Stormy Weather

Everything was fine at 10pm when we went to bed, but that peace just lastet until around 2am when I woke up to one hellish noise. Something was terribly wrong. And something seemed to be banging against the bus. The pushing resulted in the bus shaking, and the howling outside was scary. Didn't take long and we both were awake.

I started thinking of our camp furniture outside. Where would that go? 

I tried to dive under the covers, ignoring the outside happenings, but I was fooling myself. I got out of bed looking after how Dixie was doing, she too was awake but not panicking.

Back to bed I tried another round of sleep. The whole thing lasted until about 4am, then the storm went down.

6am I was up again. In California that means daylight. I could still hear some wind outside, but not as bad as it had been earlier. Our furniture had tumbled around, but it was still there, so nothing got lost.

Got Dixie out the door, made some coffee, opened the phone and started reading some of the world's bad news. Have you noticed that there never is good news? We are all fed the bad news, day after day after day.

It takes some strong personality to uphold a positive mood.

After breakfast we took a walk with Dixie. Now that the sun was up, it wasn't bad at all.

After the walk I drove to Holtville to check on the mail and get some vegetables and fruits.

The postmaster handed me a lightweight cardboard box. It turned out it contained a package of 12" long flourescent lights for the rig. This would keep me busy for some time.

We have two kitchen lights which don't work. After replacing two of the tubes, it turned out they didn't work. 

Trying to find out why, I discovered that the former owner had placed an LED light tube into one of the fixtures. To power it, he had cut the two wires supplying power to the flourescent tubes and connected them to the LED. Naturally, I had to reverse this. I wouldn't have played with this at all, if it hadn't been 12V wires. 

After 2 hours of working with the lights, we finally had good lighting in the kitchen area.

And though I have no love for neither plumbing nor electrical matters, I can do simple work involving 12V gadgets. I was quite satisfied with what I had achieved. 

The rest of the day was spent relaxing with another doggy walk around 3pm. Wind was still strong, but I had taken a light jacket, so not bad.

For dinner I prepared sort of an exotic pork stew with lemon juice, banana, onion, honey, mustard, ketchup, a red pepper, lemon pepper and onion powder, finished off with a good Merlot Red Wine.

We had it with cooked rice. It was delicious

Sunny Days Are Here Again

 And that's the reason why we, and so many others, are spending winters in the south. The warm days, the rising sun every day, the relaxation we can afford here, it's worth the long drive and the thousands of dollars we spend in this country every year, despite of an unfortunate currency exchange rate, though that might change in the coming year, when the US-Dollar will decrease in value as we will see a recession coming up.

Probably the oldest RV place in Yuma. You look for something vintage, gone out of production, you can strike gold here

Enough of this, today we went to town to spend more of our dollars. Temps were rising to 28C (82F) and it was a rather hot experience. Wallymart was packed with shoppers, so was the Goodwill-Store. 

So the last items I had on my list were left at the Home Depot. Just had to get back to our peaceful spot in the desert. The ride across the dunes is always a special experience, especially when you live at the ocean.

A special landscape with its own beauty - no doubt.

Taking in on this special transport on the Interstate

The afternoon was spent with a cool drink in the shade of the rig. Ah - life is good as our friend from Saskatchewan used to say. (Never forgot it Bob!)

Still looking green - East Mesa

Occupying myself

As if I had to numb the powerlessness, the disappointment, and fight down a feeling of despair, I made this day a busy day. I had to occupy myself to avoid a depression, telling myself, "I am Canadian, I am not part of this country, I can ignore, I can survive. I have to concentrate on the positive things, our life, my wife and our dear dog. We are here on our winter vacation and to enjoy the warm weather and our friends.

Unfortunately, I also learned today that a bunch of Canadians here had a victory party to celebrate the Trump win. How dare they! How tasteless, how ignorant, how unbelievably dumb!

But good to know to avoid these people.

So what did I occupy myself with?

We started the day with a nice and early doggy walk. So refreshing to breathe the clear and cool morning air!

Later I took our propane stove from the van and mounted it on our auto trailer. With it I cooked a nice marinated pork filet. It turned out delicious. And I cooked a complete dinner with it. Super yummy!

I also took all our tie-down straps which had been in a heap back in the van, rolled them up neatly and tucked them away into a milk crate.

This pull-out tray makes stowing away things much easier

At around 11am I got a call from a tire place in town that they had received a van tire I had ordered. So after lunch I drove to town to get the tire mounted. Back in camp I put the wheel where it belonged, up under the rear of the van.

When going to town, I also dropped into a donut place and got 2 chocolate glazed delicacies, then onto the Dollar General for a new gallon of milk.

The day came to an end with another doggy walk. Underway we met a dear friend from Alberta who had arrived just the evening prior. Being a real true Canadian he expressed his opposition to the result of the US election and we stood around and talked about it for a while.

It does get dark early here. At 4:30pm daylight is almost gone. So time to stow away things outside and cozy up in our motorhome, which we now enjoy a lot.

Within the next 2 weeks more people will show up in camp and it will get more busy here.

Dixie found a great place under a bush. Here she sleeps many hours

The Day Many Are Grieving About