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Dry camping in the Desert of Arizona.

We were dry camping in the desert a bit north of Quartzsite, Arizona.  There are 10’s of thousands of RV’s out here.   Amazing views driving into the area, nothing but RV’s as far as you could see when you crested the hill west of town.

Prior to going out there, it was hard to imagine how many folks would be dry camping out there, all of them camping for free on BLM land.  You only need to check in at the camp host and fill out a form.  You can stay on this BLM land for 14 days at no charge.

We were expecting lots of dirt and sand, but that’s not what we found.  It was all small dark red rocks.  It actually looked like someone had tried to pave the whole area with small reddish rocks.  It was not at all smooth, and walking around in the dark could be face plant material due to the random larger rock sticking up a couple inches higher than the ones around it.

The first night all the stars in the night sky were stunning.  We had figured we would see a lot during our trip last summer, but there was nothing like this, probably due to lots of storms in the evenings.   We had a few very clear nights while we were camping out there in the boondocks.

I was fairly apprehensive about how much water we would use and very apprehensive about how much power we would use from the batteries while there and with that, the requirement to run the generator to charge them back up.   The first few days and nights would help us understand how it would all work.

We arrived fairly late on Tuesday, much later than I wanted to arrive as we had never been out there before and I figured finding it in the dark would be impossible.  We got there right around dusk, forgetting how much earlier it gets dark in the winter and they were one hour ahead of home. I had programmed the GPS coordinates into google maps.  Once we turned off onto Plumosa Road and checked in with the BLM camp host, we set out to find that dot in the desert.   Turns out it was about 3 miles farther out.   About every 1/2 mile there was a dirt road off to the left or right with very small signs stuck into the dirt indicating where different groups were camped.   Since the sun had gone down behind a small mountain west of us, it was getting dark.  It was not easy to read the little signs, so I had to go very slowly when I saw another of them as there were many signs at each dirt road.

I finally pulled over to look at the GPS closely and saw it was still quite a bit further out.  After about 10 more minutes, I finally saw the sign I was looking for and pulled in.   I was glad I didn’t miss it as I was told that was the last dirt road for a long ways and there wasn’t anyplace to turn this rig around out there for miles.

We were camped about 1/2 mile north of the main road on a huge swath of moonscape.   It was good that it was large as we were expecting over 100 coaches to show up.   Most folks would probably arrive on Thursday, so getting there Tuesday evening would let us park fairly close to where the band and bonfires would be.

We met up with the Botts who were putting on the gathering.  David and Brenda are very nice folks.  I first found his blog while I was researching how to connect to Campground Wifi without going thru all the rigamarole I had to work thru during my first nights with the coach. Three different campgrounds where I had to connect each device separately and at two parks had to create accounts for each device. What a hassle that was, and I’m an IT guy!  I knew there was a better way.  After getting back home I started looking for it.

David had a great video showing what he thought was a really good system and how to set it up. I watched it, looked up the devices and thought, that is pretty incredible, and all the parts together were about $80. The devices he specified were commercial type devices. The only drawback I thought of was they weren’t on the newer AC Wifi protocol.  Later I was to find out, only 2 of the campgrounds on our 6 months of traveling even supported AC. So I still haven’t seen a need to update the devices to the newer protocol, but I still may.  We’ve been running AC for a few years in the House.

Anyway, to get back to the week.    We had a great potluck one night and the band David brought in from Phoenix was extremely good. Unfortunately, the band was booked for Sunday night and a lot of folks had to leave Sunday morning, possibly to go back to work Monday morning.  But a good time was had by all who stayed!  The weather even cooperated and the wind died down right before they started to play.

We met lots of fellow dry campers and will be trying to meet up with them again in the future.   We are now fairly confident using the coach as a self-contained unit without requiring any hookups for a week of dry camping where ever we may find ourselves.  (aka Boondocking)

We went into town  and found this small monument to a guy that managed the Camel Fleet for the US Army experiment back in the day.    I also went to see the big tent.   Pretty large area with lots of hawkers like the Fair in Del Mar every year.   Although I couldn’t find the Ginsu knife stall.

