We've moved to Imperial Dam LTVA

WELCOME to our newest followers, Ed, Carol and Gopher the dog.  They have a Lazy Daze motor home, and have been RVing at least since 2005.  Right now they are planning their next trip, which is to leave about April 10 and return home in mid-December.  Heading west.  Maybe.   Ed and Carol, we are happy to have you along with us, and we hope you are able to leave on April 10!  :)

I am writing this from The Imperial Dam Long Term Visitor Area, which is located North of Yuma on the California side of the Colorado River.

 We are at the edge of the RV site area, the lake is down a hill and over a bit.

Not right  next to us, as it looks in this photo.  I wish!

Morning view of the lake. 

It's pretty nice here, so far. Very different from Quartzsite.  This campground is on the top of a flat hill/mountain on a level gravely, dirt type surface.  

Lots of places to park this late in the season.

 

The vegetation is all around us, but not in the camping area, except a few cactus here and there.  We are overlooking a green area of trees and bushes that's next to the lake, which is low at this end.  Still very pretty.

 View from my dinette window looking northwest.

View from my dinette window looking southeast.

Last night after dark, I heard the wild burrows braying right near our site, and this morning there was burro poop right near us.  Katie was barking like mad as I opened the window coverings to see if they were at all visible.  I didn't realize there were wild burros here, but I'll try to get a picture if I can.

There don't seem to be any birds or other small critters near our campsite, I expect they are more comfortable closer to the vegetation that gives them cover.  There was one red breasted hummingbird that flew up to the dinette window this morning, though.  I immediately got out my new hummingbird feeder, filled it, and now its on my window ready for any birds that come by.

The weather yesterday afternoon and so far today is perfect.  Last night I had the best breezes going through The Palms, and it's warm and breezy now.  So far I like this LTVA better than Quartzsite or Hot Springs, except that there isn't a town close by.  It's 25 miles from Yuma, AZ, and I don't know how good the roads are that way.  I came in from Highway 95, going south from Quartzsite, and the road here was longer than I expected, and after a while, not the best dirt road. 

The Highway 95 entrance to this LTVA goes past the Yuma Army Proving Ground. At the road entrance off 95 are these guns, one on each side of the road:

Then, up the road a bit is a display of lots of tanks and artillery from different wars.  I was a little emotional looking at them, and only took one photo.  It's sad we need these:

 
I've been trying to get a photo of this cactus in flower for a while now, and all of a sudden, they are everywhere.

 There were hundreds of these in bloom along 95.

 Parked at the entrance to the Yuma Army Proving Grounds

These are thorny, dry looking cactus, 

but the flowers are delicate and beautiful up close.

Katie was even willing to sit outside by herself for a little while this morning.

  She walked around a little, stretched out on the dirt for a few minutes,

and then sat on the bottom step, looking in, then whined.

She's such a wuss - just like her mom. :)

When we were driving up to Senator's Wash on our way to the LTVA, there was an area that had been burned in a fire.  Have you ever seen a palm tree after a fire?  I thought it was kind of pretty in an eerie way.

I was ready to leave Quartzsite, and wanted to start heading back to Glendale, AZ to have my solar system checked out by Ron, the owner, then I'll know everything is good with my electrical system, and I'll be able to head north with no worries.  I talked to Ron, and he said he'd be happy to check out my system, just let him know when I want to come in.

So, we'll hang out here for a while, I'm not sure how long I want to stay.  

From me and Katie, see you next time!  :)

A trip to town - got the new converter

A big WELCOME to two new followers:

Dave's World - Hey Dave, it looks like you follow a lot of RV blogs, and have one yourself, but my info doesn't show your blog name.  If you get a chance, let me know the name of blog in my comments so I can check it out and give you a plug.  Katie and I are very happy to have you following us on our adventures!

NanaDiana - Diana has a blog, it's not an RV blog, but very sweet and interesting. Lots of decorating things, great photos, the kind of thing I loved when I had a (bigger) home to decorate. Diana posts every day, has tons of followers and gets loads of comments.  I loved reading your posts, Diana, and I'm happy you are following along with me and Katie.

