QUARTZSITE MISTAKE

Even in the dark of night, the desert in Arizona gives you amazing views.  The time change thing is causing fits for both Cooper AND myself.  Though I woke up at 4:00, it's actually 5:00 here.  I've lost an hour somewhere and I feel it!  

Mr. Gibbs finally got to meet his buddy Cooper face to face.  He barks every time he sees Cooper out the window ... and believe me, he keeps WATCH!  There is no sneaking around!!  

 

First things first ... we traded stuff.  I got this fabulous bottle of REAL maple syrup!!  In trade, Patsy and Bill got some yummy oranges, some boysenberry jam, a bag full of quilling supplies, and peanut butter cookies.  

But wait ... there's MORE!  I got this cute as can be quilled boot to hang in my rig and Patsy got a shoulder bag I bought last year at the big tent.  There's still more, but they have to have room in their freezer.  I brought a bunch of those steaks to share.  I will never be able to eat that entire box I purchased from the Elks, and Bill is a master barbecuer!!

That's when the big mistake occurred.  I needed to find some roast chicken for Cooper.  Well that's easy, I'll walk to the grocery store.  Even better, Deb and Tom left this morning, so I bummed a ride to Coyote Fresh, not quite a mile away.

So there I was, smelling all that great food they cook, and the meatloaf sucked me in.  Two pieces turned out to be enough for four sandwiches.  Do you have any roast chicken?  Why yes ... in that case over there.  I grabbed one.  To finish it off, I got a couple of things from the dollar store ... like Windex.  Do you know how heavy Windex is?  Do you know how heavy a roast chicken is????

It's okay I thought ... these 15 pounds of groceries will be nothing to carry.  Yup ... BIG mistake.  Patty Chance called me while walking and I could hardly talk.  I finally sat on a light pole base.  I'm sure it was a 5 mile walk, and I almost stuck my thumb out to hitchhike.  Good grief that stuff got heavy.  In my defense, it IS uphill all the way back.

I fell exhausted onto the couch.  Maybe the bike would have been worth the fight to unlock.  I fixed myself a lovely meatloaf sandwich so I wouldn't die of starvation.  It was delicious!!!

Once I recovered, I went to the clubhouse to work on this puzzle with Patsy.  It's one of my favorite pastimes ... and she is VERY good at it.  I can't wait for her to try the quilt puzzle Mr. Ed sent to me.  She has been forewarned!!  Ed ... we are DETERMINED to put that thing together!!

Mr. Cooper has survived so far, though we are not walking any distance like we used to.  

Since it's warmer here, I think he got a little overheated yesterday, so I took the scissors to him.  He lost about 3 cups of hair, and seems to be much better now.  Maybe it was the chicken!!

Dinner was about as easy as it gets.  One microwaved red potato and a little meatloaf.  With meals like this, who needs to cook??

And so ended a lovely day of rest and relaxation.  I'm happy to report everything on the rig is working just fine, though I will be on the hunt for a small heater that doesn't make as much noise as the Truma propane heater.  I've heard bad things about those little floor heater watts melting the inside of the plastic outlets they now use.  Not sure if that is a real problem or just an imagined one, but sleep is my friend and I don't want to scare him away!!  Maybe one of those infrared ones??  What better place to look than Quartzsite.

THE BIG Q

 IT'S WAARRRRMMMMM!!!  At least warm-ER than it was in foggy California.  I left Bakersfield with high hopes for no traffic.  Other than the windshield that was so dirty I couldn't see out of it, we cruised right along.  I finally stopped in frustration and tried to clean it.  It didn't help much.

Then I remembered I did not turn the gas off.  No big deal, in my other rigs it was never turned off, but I took the Tehachapi exit anyway.  Well that was the wrong one to take.  There was no turnaround wide enough.

Two blocks later, I was back on the road, soon to be cruising through the Lucerne Valley.  That always makes me VERY nervous since that's where that head-on accident almost happened.  No one would have survived that.  I literally hold my breath through that entire section.

That's when everything went crazy.  I had it on cruise control, with the brake assist turned OFF.  There is one very VERY steep section into a big gully.  The van didn't like that one little bit.  The brake assist came on, it slammed on the brakes, and orange/red lights began to flash.

