Marty's Travels

Since the fairgrounds is across the street from the Marine Corps Air Station, we get an up- close and personal experience with the many flying machines the Marines use. A lot of the activity seems to be pilots learning how to use a carrier deck, but there are bombing and artillery runs as well out to the various ranges around here. The point is that they are noisy, very, very loud. The trick is to suspend conversation for a few seconds as they go by, but that's a surprisingly difficult thing to learn to do.

Chats with the vendors that are here (a very good group) get interrupted frequently, and the seminars and presentations come to a stop regularly.

It was windy today, too much to sit outside but at least it wasn't pouring rain. The rest of the week should be calm, warm, and sunny. And noisy.

For those not into RVing, a rally is a gathering of like-minded folks to share food, drink, and stories around a theme or event of some kind. Rigs are parked very closely together, and services may or may not be available, but the idea is to enjoy the event, not necessarily the accomodations. Since all RVs are self-contained (water, waste storage, and power are all on board) they can easily satisfy one's needs for a week or so during a rally.

Some folk, though, have "requirements" for their stay, which usually means power. Nick Russell and his wife Terry put on this rally,and they said power was going to be limited here at the Yuma fairgrounds. I saw that and thought "Oh, I'll just dry camp it, no problem". A few others came in expecting unlimited power and became quite annoying with their disappointment when they had none. In some cases annoyance moved to silly, obnoxious, and downright hostile.

You know why someone in an RV gets so hostile when power is not available? They can't watch TV. We Boomers are probably better defined as the TVers, it and we being born at the same time. 60 years of television can take it's toll on a mind, which I think someone warned about back in the 60's.

TVers (those Boomers with a TV problem), please get a grasp on your problem, or go places that share your addiction. Don't lay down your needs on the rest of us. I think you're stupid (which was predicted in the 60's)....

Yesterday we had accumulated 7 rigs on a nice flat spot in the desert near Yuma, ready to caravan into the Gypsey Journal Rally together. The forecast called for rain which was a worry, but at 3AM this morning I could see stars and thought we had dodged that one. The rain came in at 5 and by 7 I was in the middle of a stream.

The storm passed, but the road out of our nice flat place was flooded with runoff from the nearby hills. Scouts went out to check the situation, and found a cross-country route to a nearby mining road that offered some promise. I was ready to give it a try and we made arrangements for Chuck to come get me and pull me out if I got stuck. If I made it I'd call the others and let them know. Good plan.

I managed to go about 6 feet and sunk deep into mud. It was nothing for Chuck to hook me to his winch and I was out of there. It was easy, but when I got on the state highway it was basically unrecognizable, covered with water, mud and sand. No problem, but when I got to the interstate I entered a thunderstorm and it was a downpour and lightning all the way into the fairgrounds. The rest of the group headed out after me, as we figured it was either get out right away or be stuck for 2 more days.

Yuma gets about 3 inches of rain a year, the driest town in the US. This season they've had 5 years worth of rain. I've always feared rain in the desert, but not until this year did I have to deal with it. And way too many times for my taste.

We've got quite a community growing here in the desert. I was the third unit to pull in, then four more rigs arrived. I haven't seen Mike and Sandy for two years, when we met in Tucson. When fulltimers depart company we always say "See you down the road". Starting out it's hard to believe that folk can go so far away from each other and yet meet up again someplace else entirely, but now I know it works very well. When I say goodbye, see you down the road, I'm positive it will happen a year, maybe two, maybe more. But it will happen.

We're gathering up here before a rally in Yuma next week. Rallys are a big get-together of RV'rs that involves name tags, a vendor show, presentations by experts, near experts, faux experts, and idiots. Comparing it to my working days, it's a convention, but the attendees bring their own rooms. It's a good chance to get caught up on the latest talk and old friends, meet new people, get some new ideas. From here, I, like a lot of others, will be heading out in all directions, saying "See you down the road" and we know it's true...

No, not for me, but Jim and Bobbie are looking for a bigger fifth wheel, so the bunch of us went into town to see something they liked. It looked good, with just a few small items to be dealt with. The unknown in the works is the price: it's currently owned by a bank and is basically on consignment at the dealer's. Now, you can imagine that banks probably have more RVs on their books than they really want, but they name the final price, not the dealer. They must know that in a month the buyers will be moving out, so the Chapman's might get a very nice deal.

The weather has been splendid here. I got my teeth cleaned in Algodones, and picked up a new stained glass window for my RV door. It adds some color to my boring brown-beige-ivory color scheme, and is very nice when the sun comes through it. Authentic Mexican craft, too. Well, I bought it in Mexico, and I'm sure the seller was an authentic person. The price seemed Mexican, and there was the usual negotiating process. I guess that makes it authentic.

