswear was closed yesterday because of the storm so if I had remembered to call them it would have been for naught. Things often work out like that.

I also got an e-mail from the Escapees RV Club regarding the upcoming Escapade rally. It indicated we could extend our stay until Sunday noon. I called Lou Petkus, the head staff photographer for the Escapade, to let him know. The rally ends on Thursday with normal departure on Friday and staff departure on Saturday. Lou is trying to arrange a photography field trip for Saturday so the fact that anyone can stay until Sunday should help with participation. I called the SKP headquarters and booked the extra night.

I confirmed which RV Park Lou and Val will be in on March 5th and I think we will try to get in there as well. That location will position us close to the rally venue and allow us to caravan in together and park together. (We have to be in by 11AM on the 6th.) That, in turn, should make our staff photography work more convenient. We plan to hang out (dry camp) with RVillage founder Curtis Coleman for a couple of nights before this at his rental home near Casa Grande, which will put us a lot closer to Tucson than we are here in Quartzsite.

We had also mentioned to Lou and Val at Quartzfest that we were thinking of heading to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument after the Escapade. They had been discussing it and decided they would like to go there as well so we will probably caravan there with them. After OPCNM we plan to head to Big Bend NP (BBNP) in Texas and Lou and Val would also like to go there. That is a three day drive for us, and we may take six or seven days to get there depending on where we might stop and what there is to see long the way. Whether we travel together or separate will be determined later. Our friend, Mara, and another women from the WINs are also headed to BBNP sometime in March and we have tentatively agreed to meet up with them if we can work out the timing.

I checked my e-mail and had a reply from Jetpack tech support at WordPress.com. “Happiness Engineer” Jeremy said that Wordfence has been known to cause issues with the Jetpack plugin. He acknowledged that Wordfence is a powerful and important plugin but can be very aggressive in protecting websites. Given that Wordfence appears to have caused the crash of the FMCAA Freethinkers WordPress /WP-admin/ Jeremy said I probably did not need to reinstall the Jetpack plugin. I filled out a support ticket yesterday for this issue on the Wordfence website as I have a premium (paid) membership. They acknowledged the support ticket right away but an actual response will likely take longer.

I had all of these communications chores done by 11 AM and decided to continue cleaning and waxing the outside of the bus. I started with the rear, as it was still in the shade, and finished the lower half. It was tedious as that is the engine hatch and it has numerous horizontal indentations that run the full width. These indentations are open on the inside top for airflow and have screens to keep things from getting in (like fingers).

Another view of the sunset from our campsite in Quartzsite, AZ.

I continued on around to the driver side of the bus which faces north. The temperature this afternoon got up to 80 degrees F, and it was very hot in the sun, but it was pleasantly cool in the shade of the bus. It was near perfect conditions for the work I was doing. I worked most of the afternoon and did not quite get the back half of the bus cleaned and waxed. A couple of bay doors and I will be past the half way point on that side.

I am going to try to work on this at least a few hours every day, otherwise it will never get done and this is an ideal place to work on it as long as I am not working in the sun. The south facing passenger side is going to be more of a challenge and I will have to limit my work to the morning before the body panels heat up.

UPS showed up today with my coil for the MAC valve which turned out to be an entire new valve. Rather than try to remove the solenoid coil I may just install the whole valve. UPS also brought Fonda’s new sewing machine. It only weighs 13 pounds.

Butch got back from a rock hunting field trip late in the afternoon and we stood around chatting as an amazing sunset developed around us. As I have mentioned before, sunsets here are often 360 degree events and this one surrounded us with color before finally fading into another starry night.

Linda made a wonderful dish for dinner last night and we had it again this evening. She pan-grilled polenta and served it on a bed of dark leafy greens topped with puttanesca sauce made from scratch.

After dinner I selected photographs for my November 17 – 23, 2014 blog post and processed them. I uploaded the text to our WordPress site and then uploaded, captioned, and integrated each photo in turn. I also had to enter all of the tags, which I figure out as I read through the post. If there is one thing I would like to have at this point it is the ability to highlight key words and phrases in my Word document and have them automatically become tags when the text is uploaded.

By the time I published the post and went to bed to finish this one it was midnight. At eight minutes after midnight MST I was one hour into my 63rd year as I was born on this date at 00:08 in the Central Time Zone, where eight minutes past midnight happened an hour ago.

