December 17–25, 2022 Merry Christmas and Yuma

Merry Christmas.  Hope you all have an AMAZING DAY doing what you love!

 

So what have we been up to for the last 10 days??

On Saturday, 17th, we went to the Farmer’s/Craft Market at the Yuma Palms where I picked up some great unfiltered honey from a local beekeeper.  (As of today, it has really helped my allergies!)  That same day we went to the Tamale Festival in Somerton.  They had over 30 different tamale makers and lots of variety. Well, Andy and I had never had a tamale so we picked a stand and ordered a beef one.  It was okay.  Probably like any ethnic foods, it is the cook’s recipe that makes it the best.  At home, I always felt that my grandmother and St. Stan’s Church ladies made the best blynai’s  (Lithuanians / Polish Potato Pancake).  The others were ok but my nana and the church ladies were the BEST!  So I am sure it is the same with tamales.  Will have to try it again.

The festival:

Coming back to Yuma:

We met our friends, Larry and Peg, for breakfast at the Quechan Casino for breakfast on Tuesday, 20th.  It was great to see them and get caught up.  Hopefully we will get together again before we leave Yuma.

On Thursday, 22nd, we got together with our friends, Pam and Steve, who we have not seen in many years.  It was great to get caught up with them and hope to see them in Quartzsite in January.

On the 22nd, we moved from Yuma Lakes to our lot at Kofa Co-op – the other side of Yuma.  (18 miles:  S Avenue 8 1/2 E; E. County 6th; Laguna Dam Road; US-95; Araby Road; 32nd Street; S. Avenue 3E; E. County 17th Street)

Our lot is in really good shape.  Kudos to the park personnel.

 

Hopefully we will be here to see this ocotillo in bloom:

Our view across the street:

There are a lot of hummingbirds here and I have a few feeders out.  My goal is to get some good pictures of those little guys.  Wish me luck – LOL!  The cats are enjoying watching them and I think one of them even teases the cats.

Speaking of the kitties :

Andy has been to the men’s coffee hour in the mornings and I have been to the Friday women’s coffee hour.  So we are slowly getting acclimated again.

As some of you know, we have three lots in three different co-ops and that is just too much.  So we have started the paperwork and we are giving up the Florida lot this year.  That will leave us with the Yuma Lot and Casa Grande Lot.  We are not sure which one we are going to keep so we are tabling that for now. 

Our motorhome gremlins have hopefully left us.  The only problem we had since I last updated was our shower backing up.  Once we took the drain apart and cleaned everything, all is good.  We used caulk this time instead of glue so I can now open and clean it regularly. (Based on what we pulled out of it – YUCK! – it may have been the first time it was cleaned out.)

I also insulated our closet walls and bedroom slide wall.  We did that in the Flair and Bounder because it helped with condensation as well as heat / AC loss.  I did not do this because we were only in it 3 months last season and I did not see any issues.  After experiencing the condensation on this trip…yep, it needed to be done.  Along with that, we fitted a number of the windows for insulation to use in the very cold or very hot weather. 

One last thing we hope to do is get window coverings for the outside of the cab area.  I have contacted Specialty Sewing here in Yuma because they did our Bounder and did a great job.  I also got a quote from Magna Shade and am waiting on another quote from Sunpro Mfg..  SunPro also sells the material so I might go that route too.  We’ll decided after all the quotes are in.

The most important thing is that we have been enjoying the weather.  Days are in the 70’s and nights are in the 50’s.  Blue skies, beautiful sunrises and sunsets – Life doesn’t get any better than this!   (My apologies to all my friends that are freezing!  I am thinking of you.)

We will be here until mid-January when we head to Quartzsite for a few weeks.  We hope to continue to reconnect with folks, get a little more involved in the park and maybe play tourist.

