03/30/2013, Saturday:  Happy Easter everyone! ( A day early, I know.) We had some excitement this morning so thought I’d update the blog today. And no, it’s not more mice. I don’t think we’ll be seeing too many of them around unless they’re hiding from the snakes. Yup – we saw a rattlesnake this morning, right beside our RV. I was thinking this morning I should go out for a walk since I haven’t been doing that daily. The idea of rattlesnakes coming out to sun scares me though. We’re back at Plomosa Road again (BLM) and when we registered there was a sign at the table stating “Rattlesnake Season”. I almost joked that “they have a season?”, but didn’t.  This morning Curt was outside putting some things back in the basement bays. I heard a rattle (we had all of our windows open) and Curt getting excited and coming to the door asking for his camera. I don’t remember what he said (he doesn’t either), but I knew right away that it was a rattlesnake. It took him totally by surprise, so luckily it rattles first before it bites. We’ve been being careful about picking things up from the ground, etc., but he was zoned into his work and didn’t see it. It definitely blends right in with the rocks. We think it’s a Western Diamondback from what we’ve found on-line. Any way, Curt tried to get the snake to go away from the RV, but it crawled underneath. I suppose it was on its way for shelter from the sun. It was around noon, and it’s warm today. So Curt got a pole from one of the bays and tried to chase it away. I’m not going for a walk, and I’m going to be careful before I even go in and out of the RV or the Jeep!  I think it’s time to move to colder climates!

We were going to go to Parker and on up to Lake Havasu City this week, but Curt decided to work on some of his projects before going. He added on the Voyager cameras and monitor and they work so much better than the Sony system we had. I can’t imagine why Monaco stuck with Sony. We also put the antenna booster in for Wifi. We had to fish the line through the ceiling, which has a lot of Styrofoam in it. He called Monaco to see if there is an open space in there that they used for wiring to see if he could add to it. Nope. But we made it from front to back. That took most of yesterday.  We also had a water leak that we noticed when we got here the other day. It’s been leaking off and on but got worse. Curt checked all of the fittings underneath and luckily that’s what it was. When he was ruling out fittings, he was getting worried that it was the water tank itself. But luckily not, it was a fitting in the pump. And, believe it or not, he had an extra pump on hand that he was able to take the fitting out of. I guess it does pay to have extra parts on hand.

Happy 6^th birthday to our granddaughter, Calissa! We had a web cam with all of our kids and granddaughters for her birthday.  So much energy. Also a happy birthday to our son, Keith, 26. 

We were planning to go south of Lake Havasu City for a while on BLM land. I may just change my mind on that (snakes). There are two State parks there too. I’m waiting for our accountant to get our taxes finished so we can get them from him; so, I have to have a couple of RV parks on hand for that. 

03/26/2013, Tuesday:  We spent last night at Kofa Mountain RV Park in Quartzsite. Got mail delivered and laundry done. This morning we stopped at The Pit Stop to fill water. The water at the resort isn’t very good; in fact, they have reverse osmosis system in their club house for people to use, but not at the camp sites. We’d read that Quartzsite water isn’t very good, but Curt has been drinking the water we’ve filled at the BLM site. They have their own well though. The Pit Stop also has their own well.

What?! A mouse in my house! I do not want a mouse in my house. I do not want to share my house with a mouse! (I’ve been reading about Dr. Seuss this week.) We’ve been watching for mice since we’re out in the boonies, but haven’t seen anything until the other night. Luckily it was Curt that saw it and not me! He wasn’t able to sleep and so got up and went on the computer for a while. He said he heard some noise and turned his flashlight (I was sleeping so he didn’t turn lights on) on toward the direction of the counter and away it ran. So much for no lights and no noise. He was trying to catch it and didn’t. Then he started opening up bottom cupboard doors trying to find it and see if there were others. So much for sleep that night. He didn’t see any mice. The next day we went in to town and got some mouse glue traps and put them out. We also had a box of Bounce sheets that he put all over. The trap was set and not a very good nights sleep was had. The next morning he got up before I did and I heard him say “Gotcha!” We had a mouse in one of our glue traps. The other ones were empty, but the Bounce evidently didn’t bother him at all. We haven’t seen any since. YES! But we still have the traps out.

Speaking of little creatures, the hummingbirds were upset that we were leaving. As we packed our stuff up, including the Sheppard’s hook which had the bird feeder on it, they kept coming back to the spot and buzzed around like “I know it was right here!”  They were buzzing all around the coach. I had the feeder on the ground for a while, but they never went that far down to find it. So where do they go for nectar if no one feeds them?  There’s blossoms now, but there wasn’t over the winter. It would be interesting to know how many of them were around; our feeder was busy constantly. And, they don’t share. They would chase each away.