2015/02/04 (W) 63 and Counting

I finished my blog post for yesterday late last night and e-mailed it to myself at eight minutes after midnight, the hour and minute of my birth, or so I have always been told. Linda and the cats were all asleep and I observed the moment in quiet solitude. As I noted at the end of yesterday’s post I was actually an hour late in my observance as we are currently in the Mountain Time Zone and I was born in the Central Time Zone. But it was the thought that counted.

Sixty-three is not a milestone birthday anniversary, other than making it that far. On my 60th birthday I became eligible to retire, and did so four months later. On my 62nd birthday I became eligible to start drawing social security, but didn’t. On my 65th birthday I will become eligible for Medicare. The year I turn 66 Linda will apply for Social Security benefits and immediately suspend them. I will be eligible for my full Social Security benefit but will not apply for it. I will apply for the spousal benefit instead. Our monthly Social Security benefits continue to increase by 8% per year until age 70, a solid and guaranteed return, so Linda will start taking her benefits then and I will file for, and take, my benefits when I turn 70.

Having thought through the complexities of birthdays, we had breakfast and then I got to work cleaning and waxing the outside of the bus. My plan was to finish the driver side but not spend all day at it. As it turned out, I spent most of the day at it, taking breaks to check e-mail. It is just slow work, especially since so much of it has to be done on a step ladder. I have no idea how many trips I made up and down that ladder, but it was a lot. It is only a seven foot step ladder so I have to stand near the top to reach the top of the sides which are over 12 feet from the ground. I cannot reach very far to the side either, so I work from one side of the ladder then climb down and climb up the other side and work from there. I then climb down and move the ladder about three feet and do it all again; over, and over, and over. But as Long as I keep going it eventually gets done. I am, however, seriously considering getting a Cyclo 5 dual head orbiting buffer/polisher. There is simply too much bus to do this by hand. I am also considering getting a platform to put between two ladders and/or a four-wheel elevated work platform to use in the barn if/when we get it built.

I got a call from our daughter wishing me a happy birthday and had a nice chat with her. I asked if Katie had made a final college selection but she is not done with interviews yet. Perhaps we will know in a few weeks where she is headed in the fall.

Yesterday Linda invited all of our camping neighbors to come over today at 4 PM for happy hour to celebrate my birthday. In preparation she spent part of the day making cupcakes with chocolate frosting. When she wasn’t cooking she did accounting and tax return work for Butch and Fonda. Around 3 PM she prepared bruschetta using what was left of a loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread and the puttanesca sauce she made a couple of nights ago. Larry/Sandy, Jim/Barb, and Butch/Fonda all brought chairs and beverages of their choice. Butch and Fonda brought chips, salsa, and hummus and the peanut and dried fruit mix they make. We sat around talking until the sun set at which point the air temperature cooled off and we all retreated to our rigs.

I got a call from our son during our happy hour and excused myself for a few minutes to chat with him. It was 7:40 PM back in Ann Arbor and Madeline was getting ready for bed. I got to “chat” with her and she wished me a happy birthday. With encouragement from her mom she asked me “How is Arizona?” I told her it was very nice here.

We skipped lunch today and did not have dinner because we filled up on happy hour snacks. Linda played online word games while I started assembling the consolidated blog post for November 24 – 30. She turned on the MiFi and trundled off to bed to watch an episode of Downton Abby on her iPad. I finished editing the post and selected two photos to go with it. When I checked I found that I did not have photos for most of the days covered by the post. I thought about uploading it but decided against it as it still takes time to upload the text, upload and insert the pictures, and create all of the tags and I was too tired to maintain the needed concentration. Somewhere in there I read through a reply from Chuck Spera and sent him the next volley in our e-mail conversation.

Overall it was a good 63rd birthday. Given our winter travel lifestyle I face the interesting prospect of celebrating my birthday somewhere different every year for many years to come.

Our fellow campers gathered by our bus for my 63rd birthday happy hour. L-2-R: Sandy, Larry, Barb, Jim, Butch, Fonda, me. Photo by Linda (not shown).

