It 5 am Saturday morning, the temperature is 50 or 9 degrees and the forecast high for the day is 73 or 21 degrees, just about normal for this area. We attended a happy hour / potluck last night, I barbecued the chicken we had picked up on Thursday, precooked it for 15 minutes in the Instant pot, and finished it on the grill, must have been ok, as no leftovers came home. Had a nice fire, it was held here at our park but attended by some our neighbors from Coyote Howls West and a few of the snowbirds that have purchased in the area, now some things just need to be mentioned, our park only has five sites, and they are all full, two are occupied by what is referred to as wall workers, now the wall people leave at about five in the morning and don’t return till after dark. They are part of the crew erecting the wall on the Mexican border, the other two sites are occupied by two single ladies who we met the first night we arrived. So around the fire last night we met the two fellows working on the wall, one fellow is a crane operated, he’s only 23, the other fellow is a foreman, about fifty, both here by themselves, working from their trailers.

Now as you know I don’t do stupid, and apparently I’m not real partial to drama either, and we seem to be getting a lot of that from the ladies, we got here about the same time as the ladies about a week ago, and we met them at our first happy hour, and every one seemed to be real cordial, well that seem to have gone to hell in a hand basket, now they are feuding like the Hatfields and the McCoys. It all started on Monday when one went and dragged a picnic table from the others site, then there was a big flap about a tarp (no pun intended), now to the best of my understanding, they aren’t speaking, and we are only seven days in…like seriously. Thankfully we are kind of separated from everyone else, so I don’t get to hear or experience any of this first hand, or I might be tempted to express my opinions (I know you will find that hard to believe), on their childish behaviour. But it is this kind of stupidity and inconsiderate actions that can sour everyone, now we know after two years on the road, that this behaviour is not correct or is it acceptable from kids let alone adults, I mean if your site is missing a picnic table, ask management, don’t steal your neighbors.

So today’s excitement will be a big trip to Ajo to the farmers market, and I understand there is a flea / craft market at the community centre here in Why. It has been a busy week, well that’s not totally true, but I have kept busy enough, with lots of little repairs, I have a number of items enroute, that I purchased this week, so I have delivery dates on some items and other items I don’t, I even have one item the UPS seems to have misplaced, the note I got was “due to operating conditions your package may be delayed” that was at 10 am yesterday, makes it sound like their truck was stuck in a snow bank. But as of 5:53 this morning it seem to have been found again, but I’m not getting it till Monday, so that’s four days from Phoenix to here, all 90 miles of it…just saying.

I’m aware the holiday times are adding to everyone’s shipping issues, and none of it we are in dire need of but the difficult time consuming items should be here next Friday, most of them are coming from Maine, hmm, six days from Maine, four days from Phoenix something just seems wrong with that, This little upgrade means everything needs to come out of the basement, like I said pretty big job but will make a huge difference to our ability to boondock in the desert. And with a couple of months of that planned (January and February and maybe March) it will be a welcomed upgrade, if we just knew someone qualified to do the install…lol.

Day 795

Have you ever been looking foreword to something so much, that when it happens, and doesn’t seem to live up to your expectations, it just leaves you wanting. That is kind of how we are feeling about this visit to Why, now don’t get me wrong, we are enjoying ourselves, but it just isn’t quite as we remember it. There is probably a few dozen reasons why, and as much our doing as not, part of it is the park as there have been many changes, some of which don’t make a lot of sense. But again it is a small village and if you don’t agree with the people in power, they can and will make your stay less comfortable, there seems to be a lot of power tripping going on. Many of the people we came to see are here and most are well, obviously age does take its toll, and as they say time waits for no man.

We are doing some maintenance on Thunder, I spent quite some time resealing our slide, there were a number of cracks in the chalking, so some new chalking and some spray sealant should resolve any leakage issues. There will be a steady stream of deliveries arriving over the next week or so as we have to gather items while we have a campground that will allow us to have items shipped. I ordered a number of items yesterday that should pretty much complete the power upgrade, I will add updates as it happens, some items will be temporary installed until repositioning can be done, hardware and required items are real scarce here and will be much easier to source in Quartzsite. Right now it’s just a waiting game and tracking all the different shipments.

Enjoying some meals that are a little difficult to cook when boondocking, garlic shrimp Alfredo, shrimp from Rocky Point in Mexico, fresh roasted garlic, mmm mmm good, we also went to tasting the other evening, it’s kind of done like a pop up, here it’s a different chef each time and he prepares a few different items this one consisted of Mexican shrimp cocktail, Greek Spanakopita, and flan or raspberry crumble for desert, while each were tasty, I’m not sure it was good value, and each came in a different take away container, so there were just way too many little plastic boxes. They take your individual order so they could have just as easily put it on one plate or one large take away container. The amount of trash that was created was just stupid, they gave us compostable utensils, than had plastic boxes, and paper bowls, and afterwards it all just goes into a garbage bag…our America friends are not the best at recycling…just saying

There is going to be a potluck on Friday for happy hour, we are looking forward to that, I think I will barbecue chicken drumsticks, as the local grocery store has them on for $0.49 a pound, they have some great bargains each week, but they have them as daily specials, so the meat is on special on Thursday and the produce is on special on Friday, just a wee bit of a pain. There is also a farmers market on Thursdays and Saturday that always used to have some nice items so we will be checking that out as well. I have been working at some maintenance but I haven’t been working too hard, that will change as more items arrive and time starts to run shorter….

Day 791