CONGRESS AZ TO SLAB CITY CALIFORNIA….A GOOD DRIVING DAY

Thankfully Sunday’s cold north wind abated sometime in the night but it was still cool early this morning at 43F when I took Pheebs out about 5:30 a.m.  With that thought in mind it was nice knowing we were heading for warmer weather today.

LOADING A FINAL FEW THINGS INTO THE RIG THIS MORNING

Loaded up a few last items in the rig this morning, backed it out & hooked on the Jeep.  It was 9 a.m. as we rolled the big wheels through our south gate.  After a stop for propane at Congress’s B&B garage we pointed the nose west on highway 71 & we were off & gone on a beautiful sunny windless morning. 

HARQUAHALA MOUNTAIN STRAIGHT AHEAD

 

I-10 ABOUT 10 MILES EAST OF QUARTZSITE & A LOOK AT A FEW RV’S ALREADY THERE

Always a nice relaxing & scenic drive across the flat desert valley floor all the way to I-10.  Again, very impressed with how nice this rig drives.  And quiet too.  We rolled into Quartzsite just before 11 & headed straight for our traditional stop at McDonald’s for coffee & a couple sweet chicken Chile wraps.  (I’m giving up burgs) Fuel stop beside McDonald’s at the Pilot gas bar.  $2.92 a gallon.  Filled the rig up for $171.00 & what a treat that was compared to what we had to pay for gas coming to the southwest last month.  Twenty miles away in Blythe California gas was $3.62 a gallon.

ALWAYS INTERESTING THINGS TO BE SEEN IN & AROUND QUARTZSITE ARIZONA

 

 

Didn’t feel like Interstating it today so we hauled ourselves off I-10 just west of Blyth onto highway 78 heading south through Ripley, Palo Verde, Glammis & Brawley.  This was our third time using this route & I’d recommend it to anyone.  Twenty miles of green irrigated farm land borders the Colorado River in a few spots.  Good road & very little traffic plus this is a fun road to drive with it’s smooth roller coaster gulley whomps just east & west of the Ogilbe Road T-intersection.  If you get up enough speed you can leave your stomach behind you:)) 

VERY MUCH AN AGRICULTURAL AREA SOUTH OF BLYTH

COTTON FIELDS WITH WHAT I SUSPECT IS A COTTON HARVESTER

DESERT SCRUB LANDS BETWEEN BLYTHE’S AGRICULTURAL AREA & THE IMPERIAL SAND DUNES AHEAD

 

A NOD TO JEAN & SKIP DOWN OGILBE ROAD THERE & A FEW GULLEY WHOMPS AHEAD ON OUR WAY TO GLAMMIS

But here’s the best part of this drive.  The Imperial Sand Dunes run through this area for about 5 miles west of Glammis & it’s like driving through a Lawrence Of Arabia movie.  Sweeping sand dunes on both sides of the road wander off into a clear blue sky in places.  A few dune buggies today but on the week-ends this is a popular California playground for young & old alike with hundreds if not thousands of ‘Duners’ racing around in their various modes of off road transportation.  We have been through here half a dozen times over the years seeing the dunes criss-crossed in every direction with countless tire tracks in the sand.  Today was nice though because recent winds had already erased many tracks & smoothed out the dunes into a soft blanket covering of undisturbed sand.  How nice to see the dunes in their natural state instead of the usual turfed up state.

IMPERIAL SAND DUNES DEAD AHEAD

  

  

 

We used Brawley’s new by-pass for the first time today & wound our way around Brawleys northeast end catching highway 111 north.  We knew there was a rest area just south of Calipatria so stopped in there to top up our fresh water tank.  There is a dump facility here as well & we have used this stop half a dozen times over the past 8 years.  Unfortunately California is closing this nice big rig friendly rest area in 2015.  Is it another California cut back or is it one of the first steps in a planned shut-down of Slab City just 12 miles to the north.

AT A STOP SIGN WE CAUGHT OUR REFLECTION IN THE REAR WINDOW OF 5TH WHEEL >>>

We are always amazed at the amount of smog we see in this area of California every year.  It is mainly farm land here so figure all that smog has to be riding the prevailing westerly winds blowing over the mountains from the coast where Los Angels, San Diego, San Francisco & a whole host of cities, towns & suburbs lay densely packed between the ocean & the mountains.

