February 21 to 27, 2010

February 21 to 27, 2010 ; San Carlos Apache Reservation to Yuma, Arizona


Sunday ; Apache Gold Casino Resort to Gila Bend, Arizona

Well, we departed Apache Gold Casino this morning and headed west on Hwy. 60. The weather was cool and cloudy with intermittent light rain. We contemplated stopping at Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park but when we got there it was cold and raining heavily, like yesterday. We continued west on Hwy. 60 to Florence Junction, then south on Hwy. 79 to Florence, and west on Hwy. 287 to Coolidge. At Coolidge we stopped at a Walgreens. I went inside to buy some earache drops while Joanne prepared lunch in the trailer. After lunch and earache drops we continued south on Hwy. 287 to La Palma and Hwy. 87 to Eloy where we refilled with diesel at Flying J. We headed west on Interstate 10 until the beginning of Interstate 8, then west on I-8 to Gila Bend. At Gila Bend we stopped for the night at Holt’s Shell, a service station with a small RV park, with an exceptionally cheap rate. We’ve been there before, and it’s a great place to stay to be within one easy day of driving to Yuma.

We got the last available site in the RV park. It was the second furthest site in the park from the service station building, so the Wi-Fi signal wasn’t strong enough at our trailer to be functional. And I wasn’t able to get any TV channels using the trailer roof top antenna. Our new TV is digital signal capable, but I think the antenna on Harvey might not be. I’ll have to do some research on that when we get back to Yuma.

I went outside where I could get a stronger Wi-Fi signal, but after a few minutes I decided it was too chilly to work outside. We spent the evening reading the Sunday newspaper.

Monday ; Gila Bend to Yuma, Arizona

This morning we departed Gila Bend and headed west on Interstate 8 to Yuma, arriving at Yuma Palms RV Resort in time for a late lunch. After lunch I napped before setting up in our site. We took Bo for a walk around the resort grounds. It was extremely windy !

Yuma Palms RV Resort is new, still under development. We looked at Yuma Palms RV Resort two years ago when it was still nothing more than plans on paper. Now it’s complete except for the sale of the sites. Their original plans did not call for there to be rental sites, but the developer decided to complete some “model” lots and make them available for rental until they’re sold. While called an RV resort, there are many large homes either being built or already completed. Just like back home at Riverside RV Resort Park, where “RV” in the name seems redundant ! Our site here at Yuma Palms is next door to a home under construction.

The Wi-Fi signal did not reach our trailer so I went to the library to work online. Finally … a really good Wi-Fi signal. Hopefully, enough to support VoIP. I updated my blog. I made arrangements to Skype call the Carlson family later tonight. When I returned to the trailer Joanne was ready to go out to Pizza Hut to pick up a pizza for supper, using a coupon for their Monday night special. I think Joanne is becoming the coupon queen of Yuma. We drove to Pizza Hut in The Foothills, ordered a pizza, then went to Walgreens to buy an advertised special while we waited for our pizza to be ready. Once we had picked up our pizza and were back home we just had time to have a salad before it was time for our Skype call with the Carlson’s.

We had a Skype video chat for almost an hour with Doug. The rest of the Carlson family was … otherwise occupied, I guess. We made tentative plans with Doug to spend Christmas with them in Teacapán, Mexico. We returned to the trailer to eat our pizza and watch the Olympics.

Tuesday ; Well, we’re back in Yuma, where the weather is almost always sunny and warm. We heard from other RV’ers while we were travelling over the last couple of weeks that “the weather in Arizona wasn’t so good this winter”. Well, that certainly wasn’t the case here in Yuma. The southwest corner of Arizona that Yuma is located in seems to be almost immune from whatever bad weather passes through.

This morning I did the 138,000 km. inspection on Lanoire. What a wonderful truck, to have reached this mileage without any repairs required other than routine wear and tear and preventive maintenance. I polished my shoes. After lunch Joanne went to Wal-Mart while I read and napped with Sully and Bo. I printed and reconciled this month’s MasterCard statements. What an expensive month ! We took Bo for a walk then went to the pool and hot tub to enjoy the lovely afternoon weather. This RV park is very large, very new, and very upscale, with two swimming pools and two hot tubs in a beautifully landscaped large courtyard surrounded by the library, a large community hall, a large community kitchen / dining area, exercise facility, laundromat, cards and game room, billiards and pool room, a variety of craft rooms, putting greens, tennis courts, and shuffleboard courts with bleachers. This place is way beyond our price range, except for the half price coupon I got while we were in Palm Springs early in December. The only drawback is … we seem to be right underneath the flight path of low flying military gunship helicopters !

