Quilting – Page 3 – TooBusyForWork

First week in Quartzsite

It has been busy, so that is my excuse for not posting sooner. Be prepared for loads of pictures!

We arrived on Saturday, 14 January. We basically got settled in to our site, and Kevin spread out all the outdoor paraphernalia we don’t often pull out. he has a new kitchen set up for the Blackstone grill, plus the rug and chairs all got pulled out. On Sunday we took our first ride with a local Side by Side (UTV) club called “Arizona Sunriders.” We had been following along their Facebook page, and they welcomed us on their ride. Here are some shots from the trip. We started out at the somewhat still active marble mine. I didn’t take any pictures because we did that last year.

We also visited a local landmark called Deer Run B&B. To put it mildly, it isn’t a real B&B. Instead it is a quirky spot at the end of a VERY rough trail filled with a hodgepodge of chairs, tables, and cute signs.

Part of the group at one of our stops. That’s Kevin at the back of our little RZR.

While on FB the trip had been identified as a relatively short, easy ride, it turned out into something that really stretched our skills and comfort! Luckily they later said it was probably the third hardest tour they do! We made it, so we feel accomplished.

On Monday we took a trip to Yuma and Algodones, Mexico. Kevin wanted to get new glasses, and he took his prescription from our ophthalmologist in Iowa to Western Optical there. He is quite happy with the new glasses, and they only cost $160 for frames, bifocal lenses, and coatings, about half the price back home. We ate Mexican food (of course!), and on the way back we saw three groups of feral donkeys along US 95 through the Yuma Proving Grounds. We only stopped to get pictures of this small group.

The weather has been wet and cold, both unusual for this time of year. On Wednesday it finally cleared up.

We spent some time just driving the RZR around the local area too. The top of a nearby hill shows part of the Long Term Visitor Area (LTVAs) near Quartzsite. Yes, it really is that crowded near town! However it gets a lot less crowded a mile or two away from town. Note this was middle of last week, before even more crowds came for the big rock show and the RV show (“The Bog Tent”).

We also took a trip to Parker, both to pick up the sticker that allows us to ride the RZR on Indian land, but also to grab some fabulous donuts at the little bakery there and to have lunch. We found a fabulous Indian place called Dee’s Cafe that I would recommend to anyone.

Yesterday we took another trip with the Sunriders to Swansea ghost town. It was a very active place with up to 750 people and multiple mines. Surprisingly most of the ore was originally transported to Los Angeles where it was shipped across the Atlantic to Swansea, West Wales, for refining and steel making. Eventually the mills were added to the town, and the town took its name from the former milling location. These are big ruins in remarkably good shape considering they are over 100 years old.

Rows of mountains from the site. Note the saguaros.

So far today we have driven the RZR some pictographs that are quite near our camp.

I have also been sewing. I now have all the rows done for a donation quilt that needs to be finished by the FMCA convention in March. Shouldn’t be a problem at all, which is reassuring.

The huge Big Tent RV show began yesterday, but opening day is a madhouse. We might go in the middle of next week, maybe at 9:00 am or 3:00 pm. Too crazy for me to be interested in prime time viewing. Besides, they always have good state fair type of food vendors – fry bread, funnel cakes, turkey legs, Asian bowls, all kinds of stuff! I do love my fry bread.

Yet another Red Bay visit (with a day trip to Huntsville, AL)

After we left Bowling Green, we drove Hinton RV Park in Sikeston, MO. Nice place. We had a huge pull through site with full hookups at $45/ night. We didn’t have to disconnect the UTV trailer from the MH, and there was still room for the Jeep. We decided to stay 2 nights, knowing New Year’s Eve is noisy a lot of places. This place was nice and quiet, mostly with a mix of long term residents and migrating snowbirds.

