Why does it have to rain sooooooo much? Why, AZ

The rain hammered us all night long. I woke up a number of times, and imagined the pool growing around us, and up the side of our trailer. "By now it's probably at the second step." my imagination needled me. Then the next wake-up, "Probably at the top step now." I assuaged my fears, thinking as long as it wasn't rushing in through the door, we were still okay. I figured, if I could just sleep, I could ignore the dangerous situation we might be in until we needed to evacuate - at least I'd be well rested.

The hill across from us

My bigger worry was that a river would be running underneath us and it would eat away at the dirt under one or more of our supports and we'd all of a sudden fall down into the mud. I know Harold told me that wasn't going to happen, but how did he really know that? I don't think he has the imagination I do and it's not like he's lived out here.

The desert behind us.

I noticed, the night before, that our spot was just dirt, that there wasn't much gravel like the other spots. I have memories of boondocking out at Stave Lake when I was nine months pregnant and being shin deep in muck because the rain just wouldn't stop coming, and that was in BC where rain is a regular thing. The ground swallows it up, knows what to do with it. Out here, the ground is dry and cracked, and the rain cascades over it, causing flash floods to go careening through areas and take out roads.

Not much of a disaster by the light of day.

The next morning the rain let up. I opened the door, fully expecting to see a huge lake of water surrounding us - at the very least we'd be in the middle of a mud pit. The skies were very overcast and there was a rolling fog around us, so we couldn't see very far into the distance, but to my amazement, there were just normal size puddles around us.

I'd been pretty sure the ground we were parked on last night was just dirt, but now I could see that there was gravel too. The rain had washed away the layer of dirt covering the pebbles. Perhaps they might just be prepared for these torrential downpours here.

After breakfast and a walk out in the desert with the dogs, we got in the truck and headed down to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. I hoped that the day would clear up. That's what you hear about the desert - it rains really hard but only for a short period. It was foggy but dry right up to the immigration checkpoint. We stopped just past there to get a photo of the Monument entrance sign, and it was still fine.

A couple of miles down the road, the rain started again. With every mile we drove south, the rain got worse. We were only a few miles south of the checkpoint, when the rain started really hammering us. The windshield wipers could barely keep up.

Ahead of us, a bank at the side of the road broke open, and a river cascaded across the road where a truck was driving down into a dip. We drove through one, and then another, and it looked like it was only getting worse.

I started thinking about the dogs, whom we'd left behind in the trailer. What if we got cut off from them and couldn't get back today? What if we got sucked down into one of those rivers taking over the road and we wrecked our truck? Funny, I wasn't really thinking it might be dangerous to us. I was thinking about it being an inconvenience - probably because I could see other vehicles continuing south through the rivers.

I've since learned that Arizona has a stupid motorist law for people who put themselves in jeopardy by doing stupid things like trying to drive through flash floods. Basicly, they charge you for the cost of your rescue. Seems fair. I wish they'd do that with the stupid hikers we have in Vancouver who don't follow any of the requirements and end up lost and costing a small fortune for search & rescue to come find them.

We turned around and headed back. The immigration checkpoint was being hit with the same rain now, as the storm seemed to be heading north. The official just waved us through from the dryness of his car. There were no others I could see. I guess they were all taking cover in the trailer.

Our campground in Why was still dry. The storm was still south of us. So we decided to drive up to Ajo, properly pronounced "Ah-ho", however I prefer to call it "Ay-ho" just because I'm still the same immature 10 year old who loves a chance to get a punny swear in.

"We're going to Ay-ho!"
"Do you think they call themselves Ay-ho's?"
"We're in Ay-ho!"
"Go ask that guy where Ay-ho is Harold!"
"No."
"Oh stop being such an Ay-ho!"

Pretty much every business in "Ay-ho" sells the car insurance you need to have to drive in Mexico. We stopped in to buy some, which cost us $30 for one day. I checked AAA and they charge the same amount. By the day is the big rip-off. You can get six months for just under $300 and a year for just over $300.

Mexico doesn't allow out of country insurance coverage. The insurance companies in Canada and the US just resell policies from Mexican companies. I read that if we are to get in an accident, we probably shouldn't get police involved and expect to use our insurance. It's more to protect the Mexicans from us. I don't know the truth of this, but I do know I've read a lot about not ever getting involved with the police for any reason.

