Christmas in Quartzsite!

Christmas arrived with clearing skies and a day full of sunshine! We had been running the generator on and off the past 4 days due to lack of solar power so the sun was a welcome sight. Christmas is a time that most people get together with friends and family and the ever dreaded…. Christmas Drama… crying kids, in-laws or families that just cannot get along, everyone has experienced it. You would think we would be exempt from drama, after all it was just the 4 of us out in the middle of the desert…..Wrong! When you have a 2 year old lab, they think the world revolves around them so when we laid out Daisy and Dakota’s stockings filled with dog treats and toys Dakota wanted it all. Once all the gifts were unwrapped Dakota decided that she did not want to share becoming very possessive taking each of the toys one by one into the back corner of her crate and laying in there protecting them!

After all the antagonizing about it for several weeks I got Barb an Instant Pot! (Hey, that is what she asked for) So we are now part of the Instant Pot Club, I think we were the last members for many of our friends who got one in the last year and absolutely love them! Barb got me a training collar, I am still uncertain if it is really for me or for Dakota. After 31 years you would think she would know better than try to teach me new tricks.

The day after Christmas we had our first visitor! Our friend Kevin from Wisconsin was in Phoenix visiting his parents for Christmas and drove out to spend a couple days with us. We went jeeping the first afternoon heading out in the desert just west of the airport. I had a general idea of where we were heading hoping to come out on the Marble Mine Rd. After 3 hours we were still jeeping along with no road in sight. When a group of 4 wheelers approached us from the opposite direction we stopped and asked them if we were on the right track. “Yup just take the next right and it will wind towards the mine”. Perfect, we were ready to get out of the desert and head back for a beer. 30 minutes later still no sight of the mine or the road when we run across another group of 4 wheelers coming our way. We ask them about the mine or the mine road and they say that there is nothing out there but desert but they are headed back to town. So we turn around and follow them. Well we were within ½ mile of the mine and zigged when we should have zagged after taking the next right. Moral of the story bring a map or GPS when out in the desert!

That night we went to Heaven’s Kitchen BBQ for ribs! We had been there last year when he visited and that was the one request he had when he was here. It did not disappoint!

Those of you who know us know we like it really cold in our house. Always have and it is not uncommon for us to see our breath in the morning when we get out of bed. When we lived in a house we always turned the heat up to “company heat” whenever someone came over. But we would not need to do that for our tough guy buddy Kevin right? But even so, we turned the heat up to 50 and just to make sure he did not get cold we gave him two blankets. After inflating the bed and tucking him in we retreated to our bedroom, closed the door opened two windows and went to bed. During the night we heard the furnace kick on twice so we figured Kevin was nice and toasty in his bed. Imagine our surprise when we woke up the next morning with him wearing everything he brought on standing over the heat register with a blanket around him shivering like he was freezing! He later told us that his house is usually set between 70 and 75 and he likes it really warm! Well, that is one way to insure he was not going to spend another night!

The next day after going to Grub Stake for lunch we went back to rig to have a few beers and fly the drone. Kevin had never flown a drone before and actually flew it further away from the rig than I ever have flying it over 5,000 feet away……straight to the clothing optional section! Luckily it was a cooler afternoon so there were not anyone wandering around outside but even still….my apologies to the good folks over there, sometime you just cannot control your friends!

Kevin flying the drone over the clothing optional section!

Yesterday we had a lunch date with our friends Dale and Ruth who had recently returned from a trip to Cancun. And bonus…. It was my birthday! Ruth prepared a great meal of tri-tip tacos, those combined with a few beverages and great conversation made for a great afternoon! Unfortunately it started raining so we had to cut it a little short. Then to top it off we got a flat tire driving the mile and a ½ back from their place. Luckily it was one of the rear duallys and we limped it home on the one good tire rather than change it in the rain and mud.

Tazzy turned her head at the last second

What cat do you know that has her own chair?

Barb showered me with gifts; a hat, a shirt, a new tackle box and a new reel case so I spent the rest of the afternoon playing with my new tackle box moving items from one the old box to the new one. The evening was topped off with a great dinner of king crab legs and lobster! There are pros and cons to having your birthday so close to Christmas. The con is that growing up you constantly hear “this is a combo Christmas/birthday present” but on the positive side some of my favorite foods are on sale as it is the day before New Year’s Eve! We were able to pick up some king crab at $14/lb and a couple of small lobster tails for $4 each which Barb cooked in her new Instant Pot….totally delicious!

Tomorrow is the start of the new year ending one of the most adventurous years of our lives. I cannot even start to tell you what the highlights were, there were just too many.  Our Alaska trip was absolutely incredible, the fishing, the scenery and the new friends we met along the way. Looking at our Travel Map, we started our year and ended our year here in Quartzsite. As a matter of fact we are within a couple hundred yards of where we parked last year. It has been a great year filled with memories and friendships that will probably last a lifetime…..

Bring on 2017 and let the adventure continue!  

The girls found another geocache!