The night we arrived, 30 December, we went to Lambert’s Cafe, home of the “throwed rolls”. It was decent cafe food, but you don’t go just for the food; you go for the fun. Yes, they really do throw dinner rolls to you across the dining room! The servers were working hard, and they had other staff come around with additional standards like fried okra (a favorite or mine), apple butter, and fried potatoes and onions (another favorite).

On New Year’s Eve we just relaxed. I did cut a bunch of quilt components with the Accuquilt though. We got to try out the new Starlink system, and it is fabulous. A good 5G signal gives about the same throughout, but it is hard to find 5G where we go. We actually made it to midnight Atlantic time (aka 10:00 pm Central time). We wanted to get up early and drive, but New Year’s Day started out quite foggy so we took our time. We did get to Red Bay at a decent time, and we are settled at Red Bay RV Park. “RV Park” is a strong name for a very nice gravel lot with FHUs, but it is level and roomier than some of the alternative places.

Since we are going to be here a while, I pulled out the sewing machine and got lots of little blocks completed. It is nice to sew while listening to audiobooks, and I did that while Kevin messed around with the water softener and a few visits to hardware stores. We had our first repair appointment today with the paint folks at Pro-Finishes. After 60,000 tough miles, it was time to get some chips filled in plus we had a couple of big scratches on a slide. They got all that done while we went to the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. Fabulous! Be prepared for incoming pictures.

We started in the main indoor section of general space “stuff” including training facilities for their Space Camp. Interestingly the exhibit started with a collection of space themed toys ranging from the 1930s to present.

After the toys were a combination of models are true artifacts.

Of course there were real artifacts too including these space suits

Please some concept suits for the future.

We then went to the Planetarium where we saw a presentation about the James Webb Space Telescope. Quite interesting! After that we visited the next museum building that was centered on rockets and manned space flights. Again, a combination of models and actual artifacts.

The inside of the second museum building emphasized manned flight. There was a docent who was giving a very interesting guided tour that we lucked out with. There was an actual Saturn 5 rocket inside this building, laid on its side (all 300+’ of it!), and I took lots of pictures. I will spare you those! This specific rocket was built for vibration testing, and obviously the designed passed. I will emphasize more on the manned capsules now.

The silvered thing in back was an actual training module for the Mercury

Damaged heat shield from the capsule – ouch!

There was even the sole remaining component from Sky Lab, the first space station. This was the only piece that didn’t end up burned up or lost in the ocean. You can see the insulating pieces of fiberglass that didn’t burn up.

We came back to check out the coach painting, and found a couple of spots they had to re-do. Looks pretty nice though! Tomorrow is a visit with Precision RV for slide check and maybe hydraulic pump repair, slide topper tightening, and replacing an igniter on one the propane furnaces. Of course they may find other stuff! Saturday is a full exterior detailing, then Sunday we head for Arizona. I can’t wait. It is so humid here that my towels don’t dry overnight, and we have to wash them every 3 days or so. Ugh. I want my nice dry desert again.

And we are off!

We left this morning for more southern climates. The weather has been truly awful for the last two weeks with even the highs below 0 and nasty winds. Kevin and I kept looking at each other saying “This is just too cold!” We always stay until after Christmas though, so we bided our time until we had two decent days. One we needed for packing and the other we needed for driving, and we finally got them. We even scored a FHU winterized site at the local KOA that let us get full de-winterized before taking off. I am towing the cargo trailer with the UTV on it, and Kevin is driving the Jeep separately. So far, so good, though he has to stop for fuel 3 times as often!

We were planning on staying at a campground in Bowling Green, MO, but they have their water turned off. We decided to save $60 and just spend the night in the local Walmart parking lot. With our batteries, solar, and generator, it is an easy thing to do even in cooler weather like we are having. At least it is dry.

We did have a fabulous Christmas though. All four kids, spouses, partners, and grandkids were able to get together for dinner and presents on the 23rd. We needed to work around my daughter’s work schedule as a nurse. And of course I forgot (again!) to take pictures!