After being there 6 nights we left Tuesday morning heading back to San Diego.   What a beautiful week to be here.  Desert camping is pretty nice,  and you can’t beat the price!

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On the Road Again!

Check out the camera and GPS to see where we are today.

While I was trying to get my knee better I was doing some planning and installs.  I replaced all 6 batteries in the coach,  4 house batteries and 2 chassis batteries.    I also wired in a Shunt to allow metering of the power inbound and outbound from the house batteries.   I also installed a Bogart Trimetric Meter  above the thermostat on the hallway wall.
Pulling the wires from the battery bay to that interior wall was very difficult and time consuming, but its done now.    After all that was done, I ordered all new LED bulbs to replace the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling and above the sink.   I had replaced all the fluorescent tubes not long after purchasing the coach due to darking ends, but they needed to be replaced again as they were quickly turning dark grey at the ends again.  Researching that, it seems the ballasts need to be replaced.  Fast forward to now, I didn’t want to waste more money on those tubes and bit the upgrade bullet.  Changing them out was quite a bit more difficult than the videos implied.   Turns out my fixtures had the reflective shielding riveted in.  As I wanted to keep the existing coach wiring coming thru the ceiling as long as possible I had to drill them out while the fixture dangled over my head.  (had to drill them from the back side)

They’re all done now.   Thank God!

 

We are traveling…

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The long drive back to San Diego

In New Orleans my knee started giving me trouble again, probably due to all the running around in Red Bay trying to get things to happen.   Kathy really wanted to get home anyway, so we are just driving about 300 miles a day toward SD.

First night was in Beaumont, Texas, then on to San Antonio for Saturday night.  Sunday night was spent in Fort Stockton, Texas.  Geez, Texas is a big state and El Paso is still about 200 more miles.  We spent the the night in Las Cruces, New Mexico on Monday, then on to the Tucson area, actually someplace called Picacho, AZ, about 40 miles north of there Tuesday evening.

We arrived in San Diego yesterday on Wednesday, October  25th!!   Kathy was sad to leave all the trees of the East Coast.   Western Texas all the way to the steep Mountain Springs Grade to the Jacumba Pass is basically treeless.  1,200 miles of desert with few trees. 

I just checked the mileage and we drove 10,375 miles over the last 5 months and 3 days.  Holy Cow..  That’s about $4,000 just for diesel fuel!!!!  Plus we put about 6,500 miles Kathy’s car driving around sightseeing!!

What a great trip.  Once we get the coach fully unloaded and cleaned, I need to start on the modifications for the next trip in January, boondocking near Quartzite for a week on BLM land.  That includes adding a couple hundred watts of solar to the roof and replacing the worn-out house batteries, plus the addition of a new TV up front so the news can be watched without bringing up the TV behind the sofa.

(A special thanks to Gloria and Pat for coming over to help unload since Bill couldn’t walk with his knee.  I couldn’t have done it by myself!!!)

 

 

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New Orleans

It was a long drive down to New Orleans from Red Bay.  The quickest way was quite a few smaller highways, then the last 100 miles was smooth freeway that took us right to the French Quarter RV Resort.   Very nice place,  just two blocks north of the French Quarter.   It was also the most expensive place we stayed so far.   Weekend nights were $150 and weekdays are $105 a day.   I guess a decent hotel would have been significantly more that that.   We arrived late Saturday afternoon, so after we set up, I went in search of a grocery store.  The grocery stores in Red Bay were small and lacking some basic things.

Sunday was a down day as it was raining here pretty good.  On Monday we scheduled a tour bus to pick us up at the resort and drive us around on some of the bumpiest roads you could imagine.  (Savannah Riverfront included)   We went all over town and thru the heart of the French Quarter that the other buses could not go due to their size.  So now that we have toured the city, I have an idea where to go the next few days we are here.  They have some of the coolest cemeteries.  It must cost a pretty penny to die in New Orleans…

I scoped out a little Mexican taco shop not far from the RV and had some really tasty street tacos and a so-so burrito for dinner, but too much filler in the burrito.. freaking rice just shouldn’t be in a burrito.  In thirty years eating Mexican food in San Diego, never had a burrito with rice in it.  I was surprised finding out that all over the country they put rice in their burritos!

