March 19, 2005

March 19, 2005

Winterhaven, California

DAY 274

 

Today was sunny and warm.

Today was a lazy day, just resting and killing off a day before we head to Escapees Spring Rally / Escapade tomorrow in Imperial, California. I started the morning with my normal daily preventive maintenance procedure. Saturday's procedure includes checking the truck's air filter. Sheesh ! It was plugged with Monarch Butterflies ! While I had my head under the hood of the truck, a couple of neighbours from 2 sites down came over to visit. Guys about my age. Bikers, or more likely, ex-bikers. Retired bikers, perhaps ? Long, greasy hair, rotten teeth, filthy clothes, head to toe tattoos, an aversion to soap and water evidently. Welcome to California. They wanted to chat "trucks". They are towing an old fifth wheel trailer with a 1952 pickup truck. Not exactly my kind of guys. Not exactly my kind of demographics. After preventive maintenance, I finished fixing the damage to the fibreglass skirt caused by the tire blow out. The drill battery pack had charged over night, so the drill was functional again. I drilled where I needed to, then spent a long time looking for the baggie that I had put the frame brace mounting screw into. I couldn't find it < fume > ! I gave up looking, drilled slightly larger holes in the fibreglass skirt and the brace, and used a nut and bolt from my hardware supply. I checked out the water heater to see if I could figure out why it wasn't working on electricity. I dug out and read the manual. It seems likely that the heater element has burned out, or possibly the electrical switch needs to be replaced. In any case, I don't want to start tearing the water heater controls apart until I'm in the parking lot of an RV parts dealer like Camping World. We'll just have to use the water heater on propane.

After lunch I took a nap with the boys while Joanne did laundry. Then Joanne and I went to browse around this park's store which is much more of a museum than it is a store. It's filled with mining history, and antiques of all sorts. It's a rather interesting “hodge podge” collection of stuff, mostly from the 30's and 40's. After browsing around, we checked out the other facilities in the park. There is an interesting small chapel used for Sunday services for the park's occupants, and which seems to be popular for local weddings. There's a club house for social gatherings, a kitchen /café, a games room, a library and video room, etc.. The same stuff you would find at any large RV park, but in a kind of downscale, dune buggy crowd sort of style. This is a large park, covering quite a bit of desert land, but it's very different from most of the places we've stayed. Lots of seasonal occupants, with license plates from all over, including a few from Alberta and British Columbia. Bikers, large families of Mexicans, lots of dune buggies, dirt bikes, ATV's, and, of course, six figure RV's with affluent older folks like in every RV park.

We spent the latter part of the afternoon just sitting outside in the sun with Teddy and Bo. I don't know why Teddy likes to roll in gravel ! I wonder if it scratches his back, or if he’s taking some sort of dust bath ? There are more blossoms today, and hummingbirds visiting them. Spring in the desert is nice.

There are about a dozen TV channels we can get here, but only 3 of them are in English. Same thing with the radio. Most of what we pick up on the TV and radio is from Mexico, about 10 miles south.

DSK