The rain caught up to us again while in the grocery store. It was a fairly small store and I didn't expect it to have much, but I was shocked at the items they had in there. It was better stocked than many of the stores in bigger towns in AZ. They had great vegan options and gourmet options. It seems so out of place with how the town looks. I was suitably impressed and we spent quite a bit of time in there, wandering the aisles and oohing at what we found.

By the time we got back to the trailer, the storm was raging around us again. We holed up inside, prepared to weather it out with our computers and more blackberry-mojito margaritas.

Overnight spot: Coyote Howls West RV Park
Price: $20.00/night 
Includes: electricity, water and sewers
Garbage: On-site gbage
Cell & Wifi: Verizon - 3-4 bars of 4G LTE.
Antenna tv reception: Nothing at all. Go out and enjoy the beautiful desert.

Cheaper alternative: Coyote Howls East RV Park
Price: $9.00/night 
Includes: no hookups, but has restrooms, showers, dump station, and water faucets
Garbage: On-site garbage
Cell & Wifi: Verizon - 3-4 bars of 4G LTE.
Antenna tv reception: Nothing at all. Go out and enjoy the beautiful desert.

Cheapest alternative: Gunsight Wash BLM
Price: $0.00/night
Includes: nothing, find your own place to park and camp
Cell & Wifi: Verizon - 3-4 bars of 4G LTE.
Antenna tv reception: Nothing at all. Go out and enjoy the beautiful desert.

Oh why oh why oh why? Yuma to Why, AZ

We only had a 2 hour and 38 minute drive from Yuma to Why, AZ. We had to get tidied up and ready to go, drive up to the pay water booth and fill our tank and empty bottles, dump at the 76 Station, withdraw some cash from an ATM, and buy a Bota box plus a few vegetables from the Walmart on the way out of town. Starting early seemed to be a very safe idea.

I guess by the time we were driving down the road from the Cocopah Casino, we were already behind schedule. Water took a while, and dumping took a while. Waiting for Harold to be done, I got to watch and listen to a woman screaming on her cellphone to some unfortunate support person.

"Do I have to come in there and ram this *bleep*ing phone down your throat? I'd go to AT&T except you *bleep*ing idiots have me locked in! NO! NO! NO I will not settle down! Don't you *bleep*ing tell me to settle down, you stupid Verizon *bleep*sticks! Do I need to tell you my *bleep*ing story for the *bleep*ing 50 millionth time?"

She kept going on, and on, completely out of control. My bad side was having a good laugh, and my better side was wondering if I should be more empathetic. My bad side won out but I kept my snickering to myself. I sure didn't want that anger turned on me. You just never know who might be carrying a gun in these parts - besides, it'd be rather rude.

Next stop down the road was the Walmart on the way out of town. We pulled up in the parking lot alongside a big brown Beaver RV.

"Well look who's here?" Harold said.

"Gene!" We both exclaimed together as he came walking out the door to say hello to us. Gene and his wife had parked out in front of us at Quartzsite for 9 of the 10 days we were there. A couple of days after we had been in Yuma, we saw him pull in, right across the road from us at the Cocopah. And now here he was again. Turns out he's on his way to Why, just as we are, so I suspect we'll see him again.

The Walmart out there on Hwy 8 is one of the bigger ones, what they like to call a Supercenter. This one I'll call a Super-letdown. Dog poop bags? None. Bota boxes? Chardonnay only. (We'd managed to clear out all the Redvolution ones from the other Walmart already. One for us, one for my parents, and another when we finished the first. We wanted one more, just in case.) Cucumbers? Only the yucky field type with the thick skin we both dislike. But you can get anything you want in a Duck Dynasty pattern. Messed up priorities is what it is.

An hour and a half later, just before we turned off highway 8 to head south, we realized we'd forgotten to withdraw cash. My parents had told us there wasn't much down in Why so we worried we might not be able to get cash again before heading into Mexico. We stopped at Loves, the only place showing on Google maps with an ATM, Of course it was one of those little rip-off machines that looks like you could carry it out yourself. I have never tried to pick one up, but I'm betting they are harder to run off with than they look.

After grumbling at the $3.95 charge for withdrawal (with the recent nosedive in the Canadian dollar, that's a small fortune to us.) I gritted my teeth, covered the keypad with my hand so no cameras could see what I input and got my money. Before walking away, I made sure to drag my fingers over all the keys. Not to make sure I pick up every nasty germ in that place, but to make sure nobody can steal my pin with an iPhone thermal camera. Yes, that's a thing.

