30th Anniversary!

February 7, 1986 my life changed forever for this is the date that I married my soulmate. Actually, my life changed a few months before that when I met Barb and a mere 3 months later we were married. In my early 20’s I thought I knew what love was but it was not until I met this wonderful woman that I truly learned what love is. I often think that there is no way I can love her any more but our love continues to grow and I can honestly say that I love her more today than any point in our marriage.

February 7, 1986

So what does one do on their 30^th wedding anniversary in the desert? Why, you  start the day off with strawberry waffles with a heart and “30”  made out of Redi-whip on it…. and bacon of course! It was a splendid start to the day sitting in my recliner eating waffles with Daisy on my lap staring at the waffle just mere inches from her nose. She would alternate staring at me then the waffle, me then the waffles and so on…as if willing it to levitate from the plate into her waiting mouth. You could see the hope in her eyes… no way Daisy these are too delicious! It was not looking good for poor Daisy, so with less than a ¼ left she decided to take matters in her own hands (paws). She looked at me then the waffle and sneezed! And that is the story of how Daisy got some of my anniversary waffle.

Breakfast complete I went out to work on the truck. Earlier in the week I had loaded up the water barrel to go fill it. Drove it to the water station, filled it up, got in the truck and it would not start! It would turn over but would not start. We’ve all seen that guy….the poor sap who was at the gas station or store parking lot just cranking their engine hoping it would start while trying to ignore all the people around staring at them….ya I was that guy. With time ticking by and people starting to pile up in the water line behind me some guy walks up to my truck and says “Truck won’t start?”. Well, no sh#t Sherlock! With a little help we pushed the truck out of line and I took the walk of shame back to our rig. Barb and I went back with the jeep and towed the truck home (tow of shame). You feel like you are in a damn parade as everyone has to stop what they are doing and watch you go by, seriously don’t these people have anything better to look at? No, no, they don’t.

A few of us (Red, Steve) looked at it, checked fuses, bleed the fuel lines but it still would not start. The next day Dino came over while I was looking at it. It just so happens he has some experience with diesel engines! We were trying to prime the fuel filter when he looked under the truck and noticed there was fuel on the ground under the engine! Upon further inspection it looked like it was coming from the fuel filter. The problem is you cannot get to it without taking off a tire and the inner wheel well.

Since we had day trips planned the next two days we decided to work on it later.  Day trip one included taking Dino and Lisa up to Palm Canyon we hiked all the way up to the palms, took some pictures and relaxed for a while enjoying the view.

 

 

 

Dino and Lisa up top!

 

After hiking down we jumped in the jeep and headed to another area of Kofa for a hike to some remote water tanks and a "Grinding Cave". I had read about the hike in this area from fellow blogger Pam who had hiked it last year. The hike itself was pretty easy but the road in was pretty remote and rough.

Horse Tank

The grinding cave consists of over a dozen ancient mortars or "morteros" which were used by early inhabitants to grind grain several hundred years ago and remain intact today. 

 

The "Grinding Cave" was filled with over a dozen mortars

Some of them are very deep!

Sleeping Man Cave

 

Day trip #2 was a trip with them down to Cibola NWR. Although Cibola was a bit of a disappointment this time as the wildlife did not cooperate.  We had a great time and picked up a new fuel filter in Blythe on our way through. 

 Dino took this picture of us as we were walking through Cibola

A pair of Pintails resting on the shoreline

Found this guy looking for a snack

 

Fuel filter in hand I set out to get the truck running again. Borrowing a jack stand and jack from Red I removed the front tire, removed the wheel well and old fuel filter. Now just to get the new one on. Dino was there to help and with seeing all the activity at the truck several neighbors started to arrive. Not counting Dino and I, 9 others were there to lend support. We installed the new fuel filter, crossed our fingers and turned the key…..nothing! Just turns over and won’t start. We set out to pump and bleed the fuel filter in case there was air in the lines. After 10 minutes of pumping and alternately trying to start the engine it finally started! Hopefully that solves the issue.



Dave, Steve, Dino and Red (not pictured) lent a helping hand.

