2008 Travel - Installment #1

After leaving in a snowstorm from Moscow the day after Christmas (Wednesday), we arrived in Quartzsite, Arizona, on Friday. Car and motorhome were very dirty, mostly from the salt on the roads. (picture) Our first overnight was in southern Idaho at our favorite overnight parking spot – Wal-Mart. Temperature was 22 degrees F when we woke up – we had a lot of defrosting to do – the windshields in the motorhome are huge! Finally by Friday about noon, we reached warmer weather. Getting through Las Vegas was interesting – Tony was determined to cross a four lane highway to get going in the right direction. The first traffic he stopped was a cop. Luckily, a trucker let us into the traffic flow. Arriving in Quartzsite on Friday afternoon was a stroke of luck for Tony – our first meal was at the Grubsteak restaurant – something Tony has looked forward to since last year – a restaurant owned by a British couple, serving Guiness beer and fish & chips (just like they serve in UK).

After getting all set up in a campsite – unloading bikes and scooters, putting bikes together, washing down motorhome and car (with only one misstep – I fell over while washing the car when I stepped on top of a rock pile) – we began the fun of discovering Quartzsite again. A lot of the vendors are already set up. Tony found another miniature motorhome to add to the collection started by his son Jonathan. New Year’s Eve we had a total of ten people in the motorhome for chili, chips and dip, cheese & crackers, party hats and noise makers.

We then began our geocaching adventures – have found almost 30 in the area. One of them we didn’t find mentioned “might be muddy”. I personally found this to be true. Trying to reach the container, I walked in the mud – no problem, right? Shoes can be cleaned! Unfortunately, I sunk in mud up above my shoes – had to walk out of shoes in stocking feet, and pull shoes out – what a mess!! (picture) Another one (picture) was very clever – clue was “can not wash away”. Cylinder was attached to a large rock with glue and person hiding it had put the cylinder in a hole in the ground with the rock over it. People who had hid this cache were across the road watching us as we found it. (picture) Another cache hidden way out in the desert – had to walk at least a half mile – when we rounded the corner there was a jeep. We assumed the guy needed help getting out of this spot (no one would drive back in there, would they?). We were wrong – the guy had his metal detector beside him, digging away for something he wasn’t willing to let us see, and needed no help from us. (picture of jeep – good advertisement for the Jeep).

We found that the cane chair is a necessity for geocaching….great tool – after we locate the geocache, we sit on the cane chairs, look at all the stuff inside, sign the log book and don’t have to sit in the dirt. Today our cane chairs proved even more interesting. Friend Mary and I were watching a parade (Tony & Butch were sitting in the car). Everyone threw candy at us, walked over to talk, and one clown came over and made us a balloon hat which attracted even more attention from the parade entries. Told Tony I thought we should have entered the parade on our scooters, but not sure I can convince him before we come down next year.

A craft fair we attended gave us many ideas of fun things to make. We were particularly interested in one item made of MDF wood, calendar pictures, and polymer resin. Also saw banks made from old post office box doors (picture).

Geocaching in the desert has proved to us that we like caches closer to town – some of the

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caches took us to Ehrenberg, California, to see the Ehrenberg cemetery and jail (pictures). Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Tony found a bucket of huge nuts and bolts and brought them back.

..... .... (picture). Mountain climbing has been added to our list of events (see Sharon on top of mountain and Tony after a very long walk in the desert). The time spent recouperating to heal the sixty plus year old sore muscles is now up to three days.

We went with Butch & Mary with our tow dolly to help a friend that had vehicle problems. Managing to get his pickup on the tow dolly proved to be an engineer’s nightmare (engineer being Tony), but we finally got it done with the help of another pickup and about six different minds.

Yesterday we were in Algondones, Mexico, and Yuma, Arizona. The picture in Mexico shows artists spray painting pictures on various items - mail boxes, lanterns, and satellite dishes. I decided to try my luck at getting a pair of glasses from the Mexican optometrist at a fourth of the price in the United States. We left one of the Alaskan geocache trackable items in Mexico. Figured this is as far south as we will get. To see the places we have been geocaching look at geocaching.com, click on “hide & seek a cache” on the left, and search for singo under the “found by username”. So far we have found 92 caches in eight different states, one cache in Mexico and moved 14 trackable items from one cache to another. Thank you Angie, Phyllis & John for introducing us to this great sport of geocaching.

Tony has been having a great time at the tool vendors. Unfortunately some tool vendors have items for women to look at – we will now have a ten foot windmill in our yard (garden, for the British) when we get home.

Two consecutive full days spent with Butch and Mary (see sunset on 1/9 and sunrise on 1/10)

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made us decide to take a day off and catch up. We have been cleaning house, putting up a hummingbird feeder, adding paddles to our awning to keep the desert wind from ripping the awning when and if the wind comes up, trying to get local channels on our satellite dome so Tony can tape the “do it yourself programs”, and just generally taking it easy. The many inches of snow we hear about in Moscow makes us know we are glad we are in “sunny Arizona”.