BRAKE ASSIST NOT FUNCTIONING.  That's GOOD!  I don't want it to!  But the warnings would not go away.  They replaced the little zero in the center, which happens to be my speed.  Ding ding ... flash flash ... it would not stop.  Great!  Now I'm on another big downhill.  I was hoping at least the brakes would work.  On the left is a speedometer, completely covered up by the steering wheel, so no telling how fast I was going.  AND I had no cruise control.

I finally pulled over and turned the engine off.  That should do it!  NOPE ... still flashing lights.  Too bad ... I'm driving you anyway.

Now in downtown, I pulled into a parking lot and played with the touch display.  I spotted the word FUNCTION and tapped it.  MORE THAN ONCE.  I think I beat it into submission.  There's just too much fancy dancy electronics on this rig.  With a big sigh, I headed back on the road, and to my amazement the little zero speedometer showed back up and the orange disappeared.  YAY!!!!  Once again I turned that feature OFF.

That's when we hit the traffic jam in Indio.  They chose a Friday afternoon to close a four lane highway down to two.  It took an hour to get through that mess.

At long last I MADE IT!  I'm in QUARTZSITE and parked between Patsy and Bill ... and Deb and Tom.  Sadly, I'm in their Happy Hour spot.  Mr. Gibbs came out immediately for some puppy love, but wanted to see Cooper more than me.  He KNEW he was in that rig, so he just sat and stared at it.

We camped out for over an hour, me completely forgetting the time change, which got me this morning.  We got up at 4:30, but it was 5:30 here.  Love these smiling faces.  Both Patsy and Deb got pictures, so this is the only one I took.  

This was the most satisfying part of the day, besides surviving the drive ..... Bills famous bacon cheeseburgers!  OH YEAH!!!  No one barbecues them better.  Dinner was delicious!!  I can't thank them enough!

As darkness fell, I caught Deb and Tom packing up.  They will leave this morning to spend Christmas with their family in the snow back home.

We were all waiting for that fabulous sunset Q is known for ... and it did not disappoint.

Even looking East, it was gorgeous!!

It just got better all around.

And then this happened.  There's just not much better than an Arizona sunset and the pictures don't do it justice.

Mr. Cooper and I are pretty beat up this morning.  It was a long seven hour drive for us, having been stuck in that traffic jam for over an hour.  The time change ... that doesn't help.  

Today will be spent resting up and reorganizing the rig until I can actually FIND things.  It took me an hour to find a fingernail file last night.  

And so it begins ... FIVE DAYS TIL CHRISTMAS!!!!

Fog Fog SUN!!!!

 There's nothing like trying to remember absolutely everything you have to do before leaving on a trip.  I'm pretty sure I left my all time favorite gingersnap cookies at home.  In the fridge?  In the freezer?  I've no idea, but I immediately made a plan to stop in Kingsburg on the way home next month to pick up another tin full.  

Hopefully I got all the other important stuff.  After a nice hug and purr from Kitters, we took off.  It was pretty cold, so I turned the heater up.  It didn't help.  What the heck?  

See that second hole on the right on the dash.  Apparently that is a vent and it was blowing cold air everywhere.  There are so many things on this rig, I don't even know what half of them are!

It was foggy the whole trip and traffic was really bad.  Gee, it's not even Christmas yet!

Thirty minutes out of town, I hit a Shell Station for fuel.  $4.69 was the price of the day, soon to be going up when they close down those refineries in California.  

More fog and clouds as I cruised along ..... it just didn't want to give it up.  I even had to use the windshield wipers for about 20 miles.

At long last, SUN!!  YAY!!  At 3:00 in the afternoon, the warm sun was shining down on the orange trees.  Cooper and I grabbed a big plastic bag and went gathering.  

This is just to show you how big some of them are ... and DELICIOUS!!  This is not your grocery store orange.  These are picked fresh right off the trees.  I got as many large ones as I could reach!

Back in the rig, Mr. Cooper and I are fighting for space.  It's a whole new routine, with me mostly spending time looking for things I KNOW I put in the rig, but can't find.  

