Friday: (02/06) I was a late riser because of a late night working at the computer. I'm a night person and the late arrival didn't help. Sometime after 1am I heard an odd sound. if I hadn't come here partly for that reason I might not have recognized it. A burro was nearby making a racket. When I turned off my light to be able to see outside it immediately stopped and wasn't heard again. I did hear the coyotes though. Neat to be in the desert.
I walked around the area and picked what I thought was a better spot. I didn't drive around the campsite with my headlights on when I arrived at 10pm, would have been a little impolite. I leveled the coach and raised a set of the solar panels and then fixed a sausage Mc Muffin or more specifically I cooked some of the sausage and made patties. I then fried an egg and toasted a couple of English muffins. A little pepperjack cheese topped off the breakfast. The second muffin had peanut butter and strawberry rhubarb jam. The neighbor arrived home and introduced himself and pointed out that his brother in law had been parked near where I was parked and his trailer sank in the soft dirt. I'm a few feet away and I haven't noticed any sinking. The rain may arrive tomorrow so iI'll move someplace else tomorrow.
After breakfast I took a little walk. It turned out to be quite a little walk, about 7 miles. I looked around the nearby campsites. Fund some flowers. The white one is interesting. The plant looks like a lazy grass like cactus but hatches a cluster of white flowers. On my walk down a road from the cam the mud was caked and rolled into what lookedd like leaves of dirt. I also visited a solar store in the middle of nowhere nearby. It had better prices than the dealers at Quartzsite, but who doesn't
I then walked the opposite direction looking at the beginning of the All American Canal where the Colorado gets quite a bit smaller. There is a maze of water control gates, weirs and marshes. The Imperial Dam wasn't very tall. I crossed the river a couple of times and never saw any state line signs for either direction. Odd, neither state is proud enough to advertise?
Saturday: (02/07) A moonless, cloudy night. I was nicely asleep.
I was awaken about 5:30 (the sun doesn't rise until much later here in Western Arizona) by a single brea of one burro just outside. One brea and then no more, Must be like gas, once released, all is OK. I dressed quickly and went outside. I can't see anything. The only other sounds are the clopping of the hoofs as they stroll and an occasional harrumph. Except for one. A couple of times it made a lot of loud clopping like it was running in place accompanied just before by what I thought might be it rolling on the ground. and then there is the owl-like hooting of the doves and the very loud rush of water from the nearby Imperial dam. Interesting night sounds. I could not get a view of anything but weak shadows except with the flash of the camera.
I didn't feel like traipsing off into the dark mostly because it is the desert and there are sticky things out there but also because of poop, burro poop. I still hope for a daylight sighting. I'm normally not a morning person but I got up this morning because I'll be leaving this morning and wanted to see the burros. I didn't really see them but did hear them.
Breakfast was leftover corned beef hash. Home cooking goes a long way. I packed up and pulled out exploring the other campings sites further down the road. We will be returning here for a longer visit sometime.
Up until now there had been no rain but as I hit the the road (S24) toward Yuma, it started to sprinkle turning into rain the further I went. I drove by the Paradise Casino in Yuma, actually across the river in Winterhaven, California, They allow a nights stay in their lot but the lot is in what they called gravel and I call dirt, soon to be mud and RV's can only park in the gravel so I continued on. Choices may differ on a dry day. I continued West on I8 to the road to Oligby and toward Blythe. There are lots of places to camp along the way, unfortunately, the soil here is more sand like then gravel so getting out may have to wait for a few dry days so I continued.
About 20 miles South of Blythe I suddenly felt water on my leg and arm. Water started gushing in from the top of the drivers window. The rain was heavy and blowing from the Southwest against the left side of the coach. The front of the left gutter drains right above the window. Not much to be done. I moved the stuff that was stored to the left of the drivers seat and sopped up the incoming water as needed with a towel. When I got to Blythe I pulled in to the Ace hardware store. It's well stocked. It was barely sprinkling now. I looked at the outside of the window and found that a big chunk of caulk was gone and another section pulled away. Either could be the source. The front cap joins the side wall at this point, right under the drain spout. Who thought of that? I didn't think I was going so fast as to strip the caulk off the RV. Of course, I could have shaken it off on some of the rough roads. I went inside and got some black silicone caulk. The area that needs re-caulking is a faux window, a black section above the driver side window made to look as tall as the windshield, about 12" long. I dried it off and hoped the rain would hold off a while. It didn't really. I stayed in the lot giving it a chance to dry some. I was at a well supplied hardware store so I went inside and looked for things to make a shelf for my new satellite equipment. The old system was so much larger and would be wasteful of space and the new equipment needs to be secured to not bang around in transit. I was looking for wire shelves, plastic shelves with holes in it or ? I finally decided on "?". I cut a ventilation hole in the side of the cabinet that had a muffin fan to cool the old system. The new system seems like it will cool itself and the noise of the muffin fan is undesirable. I decided to make three verticle bars using a piece of 1/16" aluminum bar 3/4" by 4'. Each bar was cut to fit the cabinet and included a 3/4" leg at top and bottom for fastening with a screw. Two bars are placed behind the modem away from the side wall of the cabinet and opposite the ventilation hole. The modem was placed against two bars and the dish positioner next to it with the third bar holding it in place against the modem. It was all padded with vinyl tape and anti-slip rubber shelf padding. The two power supplies were tied to the wall on either side of the vent hole. A little dressing of the cables completed the job. Looks good, seems like it will stay cool and provides much more and easier to access storage in the remaining area. The system even worked after the rearrangement!
It was 6:15pm when I finished. I caught Highway 95 north toward Needles. where I stopped for a little dinner of corned beef hash, just about gone now. Good for breakfast lunch or dinner or all three. I arrived in Las Vegas about 10:40pm and pulled into the Orleans Casino lot which was supprisingly full. I got the last good RV spot. A pretty good drive today. No further leaks to report.
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