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Council Bluffs and Omaha

We are at Lake Manawa State Park in Council Bluffs, IA. Fabulous brand new campground with full hookups, concrete parking and patios, big picnic tables, and fire pits. We have a nice view of the small lake, especially since they seem to have decided no campsite needs a tree! This is the true definition of “satellite friendly.” It has been really hot, so we didn’t go to as many places as we wanted.

We did get to the Doorly Zoo, an absolute must-see if anyone is in the area. I have my new mobility scooter, so I can finally be able to get through places that need a lot of walking. It was getting hot even though we were at the zoo by 9:00, so we did the primate area, the desert area, the rain forest, and the aquarium. We didn’t do the large animal exhibit because of the heat and Kevin’s knee. I won’t bore you with all the pictures, but I have to put some of my favorites up.

This mama did a great job of ignoring the humans

Since we came in the morning, many animals were still eating

This is the mai. Big guy in the gorilla group

The penguins swim so quickly that this was the best of many attempts

Not a great picture, but the best I could do

Almost no birds in the rain forest except these two, maybe bird flu?

It was 90 degrees by the time we left the zoo after a lunch around noon.

The next day we drove the Loess Hills National Scenic Byway. Loess (pronounced “Lus” like bus) is glacial debris. On the edge of the Missouri River bottomland is an unusual landform on the Iowa side where the loess formed hills. The erosion is intense, and it was the first part of Iowa that got terraces cut into the farm fields. The hills are really lovely though. You can see the ridge line in the center of the picture along with both the heavy forest on the slopes and the rich farmland at the bottom.

Contrast the Loess Hills with the river bottom of the Missouri River. Flat!

We also just wandered around town. There are some incredible historic areas in Omaha I had never heard of, and they are lovely. We also visited a couple of quilt shops to get fabric for a baby quilt for a soon to arrive great niece. I got it cut out and over half the blocks sewn! I hope to finish the blocks before we leave tomorrow.

Today we went to the Strategic Air Museum. Lots of glorious airplanes! It was even hotter than the previous days so I was glad it was indoors. A small set of the pictures.

Missiles were mostly outside. Compare the size of the missile with the people

I think the ceiling ones are interesting

Not a lot of rotary wings, but they did have some

Today’s high was 102 as read off our weather station on a pole at the motorhome. It was dreadful! We keep the MH cool with both air conditioners going and all the blinds pulled down. Makes for a boring view, but there is so much glass that you have to keep the sun from heating up the inside. It is humid too, with a 66% humidity right now at 87 degrees.

If the weather is so bad, why are we here? We have been waiting on some packages. One is a new Mifi from FMCA. They are phasing out their T-Mobile plan in favor or a plan from AT&T. However it seems like my package got lost at the Post Office! If wasn’t the fault of the USPS though. Whoever shipped the package didn’t put the “General Delivery” on the address! We got it today, and everything seems to work pretty well so far. The other reason we are waiting is for yet another scooter to arrive. It has a more powerful motor so it will go over rougher ground, something that will be handy in Canada and Alaska. It got delayed in shipping, but it should arrive in Cedar Falls tomorrow or Wednesday! Kevin will drive back to pick it up while I work on the baby quilt.

Tomorrow we go to Sioux City, IA. It is actually closer to home, and it has some nice museums. There is a weather front anticipated to cross right over us tomorrow, so we will leave this campground by 3:00. The campground is only 2 hours or less from here, so leaving late will be fine.

And we are off!

It has yet again been a month since I posted. I guess I just don’t feel I do as much stuff worth of posting when I am home. I did get a few things done though.

First off, we did get the MH yearly maintenance done. It was relatively painless. We use a small town Freightliner/Cummins place in Decorah, IA. Small enough they remember me, but full qualified and certified by Freightliner and Cummins for motorhomes. Good hourly rates too!

I did attend a quilt retreat at the Newton, IA KOA and the associated Alta House event center. It was run through the RV Quilter Facebook group, and I really enjoyed it. The facilities were top notch, the price moderate for everything we got, and we even had MaryAnn Fons or Fons and Porter fame give us a trunk show! I finished all the piecing on a sweet little quilt. The blocks were appliqués by my grandmother in the 1930s using mostly flour sack fabrics. When I got them they were yellowed and filthy. I soaked them in Biz, a non-chlorine laundry additive. After the first 6-7 hours, the water was just brown! I kept dumping it out and refilling, gently submerging the blocks. After 4 days, they were in pretty well clean, and happily nothing faded! They are fragile though, so I backed them with a lightweight interfacing designed for tshirt quilts. I had to do some creative trimming since they weren’t the same size or positioned the same. I finished the quilting at home on the quilting machine. Much easier than using my domestic Bernina machine.

