Ending a chapter

A few days ago, we went for a drive, just around the island for a change of scenery...

Crofton paper mill just off center there...

Booth Bay

What a looker! Barely able to walk 100 yards after what I just put my body through, but still cute!

Since we're moving.... oh yeah I haven't given details of that yet.... next post probably..... we went to see some friends - socially distanced of course.

Wonderous sights you get without being under trees...

Robin & Sylvia built this fabulous tiny home a couple of years ago

Back at home, Robbie was hot in our little sliver of sunshine so I propped some shade over him - spoiled rotten.

1 of my 2 good sons... obviously this one takes after his mother... Proud Mama.

Okay so being in the trees is a bad idea for so many reasons.... not the least of which being....

Before, but after being swept off... just 6 months worth.

What an absolute state it was...

All cleaned...

That was a lot of work and we shan't be parking under trees ever again!

Editor's Note: All the roof patches are due to the RV dealership installing the solar panels in all the wrong places. Do Not have a dealership install solar -- its worth the extra $$ to get it done right.

Well now, that was a day!

We woke up this morning with nothing to do... then remembered that the slide topper guy was supposed to be coming today. Brad was going to run into Quartzsite and do something or other while I still had to get myself put together, then the topper guy called. He was at the front entrance to the LTVA... where were we? Cutting a long story short, we were happy with the result of the topper guy's visit. He will return on Wednesday (not happy about that as we were hoping to go somewhere else soon) and the cost of the repair will be $169.78US. Not great but atleast its not crazy expensive.

For the record the topper guy is Ron Butts with Shade Pro RV Awnings. Nice guy and sounds like he knows his stuff.

After this we figured we go to Quartzsite and do a bit of laundry, fully intending to bring it home wet and hang it on some contraption that Brad has planned and I know no details of.

And we did - go to Quartzsite and do a bit of laundry, that is. It was a cool, cloudy day today so we left Robbie at home and the two of us drove in. He dropped me off at a new laundromat the Palm Plaza Laundromat since I was so thoroughly unimpressed with the last one. I loved it. It was clean, quiet, the other users were friendly and the price was great. $2/wash and .25 for 7 min on the dryer I put it in for 45min and it was dry when it finished. Not sopping wet. Well worth the price. So a huge thank you to the management of that place, we will be back.

Our Laundry Hamper

Saw this notice of the upcoming Farmers Market and I'm excited to check it out on Tuesday.

While I was doing laundry, Brad went to go have a chat with the solar boys again. We've been finding that its not keeping up with our energy usage, so he wanted to see what we could have done to it to correct the problem... perhaps another panel and upgrade the controller... the boys suggested tilting the panels and they could fit us in right away. So he came back to the laundromat to pick me up.

We rushed home and packed up the rig for moving and off we went. Dropped her off at Discount Solar yet again for the boys to fix her up. They removed all the panels, put tilting feet on them and replaced them moving one into a better position. We are not able to tilt them for a few days (5 apparently) to allow time for the lap sealant to set up well before the wind hits them. $482US for today's little add-on but apparently it will give us the 20% extra we seem to be missing.

Kendon on the roof of Ace once again

Obviously we also need to cut down on our power usage. We'll have to limit ourselves to a morning and late afternoon charge of all the gadgets on generator power until we are able to tilt these babies. Even after that we will be watching our energy usage much closer, killing the Keurig will go a long way towards that. Brad drinks about 8 cups of coffee a day... yes, I've told him - he doesn't care. So when we were watching Moving Forward the other night and they were showing their Presto MyJo K-cup coffee maker, we knew we just had to get one. THIS alone will save us enough power over the course of a day to send Armstrong to the moon and back. I ordered him one the very next morning along with a new collapsible kettle for both of us.

After returning to our campsite, having dumped the black/gray tanks and reloaded the fresh water we set the rig to better orient her for her new solar setup. Brad promptly began patching the holes left by the atrocious placement of the panels by Woody's RV in Red Deer. He is none too happy with them at the moment and I try to remind him that they are Dealers not Solar guys but he is mad at the hack job they did to our roof and thinks they shouldn't be doing solar if they don't know what they're doing. We have A LOT of patches up there now with the original 4 that came from the previous owners satellite dish, 14 now. 

He managed to get 4 of them patched and sealed today but has 6 more to do in the morning. We specifically told the guys at Discount Solar we would do them ourselves so that we can be absolutely sure they are done correctly given the high number of them. All this patching will undoubtedly affect any future sale should we choose to upgrade and we will likely have to replace the entire roof. Long time readers will remember we have some experience with this. Somewhere in all of this we also order 4 new tires for the Jeep ($914US) Gulp!!!

