The Sandcastle

I am in Texas.

At Exit #2.

At the Welcome Center in Anthony, Texas.

Which my RVing friends will recognize as being on the western edge of El Paso.

I’m headed east.

It is 5:00 pm on a weekday.

Do I want to drive through El Paso during a weekday afternoon rush hour?

No, I do not.

So I’ll probably sit right here all night.

I have fast internet so maybe I’ll watch some Netflix. Or do some internet shopping. Or something.

Anything.

It is going to be a long evening.

But, I made it to Texas without blowing off the road and that counts for a lot.

TTYL,

Linda

Apparently I decided to take the southern route home since I’ve been driving I-8 and I-10 the last couple of days.

I’m now in Deming, New Mexico, with several days of very unsettled weather along the route ahead of me so I think I’ll just sit here awhile. Maybe I’ll even get caught up on some computer stuff. I am way behind.

Partly because Yahoo mail shut me out for a couple of days so when I finally figured out how to get back in I had 266 messages waiting for me! Wouldn’t you know my groups would all pick that time to get chatty. 🙂

But, as Tammy would say, I digress. I promised you a typical travel day.

I usually wake a up about 9 am then wash and dress and take my first pill of the day. Then I do computer stuff for a bit until my stomach says I need to feed it now. Then I may do some more computer stuff depending on what time it is. I usually pack up and get moving about noon. Or 11 am if I am in a park that says that is checkout time.

There are several reasons I start so late. One is I am not a morning person. It takes me awhile to shift into gear. Plus there’s that first pill of the day that I am supposed to take 1/2 hour before breakfast. So I get on the computer while waiting and forget to get off. I check the weather reports and my maps and decide what route I’m going to take today and tell that to my GPS. And I read my daily comics and do at least a quick check of my email in case there’s anything there I need to quickly respond to. Plus I charge all my electronics in the morning so as to be able to use them during the day while my engine recharges my house batteries. Another reason for the late start is it takes me a while to pack up if I’ve been sitting any length of time. I have to dump my holding tanks, fill my fresh water tank, and disconnect and pack up all the hoses and cords. None of those really takes a long time but together they take me a while. Then there’s the fact that I decided to take the southern route. Which means it gets hot in the afternoon. By not starting until noon I get to enjoy the cool of the morning then do my driving with the cab air conditioning on during the heat of the day. I like that since I can’t use my house A/C unless I am plugged into a park’s electricity and I’ve learned to like free overnight parking which doesn’t often come with an electrical connection.

My pattern once I start driving is to go get fuel. I use about a half tank a day when traveling and I don’t like to get much below a half tank so that’s usually my first stop of the day. Then I drive for an hour or two then stop for a break. During the break I might eat lunch if I ate breakfast early enough to be ready to do that. Or I might take a nap. Driving makes me drowsy so I find it very easy to take nap breaks. Even the heat that builds up in here when I’m parked does not keep me awake. Then I drive for another hour or two and take another break, eating lunch if I didn’t do that earlier and/or taking a nap. Then I drive until about 5:00 or 6:00 when I stop for the night so I can be parked before sunset. Although I experienced a time change today when I crossed into New Mexico since Arizona doesn’t play the daylight savings time game and I’ll get another change my next driving day when I cross into the Central Time Zone so it doesn’t get dark quite as early now. Especially with the days getting longer every day. If I’m stopping at Cracker Barrel or a parking lot behind an eatery, like last night’s DQ, I go in for supper. If I’m parked on some gravel or paved parking lot or, like tonight, an RV park I fix supper sometime during the evening and do more computer stuff. Like write this blog, play games, read books, and do a last check on my email.

Then about midnight I finally crash into bed. I usually go to sleep quite quickly but since my body likes to sleep nine hours I don’t get a start on another day until about 9 am. Rinse; repeat.

It may not be everyone’s idea of a good travel day but it certainly is mine. And I’m enjoying having the freedom to do it my way. But, I still miss Dave.

Oh, and here’s a couple pictures of a rig that parked next to me at yesterday’s lunch stop. As Carolyn would say, “Innit cute?” I suspect when you go through the door, you are already in bed.

TTYL,

Linda

I am so ready to go home and see Dave and cook in a full kitchen again with an automatic dishwasher. But there’s still snow on the ground there and it’s not warming up enough for it to melt away. I don’t want to have to winterize my RV but I also don’t want to freeze my holding tanks so I am TRYING to be patient. The RV parks in the Minneapolis area don’t turn on their water until April 15th so I’m sort of using that as my guideline as to when it is safe for me to go home. Although we have had snow as late as the week after that it was just a few flurries one day several years ago.