This past weekend while at Dome Rock Mountain we went on some hikes. There’s a lot of hills there. I like the walking/hiking part, Curt likes the hiking/climbing part. I gave up on one hill and he kept going. This hill had a lot of loose rock on it. It also had some mining areas. Evidently people are able to mind for gold on the BLM land. It’s rattlesnake season now; so I’m constantly on the watch for them and listening. We’ve only seen some little lizards. Very inconsistent TV at this location, so I’ve spend a lot of time reading my iPad books. Curt’s been working on the coach and actually has flown his kite a few times this month. (Now I can tell him to go fly a kite!)

I’ve been trying to find places to go from here. It seems like a lot of campgrounds are still closed, and some that are open are booked already in to summer. We’ll head up Lake Havasu City; there are some boondocking areas there. Not sure if we’re going to go to Vegas or head towards the Grand Canyon.

A Cholla cactus 

This is one of the hills we climbed (partially). I made it to the white areas on the left (mining), Curt got up to the base of the rocks on top. It's steep and lots of loose rock.

 One of the mining sites.

 He could see a long way from the top.

 Another mining site, this was on the bottom.

 Two blimps that went over us

3/20/13, Wednesday: We moved on from the long-term area today as our 14 days are up. So we dumped and filled water before taking off. While filling water, a gentleman from Maryland drove up and started talking to us. (He was at the water spigot right beside us.) He also had a Monaco motorhome and talked about different things on it; the inverter, solar, etc. He said he was ready to get back home to the humidity – I laughed; I told him the other day when it was in the 90’s I was happy there was no humidity!  

We’ve had really warm weather for the last two weeks, some days in the lower 90s. Luckily there’s been a breeze most of the time. I’ve been keeping one of our bedroom windows open at night to cool off.

We’ve basically been waiting for it to warm up north of us to start heading that direction. The evenings are still pretty cool up north, and lots of places with snow yet. Also, a lot of the campgrounds don’t even open up until April 15^th to May 1^st. So, we’re just kind of hanging out now. We have a screen material that we had used on our other motorhome on the windshield. Curt held it in place with magnets. This motorhome had initially had snap window covers, but the previous owner doesn’t have them any more. so Curt is remodeling our old screens, sewing up the edges and will put snaps on them when we get somewhere to buy snaps.

Other than that, picture scanning is done, taxes are waiting on the accountant and Curt is trying to find something else to keep him busy. I'll keep reading and playing on my iPad and wander around the area.

 You can see the rain coming in.

Sunshine after

I bet he got wet though

Hemming the window screens

3/10/13, Sunday: The scanning of pictures is done. I have 4 grocery bags full to be burned, 1 bag to go to Dean. All of them are saved on one hard drive; I need to get another one or put it in a Cloud backup before we destroy the originals. Looking back at our last blog, it’s been 2 weeks worth of scanning, minus 2 days when we went to Parker and moved to the LaPosa Long-Term area again.  I’m glad it’s done. By the end of the days my neck and back hurt, my eyes were tired, and I was tired. Not used to this full time computer work any more. I tried to do a 30-minute walk daily, but some of the days were so ugly. We’ve had cold and windy days again. This next week is suppose to get up to 90 degrees – good grief.

Being about the middle of March, we’re thinking maybe we have to start heading north to make it to North Dakota in July. Not that we have to be there in July, be we’re meeting our kids the first week in August in Minnesota. We might go to a Monaco rally in Wyoming in June for a couple of days; I believe it’s toward the end of June. So I need to get the maps going again and see what we’re doing.

We met two couples from Dickinson during the RV tent show in January, one of which we knew. The other couple has been retired for two years, I believe it is, and coming to Quartzsite for the winter and back to North Dakota for the summer. They stay at a park in town in Quartzsite. The couple we knew is going to be retiring this spring and traveling this summer and planning on going to Quartzsite next winter. They are also planning on keeping their house.

 Setting up the bird feeder - the ground is really hard!

 It's a lot of fun watching the hummingbirds. They emptied it out.

 Spring is coming to the desert

The saguaro cacti are really tall. They can grow 40-60 feet. They say it takes up to 75 years for them to grow an arm.

 I never tire of the Arizona sunsets

My Face Time girls - love you!