Safe at Home!

We arrived home this afternoon after several days on the road. We spent 3 days in Willcox, AZ visiting an old Navy buddy. We had a great time with JD and look forward to more visits with him.

We visited Apple Annie’s, tasted a little wine, and found time for a DQ while in Willcox.

We then drove through Douglas, AZ planning to stay in Bisbee but I missed the road to the RV park and the next place to turn around was 16 miles later. RV Parks in Tombstone were full so we continued on to Cochise Terrace in Benson where we have stayed many times. It is a real nice park. Very clean. Our stay included tickets for a free meal the first night. It was served in their clubhouse and was very good.

After a 3 day stay we moved back to the Elks Lodge in Casa Grande for one day to again visit Clyda's cousin Rod and his wife Clara Lynn. Their daughter Nikki came down from Mesa and we all went to dinner. Really nice to see Nikki.

We then moved on to Quartzsite with a stop at RV Pitstop to get a propane tank re-certified and filled. With that accomplished we found a spot on Plamosa Road for the night. The next day we moved on to Kelbaker Road on old Hwy 66 between Needles and Barstow. We have stayed here before but this time there was a lot of wind so we spent little time outside.

The next morning we drove to Bakersfield through Tehachapi where the California poppies on the western hills were unbelievable. Huge patches of orange on the hillside. We stayed with Budd and Brenda for 2 days. Always fun to spend time with them. The ladies beat the guys BADLY in Sequence as usual but us guys got back at them playing Jokers and Marbles last night.

Today we drove home via Santa Maria with all the hills so green. Unless we get rain soon it will be it's usual brown before long.

Sorry, no photos tonight.

Happy Valentines Day!

We moved from Jack and Judy's property on Monday, Feb 8^th to the Elks Club at Casa Grande. We have been here many times before but it is a convenient place to stay, and cheap, while we visit Clyda's cousin Rod and his wife Claralyn. We had dinner at their house Monday night.

Tuesday we bummed around Casa Grande and had dinner at Culvers which meant we also had a frozen custard for dessert (Eat your heart out Budd and Brenda). It was good.

On Wednesday afternoon we moved to the old Pinal Fairgrounds 7 miles east of Casa Grande for the 3 day gourd festival. We camped with friends Jim and Michelle. Michelle is the “gourder” in the group. I have done a few gourds but am no where in her class.

The weather was perfect, warm and sunny. Evenings required only a light shirt to ward off the chill. We camped right near the festival grounds which was great as we could come and go as we pleased.

One building contained all the “juried” gourds. Those submitted for judging and another had booths for sellers. 

 Gourds supplied by Wertz farms.

 

 Juried gourds

 

 

Story teller given as a prize (Clyda really wanted this but no luck) 

 

There were food stands between them and music on the stage throughout. We ate lunch from the available food which was of a great variety and all very good. A very enjoyable few days.

Today we moved on to Willcox, AZ and the Elks Club. We are here to visit an old Navy buddy of mine, JD. I made contact with JD through my other buddy Gary in Oregon. JD will come by the RV tomorrow morning.

After a few days here we will move on. Where? We don't know at this time. We do plan to be home by the end of the month however.

Clyda is here.

I moved over the mountain (hill) last Tuesday afternoon to Jack and Judy's lot South of Bouse. They weren’t here as they were in San Diego helping her father clean out some stuff from his house. I got parked by myself which isn't real easy as I needed to back in next to their shed without hitting utilities, etc.

On Wednesday morning I drove to Parker to the Safeway store for groceries. I had last shopped in Las Vegas except for a few items from the local store in Quartzsite. The one thing the Quartzsite store does have is a good butcher shop and good meat. I bought 2 small filet's and BBQ'ed them on Friday night for Clyda's arrival dinner.

On Thursday I did laundry all morning and gave the rig a good cleaning in the afternoon. Friday morning I drove to the Phoenix airport and picked up Clyda after her 1 hour plus flight. We stopped on the West side of Phoenix for lunch before driving back.

I had filled up with diesel on the way to Phoenix and again when I got back and using the Gear Vendors Over/under drive at 75 MPH (posted speed) I got almost 22 MPG. Not bad!

Since Clyda has been here we haven't done much as it is really cold with a bite to the wind. We also had a wind, rain, lightning and hail storm Sunday night.

Today we went in to Quartzsite for lunch and so Clyda could do some shopping. There is not much there right now. Most vendors have left already. They did not have a good year as the weather didn't cooperate and many Canadians stayed away due to the difference between our and their dollar. For every US dollar they spend it costs 1.5 Canadian dollars. That is a steep price to pay.

Tomorrow the guys will go ATV riding and the ladies will go to a quilt show.

Final Quartzsite report for this year.

I did take the RV in on Friday to have the jack replaced. My appointment was for 8 AM so I had to get going that morning. I stayed around and by 10 AM the jack was replaced.

Over the last 2 weeks we have made several trips to town to visit all the vending areas. Of course, the big attraction is the RV show in the big tent. There aren't any RV's in the tent just vendors loosely related to the RV industry. It does draw a large crowd each day so we usually don't go the first few days the tent is open as the isles are grid lock.

Today we visited the specialty rock area called the QIA pow-wow. This is mostly a jewelery related rock show. I was surprised how many vendors were in attendance. Many more than in recent years. After a couple hours all rocks look the same so we came back to the RV.

Tomorrow I will go to Desert Gardens which is also a rock show but this is big rocks and covers a large area. It also has gotten bigger each year.