I have been frantically trying to keep up with my Mystery Quilt Zoom class. i got the vast majority of it done, and I was pretty pleased with myself. Even though I posted the first two weeks, I am going to show all of them again to keep the pieces together.

Week 4 blocks – 10” I fixed the error on the last block on the left

I actually did week 5 which was a single block plus adding connector blocks, but I forgot to take a picture! I have decided to make this a king sized quilt so I need lots of borders. I saw some people made borders of the connector blocks on the sides of the basic quilt, so that is one of my winter projects. I need to make a few hundred little 4” blocks like those below plus some other ones I didn’t show. I will take all the pieces I have left of the original fabric plus I bought four more fat quarters in coordinating color#, so I should have enough fabric. Then I will add some standard borders too to make it the right size.

I also have a tradition of making something hand made for each family, something g practical. This year it was oven mitts. I made a total of 8, so each household could take their pick of two. Surprisingly people chose different ones, not coordinating.

I was able to get my binding technique down to a fine science which will be handy on other projects too.

Expect more frequent posts since we are finally on the road again. We are heading to Red Bay, AL for some paint touch ups and some small miscellaneous fixes. Then we head off to Quartzsite, AZ.

Been a long time …

I never seem to post much when we are just hanging around the house. We haven’t taken any fun trips, and we have mostly been consumed with medical “stuff.” Kevin had a knee replacement four weeks ago, and before that we had the series of miscellaneous appointments that go with having surgery. It didn’t help that the surgeon and facility was 1 1/2 hours away! But the results have been fabulous. He used a walker for just one week, and he tossed the cane four days ago. He still gets sore of course, and the strengthening exercises have a painful aftermath, but he is powering through it. His motivation is to get in good enough shape to drive south after Christmas. Good motivation as a snowstorm heads our way tonight and tomorrow!

We have made a change in the storage facility for the motorhome. The price for our indoor storage has increased from $220 a month to $379 over four years. We moved to outdoor storage for $45 a month. Of course there was a lot to clean out of the enclosed storage first, and the garage at the house had to be re-arranged to hold it all! Kevin managed to fit everything in plus the trailer with the RZR and two cars in the 3 stall garage. I was impressed. Keeping the batteries in good shape while stored without electricity has been a learning experience. We have a lot of solar, but there are parasitic draws even with the 12v and 110v systems turned off. The LiFePO4 batteries need to be kept about 50-70% in storage, so we had to play with some of the charger setting. I think we have it now.

We also hired our son in law to do install some landscape blocks to even out the slope in our lawn some. We had gravel that went down a hill, and every big rain would wash some of it in the grass. Now I will have a nice flower/shrub bed next spring. Oh, and it really is level even though I can’t seem to take a decent picture!

I have done some sewing, but not enough! I finally finished piecing the king sized quilt for our motorhome. I don’t have a picture though since it still needs a good pressing. It is a lovely Jewel Box design with rich colors on a charcoal background. I haven’t really quilted anything because I sent my Handi Quilter Sweet 16 display and c-pod to get updated. I am considering upgrading my S16 to use a stitch regulator table, and this was needed. The update is relatively inexpensive, but the table is not! Still thinking about that, but the update has some advantages just by itself.

I also am working on a “Mystery Quilt” Zoom class that uses my AccuQuilt cutting system. We get new “clues” every week, and we make the blocks called for. We don’t know what the final design will be until the last session on 26 December. The class is well run and the technology actually works! Here are my first two big blocks. There are also lots of little blocks that go with them that will be used in the final assembly. I only showed a few of those. The little blocks are of all types – tiny four patch (shown), bigger four patch, hour glass, kite, and others. The instructor is telling us to only finger press our blocks as we go, and that is so hard for me! But I am giving it the old college try, and I hope it works well. Pressing is a very power hungry task, and it would be nice to not do much of it while we boondock.

