New Mexico Rest Area

About mile marker 53 eastbound on Interstate 10 in New Mexico is this little gem of a rest area.

The sign says up to 24 hours stay. The smaller cropped off sign says, "Beware of Rattlesnakes".

There are two roads that lead to the camp spots and each have a large "turn-a-round" at the end. As you can see, we picked a spot over 100 yards from the restrooms. The interstate is about the same distance.

We parked so our slides would extend away from the road.

Each spot has a "lighted" three sided building covering the picnic table. We thought it couldn't get any better,

until we were treated with this magnificent sunset.

All for free........thanks to Johnny and Jenn of http://freecampsites.net/usa/ .

Big Boulders

These large boulders were at a rest area in southwest Arizona on I-10. The large rocks starting appearing a few miles before the rest area and strangely they completely stopped within 1/4 mile after reentering I-10.

The Best Bedder of Women Ever !!

"The Best Bedder of Women Ever" , now that is a bold statement for a man of my advanced age but I have a plaque that proclaims it to be so.

As Paul Harvey would say, "Now the rest of the story".

Seems a couple of the ladies at the RTR were in need of my special knowledge and I indeed "bedded" both of them and I can say they both were totally satisfied when I was finished.

The Rubber Tramp Rendezvous is heavily attended by people that belong to the Vandwellers Yahoo group and two of the ladies wanted platform beds added to their vans and I performed that job for them.

As a token of the work, I was presented with the above plaque on our last night and I will display it proudly.

I stayed busy at the RTR and can say the pleasure was all mine. One can feel a little useless after retiring.

RTR second post

I walked up Dome Mountain part way and took a photo of our tribe. Since a large number of attendees are in vans, some are out sightseeing when this was taken.

Just to the right off screen is Ann's rig. I thought I had her in the frame, sorry Ann (hope I spelled your name right).















Up higher I started seeing these Arizona Barrel Cacti, they are a stark color contrast to the rest of the desert plants.

Stunningly beautiful as I could not take just one picture.

Well worth the hike to see these plants that I had never seen up close.

Rubber Tramp Rendezvous

It is just awesome to be here at the RTR and I can't think of another place I would rather be at this time.

This is a photo of just a few of the many rigs that are attending. We are spread out enough that getting a picture is difficult but close enough that we are a group.

Bob Wells, http://www.cheaprvliving.com/ , on the right is the organizer and Randy, http://mobilecodgers.blogspot.com/ , on the left are two blogs that I have been following for years.

We gathered for a spaghetti dinner and bull chip session. The food was great and the fellowship heart warming.

So many of these folks have blogs that I visit that I feel I am among long time friends.

A more versified group would be hard to find but we are gathered here enjoying what we have in common.

Almost Quartzsite

We arrived for the RTR a little early and found a spot and settled in. We are a few miles from Quartzsite and the crowds, but close enough to go see what se want to see.

This is the dome mountain that guided us in.

Just about dusk we were treated with a gorgeous full moon. Bright stars and the full moon made walking after dark very easy.

I spent an hour or so standing around a group campfire running my mouth.

Our camp spot taken from just over the ridge.

We picked a spot so the wind would hit the front side of the trailer and the awning over the slides would be protected. This also means any dust from the road will be carried away from us when the wind is blowing.

You can see the trucks on Interstate 10 that is probably over a mile away.

We are so happy to be camping in this beautiful area and getting to meet some of the folks I have followed on the internet for years. Really looking forward to the next few days.

Great Verizon air-card coverage but our AT&T phone coverage is limited.

Laughlin Car Show

About a hundred car attended the car show and I just took a few photos.

Roadsters are always my favorites.

Even "rat rods"

Nice T-Bucket for sale.

I really likes this 1934 Ford three window coupe. It has a fiberglass body and fenders with a metal hood. Very predictable, small block Chevy and turbo 350 transmission.

This 1911 Cadillac was the star of the show.

Read the small sign, "This is NOT a restored auto, It is ALL ORIGINAL".

Outstanding example of early an American engine.

All and all it was a nice little car show.

New Inverter

Our new inverter is a Power Bright 2300watt modified sinewave, http://www.powerbright.com/pw2300-12.html .
