Hand appliquéd, machine pieces and quilted.

Mostly we have just been getting ready for this upcoming western Canada and Alaska trip. Kevin was thoughtful enough to look for a small mobility cart for me. I have a mild case of scoliosis, but as I have gotten older, the arthritis has gotten bad, particularly in my left hip. It hurts to walk more than 100 yards or so, and I knew we would be doing more than that. He also bought some collapsible freestanding steps for the motorhome. I love them! They give a great platform to stand on in front of the door, and they have a railing! I had a bad fall a couple of years ago, and it was the proximal cause of my rotator cuff repair.

The steps actually attach to the platform, and you can adjust the height on each leg individually. He added some rubber bumpers because the raw metal edges would be bad on the paint.

We are now staying at a local campground, Big Woods Park. It is sooooo,inch easier to load the motorhome here than in the storage u it or at the house. Here we can open up all the slides, get things sorted correctly, etc. We will head out tomorrow morning to Omaha, NE. We plan to go to the incredible Henry Dorly Zoo plus some museums. We are staying at the brand new Lake Manawa State Park campground. When I say “new,” they just opened 1 June!

Expect lots of pictures folks.

Rallies and limited travel – subtitled COVID sucks!

I left off on my last post in March at the FMCA diesel club rally. We had a good time, met nice people, and learned more about our motorhome. All good stuff! We then went to the FMCA international convention in Tucson which also was great fun. Kevin and I were in the advance team working parking for the 1500 motorhomes that showed up. It was a busy time so I got behind posting. We were parked where the red arrow points, right behind the big music stage.

We were lucky enough to be right behind the main music stage. We just sat in our own comfortable lawn chairs and listened from our motorhome.

And then I came down with COVID, undoubtedly from the rally. Sigh. I knew it was possible, even probable, but at some point you have to trust the science that says we are protected.

In case someone reading this is one of the rare people who haven’t gotten COVID yet, I can assure you it sucks. My first symptom was a sinus cold from hell. I get these occasionally from my allergies, but this time it progressed to where I could hardly stop coughing. Took a test – negative. Then I came down with fatigue that was unprecedented. I started sleeping 14 hours a day, and Kevin had to drive the motorhome. I just wanted to get home! The day we made it home I took another test, and this one was so positive! The test line was 3 times thicker than the control line. I basically slept most of the day for about 2 weeks. Gradually the sinus disaster slowed down, and I began to feel human. Luckily Kevin, though positive, was not nearly as sick as I was. He took care of me, and my son brought us groceries during the time we were contagious. By late April I was feeling human again, almost a month after I started being sick. Oh, and I am double vaxed and boosted!

While I was recovering, we set up appointments to get some work done on the motorhome. Our big electric slide wasn’t retracting evenly, and it was making dreadful noise. We checked a bunch of places in Iowa, but I couldn’t find someone I felt comfortable with. We made appointments in the Red Bay, AL area and headed down on 30 April.

We spent the first night at a lovely Corps of Engineers site on Mark Twain Lake, Ray Behrens campground. As usual, it was lovely with big sites and mixed sun and trees. Also as usual, I forgot to take a picture! The next night we spent at Boothill RV Park in far southern Missouri near Portageville. It is in a handy location and clean. It is mostly long term residents this time of year, but there were lots of sites that will be filled up during summer with transients. And it was yet another no picture location! We made it to Red Bay on Monday just after noon and found a nice spot at the Red Bay RV Park. It is just a parking lot, but it has full hookups and is far enough out of town that it is nice and quiet.

On Tuesday, Waylon Burroughs took our old captain chairs and the new covers Tiffin had sent to replace the severely deteriorated ones we had. He brought the recovered chairs back on Wednesday. Here you can see the old and new covers.

Wednesday we had Scott Petty put in a SoftStart for our front AC. It keeps the initial power surge when the compressor turns on to be much lower. I had bought it during a Black Friday sale, and it was much easier to let Petty install it then Kevin.

