One Project Finished, What Else Are We Doing

I have never been so busy than this winter when being down south.

One of the longer lasting projects was updating all valances in the coach. The 20-year-old ones with their baroc-style tussels hanging from the center wasn't quite to our taste. 

So we had purchased fabrics, some thin foam padding and the necessary tools.

Finally, one-by-one I finished all the valances in the coach.

The result is very nice as it gives off a much more updated and modern impression when entering the rig.

I have also continued changing the cabinet doors from being hinged on top to being hinged at the bottom. However, I had to order more latches, so there are still 2 more cabinet doors to fix.

Bea has taken to her artwork and developed quite an impressive way to work with her acrylic colors. Or what do you think about her latest piece?

A few weeks ago we visited fellow campers at the Valley of Names. While being there, they served us great food from their smoker BBQ. Those hamburgers were just delicious.

Indeed they were so nice that we went ahead and ordered a smoker BBQ for ourselves.

I found it at Walmart and ordered it online. It's called "PIT BOSS" and, as so many other items these days, is manufactored in China. It's great for hot-smoking of meat and fish, but one can also bake a cake or pie and it is even great for regular BBQing.

It needs to be connected to 120V AC, and since it barely uses electric power it is great for boondocking, as it can run on the power generated by solar panels and inverted to 120V. In fact, the only power it needs is igniting the wood pellets and turning the auger which transports the pellets into the burn chamber. Temperature ranges fom 180F (smoking) to 500F. 

Our first try was a nice pork loin, which first got smoked then finished at around 220F. The result was mouth-watering.

Next I baked chocolate cookies on it, and also those turned out great. The latest was some steaks which we devoured today. This thing is worth every penny!

The Pit Boss weighs about 40lbs and has 2 side handles for moving it around. Walmart sells it at $227 plus tax. Great investment as it is even cheaper than a Weber BBQ.

And what about the weather? Not a drop of rain since we left home on October 19. But January was a bit cooler than we remember from previous years. Some cold wind from the north made being outside in the shade a tad too cold. But now we have February and temps are rising quickly. We topped out at 27C today and expect 30C tomorrow. A heat wave which will last until Saturday when we will be at around 24C again.

Concluding this posting, I also have a little surprise. I have mentioned it earlier, but here it is again: A cactus was planted by friends around 20 years ago. It is the only cactus around here. Last spring I took too little pieces of it with us home and we got it into regular potting soil. They started growing faster than I had expected. When we returned to the desert in October we took one of the off-springs and brought it back to the desert. I planted it beside its parent cactus and kept watering both the big one and the little one. And what can I say, both are doing really well, looking fresh and green and are sprouting more arms.

To The Valley Of Names

If you've ever been around these parts of the country you might have heard about "The Valley of Names". We did know about it, but never went to see it. Our camper neighbours, who had actually moved from the Hot Springs to the Valley of Names had invited us to come and visit the area and even offered a terrain ride with their ATV.

So today we piled into the van and drove east on the I-8 towards Yuma.

So what is "The Valley of Names" and how did it get this name?

For over seventy years, people have been driving out in their RVs to a remote desert area near the city of Yuma, Arizona to write their names and leave messages on the desert floor. Unlike regular graffiti that is hurtful to the environment, at Valley of Names messages are spelled out by carefully arranging rocks and small boulders in the hard-packed white sand.

Even dogs are remembered here

The practice probably began during the Second World War when U.S. Army General George Patton brought his soldiers to this flat rocky area to train. This training camp, known as the Desert Training Center, was the largest military training ground in the history of military maneuvers. The camp grounds stretched from the outskirts of Pomona, California to within 50 miles of Phoenix, Arizona, and from the suburbs of Yuma to the southern tip of Nevada.

While this was the beginning, it has continued, and still is to this day. The total area is approx. 35 acres or more.

