THE BIG TENT... TPMS and... Lunch at Sweet Darlene's

We got our mail Thursday morning at the postal service and drove right on up to Quartzsite.  We are staying with the Lazy Daze group here at La Posa West.  When we got here, I saw Jeanne right away, she met us on the road to help guide me into a good site.  Then we walked over to Nancy's rig so I could say Hi to her.  We made plans to walk over to the Big Tent in a hour and  I went home and got settled.

So, Jeanne, Nancy and I walked over to the Tent, walked around for a while, then went outside and checked out some of the smaller vendors on that side of the street.  (We'll go back and check out the other side of the street another day.)  When we got back, my pedometer had logged in over 10,000 steps, and my feet were so sore!  I'm not used to walking that much, but Friday morning, all was well and I was raring to go again.  :)

You've all seen pictures of the crowds and tents along the street and the traffic and vendors - well,  here are a couple of vendors I thought were different and interesting:

Beer Belly's Adult Day Care...  food, drinks, and some great live entertainment.

Need a firearm?   Where, here you go...


I bought a Tire Pressure Monitoring System at the Big Tent - every year I try to make one big upgrade to The Palms - last year was the new generator, this year it's the TPMS.  This was my main reason for wanting to visit the Big Tent this year.

A TPMS is something I've been thinking about for a couple of years and finally this year I got one.  This is the same system Nina - Wheeling It - did all the research on (THANK YOU, NINA!) find that post here, and Denise purchased the same system last year, using Nina's great research and explanations as her guide.  I decided to do the same, why re-create the wheel?  :)

That's the one thing I'm not as good with as I should be - checking my tire pressure, and yes, I DO know how important it is.  I don't know why I don't check as often as I should, but now I have a monitoring system to keep me informed 24/7 on how the tires are doing.  So far my tires have always been good - maybe a little low, but not much.  This time, when Dion checked, they were lower than they should have been, and it was time to add some air.

Tire-SafeGuard Tire Pressure Monitoring System is the brand name, you can check out their website here: Tire-Safeguard.  They are out of Cerritos, California.

Dion was a great salesman, offers a pretty nice discount for cash, and will come out to where your RV is camped, even if it's not at the Big Tent area, to install the system for you.  It's really simple, take off the tire stem cap, screw the sensor cap on all the tires (its all wireless) and then set the monitoring system and put it on your dash.  Done.  But I'm glad he came out and did it for me.  One of my rear tire stem extenders was a little iffy letting air through, and might not have registered properly on it's sensor.  Luckily I had extra tire extenders, so he switched that one out for me.  One of my front tires had a short extender on the stem, and the other didn't.  The one without the extender was recessed too much to screw on the sensor so I need to purchase a few more of those, one for that tire and a couple to have in reserve just in case.

So now I'll have more confidence when driving down the road that my all my tires have the proper pressure and temperature - all right where they should be.  :)

Yesterday a group of us went to Sweet Darlene's Restaurant and Bakery in town - I love that place!  Jeanne, Denise, Nancy, Kim and I went, and boy were they busy!  We had quite a wait for our orders to be taken, and then for our food to come, but we were so busy chatting away that it didn't matter, and when the food came out it was delicious. (I'm sure ALL the restaurants in town are super busy and crowded this week.)  I had a Ruben sandwich - I've never had one before and it was so good!  I saved half for lunch today and I'm really looking forward to it.

At Sweet Darlene's:  Nancy, Jeanne, Denise and Kim.

Today is the BloggerFest - from what I hear, it's going to be very well attended - I'm looking forward to it - and hope to see you there.  If you're not a blogger but would like to meet some of the people who are, maybe people you read all the time, come on out and join the fun!

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

Pictureless Wednesday

I know, I know, it's supposed to be Wordless Wednesday, but I have some words and no pictures today.

Okay, finally - we're heading back to Quartzsite tomorrow.  :)  People to see, places to go, things to do.  Yeah!