Welcome aboard to you both!  :)

Yesterday a Roadrunner walked right through my campsite, mere feet from me. He stopped at my fire ring of rocks, jumped up on one, looked around and walked in front of The Palms, and continued on past us to the next campsite.  I was running around The Palms with my camera.  I don't know why I have to take photos every time I see him. Carol says it's the same bird each time, but I love taking pictures of him for some reason.  This is the closest I've seen him, and he's a pretty big bird.

Yesterday I went to town to see if my converter was in, and we were too early, so later in the morning, I called Quiet Times, and YES, it arrived.  Mike, one of the Dingbats, drove me into town again, and we picked  it up.  On the way back to camp, we stopped at my friend Roger's - the electrical engineer - site and he said he'd be over soon to put it in for me. 

He came by in a bit, and installed it, and everything is working!  So I'm good to go on the converter issue.

New Warranty Converter - 60 Amp

This morning, I packed up the failed 80 Amp converter in the same box, and Mike again drove me to town to the post office so I could mail it back to the company.  I'm hoping it will qualify for a warranty, but they have to check it first.  The man at the post office said it would arrive by Monday, so I'll e-mail the company on Monday and ask them to let me know if it's covered under their warranty.

This morning I sent an e-mail to Ron, my solar guy in Glendale, AZ, to see if he would put a ground wire on my Inverter and double check the solar system, since I had a couple of electrical issues while the large inverter was on.

After studying my system and the problems I've had, Roger wants me to get an Inverter like his.  It's a pure sine wave inverter, and the one I have is a modified sine wave.  I put that info into my e-mail to Solar Ron, and am anxiously waiting to see what he says.

What is this photo below?  This is a photo of Katie looking... guilty?

Just look at that face.  :(

I had my dinner plate on the dinette table and went outside for a few seconds to do something and when I came back, there was a clean strip on my plate.  Someone had licked the plate.  I don't think that's ever happened before.  Katie was always very trustworthy around food, but I guess she just couldn't resist my chicken casserole.  She was banished to her bed and sat there looking at me while I finished my dinner.  She looked so sad - I felt kind of bad, but...  what are you going to do?

When we had the big winds last time, I was watching all the critters eating the birdseed I put out.  The wind was howling, and these guys were determined to eat.  Look at the ruffled fir on the rabbit, and the feathers blowing out on the bird.

The next picture is one I took of different animals sharing the seeds.  This one is the rabbit sharing with the little gopher.

Speaking of gophers, I got an e-mail from Donna Weibel, Sam's wife.  She said she Googled "gopher photo," and this is what she got:

I think the little guys here with the skinny tails are gophers - cute, little gophers.  Thanks, Donna!

And now, Katie and I are going for a walk.  We hope you all have a great day!  :)

Quiet and warm, my kind of day

A big WELCOME to our newest Follower, Lisa Levin.  Lisa doesn't have any information listed, so I can't give her blog a plug, but we are very happy to have you along with us on our adventures, Lisa.  Welcome aboard!  :)

Yesterday morning after talking to the converter manufacturer, see below, I needed to get on the road.  The weather was finally pretty calm and sunny and  I was out of propane and had a little grocery list, so I decided to drive to Parker, AZ - the nearest Walmart.  It felt so good to be on the highway again!  I've said it over and over and I'll say it again: I just love driving The Palms!  It was about an hour each way, and sure felt good.

Some of the cactus were in bloom, and there were tiny purple flowers along parts of the highway.

When I got back I filled the gas tank, so now I have a full gas and propane tanks, and full fridge, freezer and cupboards.

I'm also in a cooking mood, and made myself a casserole - I haven't done that in a while.  Chicken, rice, artichoke hearts, green beans, spices, wine and cream of mushroom soup.  It's enough for about five meals, and I've already had it for dinner twice.  Really good!

 It's really good, but I would have liked MORE artichoke hearts.

I checked the website of my converter manufacturer, Progressive Dynamics, and it showed their 2-year warranty, and how to go about having a converter replaced under warranty.  I e-mailed them yesterday morning and received an answer very soon thereafter, asking me to fax/e-mail them a copy of my receipt. About 15 minutes later they called and confirmed my mailing address and said they would be sending me a new unit Fed Ex that day.  Wow!  It was so nice to deal with a great company!

