RV Travels With Huggy

Today is the big game day and, for the first time the Seattle Seahawks will be there. We are having a Superbowl party at one of the 5th wheel rigs this afternoon. I learned yesterday at Happy Hour that there are a lot of people here from Ohio so I think my rooting will be in the minority. I should have ordered a cake decorated with some Seahawk logos to take!

I am a couple of days behind here. Our shopping trip Friday to the Tyson Wells display area was productive for me. I found a red British double decker bus that is selling food, and they make MOCHAS! You can get them either hot or cold and they are good, for $3.50, tax included. L had bought a Bushnell binocular set at a booth there the day before & I found them easy to use. A good pair of binoculars is something I have been thinking of buying, so I did. They were $150 plus tax and I later found them a little cheaper on the Internet, but I have these now. I can't pass up an opportunity to buy a good flashlight & another booth had lots of them, so I bought a couple more 9-LED units. Sons, guess what you may get for your birthdays!

We did go to Dairy Queen for lunch, then back to Paul's bookstore so our gals could see him & buy bookmarks for friends and family. What a gift those will be! After a couple more stops (Darlene's Bakery, this time for a coconut cream pie for that night) we got home just in time for the Happy Hour at 16:00. Right after that we headed out for the Grubsteak where they have a feast of all you can eat fish & chips on Friday night. It was good and there was plenty to eat. When back we went to the big bonfire to visit awhile, then to J's motorhome for the pie followed by a visit to J & K's Bluebird to see the inside of it. J is a private jet pilot and the driver's compartment of the Bluebird looks a lot like a cockpit of an aircraft, with all it's dials & controls.

On Sat J & K, along with L, left for home in Santa Barbara about 07:20. J and then B & K were away for Parker by noon. I puttered around the RV until mid-afternoon when I went back to Tyson Wells for another mocha from The Big Red Bus and some shopping at the Roadrunner Market, then home for Happy Hour at 16:00. For anyone heading this way the selling at Tyson Wells continues to the 12th. I spent the rest of the evening at the rig and I finally did get much of my vacuuming done. I think I could have built another cat with all the fur Huggy has shed!

Labels: Friends, Huggy, RVing, SKPs

Wednesday night a small group of seven of us went to Silly Al's Pizza for dinner. We found at least three times as many other Boomers had done the same so there were many of us there. Here is a photo of our group of seven:


Yesterday I have already covered the morning propane run Huggy & I made, so we were warm last night. Our little group has gathered together in a part of Boomerville and last night we had a barbeque of steaks, salad, wine, bonfire, etc. Here is a photo of the three ladies in the group, with another beautiful desert sunset over the mountains to the west behind them:


We sat around the fire talking until about 21:00 and here is a photo of that:


Today we hope to find out what is the problem with Jerry & Erica's batteries. There was talk about a run to Dairy Queen for lunch and perhaps fish & chips for dinner. I will see what develops but for now I want to get this posted and go join the others.

Labels: Desert, Friends, Photos, RVing, SKPs, Sunrises and Sunsets

Yesterday I set out to find the elusive Quartzsite mocha source. It is still elusive, so much so that I haven't found it. I have asked many people for help finding it but so far no one can, or will, help. I did find the Quartzsite Yacht Club. You would think that a desert town, without any water, that has a yacht club, certainly would have at least one mocha stand. Coming from a place where it isn't unusual to find three of them in one city block, this is hard to believe. I also found a barber and got my ears lowered. Does that relate? Probably not, but it proves that the trip was productive.

My propane is getting low and I would rather not have to drive into town to fill it before I leave next Monday, so I have not been using any heat inside overnight. I woke up to 51 degrees inside and outside this morning, and had a cat snuggled up next to me on the bed. I think she was cold. Once the sun came up it warmed quickly and was probably about 75 today.