My package was delivered yesterday afternoon to the post office service at the Christian Service Center down the road.  They are open from 9 to noon four days a week, closed Wednesday, so I can pick it up tomorrow morning and head north to Quartzsite.

I have a couple of things I want to check out at the Big Tent and the other vendors up and down the street, and wanted to arrive before the end of next weekend.  I'm hearing and reading in blog posts that it's starting to wind down - really?  It's only Wednesday, half-way through their SHOW TIME!  I guess a lot of people must have visited the tents early on and are done shopping, which would help the traffic, I'm sure.  Quartzsite people - is the traffic getting lighter?

Today is the third Wednesday of the month - the day my Social Security check dances happily into my checking account.  Man, it's so hard waiting for a check ONCE A MONTH.  When I worked for my son, we were paid weekly, my favorite timeline for paychecks.  Once a month takes FOREVER to come.

I always eagerly anticipate this third Wednesday, and wake up raring to go - turn on the computer, pay the few bills I have every month, and put the rest in the savings account.  It doesn't take long, but I've always loved paying bills and have an elaborate Exel spreadsheet to record everything on.  I'm trying my darnedest to build up the savings account to purchase a PARK MODEL.  I want one SOOOO BAD for a home base.  Each month gets me a little closer.

Every Social Security check day, I want to post - YEAAA, I got my check!  Dumb.  But I do. And now I have.  LOL  I'm betting everyone out there receiving a Social Security check each month feels the same way, right?  (Wish I was the first Wednesday.)

WELCOME to our newest followers, Michael & Imkelina!   They are on the verge of taking possession of a brand new Arctic Fox 25P.  You can read about it on their blog, BlaNicS Waypoints - and guess what?  They have a BATHTUB in the new rig.  I'm so jealous!  But happy jealous...   Welcome Aboard to you both!

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

Leaving tomorrow - maybe...

Katie and I are still here at Imperial Dam LTVA in the Quail Hill campground.  We like it here, but it's time to head back to Quartzsite and do some VISITING!  There are lots of people I want to connect or re-connect with who are already there.  The Big Tent is halfway done and before we know it, people will start leaving that area, so we need to get there soon. 

Jeanne and Riley left here last Tuesday and are now at Quartzsite.  We tried to visit Judy of Travels with Emma at the Imperial Nat'l Wildlife Refuge.  Jeanne actually stayed here one extra day so we could do that, but unfortunately it rained a lot on Monday night, and left the roads questionable on the way into where Judy is.  We drove along muddy roads wondering if we should keep going.  Finally there was a BIG hole in the road filled with water, and it continued around the bend, so we didn't know how far the water hole went on.  Just then a truck came by and Jeanne waved him on so we could see him drive through the water and see how deep it was. He was high off the ground, but still looked kind of deep in the water, so we decided to turn around.  That was too bad, we were almost there, but it would have been a real bummer to get stuck in a huge mud puddle and have to be towed out. 

When we got back, we saw that the muddy roads kicked up a ton of mud into the wheel wells and under the car.  Geez, poor Jeanne - she has a brand new car and in a week we pushed it to the limit, dusty, bumpy roads, washboard roads, rocky roads, holey roads, muddy roads.  It's a great little car, though, and got us back to camp each time.  Dusty and Dirty but safe and sound.  We put the dogs in our rigs and grabbed our laundry to stow in the car.  Then we got paper towels and scraped all the mud off that we could get.  Soon, we had visitors.

They came over and stood right next to the car and wouldn't leave.  I couldn't get into the car, LOL.  Finally Jeanne got behind the wheel and slooooowly drove forward.  As the car went past the Mom, she put her head on the back of the car like she didn't want it leaving.

And so we headed to Yuma.  After the laundry was done Jeanne found a DIY car wash, where we sent streams of water into the wheel wells, under the car, and over every visible surface.  When we left, it was sparkling in the sun.  :)  Sorry we missed you, Judy, maybe next time around. 