But if you want to see it, there is a price to pay. From Winterhaven you drive north on a worn-down paved farm road, which eventually gets you to the unpaved and terribly washboardy Picacho Road. For approx 5 miles you have to endure the rough drive until you see a huge powerline crossing the road. Right there is a turn-off in north-westerly direction. It gets you right into the names-area. These names were put there on the desert floor partly to commemorate people who have passed away, partly just to leave visitors names. The area makes you think of a cemetary, a place of worship. The rocks used for writing names or making frames around them have mostly been transported in from outlying areas. As the practice lives on, the area will be growing in size.

Our friends had set up camp in a low lying area with some nice trees around. Even though it was very windy, we all sat outside protected from the fierce wind by Tim's cargo trailer. 

These incredibly nice folks had prepared hamburgers, cooked on a smoker BBQ. They were super delicious and we enjoyed the company. A truly delightful afternoon! 

Prior to having the food, we had gone out with their Side-by-sides driving around in this truly amazing display of names. Dixie was glad to see her friends again and hung around the burger delicacies, and when Kathy started to give her nice treats she wouldn't move away from Kathy.

And while we others were on the ATV ride, we left Dixie in Kathy's care, which actually was the first time ever that Dixie stayed back with someone else. Initially, Dixie hadn't been happy to be left behind but all went well in the end. And when we returned she was overjoyed to see us come back.

There Always Is A Time To Say Good Bye

Besides of the great weather we can enjoy here in the south of California, the other big reason for returning here year after year is that we have always met great people in the Holtville LTVA camp.

And this season is no different. While we had the entire northern area of the camp for ourselves in November, eventually other campers moved in as well. No worries, though, we are all appropriately spaced apart. And that is the third reason why we love it here. We got lots of room. We are not forced to listen to the conversations our neighbours have with eachother because they are parked just feet away from us, like what is the case in most RV-Parks. And that greater distance also seems the recipe for building great relationships with your camper neighbours. 

Dixie is making friends with Kathy

Neighbour's campsite

And because most of us have similar interests as our neighbours, we get along great with eachother. We share dinners, get-togethers, campfires, outdoor games or playing board games. We know that RV-Parks offer similar things in their Rec-Halls, but that's not for us.

Now, while we plan to stay put here until it's time to start moving home again, some campers have plans for other destinations, they also want to see. So, after spending time together, often a few months, the day comes to say Good-Bye to these folks - always a bitter-sweet experience for us. Will we see them again?  We never know. Life can throw a curveball at everyone.

So tomorrow we will have to say Good Bye to our  neighbours from Montana. We talked about meeting again next year, we are thinking of plans ahead, which is part of leading this life-style. 

Maybe other nice folks will come and take their site. We don't know.

Our neighbourhood was especially nice because the folks from Montana also have dogs. Dixie included, there are four dogs and I am sure that also Dixie will wonder where her friends went, once they are gone. Indeed she appreciates the neighbourhood dogs very much. Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting in front of the rig, she walked by and went around the front of our motorhome. Since I couldn't see her anymore, i got up looking for her, and there she was over at the neighbours. Dixie has grown social skills we never knew she possessed.

Dixie always finds pieces of wood to carry around

This morning we got ready to get the motorhome to an oil change in town. But there is a story prior to that. I had requested an estimate for oil change, grease job, and filters from a Yuma-based Truck Service (RWC) What they had to offer left me unbelieving. Their price for said service was $3.500!  Naturally my interest in letting them do this zeroed out. Instead, I found a small service place in little Holtville which offered the labor part for $140. I had to go across the street to get the oil and the filters, which totaled at around $500, and that included a very high quality and expensive oil. So for the total of $640, I got the same service which would have cost me $3.500.

So dear campers, make sure you shop around. Most of us are not millionaires and even if you are, you don't want to throw money out the window.

While I was in town anyway, I dropped by the dump station and got our tanks emptied out plus filled up with fresh water. This is just 8 miles from camp - another bonus of being here.

