Author: The Buchanans Rolling Down The Road

What can be said, about a crusty old curmudgeon, with no fixed address … not much I guess.

Day 2311

Wednesday January 31st 2024

Dear Journal:

Another boondocking morning, last evening we watched television till after nine, I read for an hour or so before heading to bed and I awoke this morning to find our batteries at 52% , and it will be a while before the panels start to harvest any solar this morning and it is becoming clear that we will have to add some more solar panels to be able to boondock as before. Let me just clear up and misunderstandings, I was aware that we would most likely would need to increase our solar array when I decided to purchase the 12 volt compressor style cooling unit last July, it was not an issue when we were travelling as the batteries were getting recharged by driving and this is our first real test.

The refrigerator compressors are drawing more power than I had anticipated originally but that’s ok, we are energy hogs, we leave all our systems running over night, while we could conserve by shutting down our invertor, or other systems, I would rather just add some more solar and enjoy all of our creature comforts, and I’m also at a stage now where I would like to not have to tip the panels on the roof of Thunder. We were doing that when we boondocked but we simply need more solar, I think the battery bank is large enough, I just need to be able to refill it quicker with more solar. But now the coffee is perked and I have settled into enjoy a morning brew with a wee Irish blessing, we are going out for breakfast this morning with Tom & Kathleen. They are picking us up at nine o’clock this morning and there is a Cracker Barrel on the far side of Casa Grande.

Breakfast at Cracker Barrel is always a great start to any day, and while still in Casa Grande the restaurant is a fifteen minute drive from the campground, we drove past the new “Lucid Motors” factory which is being built in the Casa Grande area. Lucid manufactures electric vehicles as well as lithium batteries to power them. Arizona has become a popular manufacturing area with a number of new semi-conductors manufactures as well as automotive and aerospace manufacturing.

While at the campground we were hearing what sounded like cars racing, but we seem to be in the middle of nowhere surrounded by desert, so I was surprised to be told that there was a private race track just a few miles away. So after breakfast we travelled to the area of the racetrack, which is only a few miles from the campground just south of Interstate I-8 in the Arizona desert. A little research shows that it is early in its development, with many more facilities to be added, it is visible from I-8 but we had never noticed it previously on trips to and from Ajo.

These photos are from Google Maps the one above shows the race track in the bottom right corner and our campsite being in the top left corner less than three miles away. The photo below shows the race track a 2.32 mile 15 turn circuit that has a membership of $30,000 initiation and $4800 annually. It is presently at stage 1 and has more tracks and facilities planned in the next 4 stages, cars and motorcycles are welcome with go carts in future stages.

We landed back at the campground and while Miss Laurie took a little rock hounding adventure, I enjoyed some sunshine with Mister Sam at the coach, latter in the afternoon we ventured over to Tom & Kathleen’s coach where we enjoyed a quiet afternoon with dear friends while realizing that we will be heading out tomorrow morning and this may be our last visit this winter, as Tom & Kathleen leave this month for a volunteer position in Nevada.

An amazing sunset this evening and to avoid getting in trouble with Miss Kathleen I just snapped a photo from just in front of their coach instead of walking to the wall with everyone else.

We were getting ready to have dinner on their patio, everyone else was busy preparing dinner and mixing beverages, so after I snapped a sunset photo I snapped a photo of Tom & Kathleen’s site. The shadows were getting long as you can see and we enjoyed the last supper with the Andersons for this visit. And as sad as that may seem right now it has been phenomenal to spent a few days together catching up and planning our next get together.

After dinner we went back to Thunder and watched some television before calling it a night, the battery bank again did not get back to 100%, but we will have quite a power deficit by tomorrow at departure time, we will catch back up when we get back to our full hook up spot tomorrow afternoon.

Blog 509

Day 2310

Tuesday January 30th 2024

Dear Journal:

Tuesday morning and it was around 60ºF (15.5ºC) in the coach great for sleeping but also maybe requiring a house coat to enjoy a cup of coffee with a wee touch of an Irish blessing. We watched the morning news programs to see how many shooting there were in Phoenix, seriously it is one or two every night along with someone diving the wrong way on I-10, and no I’m not starting a rant just stating facts. Our on board electrical system is working great and our battery level got down to 62% before the solar harvest started to out pace our demand, we will try not to supplement our solar with a generator if we can help it and with nothing but sunshine in the forecast we should be good. Breakfast this morning was fried eggs and toast we are meeting up with Tom & Kathleen at ten this morning, well in reality they are picking us up at ten for a little road trip to see the area around them, as this park is quite a distance to pretty much everything.

We are in a very large cattle farming area, both dairy as well as beef farms, we are going to see a number of areas surrounding the campground, we are also planning lunch stop at a cafe in Casa Grande which has a special story and is very popular with the locals. There may be a drive by of a different campground that Tom & Kathleen have been looking at, with more amenities and would allow Tom to get away from the co-op board which he has been on for a number of years.

We seen acres and acres of livestock, huge dairy operations that make the small family farm seem so insignificant, I grew up on a small dairy farm and this was almost mind boggling in size. And I do understand the benefit to size for being able to drive costs down but it also peaks my imagination on how large the milking parlors must be and how large the milk storage coolers must be compared to our little fifty head herd of cows. We also explored some areas of Casa Grande with shopping and services before heading to our lunch destination.

Creative Cafe: The restaurant is the combined vision of Jim, Tesa and Bill Machelor. The parent company, Creative Labor Services, has provided work and learning opportunities for mentally and physically challenged adults since 1987. Looking to provide something fresh and unusual in casual dining, the family opened the restaurant in Casa Grande in July of 2000. We are now in our 24th year of preparing healthy food, along with excellent service.

A wonderful cafe in the heart of Casa Grande, which offers a great selection of lunch items in an obvious popular and bust destination. What makes this such a unique spot is that many of the staff are mentally or physically handicapped and this provides a nurturing, learning environment to prepare them for other positions in the area. As part of the Creative Labor Services which is in the next building they train people to fill roles in the hospitality industry whether it is laundry, or cleaning of serving is a busy cafe environment. We were greeted and served by trainees, the food was tasty, service was prompt, we were pampered during our stay with multiple visits to our table. Tables were cleared and cleaned promptly to keep up with a large lunchtime rush. the cafe is only open Monday through Friday from 11am till 3pm but worth checking out.

After returning to the campground we gathered at Tom & Kathleen’s site and enjoyed the Arizona sunshine, in fact it was warm enough that we were looking for some shady spots to avoid the sun. Miss Lucy and I renewed our relationship as we spent some time on the loveseat behind Tom & Kathleen’s coach. Tonight Tom is roasting a pork tenderloin on the barbeque and the aroma is almost too much for Miss Lucy and myself to handle, it’s right up there with the smell of bacon in a frying pan. We enjoyed a excellent pork dinner and as the sun set and the evening temperatures drop off, and it will be another early evening as we head back to Thunder for the evening.

Blog 508