Our plan to end our anniversary day was to head to Grubstake with Dino and Lisa to watch the Superbowl. But before we did that I headed over to Steve and Dianne’s to chat with them a bit. They told me that they received a call that day from their credit card company asking if they had charged any transactions in Georgia at a Waffle House. No, they were in Arizona, not Georgia……their credit card had been compromised! Bummer…. After chatting with them for a bit we picked up Dino and Lisa and out to watch the big game. Half way through the first quarter I received a text from the fraud department of my credit card company asking me if I made a purchase at a gas station in Georgia. When I texted “no” I received another text to call them immediately. Ends up there were 4 other fraudulent charges….all in Georgia. Two people credit cards compromised in the same day? Coincidence, I think not. The only place we used our cards in common in the past week was the Pirates Den restaurant in Parker where a bunch of us had went last Saturday. I texted Steve and Dianne to let them know what happened and they responded that another couple who were with us had been compromised as well! I am not pointing fingers but just pointing out the similarities…… By the way, the day could not have ended better…. The truck started when we left and the Bronco’s won!

Our geocaching adventures this week included two days of riding with Dianne, Steve, Red and Pam. We put on a lot of miles and managed to find over 60 caches! We also got a few random caches with Dino and Lisa when we were out and about.


Thanks for the "Doggles" Hobie!

There was one really cool stop called Magic Footprint where there appears to be a footprint impression in the stone. You have to used your imagination but you can kinda see it.... (photo compliments of Steve)

Look just to the left of Steve's foot



Barb looking for a cache



Dianne headed off for another one



Steve.....look no hands!



Lunch stop!

We used the last of our eBay money to buy a new camera this week! We got a Panasonic FZ200. Fellow blogger and virtual friend Ingrid from Live Laugh RV takes absolutely stunning photographs and recommended this camera so if I buy it my photos will be equally as stunning right? Well not quite…… although I read an eBook on how to use this camera most of what I read disappeared when I got into the field. I did notice an improvement in my photos during this first week, they are nowhere near Ingrid’s. Time and practice….. That's the beauty of this lifestyle, there is always more time!

See ya next time!

 

Combat Geocaching?

Those of you who are email subscribers to our blog may have noticed a change last week. The emailed version is now a short summary rather than the full version. To read the rest simply click on the title of the post or the name of our blog right above the title.

Barb has been busy spending hours planning our Alaska adventure this summer. I am amazed at how much planning goes into a journey like this. Route planning, site seeing, fishing, adventure tours as well as meeting with some friends (Trace/Lee, Bill/Kelly) and Barb’s cousin while we are there all must be specifically detailed as not everything is open or fits into the schedule. She has a detailed spreadsheet and all her hours are paying off as our plans are becoming solidified. We will share a high level summary sometime in the coming months.

This past week brought a couple of changes to our RV Dreams community. Steve and Deb, Trace and Lee and Greg and Cori have each moved on. We had a great time with each of them and hope to meet up sometime in the future. New arrivals include Dave and Diane, this is our first time meeting them and have enjoyed getting to know them better. Also arriving this week is our good friends Dino and Lisa. We originally met them in Florida last winter and caught up with them in Moab last spring as well.

Saturday afternoon 19 of us met at Black Pearl Restaurant at Pirates Den RV Resort. With that many of us we had to break up into two tables.  The food was good and the company was great.

Barb and I with new arrivals Lisa and Dino

Red and Pam along with the other new arrivals Dave and Diane

The rest of the gang

Leaving the restaurant we headed across the Parker Dam into California as we heard tell there were some wild burros wandering the roads over there. And burros there were…….. as we were driving down the road we started to see some wild burros. Although some were shy I would not call them wild. When we pulled over they would walk up to see if we brought them any treats. We were actually able to pet them and get some great pictures.

 

Lisa getting ready to get bit!

Mom and baby

No feeding the burros!

The next few days included A LOT of wind (50 mph gusts), some thunder, lightning and rain. Most everybody retreated to their rigs to wait out the weather. Barb and I spent a few hours watching History of the Eagles. It was one of those few shows that actually moved us and reminded us of how music has changed over the years. We both grew up listening to……. The Eagles, Who, Steve Miller Band, Bread, Linda Ronstadt, Joan Baez, Chicago, Crosby Stills Nash, Led Zepplein and of course The Beatles…… I could go on.