2015/02/05 (R) A Screwy Tire

The overnight lows are now dropping into the upper 40’s at night and the coach cools off just enough that I turn the heat on in the front of the bus while I make coffee in the morning. Soon enough the sun starts heating up the coach and we are pulling the accordion shades down to keep it out and opening windows and turning on ceiling exhaust fans to draw cool air in. A couple of days ago we finally put the awnings out on the south facing passenger side of the coach. Between the patio awning and the bedroom awning they shade more than half of the upper portion of the coach and help keep the interior temperatures in check. We have not had them out much, however, because of the somewhat persistent winds in the La Paz Valley.

After breakfast I wanted to setup the TireTraker TT-400C TPMS. Once I started I would need to install the sensors on all 13 tires. In order to install the sensor on the spare tire in the car I had to empty out the back so I could get to the tire. Linda was helping me and noticed a screw in the passenger side rear tire. It was right at the edge of the tread but not technically in the side wall. The tire was holding pressure but when I started to back the screw out it started to hiss so I screwed it back in. Nuts.

Linda got online to look for tire repair shops in Quartzsite. The first three numbers we tried were out of service and the Love’s Truck Stop only repaired big tires, not small ones, so I called Jim Liebherr to see if he knew of some place in town. Flo answered the phone and could not locate Jim so I asked for a return phone call. Butch then offered to drive me downtown where he thought he remembered seeing a tire shop. As we were pulling out of our camp it occurred to Butch that the RV Pit Stop, just south of us on Central Avenue, might do tire repairs. Before we even got that far we saw the sign for Best Auto and Tires. We have walked or driven past this place dozens of times but never paid any attention to the fact they sold and serviced tires. At the time we did not care.

They said they would have to see the tire so we drove back to camp and I drove back in the car. They said they could repair it properly with an internal patch and they would get right on it if I wanted to wait for it. $14. Deal. I could easily have walked back to camp from there but I was back with the car within an hour. If the tire had not been repairable we would have had to take it off the car and use Butch’s Chevy Suburban to drive it to Yuma or Lake Havasu City where there are Discount Tire Locations.

Jim L. returned my earlier phone call while I was waiting for the tire. He and Flo use a dentist in Los Algodones, Mexico and are very satisfied with the service and price. I have a tooth that is bothering me just a bit and was giving some serious consideration to making an appointment with someone in Los Algodones.

I installed the batteries in our new TT-400C sensors and programmed the baseline pressures into the monitor (receiver). I then installed the sensors on the bus and car tires, linking each one to the monitor as I went. Programming the baseline pressures first is the easier way to install the system. In setup mode the monitor displays each tire position in turn. While the position is displayed a sensor is screwed onto the valve stem. The application of pressure to the sensor “wakes it up.” When the sensor starts transmitting the monitor associates it with the displayed tire position. After exiting setup mode only the programmed tire positions display on the monitor.

In addition to the overall setup procedure there are several things I like better about the TT-400C system compared to the PressurePro system we have had since the 2008 FMCA national rally in St. Paul, Minnesota. A major one is that the baseline pressures are programmed into the monitor. On the PP-TPMS the baseline pressures are determined by the pressure in the tire at the time the sensor is put on. Another thing I like is that the TT-TPMS monitor is powered by rechargeable batteries and is not plugged in when in use. That makes it much more convenient to move it between the bus and the car, but especially to carry it around while installing and associating the sensors to wheel positions. Finally, I like the sensors, which are much smaller and only weigh 0.4 ounces each.

Linda helped me reload the back of the Element and sort through all of the “stuff” that was “stuffed” in the glove box and the passenger side dashboard trays. (When was the last time someone actually stored gloves in an automotive glove box?). With everything sorted out and repackaged in ZipLock bags I stored it back in the glove box and locked up the car.

Linda spent part the morning working on accounting and tax returns for Butch and Fonda and talking on the phone to Dave, the controller at Metropolitan Baking. I got a call later from Jim Ammenheiser and then did a final proofreading of our Education Committee recommendation to FMCA staff for how to restructure the categorization and listing of seminars and activities in the national rally programs.

We took a break and had the last two cupcakes from yesterday with some vegan Mocha Almond Fudge coconut “ice cream.” We were supposed to have these last night for my birthday but we were not hungry after snacking at the happy hour birthday gathering. Linda then went for a walk. Linda got me a birthday card and a towel with an elastic edged hole for my head. I tend to get food on my shirts when I eat and the towel is basically an adult bib that can be easily laundered.

