4 Weeks Boondocking - CHECK!!

 We did it! And what an experience, totally heightened by hangin' with the NuRVers for sure.

Above are some pics of our NU friends we hung with during the month at Quartzsite...

Kev & Angie: our fearless organizers, Kev started the NuRVers & got us all together, but they both were incredible hosts to all of us - amazing meals, hunker-down time in their 40', 4 slide motorhome & all around good fun (also burners)

Sam & Tracy: tie-dyed from head to foot at times, these crazy, fun-loving burners also entertained us in their 40' rig & they had the fabulous grills that they cooked extraordinary meals on for us

Schelby & Tom: bay area folks, not full-timers but long-time burners, joined us for NY'ers eve & brought some fabulous appies with them & a NY'ers cake!! 

Maria and Brian: a cute young couple who just started full-timing from Kansas dropped in for the night and then returned a week later to spend a couple of weeks with us. We met up with them & Sam & Tracy post Q for a great sushi dinner in Scottsdale & we are planning a golf outing with them on Friday

Alex & Charon: our "Carney" friends who are sword swallowers, fire throwers & Charon is also tatto artist

Jim & Renee: joined us at the end, long-time full-timers who have a great blog Live.Work.Dream

And of course all of the pets!  Malomar, Dottie, Odie, Ernie, Buddha, 3 legged Wyatt & the two very freaky hairless cats that were amaaaaazing!! I think we were the only ones without one, but that was fine by us...

We went out for meals, drinks, enjoyed the daily sunsets - which sometimes were 360 degrees, biked into "town", shopped, played drunken silly games and just thoroughly enjoyed each & every day!

Some pics above of our amazing happy hours, breakfasts & dinners...totally unplanned. Kev called them "crowd-sourcing", I call them YUMMY! About 4-5 pm each day someone would stroll outside to start the fire, or bring out appies or drinks...and one by one, as we were finishing up our work day, we would slowly join the group around the campfire & start to discuss meals....and then miraculously we would have another feast!  Occasionally one of us would announce, we have dinner taken care of - woo hoo!! Some mornings, usually weekends, Sam would be outside with his awesome fire-pit grill cooking up a breakfast that would take over an hour to eat, Maria cooked us up a great egg scramble TWICE & then there was the morning that Angie, our brunch angel, arrived at our door with the most wonderful eggs benedict por deux!

A couple of pics of our fun...most of the time the camera/phone was nowhere in sight! We hared a mini-hash just to show everyone what we were constantly talking about, Bill & I went on a few hikes & it was my first real experience with the desert landscape, one day it was actually nice enough for some to set up work-stations outside under our canopy. On a trip into Blythe, CA - just over the border Bill spotted an AECOM sign (his firm) & found out they had a little field office there in a building with an old furniture store!

More pics of our fun - the BIG RV TENT SHOW, bringing a million rvers (or so they say), the entire town is one big flea market & strolling from tent to tent was a favorite past-time...I was happy to finally get a big flag pole to fly our hash flag on with a cool solar color changing light on top & Bill finally got the Mexican wrestling mask he had been coveting! The Beer Belly Bar was the only place at the Show to buy beer & they also had a bunch of TV's so Maria & Brian could follow their fav Kansas basketball team. 

 We went primarily to meet the peeps I have been online with for 6 months or so but also to save some $$...now we accomplished the first objective, but let's take a look at the 2nd...

$200  Gas to keep our generator going (electricity)
$  80   BLM camping fees for 4 weeks
$  65   Propane (for the fridge, hot water & heater)
$600  Groceries & Booze
$200  Dining out
-----
$1145 - compared to....about $1500/mo for campground fees, food & entertainment, so aside from the $400 we spent on the catalytic heater (which we will use all of the time as it is more efficient than our furnace) we did save a few bucks & we ate like kings.  This is one experience than can never be duplicated!

THANKS to all of you who joined us on this "wild ride"!!

Quartzsite AZ!