BUT LOOK!!!  When I checked in, I just happened to take a quick peek in their freezer.  Oh yeah ... this was dinner!!  I had a hard time not sharing with Cooper.

Here's the weird part.  I got here at 3:00 and I'm the only one in the park.  Surely this can't be.

Yup ... it's a ghost town.  That's a big surprise with all these free oranges!  Maybe it will fill up after Christmas.  It is usually packed this time of year.

Another surprise ... I turned on the Dish Network TV and it actually WORKED!  That's a miracle!  No calling their "techs" to send a signal.  It started right up.  You know what else?  My phone's Hotspot is working for this blog.  Miracle number two!!

On the other hand, it was a long cold night.  The heater ran all night long.  Hopefully it's not as chilly in Quartzsite!!

This morning I'm back on the road for a long one to Quartzsite.  See you when I arrive.

PACKING, PACKING AND PACKING

 It's warmed up a tad ... all the way to 46 degrees this morning.  I can really tell the difference.  They say we are in for a week's worth of rain in four days.  My timing couldn't be better.  There should be NO snow over the pass as I head out of California.

There was still lots of packing to do, mostly food stuff.  Every time I find something I need to take, it goes on the TABLE.  Once it's falling off, I grab a big grocery bag and fill it up.  It used to take three trips with my little wagon to fill the big RV fridge.  This time it only took two bags full.  Mr. Cooper snoozed away the entire time.

I put Jonathan's cage out in the garage and replaced it with this wreath.  It was hard to see the space blank.

On the other hand, Cooper made up for it.  It was bath time, his LEAST favorite thing in the world.  It's worse than ME going to the hairdresser.  Scissors, brush, comb, hair dryer, but boy does he smell purdy now!!

I found an app that removes the background and replaces it with whatever you want.  Sadly, it did not recognize SANTA CLAUSE.  Succulents came up instead.  AI isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Every nook and cranny of the rig is now stuffed to the brim.  New chair for happy hour, Starlink ... but on the other hand, I removed a 3" high stack of newspapers for Jonathans cage and all his extra blankets.  This will be the first time in thirteen years he has not traveled with me.

I took pictures of the Kitters setup for the neighbor.  She is going to keep an eye on her for me and make sure she never runs out of food.  Yes I thought of taking her, but I think that needs to be short trips a few times first.  No use traumatizing her right off the bat.  As you can see, she helped show how the lid opens.

I got out my "leaving" list and began the checkoffs.  I mean really, who could remember all that!!  That was followed by sloppy joes, since this last container would not fit in the rig freezer.  It was surprisingly good!!  It's those homegrown tomatoes!!

Suddenly there was a knock at the door.  What a surprise!!  The bookkeeper at the lodge, who I've become very good friends with, brought me a Christmas present.  How sweet was that!!!!  We have actually lived fairly close for over 60 years, but never met in person.  

Get ready for happy hour guys ... I'm bringing the GOODS!!

That was it for the day.  I'm all packed up and ready to hit the road for the first leg.  I just realized last night that the first day short trip for Jonathan will no longer be required.  I already had reservations which cannot be cancelled, so we will go pick oranges at the RV park in his honor, even if he did hate them.  

AND WE ARE OFF!!!!!

Time Flew By

 Thank you every one for the wonderful Jonathan thoughts.  He/she was certainly a different kind of pet to have.  He required a lot of biscuit baking, since it's so hard to keep their diet on track.  I guess the neighborhood birds are going to get lots of treats because I have three bags in the freezer.

I really can't tell you how many times he bit me over the years.  There is no cuddling these guys.  I can remember most every one, always a thumb.  I had to learn to read him like I would read a cow.  Even when I had treats in hand, if you moved too fast or the wrong direction, he could nail you in a nanosecond.  I laughed every time!  Sadly, life goes on.

I helped company wrap all her Christmas presents on my living room floor, and provided an Amazon box to get them mailed to Tennessee.  After she left, Mr. Cooper and I snuggled on the couch a bit.  In no time, I was headed off to Bingo.

It seems I completely forgot to train someone how to set up the bingo machine.  Our new guy Steve has been a savior!  He's volunteering every time we ask!  We shall see if his wife approves after a few months.  He came in early to learn the ropes.  

