Archive for March 2024
THWAK and Rolllll
Hello all! We have now finished a week in Arizona under daily warm temperatures of the mid – to high 20’s, (though sometimes with cool breezes). We have enjoyed our location at Rivers Edge RV Park. We are on electrical and water hook-up, close to a washroom, shower and laundry building, and right beside the Colorado River. The swimming pool that used to be so crowded is now almost empty as is the whole RV park. (Maybe about 50% full.)
We have completed two 25+ km bike rides on river and canal trails, and cruised through a beautiful “Wetlands Park” right across the river from where we are parked.
On Saturday, we planned to attend the Yuma Air Show out near the Marine base. So, we drove the GMC past the lengthy line-up of vehicles and police cars that were slowly parading into the Airfield, and headed around the base to the south where we cleverly thought we could view the air show without being entered into a military security database as “aliens”. We parked in a likely spot so that we were shielded from the sun, and after about an hour of waiting we finally saw a single jet performing some aerobic manoeuvres above the air base – mostly as a dot way off in the distance. Occasionally, the jet would roar over our heads. Then, as I moved my head to try to spot the distant jet I thought I saw 5 jets performing manoeuvres! But it was just bugs that appeared to be in motion on the windshield! I hope that the airshow was worth the wait at the gate, because from where we watched mostly nothing for 3 hours, it was not scintillating! (A word I learned from Danny Gallivan, the Montreal hockey broadcaster, many, many years ago!)
My levelling demonstration using a marble was the forerunner for a natural marble-rolling performance every minute that we have been here. We are parked under a beautiful Arizona sycamore tree that produces perfectly round little nuts – about the size of peas. These peas fall onto our roof periodically (a couple every minute or so) and then we hear them rolling off the roof. Thus…“THWAK…and ROLL”. The noise is a bit disconcerting! Tomorrow we head for Organ Pipe Desert Campground, where I am sure that if anything is landing on our roof, we will be “OUTA THERE!”
We expect to be out of any wifi or data range for the next week to 10 days, but we will bring you up to speed when we return to Rivers Edge – and before we head to Lake Havasu City State Park where we have reservations on March 22.
Love and best wishes to all!
Tony and Sandy
“It looks like a rather blustery day, today.”
And it is also time to do a ‘Konrad’ (as in “Adenauer”! If you are younger than 75, there is a good chance the reference to the once German Chancellor will be vague or obscure!) Aside from pin-pointing my age range, the dumb pun from my youth describes what we had to do yesterday when we arrived at the Rivers Edge RV Park in Winterhaven, CA. “Add an hour!” Technically, we are still on Vancouver (and California) time, however, since Yuma is just a shout away, we must go with the flow of time! Okay…we are now an hour ahead of our home base.
On Friday, we arrived at the Indian Waters RV Park in Indio, CA which we had pre-booked. Our fuel tank was very low, but aside from opting to wait until leaving on Saturday, fuel prices were shockingly high – as they have been throughout California! At home we fueled up at the disturbingly high cost of $1.749 per litre. That translates to about $4.965 per US gallon. (Given $1C = $.75US.) Diesel fuel prices in Indio seem to range between $4.99 per gallon and $5.399 per gallon!
The reason for that Indio stop was a dinner invitation to visit with a long-time friend, Dave, and his partner Cynthia in the nearby community of La Quinta. The cost of the RV site was as mind-boggling as the fuel prices – we paid about $150C for one night of camping! (I must admit that the RV park was very beautifully laid out and landscaped like a park!) As it turns out, when Dave and Cynthia picked us up for dinner, they absolutely insisted on us staying overnight with them, so we hastily loaded overnight essentials and headed to their lovely unit in La Quinta. Our meal, visit and overnight rest were both wonderful. However, I don’t think I would ever have dreamed of parking our truck and trailer unit somewhere for $150 per night!!
As to the blog title quote from Winnie the Pooh…it turns out that our Truck House Jr. builder name (“Escape”) was eerily apt this week! Besides the daily news of the massive snow storms hitting Northern California and the Sierras, we escaped through dangerous wind warnings yesterday as we left from Indio, CA. On our way south towards Brawley on Highway 10, we were buffeted by strong cross-winds and dust storms.
After turning east on Hwy 8, we headed downwind to our safe haven at Rivers Edge.
It is good to return here to palms, warm sun and clear blue skies. There are a couple of notable changes:
- The park has a surprising number of vacant sites;
- The facility buildings have been upgraded (including the washrooms)
The young lady who registered us had no knowledge of the reason for #1. (She may have been too young to remember COVID!) The swimming pool was actively populated, however, the median age seems to have dramatically been lowered since we were last here. (Not surprising since we were close to being the “youngsters” six years ago!)