So stay tuned, enjoy today, and

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

December 1–16, 2022 Yuma and the Moon

On December 1, we left our spot behind the VFW and traveled 11 miles (US-95; Laguna Dam Road; E. County 6th; S Avenue 8 1/2 E) to Yuma Lakes RV Resort where we will be for the next 21 days.  The Resort is part of our Colorado River Adventures Membership and this past summer we upgraded our membership to include longer stays, more options, plus no more dues since Andy is over 80. 

So today, 12/1, they opened the Redondo part of the resort.  We really like this area of the park and for the first week there were only three of us here.  As of today, there are eight of us.  Redondo has around 150 sites so right now it is very roomy.

Our site:

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So what have we been up to for the last 2 weeks.  Here goes:

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Health-wise we are both doing much better.  I am over my cold but my allergies are a little crazy.  Right now I am doing the local honey and it seems to be helping. (But the looks I get when I am coughing and sneezing, oh my!)  Andy is over his pneumonia and is back to his regular self, thank God.

We made our trip into Los Algodones, Mexico to see our dentist, Dr. Roberto Arce at the Smiles Shoppe.  We have been with him since 2009 and he has worked wonders with Andy.  My dentist at home retired during Covid.  What a bummer.  Over the summer, Andy and I both had some issues and had some work done but it did not work out.  (I am trying to be nice here…sorry.)  Anyway, we were so glad to be back with Dr. Roberto.  Each of us had a consultation and were given our options.  We both choose to have implants done and he started the work right away. (Yes, he does it all!)  Our final step will be done in late March.  The cost..well about 25% of what I was quoted at home.  Heck, at home,I was sent to three doctors until I was finally told the tooth could not be saved (the first one sent me to one specialist who sent me to another specialist…sheesh!).  I spent well over $1000 just for the consultations and still no work on the tooth.  I spent $0 here for the consultation! 

We are also stocking up on our medicines at the Purple Store in Los Algodones.  They did not have everything we needed but at least we are ahead on some of them.  (Yes, cost is much better too.)

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Over the past two weeks, we checked out the local Moose Lodge, Elks Lodge, Legion, Amvets, and VFW.  Great food and a great time.

We went to a number of RV Supply stores, the Yuma Marketplace, Swap Meets, Flea Markets, Craft Shows, and Thrift Stores.  When I was home for the past few years, I started collecting Pfaltzcraft (Yorktowne Pattern) Pottery.  One of the Thrift Stores had a whole collection with some of the special pieces that she was going to give me at a good price.  But I have no place to store them – Bummer.  So I did buy a few of the smaller pieces that I do not have.  I also started collecting “yard art” and, wow, do they have some great pieces here.  (To my neighbors.. no, I did not buy anything – LOL!)

We went to the Welcome Back Snowbirds at the Civic Center in Yuma and picked up a lot of information on the area.

We also went to  “Howling at the Moon”.  It is an event held in the desert twice a month.  There is music, food and merchandise vendors.  Folks gather in mid afternoon to hear the music and when the moon comes over the mountain, everyone howls.  WHAT A HOOT!

The stage is up front with the merchandise vendors – Food Vendors were in the back:

Telegraph Hill in the distance:

The local wolf:

I do not know the story of this wolf but her party came in the same time as us and sat in the same area.  She is an older woman and dresses up and goes around the crowd.

  

Love the flag:

As the sun starts to set, the hills change into this beautiful color:

Playing with the panoramic on my camera.. not too bad.

There is a flag on the top of that hill:

The sun was setting as the moon was coming up:

And the howling started:

Folks are starting to pack up and leave.. too funny! (this was 5:30 pm):

One last shot of the moon:

What a great time!  We noticed that folks camp here for a few nights.  Also there are groups that come early with grills, coolers etc.  It is like one big party.  We will be here next month!

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And the motorhome repairs and upgrades continue…..

One of our MCD shades broke and we finally found someone to fix it - Carl at A to Z Window Fashions in the Foothills. He was wonderful!

Our toilet is finally fixed.  We contacted Dometic and they helped us with the one part but did not carry the second part.  We finally found it at Lowes.  So now it is solid and sealed – YEA!!!