On Tuesday we headed down to the French Market area for a little shopping and a really good muffuletta and gumbo for lunch at an open air place with the dogs.   Everyone loved the pups there,  the wait staff even came by twice with water for them.   There were a lot of things to look at in the market, but one of them wasn’t produce.   Most of our previous market visits in other towns included lots of produce to select.   We strolled all over,  snapped some pics in Jackson Square and over on the river.  The river walk there had lots of construction happening.   I guess they want it ready for carnival season.  They really take Halloween seriously here, most of the houses are seriously decorated.  Even the huge mansions of the garden district had lots of decorations strewn all over.

Wednesday morning we drove to the Lower 9th Ward.  It is truly a poor neighborhood.  The odd part of driving thru there was that the few houses that had been rebuilt were only raised to about 3 feet off the ground.  In an area that had just experienced 10 feet of flood water, I expected them to be raised a bit more.    The difference in cost would be minimal since the house raiser was already set up, so it would only be a few extra hours of work.  There would be a bit more work for the posts or walls being higher, I guess.

Just south of the 9th Ward was Chalmette and the historic park where the battle of New Orleans took place against the Brits in 1814, just after the war had ended..  They hadn’t heard about that yet…

After the battlefield we made our way over to the other side of the city to Audubon Park along the river also.   Nice park with a zoo and riverfront walk for quite a distance.   Lots of tugboats went by pushing at least 6 large, laden barges in front of them at a fairly rapid pace.

We left the park and headed back toward the Garden District for lunch, then a short drive around the French Quarter for the added local flavor.  This time I went for the Po Boy and more gumbo.   The place in the market was better.

There are a lot more street cars now than I saw the last time I visited back in the early ’90s.  Just the old green ones were there back then.  Now there are lots of new red streetcars going up Canal Street and out in different directions.   Mass transit is good.

That night we Uber’d over to Frenchman Street for drinks and music.  There was lots of music, much better than the craziness of Bourbon or Royal streets we all think of as the FQ.   Actually, we started at the corner of Royal and Frenchman and headed toward the river.  Great night.  Lots of great music, even in the street!!

 

 

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Red Bay Alabama

A stop at Tiffinville…   Our coach is a Tiffin and I decided to stop at their service facility a mile from the factory in Red Bay.   I wanted to get a few things fixed I didn’t feel qualified to do myself and to have the windshield replaced.   I had been hearing it was extremely difficult to get a spot there and that arriving early on a Saturday gave you the best chance of being able to camp there.   The campground holds about 100 large diesel pushers and was an old airstrip in town prior to them building a very large service center with about 50 service bays.

Saturday was the day.   We drove up and the sign said they had sites!  (We were there a week, no other days did they have that written on the board again. )  We got a lot of paperwork to fill in and bring back to the office prior to 5pm that evening.   You basically fill everything out and then prioritize what you want fixed.   I had never seen that many Class A coaches in one spot before.

Sunday was the day for Hurricane Nate’s remnants to hit us.  It was a non- starter.  It barely rained and there were maybe 10 mph wind gusts.  Kathy was really worried for nothing that we were going to be in the hurricane or tornadoes!

It was still raining a bit at 6:50 am on Monday morning when I heard a lot of rumbling and got up, looked out front only to see about 50 coaches making their way to the service bay doors as they were being opened in the fading darkness.   I was told later that day, it’s called the Elephant Walk.

We had a leisurely breakfast when all of a sudden there was a loud banging on the coach, wham, wham, wham!!  Turns out every morning someone from the service center inspects any new coaches that have arrived.  That is what they were doing to ours.   They were hammering a screw driver into the wet bay and slide floors to determine if there was any rot.   (They used wood it appears)  And to check the roof rails for cracking.   Turns out ours had a bad wet bay floor.  (That’s under the tanks in the basement)  So glad they found that before it rotted out on the freeway!!