Thursday we had an appointment at Precision RV to have the slide looked at. Turns out it had broken pieces! It needed a new complete set of parts on one side, and they got it at a discount from Tiffin because they buy half sets that Tiffin doesn’t use in the Service Center. Nice! While they were at it, they fixed the door awning that never has worked very reliably plus adjusted a bay door latch that was getting sticky. They also lubricated all kinds of things, showed Kevin how to do it in the future, and cleaned out the air conditioners on the roof. They also inspected all kinds of things, and everything else was good! I really, really liked these guys. They were very interested in showing us how to do our own preventative maintenance which was nice. Highly recommend!

As usual when we are in Red Bay, we spent time driving around. It was very warm – mid 80s – and very green. The wildflowers were lovely in the meadows. I apologize for the photos because I forgot my camera and had to take these pictures with my iPhone. I think you can get the idea though.

There are lots of hills in this part of Alabama

And the landscape roses were blooming in riots of color!

We are off tomorrow morning, much more confident in the readiness of the “house” part of the motorhome. I have a yearly maintenance appointment scheduled for the chassis in a couple of weeks. We will then be ready to go!

Around Page, AZ

We started out staying in Page, AZ in the yard of a friend. Nice way to handle the cold weather! We officially here for a native heritage dinner theater, but we took a scenic drive too.

The Vermillion Cliffs National Monument was fabulous! They are the second “step” in the Grand Staircase of the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona and southern Utah. I am just going to post a bunch of pictures I took with my camera, though none of them really represent the glorious red color of the cliffs.

We eventually had to climb out of the Colorado River valley, and we were able to get a different hope of view – SNOW!

When we made it back from our 4+ hour trip, we went to Red Heritage Dinner Theater. My friend in Page had recommended it, and we thought it would be a nice change from all our time out in the boondocks. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but this was quite a bit different. First we got decent Indian tacos (fry bread with a meat – multiple choices- cheese, salsa, sour cream, lettuce, tomato) plus a light pudding dessert. Then we had an interesting cultural discussion about weaving in the Navajo tradition. The presenter, an older woman, described the process from shearing through spinning and dyeing while his granddaughter worked on a rug. The background of some of the patterns was discussed too. As a person who loves textiles, I found it very interesting!

The main entertainment began with an Indian flute player who played on both a single flute and a double flute I have never seen before! It was two joined flutes with a single mouthpiece. Fascinating. Then there was a drum set with four drummers and songs. After that was a dance exhibition with a variety of dance types and dancers. What an athletic group the dancers are! The energy expended was impressive.

Among all the fun things we have done, I have also finally finished my kid quilt for the FMCA rally. I always like to have at least one kid-friendly quilt to donate. This one was fun! I cut up bunches of scraps, many from masks I made in the last couple of years. Using the Accuquilt, it doesn’t take long, and I just randomly sewed them together. The piecing was enjoyably mindless, and I adore how much texture the quilting added. I used just a basic meander stitch, something I can do fairly easily on my Bernina 830 in the motorhome.

We ended up staying in Page an extra day due to snow. We had 2-3” in Page proper, and the surrounding areas on the way to Flagstaff got even more. When we were ready to leave on Thursday, Kevin had to break off an inch of ice from our big slide topper! It had pooled on the fabric, then froze overnight. What a mess! The road to Quartzsite, our destination, was clear, though there was significant snow around Flagstaff. We stopped at Hi Jolly, and we picked up pizza from Silly Al’s, a great spot. I then collapsed since I drove way longer without a break than I should.

We also took a trip to Yuma to pick up the glasses we ordered a month ago! Mine are Varilux progressives with polarizing and tint, while Kevin got just regular Varilux lenses. It was hundreds less than the optometric shop at home!

We are now at a rally with the Diesel RV FMCA chapter in Tacna, AZ about 30 miles from Yuma. Luckily I checked this place out only to find it doesn’t allow washing machines! This was definitely an issue since we had been boondocking for well over a week. We ended up getting water, turning on the generator, and doing 3 loads before going to the rally. We will still need to do another load while at the FMCA convention because I don’t have enough short sleeved shirts for this hot weather. It was 87 degrees here today!

Go north young (wo)man!