3 couples here for the month, we're on the left,
Sam & Tracy in the middle and Kev & Angie on the right

We made it through our first week boondocking out here in the desert! We found our NuRVer campmates - I found them online a month or so before we started full-timing. These are young or "young-minded" full-time RVers many of whom are still working like us! Some are Burning Man veterans so we have a lot in common with these folks. Anyway, our intrepid leader Kev found us a great spot & we had 5 rigs here to celebrate the new year - now we are down to the fearless three-some and we're having a lot of fun. This is much like the Burning Man experience except that there are no dust storms or costumes...that's about it. We arrived to FREEZING temperatures, fierce winds and rain which lasted through New Year's day. Our rigs are circled up like an old wagon train with a great campfire in the middle. When it's too cold to be outside, like most of last week, we congregate in each other's rigs for drinks and meals. We have done a lot of pot-luck dinners & are enjoying getting to know one another. The other rigs are 40ft diesel pushers, one with 2 slides and one with 4 & they are really beautiful and roomy, we are definitely the smallest at 35ft. But the other two rigs which were here over NYers were smaller travel trailers - we RVers come in all shapes and sizes! Jan 22-30th brings the "Biggest RV Show on Earth" with about a MILLION people here - this is a tiny little town on the border of CA & AZ with tons of BLM land where people camp out. There are individuals, groups & some very large organized peeps like the "Buffs" a "naturalist" group of about 80,000 at their peak. 

these signs are all over the place

Right now there is a lot of empty space but filling in a little bit more each day. The town is made up of a trillion flea markets & the area is also really known for their Rock, Mineral & Gem Show. But you can find just about anything here...except maybe Sushi! 

a lot of empty space right now

5ft wrenches!

We are employing our best Burning Man practices taking sponge baths, brushing our teeth with bottled water, washing dishes in basins & using paper plates we can burn whenever possible. After the first week we only created about 8 gallons of gray water which is so great! Before Bill went to "dump" using our new Blue Boy we both took nice long showers & I washed my hair - which I have to tell you felt FANTASTIC!  

first use & it worked great!

Our campmates, Sam and Tracy, have this totally cool campfire cast iron cooking skillet -  it has a rod that goes into the campfire and this large square cast iron plate which has a hole in it and fits onto the rod at various heights, it can then swing around on the rod to be on or off the fire - it is really fun and easy to cook on. Last night I brought out the leftover rotisserie chicken I had in the freezer, threw that on the griddle mixed up with some taco sauce & water, then on the 2nd griddle I threw the tortillas on & then loaded them up with the chicken & cheese, put another tortilla on & then flipped them, we made a ton of these - super yummy meal!
We haven't done too much exploring of the flea markets because of the weather and work commitments but I think we will venture out today.  Tomorrow we head into Palm Desert where my parents live to take a nice long hot shower, do our laundry, visit Trader Joes & Costco & luckily enough be there for my nephew Izak's family b-day party!

Boondocking Prep for a Month???!

Blue Boy

Yes, it's true, we are going to "Attempt", with a capital "A" an entire month of boondocking in the desert with NO facilities....now, being the "civilized" folks that we are (and you can read that anyway you want!) we plan to partake of some of the services offered out there like the "Honey Truck" that comes by every now and again (WE HOPE) to empty our black water tank - that would be "poopy tank" to you non-RV'ers out there and also to have our propane tanks refilled by the trucks that come to you.  We purchased  a 25 gallon "Blue Boy" to empty our gray water (from the sinks & shower) into. This tank fills up very quickly but we hope to use our "Burning Man" techniques to slow it down a bit. Most likely we will need to empty this every other day or so. This thing is HUGE & you hook it up to your tow hitch on your car and drive verrryyy slowwwly to the dump station, it came with cheap rubber wheels, which Bill replaced with pneumatic tires (he is so very HANDY!). All of this will be easier than packing up Bebe and driving her over to the refill stations that are available out there every few days, because we like to set up our "home" and feel somewhat permanent!

Bill's new French Press in his "indoor office"

For Christmukkah we each got several gifts to help us with this journey - Bill got a "French Press" (which our friend Pix turned us onto!). We just tried this morning to use it for the first time & it would've helped if I was not still in recovery mode from the sleeping pill I took last night! As I added 3 scoops of coffee and then filled the water to just under the "4" line on the measuring cup - MEANING 4 ozs not 4 cups, DINGBAT, Bil kept saying you need more water & I sat there with a quizzical look on my face saying over and over, but I filled it just under the 4!! OMG, the bleach has definintely gone beyond just the roots in my hair!

 Let's see we also got a battery inverter, to hook up to our generator charged batteries, so we can have some electrical power for our computers & such when we aren't running the generator. We PLAN to run the "genie" in the morning and dinner time for an hour or two & work off the batteries the rest of the time. We can plug a power strip into the inverter to use our electrical stuff.  Unfortunately the inverter I ordered did not come with the cables for the inverter so we spent yesterday with "the boy"
looking for cables that would work. Today Bill gets to fiddle around with that and hopefully it'll all be good!


Also amongst our gifts were various and sundry solar lights & power chargers - one for our cell phones & a cute little computer flexi light that fits into the USB port....