By this time it was 5:30pm and the steaks we had out for supper while tempting were not enough to entice the effort required to cook them from either of us so out for dinner we went. Remembering that someone (sorry don't remember who) recommended Mountain Quail Cafe, that was where we went.

Mountain Quail Cafe

Well, let me tell you - I'm no Gordon Ramsey but I hope that wasn't how you remember it. Not anymore anyway, the business is for sale and while the atmosphere was clean, quiet and the staff were very friendly and happy, the food - well there was some of it that even Brad couldn't eat (he ate in ditches in the Army). He also didn't drink the coffee. I had chicken fingers and when I couldn't rip them apart I picked up my knife and fork but couldn't cut them with those either. It was bad. Just bad.

I've become quite the critic lately. Not sure I like it, but I have been writing quite a few Yelp! reviews. Most of them are good experiences so I guess that balances things out but when we have an experience like we had at the laundromat last week and today's dinner, I just think its important to let people know. Not just potential Customers of these establishments but the Owner/Managers as well. If they don't know there is a problem, they can not be expected to fix it... this is my view on this. Feel free to correct me if you feel different, because I don't like writing bad reviews but...

Well tonight when I was reviewing today's laundromat a Google something something popped up asking me to become a 'Local Guide' doing reviews of the places we experience. I have taken it on, mostly because I can take it off if I should choose to.

I sure wish I used these reviews myself, I must get better at it. Usually when we are going for dinner we just go and see what we see, we don't Google to find out what other people's experiences are at a place. I need to do this more - at all actually.

Generally it was a good and productive day that just ended badly but tomorrow is another so...

Onward and Upward my friends, Onward and Upward.

Solar, Laundry, Pizza & TV

This morning we realized that while our inverter was working, we were not bringing in any power to the batteries. So our day of chilling out was out the window once again. I called Discount Solar and let them know we were on our way, what the problem was and that we'd get the buzzer done at the same time. Turned out that a connector was bad on the roof, so about 45 minutes there getting that sorted and the low battery buzzer installed. 

Figured we'd go for pizza - what else do you do when its 35C?! Yes, we're odd. Off to Silly Al's where I saw this recipe on the wall, not sure it will all fit in the Instant Pot though. 

We always get a larger pizza than we need so we have lunch the next day, but we order the 'gargantuan' literally that's what its called (20") clearly we didn't give much thought to just how big that would be. So we had lunch yesterday, a snack last night, likely breakfast this morning and lunch again today. It won't all fit in the fridge, so eat it we must.

Over to the laundromat where the washer was $1.75 and the dryer was $4.50, 20 min for the washer, 25 min for the dryer. As you might expect it wasn't dry and I was mad as hell. $4.50!!!! and its not dry... how much would it cost me to get it dry? I wasn't prepared to find out.

(This is the GoodYear Blimp flying over Quartzsite today)

Back to the RV and Brad strung up some rope for me and we got the laundry out to dry. 2 hours later I checked and all but 4 pieces were done so I brought in the dry and reset the damp stuff. Actually its currently 6:30am and I just realized I didn't bring them in last night. Oops.

This was a couple of days ago, we were trying to find a GeoCache, without success unfortunately, but since I didn't get to do any GeoCaching yesterday I thought I'd throw in the pic that I have been trying. Note the hat I mentioned in a previous blog. Sexy Mama, Right?!

We also stopped at a Satellite/TV place (when I say we, I mean he), and picked this up for around $80 we were able to pick up 30+ channels. My husband it turns out is a techy guru (not), but it works so who's to argue?

Called the AZ DMV yesterday and was advised that all we need to plate a vehicle is the Title, an AZ address (slight hiccup but doable) and within 30 day have AZ insurance (specifically Arizona Insurance, why I don't know - money grab I suppose).

Called Insurance Brokers of Arizona and was assured that we could get AZ insurance, they do it all the time. Even for Canadians. Well, Okay.

Spent most of last night searching for Jeeps, hence I didn't get this blog posted last night and I was up at 4:30am thinking about the Jeep I found and want. We booked a place to stay just outside Phoenix area for Sunday, so we could spend a couple of days searching and doing the paperwork.

When messaging the guy who currently owns the Jeep I want he advised he was taking it to Tucson on Friday to show a couple who want it as a Toad! So at 4:30am I'm awake thinking we should get there before he goes and save him a trip... not to mention, get us a vehicle. Of course, this will require a couple of days of boondocking before our park reservations kick in. 