I'll send them the failed converter by return mail in the same box, and one of the men here at Quartzsite said he would install it for me.  Basically it's just plugging it in and attaching two wires, but I'm afraid of wires, so I'll happily have him do it for me.  I think that will be the end of my electrical issues.  Won't that be nice?

Thank you all for your moral support - it's so nice to have people behind me when I'm going through difficult times, and you guys are just great!   And your suggestions are always right on, too.  As soon as the warranty is completed and The Palms is back to 100%, I'll post the name and address of the Utah RV shop, and start sending letters and e-mails to the various places, and I'll include the places you all suggested, too.

This is an interesting way to level your rig if you don't have levelers or leveling blocks. One of the men here, Mike, levels his Class A like this:

 See the mounds of flattened dirt? 

They were on the right side if his rig, which needed to be higher.

After the last few days of lots of wind and rain, the morning after brought out all the little critters. 

The little guy below spent a lot of time eating leaves on this bush.  He stood up and held some branches down with one arm, and grabbed higher limbs and pulled them down with his other arm, and ate. Then he climbed up on the rock and climbed the bush and continued eating.  He has a long skinny tail like a rat, but I was told he's a squirrel. I thought squirrels had bushy tails, but I didn't feel like researching it.

There are a bunch if them that have holes they've burrowed under these bushes, and they go in and out and chase each other around. 

 Is that a squirrel's tail?

Beautiful sunset last night.

From me and Katie, see you next time!  :)

Stormy days!

It's just this kind of day:

As soon as I pick up the camera, Katie opens her eyes. It's really hard to get a shot of her asleep.

I had such a scare yesterday morning.  I turned on my computer and my desktop screen was exactly the way it was when brand new, my documents, photos, the Internet connections, all my notes and programs, everything was missing.  Scared the heck out of me.  I turned my computer off at midnight the night before, and it seemed fine, normal. First thing yesterday morning, nada.  I thought I had been hacked or had a virus or something that wiped everything out.

Then, I calmed down, prayed a lot, and pulled up my blog on my phone.  It was there, and the photos were still in the posts, so I knew they were also somewhere on my computer.  I remembered that in Windows 7 there is a function that allows you to "restore" your computer to a previous set point that has been established, usually when something new was installed. I had installed updates to some Apple programs the day before, iTunes and a couple of others, and there must have been a conflict.  The "restore" worked, and everything is back.  Boy, was I holding my breath. :)

Like I don't have enough going on already!

Windy, rainy, stormy yesterday and today.  The smell of rain was so nice, and I knew about the wind alerts, so I was expecting another day or two of high winds and sand creeping in everywhere.  But - with the rain, the wind isn't blowing the sand around, so this is kind of like a regular storm.  It rained so much last night, I woke up and started thinking, "Okay, I'm right next to a wash, but they told me I'm on high ground here.  I wonder what's going on outside?"  So I got my flashlight and shined it out the windows to see if there was any water creeping over the wash, but everything looked okay.  Then I went back to sleep.

Today is cloudy, intermittent rain, sunshine, and windy.  Possible thunderstorms. Tomorrow will be a bit better, and the rest of the week the forecast is for sun and temps in the 70's and 80's.  That will be nice. :)

I didn't hear from the Utah RV shop, so I guess he's just not going to answer me.  My friend here told me there's a 2-year warranty on my converter, so I went to their website to get the information on what I should do.  It says the shop you bought it from needs to send it in for warranty, so I e-mailed them and told them the seller won't respond to me, and can I send it in myself or use a local shop to handle the warranty, because I'm in a different state now. The only problem is that the receipt he gave me lists the converter as a 60 Amp, and the one he installed is an 80 Amp, so I don't know if the company will even honor a warranty, since I can't prove I bought the 80 Amp.  So now I'm waiting to hear from them before I go after the Utah guy.  If they will fix the converter or send me a new/refurbished one, I'll take that cost off the bill he owes me.  What a mess.