Looking south down the road, we could see nasty blackness coming towards us. This area is one of the driest areas in the world. They only get a tiny bit of rain per year and that's usually in the summer. Ten minutes later, we drove into a wall of driving rain. "FLASH FLOOD AREA" the sign warned at the same time. "Just lovely!" The next 40 minutes I spent trying to peer through the windshield, sure we'd be wiped out at the next wash dip in the road.

We had wondered aloud to each other "Why is the place called Why anyway?" which then got us started.

"Why are we going there?"
"Why does anyone live there?"
"Why does it have to rain so much?"
"Why are we getting there so late?"
"Why did we forget to get cash?"
"Why is it raining so much?"
...
"You already said that!"
"Why does that matter?"
"Why can't you follow the rules?"
"Why didn't you tell me there were rules?"
"Why don't you know by now there are always rules?"
"Ohhhh Why did we start this game?"

Turns out the name has nothing to do with the question. It was named Y because it is at the Y intersection of highways 86 and 85. Arizona law said that a city name had to have three letters, so they changed the name from Y to Why. Why three letters? I don't really know Why, but I read that the law has since changed.

We'd decided to stay at the Coyote Howls RV park instead of more boondocking on the BLM because we're only staying here for the weekend and we plan to be gone all day, both days. We feel better about leaving things in a more secure area. And with all this rain, and absolute dark black skies, it seemed like an even better decision.

Of course that was before we turned down a dark, dark road and went right past the park and into the pitch black of what we don't know. With nowhere to turn around we had to backup all the way to the last lit spot. I left Harold and the dogs all warm and cozy in the truck while I wandered out in the driving rain without even a coat - good Vancouver stock that I am! "We don't need no stinking raincoat!" is our city motto after all (Not really. I just made that up. But, you know, it should be!) and not even a flashlight - "Oh they're all in the trailer and you probably don't want to track all that mud in there."

Thankfully, a man in a big motorhome saw me and took pity. He took a while getting his boots and raincoat on "Haven't had to use these since one afternoon last August!" he said as he directed us through the darkness to the RV of the manager.

"You have the absolute last spot! It's right beside the office so no partying from you tonight, I hope!" laughed Earl, who used to live in Ketchikan, AK and once drove past Vancouver. "One thing we know on the west coast is rain! This is nothing!" We agreed. I'm just hoping we don't find ourselves down the other end of the park come tomorrow morning.

"Tracey, the rain is not going to wash out the trailer supports tonight." Harold promised me. "Why are you so sure of that?" I responded, but it made me feel better, even though I didn't 100% believe him. I guess we'll see in the morning. In the meantime, I'll make us some blackberry-jalapeno margaritas. Why not?

Overnight spot: Coyote Howls West RV Park
Price: $20.00/night 
Includes: electricity, water and sewers
Garbage: On-site garbage

Cell & Wifi: Verizon - 3-4 bars of 4G LTE.
Antenna tv reception: Nothing at all. Go out and enjoy the beautiful desert.

Cheaper alternative: Coyote Howls East RV Park
Price: $9.00/night 

Includes: no hookups, but has restrooms, showers, dump station, and water faucets
Garbage: On-site garbage

Cell & Wifi: Verizon - 3-4 bars of 4G LTE.
Antenna tv reception: Nothing at all. Go out and enjoy the beautiful desert.

Cheapest alternative: Gunsight Wash BLM
Price: $0.00/night 

Includes: nothing, find your own place to park and camp

Cell & Wifi: Verizon - 3-4 bars of 4G LTE.
Antenna tv reception: Nothing at all. Go out and enjoy the beautiful desert.

Los Algodones, MX - the place for cheap dental work and pharmaceuticals

Los Algodones is the place to go if you want cheap dental work or pharmaceuticals. Like all the other border towns, nobody even talks to you when crossing the border. We parked on one side, walked through a short pathway and then we were across the border and right into town.

As soon as we got onto the street, we were accosted first by men who wanted to take us to the dentist or to get pharmaceutical drugs. We shook our heads, said "No gracias" and kept walking. Past them we got up to the merchants trying to sell us jewelry, ponchos, dresses, purses, and loads of other stuff. They all try to lure you in, and if you dare to stop, they won't leave you alone. They want to show you more and more items.