Last night – after supper – my endlessly restless (and largely sleepless) partner tackled house-cleaning, shelf-reorganization, vacuuming and so on. (I am sure those of you who know her well are not surprised! To keep her busy, we might have to move up to a bigger unit – or rent her out to neighbours!) I needed to get out of the way, so used my slightly swollen ankle as an excuse and got it level with my torso by lying down, where the only activity possible was reading. She seemed pleased with my decision (to stay out of the way) rather than miffed! What a wonderful partner!!
And…we found a simple way to measure the level status of our unit:
Today, we begin our cycling explorations locally.
Much love and best wishes to you all!
Tony (the Quill) and Sandy (the Quilter, sans sewing machines, quilting table, shelves of material, and indoor room to spread out)
Run Away, but Slowly
Happy Leap Year to our family and friends!
Our Spring journey has begun, and we arrived on the Lower Mainland on Monday, February 26 about noon. A quick call to Escape Trailers in Chilliwack assured us that we could bring in TruckHouse Jr. for a couple of mostly cosmetic issues. Sure enough, by 3:00 all was complete, our battery box had been moved to allow us to access the 2 6V batteries, and the propane regulator issue of automatic tank transfer explained to me.
Nick from customer service liked the new stair lids that I had installed. (I created a new 1/2 box under the top stair, and left the other half open to the bottom below the stairs for storing small camp tables.) I then installed new hinges that hold the lids up on all three stairs. And finally, I purchased and installed new carpet (about $68 from “End of the Roll Carpet” – for a 2’ strip off a 12’ roll.)
With our TH Jr. fixes complete, we were set to leave and the next morning (Tuesday) we crossed the border a day earlier than we had expected. There were few questions from the border agent. And we were on our way.The day was overcast, but only small patches of showers until we landed at Woodburn, OR about 4:00 in the afternoon. The very helpful attendant lady told us that although the pool was heated “it is closed, and if I see you swimming in it, I will take your picture and post it on the internet!” No problem! Nobody wants to see a picture of a wet, chilly old dude on the internet!
On Wednesday morning as we began to map out the day’s schedule, we noticed that a massive change in the weather was on its way! Woodburn would soon be blanketed by a very wet air mass from the coast (on the radar image: dark green mostly, but some pink indicating snow) within a couple of hours. Even worse, there was a winter storm warning up for Siskiyou Pass south of Medford, and if you didn’t have chains on both the tow vehicle and the trailer, you would not be allowed to travel. The warning caused us to consider going to the coast from Grant’s Pass, but we decided that the day’s temperature and skies did not indicate anything like the prediction. So, we carried on even though I considered buying chains at Seven Feathers Truck Stop at Canyonville.
In the Seven Feathers shop, after fueling up, we found road cams showing clear roads everywhere so we carried on over the pass and arrived about 4:00 in Red Bluff RV Park. We were quite amazed at how lucky we were in our transit timing! If we had left Vancouver on the day we planned, we would be hitting Siskiyou Pass on Thursday. Here is a screen shot of the weather forecast that we found on Wednesday morning:
Apparently, the whole area above about 2000’ elevation north of Sacramento is getting warnings like this for tonight through Sunday. It would not have been possible to get through had we been delayed by 24 hours! (Areas of Lake Tahoe will get 5’ to 10’ of snow and full blizzard conditions with winds up to 110 mph in the Sierras!)
The Thursday morning reports showed the weather also warned of strong winds up to 40 mph south of Red Bluff. (Tall vehicles might be at risk.) However, we chanced that in order to get further away from the awful weather predictions coming out of Sacramento, and here we are tonight in 18º weather – relaxed, warm, well-fed, with a freshly picked bag of WONDERFUL SWEET ORANGES off the trees beside us in Orange Grove RV Park – in Bakersfield.
I tried something new today for the drive…since California requires all vehicles that are towing to stick to a 55mph speed limit, I came close to honouring that all the way down I-5. (Slightly above if I must be honest!) That put me in the slow lane with the trucks which were also supposed to hold that speed, but mostly didn’t. Thus…instead of me passing truck after truck, TruckHouse Jr. was passed by truck after truck and ALL cars! It was very relaxing! (And the Quilter strongly agrees, and she was able to relax her death grip on the arm rest, and to knit rather than put on her passenger side foot brakes!)
Love and best wishes to you all! Happy March to everyone!
Tony and Sandy
PS. It was very gratifying to see Lake Shasta almost completely full of water.
roadquill1 