I moved out to Sidewinder road (just west of Yuma in CA) yesterday to get some open space and quiet, and meet up with friends. Big improvement over the the last place I tried out.

I was surprised that NBC had the idea of showing the hockey game live, somebody at that so-called network must have made a mistake. I hope future Olympics will be made available to Americans by a network that knows sports.

Rain yesterday, but now the sun has returned for a stay.

I'm trying a new spot for me near Yuma, a place known as "the BLM lot behind the VFW hall". I think I'll move out Saturday, as I find it too noisy and crowded.

I stayed last night at the BLM spot just south of Why. While I enjoy the Snyder Hill place in Tucson, I welcomed the sheer quiet of the Why location. You see, there's a rifle range about a mile from the Tucson location. A couple of years ago the noise from it was confined to just a few hours a week. Now it seems to operate full speed all day every day. It's not especially loud, just a bit annoying.

The drive west from Tucson on 86 is sure pretty in places. It looks like a monstrous cactus garden, with a dense stand of Saguaro, a few kinds of cholla, and further westward ocotillo, all healthy and green. I'm glad I took that route.

I'm pulling out tomorrow to head west to Yuma. One of the pleasures I've had over the last three weeks was a roadrunner that regularly made his round each morning. Just now he came by again. I'll miss him. And I'll miss the great-horned owls up on the hill top that gave me the time as they started their hooting at 12:30 every night I've been here.

My plan is to go to Why (AZ) for a night, then Yuma. I'll see my friends Dave and Kathy before they head back east, get my teeth cleaned, get some new prescription sunglasses, meet up with more friends, and attend an RV rally at the fairgrounds. Then the wildflowers of southern California.

More rain today in Tucson, but it should pass in a couple of days. When it does I'll pack up and head west to Yuma. I figure I'll get two or three days of sun for travel, then get hit again by rain in Yuma.

This is my fourth week of being parked here, without dumping my holding tanks or taking on water. And I didn't tilt my solar panels, either, though I wished I had a few times because the skies were pretty dark now and then. Not bad, though I fear running out of water just as I get my hair shampooed up real good, which could happen tomorrow.

My book supply is looking great, more than enough to get me to Seattle. I won't be traveling very fast due to weather considerations, but I am looking forward to moving again.

A few days of sunshine and warming temperatures lured me into thinking about future travel plans, then the rain came again. There is little I can do except stay put because it covers the entire region.

The desert wildflowers will be something else this year. Even those plants that have been sitting around in the ground for years will know this is the year. I'll be taking advantage of this opportunity.

It's Spring in Tucson, and I'm thinking about moving North this year. It's way too early to consider going north in Arizona, and the El Nino rains west of here should be expected well into March.

The general idea is to head first to the ocean. I gotta see some water, and if it includes big surf and long beaches so much the better. Then, go north through the Central Valley, over to the Redwood Country, up into Oregon hopefully along the coast, finally ending up on the Olympic Peninsula around the first of May. That's my thinking right now.

Challenges along the way will include big cities, way too much interstate driving, ridiculously expensive parking fees, possibly closed-down state parks, and high fuel prices. But that's California.

It will be another month before I begin my venture into the hassle state...

I wasn't happy with having to watch the Olympics on NBC, but it's the best I can do short of buying a TV dish which is useless to me. Today I enjoyed 2 hours of biathlon, but there wasn't even a mention of the other events going on. That's not "coverage", that's an entertainment production.

Evenings seem to be completely dominated with figure skating, which I don't regard as sport. That's good for me, as I don't have to waste my batteries watching it. NBC could show some athletic competition like hockey or curling, or fill in with some races, but I'm sure they'll cover butt-sliding on ice before they'll air cross-country.

Meanwhile the weather is splendid here, though a little cool in the mornings. Friend Les came by for a night with his brand-new CD, which is pretty good. He's been working on this for a few years, and I was happy it included a few favorites of mine.

No plans to move right now, though I'm in violation of BLM rules for staying put. Hell, I've been violating those rules all winter long.

I was apprehensive about the energy draw of the (no-name Chinese cheap modified sine wave) inverter I bought. With fully charged batteries, I turned it on, tuned the TV to NBC and watched the opening ceremonies last night. I was very pleased with the results. The combination was very kind to my batteries. Now, it remains to be seen what the reliability of the inverter will be.

Plenty of sun here, and temperatures in the 70's expected for the near future. I can use some sunshine for a change.

Yesterday was very rainy, I discovered I was parked next to a stream. No biggie, it was just a rainy day in Tucson spent reading a book. I got out today once I found the route around the new pond.

I'm thinking that my plan is to sit here as long as I can before heading west. The El Nino rains keep coming from there and I think I'm in the best location to avoid them for now. The five-day forecast is more reasonable: mid seventies and sun. Quite a relief.

