Quartzsite

We got settled in here on Wednesday and had a very lazy day. I read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair this week. It was very good, but with it being an accurate depiction of the time period, it is pretty gruesome at times. In case anyone does not know, it is about Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. It is mostly about the meat packing industry, the start of labor unions, and the living conditions for immigrants at the time. 

Quartzsite has been bustling this week. They have been preparing for the big RV show that started today (Saturday). We went to town on Thursday and walked around all day browsing all of the vendor's wares. We got our greasy food fix for the week and had a fried onion blossom, curly fries, and fried alligator. 

We were walking along when one of the vendors that was selling clothes (a surly looking man of about 60) said "How's it going gentlemen?". We realized he was speaking to us but were both too stunned to reply. After walking to the next booth I started laughing uncontrollably at the fact that Whit had just been mistaken for a man. She, on the other hand, was not amused. She was wearing her riding jacket which has protective shoulder pads, has really short hair, and was wearing sunglasses so I can see how he made that mistake with just a cursory glance at us. Needless to say, her day was ruined for about 10 minutes and I felt weird about holding her hand in public for the rest of the day. We also saw some really cool old rigs and some interesting hacked together ones. The one below was by far the coolest. 

We forgot to bring lawn chairs with us so after shopping all day we finally decided to purchase a pair of really nice recliners. We could not have gotten a better deal anywhere else, but we had one problem. We were on the bikes and these chairs were pretty bulky and all I had were 3 bungees to try to tie them down to the rack on Whit's bike. We managed to tie them down and Whit really wanted them so she decided to try it. 

Thankfully, we made it back no problemo and immediately set them up and have enjoyed them every day since then.

Yesterday (Friday) we decided to go for our first big off road ride. We set the route in the GPS, gassed up, threw on our gear, and took off. We rode a pretty trail through the Plomosa mountain range. We decided to take a less used side trail to see where it went and Whit had her first run in with a cactus. 

The reason there are only cactus needles on the end of the grip is because her hand shielded the rest of it. By the time I turned around  and came back she had pulled most of the big clumps of needles out of her hand so I could not get a good picture. I scolded her for this and told her that our readers want to see things like this and next time she needs to wait :). We spent the next 10 minutes on the side of trail picking needles out and discussing the ever useful "What did you learn?" routine. 

She fell a bit later and bruised her ankle, but her boots took most of the impact. I ride much faster than she does so every few minutes I stop and wait for her to catch up. One of these times, on the most difficult part of the ride, she did not catch up. I turned my bike off so I could hear and I heard a blood curdling scream somewhere far behind me. I hauled ass as fast as I could back down the trail with every kind of horrible thought going through my head (namely coming around a corner and seeing her with her leg twisted around every different direction). I came around a corner and she was standing next to her bike trying to pick it up. She was still screaming. I soon found out that they were screams of rage at herself that she had fallen again. Needless to say I was relieved. We got the bike back up and after bending the shifter back to where it should be it was good to go again. I asked her politely not to scream like that anymore unless she was seriously injured unless she wanted her husband to have a heart attack in the near future. We decided this was a good time to get a picture with this cool mountain in the background. 

We also found an old abandoned mine on a side trail. 

We got back to camp and had a campfire before dinner. 

Whit is not the only one to sustain injuries thus far. I have been made aware that RV entryways are the bane of all canines. There is a small crack between the aluminum threshold and the rubber flooring at the bottom step of our entryway that Nala got one of her claws stuck in and almost tore it off. She has been hobbling for a couple days now but is getting better. We make her go out the door much slower and in a somewhat orderly fashion now. Ivy got a little crazy playing with her toy last night and fell down the entryway stairs. I call them stairs, but there are two - just barely making the minimum to be plural. She scraped her leg and was not happy about it and tried to make us believe that the entryway had accosted her just like it had done to Nala. I tried to explain that the entryway did not have a personal vendetta against either of them but they would have none of it. I have so far been the only one not to suffer any injuries (fingers crossed).

We tried to make calzones last night but the oven did not work. I spent over an hour figuring out that the pilot light had been installed upside down which caused the gas line to kink and develop a small hole. I will be going in to town today to try to find a part for it and hopefully we will have calzones tonight. 

