Trekin' with the Cartwrights: January 2016

Saturday, January 30, 2016

High wind warning in the desert

Our phones have been sending us alerts (from WeatherBug) for a couple of days that there were predicted high winds for our area. The wind has picked up this afternoon. We put the awning in, and put the antenna down (probably not an issue, but we aren't using the TVs anyway). The dust is really being blown - I was out only a minute to put the awning in and got so much in my eyes! Something fell on the roof of the bus - we'll examine what it was in a couple of days after the wind is supposed to die down.

We are in such a sandy area - the land just west of us along the freeway is what I have always thought the desert looked like - just fine sand. It is hard to capture what it looks like but maybe one picture that shows our view of the mountains north of us a couple of days ago, and then a picture out the front of the bus this evening.

A couple of days ago

Our view this evening - I didn't even want to walk outside to take a picture, the sand is blowing so much. We can barely see the mountains that are north of us.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

RV Parking within the date palms

This Thousand Trails is in a date palm grove. This provides interest and opportunity and challenges.

Picture taken out the front window of the bus.

I didn't really think about it when we parked here, but this spot is quite handy as it is right across from one of the laundry rooms and the bath house. While we have laundry onboard Miss Doozie, I find using it to be less than useful - the loads are very small, and I have to pull the wet laundry out and dry 1/3-1/2 of it at a time. Usually I go to a laundromat outside the RV park because I don't like to use up all of their washers at one time, but with it being just right across a driveway, I did 3 loads on the day we arrived, and two more yesterday. It is nice to be able to run back to the bus and do other things while the clothes are washing and drying.

Also, while we usually use the toilet facilities on the bus, sometimes it is handy to have a second toilet!!! And this bathhouse is quite clean and nice to use.

Bet you thought that the sunset pictures were finished once Patti left Quartzsite... well... they aren't!

Sunset in the date palm grove - Miss Doozie's rearview mirror on the left side of the picture.

Note that there are also cabins that can be rented at this (and most, maybe all) Thousand Trails parks. One of the cabins is just behind and to the right of us - you can see it in the picture just above.

The sky is quite brilliant blue today. I took this picture first to try to show ladders in the date palm trees, but you can't really see them....

Here you may be able to see ladders in the date palm trees. According to one of the other RVers here, these used to be used in the harvesting process, but now they are picked with "cherry picker" type of trucks.

Besides having to negotiate around the trees when getting into the parking spaces, if an RV has slides, sometimes they need to figure out how to position their rig so the slides don't run into a date palm (or the electric pole). This one has the tree right up next to the trailer, and the front slide just clearing it. The back slide is almost against the electric post.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Aerial shot of the Bluebirds' Nest at Quartzsite

I just found this on the Wanderlodge Owners Group, posted by Curt. Miss Doozie is on the left side, just above the road that goes left/right in the lower part of the picture, just inside the corner with the road that heads from lower left to center top. You may be able to see the red Jeep (Jee-rage) just to the right of the bus. There is a small wash between where we were parked and the main circle.

Aerial shot posted on Wanderlodge Owners Group forum by Curt Sprenger
"MacAttack Racing"

Within the circle on the left side are the tables where we would set out for pot-luck nights and sit down to eat.

The "main" road is to the right of our Bluebirds' nest - the hard surface ends just before the "driveway" in the picture that comes in from the right near the bottom of the picture.

Monday, January 25, 2016

The hookup of the Jeep to Miss Doozie

I told about our "losing" the Jeep during one of the tech sessions at the Bluebird gathering at Quartzsite. (the blog documentation of it is here: http://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2015/11/excitement-for-day.html )

I realized that I had never taken pictures of it all hooked up and posted them, so I did that this morning as we were preparing to leave WalMart.

The two diagonal bars have give to them when we're hooking up (they slide in/out at the silver colored bars) but they then lock in place once we pull forward with Miss Doozie, so it keeps the Jeep at a standard distance away from the back of the bus. The lighter blue cable is plugged in to the electric receptacle on the back of Miss Doozie, and goes through the further arm to be plugged into the Jeep. The brighter blue are the safety cables. There is one on each side. It has a clip that attaches under the bus to the frame, and then a knob that attaches in at the part that is attached to the Jeep.

This is the Jeep end. We have padlocks in place at the point where the tow bar came loose back in November. Dwayne has built up the area under the shackle so there isn't give there, and he checked them this morning and did not find any wear. You can also see the knob end of the safety cable where it is hooked in.

Maybe a better side view. The black coiled cable is the air connection to connect the braking on the bus to the M&G Engineering brake system on the Jeep.

This is again the top part of the component that came loose - the two locks that we had on it before evidently shattered the shackle, and the horizontal "quick disconnect" bar came off of the vertical pins that it sits down upon. It then dragged the half-round pieces that the extension rods of the tow bar connect into - and those half-round pieces dragged on the highway while the safety cables kept the Jeep behind the bus. In this picture, you can also see a thin red coiled cable - that attaches into a fitting on the front of the Jeep. If the safety cable had failed, and the Jeep had totally disconnected from the bus, the red cable is supposed to pull out a safety on the Jeep that will cause the M&G brake system to cause the Jeep to come to an immediate stop. Thank God that didn't have to happen!!!

Palm Springs RV Resort

We are at the Thousand Trails Palm Springs RV Resort in Palm Desert, CA for two weeks. I've updated our maps... we have gotten parked and didn't hit any date palm trees on the way in!

There is a mountain in the distance that has snow on it. There is great hope that the snow on the mountains this year will help with the drought conditions. The entrance to our RV park is just on the right where that vehicle is coming out.

The "main road" in the RV park. It is one of the two way roads. Most of them are one way only.

Miss Doozie and the Jeep in our space for the next couple of weeks.

A view of our spot from the back. I managed to get in without hitting any trees!!! Though I am certain that my brother could have done it even better!

Quartzsite show

For some information about the history of the Quartzsite show:
http://www.quartzsitervshow.com/

I was surprised that it is 40 years old!

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Back to WalMart!

We decided to leave the Bluebird gathering on Sunday afternoon. We have reservations to check into the Palm Desert Thousand Trails on Monday and decided that it would be good to get there early in the day to have the best options on spots to park in (since we need a particularly long spot with Miss Doozie). So, tonight we are WalDocking - nowhere near as nice as boondocking in the desert, but the shopping is good!