Travel Data

(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photo(s) above.)

OK. I know what you are thinking. What are these pictures all about? Well, I’ll tell you. Those of you who know us well, or have been in our home to eat, know that Carolyn is a good cook, no not “good,” a terrific cook! I could be prejudiced, but I am the beneficiary of all this goodness. Some of you have been lucky enough to receive gifts of her famous date-nut bread, which she sends out at Christmas time. Being on the road has not in anyway slowed this process down. Date-nut bread and cashew brittle are still being made and sent to special people. So, the question has come up. “How does she do it in an RV?”

The first picture is of our kitchen. It is not big, as you can see, but it is a normal kitchen, how-be-it, small! We still have all the normal and useful things like a stove, small toaster-oven and microwave and refrigerator-freezer. The frig is to the left. Cooking is cooking, small space or large. The only requisite is that we be stopped. Of course, it is sometimes a challenge to find the ingredients while in an out-of-the-way place. Our “pantry” space is much smaller than in our previous home, so we cannot always carry needed ingredients. We are still eating pretty much the same as we did in a “real” home, stationary that is, as compared to our present “mobile-condo.”

Take our Noon meal today, which is either Lunch or Dinner, depending on your custom, but for us it is the main meal of the day. “Chief Carolyn” prepared dried butter-beans, yams topped with butter, brown sugar, coconut and pecans. Added to that was a fresh-tossed salad with romaine lettuce, tomatoes, bell pepper, carrots, and onions topped with our favorite dressing. Blue cheese for Carolyn, honey-mustard for me. Add fresh-brewed, decaffeinated iced tea. No meat. No bread. We eat very little meat, when we do it is chicken or fish. We try to limit the bread, but we do like fresh baked bread. We do now, however, tend to make more one-dish meals and lots of home-made soups.

The second picture shows a solution to a problem. “What is the problem?”, you ask. You will note in the first picture that the toaster-oven sets behind the range. In order to open the top of the range, which folds back and sets straight up to use the burners, it was necessary to move the toaster-oven to the side. Is was a nuisances, so Carolyn came up with a solution so we would not have to move the toaster-oven. If you enlarge the picture you will see her innovation. Simple! She went outside and found two rocks, just the right size, to allow the top to be raised just enough, and held in place, to not have to move the toaster-oven and still be able to use the burners on the range. As a bonus, we can use the toaster-oven at the same time as well. You know the saying about necessity being the mother of invention, well here it is.

I promised you two or three weeks back that I would let you know about how our expenses in traveling turned out at the end of the year. So, here it is. We have kept close records of every mile traveled and every penny spent during the last seven months we have been on the road, from June through December 2007. We have traveled 12,412 miles: 8,233 miles pulling the fifth-wheel and another 4,179 miles without. During this time we have moved the trailer 40 times through 13 states.

I will tell you at the outset that our total expenses for the seven months was $16,681. I am sure that you are not interested in every small detail, so I have broken out some expenses that may be of interest, as a percentage of the total, as follows:

RV Park Fees: 11.7%

Fuel: 16.7%

Truck Maintenance: 3.3% (This includes a large, one-time expenditure.)

RV Misc.: 6.5%

Food: 19.2% (Of this amount, restaurants amount to 32.5% of our food $, 48 times in 30 weeks.)

Entertainment: 3.5% (Mostly fees into parks and attractions, but now including Dish TV.)

Laundry: .001% (The percentage is meaningless, but it amounts to about $4.15 weekly.)

If you want to know what these figures mean in dollars you can do the math. Some of you have wondered, as have we, if it costs more or less living in an RV than in a “regular” house. The way we figure it we are living for about half the cost in the RV, even including the total fuel cost to move us around.

That is about it for this week. Let me share another story with you that was shared with us by a good friend. This is supposedly a true story from the Orange County, Florida sheriff’s office.

An elderly Florida lady did her shopping and , upon returning to her car, found four males in the act of leaving with her vehicle. She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her voice, “I have a gun, and I know how to use it! Get out of the car!” The four men didn’t wait for a second invitation. They got out and ran like mad.

The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into the driver’s seat. She was so shaken that she could not get her key into the ignition. She tried and tried, and then it dawned on her why. A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces farther down. She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police station.