To Warmer Weather

We ended up going for a hike with Robyn and Tom on Sunday the 13th. It was quite brisk but once we got our blood pumping it was not so bad. We hiked to a cairn where Steve placed his own Geocache. We found it and then Nala and Sylvie got in a tussle that we had to break up. Neither was hurt but we had to keep them separated from then on. We are still working on Nala's aggression issues since she was attacked last year. After the hike they took us to the Bosque Del Apache  wildlife refuge. We got to see the snow geese fly in for the night. 

There were also hundreds of cranes hanging out. If you are a bird watcher, the Bosque in the winter can't be beat.

 We headed out on Monday morning and after a long uneventful drive (other than Ivy freaking out) made it to Phoenix, AZ. Nala does great riding in the RV, but Ivy freaks out and is scared the whole time. She quivers, pants, and tries to lay on top of Nala the whole ride.

We found it helps to put her in the dark bathroom and put a blanket over her and she calms down a little bit. Nala is already calm enough as you can see.

 We loaded up on groceries and stayed the night at a local Walmart in Phoenix. Tuesday morning we filled up our propane and tried to fill up water, but all of their hoses and faucets were frozen solid. These Southern Arizona folk are not used to this cold of weather (it got down to 20 last night). We went a bit farther toward Quartzsite and found a working faucet at a Love's so we filled up our water and gassed up the rig and the bikes. 

We made it to Quartzsite in the early afternoon, checked in at the Plomosa Road camping area, and set up camp. After We had set everything up, unloaded the bikes, and gotten situated, we found that we barely had phone/internet service. We had full 3G right before we pulled off into the camping area so i knew it was close. I took the bike to go check things out. I found that the camping area extended almost 2 miles down Plomosa road and there was 3g coverage about a mile and a half in. We had parked only a hundred yards down the road thinking that the campground was just this small area we could see. 

I went back to camp and told Whit what I found and we decided to move down the road. Since we had already unloaded, we would have to take the bikes separately and take the rig nice and easy since we had already set everything up. We took both bikes down and scoped out a perfect site that was as far as we could get from the road and from other groups of old folken. We left Whit's bike there and I gave her a ride back to the rig on my bike. We brought the rig to the new site with no problems and set it up again. 

I proceeded to wear the dogs out and am going to make green chile burgers in a few minutes (YUM). 

The weather will be in the 60's tomorrow and then will be in the 70's for the foreseeable future after that. Perfect! Looking forward to the next 2 weeks here in Quartzsite. 

On the road

We flew back to Colorado on Wednesday the 9th and spent the 10th running errands and making sure we were ready to go. The whole family came over to Miranda's on the evening of the 10th to see us off and to enjoy Dad's spaghetti. 

We Got on the road at around 5 AM on the 11th to avoid rush hour traffic. By the time we got to Pueblo, the wind was steadily picking up and was blowing almost straight at us from the southwest. It got stronger and stronger and started moving to come almost straight out of the West. It was really blowing the rig around and was not fun to drive. We started seeing high wind advisory signs and more and more trucks were pulling off the highway to ride it out. It was only 10 AM, but we decided to pull over at the Walmart in Trinidad until the wind died down. We knew that it would be late that night before that happened, so we just decided to spend the night there. We grabbed a couple of movies from redbox and spent a lazy day at walmart. The wind howled and buffeted the rig all day, and finally started to die down early in the evening. 

We got up the next morning, I snapped a quick shot of our "campsite", and we headed out. It was only 2 degrees that morning and all the insides of the windows had iced over. This was definitely not RVing weather. We made it to Robyn and Tom's in the early afternoon and set up camp. 

Robyn made some excellent Pozole for dinner and we had delicious veggies from Tom's garden (he is an organic farmer and farms out of greenhouses all year long). His carrots put all other carrots to shame. We woke up this morning (the 13th) and it was 3 degrees out and the insides of all the windows were iced over again. 

If it was frost on the outside, it would not be so bad, but ice on the inside means it's just too damn cold. We would like to stay here for a while, but it is much too cold so we will be heading on down the road tomorrow morning. We will definitely be back when the weather is warmer. 

