January in Quartzsite, week 3

Monday, January 13th

We both woke up feeling great after yesterday's festivities. That was until I spied my kitchen with dishes piled everywhere. lol Ray had to excavate to be able to make coffee. :) It really did not take too long to get them done after our showers this morning.

While I was cleaning up here, Ray ran into town to get some replacement led's and a few odds and ends. After he was back we decided to go into town for lunch . We stopped at the Yacht Club but they had a sign on the door .... "no liquor sales until further notice" .... well no beer then no lunch. So we decided to try out the Times 3 Family Diner. Another one struck off the list ... everything is frozen and they just drop it into the fryer although Ray had their fried chicken and it was pretty good.  We compromised as they also don't serve beer.

When we got back, Ray phoned Colan so he could come and install our door awning motor as it had arrived. Kind of a fiddly job getting the old motor out and the new one in. Very limited space. After two hours everything was back together and working. Yeah. We shared a beer and off Colan went in his brand new side by side. Unfortunately we heard some "beeping" and he kept stopping and going several times. I think something is wrong with his ride. Turned out it was because he wasn't wearing his seatbelt. lol  I did not get a picture of this repair as my phone was charging inside and he had the door blocked with the ladder. :)

We sat outside enjoying the day for another hour before coming inside and having leftovers for dinner. No cooking for me today. :)

Tuesday, Jan 14th

Another very clear morning which promises to be another warm and sunny day. We sure don't get tired of seeing "Old Sol" come up with the pinks and purples in the morning sky.

After morning chores, Ray and I decided to head into town and see the shops along Main Street by Gem World. We had not been in those shops for a few years.

After wandering around for an hour or so it was off to Beer Bellies to check out the music and try out the food as they have a new vendor cooking it for them this year. I have to say it was a great burger compared to what I remembered 3 years ago and the music was great, a lot of old Eagles tunes.

As we were leaving Beer Bellies we noticed this awesome off-road tent trailer. Something like this would be fabulous for Garrett and Kat and the places they go. They apparently run around $25,000 USD. https://www.trailerlife.com/rv-gear/rvs/instant-trailer/

Great ice cream from the hit and miss Ray says!

This stove is way better than the one I currently have!

I sent Garrett the pictures and he said he saw a program where they put this rig through severe off-road trials in Australia and it stood up with no problem.

When we got back Ray worked on sanding his sticks and I sat in the shade reading for the rest of the afternoon.

Colan was here around 3pm to check out putting tilt hardware on some of our existing solar panels and then we can move forward with the one new panel. Unfortunately the lift system does not appear to be able to be added to our existing solar panels without putting more holes in our roof which is not acceptable, so he will install one new panel with tilting hardware and hopefully that will be enough.

A lovely warm day today, we stayed in shorts until it was time to go in at 5 pm so I could start dinner. Freya had been letting me know for half an hour "feed me".... lol That was our day.

Wednesday, Jan 15th

Up at 6:45 am as I slept poorly again.... don't know why, so we had a leisurely start to the morning after getting up quite a bit later than usual.

Another glorious sunny day here and a snowstorm at home. Even the schools are closed today in Lake Cowichan for a second day this week. Glad to be here in the sun. (Thursday school is closed too!)

Where's my outside woodstove?

Colan was unable to come today to install the solar panel as he had an emergency hydraulic line to fix and was covered in hydraulic oil. He will come tomorrow at 8:30 am instead.

I went into town to get a roast chicken for Freya at the Quartzsite General Store but they were not ready until later this afternoon. I arranged for my name to be put on one and bought some spareribs that had just come out of their oven to put under the heat lamps. Now I don't have to cook supper. lol They were surprisingly delicious.

Ray and I stopped over to say "goodbye" to Jim and Barb as they will be on the road Friday back to South Dakota with money in the bank from selling their rig. We will all miss them but do understand the draw to getting back to the build. Jim said he flew his drone over our unit this morning and will send us the pictures shortly. It will kind of cool to see what we look like from the air. I will add the picture later when I get it. :)



The rest of the afternoon we spent outside, Ray working on his sticks and I did a little reading. With Ribs for supper, dinner was a breeze. We did get a pretty good sunset I managed to catch with my phone.

Thursday, Jan 16th

A bit cloudy this morning but it is supposed to clear off this afternoon and warm up to 70F.  Shower day today before Colan arrives and is looking down our skylight. lol

He arrived shortly before 9am and was busy up there installing the panel with the tilt system attached. We shall see how well this works added to the string as it is cloudy this morning. Around 11 he was done and the panel is certainly making a difference. I was only charging into the battery about plus 4 and once that one was added it went to plus 24 ... Our batteries should charge to full much faster now and they did.

Our friends, Pam and Bill Freckleton were coming up from Yuma to tour the vendors at Tyson Wells today so we met up for lunch with them at Beer Belly's. They also brought their friends Bill and Rosemarie. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of them before they left .... just our empty table. lol Pam was supposed to send me a picture of them shopping but alas ... no picture was sent. :)

These people are awesome playing and singing. Great guitar playing and love their music playing all the greatest. Same people we saw a couple of days ago.

