2009 January

This is an account of our first month in the sun in 2009. Our trip began on Sunday, December 28th. We started to hook up at 6 a.m. (get an early start, you know - the smartest thing to do). Tony drove the motorhome out and up to the nearest shopping center parking lot. I picked him up and we started to pull out the trailer with the car.

There were snowbanks everywhere, up to five feet high. When we were finally ready to leave it was five hours later. We were totally wet from the rain. We were freezing cold. We had enlisted the help of Dennis and Casey as well as their pickup, man power and shovels. What an experience - but we knew that if we didn't leave that morning, we would probably be unable to leave Moscow for another week due to the weather forecast.

By the time we did get out of town, the roads from Moscow to Quartzsite were bare all the way down south. We were either just behind a snow storm that had cleared, or just ahead of the next storm that was scheduled to come through. We spent our first night in a rest stop in Idaho .

Our second night was spent in Nevada - we were tired and stopped at a high elevation - knew it would be cold, but decided to stop anyway (we forgot about the water we were carrying - you guessed it - water in motorhome was frozen the next morning). It took about five hours before we had water - luckily there was no permanent damage to the pipes. Our next night was in Lake Havasu - and by 10 am on New Year's Eve, we were pulling into the RV park in Quartzsite, Arizona (our home for at least the month of January). The picture is a scene we saw on the way down. Tony took the picture out of the motorhome window. The scene and the picture reminded us of a Bob Ross picture. The next picture shows the inside of the trailer with Butch (a friend from Idaho), Sharon getting ready to ride the ATV out, and Tony getting the bicycles out. We have ridden the bicycles quite a few times here in Quartzsite.

We had a chili party for eight of us Idahonians that are here in Quartzsite on New Year's Eve. As usual, it is fun to go to all the vendors around Quartzsite. Tony is especially having a great time since his Christmas present this year from me was gift certificates to a lot of the vendors. The picture is inside the tent. These vendors have all the newest, the latest, the best of everything for RVers. We did donate a little to the cost of getting all these venders here by buying a few things. We have seen some clever new products - or at least new to us - the Mountain Man Swivel Griddle Grill; Stamping Nail Art; a clever new type of purse called Miche Bag; and a new toy called splat back.

Besides the tent vendors, there are vendors all up and down two roads for a couple of miles on each side, one on the north and one on the south side of Interstate 10 . This clever camel was the entrance to many vendors at what they call the "Main Event".

We went back to Lake Havasu to check out the car races and see the London Bridge again. Picture is of the stock car races. It was fun watching and listening to all the excitement in the grand stands. Later in the month we went back to visit friends we met last year in Quartzsite.

This picture is of the Lake Havasu City founders - Robert P. McCulloch and C. V. Wood - instrumental in getting the London Bridge to Lake Havasu.

We have continued the hobby of geocaching. One set of coordinates sent us to a cache called the Saguara Henge. Clever name - now we have seen the Stone Henge in England, the Car Henge in Nebraska and this Henge in Arizona.

Another geocaching day led us to this cache way out in the middle of no where. Clue was to find a cache where a "cactus was guarding the cache". You have to click on this photo to see why the clue was so clever.

We went out into the desert to do more geocaching and ran across a new mine stake. Stake was put up in January 2009 just a few days before we found it. This is the first mine stake we have ever stopped to look at. It caught our eye because it looked so new.

Geocaching will lead you to strange places...and gives you an opportunity to see things you would not otherwise even know were there. This is a mine shaft we found while geocaching on the ATVs. When we took the picture down the shaft we couldn't see the two pieces of clothing, but cameras are amazing. Double click on the mine shaft picture and you will see Tony just behind the large cactus. This will give you an idea of how large this mine is/was.

Tony added a UK Union Jack to our ATV. It has come in very handy. There was one time in the desert that the flag was the only thing we could see after walking away from the ATVs to.....you guessed it....find a geocache.

A trip to a ghost town, Swansea, gave Sharon a chance to find some gold with the help of a woman that was digging as shown in the picture.

On the way to Swansea, we stopped to visit with these Volvo owners who were stopped by the side of the road.

We have taken one trip to Yuma and Algodones, Mexico. Coming out of Mexico was interesting with the drug sniffing dog walking around everywhere.

We had a picnic with friends for Tony's birthday at the Quartzsite City Park. One gift to Tony is proudly sported in the car.

We had seen this van in Quartzsite and later learned that this couple do a bull and donkey show in Bouse (a town about 30 miles from Quartzsite). We went to the show - very cute - would have been great for kids, but we found a couple of geocaches along the way and discovered a museum in Bouse that we didn't know existed (picture is of an old building that had been moved from the ghost town of Swansea).

Other activities for the month have included a birthday party for Mike Chesser; dinner at the Grubstake with Jeri & Jack Greaves; spaghetti dinners and campfire parties at Butch & Mary Ellsworth's; numerous bike rides all over Quartzsite; a few garage sales; and a lot of walks. Just this afternoon, our friend John the painter and his wife Greta arrived in the RV park. Hopefully, we will get to watch him paint murals on vehicles this week. We will be packing up next week to go to the California desert on BLM land. We will meet Mike & Linda and Dan & Jeanne there. Hopefully Penny & Arnie will arrive later in February.