We’re fine. I’ve just been too grumpy to write. The blisters on my heels returned so I have truly been going nowhere. But, I’m working on lots of projects some of which may show up here some day. So, today I’m peeking out my one uncovered window just to say we’re fine. Really.
TTYL,
Linda, the part-time hermit
We spent the last week at the Gypsy Journal’s Rally, a.k.a the Gypsy Gathering, in Yuma, Arizona.
Here’s our hosts: Nick and Terry Russell, writers/editors/publishers of the Gypsy Journal, a great couple who support themselves on the road by publishing the Journal and other things.
They host the rally that makes us laugh the most of all the rallies we’ve been to. Others make us laugh sometimes but Nick makes us laugh every day with the comments he makes as he introduces people to us, awards door prizes and other prizes, and presents his own seminars.
Here’s one couple he introduced to us. They call themselves Ea$y Money.
But we didn’t make it easy for them that night. They thought they were coming to play for a dance but the room was set up for a concert. RVers are nothing if not versatile and easy to please, though. So we danced anyway–in back of the audience. In couples and as line dancers. There were more dancers than these pictures show but, like I said, they were behind us so it was hard to get good pictures of them.
Wednesday evening started with the traditional pizza party. Terry has her helpers so organized they served 300 people in 15 minutes!
That was followed by the Gypsy Queen contest. It’s hard to walk away from one of these because our laugh muscles hurt.
Here’s the contestant I thought was the most lady like–contestant #2.
Here’s Nick trying to help contestant #1 be lady like. Knees together, please.
Did it work?
Not until she…
…used her feather boa to tie her knees together. But look at contestant #2–very lady like pose. And what about this one–check out the model-like position of those legs.
This candidate though bringing wine might help.
And this one is discussing with Nick the possibility of his being the baby’s daddy.
As each candidate was introduced Nick told us their names and read their biographies to us. With my bad hearing I missed most of the names but this one is Miss Lottie Hottie.
So there you have them. Eight candidates for Gypsy Queen. Who would you vote for?
It turned out to be more of a popularity contest than a beauty contest. The one who misbehaved the most, thus made us laugh the most, won. So here’s Miss Lottie wearing her crown over her hat.
Oh, yeah. During the week we also won a fire extinguisher, went to some seminars where we learned some new things, bought some new stuff from some vendors who presented good infomercial type seminars, and ate some mini donuts. Isn’t that what these gatherings are all about?
TTYL,
Linda
It’s been a week since I last posted. I hate when bloggers I read don’t post so here’s a post of what we’ve been doing today.
First I called a local medical lab to see about having a blood test done I was supposed to do in January. I had a written order from my doctor so they said I could come without an appointment. I got right in but there was a waiting room full when we left so our timing was good on that one.
Then we went to the UPS store to finally send back the wrong inverter control box we’ve since replaced. I waited in the car expecting to get in some game playing time but the clerk was too good so I barely got the game loaded into Dave’s iPhone when he came back.
Then we stopped at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to see if we could get another seat belt restrainer so I wouldn’t have to keep moving mine back and forth between the car and the RV. They didn’t have the one I like. Oh, well.
Then we went to Walgreen’s to buy the things on our shopping list that WalMart hasn’t had. We got all but one!
Then we went to the Post Office to mail back the Netflix movies we’ve been watching lately. We don’t like to drop those into just any park’s outgoing mail for fear someone will help themselves before the mail gets picked up so we look for a secure USPS box to put them in.
Then we headed out for lunch only to realize we didn’t know where Dave’s iPhone was. Not on the car’s console where it usually resides when we are out. Not in either of his pants pocket. Not in his shirt pocket. We finally decided he must have laid it down at the checkout at Walgreen’s and not picked it up again. So we drove all the way back there. I set up my phone to dial his to help him locate and claim it. But, as he got out of the car he found it. He’d been sitting on it.
Then we went to IHOP for lunch where I had my usual Tuscan Chicken Griller sandwich but actually managed to order a salad instead of French fries while Dave had his usual Belgian waffle combo but with hot syrup this time to melt his cold butter. We were both very happy with lunch and I now have half a sandwich in our fridge.
Then we went to Best Buy to see if we could get the GPS that let’s us enter our RV’s height and weight to keep us from going down roads we shouldn’t try to navigate. Nope, they didn’t have that model.
Then we stopped at the RV park’s office to buy quarters so we can do laundry tomorrow.
Then home.
So, what do you think? Is this post better than none? 🙂
TTYL,
Linda
As you all know we left Emerald Cove on Friday to move to Yuma. We called Colorado River Adventures’ reservation phone number before we left to make a reservations at their Yuma Lakes RV Resort in Yuma, Arizona. They checked and said yes we could do that.
So Friday we moved to the desert near Quartzsite to spend a couple of days while waiting for Sunday when our reservation at Yuma Lakes would start.
CRA sends an email confirmation of your reservation but we didn’t think to look at in before moving. So, Saturday morning when I was doing my standard email processing I found this:
Do you see the problem? It looks like they made our new reservation at the park we just left instead of the one to which we are headed.
We were reluctant to continue driving south without knowing we’d have a place to park in this very popular RVing city. So, Sunday morning Dave called the reservation phone number again. It turns out they are only open “business hours”.
So, he dug out the book describing the parks. No park phone numbers listed.
CRA’s website has no phone numbers listed either!
Now what?
Ah, with our CRA membership we got exchange memberships in other park systems. So dig out one of their books and look up Yuma Lakes RV Resort.
Yes, a park phone number!
So, call the park. No, they don’t have a reservation for us. How long is our RV? They do have a spot available we can fit in. So they made a note to expect us and when we arrived the lady at the gate said, “Oh, I talked to you earlier.”
So, we are here. With only mild anxiety attacks in the meantime.
In the more two and a half years we been full-timing, we’ve only made five reservations. Two of those have been messed up. I liked it better when we just drove up to a park and claimed a spot. But that didn’t work so well in Yuma before so I doubt we would have risked it again, anyway.
So, we are here. Safely tucked into a spot. With intermittently flaky internet. I hope you all get to see this post today. 🙂
TTYL,
Linda
Our reservation was up at Emerald Cove today. But the weather service said today would not be a good day to move.
Heavy rain, flash floods, gusty winds. None of those make for good RV driving. Especially down US Highway 95 from Earp, California, where Emerald Cove is located to Blythe, California, where we would fill our diesel tank at the Flying J before turning east on I-10 towards Quartzsite, Arizona. US 95 has pretensions to being a roller coaster with many dips across dry wash areas and there was no way we were going to be able to turn around instead of drown if we came to one.
So we moved yesterday instead. We can’t get into our next park until Sunday so we are spending two nights once again boondocking in the desert using that diesel fuel to run our generator for electricity.
About 6 am I heard very heavy rain falling and was glad we were not driving in that. About 8 am I heard thunder and was glad we were not hitching up our car in that. Not that we would have been doing either of those things at that time of day anyway, but you know what I mean.
So, this is the view out our windows this morning.
In the open desert we tend to park alongside some brush to give us a sense of place and to keep us out of roads which are mostly unmarked and can go any which way. Of course the brush only grows where water flows. So last night we parked near a dry wash. This morning it looks like this.
We don’t expect to get enough rain for the flowing water to come too close to us.
So, here we are in the the desert again. We have no problems with dust this time, though.
TTYL,
Linda