An inverter converts battery voltage to regular household power. I've avoided even owning one because I didn't want to get accustomed to using regular appliances (like a tv, microwave, electric coffee maker) which are agressive draws on my batteries. Coming up fast on three years without one, I think I've got everything covered without it.

I bought the inverter to power my TV, which I bought two years ago to watch the Olympics, so I can watch the Olympics this year. All of the RV'rs I know will wonder about my sanity in not having an inverter before now, but it hasn't been an issue to me.

The next storm is coming in tonight, so tomorrow will be a rainy day.

It rained yesterday, the remnants of the storm that hit LA over the weekend. Last night it got down to 37. I didn't have my cat heater on, so had to run my furnace for a few minutes to get the place warmed up. I've got plenty of sun today, but it will be cool for the next several days.

The barrel cactus are blooming, though, a good sign for Spring.

I determined that the Olympics TV coverage in this part of the country is piss-poor: basically only what NBC wants to show. You see, I'm accustomed to having CTV (Canadian TV) available on cable, and they cover every Olympics 24 hours a day for the duration. NBC edits it's coverage so much it's incomprehensible to me. It will confine itself to medal events only, winners only, the sexiest athletes only, USA performances only unless they are desperate, and will make a joke of the events it doesn't understand. On the other hand, CTV only has about 5 commercials they show over and over again 24 hours a day for over 2 weeks until I want to scream.

I've got a few days to figure something out...

I know when I start out when a day is going to go south. I headed for my favorite dumpster to dump my garbage and it was locked. Garbage disposal is a challenge in this lifestyle. I resolved that and headed towards the post office to get my mail which hopefully held my new credit card, my old one being ripped off.

I forwarded my mail to the wrong post office, it should have gone to another place. While I was looking at a map to the right place a lady yelled at me and said "That old man is in the same situation you are, maybe you can give him a ride".

She explained the stupid map the post office gave to me. Meanwhile I got the guy headed toward my truck because we were going to same place. He wanted his SSI check.

My friend was old and disabled. He explained he was paralyzed on one side due to stroke, and he had been traveling the country hopping rails. A hobo, but now retired due to his medical condition. Can't hop trains when you need a cain. (First rule: Hang on!)

He didn't have any photo ID so he was denied his check. I sent my package to the wrong place so I was empty handed as well. He didn't haven't have his government money, I didn't have my 12,000 dollar credit card.

We went downtown, and I left him off. Near the Unverisity of Arisona because he dumpsters are good there. He had a light knapsak, a very thin sleeping bag, and the clothes he wore. I left him on fourth avenue and he headed off.

W e never exchanged names.

Good luck buddy, see you down the road.

I'm back at Snyder Hill for a while. I understand the BLM is monitoring this place closer than they have in past, so the 14-day limit applies. The place is real clean, and the rigs here are of the higher-end style, a big improvement over what I've seen here before.

I have no immediate plans except to find a place to watch the Olympics. I bought a TV to watch the summer Olympics, and haven't used it since. So I'll have to find a place to park that has decent TV coverage, and I'll need to have electricity. For as little money as possible. I've got almost two weeks to make up my mind about this.

I'm listening to a white-crowned sparrow singing in the bushes nearby, my favorite bird song, and it's one of the first birds to begin it's migration north. Yesterday I noted that the local finches were showing color, another sure sign that spring has arrived.

But springs everywhere always get off to a jumpy start, and clouds and rain are forecast for later this week. I'm moving down to Tucson tomorrow, and they won't get much weather to worry about this week.

I met up with my friend Les Buffham at the fargrounds. This is a nifty little event. Les was interested in meeting up with a couple of band members, which was so good I bought a CD. This event seems to draw some high-ranking names. There's also a car show which seems to specialize in excellent-quality custom cars, and the Budweiser clydesdales made an appearance.

Hauling the clydesdales around is quite a production. First, there are ten very big horses and the large wagon they pull. Then, the tack the horses wear seems to require an entire semi trailer. There's the portable stalls, and then the people it takes to run the whole operation. It was fun to get up close to the horses, which must be very happy doing this gig.

This is a good event, small but high quality. And not too crowded.

I'm at the SKP park here in the dry-camping area for a few days. Surprisingly, the ground was wet and the ditches are running water. Given this is one of the dustiest places in Arizona, that is a welcome sight.

Doing a stint at Quartzsite in January is always memorable, which is probably why I seem to do it only every two years. I certainly enjoyed meeting new friends and seeing old ones, the storms I could've done without.

It's getting much easier to say goodbye to folks I know, as I think I'm getting more confidence that our paths will likely pass again.