So here we go...wish us luck & good weather, we could use a lot of each!!

December, December, December....where oh where do the days go?!

We had a great time spending the holidays with my family in Palm Desert, but it was time to move on, and I was anxious to get to Arizona where we plan to spend the winter. On our last day in PD Bill discovered a leak - oh no, here we go again...it is really never ending! He found a super RV repair shop in the western Phoenix area very close to Luke AFB where we could stay overnight in one of their "officer suites" for $40. Luckily we have this great home warranty insurance plan that covered everything but $50 & once they got the part the next morning we were on our way to Tucson, just a day later than planned. But, of course, Bill did lose a day's work over it which meant that he'd have to work the weekend to make up for that...all these little things are pretty exhausting...

The U.S. Military runs a bunch of RV parks on their bases all around the country. They are usually quite reasonable and you get the use of all of the facilities on base.  Bill is retired Air Force so we are able to use them. I had been reading about the "FamCamp" on the Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson - it was rated #1 three years in a row, and I just had to see what all the fuss was about, especially at $17/night.  They have a 21 day limit if someone is waiting to get in and parked in their "overflow" lot.  People stay the whole winter just moving in and out of the overflow lot which does have electric hook-ups. One usually only has to stay a few days before there is an opening in the full-hook-up area.
We were able to get in with no problem. I loved the change of scenery!
The base had a fabulous 2 story gym with an indoor lap pool and I managed to get over there a few times.

Tucson has a great hash, the jHavelinas - they r*n every Saturday and every Friday night they have a "hashy hour" at some local spot. We had met a Tucson hasher while at the Las Vegas Red Dress Run & he made sure we had all of the right info - we had a great weekend hashing and then on that Sunday we helped man a " Hash beer check", well I guess it's really called an "Aid Station" for a Tucson marathon. Bill ran into...(literally) 3 old running buddies from his Phoenix hashing/running days.  THAT was a lot of fun!

We were supposed to hang out in Tucson until the end of December when we're leaving for Quartzsite, but like all good plans....we are now parked in Queen Creek (just south of Phoenix)in the driveway of Bill's Phoenix hash buddies.  They have a great house with a ton of chickens & a goat.  We got here Friday in time to go to a wonderful Hash Happy Hour at another friend of Bill's, he saw sooo many of his old friend's there it was great.  Saturday we spent the day looking at RV parks, which was incredibly disappointing, BUT the highlight was that we finally met Eric and Karla in person! I met them through the NuRVers group that I found online & we have been conversing online for awhile now. We had a great happy hour with them & it was nice making that connection.  I got really sick on Sunday and Bill found a "doc-in-the-box" where I was diagnosed with strept throat & got some meds, so I should be good as - whatever- in a few days. I have been having a very difficult time sleeping & just getting really run-down. Having that military insurance sure does make it easy with this lifestyle we have.

We've had a few more interesting mishaps with Bebe, like trying to start the generator while plugged into our friend's power - guess we shouldn't try to do that again. And, oh, it took us about 3 days to figure out how to make the TV work just off the antenna and not plugged into cable. We made a real mess of everything though and who knows if we'll be able to get it working again once we want to plug into campground cable again - oh the joys...

Bill's son, Will got into Phoenix last night and is staying with his step-dad for a week. We plan to find an RV park close by on Friday and hang out with them for Christmas.

I can't believe in a week it will be 5 months on the road....what was I thinking???? We both agree that we went into this prematurely and because Bill is working full-time the only time we can see the sights of the area is on the weekends.  We have definitely learned a lot and hopefully will get smarter at this.

Money, Money, Money!!!

So we went into this thinking we were going to save ALL this money, well, please, someone tell me exactly when this will happen?! Bill keeps reminding me that we just started and really have only been 2 months out of Tahoe - but in the RV full-time 4 months.  We have realized that spending a week or 2 here and there is NOT cost-effective and to really get the best deals at the campgrounds (except the military campgrounds) one must stay at least a month. The Palm Desert parks are pretty pricey, it's also the warmest climate in the winter, and my family lives here BUT it's also not a place we really want to spend too much time in - it's very spread out and I've done more driving and spent more money shopping than I should. 


We have stayed at Shadow Hills Campground once before when we had our little 24' Lucy & have enjoyed our visit here again except for the train noise throughout the night. It's a nice campground and very close to my parent's house & about 2/3rds the price of all of the other top campgrounds here. We checked out some of the other cheaper ones around here and except for one on a lake close to the mountains nothing could compare...so here we'll stay...

