As I watched the news last night, one of the stories on the world news shortly after the deployment of thousands of troops to the Middle East, there is a story of a wheel falling off of an Air Canada flight out of Montreal, now luckily every one on the flight was fine and the plane turned around and landed on the remaining wheels. I hope we can say the same about all those America soldiers that have been called into action, I don’t know what will come of this military action but I have a feeling it may not be as good of out come as the flight. I normally try not to comment much about military actions, but this was like poking a really big hornets nest with a real short stick. On the same news cast was coverage of millions in Iran at a funeral, again the crowd was huge, which tells me there are a lot of really angry Iranian people, so like I said a really big hornets nest…ok that’s enough said on that topic.

Now maybe it’s the cold medication talking but as I watched some of the interviews from Iran a couple of things stood out, first and for most how brave or stupid some of these reporters were for being there? But even more than that was that even the children that they interviewed had so much hatred that I found it pretty amazing, because all this hate had to taught. Where does that much hate come from, no one is born with hate, it is an emotion that has to be learned, and I’m sure that all the propaganda that everyone is being bombarded with every day is a factor, but it’s not a lot different than being prejudice against someone for the colour of their skin, their ancestors, or their political or religious beliefs. These are all learned traits, I look at the Middle East as having more hate than anywhere else in the world, and after wondering why? I have to imagine it is why there have been wars there as long as I can remember, we have watched as one country will invade another and after someone (the United States) steps in to stop it they just end up having a tribal war amongst themselves and hating who ever got involved, it’s as if they have so much hated they just need an constant outlet and it doesn’t really matter who they direct their hate at as long as it’s someone.

I know that was a little deep for a Tuesday morning even for me, but it was just something that I thought I had to get off my chest…on a much lighter note it’s 6 o’clock in the morning the temperature is 45 or 7 degrees, clear sunny sky is forecast with expected highs in the upper sixties or high teens, we are only an hour from our destination so a short travel day, my effects from the cold are lessening while Miss Laurie is still suffering, once we are settled I will need to pick up some supplies, we are running low on a number of items. As I expect to be spending a fair bit if time outside over the balloon festival, unlike our last stop on BLM land we will get our chairs out and possibly the fire pit, our space is 60’ X 22’ which is not a bad size for our coach with our slide out we are just ten feet wide so that will give us a good sized sitting area, and depending on our location we may even set up in front of the coach, if that gives the better view, but that will be decided in a few hours.

On the solar / battery front, we have been enjoying all our creature comforts but we are struggling to replenish the batteries, after our move yesterday @ 4pm we were at a 70% SOC (state of charge) and this morning @ 6am we are at 35% SOC (that’s 210 amp), while we got the benefit of the alternator charging yesterday, we brought in minimal solar and with such short days at this time of year we are continually falling behind. Think of it as a big tank and we are using power out of at an average rate of 20 amps per hour so over 24 hours that is 480 amps, the best solar harvest I have got so far was 35 amps, now that was after any DC loads we had but before our AC loads, but even forgetting factor, that the 35 amps for eight hours of sun (which is a stretch) is only 280 amp which leaves us 200 amps short. Yesterday the alternator was producing 60 amps for about 4 hours so a boost of 240 amp. So until we can get some more solar added to keep the tank full we are going to have to use our generator to get us closer. But it means that we are going to have to work at getting maximum solar harvest for now to reduce our generator run time.

As you can see we are settled in, and are meeting all our new neighbours, they cut off entry at 6pm. So the fun will start again tomorrow morning, the issue that everyone is having is that the spots are only 45’ long not the 60’ so people are having to park in the middle of the area to get their opposing slides out then comes the issue of where to park you tow or towed vehicle…all I’m going to say it has been entertaining.

Monday, Monday, Monday, now just imagine that being spoken in a big booming voice…kind of gets you a little excited that something great is going to be happen today…well sorry it’s not, at least for us, both of “The Buchanan’s” are still down with colds so today will be a bit of a rough day, because I have to get up on the roof to reset the solar panels for travel, and put our Zamp solar suitcase away, remove the windshield sun shade before we prepare to hit the road.

Heading north out of the Yuma area on US-95 today, it’s Monday so my expectations are for reasonably light traffic, we have a little over 60 miles (100 kilometres) to Quartzsite of two lane road so I’m sure there will be a few people that aren’t happy with my speed. But that will be their problem not mine, we will get our first look at the craziness that is Quartzsite with two weeks till the maximum crazy level, after I looked up the fees for water and dumping at the RV Pit Stop, and realized that just two dumps would cost more than getting a 14 day pass at LaPossa South LTVA (Long Term Visitor Area) which also allows us to dump our garbage, dump our waste dump and water fill at the Pit Stop was going to be $25+taxes, so the $40 for 14 days at the LTVA in Quartzsite seems like the best deal, it will make it cheaper over the next two weeks of adding water and dumping waste tanks.

So we made it to LaPossa South camping area, purchased our permit, and headed off to the dump station to dump and reload with fresh water. It’s always a busy spot because it is the only dump station for three large LTVA’s so you normally expect a line up but it’s always entertaining to watch people at the dump station, for some reason it just seems to bring out the worst of people’s behaviour, and don’t get me started about the stupidity of people at the water fill station. Today was reasonable we were about 7th or 8th in line so I just figured we would be about an hour, what always amazes me is how a coach like ours that can hold up to 120 gallons of waste can pull up and dump faster than some one in a converted vans that only hold 40 gallons. These are some of the questions that normal people just can’t find an answer for, this area around Quartzsite is a very broad mix of rigs from little home made wood trailers to a million dollar Prevost coach, and it’s usually the Prevost owner that will be the biggest hold up…just saying.

After refilling with water we headed north up to Quartzsite, we can report that the big tent is up, and as we pass over I-10, our route changes to AZ-95, yes it changes from US-95 to AZ-95 in Quartzsite, just a little confusing on a good day, but as we head north we pass a couple BLM areas again we are on two lane highway, there are a couple of passing lanes enroute to Parker AZ, it is the Parker dam just north of Parker that backs up the Colorado River to actually form Lake Havasu. We have settled into the Blue Water Casino parking lot for a night of black topping and we will head up the road to Lake Havasu tomorrow morning, it’s only about 40 miles and one of the prettiest drives along the Colorado River in Arizona. Travel distance today was only 106 miles (170 kms) but it involved the best part of four hours, tomorrow will only be about one hour as we move to our spot for the balloon festival.