The Sandcastle

It’s been a week since I posted here. Yes, we are fine. I’ve just been too busy reading and doing other things to write. I have lots of new websites and blogs I am following and they take more time than I had anticipated. Plus, we are now in La Posa LTVA near Quartzsite, Arizona, where the Escapee Class of ’08 will have our graduation gathering so we keep having visitors. It’s fun meeting other class members. But, yesterday I didn’t finish my “morning” computer stuff until 5:20 p.m. Part of that is we don’t have the high speed connection we got used to having so every download takes longer.

Here’s some of what we’ve been doing for the last week.

We finally made a departure checklist and started using it. It helps. We don’t always do everything in the order listed but at least we get everything done. I print them from my computer. The first day we make a check mark by items as we complete them. The next day we turn that check into an X. The third time we use them we circle the X. The fourth time we cross the item off. Then I print new ones and we start again. I need to print some today.

WalMart has their online prescription refills system relating to my prescriptions as messed up as I had feared and we were not able to get the pharmacist to straighten it out. We couldn’t make her understand that what we see on our computer is not what she sees on hers. She insisted they are all there on hers so I should be able to see them all on mine. Maybe next time I’ll bring my computer into the store to show them what I see.

In places, I-8 runs so close to the border with Mexico we could see the fence. It’s pretty ugly.

There’s a rest area in the Imperial Dunes Recreation Area.  Here’s the dunes and some dune buggy riders.  The border fence is just on the other side of those dunes.

 

Nearby is the BLM LTVA field office with lots of people boondocking near it. That would be a safe place in spite of being this close to the border because it is so well patrolled.

Going up S24 toward the Imperial Dam LTVA area we passed lots of farm fields. If I tell you the products without adding proper punctuation we get, “Lettuce date lemons.”

   

Imperial Dam is one of those places where you can met friendly people. One guy told us there would be a parade of decorated vehicles about 6:15 and another told us there would be Christmas Carol singing at 6:30. We didn’t realize this place in California is on Arizona time so we nearly missed the parade and did miss the caroling because we were eating supper then. The parade went by too quickly to get decent photos but here’s the best one we got.

And here’s what camping at the North Mesa area of the Imperial Dam LTVA looks like in December.

   

Lots of elbow room but lousy Internet. We checked out the Coyote Ridge area but it was much the same. So when we went into town to buy groceries, I talked Dave into going north on Hwy 95 to La Posa LTVA instead of S24 back to Imperial Dam LTVA. S24 is lousy driving; we actually saw them plowing the mud off that road. And La Posa is closer to a town so the odds of getting good Internet reception are better there.

We went through our first Boarder Patrol road block check. The guy looked in our window, asked if we were both U.S. citizens, and waved us on. It wasn’t nearly as interesting as I thought it might be.

We are now at the class graduation site, protecting it from non-class members until someone else from the class comes to relieve us. That’s probably going to happen Sunday. Our whole class writes our plans in chalk so we can erase them easily. Apparently, we’re all commitment phobic. I think it’s mostly that there so much new stuff for us that we don’t yet know how to plan where we’ll be when. We make lots of plans, we just don’t follow them very well.

We had Christmas dinner here, just the two of us. We had turkey, potatoes & gravy, and cranberry sauce. The pumpkin pie was not edible. We need to learn how to use our convection oven.

Other than the pie, life is good.

TTYL,

Linda

We tried to drive away from camp this morning while still plugged in to their electricity. Fortunately Dave noticed before we did any damage. We really need to make a checklist and start using it.

We bought propane before leaving the Circle RV Resort. We may be south but we are still running our furnace every night  The park’s computers were down so they couldn’t process our credit card  Dave had to pay cash. Next stop is the Bank of WalMart.

We don’t use ATMs anymore. WalMart lets you get $100 cash back when you shop there and that’s been enough to keep us going between shopping trips. Pretty convenient.

Going east on I-8 I can see snow on a hill ahead of us. But there’s so much solar heat coming in our windows we are both in shirt sleeves.  

Someone else likes that solar heat, too. There’s a large bank of solar collectors on the side of the hill beside the road.

Remember Dave saying we aren’t going over any mountains today? Why are my ears popping?

We stopped at a viewpoint. That’s quite a valley for us to not be on a mountain.

There’s shattered glass on the pavement. Apparently a couple of drivers argued over whose turn it was to pull out next. I wonder if either think they won?

A little while later I saw a bumper laying on the side of the highway with the license plate still attached. Do you think it will be missed? Do you think someone else will claim it? If so, will the claimant report it or keep it for some nefarious purpose? OK, I read too many mysteries.

The windsocks on the bridge say we have a tailwind. Much better than a crosswind.

Sunrise Highway is on the west side of the hill. Shouldn’t it be on the east side?

We drove through a pass at 4055 feet. Not quite to snow level. Not really a pass, either, since that would mean we are in the mountains and we aren’t going into the mountains today; we are going through a valley between mountains, remember?

So, what’s this?

 

You know how groups of things have names: herd of cows, gaggle of geese, etc.? How about a tumble of rocks? There are piles and piles of rounded boulders alongside the road. It looks like some very large kid’s toys. Some of them look like they are stacked rather precariously. I wonder how many are named Balanced Rock?

When we see signs for “brake check area” and “runaway truck ramp ahead” we know we are coming to a big downgrade. This one is 6% for 7 miles. The truck speed limit is 35 miles an hour so it must have a lot of curves, too.

As we round those curves we are driving back and forth between Imperial County and San Diego County. I’m sure glad the counties are not responsible for maintaining this road. Can you imagine what a headache that could be?

I guess we are now out of those mountains we didn’t drive through since the elevation sign here says, “Sea Level”.

In El Centro, California, we stopped at a KFC to eat lunch and talk about future plans. I have a prescription to pick up at the WalMart here but then what? Our daughter called while we were still deciding and she and I talked long enough that we decided to not go anywhere except the local campground.

So we are now at Rio Bend RV Golf Resort in El Centro, Caifornia. We will be here two nights while we decide whether to go to an RV park in Yuma or Phoenix or Quartzsite (we have friends/family in all those places right now) or go boondocking on BLM land or what. One of the realities about moving all the time is that there are always many decisions to be made.

TTYL,

Linda