It's not hard, but I had him take several pictures with his phone in order to remember what got plugged in where.  I think he'll do just fine.  After all, the King actually can do it all, though he will tell you he doesn't remember.  

My latest cashier, for which I am very grateful, called an hour ahead to say she was out of town.  I shifted into high gear.  That meant I was training and setting up everything.  See those orange and blue small papers?  Those are the speed games.  They quit making them individually, so now I have to go get the paper cutter (you know, the one you used in grade school?) and cut up the three-on-one strip into individual cards.  Luckily, all my fingers are still intact, though one thumb still hurts like a mother.

I grabbed all the pull tab games and set them up, but left the rest to their crew.  As it turns out, the only other person who knows the entire setup will also be gone two weeks in January.  Uh oh!!

And away we went, with SEVEN winning tickets on the first game. $35.00 each isn't exactly a windfall.  That's when the flaming torches and arrows came out in force.  The caller called the number 30, but 31 showed up on the screen and someone yelled BINGO!!  YIKES!!!

If looks could kill, he would be a dead man!!  He got it straightened out and the game continued, but not without lots of moans and groans!!  

The infernal machine tried to pull one on me by not paying out enough for one game.  Thankfully the runner caught it in time to save my life.  I just counted wrong.  Those $50 bills always cause a problem.

Time flew by, whereupon my dinner arrived.  I forgot I had ordered two dozen pork tamales the week before.  I figured it would be an easy dinner when in the rig.  The microwave is my friend.

In no time I began counting the proceeds.  We had a BIG crowd, mostly because they know we hand out $10.00 Christmas gift certificates to each and every player, good for $10.00 off their bingo cards in January.  135 showed up to partake.  

Lucky for the volunteers, we are now closed until January 6th.  That's OUR Christmas present!  No doubt I will get lots of phone calls while I'm in Arizona, but that's okay.  The sun will make up for it.  Someone said we haven't seen the sun for three weeks.  I believe it!!

Finally home, I found this picture that made me laugh out loud!!  Christmas is here!!!

It took me all of ten minutes to send out my yearly Amazon gift cards.  If they only had Christmas in July, I could head on up to the Idaho mountains for a Christmas visit.  Instead, I'm going to sunny Arizona.

It's packing day ...........  I'll be heading out tomorrow morning.

It Was A Sad Day

 All good things must come to an end I suppose, but it sure can make for a very sad day.  My Jonathan, sweet girl (I think you all know that story) had a stroke yesterday.  Who knew birds had strokes?  Certainly not me. 

I raised him from an egg.  This is me feeding him when he was about a month old.  You know those decorative souvenir spoons you buy and hang on a rack?  They were the perfect size for feeding him every three hours, eventually getting up to three times a day at this size.  

He lived in a dark wooden nest box on the kitchen counter, with what else ... a heating pad. I took him to work every day and hid him in the air conditioning control room so I didn't get fired.

He of course grew like a weed.  In no time he was breaking out of the box and flying to the top of the curtains, chewing them into shreds by the time I got home.

Every day he would flap his wings to get ready for flight.  Unfortunately for him, but better for me, he could only fly in a downward direction.  Otherwise he might have gotten out the door.

We had a long 51 years together.  I will admit, they are not cuddly animals, and he bit me on any number of occasions.  Their beak is so hard they can take your finger off if you aren't careful.  Many buttons were broken off my clothing.  

He loved to talk ... disco disco, pretty boy, whatcha doin, I'm hungry, I love you, Jonathan Jonathan, here kitty kitty, here Tiger ... they just mimic what they hear for about the first year.  From then on, they don't learn too many more words.  Of course there was lots of screeching and "bird" talk.  I got pretty good at that part.

I rushed him to the Vet, but there was nothing we could do.  She sad Amazons are prone to hardening of the arteries and strokes.  

Sadly, he had to be put to sleep.  He could not sit on the perch or even sit up on the floor.  He did however, give me one big kiss before leaving.  He bit me on the thumb, going right to the bone.  The Vet patched me up.  He was definitely giving me something to remember him by.  

You are a very pretty boy Jonathan ... I will miss your Stevie Wonder impression and your disco dancing.  

