traveling around at the end of tax season......

is NOT a good idea!  What was I thinking leaving our snug little nest in AZ at the end of March??!! Well, we did have a wedding to attend in northern Ca on April 10th and Bill had 2 meetings in Tahoe right after that, soooo we decided to start our travels north, visiting along the way.

First stop was to visit Will, the youngest child who had just celebrated his 22nd birthday - after a little celebrating....we made our way up to Mercey Hot Springs.  Our friends Pix & Mrs. G mentioned this little spot as a great place on our way up to the Santa Cruz area - and we are soooo glad she did! Off of interstate 5 a little before the Los Banos exit you head west on a little windy road. There is NOTHING around but a few cows grazing and Mercey Hot Springs! They have little cabins for rent, campsites & full-hook up RV spots. You must bring all of your own food and drinking water as there are no stores and nothing available at the springs. They have two areas - one for clothed bathers and one for clothing optional. Lots of individual tubs where you can regulate your own water

temperature. It was beautiful and serene here, we stayed 2 nights and did a little hiking and a lot of soaking!  Definitely worth a return visit or two...

Next stop was to Casey & Betsy's (hash friends) home on Skyline Blvd in the mountains high atop Saratoga, again, what were we thinking??! Round and round we went, up and up, oops - we went the wrong way!! Maybe time to unhook the car...after some amazing driving by Mr. Bill we managed to get ourselves up to their home with a beautiful view.

We got settled in and we all headed down the hill to Santa Cruz for drinks and appies with more hash friends, Pix & Duhh (aka Patty & Judy) - so good to see them, it had been a really long time! But we've all kept in touch on Facebook which has been our lifeline during our travels. We spent a few nights up here wine crawling Saratoga and new friends from Quartzsite, Tom & Schelby, made the trek up to BBQ with us on a stormy night too. We had a great time here and look forward to seeing most of these folks at Burning Man this summer.

Lauryn at work!

On out to Marin to park in front of, yet another hasher's home - Tongueless & Fits In...much more level here and just in time to head out to the Gypsies Hash in SF. Had so much fun meeting up with hashers we had not seen in a long time like GAS, BJ & Lois Lame & &... did I mention it is TAX SEASON and now April??!!  We celebrated the 5th anniversary of Bill & I meeting at my first hash on April 9th at Dr.K's home, who made us a fabulous dinner.
Also got to see the eldest child, Lauryn, in the East Bay.  She did my hair at her salon in Concord & we got to check out her new digs! We had dinner with my best friends in Walnut Creek - Joanne & Gary, Beth & Aaron, Susan & Ron, Marie & Jon and Judy - again, it had been way too long and it was great seeing everyone - should have taken a picture!!

Now finally we were heading out to Livermore for the wedding. I was excited to see my son and a bunch of my old Sacramento best friends. We spent a night in the hotel parking lot & took the shuttle to and from the Ruby Hill Winery for the wedding. It was now April 11th & I was starting to panic...

We made reservations to stay at the Beale Air Force Base FamCamp rv campground because we still had to head up to Tahoe for Bill's meetings and a few of my own. This was a safe place to leave Bebe for a week and cheap too! I was so surprised at how beautiful this military base was. Very quiet and pastoral, cows grazing everywhere and the most space we've ever had - all at $14/night. Not much to do here, though, they do have a gym with some yoga classes & a golf course where we both can play for $20, a bowling alley and lakes to fish in.

Snowbirding in AZ 2011

We spent our first winter at a "55+ senior rv park" in Mesa Arizona.  In December while we were in Tucson we drove up to Phoenix to check out a few of these parks.  They are EVERYWHERE and all look pretty much the same.  The first one we looked at kind of freaked us out...it had about 65% "park models" which look like a double-wide trailer, activity rooms for everything imaginable, pools, jacuzzis, concerts, you name it - sounds good, right? Well, not to me - it just looked SCARY! I said to Bill, I'm just not sure I can do this! I'm not a "joiner", and am just a bit eccentric. And not only that, the majority of the people here were not even close to 55 - they were more like 70+. I turned 53 this February, but Bill's senior status of 60 could get us both in.  So off we went to see 5 more of these parks all within several miles of each other.  At our last park we were going to meet a couple I had connected with on the NuRVer's site. I had been following Karla and Eric's blog for a few months and they sounded like a fun couple who shared a lot of our interests.  They were retired and in their late 50's.  We ended up there late in the afternoon and were  greeted with cocktails and appies to our delight and much excitement from their adorable dog, Cora.  By this time we had gotten a little used to the senior parks and hanging out at Karla and Eric's rig, they actually started to seem palatable.  Eric took us on a little tour and told us that they had applied to workamp at the first park we had looked at. They were hoping to get a job bartending at the pool tiki bar two days a week.  I was just a bit bummed because I really didn't like that park & I was kind of hoping we could hang out with these folks this winter.  But then I started wondering if I didn't like that first park because it was just the first one I had seen and hadn't quite "bought into" the whole idea or if it really wasn't as good as some of the others we saw.  Anyway, neither of us us were ready to commit to a long-term stay at this point, so off we went to play in Quartzsite with our other NuRVer friends (see previous blog).


Because I am an accountant and work quite a bit during tax season I did want to find a place to stay for February and March and not be moving around. As we got closer and closer to February I was in a bit of a panic because there was no rv park that was calling my name.  We had put down a deposit on a place in Yuma for 2 months as a back-up but we really wanted to be in the Phoenix area.  Bill had lived there for 7 years and had a lot of friends he hadn't seen in about 10 years and they also have a hash there, so we would have lots of social opportunities.  One day we took a drive down to Yuma to check out the park there and it was nice but under a lot of construction with loud power tools, so not conducive to either of us working. During this time I had been chatting back and forth with Eric & Karla. They had gotten the tiki bar job at Valle del Oro (that first park) & another full-timing couple they knew was going to join them there.  I called the park and all they could give me was 2 weeks, they were that popular! Eric had assured me that once we were there it wasn't going to be a problem extending our stay as their friends had done just that. So with great trepidation we left Quartzsite and headed into the seniorville abiss........


AND.....we had a great time! Parked in a primo spot steps from the mailboxes, laundry room & great bathrooms. Daily floats in the 95 degree pool & hanging in the jacuzzi.

Bill's usual position at the end of a long hard day of work!

We didn't take advantage of most of the amenities, except for the gym, the driving range and the tiki bar, of course.

Bill hitting some balls

But it was fun hanging out with Eric & Karla & our new friends Sherry and Sharon from Maui. We hashed, introduced our friends Maria & Brian (from Quartzsite) to hashing and hit the golf course with them too - we had both been carrying around our golf clubs for 7 months - that's a lot of valuable space!

In Bill's spare time he made us a great bike rack, he later painted it navy to match Bebe

And we met up with quite a few of Bill's old friends - had so much fun we booked 3 months for next winter, officially becoming snowbirds.  Although secretly I am hoping to be in Mexico for the winter ;) - just not sure that is going to happen, as it depends on what is going on with our work and if we can find a caravan down there to travel with.    

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...