On to Casa Grande tomorrow to get mail, do laundry, and go to the outlet stores to find a pair of sandals. Maybe even go up to Phoenix to my favorite truck toy store.

My batteries finally reached full charge (or, near-full which is the best I can hope for now) around noon on Monday. It's been real nice to have warm sunny days.

Clouds are coming in now, and perhaps some moisture tomorrow. But on Thursday it should clear again so I'll call that my travel day. I'll be heading east to Casa Grande, then Tucson, then start working my way back west. Not very fast; I figure I'll give it another 6-8 weeks before thinking about heading north. I have plenty of time to change my mind on that, though.

It was so nice to see the stars this morning when I woke up. I'd have a day to get my batteries charged up a little.

Some boring stuff: I have about 375 amp hours of electricity on board. I figure I was down to about 150 amp hours this morning. So I need to put 225 back in the batteries before they are charged. In January the best my solar panels seem to do is about 75 a day. It's going to take a few days before I get a good charge up, but I've enough to do my regular things in the meantime.

That was a nasty storm, nothing I want to see again.

Well, my babbling brook turned into a fast stream emptying into a full-fledged river. No one here will argue with me if I said we got 60 mph winds and a good 5 inches of rain over about 10 hours. I've seen thunderstorms this bad, but they were much shorter-lived.

At times the rain stopped and it only took a few minutes for the wind to dry things out. But then, a few minutes later the rains would come again.

I knew I was going to run low on battery power so I spent the entire storm in conserve mode, everything turned off but my radio. There simply wasn't any sun to charge my batteries. Now that it's passed, I figure it will take me a day or so of good sun before I get charged up again. Those last two batteries I added for convenience are part of the problem now as it's much harder to charge 6 batteries than 4, especially when it's overcast.

No damage to speak of, and the forecast is for much better weather for a couple of days. Then it starts again...

It's very enjoyable waking up to the sound of a babbling brook next to my house high in the forest in the Rockies or the Sierras. It's not so enjoyable in the desert because that's the precursor to higher, faster water which can do interesting things. It rained all night here.

I'm not concerned except I don't know what the condition of the road out of here is in right now. I see some folk getting packed up to leave, and even if they get out there will be some road damage to contend with later.

I'm still hanging in there, but I'm conserving battery power because of the very cloudy skies. Today's storm will involve heavy winds in addition to rain.

The third in a series of five, this storm was more about wind than rain. It was pretty rough last night, but there was no damage. The rain wasn't all that bad, but it was enough to saturate the ground and leave a few puddles around. So the next round of rains, storms 4 and 5 starting this evening, will probably have to run off.

I went down to town for the big tent show early this morning and picked up a few things on a very quick pass through. One has to get there early as the traffic backups go for miles after about 10AM. I've no idea how they are going to handle standing water...

The first storm to pass through us was pretty mild, just some light rain. Yesterday afternoon and during the night it picked up the tempo a bit. No standing water (or flowing water) yet, and we woke up to crystal clear skies. Now, this afternoon, the next one is on it's way. The worst is expected to be Thursday and Friday.

I was hanging out on my computer yesterday afternoon when I noticed it was rather dark. It had clouded up and I stupidly let my batteries draw down further than I should have. I'll not do that again today.

On another note, someone attempted to use my credit card number, it got flagged and they called me to verify. I didn't know the people's name, and the charge was for $3.65. I hope they get busted, but in the meantime I have to wait for a new number to be mailed. No biggie, I don't use it that often, but it could be inconvenient.

As mentioned before, the forecast for this week is rather dire, though it's most worrisome in Los Angeles and Phoenix. Rainfall predictions for those places are just plain unbelievable, but the weather folk have been sticking with them. The first system is just now hitting LA, so we'll know more in a bit how close they've guessed.

The systems have shown up on Doppler now, so it will be easy to watch the storms track over me. I'm still planning on sitting the storms out, even though there's an excellent chance I'll be trapped for a few days. After carefully looking around, there really isn't anyplace nearby (or further) to escape this storm system with rainfall records being sure to fall everywhere I might go.

There's lots of folk here, so I'll have plenty of company. And while there might be a shallow river flowing under my house for a while, I can't be flooded. Nor washed downstream into town....

The weather has been quite nice lately, not even very cold at night. The forecast warned about wind and dust yesterday, but we escaped with just a stiff breeze; it couldv'e been worse, but everyone prepared for the worst just in case.

There are a lot of rigs here, and I've seen a lot of friends. The big tent show starts tomorrow, and all the vendors selling all the usual Quartzsite stuff are up and running.

The extended forecast for the southwest is rather grim for next week: big rains for a few days. I'll be fine waiting it out, though I might be trapped here for a day or two. No sweat, there are lots of people around.