Friday, January 23, 2009

Wow, I woke up a couple of times during the night and could hear a bit of pitter, patter of rain on the roof, it wasn’t a hard rain and when we got up this morning the roads weren’t wet but nonetheless, we did have a smattering of the wet stuff.

Today was mainly cloudy, with a few sunny breaks, but warm. John went out this morning and got some chicken fixings for the R. O. water system while I stayed home and did a bit of this and a bit of that. This afternoon we went to Lowe’s and Home Depot looking for a timer for the R. O. system, no luck, and we also went to Target and got a Rubbermaid box to put it in to try to keep it cleaner than just having the system sitting out on the ground. Then it was a stop at Fry’s for a few groceries then to Wal Mart for the rest of our groceries and voila, John found his timer there, so he is happy.

When we came out of Wal Mart the parking lot was soaking wet so it must have rained pretty hard when we were in there, but a block from there everything was dry so it was a pretty localized down pour! We didn’t get any rain here at the park but I had bought a barbecued chicken at Wal Mart for dinner so John didn’t have to worry about going out and barbecuing in case it did rain.

Tonight is the usual quiet evening of TV or reading. And so ends another great gift of a day in the sunny south and we look forward to another good day tomorrow.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

We woke up to sunshine this morning which was a surprise as they had been forecasting an overcast day with a chance of rain, thankfully they were wrong.

Steve & Brenda picked us up this morning for a trip to Quartzsite, they have never been there before so we asked them if they would like to go with us. That was fine but Steve said he would drive so we picked up lunch in exchange for the free ride! We were surprised that there was no line up to get into town, other years we have hit stop and go traffic for about the last mile into town but today we drove right in, finding a parking spot was another issue but we finally did find one.

We split up, guys one way gals the other, then met up after about an hour to head for the big tent and find something for lunch. After getting our tummies filled up we headed into the big tent to check it out, I bought a couple of little things but nothing too exciting, Steve ended up finding himself a job for the summer – he and Brenda will be camp hosts at a state park in Oregon for July & August, we are real happy for them as it sounds like it is exactly the kind of job they were looking for.

While Steve was doing the job thing in the big tent John checked out the place where we bought our dash cover last year and got one for Mike & Margie, I am sure they will be happy that we were able to find one for them as they really liked ours and hoped we could get one for them this year. While all this was happening Brenda and I enjoyed a dish of homemade ice cream and then I just sat and people watched while she went back to stay with Steve and hear about what they will be doing during the summer.

By the time Steve got done it was after 4:30 and time to hit the road for home, we got back to Yuma about 6:30 after a fun day in Quartzsite. We had a couple of rain drops on the way home, sure hope that is all the rain we will see. We were surprised at how green the dessert was today, I guess it is from the big rain they had in November but it is greener than we have ever seen. I had asked John to grab my camera but that didn’t happen so unfortunately I have no pictures from today.

John and I had a chicken burger for dinner and now it is time for TV or reading – it depends if there is anything worth watching on TV. And so ends another great gift of a day in the sunny south and we look forward to another good day tomorrow

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Today was nice but the sun was playing hide and seek most of the day, no big deal as it was still nice and warm. They are forecasting a chance of showers for tomorrow, hope they are wrong!

John spent most of the day setting up the R. O. system, he had to clean out the hot water tank as it was full of crud (no surprise) so at least it is nice and clean again; with the water here it gums everything up real fast!! We were without water most of the day but by late afternoon we were using the R. O. water, now we will see what kind of difference it makes. Later this afternoon John made a run to get fuel and propane, I passed and stayed at home reading.

I didn’t do a lot today, did a bit of this and a bit of that this morning then I went for a nice long walk. After that I came back and got out my chair and settled in and read for a few hours – tough life!!

Tonight is another quiet night of TV and reading. And so ends another great gift of a day in the sunny south and we look forward to another good day tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Today was another gorgeous day but I think we are supposed to have a couple of cloudy days coming up with even a possibility of rain – we will see what happens.