While Joanne barbecued supper I went to the library to do some online work. It’s that time of the month ; to sell some investments, get the money into the bank, pay some bills. After supper we went to the community hall for a free concert by The Treble Clefs, a choir comprised of about thirty ( old ) women from Sun Vista RV Park. WOW … what a stupendous auditorium / ballroom for an RV park ! After the concert we returned to the trailer to watch the Olympics. I also worked on monthly computer maintenance ; disk cleanup, disk defragmentation, virus scan, malware scan, and backup of all files.

Wednesday ; What a gorgeous day ! I spent most of it outdoors.

This morning I started a project that we have been thinking about for at least the last six months. The trailer has an upholstered “headboard” attached to the wall behind the bed and it’s time to refurbish or replace it. I removed it from the wall, and we decided it can be refurbished by reupholstering it. We spent quite awhile patiently removing all the upholstering staples. Boy, those upholsterers aren’t stingy with their use of a staple gun, are they ? ! ? In a flash of inspiration Joanne decided that it might be possible to use the quilted bedcover that came with the trailer as the source of material for reupholstering the headboard. The quilted bedcover is made of the same material as the upholstery on the headboard, and the bedroom window valances. We have no use for the quilted bedcover. It’s been stored underneath the bed since we bought the trailer. I disconnected the park’s TV cable to test whether or not the trailer’s roof top antenna receives the new format digital TV signals transmitted “over the air”. It does !

After lunch and a nap we went to the pool to float around enjoying the lovely sunshine and warmth. Afterwards we took Bo for a long walk around the park, then I went to work online sitting at a table on the pool deck. When I returned to the trailer I discovered a new, “private” Wi-Fi signal reaching the trailer. Must be some neighbour with a router. Great … as long as it lasts I can use Wi-Fi in our trailer. Now that we’re back in Yuma and the weather is so great it’s time to do more barbecuing. I barbecued a large salmon fillet for supper. Hey … Sully quite likes barbecued salmon. He shows very little interest in “people food” but he came over to the dinette table and climbed up beside me when he smelled the barbecued salmon.

As every night recently, we spent the evening watching Olympics, with Sully cuddled between us on the couch. Sully loves his nightly “TV cuddle time”.

Thursday ; We have been RV’ing for 5½ years and have managed to survive without a generator. Most RV’ers consider a generator to be an essential piece of equipment. We have occasionally wished we had one, to increase our boondocking capabilities, but never wanted one badly enough to feel that the expense was warranted. Especially since I’ve always thought that if I ever did buy a generator, it would be a small Honda model. They are exceptionally quiet. But cost about $700 ! Well, today I bought a generator. It’s small, likely quite noisy, but very, very cheap ! It’s a $140 generator that was advertised as a coupon special for $90 ! At that price I couldn’t resist. The cheapest price I’ve ever seen on a generator in Canada, probably comparable to this one, was $200. I’m sure that whoever our neighbours are when we use it will not like the noisiness of it. We’ve certainly never appreciated people who fire up loud generators at 7 AM just so that they can use an electric coffee maker. But we don’t intend to use it very often. And we certainly would not use it early in the morning or late in the evening. It gives us the ability to boondock for more than about two nights at a time, which is the limit of the trailer’s house battery when it’s cold enough to be running the furnace overnight. I don’t like boondocking enough to usually want to do it for more than two consecutive nights, but there have been occasions, like when we visited Julie in her State Park near San Francisco, when we have been without power for more than two consecutive nights. Having a generator allows us to recharge the trailer’s house battery by running the generator. And it might even allow us to watch TV when we are boondocked in someplace like a Wal-Mart or Flying J on a night when we want to watch a particular show, like Amazing Race. Buying a digital signal converter box for our small 12V TV would cost at least half as much as the generator, so I thought the cheap generator was a smarter expenditure than the digital TV converter box.

Joanne has signed up at this resort to attend a water aerobics class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, and a Yoga class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. After she returned from her morning Yoga class we headed over to see the display of RV’s a local dealer brought into the resort this morning for a “coffee and doughnuts” sales presentation. The sales display / presentation was scheduled from 8:30 to 11 AM. As we arrived at 10:30 the dealer’s RV’s were just leaving. HMPH … guess they weren’t getting as much attention / interest as they had anticipated. Darn … I was counting on that coffee and doughnuts for breakfast ! HA HA HA !

We headed out to buy the generator at a discount tool and hardware business called Harbor Freight Tools, kind of an American version of Princess Auto. While there I also bought a small gas can and some 2 cycle oil for the generator. From there we headed over to Barney’s Fuels to refill Lanoire with diesel and fill the small gas can with fuel for the generator. Then it was over to Arizona Market Place to buy lots of fresh produce. We returned home in time for a late lunch.