The sergeant to whom she told the story couldn’t stop laughing. He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale men were reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair, and carrying a large handgun. No charges were filed. If you’re going to have a Senior Moment, make it a memorable one!

2008--Week Two

(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photo(s) above.)

Time is moving swiftly in the new year. It is almost the middle of January, and we are settling in nicely in Arizona. We are not driving around a great deal now. It sure is a savings of fuel, which, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, is on the rise again. So, we are staying put for a while, resting up for future travels come Spring.

We are enjoying good conversation with our neighbors and getting to know them a little better. The first picture above is a map of our campground. We are in site # 104, on the upper left of the map. The second picture is of two of our neighbors, Jack (on the left) and Roy, in sites #105 and #100 respectively. Both of them are “single” campers who have spent years as permanent RVers. Both have spent most of their adult lives in California. Roy was a pipe fitter by trade, and Jack is a retired Marine Corps Captain. Jack began his RV lifestyle ten years ago after his wife died. He has several children, one of whom is a Major in the Air Force. He said that when his son made Major, he called him up to rub it in. When Jack answered the phone his son said, “Is this Captain Whitford.” Jack said, “Yes.” “Well“, said his son, “this is Maaaajooor Whitford” drawing out the word. Jack said, “Listen, I don’t ‘Sir’ anybody whose diapers I’ve changed.” You just got to love that kind of come back.

Apart from conversing with our neighbors and walking three miles a day, and the occasional trip, we mostly read and engage in a little TV watching, when something worthwhile can be found to watch, which is rare. Most of this new year is taken up with football, on TV that is, though I would much rather play it than watch it. But somehow we can’t seem to get up a scrimmage here among the “senior” crowd. I can’t image why!

Since Carolyn is more the football fan than I, she does the watching and I mostly read. I have read some five or six books lately, mostly fiction though I keep a couple non-fiction books going as well. One of the resent books was the “DaVinci Code.” If you haven’t read it, you have certainly heard about it. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the book, but I found it an interesting read, particularly about a man called Fibonacci. Not only am I familiar with Fibonacci, but I had studied and worked with his mathematical formulas. Let me explain.

First a little background. Fibonacci was a nickname, not the real name, of an Italian mathematician of the Middle Ages during the early 13th Century. His name was Leonard of Pisa, you know, the city with the leaning tower we all know about. His father was named Guglielmo who had the nickname of Bonaccio (“good natured” or “simple”). Leonardo was posthumously given the nickname Fibonacci (derived from the Latin “filius Bonacci,” meaning son of Bonaccio). Anyway, he was the most famous mathematician of his day and is responsible for much of the math we use today. He developed what has come to be know as the Fibonacci Sequence. A series of numbers the next number of which is the sum of the previous two numbers, like 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21 etc.. The result of this is what is known as the Golden ratio, 1.618. I know this sounds like a lot of “gobblely gook,” but bare with me a minute.

This Golden ratio has been shown to be found in all of nature from sunflowers to the human form, something known as the Divine Proportion. If one measures one’s height and divides that by the distance from the belly button to the floor, one gets 1.618, known as PHI (pronounced “fee”). The same is true if one divides the length of an arm from shoulder to fingertip, by the length from the elbow to the fingertip. Etc., etc.. Now, what does all this have to do with me?

Some of you reading this are aware that at one time I was a stockbroker. As such, for a time I worked for a man by the name of Robert Precther, founder of a financial research and advisory firm called Elliott Wave International, based on the theory of Ralph Elliott, which was based on Fibonacci ratios.

It is a collection of theories on how a market acts and reacts. Elliott wave theory is an idea that market behavior is based on waves rather than random timing. Elliott believed that market prices rose and fell in a series of waves based on the same Golden ratio or Golden mean that Fibonacci proved. Since this ratio is present in many aspects of nature and science, Elliott felt that it had great significance on the financial markets as well. The basic idea of this theory is that a market rises in a series of 5 “waves”, as he called them. Also, the theory states that the market declines in a series of 3 waves. Elliott’s theory is that on the first wave a market rises, on wave two it declines, beginning again to rise on wave three, has a period of decline again on wave four, and finally completes the rise on wave five. The period of correction is referred to as a three-wave correction, where the market declines for wave A, begins to rise for wave B, and falls again for wave C. Based on this, we analysed all the major financial markets from the Dow Jones on down, and sold this information to financial institutions such as banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, etc. worldwide who wanted to know what this method said about the psychology of the markets. Yes, I know. That is way too much information. But, believe me folks when I say we are in a “three-wave correction” right now. It is out of my system now. So we’ll move on.

