Saturday morning and it is a moving day, I packed most things yesterday afternoon, this morning I just have to lay the solar panels down, and secure the stepladder to the coach and we should be good to head out of Craggy wash. Now you have to understand all BLM areas are what is referred to as dispersed camping, so there are basically no rules as to where you can and cannot camp. Most people have enough sense not to park in the middle of high travelled areas but not every one so this mornings exit will be a little tight because of an over abundance of stupid people gathered in my immediate area, two vans parked directly behind me and some fool in an old ambulance parked almost in the middle of our exit point. Now you all know my tolerance level for stupid is very low, so we will see how it goes.

Our schedule is not tight today, and while we have about a four hour driving day, it is not a difficult day, our reservation is not until tomorrow so after a spa day for Thunder, we will most likely just hunker down in a truck stop for the night, there is a Loves near the wash.

Well we are hunkered down at a Pilot truck stop, we have not unhooked the towed and been to the truck wash yet, we will do that in the morning, it is four o’clock and we did not get a real early start. The mile drive out of Craggy wash was very slow as the route has a lot of ruts and boulder since the water ran down it the other night. Miss Laurie picked up a few things at the blue sine store as she waited for Thunder and I to make it to the back of the store to hookup. It’s a pretty drive down US-95 through the valley to Parker, and not so pretty into Quartzsite, a lot of the stores are not even open yet, I suspect many will open on December 1st as this sleepy little desert town grows from a population of less than 900 to 50,000 by the end of January.

So the plan for tomorrow is a late start, unhook, Thunder gets scrubbed, and then we make our way to the Resort for noon. Well that’s the plan at least, we will see how it happens. Phoenix is a very busy metropolis with multiple smaller towns creating the area known as Phoenix valley. We are heading to El Mirage it is a little north and west of Phoenix proper, it’s a small resort a quick look, I’m thinking 1600+ sites, but most of the reviews are good and it is part of the Roberts Resorts Group…not our usual type but Mr. Ray sent us a coupon, so what the heck we had a week to kill and it had a golf course and pickle ball courts…just saying 👍

Day 781

Happy Tuesday! Only got down to 30 or -1 over night, but with almost no wind it doesn’t feel to bad, it’s almost 6am I have to admit we are (I’m) not adjusting well to three hour plus daylight time change, I’m struggling to stay up to 9 and I’m awake at 3, so if some of the posts seem to jump around more lately, it is probably because they do. We crossed from New Mexico to Arizona yesterday so we were at 7200 feet again as we made the trip we travelled 211 miles (300 kms) yesterday which is much closer to our normal, we are on the part of Arizona they call the high country so as we toured the sights yesterday it was sunny and 68 or 18 degrees almost perfect for a 3+ mile hike, but because of the elevation it is so much cooler than Phoenix which was 85 or 26 yesterday and is only 100 miles south and about 4000 feet lower, the humidity is only between 20 and 30% so the temperatures do not feel the same as they did back in Ontario. You know it’s a dry heat or cold, how many times have you heard that? But it is a reality, the below freezing temp this morning is not the same and we are going back to 60 or 14 degrees today as it’s going to be sunny again today!

Now as wrong as this will sound yesterday was not a good solar day, we came from full hookups, then drove three plus hours, sat in the park welcome centre for three hours, than drove to the truck stop, fuelled and settled in for the night as the sun set, so only about 54 amp/ hours were brought in, the reason the battery bank was full, the panels could have produced so much more if we had needed it, today will be different, the furnace has been running battery voltage is around 12 volts and the bank is at about 75%, I may have to fire up the generator this morning to run the inverter, although sunrise is only about 40 minutes away so we may make it through without the generator.

Miss Laurie want to see the corner in Winslow that it described in the Eagles song “Take it Easy” which describes standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona and includes a girl in a flatbed Ford, all of which are at said corner, so some more Kodak moments today. We are then moving only an hour west to a casino which has a RV parking area, near Flagstaff to spend a couple of days, one at the Grand Canyon and one the Sedona area just south of Flagstaff, before heading to the valley and much warmer temperatures.