Good news ... an update on friend Connie ... she is doing great and is back home already.  

OLD AGE FRUSTRATION

Here we are, still stuck in the fog on this lovely day with only ten days left until Christmas.  That just doesn't seem possible.   Notice the neighbor's lights change color.  Last week blue ... this week green.  I'm one of those crazy people who think we should leave them up all year long.  They definitely brighten up the neighborhood.

Having recovered ... sort of ... from the also foggy wet trip for Wreaths Across America, I tried to sleep in.  It lasted all of 15 minutes.  As you can see, I'm still trying to get back on the diet bandwagon.  Here's some interesting info ... I looked at Carb Balance tortillas, only to find they had something like 45 carbs.  Don't quote me on that one.  

So when I saw ZERO net carbs ... well that should work just fine.  However ... unless you fry them in lots of butter, which I suppose is even MORE Keto, they fall apart and taste terrible.  

Here's my quesadilla with eggs, cheese and avocado.  It tasted like I was eating paper.  The little bits of egg are for Cooper's breakfast.  

I messed around the house for a while and loaded a few things into the van.  Then I was off to do more year end bookwork.  Three hours later, I arrived back home, with a dumb idea.  I've been wanting to go for a bike ride, but my bike was cabled and locked on the bike rack on the van.  I had a thought.  I'll just take it off for the practice and go for a ride today.

That was a bad idea.  No kidding, by the time I unlocked all those locks, unstrapped all those straps and manhandled the very heavy cover OFF the bike, I was completely DONE with this idea.  Why?  Because yet another problem came up ... you cannot see the license plate.  That has recently caused many people to get tickets from the highway patrol.  RATS!

I decided to remove the hitch for this long trip and use it for short trips to the coast instead.  Easy peasy ... get out my wrench and loosen the hitch bolt so the lock can be removed.

Let me just say first, that I ASKED the kid installing this thing if there was enough ROOM to unlock it.  He said OF COURSE.  HE LIED.  Even with the bolt as loose as it would go, there was no way to get your fingers holding a key into that space next to those wires.  Even just the key did not fit.

I even went so far as to get a pair of needle nose pliers to hold the key, but nothing I tried would work.  I've been frustrated before, but this went above and beyond.  There is a steel plate in front of those wires, so there was no moving anything.  

You can see in this picture where the key should go.  I called the local locksmith, but they didn't answer.  Finally, in complete disgust, I drove all the way to the next town over to find a locksmith who I thought would just stick a little crochet hook in there and open it up.  I was highly mistaken.

Thirty minutes later, they were finally able to find a master key, which didn't help at all.  I mean really, I HAD the REAL key.  The master would not fit either.  By now I'm just downright MAD.  

At long last they were able to twist the bolt and lock to the exact right spot and get the lock off.  Luckily this bolt screws in, so I was able to drive home without the rack falling off.  

The fancy dancy bike rack is now living in the garage.  I'm not taking it on any trips until I get a new lightweight cover and get the backup object detectors turned off.  The entire time you are driving down the road, the dash lights light up like you are running into something.  If you back up, sirens go off, flashing lights appear and ding ding ding goes off continuously.  In all my research of bike racks, none of these problems EVER came up.  

And so my solution for now is setting up an Uber account.  How frustrating ... and maddening.  Put in a different kind of hitch pin the other direction you say?  I haven't found one that will fit.  I don't know whether to blame the van or the bike rack, so I blame myself for not finding out this stuff sooner.  I may have to put the bike inside, and just lock it up OUTSIDE, every time I get somewhere. 

Dinner was again leftovers ... another turkey sandwich.  I ran out of cranberry sauce, so I tried some of my boysenberry jam.  Surprisingly, it was DELICIOUS!  Not to sweet at all, and it went great with the turkey.

More bookwork will ensue today, just in time for company to arrive.  I feel bad my friend comes down every so often, but I never have time to spend with her.  Any spare time will be spent packing this time. 

I was lucky enough to have little forethought and washed the clothes I need, which are now in the rig.  Time to get out all my little post-it notes so I don't forget anything!!!

But wait!!!  No one knows how to set up the Bingo machine while I'm gone.  I guess today I'll put on my pirate hat and find someone to shanghai!!