We had to go toward Phoenix yesterday to get some needed things done, so we thought we would get a couple bikes to ride. Since we only walk three miles each day, we need some more exercise, you understand. You see a picture of our new acquisitions above. We had to buy them because we got such a good deal at Walmart. These are 15-speed mountain bikes that we got for $39 each. Such a deal! The one on the left is mine, the other Carolyn’s. Now we haven’t ridden bikes for many, many years. But, hey, we had never been in an RV before either. Master one, master the other!

I’ll leave you this week with a little story about life in the “senior” lane, certainly not the “fast“ lane.

After Christmas, a teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their holiday away from school. One child wrote the following:

"We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live in a big brick house but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida. Now they live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass. They ride around on their bicycles and wear name tags because they don't know who they are anymore.

They go to a building called a wreck center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now, they do exercises there, but they don't do them very well. There is a swimming pool too, but they all jump up and down in it with hats on.

At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out, and go cruising in their golf carts. Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And, they eat the same thing every night --- early birds. Some of the people can't get out past the man in the doll house. The ones who do get out, bring food back to the wrecked center for pot luck.

My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded someday too. When I earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out, so they can visit their grandchildren."

A New Year

We have now been in Gila Bend for one month. It seems like a short time. The first picture above was taken by the owner, Donna, at the Christmas dinner. The picture is not the best quality, but what is one to do. Maybe it’s the subject. The couple standing with us is Wayne and Marge Bishop from upper Michigan. They, so they tell us, spend six months a year in their motor-home and the other six months living on their boat in the Great Lake, I forget which one, Michigan or Huron, or maybe Superior. Whichever it is sounds like a life of luxury! We met another fellow camper, or RVer, in the Laundry Room this morning (Friday is our preferred day for laundry) from New Hampshire. They have a fifth-wheel also, and like us, prefer it over a motor-home because it has more living space, and a whole lot less expense. They spend nine months each year in New Hampshire at an RV Park and the other three months in Arizona. They have been doing this for the last nine years. The last three years they have been here in Gila Bend for the Winter.

By the way, although the terms seem to be interchangeable, there is a difference between a “camper” and an “RVer,” so we have discovered. A “camper” is one who takes an RV out to the lake, the woods or a recreational area for a vacation, or a weekend. An “RVer” is one who makes the RV a home for all or part of a year. You can understand the confusion in people’s minds since the paths of the two cross and occupy the same area for a time during the year. We, as you know, are “RVers.” As such, we have to carry our life’s goods and entertainment. The second picture above is how I have tied down our Dish Antenna and tripod to keep the strong desert winds from blowing it over again and again. You know the trouble we have had with the Dish already, if you have been reading. If you haven’t been reading, shame on you! Here I am working my fingers to the bone trying to keep you up-to-date!

Did you miss me? Of course not. You didn’t know I was away, did you? You thought I was still here doing my “fingers to the bone” thing. Right? Well I took a break. We took another one mile walk in the desert. We are now trying to walk three miles each day, a two mile walk in the morning and a one mile walk in the later afternoon. After the walk, we decided to go down the road and get some needed propane gas for the RV. Since we were there, we decided to get a Subway sandwich for Supper at the near-by shop and take it home. When we got home we had to eat it. Then it was time for the National News, so we had to find out what was new in the world outside Gila Bend. Now we know. Now I’m back. Aren’t you glad?

As some of you know, I have been doing a lot of research in genealogy. Since we now have time, I am getting into some of it again. I am from West Virginia and West Virginia was mostly settled by Parsons. Before WV split from Virginia, my ancestors were pioneers in opening up the western territory. I don’t wish to bore you with all this, but in reading a book called “Pioneers of Jackson County” (that is Jackson County VA/WV) by John House published 102 years ago in 1906, I discovered an interesting story concerning my great, great grandfather Charles Parsons. It also includes his brother, my great, great uncle, “Captain Billy” Parsons (a name he received from military service). My great, great grandfather was also know as “Devil” Charles, or “Devil” Parsons. Now why he was called that I haven’t yet discovered. I hope it is nothing bad. Anyway, here is the story as John House wrote it.