First block of the second week – 18” square

I still have the second block of the second week to do, plus a bunch more of the little blocks. I really messed up on the color contrast with this one, but oh well. Lesson learned.

I am also starting Christmas presents, though I am way behind. This year everyone is getting oven mitts, cut (of course) with the AccuQuilt. Here is the sample I am keeping for myself. I am pretty happy with the construction and the final appearance. I used my binding attachment, and it went together pretty well.

I also bought myself a bit of a present (shush, don’t tell!). I ordered a Handi Quilter “Mystery Ruler Box.” It had six long arm quilting rulers in it, and it only cost $50. Pretty good deal! I am not sure what I will do with the hexi, but I feel I will use the others.

I will probably think of something else I have forgotten in the last two months, but I can catch that later.

Chuck wagon dinner plus more scenic drives in South Dakota

Still in Spearfish, SD, and still at the same campsite. The resort originally said we would have to move on Friday morning, but someone else cancelled and we got to stay in this nice site. It is always nice to not have to pack everything up!

There is a nice quilt store in town, Heartfelt Quilting, where I bought the backing for the quilt I am working on. The lovely owner volunteered her shop for me to sandwich the quilt, so we went there on Friday. I got it all put together with Kevin’s help, and it is ready for quilting.

Kevin made reservations at a chick wagon dinner for Thursday evening. The name of the place is The Stables at Palmer Gulch which is actually at the KOA near Mt. Rushmore. They give you a choice of riding a horse to the site (a lovely meadow) or riding in a wagon. We chose the wagons!

There were 5 wagons each holding 20 people.

The entertainment was enjoyable, but not very long. The food was standard chuckwagon far with steak cooked to order over a wood fire, Dutch oven potatoes, and fabulous beans. The Dutch oven fruit cobbler was a bust though! Soggy with no real crust. Still an fun evening.

The entertainment was a funny musician, a duo, and a cowboy poet

While we were getting our initial entertainment, the saddle horses that had brought some of the attendees down were released from their corral. They were quite excited to get back to their horse nuggets! They trotted and cantered away after rolling in the dust just outside the corral.

The riding horses after they were let out

As we packed up to leave, we met the riding horses and back up draft horses coming back to the meadow. This was their main pasture after their nuggets, and they seemed pretty happy about the entire thing. All of the wagon folks went back in the same wagons we came in, and the horse back riders went in their own wagon. However theirs was pulled by a John Deere tractor with a front loader attachment! It was late when we got back, and the bed felt awfully good. I still haven’t completely adjusted to the time change!

Today we took the Rimrock Scenic Byway. Another enjoyable ride! The problem was we had one tire leaking a bunch of air, so Kevin aired it up while I made an appointment at Discount Tire in Rapid City, the nearest location. We just arranged the trip so we were in Rapid City right after lunch. The worrisome thing is they didn’t find anything wrong with the tire! They did put a new valve stem in, but the old one wasn’t obviously leaking. Hope it works because I really don’t want to buy new Jeep tires! Just one picture from today, but I think it illustrates the reason for the drive’s name.

Spearfish Canyon and Custer State Park

This is us at Elkhorn RV Resort. It is expensive, but the sites are lovely, as you can see. Note the wonderful steps next to the motorhome. Kevin is determined I don’t fall down the motorhome steps again! I should have taken the picture at a different angle so you could see the hills around us. Oops!

You can’t stay in Spearfish and not drive the gorgeous scenic byway down Spearfish Canyon! We spent most of Wednesday in the car, but it was worth it.

The scenery doesn’t disappoint after the byway either.

Lake Sheridan on the way to Custer State Park

You go through the old mining town of Lead, SD the way we drove. The locals pronounce is “Leed,” and it has historic sites all over the place. The Homestake Mine was the deepest and biggest gold mine in North America. It was discovered during the Black Hills gold rush of 1876, and was in production until 2002. It now serves as an underground scientific laboratory, and it was where neutrinos were discovered.

