Desert Rats Once Again

 

 

We are now in Quartzsite hanging with the Lazy Daze group in La Posa West. It always takes us a few days to get back into boondocking mode after spending time in a campground with water and electric. Jim cleaned and tilted the solar panels, added a little water to the batteries, and we are good to go.

The group is a bit smaller this year, about 20 other Lazy Daze, but there have been several who already came and left. We’ve joined a couple of happy hours and campfires, met some nice people, and caught up with others we haven’t seen since last year.

Debbie had the dreaded refrigerator failure last week, and you would think being in Quartzsite at this time of year it would be easy to get a replacement. She called us while we were still at McDowell and said there were none available in the Q, Yuma or Phoenix area and it would be 5 days to get one. She called the Lazy Daze factory and they had one in stock and a cancellation last Friday so she took a trip to Montclair, CA. Jim started thinking about some replacement parts he wanted, so he texted her a list. She was kind enough to pick them up for us, and as would be expected several other folks here in Quartzsite asked her to get some things for them, too.

So now we have even more projects to work on, which we started yesterday. Jim put a new gasket on our fake spare tire carrier on the back of the rig while I worked slowly at removing the stick-on non-skid running board step thing that was worn down to the paint in spots and had white wax on it that would not come off.

Had to run the generator to use the hair dryer to heat it up and slowly peel it off. Took me over an hour to get it completely off.

Of course the entire step was covered with adhesive residue, and after trying Goof-Off, alcohol and acetone, none of which did that great a job, I only got about half of it off before the sun started going down. Not fun. Jim suspects only the one will be replaced, but I assured him I have the patience to do the other side one of these days.

 

While I was working on that, after he got the new back gasket on, he did some lube and maintenance work on the bikes. We still have new door gasket to put on, which he will do while I painstakingly work on removing the rest of the adhesive from the step.

We have not yet gone to the Big Tent, but did walk over to one of the RV dealers to take a look at what they had. Nothing we were interested in, though.

Yesterday morning we went for a hike up Q mountain and the old mine with Laurelee, Debbie, and Rod.

Just doesn’t look like as many people here this year, and we thought with gas prices being so low it would be even more crowded.

Rod got his very well behaved dogs to pose by the flag.

 

This was the best shot I got of Laurelee’s dog Libby. She is a furball of energy!

 

You see all kinds of RV here. This looks pretty permanent, so we wonder where their black water is being dumped??

Kim (of Kimbopolo fame) joined us yesterday with her new solar panel. The weather has been great, warm with no wind, and the sunrises and sunsets have been lovely. Can’t complain about life in the desert.