The following day we were in Mussel Shoals overnight to get that flooring replaced early the next day.   They finished it in less than 4 hours and we were off to Red Bay again to find out when we could get the 3-hour express bay appointment .  (aka The Three Hour Tour).  That is where the priority list comes into play.   Late that day, we received a call to be at Bay 7 at 7 am.

Wednesday morning we got to participate in the Elephant Walk as we headed to Bay 7.   I had a complete list, but two of the top priorities were to have the front door adjusted so it wouldn’t pop open when it was cold, and to adjust the driver side front slide.

After about two hours, the techs were finished.  It was then that I found out they were out of windshields for my coach.  That was one of the issues I wanted repaired while we were there.   (A rock cracked our windshield outside of Salt Lake City back in June.)

We brought the coach back to our spot and Kathy noticed the slide they adjusted was sticking out an inch or so in the front.  I walked back to the bay and let the tech who worked on it know there was a problem.  A couple hours later he came by and adjusted the stop bolt.  We thought all was good with the world.   Later that day it was still cold in Red Bay and my front door popped open again as I tried to close it.   I again walked back to the bay to let the other tech that fixed it know.   He came by a couple hours later and fixed it.

Thursday morning it popped open again.   I asked the scheduler if I could have someone else look at it.   Nope.  Had to go back to the same guys.  (Wanda is the service scheduler and it seems her favorite word is NO)   As I was leaving her office, I overheard someone doing tech support on the phone in a cube around the corner.   I decided to ask him about it.  He told me how to fix it.  I did it, and so far, a week later, the issue hasn’t come back.

Friday morning we drove over to the Tiffin Factory to take the tour of them building the RVs.  What a tour that was.   Unbelievable access to everything on the factory floor.  I couldn’t believe it.  There were coaches everywhere in various states of the build process from the chassis being driven in without even a floor to them to being ready to drive to the paint shop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not long after we got back from the factory, around 11 am Friday morning, I got the call that the glass was in and could I bring the coach to Bay 46 at noon.  I said yes, of course.   About twenty minutes before I had to be there, I closed up the coach to be ready to drive and the slide that they adjusted would only come in on one side.  OMG.  I coaxed it in and drove to the glass bay, then went back to the guys that worked on it, and they said they wouldn’t have time as there was a coach in their bay for the rest of the day.   They told me to talk to Wanda as I didn’t want to stay over the weekend again.   Wanda said NO,  I had to use them again to fix it.  (three strikes anyone?)

I wandered over to the tech support guy that had helped me the day before, asked him if there was anyone I could appeal that to.  He suggested Pete.  I found Pete, told him my plight.  He said to give him a bit and he would see what he could do.  About 20 minutes later another tech showed up in the glass bay and looked at the issue and said a drive bolt had snapped.    He left to find a place to fix it.

About an hour later he called the glass manager and asked me to bring it into bay 9.    I have never seen a crew work so well together.   They pulled it all apart,  changed out the drive shaft and put in a new bolt.   Then they adjusted the slide to within a sixteenth of an inch.   Now it works better than it ever has for me.

Thanks to Pete and his guys on the A team!!

We were on our way to New Orleans in the morning, thank god.  It was fun to talk with all the people that have Tiffin RVs, but a week on the tarmack was plenty!!!

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Starting the Trek West

We left Savannah early on Friday morning so we could be past downtown Atlanta before their afternoon rush hour.  Only rest stop I could find for the whole trip was closed for construction, so we used fuel stations to walk the pups and ourselves.

I had never stopped at a Loves truck stop before so it was a learning experience.  First thing is you cannot pay at the pump with a credit card, you must go inside the store.   They appear to have two pumps for each bay,  but I was not sure how you made the other pump work as there wasn’t any controls.  I have filler caps on both sides, so I could have used both had I been able to get it to work.   As it was, those massive diesel nozzles on the pump filled my tank very quickly just using one of them.  [Walking the dogs over to a tiny bit of grass/weeds was scary in between those huge trucks making very loud noises, but the pups did OK, just a little skitterish!]