Comparatively the groups in the 80’s were crap. I just could not get into AC/DC, Motely Crue, Van Halen and the like. As a result I turned to country, with my musical hero’s being; Waylon, Willie, Merle Haggard, Oak Ridge Brothers…. To this day I still don’t think anything has come close musically than 60’s/70’s rock and that old country. It is sad really….   I would love to hear your thoughts on this…..

Barb along with some of the other ladies in our neighborhood recently went to a line dancing class at the community center in Quartzsite. She said it was an absolute blast boot-scooting and boogieing with people from 50-mid 80's. She said some of them were very good while she and a few others spent most of their time laughing at themselves.  She said she will definitely do that again!

Dino and Lisa recently bought a jeep so first order of business with them was to hit the hills! We took the Diablo Pass trail that we had taken the week before on the 4 wheeler as it looked like a great jeep trail as well. It was a great ride with some very technical areas for a jeep. There were a few areas where we within inches of rock walls and we did bottom out a couple times on some larger rocks. In addition there were a few areas where we had to lock in the 4WD to get up some of the steeper slopes. It is a weird feeling when you come up over a hill and you cannot see where the trail goes as the hood of the jeep blocks your view as you crest the hill.

In one particular spot I stopped at the top of a hill and waited to get a picture of Dino and Lisa as they crested the hill. Although I could not see them I could hear them making their way up the trail behind us. Then I heard their jeep stop, heard a door slam and the jeep grinding up the hill. Soon their jeep crested the hill with Dino but no Lisa! Evidently when they were at the bottom of the hill looking up Lisa said “Oh hell no!” (I may be paraphrasing there) and she got out and walked up the hill. We all had a great time on the trail, survived without doing any damage to our jeeps, found 8 geocaches and ended the adventure with lunch at Grubstake in town.

Dino and Lisa coming up a hill

Lisa is not in the jeep as Dino crested this hill!

 

There are entire golf courses out in the desert....this is a typical "Green"

Speaking of geocaching, Barb and I invented a new way to geocache called “Combat Caching”. On one of the chiller days we had been cooped up most of the day and had to get out. So later in the afternoon we (and Daisy too!) jumped in the jeep to hit a string a caches along a dirt road. We made a contest on which one of us could find the cache first. We would approach the cache area and Barb would look at the GPS and say something like “75 feet that way” then we would tear out of the jeep and run to see who could find the cache first.

I went out to a 3-0 lead then she started to get a little competitive. As we would approach a cache she stopped giving me directions but would instead jump out of the jeep with Daisy and just start running. She found the next three pretty quickly and it was 3-3. So I had to switch it up and run faster than her and find the cache. I got the next two making it 5-3 before she changed her tactics. (What Jim didn't tell you was that while we were making our way out to a geocache, he was concerned that he was behind in the contest so he stepped on my shoelace to make me fall and just kept running laughing like a crazy man......now that is combat caching!). Soon she would be looking at the GPS, say stop and take off running with Daisy. I would jump out and race past her looking for the cache only to look behind me to see her running in an entirely different direction laughing! Daisy did not know what was going on but she was having a blast running through the desert.

The other cars and 4 wheelers must have thought we were nuts. I can only imagine what they thought as they passed our jeep on the side of the road, both doors open and two people and a dog running through the desert in different directions! Using this new tactic I had no idea where to look for the caches and Barb took a commanding lead that I never recovered from.

One thing we did not consider was the fact that there is poisonous snakes and spiders out here and one should probably not run haphazardly through the desert. Good thing it was cold that day or things could have ended up a lot differently.

 

It was crazy windy on top of this hill! See our 4 wheeler? (little dot above Barb's right hand)

Who knew geocaching could be so dangerous!
 

Exciting Week in Quartzsite!

With the Big Show over and most of the rigs heading for other areas one would think life in the desert is quite and tranquil. Not so much…… This tranquility is often disrupted by the sounds of sirens from police, fire or ambulance and sometimes all three. At least once a week you hear an ambulance coming through the area to someone’s rig. With the majority of the “residents” here on the upper end of the age spectrum, this is to be expected. We have one trailer of the edge of our little “dreamer” community that has been there for several weeks and we have never seen anyone come in or out of it. Several of us were concerned for the welfare of the occupant so the ranger was called to check on him. The ranger came, knocked on the door and an elderly gentleman came out. Everything is okay, he just stays in his trailer coming out every few days.