On Tuesday morning I will pack up and go over the mountain to Bouse and park at Jack and Judy's for a while. Clyda flies into Phoenix on Friday so I will pick her up and we will decide when and where will go for the next few weeks.

I will close with some Arizona sunsets.

Well, it failed again.

Three times it has failed and that's enough.

The front jack on the door side of the fifth wheel has failed again. It could have been worse and failed as I was on the road going somewhere but in fact it failed as I was getting ready to hook up in Las Vegas yesterday morning.

I had raised the front of the trailer almost enough to back the truck under it when “BANG” it let go. There was nothing I could do but continue to raise the front with the remaining jack and get the truck under it and hook up.

After we arrived at Plamosa Road near Quartzsite, AZ I used a bottle jack on that side along with the jack on the other side to raise the RV enough to get the truck unhooked and then slowly lowered the remaining jack and the bottle jack a little at time until the trailer was level.

This morning I went into Quartzsite to RV Lifestyles (where I bought the RV in 2005) and asked if they had a whole new jack assembly. I am tired of fixing the old one. They did have one on hand if it was 33 inches long. I came back to the RV and measured it and it was 33 inches so called them back to arrange an appointment for Friday morning.

I will hook up the RV late Thursday afternoon so I am ready to go Friday morning.

We had a nice day yesterday and today with temperatures in the mid 60's but was it cold this morning. Frost on everything when I got up with the internal temperature at 39 degrees in the RV. I don't run the heater at night but may need to if this continues.

Today was a lazy day with camp chores although I haven't set up much as I need to take things down for Friday. I did empty all the front compartments on the RV as one of them needs to be partially removed to allow access to the jack.

Tomorrow we will go to town to scope things out. There a quite a few people in this area already so it may be a big year for the vendors.

Sorry there are no photos. Maybe next time. All my photos are on my new Samsung S6 phone and I have had trouble getting them onto the PC.

CES report.

The fears of chaos at CES because of the security imposed on bags, etc did not materialize. There was inspection of bags but it did not impede entry to the buildings. There also was a much heightened security presence through out the facilities along with bomb sniffing dogs. It never caused a problem.

That being said, there seemed to be as many people as last year even though the planned attendance of 150,000 was reduced by 25,000 from last year. There still were large crowds. 

 Jammed isles in the mornings.

The large number of buses brought in to move people plus taxi's and private cars cause gridlock most mornings. Evenings were not as much of a problem as people leave at different times.

The size and scope of the facilities can be overwhelming as there are multi-venues through out Las Vegas. This show has really gotten quite large with over 3,500 vendors. Many of these vendors do something connected to the internet so it is now called IoT or The Internet of Things.

I did attend a presentation by the General Motors CEO Mary Barra on Wednesday. The theater was packed. She introduced the new Chevy Bolt, a second generation Electric Vehicle. Fairly impressive on face value but it remains to be seen what the pundits have to say.

Her opening remarks were with a backdrop photo of a missile launch followed by a short video of the Lunar Roving Vehicle driving on the moon at which time she called it “the first electric vehicle”. Brought a tear to my eye.

Below are some random photos I took. It is hard to get a good photo because of the crush of people around popular vendors.

Nice idea for  booth.

Need a few TV remotes?

How about a blow up booth? Easy to set up and take down.

 Drones, drones, drones everywhere.

 Audi's very impressive booth. All metal and black 

glass which glowed when lite with colored lights.

One of our group recorded 18,000 steps on his Fitbit today. Quite impressive. I didn't walk that much but guess I was in the 10,000 step range most days.

In Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show.

A short note from the Main Street Station RV Park in downtown Las Vegas.

Clyda and I had a nice few days with the Retzloff's over New Years. The plan was for her to go home with Budd today when he went there to play golf. Best plans and all as it rained and the golf game was canceled. Don't know when Clyda will get home.

I drove from Bakersfield to Tehachapi, CA with the plan to stop for fuel at Love's. However I neglected to take in to account that it was Sunday after New Years day and the traffic was horrendous and the lines at the pumps were unbelievable. So I pushed on to Mojave and got fuel at the Shell station which I had been wanting to check out anyway. They have nice pull through islands just for diesel. It may be my go to place in Mojave for fuel from now on.

I met the rest of the gang at the Boron rest stop and from there we drove to Domingo's restaurant in Boron for a quick lunch. Then it was on to Barstow, CA for a stop at Harbor Freight before continuing on to Baker where we parked as usual behind the Mad Greek restaurant for the night.

We left for Las Vegas about 10:30 AM Monday with a short stop in Primm to call the reservation service for our campsite numbers. We arrived at the RV park about 1 PM.

Later we picked up our show credentials at a nearby hotel then had dinner at Main Streets buffet.

Today we spent the day running errands. Dick and I had lunch in Chinatown. Quit an experience. It reminded me of eating out in Japan all those many years ago when you could not understand the servers. All the food came in steam baskets and you had to pick out what you wanted without really knowing what you were getting. It all was good and the bill came to $20 for 2 of us.

We stopped at The Bellagio Hotel to checkout the décor of a new restaurant called Lago. Quite impressive front decor.

 

We also watched workers move a very large set piece for the new display in the Conservatory. It is based on Chinese New Year.

Dinner tonight was at a local cafe. Prime rib for $9.99.

We have had light rain most of the afternoon and evening. It is certainly welcome but will complicate things tomorrow as we wait for buses and getting through the new