Headed for warmer parts!

  I think we have both had our fill of the Casino campgrounds! It was nice hooking up with our friends Bettyann and Dave at the AVI, but there is nothing to do there if you're not a gambler...so now we are at the Fountain of Youth Spa on the Salton Sea in Niland, CA. There was an email review from one of the camping clubs we belong to that sounded good to us and included a 4 nights for 3 coupon through 12/31 - it is sort of on the way to Palm Desert where we were headed for Thanksgiving so we thought we'd give it a try. And am I glad we did! I was a bit nervous after reading some of the online reviews that this wouldn't be what we expected, but that is why you have to really "weigh" the reviews that you read, cuz we REALLY like this place!

a view from the road as we were approaching the
Salton Sea. There is an abundance of farm land out
here & the run-off, along with 2 rivers from Mexico
have made it saltier than the Pacific.

 It is a bit trailer-trashy with a lot of park models (kind of like permanent trailers) mixed in with the RV's and the landscaping is nothing to write home about, but as we checked in at the gate I noticed people riding bikes to and from the pools, activities and home...and I knew right away it was going to be OK! We got a nice big spot to park Bebe in with one neighbor not too close to us and no one on the other side at all. There is plenty of room at this park right now although I have heard during the winter it is more packed with people in the overflow lot.

Duncan, Alf & Bill (my Bill is in black in the back)

      


We headed right out to the hot tubs...there is one mineral tub and the steam rooms are mineral water as well. There are 3 more hot tubs and 2 pools & one is dedicated for lap swam in the early morning. There are tons of activities planned and clubs to join that are either free or for a very small fee. I was thrilled to see that there was a dance the following night and that there are 3+ hikes planned each week, one of which was the next morning at 8am.

towards the top you can see Bill making his way up

Now, getting Bill out the door at this time (even though he is up around 5am most every morning) is quite the challenge, but he made it and we showed up early, Bill with 2 water bottles and me with one in my fanny pack - found out from Duncan, our leader, who sported a "Give Blood with Duncan" shirt that it would be a 4 hr hike so we ran back to our rig and got our camelbacks and some food, and it's a darn good thing we did!!  I didn't know what to expect but Bill had thought it would be a long hike cuz these old geezers don't move so fast, hahahahaha............who had the last laugh! We got back & 2 more guys were there (70ish) wearing the "Duncan" shirt, and we should have known right then what we were in for. As we walked through the park to get to the trail head lots of folks came to chat with us on our way out, everyone is SOOOO friendly here! We were hiking the chocolate mountains and not going to the top, THIS TIME - just about 1200 ft.  The terrain was "sketchy" at best with rocks, rocks and more rocks, scree in the steepest of climbs made it a bit scary...at one point I felt like I was at the top of a black diamond ski slope looking down and completely scared! The guys told me to just act like I was on skis and "side slip" down...OMG - what a site! Anyway, we got home 5 hours later and hit the hot tubs...passed out on the sofas and never even made it to the dance :(
The weekly and monthly rates here are not too bad, with the great winter weather, friendly people and activities - we will be back!

The Avi Casino KOA...on the Colorado River

This is an interesting place...our friend's Dave and Betty Ann who we met in Pahrump told us about it. The price is great, the campground has full hook-ups, good wi-fi and is pretty empty. The first night we were put in a spot backing up to a busy road - it was a large site but we were up all night. We moved the next morning and have a great spot without any neighbors but the wind has been blowing constantly since we got here - I HATE the wind! We do still hear a lot of the traffic, but the temp is nice, the casino has a beautiful pool you can use & there is a great beach right on the river - and IF you are a gambler there is lot to do. It's not too smoky in the casino & they have some great meal deals...but there is just not much here for us. I can't ride my bike into town (Bullhead AZ) because the roads are narrow without paving & there is a bridge I could get killed on!

We drove into Oatman - a cute little old mining town where the wild burros roam, we brought along a bag of carrots & Bill couldn't wait to get out there and feed them...they are aggressive and he had 5 all at once pushing in on him, he finally escaped into a store & they stood outside waiting for him, it was pretty funny to watch! They did a little wild west shoot-em-up re-enactment from the saloon out into the dirt road which was entertaining and a nice way to spend the afternoon.


Dave and Betty Ann arrived on Monday 11/15, and Bill had to go to Tahoe for work overnight, so it was fun to have someone to hang out with. They are really nice people and we hope to run into them again on our travels. We will stay another 2 nights (total of 9) and then head on out to the Salton Sea for some better weather before we hit Palm Desert for a few weeks with the fam...