I think it was later in the day after we had gotten back to camp and relaxed in our rigs for a while that Jeanne and Riley came over on their way to the dumpsters.  I grabbed Katie and our garbage bag and started walking with them.  There were two other burros nearby standing near a bush and when they saw us, the started out after us. I was worried because of all the stories I've heard about the burros not liking dogs around their babies - but this time they were pursuing us.  We walked faster and faster, and so did the burros.  I said to Jeanne, this is a classic case of "watch out what you wish for."  I had been wishing so hard for wild burros to come visit.   We made it a quick walk and went right back to our rigs.  I felt bad, but as much as I LOVE these guys, I'm still afraid of them if they are too close.  Petting the baby the other day is about as much closeness as I want.   I'll admire them from afar, thank you.

Now I'm just waiting for mail to be delivered.  I've filled the water tank, dumped the grey and black, filled the gas tank, gone to Wal-Mart one last time, and hopefully tomorrow my package will arrive at the mail service here and I can top off the propane at the Christian Center and be on my way.  My package was supposed to be here Saturday, so I could have picked it up today or tomorrow, but right now it's still in San Bernardino, CA, so - I'm at the mercy of the Postal Gods.  I'm going to hang out with the Lazy Daze group at La Posa West for a couple of weeks before heading on to Ehrenberg. 

I've saved all the bird photos from Quail Hill to post all at once.  There are a lot of birds here; some are here every day, and others are infrequent visitors.  Here they are:

Bufflehead:

Common Goldeneye:

American Coots:

Double-crested Cormorant - love those webbed feet:

The one on the left was singing:

Dove:

Ducks - there were large flocks flying along over the canal and bobbing in the water.  Lately I've heard gunfire in the area, and I learned it's duck hunting season, which will end soon.  Hopefully the ducks have moved to another area because I haven't seen many of them overhead lately.  I was happy to hear the duck hunters have to be a minimum number of yards from the campgrounds. 

Gambel's Quail:

Quail and Grackles - lots of Quail and Grackles:

Great-tailed Grackle:

Killdeer:

Loggerhead Shrike:

Red-winged Blackbird - there were flocks of these on the ground from time to time:

And finally, before the bee invasion, Verdin - they put on quite a show at the hummer feeder:

We also had hummingbirds, but the bees came in droves and I had to take the feeders down. 

I noticed these foot prints this afternoon near our site - I have no idea what they are from.  It looks like a hoof print with toes? Look at the print above my shoe - it's round with four "toes."

Below are burro hoof prints and deep toe prints that are larger than the hoof:

This one is a little better angle of the round print with toes.  Weird....

Here's Katie with her new squeaky duck.  She had one of these when I first got her.  Do you think she remembers that one?

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

Company, and company, and company

FIRST:

Jeanne and Riley arrived last Tuesday, and are visiting with us for a week here in Imperial Dam LTVA before heading to Quartzsite for a while.  It's so great to see them both.  Here they are, coming into the campground with Jeanne's new toad:

I have a nice big site that was roomy enough for two rigs with space to spare.   I snagged the whole thing, knowing Jeanne would soon be here for a week or so.  I was lucky to get the "ocean view" as they call it here, with room for two campsites.  Jeanne unhooked her car and backed up into one side of the site.

The next morning, we decided to drive up to the main camping "Mesa" area in Jeanne's new car (a beautiful toad) and also check out Northwest Territory campground where she has camped before.

When Katie and I were getting ready to leave, I put her princess dress on her so she wouldn't shed in the new car.  Jeanne has blankets down for Riley, so it wasn't really an issue, but you know, just in case.  Here she is - "Really, Mom?  Why do I have to wear this dress?"

We drove past the Northwest Territory campground and continued on, deciding to check out Ferguson Lake which was on that road, but further on.