Most people cross the border in the mornings, get their dental work done and go back in the afternoon. Since we came over in the late afternoon, we seemed to be the only gringos looking at the wares along the street. The extra attention made me uncomfortable. I don't really enjoy bartering. I prefer to just be told a price and pay it. I kept feeling the need to run away when they wouldn't just let me look and ask, but as we made our way down the streets, I realized I wasn't going to buy anything if I kept doing that. I stopped, and bartered and bought a few things: earrings, a necklace, and a purse. Then we went back to saying "No gracias" and went off in search of a cantina for dinner.

We found a colourful cantina with a huge bar and restaurant that caters to gringo tourists. I had a huge strawberry margarita and Harold had a cerveza while we listened to the Mexican band singing American hits from the 70's and 80's. Looking around, there were lots of pretty drunk and half drunk people, singing and dancing and drinking. The service was pretty horrible, but the food was passable, and the Margarita was good, and I could even taste the tequila in it.

In the block before we got back to the border, we were hit up over and over by old women, small children, and disfigured men and women. I always give money to people in need, but never to people who use children to beg. We were out of all our small bills by the time we got into line and just had to keep reiterating "No dollars" to the rest, along with all the other people in line. It makes me feel so sad and guilty to see the stark poverty, in the face of our own prosperity. I've felt the same way when overseas, but this seems so very close. It's just a wall separating them. From the parking lot on the US side, you can look over the wall and see the streets of Algodones.

The line going back was longish. We'd been told it can sometimes take an hour and a half to get back into the US, so we were prepared to wait a while. The line wasn't bad though, people were happy, half boozed up, and chatty, so we had a good time, and it only took us about fifteen minutes before we were back in the US again.

Overnight spot: Cocopah Casino, Yuma, AZ
Price: $10.00/3 nights No hookups

Includes: A nice big pull-through space, garbage, non-potable water
Dump: Free dump site at the 76 gas station at 2900 S 4th Ave, Yuma
Water: We had to buy it from one of the many water kiosks
Garbage: On-site garbage

Cell & Wifi: Verizon - 4 bars of 4G LTE.
Antenna tv reception: Lots of Spanish and Christian channels, ABC, FOX, & CBS came in pretty well, but NBC was sporadic.

Yuma - the official sunniest place on Earth

All the way down from Quartzsite, the view is desert scrub, rocks, and cacti. Then you hit Yuma, and it's field after field of green produce, citrus and date trees. The biggest cauliflower, and the biggest cabbage, I've ever seen, about as big as an adult head. Lemons, oranges, tangelos, grapefruit grow on street corners and people's yards. I'm not sure why anyone buys citrus here, it's free for the taking just about everywhere.

We had planned to stay out on the BLM lands, up Ogilby road to American Girl road, but a semi fire on the highway at Quartzsite forced us to head straight south instead of going over to Blythe, CA to dump and fill-up with free water, then head south from there. Since we were going through Yuma, and we'd been out in the desert for the last two weeks, we decided to boondock at the Cocopah Casino instead, so we could be closer to shopping in town. They charge $10 for 3 nights, which allows you a very, very big space, access to garbage, and non-potable/quasi-potable water - we didn't chance that one.

The casino is pretty tiny, not much to write about. They don't give you anything for being a new player and we had to listen to an old woman with a screechy, gravelly voice yelling out:

"Jim Dawson, you have one minute to come claim your prize!"
"Jim Dawson, you have 30 seconds to come claim your prize!"
"Sandy Horvald, you have one minute to come claim your prize!"
"Sandy Horvald, you have 30 seconds to come claim your prize!"
"Dave Samsin, you have one minute to come claim your prize!"
"Dave Samsin, you have 30 seconds to come claim your prize!"

Because it was never our names, and it was ongoing and aggravating, we couldn't bring ourselves to stay in there.

"Harold Wright, you have one minute to cash out or I'm leaving you here!"

He gladly complied.

We're super close to to two premier military installations, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground. The military is the second largest contributor to the local economy after agriculture. We have all sorts of amazing old and new planes going over our heads during the day. You can't help but feel excited as you see and hear them blast past you.

On Sunday we joined my parents and went to the swap meet. My parents were shocked at how diminutive it was in contrast to prior years, but we found a good selection of things to spend our money on. It seems, to us, and others who know even better, that this winter, there are quite a few less RVs and snowbirds here - perhaps a delayed response to the higher gas prices and recession since 2008.

