Saturday, March 9, 2013

REFLECTIONS; Winter 2012 - 2013 - Part 2

Between Christmas and New Years, I had another delightful reunion with my childhood friend, Wendy.  Her and her husband were passing through Phoenix and we arranged to meet for lunch in Chandler (now there's a story).

Wendy and Paul
 We stayed at the Casa Grande SKP park - Rovers' Roost, until the second of January so we could participate in the New Years' celebrations.

Friends Joan and Ken discussing something - whether to wear the hat?

The tree in the clubhouse
New Years' eve parties end early for seniors.  We were home by 
 10:00.









But we had fun.  Lots of food, dancing (love that chicken dance) and lots of laughing.









January 2nd we went back to Pilot Knob BLM west of Yuma.  After all the socialization in Casa Grande with Christmas and New Years, we needed some down time.  We vegged until the 10th and traveled north to Quartzsite to our SKP class annual reunion.  

First order - dinner out at Silly Al's.  Silly Al's is about the only place you would ever want to eat in Quartzsite.

Deb and Mike (love the shirt)

Lee (our resident RV guru)

Dianne and Mike

Terry and Jeri
Tina and Jeff



 Over the course of the next week, friends and new friends arrived.  Eventually we had 19 rigs in our group.  This year we inducted several new people into The Class of 2008/2009. 

 Shortly after this gathering we decided that the Class of 2008/2009 would be called The Class-less Class.  We have members from 2008 to 2012 not because we have no class - silly.

Me and my friends



  Dianne and Tom have just started full timing.  While at Quartzsite they moved up from their trailer to a beautiful motorhome.

Tom and Dianne at the Desert Bar


Lynn and Roger jointed the group.  They travel with their "silver bullet" - Airstream trailer.

Lynn and Roger - with mock mortgage that they burn to symbolize moving up to full-timing

There were a few others that we had met before and a few others that came along with people we knew.  We had pot lucks and a campfire almost every night.



 
 As we were parked in the short term visitors area and our 2 weeks was up, some of us moved to another area of the BLM in Quartzsite called Plomosa Road.  We arrived first, followed very soon by Freddy and Delcie just arriving from Texas and others over the course of a couple of weeks.

Smaller group at Plomosa- l to r - Me, Doug, Dianne, Tom, Terry, Jeri's chair, Mike, Julie, Delcie and Freddy
January 28th we left Quartzsite and moved up to Lake Havasu City.  We had heard of a good boondocking area called Craggy Wash, just north of the city.

   As you can see, Craggy Wash is a beautiful place and we had fun and relaxation for the first week.  HOWEVER - On Valentines' Day catastrophe struck.
Our generator decided to by pass the regulator and blew 200+ volts into the rig.  It took out our converter and, sadly, our television.  We can live without the converter (we have a battery charger that does nicely) and thought we would have to live without our tv.  

During this time my father back in BC had a suspected stroke which turned out to be a heart attack.  We were in constant contact with him.

We order the part for the generator but it didn't come for nearly a week.  Pretty dark with just battery powered light.  We of course ran the truck to charge the batteries but that's expensive.

We left Lake Havasu on February 28th due mostly to bad feelings.  We put the sad dead television in the dumpster at the dump station.


We needed to recover for all this and we knew where we could do that.  Overton, Nevada.  There is a wildlife refuge just out of town and it is perfect for us.  We love this place.
There are 7 sites with shelters and BBQ's and lots of room along the fence
  The little town just down the road has a substantial grocery store, a dollar store, a great hardware/department store and a McDonald's (for Red Box and Wi Fi).  

We have entertainment right out our window.  Birds of all types, rabbits and squirrels right out our window.
Quail and the oatmeal I feed them
Doug has wonderful walks in the refuge with the poor old slow dog.

  There is supposed to be an eight day limit here but no one seems to care.  We are going into a park on Monday for overnight.  We will dump, fill, flush, bake, vacuam and take several long hot showers and return to the refuge until the end of the month when we will hightail it back to BC.
 

2 comments:

Wanderin' said...

What a season it has been!! Lots of good times and lots of busy times. You've done a great job of summing it up.

Paul and Marsha Weaver OCT. 17, 2009 said...

You two fill each day with fun, laughter, and making memories. Glad you had another wonderful adventure.