We camped overnight in a pull -thru at a place called Cane Creek RV campground in Heflin, Al, just over the border from Georgia.  Really nice campground a couple miles from the interstate.  Real quiet there.   We wanted to get to Red Bay early to have a better chance at getting an RV site at the Tiffin Service Center as it’s first come first served.  No reservations.    We left there before 8am in an attempt to make that happen.

By the way, Hurricane Nate was heading for Alabama that weekend.  We were not sure what Sunday was going to bring our way!

 

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Savannah

We arrived at the Red Gate campground early in the afternoon, so we headed into Savannah to find the visitor center and pick up a tourist map.   With that in hand, we set out to see the town.  But first I wanted to stop at the railroad museum, which was just behind the visitor center.   Since it was late, I asked for a discount on the admission and the person charged us half price.

We then took a stroll with the pups thru the round house full of locomotives and cars.  There was even a working turntable.   It was surprising that the Savannah visitor center would allow you to dry camp (aka boondocking)  in their parking lot for $7 a day.  But I don’t think you can put out your slides.

We wandered around the site for about an hour, then we headed out to tour the Bonaventure Graveyard.  It was huge.  Never seen anything like it.  It was closing soon and I kind of got lost for a little bit.  I was getting a bit concerned we might get locked in.  I bet it’s a pretty creepy place after dark.  That Spanish moss is everywhere down here.

We found our way out at about five of five and proceeded down to the riverfront to find a place to have dinner.  We read about Hueys as being pup friendly.   We got onto the riverfront street,  all old cobblestone and the bumpiest roadway I believe I have ever been on, even at a couple miles an hour.   The place has a few tables street-side and just across from it is a narrow park fronting the river, maybe 40 feet from our table.  Lots of small ships, and a few very large cargo ships were plying the waters.  There was even a small ferry that seemed to be going across the river every fifteen minutes to a hotel on the other side.

At around 7pm a large riverboat left the dock about 100 feet west of the restaurant.   You should just be able to make it out behind Kathy in a picture above.   I noticed its paddle wheel wasn’t spinning.  Apparently it’s not real.

The next day I headed back into town to see the market place I had heard about.  It was underwhelming.   I then took a walk thru a few closely spaced squares.  There were lots of them evenly spaced in all directions.   I think Savanna was a planned city.  Maybe Sherman burned it all down so they got to start over.

Overall I wasn’t impressed with Savannah.  It was kind of a letdown after Charleston.

We are starting our Westward Journey in the morning.   It will take two days to drive to Red Bay Alabama with a stopover near the Georgia/Alabama border.

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Charleston

We drove down from D.C over a couple of days stopping in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, for an overnight in a pull-thru.   It was a pretty uneventful couple of days till after we drove thru Charleston and onto James Island where we were staying.   It got real interesting real fast as we made our way on the smaller roads toward the campground.   Lots of very low hanging branches and the trees themselves were leaning into the roadway.   I had to drive on both sides of the road in an attempt to miss the thick branches I could see with gouges on them from prior vehicle traffic.    The rooftop antennas were doing their Boing Boing Boings as we made our way the last mile or so to the campground entrance.   And the Spanish moss hanging on those tree branches  gave the drive an eerie overtone while experiencing the sounds coming from the antennas.

Thankfully once on the campground roadway the branches were all cut back to a decent height.   This campground was a very large county park with all sorts of areas to do things.   There appeared to be a water park, an outdoor adventure area including a rock climbing wall, lots of fishing spots.  There were even crews installing Christmas lights on specially built structures all along the roadway for their Holiday Festival of the Lights, which looked more impressive and much larger than our Del Mar one.   They have two fenced dog parks with beaches and a lake for them to frolic in.   Kathy wasn’t about to let our pups in the water as the sign at the gate to the dog parks said alligators may live in this area.   Not sure why so many dogs were playing in the water if there might be alligators just under the surface ready for lunch.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday morning we drove over to the visitor center in town to get a map, then we headed out to procure a parking spot, which we found on the very south end of the city along the water in front of the White Point Garden.   It was from there we started our trek into the historic district.