J & I drove into town for lunch at a pretty good Mexican food place, then back out here for the afternoon. He was getting his coach ready to leave tomorrow while I changed kitty litter, called Escapees RV Club to order another packet of mail shipped to the address in Yuma where I will spend a month, and read. After the 4pm Happy Hour I stopped at J's coach for a beer & conversation. It started with three of us, then grew to seven. About 6:30 someone suggested we go to town for dinner, so we piled into two vehicles and drove to Silly Al's Pizza for dinner (guess what we ate) and karaoke. We got back home a bit before 9. J & the friends he was planning to go with to Parker tomorrow have decided to stay here a couple more days. It is one of the advantages of being a fulltime RVer to change your mind like that. Tomorrow we are going to install the second hard drive into my desktop computer.

It is cooling off in here so I think I'll post this and go to bed. Maybe I will go get propane sooner than Monday. I don't like being cold and Huggy doesn't, either. It's only about a five mile round trip. Maybe I'll decide with a heads or tails flip of a coin.

Labels: Friends, RVing, SKPs

Quartzsite has almost everything you might want, but so far I haven't yet found a place to get a mocha! There was one last year but a big RV sales place has taken over that site and if they are still here, they are in a different location. Those who know me well know I almost never go more than one day without having a mocha. The last one I had was last Tuesday on my way from Bullhead City to Q when I stopped at a drive-up stand in Parker, where we went last year while spending a couple of days in that town, for a mocha. Yesterday I gave up and drove the 25 or so miles to a new Starbucks in Blythe, CA. We found it last year while spending a few days in Ehrenberg, AZ, a town right on the AZ/CA border. The place looked finished when we were there in early March, 2005 but it was not yet open. We found mochas in the Albertsons store which is also the closest large grocery store to Q. But, I remembered that new store and it is open now, so I finally got another mocha. I make a cup of coffee every morning, in fact I am drinking one now, but it is not a Mocha! After my mocha I ate dinner at Townes Square Cafe, another place where we had a dinner last year, also in Blythe, then got home just as the sun was setting behind the mountains to the west of town.

I went to a discussion group around the campfire pit at 13:00 where boondocking was discussed. I don't think I learned much but it was good to participate with others and I am sure that I must have heard something I hadn't heard before.

Yesterday morning friends D & S B left Boomerville. They teach classes at Life on Wheels and at various things like Escapees Escapades & Family Motor Coach Assoc. rallies. Annie & I met them at our first Life on Wheels conference in 2002. J plans to leave on Thursday. I still plan to stay until next Monday & will go to the car show here on Saturday, then watch the Superbowl (Go Seahawks!) on Sunday. I'll leave before too late in the day on Monday to drive the 80 or so miles south to Yuma.

One thing a long term RVer has to learn is that this lifestyle isn't just like being on a vacation. When you are on vacation you tend to schedule every minute with activities. While I am off on one of these trips the RV is my house and it is really about like sitting at home. If I want to just sit in my easy chair & read for an hour or so, that is fine. That takes some learning and I find that I still need to remind myself of that as I will find myself slipping into that vacation mode at times. It is nice to just sit and watch the world go by. I will do some of that over the next few days, with Huggy on my lap.

Labels: Friends, SKPs

I didn't write a post last night but will this morning to cover what went on during the day. I puttered around the RV early in the morning. I got up just after it got light, about 07:15, to find the outside temp to be 43. Due to the mountains directly east of here the sun doesn't hit Boomerville until a bit after 8 and then there were light clouds, almost like a thin, high fog, that cut the sun's intensity, so the solar panels don't charge at full capacity. Here is a good link to the Quartzsite events that go on down here over the winter. This covers them better than the link to the town that I put up a couple of days ago.

I went over to visit with J in his rig, then we headed for the campfire ring area for a noon discussion group about the Elks clubs. Many of these fraternal groups that have lodges also have small campgrounds attached, or at least allow overnight boondocking in their parking lots. This can be a good alternative to staying at Walmart when you are on the road & just looking for a stopping spot for one night.

After that I spent some time on the Internet & reading in my RV, until the Happy Hour started at 16:00, with the Jeraldine contest & a skit put on by the first timers at a Q-Rang. Here is a photo from each and there are more on my Flickr site. Just click on one of these photos to be taken there, then click on "Dick Phillip's Photostream" to see all of the photos. Click on any of them that you want to see in a larger size.




