A Successful Hunt

 

No better way to begin your day than with a good roll the dirt.

Yep, I’m feeling it.  Today is going to be a good day.

I got one!!  I’m taking him home.

Now what?

What to do?

Then she let it go and lost it in the bush.

I saved the tail to add to her collection.

I know you are in the there.

We gave up and went back home.

She was very unhappy about losing her lizard.

Down to the Last Can

 

I rode out to the coyote feeding station and was surprised to find that he carried the bowl all the way out here from beneath that tree in the background.  Odd.  

I dumped in another can and placed the bowl back in the shade.

There is just one can left now.

The next day I walked on out to the site.

Again he brought the bowl out from the tree.

This time he didn’t eat it all.

He must have a full belly for usually I skip a day on checking.

I didn’t open the last can.

Beans, what are you doing out there?

Just hanging out on the front porch Dad.

This may look odd but I took the picture so that my shadow wasn’t on the rock art then flipped the image over so the tree would be upright.  Don’t think I should have done that.

Ready to Go

 

Well I have the dash camera installed...

...and I think I understand it now.  (Ha!)

I will see next time I go into town.

I at least like how small it is.

I need some alone time.

Reminds me of Wile Coyote after he looked down and realized he was no longer standing on the cliff edge and only then he falls all the way down to the bottom of the canyon. ‘Splat’ in a puff of dirt.

Clueless

 

I spent several hours working on understanding the new dash camera and setting it up.  Honestly, it probably is very simple for most people but to me it is pretty abstract.  I don’t understand the terminology and the meaning of various functions.  The owners pamphlet is pretty good (for the normal person) but I was still doing a lot of Googling and reading questions and answers on Amazon.  Before frustration set in I quit for the day.  It is similar to my recent propane tank improvement.

This is the little one gallon refillable propane tank I bought a couple years ago for my winter heater.  I would have to shake it and guess as to how much propane was left in the tank.  I always kept one of those little green canisters on hand if it ran out on me.  Lying in bed one night I remembered our first truck camper we had back in the late 70’s.  I bought this tape you stuck to the side of the tank and it would show different colors as to where the propane level was inside.  Temperature difference is what made it work.

I should order one of those tape thingys.

I got on Amazon to find them and guess what?  They make gauges you can screw onto the bottle.  I had no idea.  I suppose I should find that embarrassing to admit but really, at this stage of my life I don’t care.

Water and the Moon

 

The day I rode the Honda to the post office to pick up the dash cam I stopped by the Flying J Truck stop.  A fellow nomad traveler left a comment on my post about the difficulty I had in finding water.  She has stayed in this area the last several winters.  She gave me detailed instructions in locating the water there.  I just didn’t think about the truck stop as I don’t usually go to them for any reason.

Sure enough, there it was, one lonely water faucet next to lane number one where the big rigs fill up.  I don’t know how she ever saw this.  There was one other faucet around behind the mini mart also.

Well this is great.  They are only four plus miles from camp and still on the Arizona side.

Thank you Cinn.

I crossed over the interstate to continue on and decided to check around the large Union service station and store.  Nothing.  But as I was leaving out there by the street I found this all by itself, and the water flowed.  This one would be even easier and quieter to access.  

Looks like a new faucet.  She may not know about it.

A full moon rise.  

This is the best my phone can do. 

I wonder if there is a Hubble Space Telescope app for the phone?

The Dash Camera

 

Several years back a YouTube nomad friend I followed posted a video about how she was following her friends and her dash camera caught this guy driving a U-haul truck side swiping their truck and camper.  I think the video led to the guy’s identity.  At any rate I thought that might be something I should get.  I had been driving all those years, thousands of miles, back and forth across the country without one.  I got the bright idea to rig up my old GoPro camera to do the job.  This worked great.  But just in the last few months the camera started acting up shutting itself down unknowingly to me.  Sometimes it worked and sometimes not.  I fought with it all through Idaho and it finally grew too unreliable once in Nevada.  I quit trying.  I felt quite vulnerable driving those last two weeks down to Arizona without a camera.  