My current time at Emerald Cove ends Thursday and I have to decide what to do about that. I want to stay at least through Thursday evening to play bingo. It is the last game of the season so they will be awarding the rolling jackpots even if no one actually wins them. There are two of them that are up over $100 each in addition to the regular winnings of each game. Of course, I haven’t won anything yet this year. 🙂

I’m supposed to check out by 11 am on Thursday or pay $95 to stay another week. What I’m thinking about doing is moving my van over to park by the fence across from the bingo hall Thursday morning then checking out. After the games I’ll drive into town and spend the night at Walmart. That will put me in a good place to buy groceries Friday morning before I begin my trek east then north.

I don’t have an actual route home yet. I don’t seem to want to plan one. I’ll head east first but whether that’s along I-10 or I-20 or I-40 depends on what the weather is doing then. I prefer to use my furnace at night more than my A/C during the day but, again, I don’t want to freeze my tanks going through the Arizona mountains. I also don’t know if I want to drive the freeways or the US highways. I drive faster on the freeways but I don’t want to get home too soon anyway. Also the freeways are boring so I have to stop and nap a lot. But there are good places to do that on the freeways and they can be a little harder to find along the US highways. And my favorite overnight stopping place is Cracker Barrel and they tend to be close to freeways. But my second favorite place is Walmart and they are everywhere nowadays. I’ll have to stop a couple times to dump my tanks so I’ll probably go into regular RV parks those nights which will let me charge all my electronics as well. Although driving charges my batteries enough to do that. It only gets to be a problem if I sit still without hookups too many overcast days.

So many choices; so few decisions.

TTYL,

Linda

I need to go to Phoenix again. I need to refill prescriptions that are going to run out before I reach home. Our prescriptions are currently at Target and the nearest one to Emerald Cove is in Phoenix. And my electronic gadgets are all nagging at me to do updates again and we all know what happened last time I tried to do them anywhere besides an Apple store. Plus, I could go to Trader Joe’s and buy some good quality foods. And I could go to Blue Beacon and get my RV washed. And depending on the timing, I might actually get to visit with my brothers this trip. So I decided to take another week out of my home park.

Day one of that week was a busy one. First I went to Walmart to buy the much needed food. As I was pulling into the lot I saw a pickup pulling out of my parking spot. So I quickly turned down that aisle. Another pickup beat me to the spot! So I pulled around again and parked in a double spot further up the row to decide what I wanted to do. As I sat there someone knocked on my door. It was a woman with fliers wanting to get credit for sending buyers to her membership park–my membership park. We agreed it is a good park.

I felt tired so decided I’d take a nap then see what the status was on my parking spot. But I couldn’t settle down. So I got up and looked down the row. My spot looked empty! So I hurried down there. Nope, just a short car in it.

So I decided to go to lunch. The Pizza Hut in Parker serves slowly but I like their pizza so I go there. I’ve been such a regular there this winter they know my order when I walk in the door. I always get a large pizza so as to have leftovers. I like cold pizza as much as I like not having to cook every meal.

When I got back to Walmart my parking spot was available so I went shopping.

One of the things I bought is new jeans. Yup, I’ve gained back just enough weight to make mine uncomfortable so here I am buying a bigger size once again. At least Walmart carries a brand that is the right length for me so I don’t have to do a major hunt for them.

So now I have new jeans that I need to wash before wearing. That mean a laundromat is my next stop. I drive to one in Parker but its lot contains several RVs and semi trucks so I decide not to try to squeeze in there. I drive on towards Quartzsite.

By the time I get to Plamosa Road, which is the northern most of Quartzsite’s BLM lands, I really need that nap. So I pull in and sleep for about an hour. Then I head on down to the laundromat where there is plenty of parking for a rig my size. When I come out I see a RoadTrek.

Looks a lot like my RV, doesn’t it? That’s because it is also built into a Sprinter van although this one is shorter than mine.

Now the clothes are clean and it’s supper time. I have plenty of food on hand now so I should just go park, right? But I don’t. I decide to take this one more chance to go eat at Sweet Darlene’s. I really like their chicken tenders. And if I order the chicken tenders and ribs combo I can take the ribs home for another meal I won’t have to cook. I like cold ribs, too.

I go in and use their restroom to save capacity in mine then head up front to sit. As I’m pulling out a chair the owners of the RoadTrek come in. I call out to ask them if they followed me. So they join me for supper and we talk all through the meal. They are from Wisconsin. Ignore the Tennesee plates on their vehicle; that’s just where their mail box is because that’s where they lived when they retired. But they have family and land in Wisconsin–with water and electric hookups so they give me a card with their phone number on it in case I ever want to come visit if they happen to be there.

Oh, and that RoadTrek? It’s their toad. They pull it behind their Class A motothome to Arizona each year then use it to take short trips around the place. Tomorrow they will be going to Florence, Arizona, to visit family.