Pick your poison

Sailing full time was out for now, so we spent the next few months going over our options and figuring out what fit us best. In that time we added a new member of our family. We adopted Ivy mostly as a companion for Nala. We think she is a Jack Russell/Greyhound mix, but really have no idea. Her and Nala had some issues at first, but those were worked out quickly and they became best friends.

We got Whit a dirtbike in the early summer of 2012 and while Whit was new to it I had been riding for a long time and there are no better trails than those in Colorado. Whit took to it like a pig to mud. 

We rode every chance we got that summer and when Whit was busy my Dad  was borrowing her bike and we would ride. After riding that much it reminded me how much I missed it, and Whit loved it so we decided that whatever we decided to do, the bikes had to be in the mix. Somewhere in all this we also got married :). 

We finally decided to try out an RV and see where that took us. I had some experience RVing since my parents had been full-timers for ~10 years and I traveled with them to Alaska and Mexico in that time. Also, when I moved to Colorado, it was in a 1979 Winnebago Chieftain which I lived in for a few weeks in 2010. I knew that I would be fine living in an RV, but I had no idea if Whit and the dogs would be, so we started looking around for a cheap and simple one to get our feet wet. After looking at a few, we decided on a 1979 Dodge Monaco. It needed a bit of work, but the price was right on. I had to re-seal some of the roof, replace a roof vent, put in a refrigerator (there was just a big hole in the cabinets where one used to be), and some other minor things. It ran pretty good, so I left the engine alone other than an oil change. I found a fridge on craigslist for cheap and it worked great. We drove it around locally quite a bit to work out any kinks and get used to it's quirks. 

My sister Kati had been planning a trip to our family's cabin on the other side of the range near Grand Mesa NF. We decided it would be a perfect test for our new (to us) RV. We loaded up our supplies, the dogs, and the bikes and took off up the mountains. That old beast made it over the rockies with no problems. It was definitely not the fastest rig on the road. By the time we were almost to the Eisenhower tunnel at over 11,000 feet, we were barely doing 15 mph. Other than the slow speed, she did great. We also found out that Ivy does not like riding in the RV very much, especially at night. If we drove at night, she would get freaked out by all the headlight reflections passing by on the walls and ceiling, start shaking, and get as close to one of us as possible. Nothing phases Nala so she would either be passed out or looking out the window for derelict squirrels on the side of the road. We decided that it was not a big deal since we would hardly ever drive the RV at night after this. It rained the whole way to the cabin and only stopped a few minutes before we arrived. 

The road is paved almost all the way to the cabin except for the last few hundred yards. It turns into gravel for a bit and then there is a last really steep hill that is just dirt. I was leery about trying to drive up the hill since it was probably muddy. We got to within about 50 feet of the hill and then I stopped to talk it over with Whit. We decided that it would probably be better if we waited until the hill had dried the next day before we tried to go up. I made a last minute executive decision (stupid) and decided to try it. We were still on the gravel below the hill at this point so it was not muddy which made me overconfident that the hill would be the same... I threw the rig in first gear and got up as much speed as I could before hitting the hill. As soon as we got on the hill we sank in 2-3 inches of mud, but it still chugged up 1/3 of the hill until we lost momentum/traction. When the tires started spinning and we stopped going uphill, I let off the gas and hit the brakes. There was so much mud and the hill was so steep that we started sliding back down the hill with the wheels locked. We slid about 10 feet until the motorcycle trailer jack knifed and we ran into it with the rig which brought us to a lurching halt. 

I was dismayed we didn't make it and worried that I had damaged the rig and/or trailer, Whit was fighting mad that I had tried to go up the hill after we had already decided it was too muddy (and look where that got us), Ivy was scared as hell, and Nala was so excited to be at the cabin that her rear end was almost lifting off the ground due to the speed her stump tail was wagging. We grabbed a flashlight and got out to survey the damage. There was no damage to speak of, just a couple of scratches to add to the hundreds already on the rear bumper of the rig. Needless to say, we got lucky. We could not back down the hill with the trailer the way it was, so we unloaded the bikes, took the trailer off the hitch, and walked it down the hill out of the way (all of this done in the aforementioned 2-3 inches of mud). I hopped in and backed the rig down with no issues. We parked at the bottom of the hill to wait until it was dry. We easily got up the hill the next afternoon (with Whit's voice in my ear "see, we should have just waited and there wouldn't be mud everywhere") and parked in front of the cabin.