“Charles Parsons and his brother, Captain Billy, would often hunt together. One of them would follow around the hillside, and through the coves on the Little Creek side of the ridge, the other on the Big Run side. Whenever one heard the other shoot, he was to go to the top of the ridge and ascertain if he had killed game, and if so, help to dress and hang it up out of reach of wolves. Thus, they would follow round the hills, sometimes over on to Trace Fork and Sandy water, until evening, taking a packhorse the next day, to bring in their spoils.

One day while thus engaged, probably about the winter of 1824, Charles, when around near the low gap, heard the report of his brother's gun in the opposite cove. Being a clubfooted man, it took him several minutes to reach the top of the ridge. When he gained the summit, a strange sight met his gaze. Down the hillside a short distance, he could see through the underbrush, the form of a large buck, with its head down, rearing up partially, and churning down with its forefeet.

Seeing there was something wrong, as indicated by the peculiar actions of the deer, he hastily raised his rifle and fired, the ball passing through its body, near the heart. With the report of the gun, the buck reared to his hind feet, bringing up the redoubtable Captain Billy, a man of full two hundred pounds weight, hanging on to his horns, and pitched off down the steep hill, in the agony of death. Billy's hunting shirt was cut into strings by the knife-like hoofs of the deer, and he carried marks of the encounter for many days.”

So that is the story. Do you think the name “Devil” had anything to do with his clubfoot? Perhaps I’ll find out some day.

Since we have been RVing everyday is Saturday. We can do as we please. Get up when we want. Go to bed when we want with no fear of being late for anything the next day. It is very pleasant after some 64 years of having to live with a schedule. Nice! We have time to sit and enjoy the beautiful sunsets here in the West. We can take the time to watch the color spectrum change every so slowly into lavenders, gold and deep red. We can enjoy the whole changing color spectacle. We hope you will take time to enjoy the sunset where you are. I hope you can see a sunset where you are! I really hate to rub it in, but the last two days we have enjoyed temperatures of 74 degrees with brilliant sunshine and not a speck of moisture.

We hope the new year is starting off just right for each of you. Until next time………keep good thoughts.

(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photo(s) above.)

I trust each of you had a Merry Christmas and Santa was good to you. We have moved around so much in the past several months we wondered if Santa was going to find us. Thanks to friends and family, who obviously told Santa where we were, I don‘t think he reads the blog, but who knows, we had a good Christmas. Anyway, we are grateful that his sleigh and reindeer didn’t topple our trailer over, but it sure sounded like a train arriving. Oh, that was a train! One passes by about every 15 minutes or so where we are. The track is about 1.5 miles away, but with the open desert we can see them pass and hear the rumble.

We enjoyed Christmas dinner with the many other campers here at Augie’s RV Park. You see a picture here of part of the group. You may even recognize the lady in the center with a red shirt. We had lots of food to eat and fellow-campers to talk to. There was so much food that we had to do the “dinner thing” again the next day to try and eat it all up. There was still food left over when we finished the second effort. You know there was a lot of food because we did second and third helpings the first time around. The second picture is of the moon rising over the campground. The house you see is the campground owner’s.

As I let you know last week, yesterday, December 28th was our 50th wedding anniversary, so we figured we’d do something a little different and went to Phoenix (135 miles roundtrip). We had a good Italian lunch, courtesy of some dear friends (you know who you are), shopped around for a while. We left home early and didn’t get back until after dark, which at this time of year is not all that late. We enjoyed the day and got our monthly grocery shopping done to-boot.

The year we got married, 1957, was not only famous for our marriage, but was an interesting year in history as well. The Russians launched “Suptnik,” the first man-made satellite; Dwight Eisenhower is inaugurated for a second term as President and Dr. Seuss published “The Cat in the Hat,” a classic in children’s literature. Ted Williams signs a $100,000 contract, becoming the highest paid baseball player and the Milwaukee Braves (later to become the Atlanta Braves) won the World Series Championship. It was the year of birth for some notable “show-biz” people like Michelle Pfeiffer, Paul Reiser, Gloria Estefan, Vanna White and Donny Osmond. The favorite music of the year was “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley, “Diana” by Paul Anka and “Chances Are” by Johnny Mathis.