By the time we finish eating it is dark outside and I still need to find a place to park. I don’t like pulling into BLM lands after dark because you can’t see beyond your headlights. So I just pull into an early spot and set up camp.

Day two starts with the winds rocking my rig and a forecast of rain with possible hail. After all the activity yesterday I am ready to sit tight for a day anyway. My ankles hurt.

Day three starts bright and sunny but I have trouble getting up because I stayed up too late the night before. By the time I dump my trash and fill my fuel tank the day is well along but I head for Phoenix anyway.

I eat lunch at one rest area and take a nap at another one. Not exactly making good time but I have all week to drive to Phoenix and back, right?

Finally in the west suburbs I see a Target store. So I get off at the next exit and head there. There is handicapped parking big enough for my RV right outside the door. But I don’t want to walk any further than I need to so I call the pharmacy from my van. It takes a while for them to figure out how to transfer my prescriptions to their store and process my insurance but they finally succeed. The pharmacist is concerned about me wanting to pick them up today because they close in an hour. I tell her I am calling from their parking lot and she is much relieved. And she assures me they have electric carts I can use parked right inside the door. One task done.

Next is the Apple Store to do more updates using their wifi. Fortunately they are open until 9 pm on Saturdays so I can still go there today. I dig my Scoot out of the back of my RV to get me to and from the store. But, iTunes won’t update. A tech comes to help but can’t make it work. He says I’ll need to make an appointment at the Genius Bar and the next opening is Monday evening. I pass. It’s just iTunes; it can wait until I get back to Minnesota.

I have other errands I can do but I decide not to do so. It’s interesting to me that I don’t mind driving to Phoenix but I don’t like to stay there and it is already dark outside. And my ankles hurt. So I head west again making it to the furthest west suburb before I decide I really do need to eat. I pull into Cracker Barrel. And eat a very late supper. And spend the night.

In the morning, day four, my ankles hurt too badly to be willing to walk back into Cracker Barrel for breakfast. So, I head out. Good thing I decided not to stay in town to do the rest of my errands and visiting as I am in too much pain to do them anyway.

I just barely get onto the freeway when traffic becomes stop and go. We occasionally get all the way up to five miles per hour. Not far ahead of us is a place where four lanes transition down to two lanes but I have never seen it move this slowly. I had planned to stop about a half hour down the road for breakfast. That’s not going to be very far away at this rate. We finally pass the reason for the slow down; there’s a semi sitting off the left lane facing the wrong way. No idea how it got like that. But traffic speeds pick up very quickly the other side of it.

Finally I pull off for breakfast. Guess where? Cracker Barrel. Sort of. Across the street from one anyway. At Denny’s. I can park much closer to the door at Denny’s and I don’t have to walk through a store to get to the hostess station. I’m pleased by that and breakfast is tasty.

Getting back outside again I decide to stay in this fairly out-of-the-way parking spot for a while. I have not done my morning computer stuff yet and I decide it would be good to do it before driving all the way back to Quartzsite so my alternator can refill my batteries after I recharge all my electronics. That worked well.

Finally back to Q late afternoon. Back to Sweet Darlene’s to eat once again. Back to the gas station to fuel up once again. Back to the BLM lands to park once again. I figure another two nights here then drive to Parker to recharge my batteries and spend another two nights boondocking there, then I can go back to my membership park for another two weeks free.

If I’m very lucky, it will then be warm enough to head home. I’m ready.

TTYL,

Linda

I’ve had company three times at Emerald Cove. Somehow I don’t seem to remember to take photos and blog about it most of the time. So I tried harder to remember this time.

I think Terry & Jeri came here mostly because I said I was trying to make four days worth of food last seven days. Being good friends they came to take me grocery shopping. In the meantime, I did an actual inventory of my food and discovered I had more than I realized. Apparently I buy tuna and salmon every time I go grocery shopping. So as long as I’m willing to eat that or go to the bar here for lunch I’m fine.

But, I’m not sorry they came. Nor are they. They like this park enough to be considering extending their time here. And I’m sure they will come here again next winter when we are all in Arizona again.

Yesterday we went out for dinner and I remembered to take a few pictures. We went to Pirate’s Den just up the river on the other side.

Where Jeri chose a table right on the riverside so we could watch the traffic out there.

And I chose to sit with my back to the sun and put on my hat in hopes of not burning. Which put Terry and Jeri facing the sun and the water.

That cup sitting on the table has the Den’s slogan on it, “A sunny place for shady people.” Jeri had a margarita that came in that cup. Since it was happy hour and she said the cup was only half-sized she had a second one. 🙂

By the time I thought to take a picture of our food it was no longer pretty so I didn’t. We all had their Hawaiian Burger. If you’ve ever had the Bonsai Burger at Red Robin you know how much we enjoyed these.

And the view.

And the company.

It’s good to have friends.

TTYL,

Linda