Later that day, we joined my parents and some friends of their's at a restaurant named Julianne's to celebrate my stepfather's birthday. It was just down the highway from us, but in such a location that we'd have never found it if they hadn't lead us to it. They had found it on a prior trip down here, while geocaching. We sat out on the patio - my parents told us during the day, they have parrots out there - and it was very Mexican, casual, yet elegant. The weather was perfect, our meal was fantastic, and the company was enjoyable.


There are lots of boondocking desert locations, on all sides of town, and all the right stores and restaurants in town. There are three casinos (we visited and lost money in two of them) that allow dry camping, and it's super close to Mexico (but that's for another post!)

Yuma is the driest, the sunniest, and the least humid city in the US. 90% of the daylight hours in the year are sunny and clear. It is the official sunniest place on Earth. For the first two days, the weather was just perfect, in the mid-70s, but then it changed, the weather turned grey, and cloudy, with moments of rain. If I were to allow myself to dally in thoughts of "luck" and "fatalism", I might think that my showing off on Facebook about how much better the weather was here than other places had brought this on. Thanks to science, I know it had nothing to do with me.

Overnight spot: Cocopah Casino, Yuma, AZ
Price: $10.00/3 nights No hookups

Includes: A nice big pull-through space, garbage, non-potable water
Dump: Free dump site at the 76 gas station at 2900 S 4th Ave, Yuma
Water: We had to buy it from one of the many water kiosks
Garbage: On-site garbage

Cell & Wifi: Verizon - 4 bars of 4G LTE.
Antenna tv reception: Lots of Spanish and Christian channels, ABC, FOX, & CBS came in pretty well, but NBC was sporadic.

Quartzsite at the right time of the year

Our camp

Quartzsite is a tiny little town in western Arizona 20 miles east of the Colorado river, the stateline to California. The first time we came through, last April, the place was deserted. It was out of season and unseasonably scorching hot. The time to come here is January when the RV show is on and the place is full of up to a million people, almost all in RVs.

Overhead view from our RV roof

The town has a main street on the north side of the highway, where all the stores and restaurants are located. The south side of the highway is where the show takes place. Last April this road was completely empty. This time it was full of thousands and thousands of people and the traffic jams took a while to get through.

Another overhead view

There are a number of RV parks in town, but most people choose to boondock on the BLM lands that surround the town on all four sides. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) controls 250 million acres of public land, mostly in the west, where visitors can stay and play for no charge or a very nominal charge.

RVs of al shapes and sizes, even some tents

We chose to stay again at Scaddan Wash, on the east side of town. It's close to the show area, and town, has great cell phone signals, and a ton of space to spread out in. We arrived a few days before the show started and staked out a good spot alongside a dry wash covered in scrub and trees. We could have gone out just a little further and been in a completely deserted area, but we enjoyed watching the goings on around us. We weren't here for solitude.

It was difficult not to add to the artwork on display here.

The area is dotted with many Saguaro cactus, all with their own style and personality. The ground is hard packed and makes for good hiking and cycling. It's free to stay here, but has a 14 day limit and no amenities, other than a camphost. There is a recycling area by the city hall in town but no public garbage cans anywhere in town. Though the information states that they recycle glass, there was no place to put it, just a place for cans, paper and cardboard.

The groups of RVers range from singles to big groups arranged in a circle, with a central campfire, just like a wagon train. We were here alone with my parents. I think, in the future, it would be fun to meet up with a big group and be part of a wagon train circle. Most of the heads here are grey, and we're on the lower side age-wise, but there are still many our age and even younger, especially on the weekends.

The weather was perfect, in the 70's, with gorgeous blue skies during the day and dark black skies covered with a billion stars at night. Every night the sky was lit up with paper lanterns released into the sky by different RVers. It's a beautiful sight, but I can't help wondering if there is any danger to wildlife from whatever doesn't burn up and lands on the desert floor. On the weekends the sky was alight with fireworks, none of them official, in small bursts from different camps.

"Sunset!" we'd call - Harold would go running for his camera.

The sky is differently gorgeous every night.

The first night we tried out my parents 'fire in a can'. It's a tubular metal can that holds a presto log or piece of firewood straight up as it burns. It's nice to have the fire up higher where it doesn't just burn our knees and leave the rest of us cold. The presto log lasted all night, so it was nice and easy.

The next night we brought out our propane fire and it's even easier. Just hook it to the propane, and light. When you're done, you turn it off. Nice and simple. We estimate it cost us about $2 per night to run. We used that for our fire the rest of the week, Best part was we didn't end up smelling like campfire and didn't have to move out of the smoke as the wind changed.