I was so tired of dealing with all the converter issues, when I woke up yesterday morning, after I figured out the computer "restore" thing, I tore into The Palms, stripped the bed and re-made it, vacuumed every inch of space I could find.  Dusted and re-organized some stuff, visited for a while with a fellow camper, and all of a sudden the day was over.  And no dust, sand or dog hair in sight.  It turned out to be a good day. 

Today is just quiet inside, noisy outside.  Katie is sleeping and I've read blogs all day.  I think I'll see if there are any good TV shows I've missed on Hulu.

Oh yeah, I wanted to show you the latest thing in RVs that I saw at the Post Office last week.  An RV with a back porch:

   Can't you  just see yourself sitting back there on a hot day, brew in hand?

From me and Katie, see you next time!  :)

Here we are again... in more ways than one - or - The good, the bad, and the ugly.

First, a big WELCOME to our newest Follower, sierrasusieq!  She doesn't show a blog, but she is from Truckee, CA, which is a place I love.  You live in a great area, for sure, sierrasusieq!  Thanks for following along with me and Katie, we are happy to have you aboard!

First the good:

We are back in our old site, the original Quartzsite one that I loved so much.  Unfortunately, Hazel and Carrie left on Thursday.  When I was in San Diego for medical stuff, Carrie went to Australia, and she moved her rig into my vacated site next to Hazel so it would be looked after.  When they left yesterday, I moved back into it.  I was happy where I was, but this site has more birds and critters and just has better views out of every window.  So I'm really happy to be here again, and I wish Hazel and Carrie happy travels!  :)

 Goodbye photo of Hazel, Fleur and Val.  We miss you!

Here are a few photos from the new/old site:

 Here we are again - I love this site!

 My old friend

And we seem to have two other kinds of squirrels this time around:

 Lots of birds

 And rabbits!

According to Carol, there have also been rattle snakes and sidewinder sightings.  I don't know what a sidewinder is, but Katie and I are watching where we walk, and staying away from bushes. 

It's been beautiful here in Quartzsite the last few days, with a little intermittent wind today:

Windy enough for you?

 

We're expecting high winds tomorrow, so rather than have my camp chairs blowing down, and maybe away, I folded them up this afternoon and put them near The Palms.

Second, the bad:

I've sent the RV service shop in Utah two e-mails requesting a response by today, and haven't received a reply.   I just sent another one off to him, letting him know the steps I'm going to take if I don't hear from him by noon tomorrow.  

I am going to order my own converter tomorrow and have it installed.  One of the guys here wanted to look at the converter.  It was already unplugged, so he took off the wires, or whatever you do to get them out.  He wanted to test the plug it was plugged into, which was fine, and then he wanted try it in his rig to make sure it was bad.  When he lifted it up, it rattled.  Not a good sign.  He took it with him, but he said he'd never plug it in with the rattling noise.  This is what he e-mailed me: "This converter is definitely bad.  That noise inside is an electrolytic capacitor that is broken loose from the circuit board.  When did you purchase it?  It really doesn't look like a new unit to me.  I suspect that you were sold a defective unit."  

Funny thing is, the Utah shop didn't have the 60 Amp converter my rig needs, so he went to another rig, a Class A, that was in his lot for repairs and since they weren't going to be back for a while, he said he had one in that unit he could take out and put in mine.  It was an 80 Amp.  I assumed it was a NEW converter that he was planning to install in the Class A.  Now I'm thinking he took the converter that was sitting there, cut the hard wiring and re-wired a plug onto it, and installed it in The Palms.  That's one of the things I asked him in my second e-mail. :(   I don't want to slander him, just asking...

But now I KNOW this converter is definitely what has been making my life miserable all this time, and once I have a new one installed, everything should be fine and my electrical/generator/converter issues should be over. Please cross your fingers for me.   

Third, the ugly:

Well, folks, if I don't get satisfaction from the Utah shop, it is definitely going to get ugly.  I am compiling lists of addresses and e-mail addresses of every entity I can think of so that I can 1) report this guy, 2) ask for their help to collect damages from him and 3) warn other RVers about his business practices. 