The next day Kati and others arrived and we all had a great time that weekend. This gave us a great chance to test out the rig and see how Whit liked RV life. She liked staying in the RV and the versatility it offered, but we both agreed that this rig was great for weekends and small trips, but would be difficult to call home without a lot of work. We decided to think on it and talk more about it when we got back. 

The drive back over the mountains to the house showed us that this rig was definitely not for us. It died part way up the mountain just a few miles past Glenwood Springs and would not restart. A CDOT truck happened by and was nice enough to hook up chains and drag us to the next exit so I could try to figure out what was wrong. I found a burned spark plug wire and the spark plugs were looking pretty bad. I took my dirtbike off the trailer, drove to Glenwood Springs, and picked up a new set of plugs and a new wire to replace the burned one. Once I got everything back together, it started up and we were off again. 

Unbeknownst to us, the issue was not resolved. The actual problem was the fuel pump. It was going bad and would overheat and stop working after a while. Sitting at the rest stop and changing the plugs had given it enough time to cool down and work for a while again. The rig died twice more on the way over the passes and I thought the engine heat was boiling the gas in the carb and causing it to die. With that in mind, I took the doghouse and air filter off to try to keep the carb cooler. It somehow worked and we made it home without it dying again. I spent the next several days trying to figure out what it was. I found out that the fuel pump was inline and very easy to replace, so I figured it was worth a try. Once replaced, that old 440 ran better than it ever had for us. This issue also helped us make the decision that this rig was not the one we wanted to full time in. I would constantly be working on it to keep it running and it still needed a lot of interior work. We sold it a few days later for almost double what we had paid for it. 

At this point we decided to take our time and get a rig that was mechanically sound and was what we wanted for living in full time. We started looking at craigslist and various other places and sorting through everything to figure out what floor plan and chassis we wanted. We decided that it would be another class C less that 30 feet long, but were still undecided on the chassis and floor plan. One day I was taking the dogs to the park and I drove a little bit of a different way than I normally do, and there was an RV sitting in someone's driveway with a for sale sign on it. It was a 23 foot class C. The owner happened to be out watering his lawn, so I pulled over to take a quick look. We had been looking at a ton of RV's so we knew approximately what price range we were looking for. This RV was being sold by an older gentleman that did not know the value of the internet when trying to sell something. This RV was not listed on Craigslist or anywhere else, just the sign in the window. It was a 1998 Four Winds 5000 23A on a GM chassis with a 454 Vortec big block. He was asking $12,000. I took a quick look inside and asked a few questions and went on to take the dogs to the park. 

That night after Whit got home I brought it up and told her what I knew about it. We both agreed that the price was a bit too high for this rig and that it should be more around $10,500 depending on the condition of all the components (engine, transmission, tires, brakes, fridge, water system, roof, Air conditioner, generator, battery/power system, kitchen components, etc.). We thought that since it was so close we could still go take a thorough look and see if there was any wiggle room on the price. 

We went back that weekend and after talking to the owner some more we found out that he had spent $8000 the year before to put a brand new engine in it. Apparently squirrels had made a nest under the hood over the winter and had chewed up some of the wiring. When he had started it the previous spring with the chewed up wiring the engine blew up when he tried to drive it. He had the receipt for all the work and there was still over 2 years remaining on a 3 year 36,000 mile warranty from the repair shop. Needless to say, this piqued our interest. There was some fiberglass de-lamination on one side of the rig due to a small roof leak and some sponginess below a couple of the windows. It was not a deal breaker, but the price would have to reflect this. The owner was flexible on the price, so we decided to take it for a drive. 

