Hello Hot Springs!

Katie and I took a long walk the other day down to the Hot Springs area and beyond. 

This is the oasis area next to the actual Hot Springs bathing area. It's so pretty inside all the large palm trees, truly an oasis.

There are a lot of dry fronds around the edge of the water this year, it looks like they are trimming the lower dead fronds.  (I think that's what they are called.) Probably not very good for swimming this year.


Click here to see more photos of the oasis and bathing area from last year.  I took quite a few, and liked them better.  Remember there was a man swimming in this oasis?

We continued our walk - I wanted to see the camping area on the other side of the freeway so we headed off down that road.  We walked for a while along the canal - it's so pretty.

Then a car with a Class A motor home following it came toward us.  I waved down the woman driving the car and asked her how much further down the road the camping area was.  She said about another mile.  Well, that was it for me.  We turned around and wandered back toward our campsite.   The woman said the camping area was like the one we're in, but probably not as nice.  One of these days I'll drive over there and see it for myself, but if there's no dumpster on that side, and I don't think there is, I'll continue camping on this side.  BTW, I later saw the car and Class A driving past my site, so they were checking out the other side, too, and decided on this side.   


As we were walking along I noticed all the little sea shells in the dirt.  Obviously the water has been as high as the road in the past.

The next day I looked out the window, and guess who was driving by?  Bea and Peter - they made it to Hot Springs!  For all the people who follow their blogs, you know the problems they have had getting here.  I'm happy to report they made it, safe and sound and full of smiles.

Katie and I took a walk and spied their campsite (a really nice pull-through site with lots of room) and stopped to say hello.

Molly came sauntering over and I wasn't sure how Katie would react, but she liked Molly and wasn't afraid of her.  Molly got in a few sniffs for greetings, and then wandered back to their campsite.  What a great dog!  Here's Bea watching over them.  Click here for Bea's blog.

Then this morning Peter came walking by and stopped to chat, and Katie went right up to him and gave him lots of love - Peter had on a cowboy hat, and since Katie is still a bit cautious of men, and especially men wearing hats, I was really surprised that she had no fear of him at all.  I didn't have my camera with me, but wish I did, it would have made a great photo. Click here for Peter's blog.

There are lizards here that dart from bush to bush, and Katie is very interested in all the bushes.  Walking is a real pain - these bushes are everywhere, so I'm having to be firm with her that we stay on the road!  Once in a while I'll let her stop and get her fill, like the photo below, and when I tell her the critters are all gone, she gives up and walks away. 

Below is one of the entrances to the Yuma Proving Ground on the road that leads to Imperial Dam LTVA.  I always love driving past this area, it makes me feel so patriotic.

While staying at Hot Springs, I often see these helicopters flying overhead.   Very cool looking.  American military personnel hard at work.  I always send up a silent "Thank You!" to them when they are flying by.


By the way, these are the dates on my tire:

I'm not sure if that means they were manufactured the 4th week of 2010 or the 47th week of 2010.  Obviously I'd rather it means the 47th.  Do any of you know if that left slanting 7 is a "7" or a slash?

From me and Katie, have a great Saturday, everyone!  :)

Goodbye Quartzsite!

I need to be in San Diego for medical/dental/vision appointments in a week, so on Sunday, February 2, Katie and I said goodbye to Quartzsite.  We had a great time this year and I'm already looking forward to the next season, which means we'll be heading back that way in October.

Before we left we visited Denise and Bennie.  Denise had some solar panel riser knobs she wanted to give me and we changed out the nuts on mine for the knobs.  Thanks, Denise!

The dogs got a chance to wander around together a little before we reigned them in.  Bennie is such a quiet, non-aggressive little guy that Katie has no problems with him.  She's good with most dogs now, but is still not crazy about the dogs who are straining at their leashes to visit with her.  She's really not into that kind attention.

Bennie is very low key and doesn't scare her.

Then we went inside and visited while the dogs wandered around the motor home - and of course Katie found Bennie's chew toy.  Denise gave Katie one - and in minutes it was chewed up and gone.  Katie demolishes those things.   

Can I have this one??

Katie gets a chew toy of her own.  Look at those gorgeous floors.

Finally Katie and I said our goodbyes and went back to our site.  I was slowly getting ready to leave, I had already gotten water, dumped, and topped off the gas and propane tanks.  I had done laundry, too, and food shopped, so we were good to go. I called Brian and he came over and lowered my solar panels for me and showed me how he does it. 

The final thing was I wanted to have dinner with Hazel before we left so we went to the restaurant attached to the laundromat on Saturday evening and had prime rib.  It was pretty good, and I brought home enough meat to make a french dip sandwich the next day, and another dinner the following night.