AT A REST AREA SOUTH OF CALIPATRIA TOPPING UP OUR FRESH WATER TANK

We’re very familiar with the Slabs so knew exactly where to go & un-hook the Jeep.  Same place as last year right in front of the little blue building church just a few hundred yards west of Solar Mikes.  A quick ride around in the Jeep looking for an applicable boondocking site saw us once again pull into the very same site we had the second last time we were here back in 2012.  Nobody near us & we are far from where the bulk of Slabbers live.  Lots of room for Pheebs to run.

 

SALVATION MOUNTAIN

Slab City has a strong ‘Eeeeeek’ factor.  Depending on what you know about the Slabs & your level of open mindedness & understanding you just may drive in here, have a look around & quickly go ‘Eeeeeek’ & hightail it right back out of here again.  That’s understandable for many folks.  But if you have an ingrained sense of adventure, a happy hippy background, a left over streak of rebellious nature & a twist of the bizarre you will understand the Slabs & all it’s Slabbers.  Lots of colorful characters scratching out an existence here in an almost uninhabitable scrub filled desert surrounding.  It’s just one of those phenomenal places like no other.

FOUND US THE SAME SPOT WE WERE AT BACK IN 2012

We’ll be up early & over to Solar Mikes Sunworks  sometime around 8 a.m.  I imagine by Tuesday night at this time we might have some kind of idea what has gone amiss with our inverter & other electrical anomalies in our coach.  We’ll see how it goes.  We are expecting to be here a week if not more.  It will all depend on what Mike can find out tomorrow.          

I wonder how many folks know RV boondocking pioneer Tioga George is a cancer survivor & came very close to losing his life to that insidious disease nearly a dozen years ago.  George talks about that in his latest post entitled, ‘THE TRAIL’.

And here’s a must read from a fellow Canadian blog poster entitled, ‘DIARY OF A HEART PATIENT -  PART 1.  This fellows heart surgery just occurred a couple weeks ago & he has a well written post about what led up to the surgery, the surgery itself & how he feels about it now that it’s over.  And how did he feel about the medical care he received.  In summing up his thoughts I particularly liked this line he wrote…’I think managing your own attitude is a big part of it’.  Read this fellow’s post to the end.  He has some good advice for the rest of us regardless of what our medical problems may be.  You can also find this fellow’s blog on our sidebar entitled, ‘Seasons In The Valley’.

GROANER’S CORNER:((  Trying to control my dry hair, I treated my scalp with olive oil before washing it. Worried that the oil might leave an odor, I washed my hair several times.  That night when I went to bed, I leaned over to my husband and asked, "Do I smell like olive oil?"  "No," he said, sniffing me. "Do I smell like Popeye?"

MORE SATURDAY BIRDS ON A SUNNY BUT COLD WINDY SUNDAY

Guess I had forgot to clean the Big EEE’s windows after washing the coach back in mid October so spent some time cleaning all the water spots off the glass this morning.  Tow bar onto the Jeep & loaded up the rig with stuff.  Hope to be on the road by 10 at the latest Monday morning.  If I fail to post Monday night it just means we have no Verizon signal at Slab City but if I remember correctly we should be alright.

 

Tonight’s photos are from Saturday.  Thanks to readers for your kind words regarding those photos in my Saturday night post.  Someone asked what lens I was using.  Actually a couple because I was experimenting around with my cameras & lenses again Saturday.  About a third were shot with my Nikkor 55-200 lens & most were done with my 70-300mm with pretty well all of them set at a full 300mm.  Cameras used were my Nikon D40 & D3100.  All photos were hand held at ISO 800.

 

 

     

I like my older Nikon D40 better than my newer D3100 so have brought the D40 out of retirement & coupled it with my 70-300 lens again.  I can easily see the auto-focus red lit squares in the D40 & to me that is important when shooting moving targets like birds or running animals, etc.  The D3100 has a ‘pin prick’ auto focus red light which is waaaaay too hard for me to see so I can’t quickly lock onto a subject.  If I had to do it over again would I still by the Nikon D3100??  No I would not & that ‘pin prick’ focusing problem is just another good example of a company taking a time proven great idea that worked well & screwing it up.  Remember, newer is not always better!!