This afternoon I worked on a project to measure critical dimensions of the truck. I had some of the critical dimensions but felt that I needed a few more. Then I revised the little table of truck and trailer critical dimensions that I had on the computer, printed it, cut it out, and pasted it onto the truck’s dashboard. I took Bo for an obedience session, something that I haven’t done in way too long. Well done, Bo, good dog ! I showed Joanne some of the websites I found when I was doing research on Teacapán, Mexico, where we plan to meet Joanne’s family next Christmas. Joanne went to do some laundry. Sully complained a lot this afternoon, obviously displeased with me because I didn’t nap with him as I usually do after lunch. Sully’s routines are entrenched, and he doesn’t like change !

My goodness ! ! ! Another military helicopter gunship just flew overhead at low altitude ! ! ! It goes on from morning until night, every half hour or so, it seems ! I surely am glad that’s not my tax dollars at work ! Yesterday when one flew over while I was walking Bo I waved at the bunch of Marines hanging out the open side door. They waved back. HA HA HA !

As every evening since our return to Yuma a few days ago, we spent the evening watching Olympics, with a break from the Olympics to watch Survivor. Canada’s gold medal count is impressive !

Friday ; Today was interesting, busy, long day. This morning we headed off to run some errands. First stop was to refill a five gallon water jug. We miss the convenience of having a source of reverse osmosis water right in the park, as was the case at Kofa Ko-op SKP RV Park. Then we stopped at Wal-Mart so that I could dispose of the trailer’s dead old battery. Next stop was the Fry’s Mall in The Foothills. Joanne went to Fry’s to buy some groceries. I went to Checker Auto Parts. They didn’t have what I needed, which was windshield washer anti-freeze. They don’t know what windshield washer anti-freeze is down here. They have windshield washer fluid, which freezes at 32 degrees. I guess I won’t find windshield washer anti-freeze until we’re a lot further north, on our way back to Canada in a couple of months. I walked over to Al’s RV Service to look at something which I decided not to buy after seeing it.

After lunch we worked on reupholstering the bed headboard. It turned out pretty well. Not perfect, but good enough. I tested our new generator. I was very impressed. It’s much quieter than I expected a cheap generator to be.

This evening The Palms RV Resort had a Mardi Gras party in the community hall / auditorium / ballroom, with the Yuma Jazz Band, a 5 piece jazz combo performing. It was great, except … there were only 24 people in attendance. The community hall was set up with cabaret style seating for about 200 around the perimeter of the hall, with a dance floor in the center. When the band took their first break the audience dwindled to sixteen. During the second break, the audience dwindled to four people. I invited the only other couple in attendance to join us at our table, then when the band returned from their break, I invited them to come join us at our table for a drink. I thought it would be embarrassing for them and us to have a 5 piece band perform for 4 people. This RV park seems afflicted with the same apathy malady that afflicts Riverside RV Park Resort back home.

We started the evening sharing a table with a couple from Portland, Oregon who have been full time RV’ers for about ten years, and a couple from Northern California who have been full time RV’ers for a few months longer than us. When there was just us and the other couple left, and we invited them over, they were from Owen Sound, Ontario. And finally, while the band members were sitting with us enjoying a drink, a late arriving couple arrived, having driven all the way from Palm Springs to Yuma to hear this jazz band perform. That couple were from a suburb of Vancouver, BC. In recognition of the fact that this couple had driven all the way from Palm Springs to hear the band perform, they performed a third set.

We returned to the trailer shortly after 10 PM and watched an hour of Olympic coverage. WOO-HOO … Canada now has the lead in gold medals won ! That’s impressive ! ! !

Saturday ; Every Saturday at noon this RV park has a themed “Burger Bash” luncheon, with hamburgers, free beer, and a live band. Today was Mardi Gras Burger Bash with a band called The Arizona Alligators. They were billed as zydeco, but this far west of Louisiana they wouldn’t know zydeco if it bit them in the ass. The Arizona Alligators was a blues / rockabilly band. It was a pleasant afternoon. And certainly a lot better attended than last night’s Mardi Gras party. We shared a table with a couple from Calgary, Alberta, an old couple from Idaho, and a biker couple from Wisconsin.

Later in the afternoon we gave Bo a bath. We did some online research on Midnight At The Oasis, an annual huge classic car show in Yuma. This year it will be next weekend. And after seeing the information on the website we have decided we would like to attend.

We barbecued pollo asado for supper, our first attempt at the process of marinating chicken in a mixture of fruit juices and achiotte powder. It turned out fairly well for a first attempt. I’m eagerly looking forward to perfecting the technique. We spent the evening watching Olympics. It rained heavily tonight. I hope that doesn’t affect our plan to attend a rodeo in Mexico tomorrow.

DSK