Have not discussed this with Brad yet (he, apparently can sleep), so will let you know what happens in tonight's post.

Here is a picture of the TV antennae gizmo since kelly at The Bayfield Bunch asked.

$50

The necessary poles and whatnots were purchased seperately at one of the tents (EEZ RV Store, I think) on Kuehn St in the South West Quadrant (southside of highway 10, that is) for approx $30.

Solar Upgrades and Friends in High Places

 Alright so I'm going to relay today's events in sequential order.... try to keep up. :)

So this morning we were due to be at Discount Solar a little before 11am.... We got up and beautified, packed up the rig and off we went. First sight we saw this morning was our neighbours rig with a large sign across the front that says, " We shoot every third trespasser and number two just left". Clearly not a friendly chap and I'm so glad I saw that before I walked up to his rig (I wouldn't have seen this sign from our angle) to say hello.

We then drove over to the Goodwill (behind Silly Al's here in Quartzsite) and dropped off my crockpot, the printer and a bunch of sweaters that I'm clearly never going to need again. I kept 3 sweaters and ditched the rest, most of which were fairly new (don't tell Brad). The women in the shop were so excited to see us bringing in stuff that one of them actually ran around the counter and gave me a hug, Brad was making a Beeline for the door but she chased after him and he got a hug too. Not anticipating any of this display, I didn't take my cell phone with me as my arms were full. So no pictures.

We were at Discount Solar by 10:30am, sat waiting in line for an hour and then went into the 'waiting room' but we felt like a bunch (there was another couple there as well) of Mexican Immigrants stuffed into a cargo container (it was a converted one, quite literally) and the heat (40C) was unbearable, so I grabbed a bunch of chairs and we all went to sit outside in the shade where the breeze was.

Brad and I decided to take Robbie for a walk and we went down the road to Taco Mio and enjoyed a nice lunch in air conditioning. Robbie stayed under the table between us with some ice water in his collapsible bowl.

It was just too damn hot to walk any further and we were feeling the burn, so we returned to our Mexican hut and sat outside with our co-immigrants. Every now and again I would go over and check on Kendon (the installer guy) to see how things were going.  The guys at Discount Solar are all really great. They worked non-stop on those rigs all day long. Always happy, never moaning, remember it was roughly 40C today and they were out there in the heat and sun. Pretty impressed with this place, I must say. They were upgrading all our wiring to the appropriate ought, installing a Xantrex LinkLite Battery Monitor (Thank you Brenda and Len) and 2 more batteries. Putting us at 480w on the roof and 6- 6V Golf Cart Flooded batteries. Enough to send Armstrong to the moon! Totally wired for sound, we are.

Our co-immigrants showed us a map they use, Benchmark maps. Looks pretty detailed and it shows the areas by colour ie. Public land, Forest service, etc. I will be keeping an eye out for one of these.

Our new Xantrex LinkLite Battery Monitor above the original Go Power Solar Controller

$229 US... plus install, but I think it will pay for itself. I wanted it because it has a battery alarm that you can preset to whatever you want so that when your batteries reach a certain percentage an alarm will sound -handy when you use it mostly overnight. So toward the end of the day Kendon advised that there was some kind of snafu happening with my alarm gizmo so I went to the office to inquire what was going on. Turns out they were out of stock of the alarms... but as I was talking to him he got a call that someone had one and they wanted to install it tomorrow. When I told Brad, after 7.5 hours of being in 40C heat, he wasn't having any of it. So I went back to the office and said we would go without the alarm. "Oh, your getting the alarm," he says, "if I have to chase you to El Paso". Apparently there had been such a kerfuffle around the shop all day about this alarm - which we didn't realize - so we agreed that the next time we move the rig to dump or whatever that we will call them and let them know we'll be coming in. A couple of minutes is all they need Craig tells me. Everything is pre-wired, etc. they just have to stick it in. Okay.

We got back to our 'home' base and the chair with the rock had held it for us yet again. Don't know how long this will last, but so far so good. It was 6pm when we got the rigs levellers down and I whipped out the BBQ and did up some quick hamburgers and chips for supper. Before they were cooked darkness was upon us. Mental note: be parked before 5:30 because I'm not putting those pads down under there in the dark with all the wildlife out here in the jungle.

For those who do not know, HP Sauce is named after the Houses of parliament in England. We are English and this sauce is a staple around here. Now in our previous unmentionable abode we had easy access to HP but not the Keene's prepared mustard we love, so my family would send us some for Xmas or birthdays, etc or we would get some when we were there. So when we packed the rig, I brought along a couple jars of Keene's but didn't even think of the HP... tonight we had burgers, and I discovered that we are almost out of HP!!!! This stuff is Gold and they don't sell it down here. So what did I do? I loved Vickie. 