After these programs I drove into town with my book for a nice dinner of prime rib at Mark's Family Restaurant. When I left the restaurant there was another beautiful sunset so I hustled back home (I forgot to take my camera along!) to get a photo of it before it was all gone. It was even more spectacular than the photo shows, earlier. I also didn't take time to get my tripod so I was hand holding it at about a 1 second exposure so it isn't as sharp as I like to get them, but here it is:


There was a program with a good singer named Sally who is from Alberta, Canada, at 19:00 around the bonfire. I stayed for most of it but it did start getting cold. The temp drops fast after the sun sets. I spent the rest of the evening in the RV reading, watching TV and on the Internet.

Labels: Entertainment, Friends, RVing, SKPs, Sunrises and Sunsets

Yesterday a few of us went into town for lunch at Mark's Family Restaurant, a place we enjoyed last year where they have good food, nice size portions and all at a fair price. After lunch, J & I went to The Big Tent to see the displays & booths there. I didn't buy anything but J bought a few things he needed. We were surprised to discover that time had gotten to 17:00 and the place was closing.

The traffic around there is bad when everyone leaves at once, so I went the oposite direction from where we wanted to go as most traffic wanted to go where we also did. We decided to stop for dinner & let traffic settle down, so we found the Texas Barbeque which turned out to be a good choice. Then back to our RVs for the rest of the evening.

This morning the men in Boomerville went to The Bakery for breakfast. I had a Texas cinnemon roll to go with my cup of coffee. This bakery is small but makes a good variety of excellent baked goods. Here is a photo of the ultralite aircraft that flew over us as we started out for The Bakery.


Here is a photo of four of us eating. The fifth one at our table was taking the photo with my small camera while his Nikon D50 rested on the table. (Edit: Names, left to right, are Barry, John, me & Brooks with Padraic taking the photo.)


After breakfast we returned to Boomerville for the rest of the day. I puttered around with the computers & talked with people until time for Happy Hour. I took some photos there and afterwards, including this one which is similar to one taken last year in about the same location. The difference between the one this year


and the one taken last year (same cactus)

You can see how much greener the desert was last year when there was quite a bit of rain down here.

The Quartzsite area is well known for it's rocks & gems. I found this one on the ground as I walked back to my RV after Happy Hour. I don't know what it is - perhaps some of you may know and can let the rest of us know by entering a comment.


I don't know what I will do tomorrow. It is a Saturday & I will have free phone calls all weekend so I will probably take advantage of the strong phone signal here & use it.

Labels: Desert, Friends, Photos, RVing, SKPs

After my first full day in Boomerville I am finally getting a chance to upload some photos. Tomorrow I plan to go into town & visit some of the booths. Quartzsite, Arizona is an unusual town. This link will take you to a National Geographic site about Q and some of the things that go on here during the year. Check it out for more info about this place.

This morning I went on a walk with three others. It was good as I really need to get more exercise. I spotted some places in the desert where I'd like to go to take photos. When back home I got up on the roof to clean & tilt the solar panels. I couldn't believe how dirty they were! Between cleaning & tilting my amperage from them went from below five to about fifteen. I got the desktop PC setup on the table & moved some photos into Photoshop's album, then reduced five of them & moved them to Flickr. I do not have the broadband connection, only the NationalAccess connection that is a little faster than dialup but no comparison to broadband speeds. So, it took a loooong time to transfer them but the system didn't time out on me.

Here is the first one. There are two nice stained glass windows at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Bullhead City and this is one of them:



These are two of the photos of cactus' in the cactus garden at Riverside Adventure Trails RV Park in Ft. Mohave, AZ. I do not know the name of either of these:





Here are a couple of photos taken here in Quartzsite at Boomerville. The first one shows some of the rigs here at Boomerville, with the group gathering area & fire ring in the background. You can also see the town of Q in the background, three miles away over the top of the foliage behind the fire ring.



The second photo was taken from the fire ring area looking the opposite direction from the first one. When Annie & I were here last year we parked near the fire ring, about where the yellow truck is parked in this photo. This year I am further up in about the center of the photo. Here is that second photo:


The desert last year was green, with flowers all over the place. This year it has been dry for nearly 100 days and all is brown and dry. Some of my other pictures will show this.

Labels: Desert, Friends, Photos, RVing, SKPs