LET THE SEASON BEGIN!

The Shutdown is over!  The Quartzsite Winter Season has begun.

We stayed at the Hi Jolly BLM 14-day area for 11 days and yesterday ventured into town to visit a friend who has been camping for a while at la Posa West.  She has a Class A motor home and a toad.  She drove in, right around the Closed sign and, along with many others, just ignored the Shutdown.

When I first got here on the 5th, there were only a few rigs in the LTVA areas, but yesterday, before the Shutdown was over, there were quite a few.  So...   After our visit Katie and I went into town to get groceries and then headed on down to la Posa South, where we were last year, and drove right around the Closed sign and went back to one of our favorite campsites.

I set up our site with chairs and a table and our American Flag, put out birdseed and my hummingbird feeder, and today after we get fresh water and dump the tanks I'll put the tire covers on my sun-side tires and put our solar lights around the site.  We're home.

Yesterday we already had Mourning Doves in the site.  One came by itself and spent quite a bit of time here, eating seed and walking around - checking things out.  I figured he was doing reconnaissance.

"You looking at me, Bub?"

Later more doves came walking up alongside The Palms, heading to the birdseed.  They ate some seed and walked around for a while, then wandered off.  This morning they were back.

And guess who just showed up?  Our first Gambel's Quail of the year.  :)

I also had a hummingbird at the feeder yesterday and this morning I got a photo of him.  Not the greatest photo, but still, it's the first.

And finally, here are some photos of views out our windows and behind our site.

My new front yard and backyard.  Beautiful, gorgeous, spectactular!

You know, as much as I was happy to be in Quartzsite the last 11 days, I'm just not a 14-day BLM person.  I want to be in a site I love and not have to move every 14 days.  That's the only problem with New Mexico State Parks - it's hard to move that often and to me, it's not worth setting up a campsite just to move on in a couple of weeks, so I never "set up" my site at NM state parks. (Last year New Mexico had a 21-day limit, and that was much better. This year they went back to 14 days.)

Here in the LTVA areas of Arizona and California, you've got from September 15 to April 15 the next year.  You can stay the whole time in one campsite, or if you get Hitch Itch, move to another site or another LTVA area in a month or two months, whatever suits you.  I like that stability and security.

I'm sure I'll move eventually down to the Imperial Dam LTVA and then on to Hot Springs LTVA.  But I've got six months left on the LTVA permit (that I guess I'll be buying soon).  

It's so good to be back!

I wrote a post a while ago about changing the settings on my camera to get good clear photos of hummingbird wings instead of the blur I usually get with a normal setting.  I posted the photos and they were really nice, showing the whole bird, not just a head and body and faint, blurred wings.

I've had some really nice hummer shots, but the wings were always blurred (like the photo of the hummer above - I've got to re-set my camera).  Then I read something Judy, of Travels with Emma,  wrote about changing to a certain lens setting to get the wings clearly.  I followed her instructions and ended up with beautiful photos of hummingbirds.  I had some comments asking me what setting I used, but I had changed them again and couldn't remember.  So I e-mailed Judy and asked for the settings she uses for action shots.  I told her was going to post it to answer your comment questions:

"I either set the shutter speed to 1/1000 sec. or sometimes use the sports/action setting on my camera. I believe the shutter speed on the sports setting may be 1/1800 sec."

So there you have it, (and so do I when I next forget which settings to use for my action shots). Thank you, Judy, you take such gorgeous photos, and hopefully this information will help some of us improve our shots, too!  

It's a beautiful day in Quartzsite - from me and Katie, have a great Thursday, everyone!  :)