First we strolled up Meeting Street.  The houses were incredible.  Each one was a little nicer than the last one.   All the balconies with their signature ceiling fans were fabulous.  Some of them seem to have painted their balcony ceiling a very light seafoam green, which was strikingly pretty.   We made our way north to Market Street where we made a right to peruse the market buildings with all their shops in the middle of the north and south Market streets.   We were going to go down Church Street but decided to walk over to the water near the wharfs and another large park I saw on the map.  (Charleston is on a peninsula,  water on three sides.)   When we got there, it was like a gale was blowing off the water (almost blew the pups off their feet!).   Just a hundred yards up Market and there was no wind.  Not sure why that was.   I remember NYC on a windy day, the streets were like wind tunnels.

We walked along the waters edge to the end of that park and cut back inland toward Church Street to head south to the car.   Church Street had a lot of folks walking down the middle of the brick paved street and bicycles all around.  There was lots of great architecture to gawk at, but the atmosphere was so different than just a block away on Meeting Street which had more cars and people plying it.

In a little while we were back in the park diagonally across from where we parked the car.  We drove back to the island for a late lunch at a Mexican place that said they allowed pets on the patio.   Surprisingly it was really good Mexican food,  it did strike me as odd that on the front door in large letters it said “No pets”.   I went inside and asked.   They said, “Bring them in,” and he went out to the patio to put a couple of menus on a table for us.   After we were seated he brought out a pie tin of ice water for the pups.

Once satiated we headed out toward Folly Beach on the ocean side of the Island we were camping on.   James Island is large and it took a while to get there.   But once there, we drove up and down the street closest to the ocean and checked out all the beautiful beach front homes.   Almost every one of them was raised up about 15 feet from the ground.   Must be fun to haul all the groceries up those steps!   We drove down as far south as the road could take us.  There was another state park.   We headed in.  The gale was still blowing and there were some pretty large waves coming in.  The water was a muddy brown.  Had never seen that in the ocean before.

Something I found out when we were at the campsite earlier that morning walking the pups, I was holding my phone and using my elevation app to determine how low this place actually was.  It said we were 6 feet above sea level.   I was holding the phone about 5 feet off the ground.   This island is about a foot above sea level.   No wonder  lots of the homes even away from the beach were raised up a fair amount.   Not long afterward I heard the radio advertisements from many different companies refer to the area as the “low country.”  They got that right.   Made me think of the Netherlands but without the dikes.

When we got back to the coach, Kathy asked how far we had walked.  It hadn’t seemed like we went very far, but I had almost 12,000 steps.   No wonder my knee was letting me know it was there!!

Day two we decided to do a driving tour thru more of the historic district.  What a cool city.  I could live here, although I had not experienced any humidity, which would probably make me rethink that if we came back in the summer.   After we drove around for a couple of hours, we made it back to the park/garden at the south end of the city to get the pups out and for us to stretch out our legs too.    We looked at all the statues from this first city of the secession.  There were a lot to George Washington, but the most interesting was the one to all the brave confederate soldiers.  It was placed in the most prominent spot in white garden park.

After we got back into the car, I started searching for a place to eat that would let us bring in the pooches.   To my surprise I found an ad for a website called www.bringfido.com  and it listed lots of dog friendly restaurants all over the US.   There were many in Charleston, so we picked one and headed that direction.   It had 5 bones (rating) and almost that high a rating for the Caribbean food.   I really wanted the jerked chicken!

We got there – it was called Fuel – and it was an old gas station that had been slightly modified to make it a happening place.   The patio out back was the nicest patio I have ever been to.   A couple different levels,  a high roof above for shade.  A perfect place for us and the pups.   There weren’t many folks there as it was pretty late for lunch on a Monday afternoon, but the food was amazing.  I had a cup of sweet corn bisque and a jerked chicken sandwich.  The corn bisque was the best soup I have ever had, hands down.  The jerked chicken was pretty good, but not to the scale of the soup.  Kathy had the sauteed shrimp salad.   She said it was outstanding.   And this, from a dog friendly restaurant app.   Hard to believe our luck.   If only we had found that app 4 months ago.   Geez!

Heading to Savannah tomorrow morning.