We left Overton, NV and headed north. The weather was a bit cold and snowy on both alternatives, and the northern route was a lot less driving. We chose to spend 2 nights at the Kaibab Paiute Tribal RV Park at Pipe Spring National Monument. Full hookups, reasonable price, and big roomy sites. The drive her was lovely, heading up through St. George, UT and Hurricane, UT, just south of Zion National Park. We are in an area of high red mesas, and it is gorgeous! Normally I wouldn’t post this quickly after my last post, but we took an enjoyable drive along the Smithsonian Butte Backcountry Scenic Byway. The northern end is in Zion National Park, but the road was very muddy, and we didn’t make it all the way. We did enjoy what we drove though.

Getting there means driving through the former FLDS towns of Colorado City, AZ and Hildale, UT. We have been through them a number of years ago, and they were really depressing. Their “prophet” was sitting in jail for child molestation, and they were really rudderless. A trust was running the towns under the auspices of the state governments and a judge. The difference now is significant! Lots of new businesses, new housing, lots of non-FLDS folks walking around. It still has areas of decaying homes and yards overrun with trash and weeds, but there were fewer than the last time we came through when we visited Pipe Springs for the first time.

Once we were on the Byway, the views just opened up.

The entire area was getting pop up snow or rain showers, depending on elevation. I think this captures the true definition of a forecast for “partly cloudy with scattered showers.”

Tomorrow we are going to Page, AZ, staying with friends at their rural spot. Undoubtably there will be more sightseeing and more pictures then.

Death Valley and the Amargosa Valley

We left Hi Jolly Tuesday morning. It was still windy, but we were hoping we could make it the relatively short distance to Death Valley without being blown off the roads. We got just outside of Needles, and the highway signs were telling us “High Profile Vehicles Not Recommended.” We ended up stopping at the Needles KOA after a short trip of just under 100 miles. It is actually a nice place, and we have stayed there a number of times before. Luckily the wind died down some that night, and we made it to Death Valley and Sunset campground comfortably. We did have to cross some mountain passes on the way, and they were snowy. Luckily the snow had stopped, the roads plowed, and brine had been applied to them, so it was easy traveling. I don’t like brine on the motorhome though! We couldn’t find any place to wash the rig, so we just had to leave it on until we left.

We have stayed at Death Valley so often that I don’t take nearly as many pictures as I should. We got our favorite site – right on the eastern edge of the campground with no one between us and the mountains! It was windy and cloudy much of the time, so pictures weren’t that great anyway. I did get a couple of lovely sunrise pictures, taken from the steps of the motorhome.

We spent most of our time at the Dark Sky Festival. As usual they had great speakers from NASA, Goddard Space Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, James Webb Space Telescope, and others. There were photography sessions and astronomy sessions too. We did get one trip into Pahrump for supplies, and it allowed us to eat at Chat Thai, a great little place we try to get to every time we are in town. Kevin tried to get some pictures at night, but clouds came in all nights but one. Sigh.

We took one long trip to the Ubehebe Crater, a steam crater resulting from ground water being instantly vaporized by a magma pipe only 2000 years ago. If you look really carefully you can see four tiny dots of people who walked down to the bottom. It gives an impressive sense of scale.

After the fun of the Festival, we headed to the Longstreet Casino in Amargosa Valley, just 7 miles from Death Valley Junction, so we could relax with power, dump tanks, and do laundry. What a nice place! We spent Wednesday and Thursday nights here, and we will never stay in Pahrump again! The sites were all gravel, but they were roomy and they had planted a native tree between campsites. There is even a swimming pool and petting zoo! We had dinner (so-so) and breakfast (better) at the restaurant. While we were at Longstreet we took a side trip to Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. It is always a surprise to find so many springs in the middle of the desert! It is truly a tiny hidden oasis of springs, ponds, and a small reservoir.

A cabin marked simply “Archeology project.”

Jack Longstreet was the person the casino was named after. He was one of the classic western folks – part outlaw, part miner, part rancher. He hid out in a cabin he partially dug out of the soft rock in the refuge. It was well hidden.

The springs and ponds are the real story though.

The pupfish are very small but very blue. Look carefully to see them.

Some of the famous pupfish (though not the Devil’s Hole pupfish.)