Our fresh water tank was a bottle cap shy of empty so I filled it. It usually takes about 50 minutes to fill the tank starting from empty so I set the timer on my smartphone for 40 minutes. When it signaled me to check on the progress the tank was already overflowing. (It has a vent tube on top of the tank that runs through the floor of the bay.) I don’t think I wasted more than a few gallons of soft water so it should not throw my water usage and softening calculations off by much. The good news was that the post-fill hardness test showed the water coming out of the softener at 0.0 to 0.5 gpg total hardness (0 to 10 ppm.) That was better than the reading I got right after I recharged the softener, so perhaps it still had some residual salt in it initially.

At 4 PM I was getting ready to upload a blog post when the UPS truck showed up and dropped off two boxes for me. It was the Chemical Guys microfiber products I had ordered recently, including two microfiber auto detailing aprons. Butch returned a few minutes later with a small package for me. It was the lens hood I had ordered for my Sony zoom lens and it had been mailed USPS. He also had eight (8) Full River 6V L16 AGM batteries. I helped him unload them from the Suburban onto the concrete pad on the driver side of their bus. Fonda emptied out the driver’s side of their battery bay and she and I then moved the batteries to the bay where Butch positioned them. He left them in their boxes and will install them when they get back to Twelve Mile.

At 5:15 PM I finally got around to uploading the consolidated blog post for the last week of November (2014). I then started thinking about what to do with my December 2014 posts. As of today I am still 67 posts behind and putting up daily posts is not realistic. In looking through my photos I was surprised to find that I took very few from the time we left the house until we arrived in Quartzsite. I decided to do consolidated posts for Dec 1 – 4 (Twelve Mike, IN to Alvarado, TX), 5 – 8 (visit with Donn Barnes), and 9 – 12 (travel from Alvarado to Quartzsite, AZ). I have more pictures for the rest of the month, so I will have to figure out what makes sense. I compiled the posts for December 1 – 4, selected and processed one photo, uploaded it, selected the categories, and entered all of the tags. I posted it and then realized I wanted to edit the URLs slightly so I logged back in and found that I was unable to type anything.

It took me a while to figure out that the problem was the built-in keyboard on my ASUS G750JM ROG notebook computer. I got it at the end of April last year, so I have only had it for eight months. I decided to run a full scan using ESET Smart Security since I could do that with just a mouse and the Bluetooth mouse was working just fine. It found 18 threats and dealt with 16 of them. I then ran CCleaner, after which I enabled the onscreen keyboard. Although intended for use on touchscreen computers, at least I could type things into a search box using my mouse.

I found some references to similar problems on answers.microsoft.com with the suggestion to examine the keyboard device properties. If it indicated the device was installed and working correctly it was probably not a Windows 8.1 problem. The other suggestion was to try an external keyboard. If that worked it would confirm a keyboard hardware problem. I had already gotten my Gigaware wireless keyboard out so I plugged in the USB dongle, turned on the keyboard, and voilà, I could type again!

Another post on the Windows forum listed website links for ASUS support so I started following those. One ASUS website wanted the serial number of my computer, which I had to get off of a tag on the bottom of the case with really small type. Once I had that entered correctly I was able to go to a download page with 81 files available, including bios and chipset code. There were two files that seemed to have something to do with the keyboard. By 1:15 AM I had a half dozen tabs open in two different browsers with no definitive understanding of what had happened or what to do to fix it. I then realized that the Shift Lock key on the keyboard was illuminated and I could toggle it on and off. I could also toggle the Number Lock, so I tried typing and the keyboard was working once again. That, however, did not give me any confidence that it would continue to do so. I decided I was not going to shut the computer down for fear of not being able to log back in on startup. I was not about to start downloading and installing anything at that hour so I went to bed tired, annoyed, and, frankly, a bit discouraged by this unwelcomed turn of events.

2015/01/18 (N) The Desert Bar

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Today was divided into several distinct pieces. At 8:30 AM we connected Linda’s iPad to our Verizon MiFi and Facetimed with our son, daughter-in-law, and grand-daughter. At 25 months her vocabulary is developing quickly and she recognizes us on the iPad as Grandma Linda and Grandpa Bruce.

The Nellie E. Saloon at The Desert Bar outside Parker, AZ.

