A Week of Chores in the Desert

One of the things we love about this lifestyle and specifically blogging is the people you meet. We have yet to meet a cranky full-timer, what do they have to be cranky about? This week we had the opportunity to meet a couple we have been “virtual friends” with for quite a while.  John and Pam have been fulltiming for over 6 years and are probably the most active people we have met. Avid hikers, bikers and golfers it seems like they are doing something every day.  We read in envy at many of the hikes they take hoping that someday we would meet up with them and perhaps do a hike with them and be included in one of their infamous "lunch with a view" pictures.  I looked back and we have been following each other’s blogs since 2014 so when we found ourselves in the same general area we made plans to finally meet up. Where did we meet you ask? Well a brewery of course!

Specifically the Barrio Brewing Co. It is one of John and Pam’s favorites and I am glad they shared it with us. We spent a couple hours telling tales of hikes we have been on, they shared some of their favorite area hikes with us and made plans to go on a hike together the following week.

We did get out on one mini hike in the Saguaro National Park with Forrest and Lily earlier this week. Upon arriving in the park we went into the Visitors Center where Barb got her passport book stamped. Lily spent some time with one of the rangers who explained the Junior Ranger program. As part of this program you get a workbook which includes things to looks for in the park. Upon completion you return to the Visitors Center where you go over your workbook with a ranger, take an oath and get a certificate for completing the Junior Ranger program for that park. It is a really great way to get kids involved in the park and promote teaching opportunities for the kids (and parents/grandparents). On our mini hike we looked for several items required in the workbook (a 5 armed saguaro, an animal burrow, a flowering cacti, an animal print……) we just have a few more before we can return for her certificate.

Off to the desert with the workbook

Hi Grandpa!

Our Quartzsite friends Dale and Ruth moved down to this area for a few weeks and wanted to share their favorite brewery with us so along with Greg we met them for dinner Thursday night. Thunder Canyon Brewery is a great brewery with very good food. Highly recommend the chicken/bacon mac and cheese. Great to see Dale and Ruth one more time while they are in the area.

Ruth, Dale, me, Barb and Greg

My favorite was the 2nds one on the left, Aloha Brew while Barb liked the 2nd one

from the right,

The rest of the week was filled with chores around the campers. I finally got the replacement skylight I ordered in early January. Our existing skylight developed a number of cracks. It was originally supposed to arrive by the 23^rd while we were in Quartzsite but after it did not arrive I contacted the company who said it should arrive on February 7^th, well after we are gone from the area. So I had them ship it to a UPS store down here in Tucson where it arrived safe and sound on the 8^th.

The first task was removing the existing skylight....

There were 20 screws around the skylight and plexi was broken around every single screw! They obviously tightened them too much when installing it. You could see that the cracks in the skylights started at several of these screw holes.

 After removing all the "gunk" and thoroughly cleaning the surface I put down a bed of Dicor and set the skylight in place and secured it with several screws. Then I used EternaBond Tape around it and put a bead of Dicor around that. Should be good for a while!!!!

I also took the Jeep in to have a front axle u-joint replaced. It has been making a clicking noise for a few weeks and wanted to get it done before we started our long journey north. $235 later it was fixed and they informed me that my rear brakes were in desperate need of replacement. For a mere $550 they would have it done by the end of the day! This was on my Quartzsite list but I never got around to it but I certainly was not paying over $500 to have it done! I have never done drum brakes but with the help of YouTube I changed the first one in about 4 hours...putting it together and taking it apart over 12 times before I finally got it right. The second wheel took less than an hour saving over $500 from the quoted price.

Definitely needs new brakes!

Everything removed

New brakes, new springs and tensioner....ready to roll!

And last, after being ridiculed happy hour after happy hour about the condition of the table on our chairs I finally got around to replacing the table tops. After searching Home Depot and Target for a material that would work I finally settled on a thicker baking sheet which I cut to fit. Now they are as good as new and hopefully the ridiculing will stop! 

Both of our  tables looked like this from being left out in the rain too many times

Baking sheet cut to fit!

 We have yet to get out on a major hike but one way or another that is going to change next week!

I Spy with my Little Eyes........Nogales Mexico?

