I know! You haven’t heard from us for about two weeks and you are wondering if we drove off the end of the earth. Well no, we haven’t gotten to the end of the earth, but I am sure Gila Bend, Arizona can’t be too far from there. It is about half way between Tucson to Yuma and made a nice stop over. It is cheap, about $10, it’s windy and it is close to the freeway so it is somewhat noisy. It does have water and electric, so we are getting the water tank topped off and the batteries charged up. Tomorrow we will return to Mittry Lake. It is close to Yuma, on the Colorado River and we will be meeting several RV’ing friends there. It is also free, no water or electric and probably out of reach of the cell phone and inter-net. We will probably do a little canoeing and a little music around the campfire and a lot of talking. We heard from some friends that the mosquitoes are bad there this year, so we laid in a supply of Cutter.
Tag Archives: Arcturus
Our 2001 Alpine motor home, 34 ft. long.
2008 in Review
We relocated 116 times in 2008. This is about average for us. For 2007 it was 125 times and 2006, 118 times. Total distance driven was 10,465, bicycled 2,097 and hiked 236 miles for a grand total of 12,798 miles in 2008. That works out to 108 miles per move. Our big event for the year was the big Dinsmore-Cook family reunion in Colville Washington. It was really fun having all the children, grandchildren, cousins, nieces and nephews together. We were glad that we made our big trip to Alaska in 2007, but my records show that we did not substantially curtail our travels in 2008. We never have enjoyed driving long days. We have developed a style of travel where we pick a monument or battlefield along the way for a mid day break. We either hike or break out the bicycle for an hour of exploring; then we then get back on the road and complete the day’s route. We were more careful planning our stops this year and we are getting better at staying put for at least two or three days.
Winter Cleaning:
I know you have heard of spring cleaning. Today we seized an opportunity to clean the “basement” of our motor home. We call the cargo bay under our coach the “basement.” The trailer is the “Shop Annex.”
We scheduled this winter cleaning just two days ahead of the winter solstice. That way there would be minimum of daylight. The schedule fortunately coincided with a record breaking warm day here in Nashville Tennessee at 73 degrees. You heard me, 73 degrees.
Rotator Cuff:
It’s not what you think! Neither Judy or I have suffered any injury. I am writing about a damaged rotator cuff on the TV antenna. You see in an RV you have to have an antenna that folds flat against the roof when you travel. A couple days ago we were preparing move on a chilly morning. The antenna was frozen solid. I returned periodically to try moving it as we worked through our pre-flight check list. At long last I put a little more muscle into trying to move it, and I broke it. I had to get the cold aluminum ladder out and climb on the icy roof and rotate it into the proper alignment for lowering by hand.
I am Thankful:
Judy and I are currently traveling in “The Heartland of America.” We tend to like the state parks and the back roads over the big cities and the interstate highways. Occasionally that gets us in a pickle. We stopped in a small town called Parkin Arkansas and visited an archeological site where the Spaniard, Hernando de Soto met the natives at Casque, a fortified village some 465 years ago on the bank of the St. Francis River. It was interesting to walk around the village site which had been enclosed in a man made mote and see the man made hill in the middle of the village for the Chief’s house. Quite a feat for a people whose best tool was a stone adze made of chert mined in the hills about 25 miles away.