1957 seemed to be a less expense era with milk at $1.00 a gallon, eggs at 28 cents a dozen, bread at 19 cents a loaf and coffee at 90 cents per pound. Cheap you say! Well, I guess it is all relative since the average yearly income was only $4,594. But gasoline was 24 cents a gallon, a postage stamp was 3 cents, the average rent was $90.00 per month. A new car cost $2,157 and a new house was $12,225. You could buy a whole year’s tuition to Harvard University for $1,000; compare that to about $40,000 per semester today. I remember sitting around with others at lunch time where I worked in 1953 talking about the possibility of retiring in luxury with $10,000 per year. Wow! A minimum wage job earns more than that a year today. Some luxury!

Since we are stationary for a while, with the sight-seeing done, we had to figure out other avenues for entertainment. Of course, there is always TV, but that gets too much at times. To help pass the time we brought along a few jigsaw puzzles. We put the puzzle out on a felt cloth that can be rolled on a tube to keep the pieces in place until it is unrolled again. We put this “roll” beside a lounge chair under a window. The other day we got it out to work on it again. When it was unrolled we found some of the pieces wet and separating the front from the back. We wondered why this was so, until we looked under the window where it had been laying. Yep, a big wet spot. Not only had water been leaking in, it was still leaking in. What to do!

I knew that it would do no good to try and caulk the window with it still wet and water coming in. I needed a temporary fix until it dried enough to hold caulk. The light bulb came on over my head (you know how it is in the comic-strip) so I got a piece of gum from a pack and put it in my mouth. You have guessed already what I had in mind, haven’t you? Well I chewed for a while, removed the gum from my mouth, made a little rope shape from the gum and stuck it over the leak in the window. Don’t laugh! It worked! I did nothing more to the window for about a week, then fixed it properly with caulk. What is it about necessity being the mother of invention? I guess it is.

A new year will be upon us pretty soon. We have been on the road now for seven months, and still enjoy the adventure. Soon I will get our records together and see how we have faired in the expense department during this time. Is living in our “old house” or on-the-road more expensive? We’ll let you know how it breaks down. In the meantime, we wish you all a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Merry Christmas

(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photo(s) above.)

SEASONS GREETINGS! Can you believe it! It is that time of year again. I know that all of you out there have all your shopping and holiday preparations done by now. No? Well, hop to it! I want to remind you that you can add comments to these blogs. Thanks Austin for communicating with us on last week’s blog. We appreciate the thought. We hope all of you enjoy hearing from us, but we like to hear from you as well, so get to it!

It will soon be Winter. It happens this year on December 22nd. You know how this seasonal dating works don’t you? Astronomical Winter (as opposed to Meteorological Winter), in the Northern Hemisphere, begins on different days at times because it is determined by when the sun is at it’s highest point in the sky over the Tropic of Capricorn (12 ½ degrees south latitude). For meteorologists, Winter begins on December 1. They seem to need a constant time in order to keep accurate weather data. So they use constant dates for the seasons, like March 1, June 1 and September 1 for the other seasons. As the newscaster Paul Harvey used to say, “And now you know the rest of the story.”

Let me share a little Christmas Trivia with you:

The traditional Christmas season begins at sundown on 24th December and lasts through sundown on the 5th of January. For this reason, it is also known as the Twelve Days of Christmas. You know, “Lords a leaping,” and all that stuff in the song.

An average household in America will mail out 28 Christmas cards each year and get 28 cards in return. Carolyn is way above average. That number barely gets her started. Try 80 to 100 cards!

In 1836 Alabama was the first state to declare Christmas a legal holiday, and in 1907 Oklahoma was the last state to do so.

Did you know that according to a 1995 survey, 7 out of 10 dogs get Christmas gifts from their doting owners. Our dogs did! Our last pooch, Rusty, a toy poodle, looked forward to opening his gifts. We would wrap his gifts only in white tissue paper. On Christmas day he would search under the tree for his gifts and only retrieve what was wrapped in white paper, then proceed to tear them open.