Speaking of the rangers, one of the sirens sounds was a result of one of our very own group going a little too fast down the main desert road out here (name left out to protect the guilty but lets just say that the offenders name starts with an “S” and has a “T”, a “V” and two “E”’s with the last name sounding like a McDonald’s value meal. Luckily he had a good excuse being late for the football game and having hot wings in the car and got off with only a warning.

The most serious of offenses occurred just the other day when an ambulance, fire rescue, Quartzsite PD, sheriff and the ranger surrounded two rigs a hundred yards away. There was lots of speculation within our group of what was going on; rolling meth lab? Domestic? Medical? The truth ended up being as bizarre as each of those.   There is a rig not too far away with a REALLY loud generator, you know, one of those industrial jobs you would see at a construction site. Most of us were annoyed but learned to live with it. Everyone except his neighbor who had had enough and went over to talk to the guy. In the end, one guy ended up in the hospital (generator guy) and the other guy ended up in jail! Mind you, these were not some of the youngest members out here! It is actually very unfortunate as the gentleman who ended up in jail is a really nice guy.

Monday of this week included another RV Dreams mini-reunion that Steve and Dianne organized. It was a beautiful afternoon and a great event. All told there were 41 people in attendance.  

Photo compliments of Steve C.

Steve and Dianne Colibaba, Karen and Bob Palmer, Dale and Ruth Finkenbiner, Larry and Kathy Seifert, Gerry and Linda Burns, Corey and Jen, Bob and Lindy Arel, Allen and Donna Ferguson, Matt Terrell, Tom Drotning, Harry and Vicki Forrey, Jim and Barb Nelson, Steve and Debbie McCormack, Ellen and Mario Bendana, Red and Pam Beers, Les and Sue Young, Gina Rouse, Paul and Kim Halin, Claudia and Mike Bezares, Cori and Greg Young, Tracy and Lee Perkins...

Our biggest objective of the week was to attempt the Palm Canyon hike again. If you recall, I attempted it two weeks ago when we hiked the canyon with our friends Larry and Kathy. On that trip Larry and I attempted to get to the palms while Barb and Kathy waited for us on the bottom. I made it to the smaller palms but a 10’ rock wall stopped me from getting to the larger ones. I was very frustrated and determined to try again! This time armed with gloves and a 50’ rope Barb and I set out to conquer this nemesis!

At first glance it appears the obvious route is straight up the canyon towards the palms. This is the route that Larry and I took the other week and I would consider very technical climbing for the average hiker. However, to the discerning eye (Barb) there is a less obvious route up a very narrow adjacent canyon that leads to the same area. Although this route contains some rock climbing and scrambling, it is much easier. So easy in fact I think even our friend Deb could climb it!

Headed up!

Almost to the top!

Barb at the top of the chute with the palms in the background

Just a few hundred more feet......



Barb with her infamous victory pose!



Chill'in on the top!

Barbie headed back down

Our big 4 wheeler ride this week involved a group ride to the Diablo Pass area with a group of riders which included Steve, Dianne, Earl and Eric. This was probably the coolest ride that we have gone on so far as it offered a variety of scenery and terrain. It had flat open terrain, hills, and technical terrain. The bonus of this trip was collecting 8 remote geocaches and seeing a group of Desert Bighorn Sheep!

Dianne headed down a wash

We stopped at an abandoned mine for lunch

I wanted to go down but didn't.....

The trails go on and on and on.......

We passed a group of 15 jeeps on the trail



Barb heading up to find a geocache

Ram snacking on a Palo Verde tree

A pair of rams on the hill

Last but not least Barb and a few of the girls attended the local bookstore in Quartzsite. This bookstore is known not for their wide selection of books or their great prices. What makes this bookstore so well-known is the attire of the owner. Or should I say lack of attire! This 70 something year old gentleman is well known to tend his store wearing nothing but the very smallest garment so the girls had to check it out. It is an image that Tracey says is now burned into her mind forever!

We will leave you this week with this image.......