A German Mauser 8mm for sale from the Lone Ranger.

The RV show area is made up of a main tent, surrounded by a ton of other sales booths outside. They sell a huge array of things that you would find at a fair, plus many that are of particular use to RVers. The first day we visited the main tent and didn't buy a thing. We just collected free items and info.

We came back a few times in the week and found lots of items to purchase, at very reasonable prices. Jewelry, infinity scarves, and beads were my main purchases. I was amused to discover the scarves smelled like pot when I put one on to wear later that night. Mental note: don't wear any of them when we cross the border to Mexico.

I tapped Harold with one of these healing sticks
 and he was miraculously healed of all maladies.
"But I had no maladies before!" he cried.
"Shhhh honey, you're ruining the spiel."

There were three meetups we were planning to go to, but we ended up only making it to the first one, organized by Chris and Cherie of Technomadia. They are a couple who have been fulltime RVing for almost nine years and give so much help and info to people on their web sites. It took place at Beer Belly's, an outdoor bar at the RV show. We had a great time there meeting them and the other RVers who showed up. There was a band playing, the sun was shining, and the drinks were both good and cheap, my favourite combination.

My new favorite drink I discovered from the NuRVers facebook group was a big hit with all of us.

Blackberry Jalapeno Margarita

Ingredients:

• 2 shots (3 ounces) tequila
• 2 large spoonfuls agave syrup
• 3 blackberries
• 1 jalapeño slice (2 slices if you are feeling spicy!)
• 1 lime, cut in half
• blackberries and lime slices, for garnish

Instructions:

• Muddle together blackberries, jalapeño, the juice of one lime and the lime halves in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. 
• Add tequila, agave, a few ice cubes and shake vigorously.
• Strain into an ice-filled cocktail glass. Garnish with several blackberries and a lime slice.

Overnight spot: Scaddan Wash
Price: $0.00 No hookups 14-day limit

Includes: Nothing
Dump: There are a number of pay options available in town, but if you come or go through Blythe, CA, they have a free city sanidump just for RVers.
Water: Miller Park in Blythe has 3 potable water spouts for RVers. Alternatively, there are quite a few pay water kiosks in Quartzsite.
Garbage: We took our garbage to the city park each day.
Recycling: Over by the police station and city hall is a recycling center for cans, paper, and cardboard in town, but not glass.

Cell & Wifi: Verizon - 3 bars of 4G LTE. Some times it got very slow, but this was at predictable times when lots of people were online. Usually 9-11pm was unusable, but it was better at other times.

Who knew buying a fitness watch could bring so much trouble?

I have been looking for a while at the Samsung watches, but haven't been able to settle on which one I want. I like the look of the Samsung Gear Fit, but I get swayed by all that the more expensive Samsungs can do - take photos, receive calls, voice interfacing to my phone, text messaging, and much more. They turned out to be a lot more expensive in the US than in Canada when we were away in the Fall, and I had heard that there might be a new release soon, so I decided to wait until after Christmas to make my decision.

One problem - they all sold out well before Christmas, and weren't expected back in local stores until February. I really, really wanted a fitness watch before we went away again, so I decided on a temporary alternative, the Misfit Flash. The reviews for it were good, it was a very reasonable price, regularly $49, on sale for $29. How could you lose? I figured at the very least, if I hated it, I could use it until I could buy a Samsung.

I bought it and used it for three days before the strap broke. The watch was great, but the cheap plastic strap you have to push the watch face into broke on the side and the watch fell out. I took it back to Best Buy and they let me trade it in for a new watch. Five days later, the strap broke in the exact same place again, but this time I didn't notice it happening, and lost the watch face - somewhere between Lodi and Bakersfield, CA.

I sent in an email to their tech support about it. I'm not sure what I expected. I think, mostly, I just wanted to let them know how I love their watch but that their straps are useless. I heard back four days later with an offer to give me $25 off a watch from their online store. It sounds like a decent offer, except the watch is $20 more on their site and they charge a $25 shipping fee, so the watch I had bought for $29 would now cost me $49 (even with the lost watch discount from their tech support) and I'd have another broken strap within a week. Thanks but no thanks.