If I can take him to Small Claims Court, I will.  If I have to park in the street in front of his business with signs in my window, I will.  I will do everything that is legally in my power to do to collect damages from him.  I've spent over $1,300 on parts that failed and the labor to replace them because of his shoddy practices, and I want my money back!  And that doesn't even take into account all the worry and inconvenience this has caused me, and the discomfort I've experienced and the fear I had every time I turned something on.  I was so sure it was faulty wiring, then the generator, then again the generator... if only we had removed the new converter, when it rattled we would have known.   

I'll let you know what happens. 

Let's end this post with a good thought and a beautiful photo:

A man is rich in the proportion of the number of things he can do without.  Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.  --Henry David Thoreau

 Quartzsite sunset

From me and Katie, good night, everyone!  :)

Various animal/bird photos from last week

WELCOME to kcgaz, our newest Follower!  kcgaz is a management consultant who lives in Scottsdale, AZ, and has an RV that he and his wife enjoy. His is a new blog this year, check it out.  Thanks for following me and Katie, kcgaz, we're happy to have you along!  :)

I've been taking miscellaneous photos the last few days, and they were too much for previous blogs, so today I'm going to be lazy and put them all together here.

I've seen a roadrunner coming through my campsite every few days, and one day when I was outside talking to Roger, he came up right behind Roger's car and continued through slowly.  He'd stop, look around, raise his tail, and walk on, stop, look around, raise his tail and continue, until he was all the way across to the ditch dividing my site from my western neighbors.  He hopped across and continued on to their sites, going under their rigs.  It was so much fun to watch him, but - I didn't have my camera in hand, so I didn't get photos. Then a few days later, I saw him again outside my window, and I was able to get some good shots.

I'm on the lookout for Roadrunners all the time.  I think they are such interesting birds.

The picture below was taken on another day, the roadrunner walked back the other way into the wash with something large in his mouth, maybe a lizard?  I couldn't see what it was.  It hung from both sides of his beak. "Roadrunners are relatively large birds. They mainly eat meat, meaning lizards, mice, other birds, snakes and bugs. They supplement their diet with vegetation."  I got that information on-line, I was interested in what they eat, and what this "thing" he was carrying might be.

Bringing dinner home.

This little guy kept standing up by the bushes.

I wonder if he was eating the leaves?

It's hard getting photos of these rabbits!

There are three camp cats that roam free.

These guys were watching me from the little wash.

Below is Carol's cat, Dora.  She was stalking the doves, who didn't seem to mind that there was a cat nearby.  It took so long for her to move, I finally walked on.  Carol said she hasn't caught one yet, except the one that flew into their motor home.  Dora caught it and then put it down, and Carol checked it and saw that it was okay, so she put the dove outside and it flew away.

Dora stalking a couple of Doves.  

She thinks they can't see her hiding behind the water dish.

These doves have pretty markings.

I went to Bob's Generator yesterday morning, and I think he diagnosed the problem.  It's not the part he put in, the voltage regulator, but another part I had installed in another state that failed, probably right when it was installed due to something the technician did at the shop.

Anyway, I have a lengthy e-mail I'm sending to the owner of the shop asking him to send me a new part as well as partial reimbursement for the parts and labor I've spent in repairing blown parts because of their mistake.  I don't want to name the place right now; first I want to give him a chance to step up and do the right thing.  I'll let you know what happens.

I'm not trying to present a cliff hanger here, but wanted you to know the problem seems to have been finally diagnosed correctly, and if the shop owner doesn't come through for me, I'll FOR SURE let you know.

I have no problem with a shop that makes a mistake, we all do.  And when they admit they made a mistake and take care of their customer, then they get an A+ from me.  But if they are not willing to admit and correct the error, then I have a BIG issue with them.  I'm hoping these people are honest.  If he doesn't cooperate, I plan to take steps to recoup all the money I've spent.  I'm hoping he'll agree with my request so I'll be done.  If he doesn't, I'll order the part and installation through Bob's Generator and then decide what steps I'll take and how far I want to go with the other shop.

Full moon shot for March

From Me and Katie, have a great day, everybody!  :)