The land was developed as a ranch, and they bulldozed sand dunes and pumped water causing significant habitat degradation. The ranch was sold to Las Vegas property developers who wanted to build a few thousand homes here! Luckily the Nature Conservancy was able to purchase the land and transfer title to the National Fish and Wildlife Service. The reservoir below is one of the remnants of the ranch. The dam is in poor shape though, and the reservoir is kept pretty low. The tiny black dot bottom left is a duck.

We left the Casino and are now spending two nights at a Boondockers Welcome location in the Moapa Valley northeast a bit from Las Vegas. Nice guy, but the winds have been so bad! My allergies are flaring up miserably, I am coughing my lungs out, and I am mostly hiding in the motorhome with the HEPA filter running. If it doesn’t clear up in a couple of days, I will have to resort to the steroids I have stashed.

We had lunch today in Overton, NV at the Inside Scoop, a combination sandwich shop and ice cream store. Look at my sandwich! Actually this is the half I took home. The sandwich was massive and tasted delicious for both lunch and dinner!

We are still trying to figure out how to get to Page. The short way is through southern Utah, but it is looking cold and snowy along part of it. The other way is dropping south towards Kingman and Seligman, but it is a lot farther, and there is some bad weather there too. We will decide tomorrow.

Mt. Lemon and Quartzsite

No, they aren’t anywhere near each other, but I realized I didn’t post about our trip up the mountain to Mt. Lemon outside of Tucson. Nice ride with a variety of scenery and environments.

The road leaves town and quickly heads to an incredible saguaro forest.

It then climbs through some interesting rocks.

Had to zoom for this. Sorry for the fuzzy.

Eventually we leave the desert for true mountain surroundings.

It was a nice trip, well worth the 2 hours or so.

We moved to the Hi Jolly BLM area north of Quartzsite. We haven’t ever stayed here before. It is free camping for up to 14 days, but no access to water, dump station, or trash. It was much more crowded than the LTVA areas we stayed in before, and I am not overly fond of it. We did meet another Tiffin owner who came by to chat. Nice guy, and he had Kevin hit it off. He was quite excited by some of Kevin’s updates, especially the new printed door handle. Kevin also showed him the DC to DC charge system he has on the alternator. He was kind enough to take us on a side by side UTV ride to a couple of historic areas to the northwest of us.

The first place was called “Lead Well”, a not too auspicious name! It was an established watering spot for the pack trains from the local mines in the early 1900s, before the railways.

We also visited a marble mine. It only closed a few years back, so it was in good shape with soolid fences, interior roads, and the office still standing.

I have been careful to keep up with some of the local activities in town. We went to a Peter, Paul, and Mary tribute band concert at the Quartzsite Improvement Association. Not bad at all. I was surprised at the song selection. Here we are in heavy conservative grumpy old men Trump country, and they sang a lot of quite subversive Bob Dylan pieces. Interesting dynamics, and I quite enjoyed it.

Today we hunkered down most of the day with a heavy wind. Gusts were 40-50mph, and they really rocked the MH. We ended up pulling in the big living room slide because of the noise it made. There is a metal cover over the LR awning, and when the wind catches it right, it makes an awful racket. We also made a trip into Parker for groceries, and saw the wind storm just getting started. I only had my iPhone, but I think you get the idea.

Toorrow we pack up and head somewhere towards Death Valley. We haven’t decided whether we will sleep there tomorrow night or whether we stop in a FHU campground along the way. It will depend on the wind and how early we get out. I am waiting for an Amazon package delivery that will be delivered tomorrow in Parker, so we will decide after we see how late it comes.

Death Valley has extremely limited cellular data, so I don’t know if I will post anything until we come out Monday or Tuesday. We are heading for the Dark Sky event they are putting on, and Kevin has the telescope and camera ready!

A trip to Tucson and back to Quartzsite

Kevin’s package did come in, and he is now ready to practice some astrophotography. It is a bit complicated due to the full moon tonight though! The High Chaparral RV park was definitely not the place to do it either, so he will be trying it in Quartzsite soon.

On our way to Tucson, we took a stop at the Pinal Airport, one of the big airplane graveyards. You can’t get right up to the planes, but you can get pretty close.