Our theater seating broke and it could not be fixed – we tried and tried.  So we have been looking for a while and trying to decide what to do.  We finally found a loveseat recliner at Newberry Furniture here in Yuma and it fits perfectly plus it was on a really good sale.  Here is the funny part. When they went to put us in their system, we were already there.  Many years ago we purchased theater seating for our Bounder and we purchased it from their store (although it was under a different name.).  Small world.

Our mattress was also bad. Since Newberry’s was having a sale, we purchased a new mattress too.   Now we are getting wonderful sleeps and are very comfortable watching TV in our new furniture.

A few blogs ago I talked about our plumbing repairs and all is still working good.

The day after the furniture was delivered, the power went out in part of our RV.  Andy did the troubleshooting and we had to call a mobile repairman. He helped get the power back on temporary but he did not know if it was our invertor or something else.  Well two days later after me doing research, we called him and asked him to do a reset on the invertor.  Magnum had detailed instructions on their website.  After a hard reset we were all good again.  YEA!

So we are hoping that the gremlins have stopped chasing us!

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The weather here has been wonderful most days – I just love it!  The sunsets are magnificent!

Hope to get more pictures in the coming months!

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So what are our current plans?

We will be here at Yuma Lakes until 12/22 when we move over to our lot at KOFA KO-OP. We hope to do more touristy stuff here and reconnect with folks that we have not seen in a while. So stay tuned for that!

  

If all goes well, we hope to head to Quartzsite mid-January for the shows and rallies and reconnect with folks we have not seen in a while.  After that we have a couple options and we are not sure what we are going to do.  The only commitment we have is to be back in Yuma late March for our final dental appointments.

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I truly admire folks that update their blog every day and open their life to the world. I am not quite sure I can do that.  However I am going to try to update daily when we play tourist.

So stay tuned and enjoy today.

         

 

 

November 29–30, 2022 Quartzsite and Yuma

November 29, 2022

We woke to a beautiful day in the desert.  I just love this area of Arizona and I really missed the desert! 

We decided to check out some of the areas where we will be in January.  There were rumors that those areas were closed but we found out that it was just rumors.  It is empty now but will be full in January.

From there we stopped at the visitor center to pick up some information.  All my information was over 6 years old and I figured I needed some new stuff – LOL!

Since I have not been here in six years, I just wanted to ride around and check out all my favorite areas.  Quartzsite is one of these quirky towns where I will spend a season one year.. .

We stopped at the area across from Tyson Wells to browse thru some of the shops.  Can’t wait until January when everything is open.

We spent the rest of the afternoon back at the RV in the desert enjoying the sunshine and blue skies.

Oh my, the sunsets!

The moon rise:

I love this picture of the moon.  I have done photography for well over 50 years and this is the first camera I have that has captured the shadows of the moon easily!  Can’t wait to see what else it does!

And supper cooked over the fire – Wonderful – it has been too long!

Did I say how much I missed the desert in the winter?!

November 30, 2022

We woke this morning and realized that we were almost out of water – our fault because we did not fill up when we got here on Monday.  So we decided that instead of just going for water, we would go dump and partially fill with water and head south to Yuma.  We have reservations at Yuma Lakes for 12/1 but there are so many other BLM areas that we can camp for free.  We would find a place – .

So we dumped and partially filled at the camp area behind Silly Al’s and headed south.

SAGUAROS!  It was so good to see them!

SAGUAROS! It feels like home to me – my other home.

The Big Guns:

From the stark hills:

To the green fields:

Orange groves:

More farms:

The Little Church:

And the Bridge:

I wrote about the bridge and the church in other blogs.  If you would like me to add links, please let me know.

Oh the trains, always the trains. 

We parked on BLM land behind the VFW and took off to explore some of our favorite places.  We ended up at the Amvets for dinner and the Moose Lodge for drinks.

Another wonderful day.  Tomorrow we head to Yuma Lakes for a few weeks so stay tuned and enjoy today.

Stats for Today:

Miles Traveled  100 Miles

Arizona: US-95