When we concluded the call I made a quick run over to the Quartzsite Market Place to touch base with Gary Hatt and the folks at the Eagles International bus rally and the FMCA Western GM Bus Chapter rally. I returned to pick up Linda and we chatted briefly with Jim Guld of Geeks On Tour. He and Chris are staying at our encampment for at least this week.

Linda at The Desert Bar, upper level.

We headed up AZ-95 to Plomosa Road and headed east into the BLM camping area to pick up Mara. She is camped with the WINs (Wandering Individuals Network) but we drove past their camp and she flagged us down on the return. We got a brief tour of her Fleetwood Bounder and then headed for the Desert Bar. It was over 40 miles to get there with the last five on a primitive road that is not regularly maintained. It was very rough in places but our Honda Element had enough ground clearance to handle it and 4-wheel drive was not needed. It was, however, a slow drive. There is also a network of rougher trails that ATVs use to get to the bar.

The lower level of The Desert Bar. Lots of people for a Sunday afternoon.

One of the buildings that makes up The Desert Bar is the Nellie E. Saloon. It is named after the mine that operated there at one time. The bar began very humbly in 1983 and has grown considerably since that time. It is the quintessential “let’s build it and see if they come” venture. And come they did. It is completely off-grid and powered mostly by solar energy, although we did see a propane tank which we presumed fuels the cooking grills. Hours are weekends (Sat and Sun) noon to 6 PM from the first weekend in October to the last weekend in April. We got there a little before it opened but there were already people there and by 1 PM there were at least 200 people milling around and eating and the live band started playing. It was an older but active crowd, reflective of what we generally see around Quartzsite. The Desert Bar has moved beyond famous and is now legendary.

Linda with our friend, Mara, at The Desert Bar.

The beer was canned but cold and fairly priced, especially considering the location. We had veggie burgers that were tasty and cost $3.50 each. We shared an order of garlic fries with Mara and they were excellent. There were lots of other choices on the menu as well, so of which we could have had. As we were getting ready to leave we spotted riders on horseback coming up the road so we stuck around long enough to photograph their arrival. These were the original, 1 HP, ATVs of the American west. We had a great time there and it was certainly a unique place and experience for us.

The dance floor at The Desert Bar.

We left at 2 PM, stopped at the Wal-Mart in Parker, and got back to our rig at 3:30 PM. I dropped Linda off and headed over to Lloyd DeGerald’s place. Verda was there but Lloyd had their credit card machine with him so I said I would come back tomorrow morning to buy the Webasto flame detector photocell. I then headed back to the Eagles International and Western GM bus rallies to grab some general bus photos.

Linda and Mara enjoying the vibe at The Desert Bar.

Gary and I touched base with Buck Bolding to get squared away with arrangements to photograph his Eagle later in the week. We also walked over to the Western GM rally and made arrangements with Larry Hall to photograph his bus on Tuesday morning.

Byron Pigg and his wife Betty had straightened up their 1985 model 15 Eagle so I spent some time photographing the interior. The rally was having a pot luck (carry in) meal at 4:30 PM and invited me to stay so I had some plain spaghetti and green salad. While I was there I met Rico and Monica, a couple from Europe that have spent four months each winter for the last 15 years traveling around the world in a decommissioned Swiss military truck with a large trailer behind it. Rico drives buses in Europe for a living and works enough hours in eight months to earn his full year’s pay, which gets paid out to him once a month all year long and making it convenient to fund their annual travels. Gary and I chatted with folks until it was dark and I finally left to go back to my coach.

Patrons arrive at The Desert Bar on the original, 1 HP, ATV.

BCM publisher Gary Hatt (L) at the Eagles International bus rally at the Quartzsite Market Place drycamp area.

I spent the rest of the evening copying photographs from my camera to my computer and working on this blog post. Somewhere in all of that I got a phone call from Lou Petkus of the SKP photographers BOF and we figured out a time/place to meet.

Sunset over ‘Q’ Mountain from the Eagles International bus rally site.

The Phase Place

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

Tag Archives: Lou & Val Petkus

2015/04/26-30 (N-R) Routine Returns

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

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

2015/03/22-23 (N-M) Why Ajo

2015/03/20-21 (F-S) OPCNM

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

20150317 (T) Florence to Kelvin

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

2015/03/13 (F) Sonoran Desert Museum

2015/03/06-12 Escapade Images

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

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

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

2015/02/01-05 (N-R) Another Month in Q

2015/01/18 (N) The Desert Bar