And then there was sun bright sunshine battery charging beautiful bright sun…oh yah by the way Happy Friday…today is pack up day, as we are heading down the road tomorrow, heading south on US-95 through Parker to Quartzsite and then east on I-10 towards Phoenix. We are booked into a RV Resort for a week, over the American Thanksgiving, this will be our base while I secure some new batteries and prepare for our month in Why.

Our stay in Why takes some planning, the closest grocery store is ten miles north in Ajo, it is an IGA and has a good variety and reasonable prices, but the closest department stores are a couple of hours away either Tucson or Phoenix, either way a full day outing. So as everyone asks why “Why”? Why is located at the “Y” in the road were AZ-85 and AZ-86 connect, it is two hours west of I-10 and Tucson and about one hour south of Gila Bend and I-8. So we learned about a little campground in Why from a YouTuber (Bob Wells) that explained it was a great value…and being our first booking of that length and at a price of $220 for the month we had to give it a try. So we were booked into the park for the month of December, our (my) expectations were not high, but what met us at that little park in Why truly changed our lives, and I mean for the better. I will explain further as time goes on.

Because we are booked into a fancy RV Resort in the Phoenix area we need to cleanup our act, including getting Thunder a bath, and getting the towed washed up from 2600 miles of road grime from out trip to the south west and a week in the desert. We will take Thunder through a Blue Beacon truck wash, while they don’t do a great job, they do a reasonable job and it’s done quickly. For the towed I may look for a “you do it” wash in our area as with the kayaks and bikes it is a little more difficult, no automatic washes for us, no this will be a manual wash hopefully I can find a coin operated wash.

There is a chill in the air this morning, as the overnight temperatures have dropped to near 50 or 9 degrees, but the forecast today is clear skies and sun all day, the batteries will appreciate that as they can get a full charge from the panels. The highs for the day are 18 or 68 degrees, not the mid to high 80’s from before the rain but a little more realistic for the area and time of year. Over the three days of this storm Phoenix has received almost two inches of rain, and had lots of localized flooding, part of Phoenix even had enough hail to accumulate on the ground to turn it white, and just up the elevation Flagstaff has received 4+ inches of snow, anything above 6500 feet has received snow, California has even got some needed rain. Our expectations for temperatures during the winter in the desert are high sixties with nights in the low forties. Our perfect temperature is 70 or 19 degrees, and with no humidity we will take a little higher but that’s about all, that was why the above normal and humid temperatures of Florida last year were just simply uncomfortable.

Day 780

Woke this morning to more rain, and the forecast for drizzle and cloud most of the day, the overnight temperature was mid fifties or low teens. And as forecast the valley has received close to an inch of rain, which was badly needed and should make for a prettier spring when the desert flowers start blooming, but it’s just another cloudy overcast day that failed to provide us with enough solar. Our biggest issue is not having the depth of equipment to live off grid with out running our generator, after a couple days of poor solar collection, the batteries are showing their true lack of ability to provide us the power we need. But after this week we will be on full hookups till the new year, in fact this boondocking for a week was not even in our plans when we started, just happened because of the cold weather moving in faster that we had planned. What it has done is showcased our deficiencies, and given us a true direction to improve our ability our capabilities to boondock.

It was always our intention to purchase new lithium batteries on this trip, the timing was with hope of catching any sales around Black Friday or cyber Monday that could save us a few bucks. I’m still battling with quantity, but may start a little smaller and add in the new year if we need to, this can be done with lithium as they unlike lead batteries are designed to be self equalizing. Where lead batteries only come up to their weakest battery. Now we have to start checking for any sale and having the batteries shipped to our campground in Why, where I will switch the batteries and hopefully install a new inverter as we prepare for three months of boondocking until our trip back to Ontario in April.

To break the week up and to help fill a day, Miss Laurie and I went to the movies yesterday, we have not been forever, but I had this movie that I wanted to see. Ford VS Ferrari this movie was based on real life events at a time when I was just getting into the automotive business, and Carroll Shelby was well know in the Ford world, as he was involved in creating the only America built vehicle to ever compete in and win the LeMans 24 hour road race in France. There were also a number of Ford Mustangs that carried the Shelby name, they were always a little beyond my price points but having owned a number of Mustangs, they where always on my radar. In fact my first car was a Mustang coupe with a 289 that I used to do a little drag racing with, mostly on the track, you know legal like…just saying

It was kind of neat, went to a matinee show, and the theatre was quite busy, but just seniors, it was funny to look out and see all those old grey haired farts watching a movie about the sixties, me included. Miss Laurie got in as a senior, 55+ in lots of places in the States, so two tickets, two pops (Sodas), and two popcorns for $20. It was a great break, and we actually have a number of shows that are being released shortly that we would like to see, so I can see this being a do over in the near future. And what outing would be complete with out a stop at the local Hobby Lobby, well ok, while not a store I frequent, it does amaze me to see a store that big that has so many, different items for what ever your crafty calling in life is…enough said

Day 779