Ray and I decided to buy their metal art sign to hang on our weaved fir screen panel on our sundeck at home so we can adopt our new motto "No Bad Days".

Puttered around for the rest of the day until Happy Hour down Dianne and Steve's way at the communal campfire. Another great day.

Friday, Jan 17th

A beautiful sunrise this morning so I asked Ray to get another picture.

This morning we decided to go out for breakfast at the laundromat and then over to the Pow Wow Rock and Gem Show at the QIA. Again, every kind of rock you could imagine in every colour of the rainbow. Mother Earth's treasures are amazing. The place is packed with people exhibiting and buying. There were some jewelry vendors and other things made from the rocks, but this four day event was mostly raw and unfinished pieces of rock. I cannot imagine hauling the weight of all this stuff, setting it up for only 4 days. lol We did notice that the price of things are higher here than at the Desert Gardens Rock and Gem display.

Not as many people yet but by the time we left there was double. lol They even have tractor's pulling hay wagons for people to get a lift back and forth from the parking lot some distance away.

Back home for lunch, Our door lock got stuck again and Ray had to climb through the driver's side window to open the door. It had been getting quite sticky again so we left that window unlocked and moved stuff away from the chair expecting this to happen. After a couple of hours Ray finally got it working properly again. We will have to get this mechanism replaced .... I just don't know if it will be done here or back at home. I went back into town to pick up our package at Quiet Times, our dining room light fixture finally arrived. Noticed this old truck with a bunch of guys sitting on lawn chairs in the back, certainly not legal at home. Look at the traffic on the other side of the overpass. It's nuts at this corner with people turning into Kuehn Street for Tyson Wells vendors. Coming back I went the long way around so I was making a left hand turn back on Highway 95 which was much faster.

For Happy Hour today we have been invited with about 22 others, to Les and Sue's Happy Hour across the way at Tyson Wash. What a spread she put on for everyone. She must have been cooking for 2 days. Thanks for the picture Sue.


It certainly cooled down though as soon as the sun dropped in the sky and the breeze was cold. Look how bundled up everyone was. Nice fire ... and even a propane one for others.

Below, Sue https://ramblingrvrat.blogspot.com with her back to the camera ... the hostess with the mostess! She's not cold as she was running around looking after everyone! She tells me "I'm Italian ... I like to feed everyone". That certainly is an understatement. :)

We left at 6 pm as it was cold and Ray had had enough standing with his back after his adventures with our door locking mechanism.

Another fabulous day with friends here in Quartzsite. Once Freya was walked and fed, Ray headed to bed to rest his back and I watched a little TV myself.

Saturday, January 18th THE OPENING OF THE BIG TENT RV SHOW

Ray and I headed out at 8am so we could get a good parking spot close to the entrance. We were able to chat with our contact at Dometic regarding our range install on Tuesday. Apparently the range is supposed to get here Monday??? If it does not arrive they will reschedule our Tuesday appointment. So we shall see. They say the "squeaky wheel gets the grease!" I have been squeaking for 5 weeks and they all know my name and now what I look like and what I want. :) so I think things will actually happen. Also spoke to the RoadMaster people regarding getting our tow hitch serviced while the coach is in for my stove install. Perfect another item of the "must do" list.

Noticed this cool Nash Metropolitan in the parking lot while we were waiting.

The show opened at 9am. Wow I have never seen that many people first thing in the 5 years we have been attending this show. Good for the vendors but sucks with the traffic. A lot of new RV'ers here as we could hear them videoing their visit and mentioning it was their first time. There are more vendors with RV stuff so I guess it definitely shows that this industry has picked up substantially since 2013 when we first came.

We walked the show for about 90 minutes before we had had enough. Only ended up purchasing some led lights at a better price than in town, and some drill bits for Ray. Heading back towards La Posa South, the traffic was backed up half ways between the La Posa North and La Posa South going into town. What a smoz.

Sunday, January 19th

Up early, showered and off to the laundromat by 7:30 am for breakfast while the clothes are washing. I had no trouble getting my loads in but the restaurant was quite busy. Ray ordered while I got the washers running. After breakfast Ray did some errands while I finished drying the clothes and folding. Back at camp by 10 am after stopping at K & B Tools to exchange some LED's. Not too bad. Traffic was still ok at that point.

Noticed last night that the numbers on our Blu Sky Solar monitor has quit showing us any information. The light on the unit is on "but nobody home"! Will have to get it checked out. This happened possibly with the installation of a new panel?

While reading Bayfield Bunch's blog today found out that the Palm Canyon trees in Borrego Springs went up in smoke this morning. These are the pictures that were posted on Kelly's FB page that Al put in his blog. Wow, how sad.







Invited to Happy Hour over at Dianne and Steve's. Met their friends Dale and Chloe, also Dino and Lisa were there as well as Cindy, Roger away working. A great couple of hours yacking. Overhead we noticed an Ultra Light that flew over top of Steve's trailer.

Another great day ... and a great week.