Quartzsite, Week #3 - Finally Entertaining - Jan 16 - 22

I'm finally starting to feel more like myself. We should've bought shares in Kleenex for the amount we went through in the past 2 weeks. Today I prepped for our Chinese Food dinner to cook for us tonight. Lots of chopping lol so it's ready to fast fry later.

Dave and Cheryl McMechan arrived in the afternoon around 2:30 and we invited them over at 4 for Happy Hour. Since I'd prepped dinner anyways, we convinced them to stay. What a great visit. We've not seen them in person since Ray's 65th birthday, a year ago November at the lake.

Cheers!

Sweet and Sour Pork and Chicken Chowmein

A lovely evening, lots of wine, and lots of laughs. Just before they left at 7:30 we heard a bunch of thunder. Wow at 8 pm the skies opened the wind came up and quite the thunderstorm went through for an hour. It also rained later on in the middle of the night as well. Fortunately when we got up we were not surrounded by water.

Tuesday morning we woke to lovely sunshine after the rain last night. Ray dumped water collected in the shade structure lol and of course soaked himself. Paid for another two weeks here at La Posa South. We will be heading to Parker on January 31st to a full service site for 5 days for laundry and cleanout of the holding tanks.

Tuesday Happy Hour is here as our shelter kept everyone out of the wind. The crowd kept growing with Dave and Cheryl's brother and sister-in-law arriving today too.

 

And the party grew some more. :)

Yup full house.

Wednesday it took me 3 tries to get my "monkey bread" to work. This microwave does not work like the one at home and instead of proofing the dough it cooked it! Finally for the third go round I used my breadmaker and proofed it old school and it turned out glorious. I promised Steve Colibaba I would make it. lol Once done, we invited Steve and Dianne, Greg and Debbie and Marilyn over for a taste.

Steve and me

Ray managed to get this picture of a Prairie Falcon watching us from a nearby tree.

Everyone left at 2:30 to rest up before Happy Hour.

Happy hour today is at the Colibaba's for core crash. I stayed home as my foot is flared up really bad at the moment and felt best laying down on the bed elevated. Ray took the picture below.

Thursday another gorgeous day. I puttered in the kitchen prepping for dinner as Dianne and Steve are coming tonight and so far my foot is somewhat better.  Ray headed out to the Pow Wow at the QIA. He said there's lots of gorgeous things, and came home with a beautiful poncho for me. :) He sure knows what I like, lucky me. Nice soft Alpaca wool and hand stitched from Ecuador. 

Steve and Dianne arrived at 4 pm and we sat outside for awhile as I was monitoring the "cook" on the Pork Prime Rib. By 5 we went inside as the wind came up and it turned too cold. Ray made his famous margarita's for Steve and Dianne.

Once the meat cooked at about 5:30, Dianne help me with the "stir" of the fried rice and veggies to go with the meat. 

A great evening. This is the first time it's just the 4 of us since we arrived in Q with us sick for 2 weeks.

Friday another cold but sunny morning. Now to clean up my kitchen after the big meal yesterday lol.  Last nights dinner provided us with lots of leftovers so no cooking for me today. 

Ray headed out at around 12:30 heading to the Pow Wow again and the Rock and Gem show, just for something to do. I stayed home and made my baked beans for tomorrow's potluck plus prepping the ribs. My foot's still not up to trapsing around yet, but is getting better.

It's no wonder people come from everywhere if they are interested in rocks. lol It would be hard to camp close to this though as there are rock tumblers going 24/7! Here are some of the pictures Ray took while there.

Fulgerite, sand fused by lightning

Looks like jellyfish suspended in rock

Crystals

Ocatillo Cacti Ribs

Petrified Wood

Obsidian blades mounted with carved antler handles

Gold Nuggets

They even had Dinosaur Dung lol This is Dianne's pic as Ray deleted his by mistake lol

At 3:30 Dave and Cheryl and Dave's brother Brian and wife Deb came over for a happy hour. Of course Ray fed them some of his famous margaritas lol. After that we had a quiet evening.

Friday tere's a "hard freeze" warning. woke up to 33F/1C ... burrrr. The sun is out though, so it didn't take too long to feel the heat. Ray headed back into town to look around and I held down the fort with dishes and getting ready to start cooking my ribs at 11:30 am.

Everyone's dishes are delicious. We all dug in by 3:15 pm. The wind died down and it's very pleasant. I picked the right day. :) These pictures compliments of Debbie  #2 as there's four of us ( i.e. Debbie and Greg).

L to R Steve, Dianne, Dave, Greg, Debbie #2, Cheryl, Debbie #4, Brian and Debbie #3 and a well-loaded food table.

Debbie and Deb

After we all rested our full bellies for awhile it's time for a rousing game of core crash. Of course playing over at our house is a bit more challenging with all the rocks. 