Driving the 1979 Monaco, you could tell you were driving a 10,000 pound monstrosity. With this rig, it felt like you were driving a van. 20 years of engineering had made huge improvements in the RV world. We were impressed and decided that I need to take a whole day and test everything to make sure it all worked. At that point we had talked them down to $9,500 contingent on everything working. I spent several hours and found out that the toilet valve had issues, the roof needed to be resealed, the kitchen faucet needed to be replaced, and the generator did not work properly. When I brought all of this up with Whit we decided that we were not willing to pay more than $9000 for it, with or without a brand new engine. I went to the owner with all of the issues and offered them $8000 and told them to think about it. They called me the next day with a counter offer of $8500. We accepted happily. Once we drove it home where I had access to all my tools, I fixed every issue I had found in two days with less than $100 in parts. It went way smoother than I had expected and I think we got a great deal. 

The summer was ending by this time so we wanted to move quick. We took the rig to Royal Gorge for it's shake down run. It ran great there and back and everything worked great.

 All in all a great first trip in the new rig. This trip had shown us what we still needed to do to the rig to finish it. I spent the next several weeks making all of the upgrades we had decided we needed for it to be a full time live-in rig, aka our new home. We wanted to be fully self contained while on the road so we would not have to stay in RV parks. I added a large ~300 watt solar array to the roof, a much larger set of batteries, and an extremely efficient charge controller so we would never need to plug in for power.

 The generator works great just in case we have several cloudy days in a row or we need to use the microwave or AC. We added a memory foam mattress to the over cab queen sized bed which made it much more comfortable. I installed a flat screen smart tv so we can watch broadcast tv, netflix, or play video games whenever we want. The dogs have their own full sized bed in the back with two picture windows for optimum squirrel viewing. We then decided we were ready to take it on a second trip to try it out with all the new stuff. My parents happened to be coming back from New Mexico in a few days so we decided to meet them at Great Sand Dunes National park and spend a 3 day weekend there. We loaded up the dirtbikes and took off. Another uneventful drive and we made it to Zapata campground just outside the NP. No water or electricity here so we would really be boondocking this time. View of our rig at the campground : 

Zapata campground is named after Zapata Falls, which is a short hike away. The falls are absolutely gorgeous, and we would not have ever known they or the campground were there without doing quite a bit of research about the area. 

The falls are actually further back up the creek in this picture. You would not know they were even back there unless you have been told. 

The campground was mostly empty for the length of our stay and very reasonably priced. We will definitely be going there again. We took a long ride one day on one of the most beautiful trails I have ever been on. Here is a shot about half way through the ride. 

Fall was a great time to go with the leaves in all different colors and the temperatures were cool. Mid September would have been a bit warmer and the trees probably would have been even prettier then. We were there in October so at that elevation fall was almost over. Whit had her first experience riding in sand, and she performed admirably (only falling a few times, and only getting really mad at herself/the bike once). 

Unfortunately, there were 4 miles of sand each way so we were both beat by the time we got back to camp. She also did her first large creek crossings and quickly found out that if you go too fast you get very wet. 

For anyone that has never been to this NP, make it a point to go at least once. It is very strange to see all of that sand in the middle of the rockies. In the picture below, you can see the dunes half way down the mountains in the background.

We spent the rest of the time hanging out with my parents and playing with the dogs on the dunes. 

After a great weekend we had an easy and uneventful drive home. Almost everything on the rig was exactly how we wanted it, so with a couple more tweaks it was ready for us to move in. We were planning to sell the house in the spring of 2013, but decided instead to let my sister stay there and pay the mortgage instead. That would give us a place to stay when we were in town to work (the driveway), and we would still have the house if we ever decide to settle down again (fingers crossed that will never happen). Miranda's lease was up at the end of December, so we had just over two months to get our affairs in order and get on the road. Whit put in her notice at work, and since I was not quitting my job I got started on getting everything ready to go. We managed to fit our two dirt bikes, our mountain bikes, and most of our stuff in my Dad's 10 foot enclosed trailer which we will be taking with us on our adventures. The rest of our stuff we fit in the rig, barely. The stuff we would not be taking on the road we either put in storage or gave to my other sister Kati for safekeeping (Thanks Kati!). Whit's last day at work was December 21st and we finished moving out of the house the next day. Miranda started moving in that day and we flew to Illinois on the 23rd to spend the holidays with Whit's family before we take off. We are also house sitting for my Uncle until January 9th, then it's back to Colorado to pick up the rig and the dogs and head South.