Our last sunset photo from Quartzsite:

Super Bowl Sunday we got up early and headed out.  As we've done previous years, we're hanging out in the California Hot Springs LTVA.  It's an easy drive here from Quartzsite, and we stopped along the way to check out a couple of campgrounds at Imperial Dam LTVA to see if there were any good sites available, or if there were any burros wandering around where we could see them.  We would have stayed there for a week if either was found, but I didn't see a great campsite, and there were no burros around, so we kept going.

After being in the desert for four months, it was nice to see green fields along the way and especially the fields that were being watered.

We have a good, large site here that will be home for a week.  We're right off the road in a wide area that would be large enough for any size rig. It's way big enough for The Palms.  If we were going to be here for weeks, I'd probably be scoping out a new site, but I'll be back after my San Diego trip and hopefully get a more secluded site then.

And finally, another sunset.  This one was from our first night here at Hot Springs.  Beautiful!

Thank you for heading to Amazon.com through the links on Me and My Dog ...and My RV!  Katie and I sure appreciate it!

From me and Katie, have a great Thursday, everybody!  :)

Wordless Wednesday - Mom makes food into masterpieces

Can you imagine your mom making these meals for you?

For more food photos and to learn about the mom of two daughters who creates these beautiful meals, visit her website.

Welcome to our newest follower, Shewulfwyn!  There is no information about Shewulfwyn shown, so I can't tell you anything about our newest follower.  But Katie and I are super happy you are following along with us.  Welcome aboard, Shewulfwyn!  :)

From me and Katie, have a great Wednesday, everybody!  :)

A tale of two tire shops

While I was in Quartzsite I wanted to have the tires on The Palms checked, rotated and balanced, and also have the front end aligned.  A shop in Blythe was highly recommended, so I made an appointment with Standage Tire & Auto.

I highly recommend this tire shop - they started working on The Palms right away, the work was done faster than estimated, and the final bill was less than estimated.  What more could you want? 

The owner of the store, Mr. Standage, behind the desk:

Here is the tire store - it's a Goodyear shop:

Standage Tire & Auto
420 W. Hobson Way
Blythe, CA  92225
(760) 922-3191

I was feeling good that my tires were good to go!

Then - when the tires were check, rotated, and everything was fine, I ran over that big rock.  It was recommend that I have those two rear tires checked to make sure they weren't damaged.  So when I was planning to leave Quartzsite and drive on the freeways again, I took The Palms to the only tire place in town, American Custom Tire.  I called them and explained what happened with the rock getting stuck between the dualies on the right rear of the motor home, and David said to come in any time and they would check out the tires. 

I called last Thursday morning and asked if they had room to check out my tires, and got a 10:00 appointment.  When I got there, I was directed to the last bay, shown below.  Lots of room!

This is the front door of American Customer Tire which shows the address, hours and phone number.

Below is the rest of the work area, it was a slow morning with the Big Tent Event over and lots of RVers gone.

Here comes Rigo with the jack.

Rigo removed the tires and checked them for damage the rock might have caused.

Below is the inside of the outer tire.  You can see where the rubber was scratched, but it was surface discoloration only.

The inside of the inner tire had even less marking from the rock, and looked fine.

Rigo put the tires back on and checked the pressure.  See the little white label at 4 o'clock on the rim?  After I had The Palms weighed and got the individual tire pressure for front and rear tires, I made labels and stuck them on the rims of each tire - 70 PSI for the front tires and 65 PSI for the rear tires.  Now I always point to the labels when I'm having the tire pressure checked and tell them to use that number, not whatever is recommended.

Here's their card:

I would definitely recommend this company.  They were very nice, did the work asked, gave me their opinion on whether or not there was damage to the tires.  I agreed with them after seeing the inside of the tires, but they could have told me they were bad and tried to up-sell two new tires.  I would have gotten a second opinion, but it was nice to be treated fairly.

But, here's a question for you. Look at the letters on this tire:

Another photo of the same tire is below.  Rigo said the scraping or whatever that is on the letters was caused by riding on the tire when it was low on air.  That couldn't have happened.  These tires were put on when I bought The Palms in 2010 and I've never run them low.  A few pounds maybe, but that's it. When I was in Blythe having the tires rotated, they checked the tires and said they were all okay, so I'm thinking this scraping isn't damaging to the tire.

I'm wondering what would cause this discoloration/scraping looking change to the letters on the tire.  It's only on one, which I think was a front tire before they were rotated.  Any ideas?  Someone saw some "feathering" on the front tires and he was the one who suggested that I need a front end alignment and recommended Standage.  Is this feathering?  Have you seen this before? 

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