Once we started, the wind came up and as I'm only watching, not playing I bundled up. They all called me "Whistler's Mother" all bundled up so I decided to make the appropriate scrunched up face. lol Everyone enjoyed poking fun at me. :)

Sunday we woke up at 6:45 am .... Yikes! We had to be packed up and over to the dump by 7:30 AM so we could get to our appointment with Dometic at the Big Tent to get our stove fixed. Our oven hasn't worked properly since installation 2 years ago. Fortunately I ded all the dishes last night so it's just a matter of putting a few things away inside and Ray working outside so we're travel ready.

As we prepared to drive off the new stairs would not come back in!!!!!! I guess the new sensor Colan just installed is smaller than the original one and the contacts were not being made. Ray unscrewed the magnet from the door and I scotch taped it together. Thankfully it worked and the stairs went in for travel. Always something. It took us an hour to dump and refill with water. Some slow people in front of us took 15 minutes or more to dump their waste. Oh well, we arrived at the Dometic Repair tent at 8:45. Perfect timing.

While we walked the show while they replaced the top of the range. Dometic replaced all the valves for the burners and oven as per the recall. They determined the connection from the stove to the coach was mangled and replaced the fitting. They think their contracted installer 2 years ago did this! After testing everything and leaving the oven on for 45 minutes to make sure "no smell" we were on our way 3 hours later and happy campers with no charge. Crystal also gave us two new Yeti style mugs for our trouble. Of course we enjoyed walking the "Big Tent" while they were working. Fortunately my right foot behaved itself and walking was not a problem today.

Walking the show we found a booth, RV Decor, who install tilt beds. Ray arranged for him to come by later tonight and give us a quote on replacing our bed platform which is be better for Ray's back. The prices on these came down substantially since I looked at them 5 years ago.

Back to camp we rearranged how the coach sat to maximize our solar panels. This also meant moving our shade structure with help from Steve and Greg. Tonight we are to get 30 mile per hour winds with gust to 50, so we made sure everything is secured. The new spot blocks the shelter from the wind by our coach and Ray finished up securing the ropes and cinch straps to the ground.

After set up it was time at 4 to go over to Steve and Dianne's for core crash. I got to play this time and I sucked! Had fun anyways.

At 5:45 the guy arrived to check out the bed situation. He determined we could do it, they would just have to remove our corian side shelves and cut them down about 3" smaller so they don't impede the bed going up and down. The best part of this tilt bed is that when travelling you can raise the back of the bed which drags the bottom toward the back and gives us back the 18" of room to walk to the back of the coach while travelling. Currently you either climb over the bed or don't go. :) Funnily enough, he told us a lot of his customers are Tiffin owners for that very reason.  lol The other upside of this platform is it raises up with a push of a button and has a light underneath. We should also gain a foot or so of storage. I think Ray is going to go for it but it means going to Yuma for installation and it takes a whole day. Stay tuned.

And that wraps up our week.

Quartzsite, Week #2 - Recovery Week - Jan 9 - 15 2023

With the storms in California we are getting lots of pretty sunrises and sunsets before it clouds over a bit during the days. This was sunset a few days ago back in BC, Cowichan Bay. These "Atmospheric River storms are showing a lot of sunrise/sunset colours up and down the coast.

From Google, CHEK News.

Monday morning another gorgeous start to the morning. Unfortunately Ray had a rotten night so he's not better yet. After usual morning chores, he laid down for an hour snooze. After he woke we decided to go into town and walk the Tyson Wells Vendors. Not much new and less quality jeweller stalls compared to 3 years ago when we were here. Ray did find some carpet treds for our stairs which are an odd size and hard to find. When our new stairs get installed, we can put them on then.

After walking around for an hour and a half we came back home for lunch. By 1 pm Ray's back in bed again. Hopefully all this sleeping will help him get better. Very cloudy outside and the wind has come up again so he might as well rest. :) By bedtime I'm the one doing all the coughing and had a rough night. I guess I'm now into Part 2 of this nasty virus.

Tuesday morning, another cloudy start to the day. We are lucky we are only getting the clouds from the storms hitting the California coast right now. It has been devasting to the people there around Santa Barbara, CA

The reservoirs in Northern California, like Lake Oroville are filling but these storms do not have any impact on Lake Mead or Lake Powell that are filled from the Colorado River unfortunately.

Jan 10 2023

Oakland, California - The heavy rains and abundant snowfall in California in recent weeks have many people wondering what impact the storms have had on the state's reservoirs and severe drought.

The Marin Municipal Water District has had California's best luck with its water supply so far. Marin's only concern now is making sure it doesn't get more water than it can handle.

"We have seven reservoirs, including five on Mt. Tam and every one of them is at capacity as of this morning and spilling water through their spillways," Marin Water Information Officer Tyler Silvy.

The state's big six mega reservoirs are doing much, much better. Since the end of last year, they've gone from an average of 34% full to 42% full at a time when 68% full is considered normal.

Individually, mega reservoir Don Pedro is 97% of normal, Oroville is 85% of normal, Shasta is at 67%, New Melones is 59% of normal and Trinity 42% of normal.

In this period these six reservoirs have picked up enough water to cover San Francisco's 49-square-mile footprint with water 49 feet deep. This is great news for water importers such as the South Bay's Valley Water which might have to import less.