This morning we watched the inaugural of Barak Obama, I certainly don’t envy him the road ahead but hopefully he can make changes that will help the economy etc. Because of the time difference it was about 10:15, after his speech, that I headed out to meet Brenda and go to the craft show here at the park. There was lots of stuff but nothing that I needed to part with my money for, the vendors were saying that they weren’t having a good day so I don’t know if it is because of the economy or what but I didn’t see a lot of people buying. There was a fellow out front selling fresh fruit and vegetables so I got a couple of nice looking peppers for John and a cantelope for myself.

John felt that we definitely needed to do something about the water here, it is so salinated that you can’t drink it and it is very hard on the plumbing, so we went out this afternoon and bought a reverse osmosis water system. The couple next door have one on their trailer and love it and I talked to a man while we were looking at them today and he said they put one on last year and it is the best thing they ever did so hopefully it will do the trick. We have been thinking about this for quite a while but hated to spend the money, on the other hand we can use it anywhere we go as long as we are going to be there for more than a couple of days. We also considered a water softener but you have to buy the salt for it (salt is cheap so that’s not expensive, just a pain), but the real downside of the softener is that you still have to buy your drinking water so we decided to go with the r o system. So John has his job lined up for tomorrow getting it intalled!!

There were a couple of small adjustments that needed to be made to the system to suit what we wanted so while they were doing that we went to Wal Mart and picked up a few groceries. When we went back to pick up the r o system I talked to a fellow who works there that knows Andy Thomson at Can-Am RV in London, (where we have bought all our Airstreams), small world! Mentioning Can-Am, there are 2 other trailers in this park that were bought there, neither is an Airstream, although the one couple did have one for many years but now have a Sunnybrook. The other trailer in here is a Sunset Trail but we knew as soon as we saw the set up on it and the Ontario licence plate that it was from Can-Am as they are pulling it with a fairly small truck and a Hensley hitch.

We had a nice steak dinner with cesar salad and are now just going to have a relaxing evening. And so ends another great gift of a day in the sunny south and we look forward to another good day tomorrow.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Today was another beautiful sunny warm day so we decided to do a bit of a road trip. We headed into California and took a highway up the east side of the Imperial Sand Dunes then picked up a highway that would have eventually taken us right across California to the ocean north of San Diego (we didn’t go that far west). We crossed the sand dunes and even though it was a week day there were a lot of people out on their dirt bikes, ATV’s etc. racing around the dunes. There were a lot of trailers camped out there, sorry but I just can’t imagine camping in all that sand and having it tracked all through the trailer – it has to be really hard on a RV. We passed more huge motor homes towing trailers with their toys and RV Toy Haulers in a couple of hours today than we have seen all winter – recession – where!!!

Driving West Towards the Imperial Sand Dunes



The Sand Dunes





We stopped at a lookout part way through the dunes and there were a few trailers pulled in there and this little guy was running around on his ATV. The sand was so soft in there we were worried we would get stuck!



After the sand dunes we were in the Imperial Valley where a lot of Canada’s winter vegetables come from, we also came across a huge feed lot, I could smell it long before we got to it!

Just a Small Part of the Feed Lot



We drove through Brawley and stopped there at a Carl Jr.’s as I just had a sudden craving for one of their milk shakes - they are the best. John had a chilli burger then it was on our way again.

We drove up the west side of the Salton Sea, which is a huge inland saline sea but it is totally grungy, looks beautiful from a distance but up close it is dirty and smelly!

Here is how the Salton Sea was created according to Wikipedia:

“The creation of the Salton Sea of today started in 1905, when heavy rainfall and snowmelt caused the Colorado River to swell and breach an Imperial Valley dike. It took nearly two years to control the Colorado River’s flow into the formerly dry Salton Sink and stop the flooding. As the basin filled, the town of Salton, a Southern Pacific Railroad siding and Torres-Martinez Indian land were submerged. The sudden influx of water and the lack of any drainage from the basin resulted in the formation of the Salton Sea.”


