Category: Daily Life

Misc. Notes

Here’s some bits and pieces that didn’t get included before.

We pulled up to a diesel pump and it said “low-sulphur” instead of “ultra-low sulphur” with a warning it was not to be used in vehicles built since 2007. So we went across the road to a different gas station while wondering if we’d ever put the wrong diesel in our tank.

Another funny street name: Sore Finger Road. I wonder how sore your finger has to be to get a road named after it?

Business name on a truck: Church Chair Industries. Do church’s really buy enough chairs to support them?

Billboard on truck: ad for Carl’s Jr with a picture of a burger and the slogan “It’s rude to stare.”

Warning sign on truck: “Long vehicle” with a picture of a dachshund.

Sign on a church: “Where will you be seated in Eternity–smoking or non-smoking?”

You’ve probably all been to a mall food court but have you ever been to a parking lot food court? We parked between Panda Express and McDonald’s and met back at the rig with our food.

Gated communities can take a long time to enter. We were almost late to the GNC operating session because of the time it took to get our pass. And that guard already knew we were coming.

The BLM Yuma Field Office has color coded maps of public lands in their filing cabinets. If you ask, they will give them to you. They gave us one for Arizona and one for the U.S. They also gave us a handout providing information on popular Yuma area places to camp including directions to them. We stayed in a free area across a pond from a members only park.  (For the Lavins:  read as Yuma Lakes)

On AZ Highway 85 just south of Gila Ben there is an aircraft gunnery range.  They have viewing areas with interpretive signs.  I was surprised to come across a border guard checkpoint near there.  I sure wouldn’t want to be trying to sneak through a place where airplanes practice shooting things on the ground.

We’ve discovered we can use our generator to charge my Segway.  I needed to do that to be able to get around the Yuma Quartermaster’s Depot.  We are doing it again right now in preparation for exploring Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.  More about that place some other time.

TTYL,

Linda

Give me land, lots of land…

We spent one night in the Escapees Kofa Ko-op using our privacy curtains to keep from looking into our neighbors windows before we moved here to the Pilot Knob LTVA. Here’s the views from our side windows now.

 

Is it any wonder we’ve come to like desert camping?

Yet we are only about eight miles from Yuma, Arizona, with all it’s sights and amenities. The best of both worlds.

TTYL,

Linda

Treasure

It has been lightly raining off and on here at La Posa South today. Suddenly a rainbow appeared and Dave moved fast enough to get a picture of it.

The pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is Ed and Linda’s motorhome. Ed and Linda are treasures indeed. They have been the source of much good food, good stories, and good fun. I am grateful they have become our friends.  

I am grateful for all the new friends we’ve been making in our new lifestyle. They help us get through the times when we are missing all of you.

TTYL,

Linda

Bug

For two days I’ve been suffering intestinal distress. Lying down made it worse. Can you imagine what it’s like to be sick but be unable to go to bed?

One advantage of living in such a small space is that everything is only a few steps away. One disadvantage is that so is your sleeping spouse. Dave says I didn’t wake him EVERY time I got up.

I actually saw the sunrise this morning. I’d spent the last hour or so reading in the bathroom because I didn’t want my light to bother Dave and our RV only has two rooms with the bathroom being one of them.

Today we needed to replenish our supplies. Since our car is also our house we set off to town with me still in my pajamas. I never went outside but it still felt weird to be in the grocery store parking lot in my pajamas.  So on one of our stops I got dressed.

 Steve and Carol have been in camp two days now and I’ve yet to say hello to them.  If we lived in a house no one would think a thing of that but with the campfire only a few feet from my window I sit in here and wave at people out there which is very awkward.

I’m feeling better now than I have since this thing struck.  Maybe it’s a 48 hour bug and my time is almost up.  Maybe I’ll be able to go to dinner with the group tonight.  If so, maybe we’ll take our house with us just in case.

TTYL,

Linda

Self-sufficiency

Self-sufficiency. What does that term mean to you? I’ve decided its meaning changes as you live your life. As toddlers learning to feed ourselves and learning to walk we were taking steps to self-sufficiency but for most of us the first time we thought of ourselves as being self-sufficient was when we moved out of our parents’ homes and began paying our own bills.

The most recent update of my own sense of self-sufficiency is when we learned we could live in our motorhome without being plugged into a park’s utility systems. As long as we start with enough food and water and fuel on board we can now live “off the grid” for five days at a time. Then we need to go to town to restock.

Our daughter, however, has spent much of her life learning true self-sufficiency. She once lived in a house with a windmill and enough solar panels to be able to sell electricity to the local co-op. She learned enough blacksmithing to be able to make basic tools. She learned that if you hang laundry outside in the wintertime it stays hard until all the water evaporates from it. She learned to harvest wool and hair from living animals and spin it into yarn to make clothes. She learned how to sew using a treadle sewing machine. She learned to plant a garden that provides food and how to cook that food. Next month she is going to learn to butcher a rabbit and a chicken and to tan a deer hide. She already knows how to shoot a gun. If our world really does go to hell in a hand basket, she will be more prepared than most of us to survive. Is that what self-sufficiency really means?

TTYL,

Linda