"We have 10 reservoirs and we currently have three reservoirs spilling and potentially a fourth that is getting close to the top and it's expected to spill today as well," said Matt Keller, a Valley Water spokesperson.

We head west to California February 9th, hopefully these Atmospheric Rivers are done or other plans will have to be made.

The next couple of days were pretty quiet. Wednesday Ray got our propane tanks filled. I made homemade pasta and prawn fettucini for dinner and a loaf of rustic bread. It turned out delicious.

Wedneday night is my worst night with coughing all night. I'm certainly tired when I got up on Thursday, so a much quieter day for me. Ray managed to go next door, to Dianne and Steve's for core crash and just stayed home and sat quietly.

Friday morning I'm feeling much better so did a trip to Blythe to pick up a few things at the Smart and Final and Albertson's.  Definitely not as busy there as it is in Parker. Back home after groceries put away we were able to sit outside for awhile, a gorgeous day today. 

Steve came by and told us that Jerry had his telescope set up to look at the solar flares on the sun. Ray headed over to have a look.

Dianne and Steve, Jerry and Debbie #3

At 4 pm it was time for Colibaba's happy hour. I sat away from everyone but it was nice to see them. Debbie (Deb and Jerry) had made us all some chocolate chip cookies. Yummm.

Jerry's feet and Debbie, Greg and Debbie, Steve, Dianne, Ray and Marilyn. Missing Colan and Jim.

Friday morning another gorgeous start, looks like it will be a lovely day. Supposed to get to 70F (21F). Today Ray will take the MH over and dump, it's been 11 days so we are full lol. Then Colan is coming over to install our new stairs on the coach. YEAH!

First up is the stairs and of course they did not line up with the holes so a lot of measuring but they are in. Unforunately the door magnets/switches are working backwards ... apparently they were changed to be reversed several years after 2011,  so now our stairs go in when you open the door instead of out!. New switch on order.

Next up was the caulking on the roof. We had some water come in last winter when the coach was not level ... now all fixed.

With that taken care of, he got our rear furnace working, loose wire and a fuse ... who knew. We didn't even think about a fuse. Lesson learned. He also installed a new solar panel control panel Ray picked up as I zapped ours earlier this week with a spark from my finger! That's it for today and he will be back next week to install new door magnet/control for the stairs and a few other repairs on my list :) 

Although cloudy out. it's warm and there's no wind. Time for a Happy Hour here at 4 with bean bag and ladder ball. Nice to use the stuff we brought down with us. lol I just watched and kept score for a bit as I did not want to start coughing. :)

Dianne with the halo and Debbie #3

Dianne labelled us Debbies in order of meeting us. I am Debbie #1, Debbie and Greg is Debbie # 2 and Jerry and Debbie, is Debbie #3. lol

Debbie #3

Jerry and Steve

Debbie #2 and Marilyn

Jerry and Colan

Saturday we woke to the predicted clouds. A good day to play in my kitchen. My fridge is so overloaded I need to start using stuff. Being under the weather, there's not been much cooking going on. :) A firery sunrise this morning.

Had bananas to use up so Banana bread with nuts and chocolate chips first up, followed by my rustic french bread. Lastly a roast chicken and vegetables.  This chicken definitely took up a bunch of room in the fridge, unfortunately no takers to come and help eat it as I've been so sick.  No one wants this grunge, can't say I blame them. As it stayed cloudy and cool all day it was nice to have the oven on. Ray says that's OK, more for him!

The finished product. Turned out great in the microwave convection oven.

I turned on the gas oven and again, there's that smell that it's not burning correctly. I sent a message to Dometic who installed my range at the show in 2020. Telling them this oven hasn't worked properly since it installation and it took months to get a valve replacement so our RV tech could fix it. Now it smells like the same problem is happening. There was a recall on the valve our tech replaced. The girl making appointments for Dometic remembers us! and is booking an appointment to take the coach in at the show to be fixed, we hope. The whole idea of replacing our stove top with a range/oven is so we did not have to use the generator when boondocking. The original install was done pretty shoddy with our cabinetry. Fortunately Ray had some old cupboard doors that came with the coach he cut up to trim out the oven appropriately.

After Dometic's install

Here is the picture they took of Freya back then to use as advertising while we waited for the stove install.

Last night the rain began lightly tapping on the roof. Woke up this morning to clouds and a blustery day. We set out to do our laundy at 8am in town but I guess a bunch of others thought the same. We came back home and tried again at 10:15 and managed to get it all done without waiting for machines. Finished by noon and it's considerably less busy then.

Spent the afternoon inside, not a nice day. Ray headed out at 4 with Debbie #3 and Jerry to meet up with the crew at the Yacht Club to celebrate Greg's birthday with Debbie #2', Dianne and Steve, Colan and Marilyn. They originally planned Silly Al's, but a 2 hour line up at 4:15 deterred that! Their Beef Dip apparently was a hit with the group.

Dianne, Steve and birthdy boy Greg, all watching football.

Dianne's picture of the group.

Jerry, Debbie, Dianne, Steve, Greg, Debbie, Ray, Colan and Marilyn