Christmas this season will be quite different for us. It will be the first time away from at least some members of the family. This year it is only Carolyn and I. The campground where we are spending the Winter is having Christmas dinner for everyone who wants to attend. The owners, John and Donna, are providing two large hams and a turkey. Everyone else is bringing a dish to add to the table. You see a picture above of the setting in the recreation hall where we will be eating. The pot of flowers is blooming outside the rec hall. The meal is scheduled for 3:00 PM on Christmas day. We will surely meet some new friends on that day.

This year is another big year in our life. On December 28th we will celebrate our 50th Wedding Anniversary. It sounds like a long time, but it seems short on the one hand, and forever of the other. All in a good way, you understand. If we can live in a home some 39 feet long by 14 feet at its widest, and not kill each other, I think we can make it for years to come.

Let me leave you with some profound philosophy from that little, bald character, Ziggy. In Art, and in Life: “Putting Problems into Perspective is the First Step in finding their Vanishing Point.”

HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Arizona Home

(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photo(s) above.)

Update from last week: we fixed the Dish tripod situation by buying some tent pegs and tying it down with rope. As far as the water heater not working, the heater runs on both electric and gas, it was the electric not working, so we turned on the gas. To try and locate the problem with the electric, we checked the breakers and fuses, everything was fine. You know how it is, “if all else fails,” consult the manual. So we did and found the solution as simple as turning the switch off in the control panel and back on again. Duh! So, hot water again and saving on the gas. Speaking of gas, we have two 30 gallon propane tanks. We have been on the road now for almost seven months, we have cooked on the stove and baked in the oven, and we still have not run out of gas in the first tank. Good thing, because propane cost up to $2.90 per gallon. We save by using mostly electric, especially for heat. We have two very small heaters, one downstairs and one upstairs. Works fine for us and no extra cost.

The other problem with getting the Dish to work with the second TV in the bedroom has not yet been solved. To have “different” programming on the second TV will require another receiver, about $100. Getting it connected to the Dish is the hang-up. I have a video splitter that is suppose to do the transferring of the signal, but everyone I talk to says you must run a separate line from the Dish to the second TV. I say, that is what the video splitter is for. So, I call the Service Manager at the dealer where we purchased the RV and he sends me a diagram of how it is supposed to be hooked up with the video splitter. I think I know what is required, but I still need to get another receiver. We’ll see how that works later.

There is an affect with the weather that we call “the Parsons affect.” That is, if one wants the weather to be really different, just wait until the Parsons arrive. We went to Hawaii for the first time together (I had been many time by myself on business) back in 1982. We rented a ninth-floor condo for a ten day stay. Our first night there is when the hurricane (typhoon in the Pacific) struck. Trees down everywhere, roads closed, electricity gone, stores closed, no restaurants open and other assorted problems like no elevator to the ninth floor. To make a long story short, the electricity came back on the tenth day of our ten day visit. We tried again three years later. Yep, flood that time. I think we are on the “not allowed” list to Hawaii.

It seems that everywhere we go, the weather is “unusual” according to the locals and newscast. It is either warmer, colder, wetter, dryer, stormier, etc.. We have “never” (or so it seems) been anywhere that weather has been normal. Well folks, we are now in Arizona. Southern Arizona is suppose to be warm and sunny in the Winter. Guess what? It is warmer in Tennessee than it is here now. Normal here is in the upper 70’s with lows in the 60’s. Now it barely reaches 60 with lows in the upper 30’s to lower 40’s. The weather newscast speaks of 35 inches of snow in elevations above 5,000 feet. Luckily we are at only 735 feet. We came to the Southwest to get warmth and sunshine. We will wait for Winter to officially begin until we make a judgment. Today, however, the sun is shining brightly, but the temperature at Noon is only 53 degrees. I really hate that southern Arizona has to put up with “the Parsons affect.”

We went out Wednesday to stock-up on some needs and get more medicine refills. This time we headed to a new location, Casa Grande, about 55 miles east of Gila Bend. I have put a map of Arizona up so you can know where the places are in relation to where we are living. I’m sure you can locate Gila Bend on the map (you may have to "click" to enlarge the map), just southwest of Phoenix and west of Casa Grande. Casa Grande seems to be a nice town with most things one would need, but the road in. Wow! We have never seen so many cattle in one place, thousands, and the smell! These cattle are not on the open range, but in large, grassless pens for miles. I am sure you can figure out the smell, even if we don’t have a “scratch-and-sniff” panel for you. Fortunately the smell doesn’t reach all the way into the city itself.