I texted the previously mentioned and sinister Vickie that we met in Osoyoos who will be coming to the states with her dearly beloved Bruce and begged her upon bended knee to please bring me a couple of bottles.. She has agreed. The woman is a saint! LOL

All day - and I mean all day- Brad has been looking at Jeep Wranglers and has found a couple that we will be reviewing once I get this blog finished. So goodnight one and all, I'm off to the Jeeps.

Onwards and Upwards

I had a great birthday!

We pulled up stakes this morning and headed into town. Left a chair with a rock on it as per instructions and sure enough it was still there when we returned. Bonus gift of the day!

We first drove over to 'Discount Solar' and discussed our situation with them, and yes it turns out my suspicions were correct about the battery wiring setup. In any event, we need a couple more batteries because ours are at 100% well before noon so a couple more batteries will allow us to do more with the electric our solar is creating. Larry there at Discount Solar said if your batteries are full around 4pm that's a good balance basically (I'm summarizing here). We're losing about 6 hours of energy generation capacity because we don't have enough storage space. This confirms what we were told at the Woody's in Calgary that we went to a month ago. We were also advised that installers often use smaller wires than they should and these guys confirmed that.

After leaving Discount Solar we went to Parker, AZ. There is a Walmart there and the birthday bunny bought me an INSTANT POT!!!!! WooHoo!!!!! So excited to have this baby. Also got 2 backpacks with Hydration reservoirs, Brad got 2 pairs of shorts but they didn't have any for us girls, we also got an HDTV Antennae (as seen on TV) whatsit that Brad is currently trying to configure, ($15) so not a big deal if it won't work. We realized today that the previous owner had satellite and so likely the antennae on the roof is no longer connected to anything. Don't know but its a possibility. When we got settled back at home, my Mother-in-law had also sent me a Walmart gift card and a package of plastic containers that all sit inside one another taking up very little space. Thank you.

It got to 39C here today (bloody hot in Fahrenheit) and we wanted to go for a meal... unable to leave the dog in the RV we went to the Blue Water Resort & Casino and put his 'service dog' collar on him. No problem. Had a lovely meal at the casino in the air conditioning and I took Robbie's bowl with us and asked for a bit of water for him which the waitress brought in a cup and I poured some into the bowl for him to make sure he didn't splatter it everywhere.

Having trouble with this bike situation. Can't seem to find a bike rack. Bikes are everywhere but we can't get the bikes until we have a rack to put them on. Even stopped today to look at RZRs and the guy says yeah Canadians have no trouble plating them here.... I'm not so sure. And if its easy to plate something then perhaps we should just get a Jeep since we can drive a Jeep anywhere and the RZRs are only good in specific places.

Then we needed to find Brad a hat as the Walmart had one for me (you'll see that later, I'm sure) but nothing for men. Back to Quartzsite we went to the Dollar General and he managed to get the last 'brad appropriate' (big head) hat on the shelf. Actually looks pretty good with his shades and hat on.

Figured since we were out we should dump the tanks so we ran down the highway and got that done, reloaded the fresh water and came 'home' to find our spot reserved by my chair and rock just as the guy at the entrance kiosk said.

Tomorrow we are going back to Discount Solar and the guys are going to have a look at our setup and get it sorted for us. I know we could do it ourselves but we're not good at this and frankly its just not our forte. Being electrical, we are quite happy to let the 'guys in the know' deal with it and we can be confident that it will work properly AND not burn the rig down.

All in all it was a great birthday although I STILL haven't been able to go Geocaching... and tomorrow doesn't look likely either but the shop closes at 2pm so -- maybe?!

The antennae thingy isn't working. I've suggested we remove the TV altogether and put my computer monitor up there instead. We both have our computers with us (yep, we know) and I don't want to throw mine out. Its too big to fit on the desk in the bedroom and Brad can't use the desk because the bed he'd sit on is too far away for his injured back so he uses the desk in the front. Replacing the TV with it (let's face it, TV is outdated anyway) solves my problem, allows us to watch everything we want to watch and I can type my blogs on it as well. Also, we'd lose the weight of a fairly heavy TV.

Incidentally, anyone have suggestions on what to do with said TV and previously said printer? Do I just throw them in the dumpsters? Guess I'll have to ask the kiosk guy.

Thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes my way, I appreciate each and every one. Now, where's the Smirnoff.......

P.S I'm 49 going on 22 years old. Shhh don't tell anyone.