Next month will mark our third anniversary on the road, each of these years we spent time in Arizona during the winter months and each of these years we have made day trips into Mexico. The last two years we crossed the border in Yuma into Los Algodones Mexico.  We found this little city easy to navigate with many little shop and catered to the dental, vision and pharmaceutical needs of the tourist visiting the town. Each time we visited we would hit the Purple Store for our prescription and liquor purchases as well as wandered the streets in search of treasures we just could not live without.

This year we decided to switch it up a little bit and enter Mexico through Nogales Arizona into Nogales Mexico. Just a short 12 hour drive from Tucson….wait it just seemed like 12 hours. When is the last time you spent an hour in the truck with a 5 year old playing a never ending game of  “ I spy with my little eyes”? Actually it is about an hour south of Tucson on I-19. We parked in one of the many secure parking areas charging $4-5 for the day and walked across the border.

Getting ready to walk in!

I spy Lily and Somer wearing sombreros!

Although they still had some dental and vision shops there were not nearly as many as Los Algodones. There was quite a few pharmacies but they were all pretty small, nothing like the Purple Store. Nogales is much less touristy and more like what we would classify as old Mexico.

There were still shops up and down the streets but they did not seem as clean or kept up as Los Algodones and their wares were not as appealing. One thing I will say is that the vendors seemed friendlier and genuinely appreciated you being there.

There did not seem to be a “tourist district” like we were accustomed to so we wandered the streets more dazed and confused but eventually did find a pharmacy where we bought everything we were looking for. On this trip we bought (4) Z-packs, (2) bottles of 800mg Ibuprofen and (2) bottles of Benadryl for just under $30.

Outside one of the many pharmacies

We never did find a liquor store but Forrest and I were both approached by two different guys who asked us what we were looking for and that they could get us anything we wanted…. “legal, illegal I get it for you”. I am not really sure what that meant but we passed.

We had lunch at La Roca, a great local restaurant which I would highly recommend. They had great food (which says a lot considering I am not a huge fan of Mexican food) and a really cool atmosphere.

The menu

Getting Serenaded

The line to get out was about 2 hours but once we got up to the customs station they passed us right through. We were a little skeptical having Lily along but after showing her birth certificate and asking Lily a couple of questions we were good to go. I am glad we went to experience it but now that we have been there, I cannot say we would go back, it just did not offer the what we were looking for and had a different vibe compared to Los Algodones.  

Line back into the U.S.

Vehicle traffic waiting to get back in

"The Wall"

That night for dinner Forrest and Somer made us “campfire pizza”. They hand made the pizza and cooked it over the glowing embers of a fire.  This was our first experience with this delicacy and it was really good!

Campfire Pizza!

We have also been working on a couple of projects around the rigs. One day we installed cables on the ramp of Forrest and Somer’s toy hauler to create a patio. It was a little intimidating drilling that first hole into their new rig but it worked out great!

Getting ready to drill into the ramp!

Finished!

And we are continuing to work with Dakota every day. We have been working on hand signals for retrieving and working on her gun shyness. The Tucson Skeet and Trap club is only 3 miles from us so we have been taking her down there getting her used to gun shots. When we first started we went down there and played with her at the very edges of the range; throwing the retrieving dummy, walking or just sitting and relaxing. She was a little nervous her first time but pretty much ignored the gunshots after a few minutes.

Walking by one of the skeet stations

We have been going down there almost every day slowly working our way closer and closer to the shooting. We push her a little more each time and she lets us know when she is too nervous. After 10 days of this we are within 75 yards of the shooters and she just ignores them. Our hope is that we will be able to be within 20 yards by the time we leave here in a few weeks.

Our biggest surprise of the week came Saturday when we got a message from our nephew David who said he was going to be in Tucson for the day and wanted to get together. David is an over the road trucker who we have not seen in about 10 years. As a matter of fact we had a hard time pinpointing the last time we got together.

David and his rig

Very cool dash

and sleeper

We spent about 3 hours catching up on each others lives, families, brothers, sisters and cousins. It was great seeing him and vowed not to let another 10 years pass before we got together again!

Tomorrow we get to FINALLY meet long time blogger friends John and Pam! As John would say…..more on that later….    

Windowless in Tucson!!!!!

It has been a while since we have driven in “big city” traffic so Tucson rolled out the red carpet and threw everything at us. Bumper to bumper traffic, accidents and idiot drivers.