This is a photo of the rear of the inverter. As with all my photos, you can click to enlarge. Inverters are pretty straight forward and very easy to install. The red lug is for the positive (+) 12 volt battery cable, the black lug is for the negative (-) 12 volt battery cable, and the small silver stud on the lower right is for a 8 gauge ground wire chassis. Use the four slotted holes to secure the unit.

















The front view shown with the remote to turn it on and off. The transmitter plugs in (shown close to position), secure it and you are ready to use the key-chain bob.

It has two 120 volt plugs. I will use one plug to power our tv, satelite receiver, freezer, and laptops. By doing this I will still have a full 15 amps for the other wire. The other will be used to power the rest of the camper.

The wire for the first plug was already installed as we have been powering it with the smaller inverter that died. I ran a 15 amp extension cord (nicely hidden) to the rear and will attach the regular rv power cord to it. All the camper plugs will be hot but of course only 15 amps will be available to use.

It will power anything in the camper except the air conditioners but we can only use one large (coffee pot, microwave, etc.) appliance at a time.

I can not accidentally hook to shore power and blow the inverter because the power cord will have to be disconnected from inverter to hook to campground power.

I will put switch on the camper converter so it can be turned off when using the inverter. Don't want the converter trying to charge the batteries as it will produce a negative power gain.

I also ran a cord to the generator to run our 55 amp battery charger. When boondocking the inverter will supply our household needs and the generator will supply the charge to the batteries.

One Year Today

Our one year anniversary of being on the road. January 4, 2011 http://1948model.blogspot.com/2011/01/finally-on-road.html

Running the numbers for the year.

Driven................21,615
Towed..................9,215

Diesel...........$5,025.38...1508.007 gallons..average 14.33mpg

Propane..........$304.02

Nights.....................361
Dry camped............141
Camp fees.....$3158.04
Gen-gas...........$413.50
________________
Total...............$3571.54......for an average of $9.89 a night.
These camping numbers are under $10 a night thanks to a nice long stay
in family members yard. (Thanks Steve and Beverly).

Right place, right time

Yes we are still in Laughlin, Nv. because our inverter died and we are waiting on a new one. It was suppose to be here last week but we are still waiting.

We have been dry camping in Riverside Casino free rv parking lot for over six weeks and thought we would have been long gone by now.

The free rv parking lot is being used for a charity car show for a few days and we were asked to move. Actually we were in one of the few spots that could have stayed but we would not be able to leave until the car show was over.

Riverside Casino could have just asked everyone to leave (after all this is free parking) but for those of us that had registered (as opposed to just parking), we were given a week free camping in their campground across the street with full hookups.

Since we are fulltimers with plans set in jello, we will stay the full week even if our inverter comes in before then.

Day-Night Shades

This is the Day-Night shade over the kitchen cabinet . For those not familiar with day-night shades, they pull up and down with the night position (as shown) not letting anyone see in or out. Raise the bar that appears white (plastic reflexs the light while the fabric absorbs it so it appears white) and the curtain is sheer for day and you can raise the bottom bar and have no curtain at all.

The whole shade is like an accordion with strings running top to bottom to control the action.

A string in this shade broke shortly after we bought the trailer but we didn't have it repaired because we live in it fulltime and it would have to go into the shop for it to be repaired under warranty. After the warranty had expired and we could take it to the shop for repair the cost was over $100.

Last week the strings in the big day-night (it has four strings) shade in the living room broke and fixing them was now a priority.

I googled the string and came up with http://www.fixmyblinds.com/ , it showed how to fix the shades and I bought the strings at a craft shore.

The sight says the rv day-night shades use 1.4mm string but the smallest I could find was 1.8. I bought it and repaired the small kitchen blind but the 1.8mm was smaller than what came in the shade. I bought a larger size string for the living room shade because it is raised and lower every day.

Total cost for both shades was less than $15 including a large needle I purchased to thread the shades.

Our shades are tan colored and the only thread I could find was white but they actually blend in better as the original thread was a much darker color than the shade material.

London Bridge

No we didn't take a trip to England. The London Bridge is in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

Originally constructed over the Thames River in London, England in the 1830's and dismantled in 1967 piece by piece and reconstructed like a puzzle to become a tourist attraction for the newly formed Lake Havasu City.

It was all over the news at the time and people my age knew about it but many may have forgotten.