I walked into the Costco in Bakersfield, while we were waiting for the RV repair guy to fix our fridge, and bought myself a Fitbit Flex. It has 3 different coloured straps, and I like the app interface better. I miss being able to tell time and see my progress on the watch, and I preferred the way the Misfit knew I was sleeping without me setting the android app on sleep mode. The Fitbit is more expensive ($99) than the Misfit, and will give me more pause when it comes time to think about Samsungs again. Harold has promised he'll be happy to take over usage of the Fitbit when I decide to get the Samsung so we'll see when the time eventually comes.

All the way South to Bakersfield

We left home on Friday night, drove to Chehalis in southern Washington, where we bought groceries and stayed overnight at Walmart. My parents had arrived there in the afternoon. They don't like to drive at night. We often don't have a choice.

Wilson Mobile 4G Cell Booster

We're not exactly on the same trip as G&F. We have the same first destination in common: The Quartzsite Sports, Vacation & RV Show in Quartzsite, AZ. They've been there many times. It will be our first. We'll boondock alongside them and thousands of others and then head off on our own when it's over. Perhaps we'll meet up again down the road, and perhaps not. We'll see.

On Saturday we stopped in Eugene to shop at Trader Joe's, then headed over to the Valley Center Mall where we bought ourselves a Wilson Mobile 4G cell phone signal booster.

This device improves coverage of our cell signal, making bad signals into usable ones and good signals into better. Instantly, it turned a 4 bar 4G lte signal into 5 bars (the best). Can't wait to see how it improves things when we're further from civilization and really need it.

The Valley Center is an indoor mall surrounded by other big box outdoor malls and restaurants. I'd estimated that we'd spend about two hours in Eugene, but it was so hard to tear ourselves away and make it out under three hours. They have every store and chain restaurant we might ever need in that one area and we could quite happily live there. Since they allow overnight parking, we could actually do that for a while - until they eventually kick us out. That would probably be embarrassing and potentially expensive, given the proximity to so much commercialized excess. Maybe we'll stop for one night only, the next time we pass by.

Noodles & Company was full of Renfaire people, in their Renaissance costumes. It was a little surreal to run in from the rain to a modern restaurant full of people who look like they are 500 years old. I tried not to stare too much, but if they don't want attention, they wouldn't dress like that, right?

Renfaire participants

My Bangkok Curry was wonderful. The vegetables were only slightly stir-fried so they retain their crispness. Since they replace half the noodles with cabbage, the calories are almost half of the other dishes and still amazingly good.

We met up that night at the Grant's Pass Walmart.The town is full of homeless people but nobody asked us for any money. They were too busy inputting their bottles into the return machines outside the store. There were some mighty pretty dogs out there with them. An awful lot of the homeless we meet are vets, and it makes me wonder why they aren't being better taken care of. There is a lot of talk about respecting and honouring veterans - why are so many of them homeless?

This morning G&F were gone when we woke up. We had slept in a bit. My fitness/sleep watch told me I got 10.5 hours of sleep, 3.75 of which were deep sleep. That was catch up for the preceding four days when I'd only been sleeping 5-6 hours. I'm hoping the watch will make me more cognizant of the sleep I'm getting. [Edit: No, it won't. The strap broke and it looks like I've lost the damn thing. I'm disappointed.]

Leaving home in January means you can be hit by a freezing night so it's important to wait until California before de-winterizing. That means we've had no running water for the weekend. We've been using what we've brought from home in big jugs. It was so nice to finally be able to fill up the tanks today and turn on the taps.

We're having trouble lighting the propane for our fridge. There is a broken tube and Harold thinks the connection chimney needs to be cleaned out. Calling RV techs on a Sunday turned out to be fruitless, so we stopped at Camping World in Anderson to see if we could get some replacement tubing. Unfortunately, they don't carry it, but supposedly it's something we can get at a hardware store.

Bakersfield, CA

We decided to drive straight through to Bakersfield, 625 miles, so we could get ahead and have time to figure out our problem. Google told us it would take 9.5 hours of straight driving but Google uses an algorithm that estimates ETA based on traffic, speed limit and how long prior people have taken. Cars can drive California highways at 70 mph but RVs and semis are limited to 55 mph so there is a significant difference in our times. Add in stops at Camping World, gas, food, and de-winterizing and the hours go up significantly. Then, at the very end of our drive we had fog so thick you couldn't see two car lengths ahead of us. Those last miles were painfully slow and dangerously scary. I'd like to say that I handled it all well, and never let my stress cause Harold to snap at me, but there was one point where he turned a corner and was on the wrong side of the road and I knew if I didn't yell at him to get back over, we'd be dead. We survived.