I am going to close this “ramble” for now. Since we will not be doing a lot of traveling during the Winter, we will have to share other experiences with you. We will have discussions with you, but you can rest assured that it will not be about religion or politics. Everything else is fair game!

Settled for the Winter

(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photos above.)

We left Lake Skinner as planned and headed back to Quartzsite, AZ on December 3rd. The drive was just over 200 miles, about our limit for a day on the road. We found the cheap campground ( $15 per night) that we had “scoped” out on the previous trip. Chosen just for an overnighter on the way to Gila Bend (Just in case you don’t know, Gila is pronounced as HE- la.) The main reason for stopping in Quartzsite again was to have our Dish Network equipment checked out to see if we may have equipment failure.

As soon as we got the RV all set up, which was no easy task, even in a “pull-through,” that was so narrow it took some doing, we headed off to the Satellite dealer where we purchased the service. The Tech checked out the Receiver box and found it working fine. Next our antenna and satellite finder was attached to it for a check of that equipment. The first Tech could not find a signal. The second Tech tried for several minutes and finally found a signal that was good. All equipment checked out fine. The problem….me, I guess, and a very sensitive dish. We carried the equipment back to our campsite and tried again to find the right satellite. Again, no luck. We decided to call it a day and head on to Gila Bend the next morning.

We took our time getting out of the campsite by not getting up early and hitting the road immediately. We had a leisurely breakfast, broke down (the campsite, that is, not us) and pulled out about 10:30 AM. The trip was only about 133 miles, so we arrived around Noon. As we were setting up our campsite, (a picture of which is above, along with the recreation hall and a typical Arizona sunset), we met our new neighbor, Jack. We noticed that he also had Dish Network. We told him of our problems with the system, and he offered to help if we needed it. We needed it! It took a while, but with Jack’s help we finally got hooked to the satellite and had service. Yeh! We learned from Jack to keep switching the transponders (the switches that indicate the different frequencies on the satellite) to zero in on a strong signal. There are some 30 transponders we are told. Anyway, we now have 100 TV channels. Maybe we can find something to watch. The next challenge is to be able to receive different programming on the second TV. Not as easy as it sounds. We’ll let you know how that turns out.

As we indicated in an earlier blog, Gila Bend is just southwest of Phoenix by about 65 miles. As it turns out, I needed to have a monthly blood check at a Quest laboratory, and I needed a medicine refill at Walgreens. To do this, we needed to head toward Phoenix. The nearest Walgreens is 35 miles away in Buckeye (on the way to Phoenix), and the nearest Quest lab is in Goodyear (farther on the way to Phoenix). Since we were to be no more than 10 miles short of Phoenix anyway, we decided to have lunch there. We had lunch, found the lab, went shopping in a couple of new areas before returning home. And of course, we needed a diesel fill up. We shopped for groceries at Fries (in Arizona the same as a Kroger store ), and since they also sell diesel we decided to fill up there. We got fuel before shopping for groceries. Diesel was $3.31 a gallon. So be it! We then parked in the lot and shopped. When we got back to the truck, we noticed the fuel price had dropped by 7 cents per gallon while we were in the store. What is a body to do? Eight hours later we arrived back at the trailer.

On Friday the winds arrived with a cold front before predicted rain. The wind kept pushing over our dish antenna even though it was “nailed” to the ground on three tripod legs. I tried several attempts to keep it upright, and finally laid our heavy bike carrier on the weaker tripod leg to keep it standing. That did the trick. Now, however, it needs a more permanent fix. Then, this morning, Saturday, the water heater quit working. We are still working on that one. Such is life.

Since we are going to be here in Gila Bend for some four months, we decided to rent a P.O. Box in case we need to get “slow mail” (as apposed to e-mail). If you need to contact us by this method, our new address is as follows: P.O. Box 2284, Gila Bend, AZ 85337.

Since it is now the week-end, I need to get this blog posted so you can have all the news, such as it is. Next week will be a different story.