There were lots and lots of these decommissioned American Airlines affiliate jets

Obviously the airport was a WW II facility with this tower

“Reduce, reuse, recycle” comes to mind seeing this fuselage repurposed into a shop

Some of the salvage has gone farther than others

While Kevin was impatiently waiting for his tracking board he was also keeping busy making a cool doohickey for the MH. Our model has a very inconvenient screen door latch. It is set quite low so I can’t reach it without going up (from the outside) or down (from the inside) a couple of steps. Awkward with lots of stuff in your hands. So he made a new latch that is higher but connects to the original. Ignore the dirt on the door – we had a windstorm!

Spring loaded depressing the original latch

I am quite impressed! It works marvelously.

Yesterday we left Casa Grande to go back to Quartzsite for a week. We had made another Amazon order, setting the pickup for Parker, AZ. There was a dreadful windstorm forecast, so we left at 9:00, arriving at Hi Jolly BLM area at 1:00, just as the wind gusts were getting fierce. We basically just stayed put inside until the wind died down in the early evening. Then we opened the windows and let the cats enjoy the light breeze that remained. We haven’t ever stayed here before, since we normally stay in one of the Long Term Visitor Areas (LTVAs) that charge $40/2 weeks but provide access to water and a dump station. Since we are basically just marking time until we can get into Death Valley, we didn’t need that this time.

In general our boondocking setup is working great. We use a lot of electricity with a residential refrigerator, satellite TV system, and heater fan, but an hour of generator and the solar recharge it pretty well most days. Our fresh water (90 gallons) and waste tanks (50 gallons black, 70 gallons gray) can easily accommodate a full week. We hope to leave here on Monday, but we might need to stay until Tuesday for yet another Amazon delivery.

Yuma and Casa Grande

We left Quartzsite on Thursday, 3 February for Sun Ridge RV park in Yuma. There was a really bad wind storm on Wednesday, so we delayed while most of our friends left on Tuesday to get out in front of the storm. We always love the Quartzsite area after most people leave; it is wonderfully quiet and empty after the crowds of the previous week. One other couple stayed at our rally spot, and we all went to the Quartzsite Yacht Club for dinner. We had ribeyes that were remarkably good, and Paul joined us. Ann had fish and chips, and she said it was quite good too. Two or three days later, the Yacht Club owner abruptly closed the restaurant. The pains of running a seasonal restaurant and bar during a pandemic just made her too tired to continue. She said the final straw was a very poor review. Be kind folks!

The RV park was where we had three sets of friends stay, so it came well recommended. It was not really set up for short timers, with lots of Palo Verde trees far too close to the road. We definitely got some rub marks, but nothing more serious. The sites are roomy, but are all 100% gravel with a small concrete patio. There was a quilting group, but I didn’t know about it in time to attend. The folks were really nice, but they had a rule they didn’t put on their website – no personal washing machines! Since one of the main things we wanted to do was laundry, this was quite disappointing. One of our friends recommended a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” approach since we were only there a week, and that’s what we did. I really, really prefer using my own washer and dryer, though there’s looked fine.

One Monday we did the main task we came for – heading to Algodones for discounted glasses. It was remarkably easy, and we ordered fancy progressive glasses with frames, mine with heavy tint and polarizing. Sadly they don’t make those in their own lab, so it will be three weeks before we can pick them up.

One of the main streets in Algodones. Medical tourism is the thing here

The process was easy: pay $6 for parking in an Indian-owned lot, walk right into Mexico after a cursory look in my purse, look for glass frames we liked, see the eye doctor, order, and pay with a credit card. Kevin also picked up some anti-inflammatories at the pharmacy next door. We wandered around a while, and I did end up with a new purse! It is a knock-off I am sure, but it is just the size I have been looking for. Getting back into the US was more effort than leaving. We had to wait in a line (of course) for 40 minutes, showed our passports to the agent, and then walked back to the car. I highly recommend going as early as you can because the lines are much shorter.

I wish I had a better picture of this little boy playing his accordion for tips while we waited for Border Control to let us back into the US.

Walkway back to the US with plantings and an accordionist

We also did some of our standard Yuma things like shopping (both of us bought shoes) and lunch at Yuma Thai (I recommend the green curry!). I also went to Bingo for the first time at the RV park. It was fun! Now I know the basics, and I may play at other RV parks since it is a common activity at the 55+ parks common in snowbird country.

I also came down with some type of gastritis with a fever, headache, and just a generally unhappy belly. Being in the times we are in, I took a COVID test twice, 24 hours apart, both negative. The fever and headache finally went away yesterday, but the belly discomfort is still there. Hopefully that resolves soon.