Welcome To Tucson

Roll over involving a horse trailer

Dakota and I led the way in the jeep while Barb followed in the big rig. We went directly to the 20 acre Snyder Hills BLM area on the southwest edge of the city. We had camped here for a couple days in 2014 and found it a nice quiet place to stay. Our hope was to stay there for 14 days and then find another location. However when we arrived we found it absolutely packed! There were rigs everywhere and I mean everywhere. There was one open spot but after a couple attempts we decided that we would not fit and ended up parking along one of the drive lanes adjacent to the road.

20 acres of RV's

At the dead end but near the busy road

As we were getting set up I noticed there was something wrong with the bedroom window. It was gone! How did that happen? As our friend Dianne would say “Geez”. I guess the emergency window had an emergency......

Barb has been on the phone with a couple local Forest River dealers in an attempt to order a new one. After several days Lazy Days never called her back, but she got a hold of a very helpful parts man at Frost RV who tried for a couple days to find the exact one we needed. She finally called Forest River herself, gave them our VIN number and he promptly gave her the part number. Unfortunately she could not just order the window, we get to get a new frame and everything....AND they have to make the part (2-3 weeks and another week for delivery) AND it could only be ordered by an authorized dealer. So she called Frost RV back and they ordered it while she was on the line with them.  In the meantime I snapped out the screen, encased it in plastic and snapped it back in place so we are somewhat secure from the dust and wind.

After our first noisy night at Snyder Hills we moved over to Justin’s Diamond J’s just a couple miles down the road. Forrest, Somer and Lily were due to arrive and we were hoping to get a little better spot for the next couple of days and determine where we wanted to stay longer term. Diamond J’s is a nice park with somewhat large sites. Unfortunately they did not have any sites for that night so we took a $12 sites in their overflow area (They charged us $12 for the jeep and trailer as well). The overflow sites were even closer to the road then the Snyder Hills site!

Late that afternoon Forrest arrived! We have not seen them in over 7 months and it was great to see them….Lily is really growing up!

Between  the traffic noise and the dogs barking across the street we had a restless night and wished we were back at Snyder Hills...so that's what we did the next morning, packed up again and moved back to Snyder Hills. Luckily someone had vacated a spot that would fit both of us so now we are snuggled in here for a few weeks. The previous tenants must have had quite the party while they were here because they left 7 cans of whipped cream behind...someone's birthday perhaps, something more interesting? For those of you who don't know just google "huffing Reddi-Whip" and you will  understand.

Our friends Greg and Cori, owners of RV Solar Solutions arrived at Diamond J's the following day as well so we went over to their place for a welcoming happy hour. We have not seen them since Quartzsite last winter. They had reserved a spot for a month so hopefully we will have more get-togethers with them.

Forrest, Somer, Barb, Greg and Cori

Our first adventure here was to the Desert Museum. Each of us bought a Tucson Attractions Coupon Book so it was 1/2 regular admission. Barb and I had toured the museum last year and thought Forrest, Somer and Lily would enjoy it. It is like a combo museum, zoo, botanical gardens all rolled into one. Lots of wildlife exhibits....Lily got to pet a stingray as well as walk through the hummingbird exhibit both of which she thought were very cool!

This guy was over a foot long

Archaeologist Lily

Touching the Stingrays!

Western Tanager

This hummingbird is sitting on a nest

The nest is no bigger then a quarter

I tried to get Barb to do this but she refused saying they would

probably have to call the fire department to extract her!

They have just about every variety of desert plant there is, they had names by many of the plants so you could learn the plants that grow in the surrounding desert.

A crested Saguaro

This one looks like a fuzzy Dilbert

Bee on a daisy

No sure what these are but you can caption this one yourself

Also arriving this week was Jim and Brenda who we had recently met in Quartzsite. They are having some work done on their Momentum and spent a night here at Snyder Hills. We got together one afternoon for a tutorial on blogger. Stay tuned for their blog adventures coming soon!!!!

This morning Barb woke me up whispering "Happy Anniversary" in my ear. Wait? What?!?! At first I thought it was a dream but it quickly turned into a nightmare as I had not bought anything for her....no card, no gift, no candy....so I got ran to the truck (after getting dressed) and rushed to the nearest store. Entering the store I stopped dead in my tracks and knew I was in trouble...... but with the help of a friendly sales clerk I left with everything I needed.....

Feliz Aniversario a mi Ángel de la guarda!

Whew dodged that bullet......I am going to give them to her tonight, I will let  you know how that goes!