A few days ago when I clicked on the Grand Bend Yacht Club harbor cam I was surprised to see the old lighthouse beacon gone from the end of the pier.  I wondered about that.  Seems the Coast Guard deemed the aging concrete structure unstable & has decided to replace it with a new structure.  From the photo of the pier taken this morning I see they have already poured the base of the new lighthouse beacon.  Glad to see it is probably going to be a significant structure rather than a mere beacon light atop a long steel pole.

 

    

I think GEORGE & ED are right about the cigarette lighter/power adapter outlets on the dash of the Big EEE being hooked up to the coaches batteries.  Makes sense.  My mind was thinking cars & trucks etc where there is only one battery for the engine & all electronics.  It sometimes takes my mind awhile to catch up with what it is I am actually trying to think about.

  

THIS IS MY BIRD CHAIR & IF YOU LOOK CLOSE YOU CAN SEE 2 FEEDERS HANGING IN THE MESQUITE TREE

My eyes bugged out & I thought OMG someone has peered into my life & wrote something about me.  Of course many can relate to this following article which pretty much describes me to a T.  Happened to spot it on Facebook.  23 THINGS ONLY PEOPLE WHO LOVE SPENDING TIME ALONE WILL UNDERSTAND.

  

I have always had a fascination with airplanes & the people who fly them.  Years ago I read numerous books about the many air aces who flew in the first & second world wars.  Billy Bishop & Buzz Buerling come to mind but it was an RAF pilot who particularly caught my attention.  I read the book & saw the movie ‘REACH FOR THE SKY.’  I’ve since read other documented accounts about the life & times of this amazing Royal Air Force pilot who flew with 2 wooden legs.  It’s DOUGLAS BADER I am talking about of course & I was totally surprised when I received a comment from a fellow Blogger who actually met this legendary pilot.  And where else did he meet Douglas Bader but in an aircraft.  In fact Bader gave up his seat to none other than our own John Brown from JOHN & BRENDA'S INCREDIBLE JOURNEY.  Here’s John’s comment, “ In the far distant past Douglas Bader was the chief pilot for the company I worked for. One time on a long flight from Inuvik back to Calgary he like I was a passenger on our company plane. Being about 6'6" I was always on the lookout for a seat with a little extra leg room. On this flight I found one, but the crew put the bum's rush on me and said it was for Mr. Bader, he came along just at that time and said heck that kid needs the leg room more than I do, I can just take my legs off. Later on that flight he told me he always sat at the back of the plane. "Further from the point of impact" was his theory”.  After reading John’s comment I did a little more reading on Mr. Bader & it seems sometime after the war Douglas Bader went to work flying for the company John worked for, Shell Oil.  Thought that was kinda neat John got to meet a true aviation legend.

 

GROANER’S CORNER:(( Grandparents' Day:

It's one of life's rewards for surviving your own children.

Grandparenthood rarely comes at a perfect time of your life. Either you're too young for it or too old.

Some grandparents see grandchildren as a chance to correct the mistakes they made the first time around. Others view it as a twilight zone where you can love them when they're dry and fed ... send them back when they're wet and hungry. Others relish being a spectator as they watch their prophecy materialize, "Just wait till you have children of your own!"

Perhaps the saddest words in all the world are, "I never knew my grandparents." It's good to remember that in a time when marriages dissolve and the grandparents are dismissed without notice or feeling.

Grandparents contribute a special relationship to a child that no one else can give them. At least ten years ago I wrote a job description for grandparents that bears repeating.

What is a grandparent?

They can always be counted upon to buy anything you're selling ... from all-purpose greeting cards to peanut brittle ... from flower seeds to cookies ... from transparent tape to ten chances on a pony.

A grandparent buys you gifts your mother says you don't need.

A grandparent pretends he doesn't know who you are on Halloween.

A grandparent will put a sweater on you when she is cold, feed you when she is hungry and put you to bed when she is tired.

A grandparent will frame a picture of your hand that you traced over the brocade sofa in the Mediterranean living room.

A grandparent will check to see if you are crying when you are sound asleep.

A grandparent is the only babysitter who doesn't charge money to keep you.

A grandparent will believe you can read when you have the book upside down.

When a grandchild says, "Grandma, how come you didn't have any children?" a grandparent will fight back the tears.