I did finish my donation quilt top which was good. It is hard to do a good pressing job in the limited space I have, but I finally got everything lying fairly flat. I will show a picture when I get it quilted.

After Yuma, we decided to go to Casa Grande and High Chaparral RV Park. I wasn’t nearly as impressed with this one – smaller sites and no landscaping. They have a gorgeous laundry room though, and they have a nice pool and club room. They also could only take us for 5 nights, but that long enough. Kevin has ordered a new control board for the auto star tracking on his tripod, and it is scheduled to arrive in Tucson tomorrow. We didn’t really want to stay in Tucson due to the crowds from the Gem Show, and I had been interested in the Casa Grande area for a future longer stay. It has gotten quite warm (low 80s), so having nice electricity and AC is pleasant. We will probably be heading back to dispersed boondocking, so I will use it while I can!

Big Tent show is over and we can relax

We are still in Quartzsite until tomorrow morning. We have reservations for a full-hookup RV park in Yuma where we have friends staying. Laundry will be first on the list!

Back to what we did in the last week. We did take a nice day trip to Lake Havasu City. Kevin had finally ordered a telescope and some accessories, and the only place we could find for Amazon to deliver it was LHC. Odd but true, due to the size of the package. He got excited, and when the app showed the package was out for delivery, we headed up. LHC is about an hour and a half north of Quartzsite, and we wanted to get dinner and do some sightseeing too, so we thought the timing would work. It didn’t, and the package didn’t get delivered until around 8:00 pm after we left! We did enjoy the trip though.

We saw this Osprey take off from the LHC airport! He flew right over us.

The small community of Havasu Lake across the Colorado

Lake Havasu City from a peninsula into the lake

Looking kind of north-ish across the lake.

We also went looking for boondocking opportunities in the area. We had stayed before in Craggy Wash, a BLM dispersed camping spot, so we went there first. Way too crowded for me, and the spots suitable for bigger rigs were mostly taken. The rocks are cool though!

There were some promising sites closer to I-40 that we might use some other time. The advantage of these sites is that there is good cellular internet service, a big plus in my book.

Poor Kevin had to return for the telescope on another day, but we enjoyed the trip back to Quartzsite. These were taken from an overlook along the Colorado River north of Parker.

And the telescope did finally show up, though Kevin took another trip to get it. It works well, but a control board in his tracking system is having issues. He can do some pictures, but it requires more manual work than he wants to do. You can see how close we are parked to our friends in the fifth wheel. Just for the rally, we all parked 30’ or so apart, awfully close for dispersed camping. The sites allows for much wider distances most of the time.

Speaking of cellular data, the reason I haven’t updated is because there has hardly been any until yesterday! When the hundred thousand or so people show up for the big RV show, service goes to hell. You can generally make calls and text, but internet access becomes almost nonexistent. Now that the show is over and the masses are gone, I have good service. I even streamed some television tonight. Our nearest neighbors, rally friends who also stayed put, are about 100’ away, just about the right distance LOL! I don’t like being right next to even friends if I can help it. One of the major advantages of dispersed camping is you can space yourself out.

Most of the folks left Monday or Tuesday morning ahead of the bad wind storm we had today. It had gusts of 50+ mph and sustained winds of 30 mph for a long time. We just hunkered down and brought in some of the slides. It wasn’t that they were in real danger, but the slide toppers were making a big racket! Before the storm we had some visitors nearby. Quail are my favorite desert bird.

Another picture before the storm.

We also have a Gila Woodpecker making busy in a nearby saguaro, but I never did get a good picture of it.

I visited the Quartzsite Quilt Guild a couple of times on this trip. Nice group of women, and I got a lot done in their free-sewing time. I sewed 10 new microwave bowl cozies to use as presents, and I finished all the rows of my triangle donation quilt. The plan had been to finish it today, but there was t room with the slides in. In fact, my sewing table is turned upside down on the bed right now! I can get the top finished next week for sure. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I did Dutch Oven dishes for the rally potluck – layered green chili chicken enchiladas and peach cobbler. The cobbler was such a hit I made an apple version on Monday evening, but still no leftovers. Sigh. It all went over well though, and there wasn’t much scraping needed to clean the pots!

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