So as of today, we have about 3 months left until we will be home. Time will pass quickly.

Until then we are still enjoying the area and one of the routine things are our desert walks. The area here is called East Mesa and many years ago hot springs were discovered. They were used to generate steam which could produce electric power. So not far from here, we have a geothermal power station, Actually there are several stations throughout East Mesa. When we start walking eastwards through the desert we arrive at one of their pipelines. Some have been abandoned, while others still transport hot steam. We walked along these pipelines which are having big shut-off valves sticking up.

Looking down the campground, our rig out to the right

Doing Small Repairs And Projects

The Hot Spring this morning with dark clouds overhead

 With the celebrations being over and nothing of the likes on the books for the foreseeable future, I have no more excuse for doing nothing. A good look at the "Honey-Do-List", revealed 2 projects right away.

#1 is to correct the way our overhead cabinets are opening. They have very expensive, non-functioning stupidly constructed hinges which, after some years, are getting so lame that they can't keep the doors shut.

A good look at the hinges revealed that they could be reused, (though in a different way) if one could cut off the unnecessary part, and use the hinge on the downside,  then turn the doors 180 degrees around (upside-down). 

Arrows showing the difference in height

These arrows showing where the cut-off is made

The changed hinge remounted at the bottom of the door.

Left new, right old

To hold the doors shut I used common snappers, which we had bought earlier.

Besides of the doors now staying shut, it also turns out one doesn't have to bump ones head everytime when peering into the cabinet. So overall a double win at almost no cost.

#2 project was our entry door handle. You have probably seen those see-through handles mounted outside to the left of the entry door. Well, ours was broken and needed replacement. The initial research brought up prices of over 200 bucks/piece. Out of the question! Later I found one from Rec-Pro for less than a hundred bucks with seemingly correct measurements and design. It came right after Christmas, and now was the time to get it mounted. First I removed the old hardware. When mounting the replacement I had to insert the glassy handle before mounting the upper part of the holder. Unfortunately, it turned out that the thing was too long, making it impossible to use the old screwholes. So I had to gradually whittle down the handle until it fit. I guess that's what one gets when buying non-OEM parts.

And naturally life in the new year is not just working projects. We are still doing our walks around the area:

Brittle Bush with old flower stands

View across East Mesa

So We Got A New Year!

 Wishing a Happy New Year feels like telling somebody in the last stage of a terminal illness to have a Happy Birthday!

 I am not confident that 2025 will be a better year, nor am I confident that we get peace in the Ukraine, that the German AFD will lose the upcoming election or that the U.S. will return to sanity ever.

These things are all beyond reach. And we have to live with it whether we like it or not.

And while we are trying to do just that, we need to take care of ourselves. We need to focus on the positive things we see around us. We can be happy about flowers appearing out of the desert sand after a rain, we can be happy about seeing grand kids growing up or even just enjoy a great meal in the company of family or good friends. There are lots of reasons to also see positive things around us. With other words, keeping a balance of the bad and the good is essential to our own well-being.

 

 

 

Celebrating New Years in the desert has always been a lot different than being at home in town or in a village where people are sending fireworks towards the sky, getting really loud and often very drunk.

 

Out here, we have experienced the quietest End-of-Year celebrations of our life. No fireworks, no undue noise, and most campers go dark long before midnight.

Back in the fifties, when I was a boy, New Year's Eve was a huge event. And even though we kids were not allowed to stay up past midnight, we had endless fun until it was bedtime around 9pm. We never had big fireworks ourselves but sure enjoyed the big bangs from neighbouring properties. We dressed up, painted our faces, threw colorful paper rolls and confetti around and we had great family gatherings with tons of great food.

So yes, we should all maintain hope in 2025. 

And while we actually went to bed around 10pm on New Year's Eve we had a great New Year's Day dinner with our camper neighbours. The weather has been very friendly with lots of blue sky and sunshine inviting for walks in the area.

First flowers have appeared on Creosote Bushes