We turned west again and drove about 30 miles through scrub country with pretty mountains around and again lots of people camping on the BLM lands. For the life of me I can’t see what is so nice about camping out in the desert dirt with no amenities, but to each his own!!

We then headed north again and went through the pretty town of Borrego Springs at which point we headed back to the Salton Sea. We also passed a lot of vineyards and date plantations on our tour.

Christmas Circle - Borrego Springs



Driving out of Borrego Springs



Looking East to the Salton Sea



Some Rock Formations



We drove through the city of Salton, a pretty pathetic place where there isn’t much happening but we did see this fellow flying around.



This is typical of the landscape outside the Imperial Valley.



At the top of the Salton Sea we turned east and picked up a road down the east side of the sea. We had heard of a RV park called Fountain of Youth and knew it was around the Salton Sea somewhere so when we saw the sign for it we decided to drive through and we weren’t impressed. The lots were crammed together, certainly no privacy to be had there, it was an old park, and the closest town to do any shopping, dining out or find a doctor or hospital is 50 miles away; but with all these drawbacks it was full.

From the Salton Sea we drove down to Holtville where we picked up the Interstate back to Yuma. Going to Holtville we drove through a lot of farm land and saw about 10 different flocks of sheep grazing in the fields.

We decided to go Daz Boys and have a pizza for dinner as it was 6:30 by the time we got back to Yuma.

And so ends another great gift of a day in the sunny south and we look forward to another good day tomorrow.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Well today was nice but there were clouds in the sky, oh dear, we haven’t seen those in a long time, still it was a nice warm day with a bit of a wind, at least this time it was a warm wind!

I forgot to mention yesterday that I had a real grrrr moment. Before we left Ontario in November I had picked up two new sleeves for my lymphedema as you are supposed to change them every 4 to 6 months, so on Thursday I started one of the new sleeves (as it turns out it was the one I tried on when I picked them up) and then yesterday I opened the second one and lo and behold it was a glove, not a sleeve – NOT GOOD!! I sent an e-mail to the gal at Shoppers where I got them and have asked her to get me another sleeve and have it mailed to me here as I have paid for it and really need it, hopefully she can do that and I am hoping to get a reply from her tomorrow as I know she doesn’t work weekends.

We went out for breakfast/brunch again and today tried Brownie’s CafĂ©, it was good and we would go there again for breakfast or lunch but not dinner – no ambience!

After Brownie”s we were driving down 4th Ave. when I saw a Goodwill store so asked John to pull in as I had a few things to drop off, then John wanted to go in and wander around – nothing caught my attention but he bought a modem for $2, don’t know what we are going to do with it but now we have it! From there we went to Home Depot to get a couple of bolts to hold down the phone antenna better then stopped at Circuit City - they have filed for bankruptcy so we decided to see if there were any deals to be had – wishful thinking!!I

When we got back I talked to Kel and Cara (I had talked to Nan this morning) then I went outside to sit and read. Leslie & Garry came over so we ended having a drink and visit with them, nice. They are leaving tomorrow for a couple of days, going to stop at Quartzsite then on to Laughlin for a couple of nights. Garry said his friend had been looking at our old satellite stand so John said $15 and it could be his so Garry called his friend and the stand is now his, an easy way to get rid of it!!

Tonight was not much for dinner – soup but that was enough after a large breakfast at midday. And so ends another great gift of a day in the sunny south and we look forward to another good day tomorrow.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Like a broken record, today was another gorgeous day in the south. I went out this morning and picked up a couple of groceries then enjoyed the nice weather sitting out and reading, while John did more washing and polishing, we sure are shiny!

We went to Brenda & Steve’s for dinner and had a wonderful meal of Mazillan tortillas (I think that is how to spell it – I am waiting for the recipe to find out for sure). They were really good and we had a lovely evening with great food and conversation.

We are now watching some TV before going to bed. And so ends another great gift of a day in the sunny south and we look forward to another good day tomorrow.