Ruins of the famous Homestake Mine mill in Lead, SD

We eventually arrived at Custer State Park. Lots of rocks, hills, and trees, and absolutely lovely.

Rocky crags similar to those of Mount Rushmore before carving

The most famous drive in Custer is the Neeldes Highway. It has six one lane, low narrow tunnels carved into the rock, restricting it to passenger vehicles only. You can get an idea in these two pictures.

There is a reason for the name “Needles Highway.”

We ate lunch at the historic State Game Lodge where Presidents Coolidge and Eisenhower spent time in the summers. They had a very nice buffet, but I had planned on one of their traditional bison burgers! The buffet was a quite acceptable alternative though. We came back through the craziness that is Keystone (just outside Mount Rushmore) and Deadwood. I try to stay away from both. I just can’t get excited about Rushmore. We have seen it, and the carvings are interesting, but I much prefer more natural sights. And Deadwood is just the definition of a tourist trap! Come to think of it, so is Keystone.

Oh, and I found a great little quilt store in Spearfish. I bought backing for my great niece’s baby quilt, and the lovely women said I could use their tables to sandwich it! Fabulous news, and I will do that on Friday.

We have to move sites tomorrow from this huge pull through site to a large back in due to their reservation mixup. I have discovered a car wash that has an oversized outside bay we are hoping to wash the motorhome in. The poor baby is absolutely filthy. So tomorrow we will move the Jeep to the new site, then take the MH for a wash. When we get back and set up, I will go sandwich my quilt.

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.

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!

Quartzsite, visit #7

We arrived at our campsite in Quartzsite, AZ after a 4 hour drive from Organ Pipe. We stay with a group of friends from an online forum, RVForum.net. As our seventh trip here with them, we don’t go running around as much as we did the first few years. There is a lot more just relaxing, talking by the fire, and doing hobbies. I have the sewing machine out, and I am trying to work on a Drunkard’s Path quilt made with 4” blocks. I am finding it much, much harder than the 7” block version I did a few months back! I also go my sewing machine adjusted so the needle bar was exactly in the hole of the needle plate, but the tiny adjustment has thrown off some of my measurements. I will get used to it, but it is a bit of a struggle. I did cut a bunch of triangles, and I sewed those without a problem. It is always nice to have “mindless sewing” available, something I can just enjoy instead of fussing around.

Kevin discovered why our generator wasn’t charging the new LiFePO4 batteries very quickly. Turns out there was a switch that limited it to 30 amps, and once that was updated we started getting 90 amps charging. That makes the entire process so much faster. We have had quite a few cloudy days here, and the solar just can’t keep up between the clouds, low sun angle, and shorter days. Our 900 watts of panels are flat mounted, and they don’t get more than 300 watts some of the time, and mostly less than that this time of year. That only gets us 18-20 amps from the solar.

Kevin put up our weather station, and I just love knowing the outside temp and humidity. We will eventually get the wind sensor working, but right now the mounting pole moves in the bracket. Kevin is 3D printing a clamp for it now. Hopefully that will correct the pole rotation.

I don’t have many pictures right now, but here is the last picture from Organ Pipe showing the motorhome and our campsite.

Note the generator access panel open on the front. We heard rumors of pack rats, so we kept all the hoods open to discourage them.

I also have a beautiful sunset picture from Quartzsite.

This shows not only the pretty colors, but also how people spread out here in the BLM area. We are in the southwestern Long Term Visitor Area (LTVA) at La Posa Tyson Wash. It is the least crowded of the four LTVAs, being about 3 miles from town. It is still an easy bike ride though, and I prefer the space. Kevin went to town twice, searching for bolts and a new sunscreen for the awning since he somehow managed to crush the zipper pull on the old one. I am staying at the camper, away from the crowds. He is good about wearing a KN95 mask, so he is as safe as a triple vaxed person can be.