Even the original light fixtures are on the bridge.

If you want to read more, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_City .

More changes, maybe

We will soon be parked here for a month and I see solar panels in our future. We are using about one gallon of gas a day in our generator. I know $3 and change a day for gas will not make solar panels cost effective for some time, but not having the generator noise is worth something.

We are energy hogs but I think 400watts or so will be about right for our rig, as we have 450amps of battery capacity. We plan to buy them when we get close to Phoenix.

Dang it's cold

We are still in Laughlin and the days are pleasant but the nights are in the mid to upper 30's.

We still don't seem to be making any effort toward leaving here. We plan on attending the RTR (Rubber Tramp Rendezvous) held by Bob Well of
http://www.cheapliving.com fame in January.

I have never been around Quartzsite, Arizona and it should be quite an experience.

Hey Buddy

The temperature is suppose to drop to the mid 30's Sunday night and I did not want to hear the inefficient rv furnace sounding like a jet plane so I purchased a















"Mr. Heater Buddy" . It has an output of 4,000btu on low and 9,000btu on high. It operates on the small 16.4oz propane bottles and with a larger bottle if you buy the optional hose. The white looking pad glows orange but the camera flash hides it.



A 1500 watt electric heater puts out approximately 5100btu on high as 1watt=3.41btu. As you can see, this little heater puts out almost that on low and nearly twice that on high.



I plan to use the bottles so I can move it where it is needed. I will buy an adapter so I can fill the little bottles from our 30 pound tanks.



Even though this is a short lived cold front, I know this heater will be a nice addition as it uses far less propane than the rv furnace and no amps from our batteries.

Much Better

We awoke to a very cloudy day but the wind subsided to a more manageable breeze. We extended our slides and puttered around the house all day.

We are headed to see a move tonight and for the first time in over 2 weeks we did not gamble today. We are still ahead of them and that is very satisfying considering how often we have frequented the casinos.

We saw J. Edger last week and I can say it was the worst movie I have paid to see in a long time.

Slideless

High winds started last night and we pulled in our slides because high winds can damage the awning that cover our slides when they are extended.

Woke up to a light sporadic rain and it appears the wind will last three or four days. Just enough rain that one has to say it rained or be disingenuous.

Appears we will be "slideless" for a few days.

Time to hit the road?

I think not. We decided to stay a few more days so we drove across the street to Riverside RV Park and payed five dollars to use their rv dump and fill our fresh water tank.

I have been using the casino restroom during the day to help not fill our waste tank as fast.

Katherine's Landing is located on the Arizona side of the Colorado river seven miles from Laughlin just up lake from Davis Dam. It is part of the Lake Mead National Recreational Area.


























Nice campground with no hookups for $10 or $5 for Senior Pass holders. The Senior Pass holders also do not owe the day use charge.













If you enlarge this photo you can see our red Dodge just to the right of the building in the center. We used their laundry and I have taken two showers in their pay shower house. This let us stay longer without dumping.

They have a free dump and water refill but it would cost more than the $5 in diesel I paid across the street to dump.

All this makes staying at Riverside Casino very easy.

Still hanging out in Laughlin

Sunday night finds us still hanging out in Laughlin at Riverside Casino. Probably head out in a day or two.

Tomorrow is wash day, just goes to show that life still happens when you are having fun.

In case you haven't heard, "the weather here is great."

What an ass!

Oatman, Arizona was on the original Route 66 but the road changed in 1953 and left the town to die.

The town in now only viable because of the tourists interested in the Mother Road as Route 66 has become known.













This is old Route 66 through town,














the main drag is about 1/4 mile long, actually the only street through town.

























as you can see the road is very narrow. I am taking this from the opposite sidewalk.















This guy "works" in the street so it makes a very narrow street, one usable lane.











By far the most notable building in Oatman is the Oatman Hotel circa 1902.

Clark Gable and Carole Lombard honeymooned here in 1939. Don't know who they are: why are you up this late on a school night?

Now the burros are the main attraction as they roam the streets. It was getting late and they had left town where tourists feed them carrots (readily available in any shop in town) and heading back to the hills for the night.

They are descendants of the burros left behind from the miners of the 1915 gold rush.

This one ass was looking for a carrot. I laughed so hard I cried.

Have I mentioned lately how great the weather is?