Well - we figured it was a mile or so down the road, but according to Google Maps, it's 11 miles each way, for a 22 mile round trip drive from our campsite, much of it on dirt, rocky, washboardy roads.  In a brand new car with a six-inch clearance to the road.  With rocks bouncing off the underside of the car, and flipping up on the sides.  We kept thinking that it must be right about the next bend, or over the next hill or down the road and to the left, etc.

 It was beautiful...  On and On.  And then, THERE IT IS!

So we knew it was finally coming up, somewhere down that road, it really WAS there! We almost turned around many times, but you know how it is, "What if it's just around that bend?"

We finally ended up at Ferguson Lake. It was right there - we could see it, but the road forked again and the fork to the right - well, this is what we saw.  I wasn't sure if it kept going or if we'd drive over the edge into the water.  I got out and walked down, and yes, there was a road, ending in a nice campsite, and there was a good turnaround on the side of the road.

We could also have taken the left fork - it was unclear which way we should turn after looking at the sign next to the road:

This is basically a LAKE with nothing else there.  I thought it was a "destination" place that would have RVers camped around the lake.  Nope.

We talked to a man who was camped there with a friend at the end of the right fork. They both had trucks and fishing gear and I saw a tent.  (And BTW, a truck or jeep or 4-wheeler is better than a car to get there.  And MUCH better than an RV.  I'd never take The Palms down those roads, but I suppose some people probably do from time to time.  Beautiful, secluded romantic area.  If you're sleeping in a tent.

The next day we went to Yuma for shopping, visiting and checking things out.  Jeanne has been to Fortuna Pond, which I've tried in the past to find, but couldn't. It turns out, I was on the right road, I just didn't go far enough.  We drove around the pond and then headed home.  It looked very small and crowded, and didn't have a lot of driving room around the rigs parked bumper to bumper next to the pond.  If it wasn't so crowded, it would be beautiful, but I wouldn't want to be parked there in The Palms with that many RVs already there.

SECOND:

Our next company consisted of a mom and young burro, who came up into the campground and hung out under a tree near us.  Then the young burro started heading toward Jeanne and me.  We were standing outside our rigs watching them and taking pictures, and when he started walking our way, I kept my eye on the mom, I sure didn't want her running over and attacking us for being too close to her baby!

He really wanted some attention, and probably some treats, too, but they ask that we don't feed them, so I don't.  I loved petting him, but kept my eye on Mom, just in case.

Then he walked away, back toward his mom, and halfway there he got himself settled on the desert floor, and took a nap:

They spent the entire morning here, and were still by our campsites when Jeanne and I took off to find Ferguson Lake early in the afternoon.

Here he is nursing:

Then it was nap time.

The mom laid down and rested, too.  I was surprised there was no male burro in the area.  Last time I was here with all the burros, the fathers were in the area, and would step up when the moms and babies had their naps, and would be close by to protect them.

THIRD:

Then yesterday Denise and Bennie came to visit for an overnight.  When Jeanne and I returned to camp after a Yuma trip, they were here.  We hooked Katie's and Riley's pens together and had room for all three dogs to hang out without their leashes while their moms visited.  We got our drinks and some treats and had a nice chat.  Fun!

Bennie was funny when Denise first lifted him into the pen.  He took three or four walk-arounds along the side of the pen looking for the way out, but of course, there wasn't one.  Then we put Katie and Riley in and he settled down.  He's such a cutie-pie!

The weather has been really nice.  We had a short unexpected rain early this morning and I climbed out of bed, threw on jeans and a sweatshirt and went outside to get the stroller.  I wasn't cold at all, and I think it was 4:30 am.  We're definitely warming up and hopefully will stay this way for a while.

Denise and Bennie left late this morning, heading up to Quartsite.  Jeanne's leaving early next week, and I'll drive up that way late next week, or as soon as my packages arrive at the postal service here.

Today - just hanging out and enjoying life.

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