I researched dash cams and there are a bunch out there.  Most all you had to by a memory card in addition but this one came with one.  It had good reviews so I placed an order.  It is powered through the cigarette lighter but I am already using that hole for Claire, my GPS girl.  I’d have to buy an adapter for the lighter. Then I discovered a hard wire kit meaning directly to the vehicle fuse box.  I liked that idea better.  Everything arrived at the post office yesterday.  No UPS issue this time.

So this will be a project for someday coming.  I was pleased that the camera and screen is small, smaller than a pack of cigarettes.  Most looked like a big wide screen TV up there in the photos.

Another good thing is that it starts running when you start the engine and records over the previous data automatically in a loop.  It was always a process with the GoPro every time when starting out for the day.

The Lock and a Wile Update

 

Last week after we arrived I unloaded Gracie in anticipation of riding over to the post office the next day to pick up the Amazon package and then there was that snafu with UPS and wound up having to drive into town.  But I didn’t want to load the Honda back up for that.  I decided to roll it across over to the bushes in front of camp.  There it could not be seen from the road not that anyone every drives by here. 

The bike has a lock on it that locks the forks in a cocked position so it cannot be rolled straight.  As added peace of mind I ran a cable through the front wheel also.  Really not necessary but what else do I have to do out here?  The next time I went to ride the bike I went over there and rolled the tumblers to unlock the cable.  The lock would not open!  I did it again...same thing.  Okay, this is bad, real BAD.  There is no way I could cut through the lock nor the cable, even with a hacksaw or my power jig saw.  I worked and worked on those tumblers and finally the lock opened.  WHEW!

I figured it was dirty inside and needed some lubricant.  After some cleaning and lube I locked the lock and tried to open it.  Again it would not open!  I wasn’t going to give up.  This time I worked on it for even longer than when it was on the cable and bike and still nothing.  The next day I took a hammer to it.  It opened.  I cannot trust this lock anymore.  Fortunately I have another similar lock.

I am so grateful that it opened that one last time for me before dying.

I didn’t check on the feeding station due to the high winds.  The next day I went out there and the food was gone.  This time I only dumped one can in.  I have three left.  I’m going to feel bad when the food is gone.  Good grief, I hope I don’t wind up going to Family Dollar to buy cheap dog food just to be feeding Wile E Coyote.

A New Barbi

 

One of the items I bought was a new bar-b-que.  All I had before was just the grill from a small Weber    bar-b-que which I’d set up on some rocks in a fire pit.  It was awkward and being so I never grilled often.

This thing is made in China (of course) but I have to say it is well made of heavy gauge stainless steel and not cheaply put together.  Only thing is they don’t give instructions for assembly.  Just another example of how the Chinese are trying to drive us insane and take over.

I used the photo on the box to go by and thought it best to save a panel for future reference until I get this assembling down .  Isn’t it cute?  It is seven and half inches square and stands nineteen inches tall.

The grate is adjustable to three levels.

It comes with a nice canvas bag to store it in.

This is ideal for me, just one person cooking and will not take up much room.

I haven’t tried it out yet. Its been too windy.

Feeding Wile

 

About a mile away from our home is a camp area I knew of and decided to go check it out and see what was different after four years.  Nothing much.  People still leave trash behind.  Among the trash I found eight cans of food, unopened with the labels missing.  Out of curiosity I opened one and it appeared to be some kind of stew.  Looking at the ‘best by date’ it was still good to eat if you disregard it having set out in the hot desert sun for who knows how long.  Looking around more I found a bowl and a water dish.  “Huh. I bet that is dog food.”   

I gathered up the cans, opened two and dumped them in the bowl.  I came back the next day and it was untouched.  I missed checking the day we went to the vet.

But the next day I returned again and somebody had finally found it and cleaned the bowl out.

There is one happy coyote with a full belly out there somewhere.

I dumped in two more cans.

Beans Visits the Vet

 

Every so often Beans gets to wheezing which I took for working up a hairball.  I’ve been giving her hairball relief pate which has eliminated the actual hairball coming up and allowing it to pass on through.  I visited a vet in Challis, Idaho to make sure the stuff I was giving her was good (it was) and that I was giving her enough but not too much.  She said what I was doing was fine.  If Beans developed loose stool then I was giving too much.  Still the wheezing continued.  I decided to take her in for an actual checkup in Blythe.  The day we went to UPS and got water I went by the vet place and made an appointment.  “Can you bring her in tomorrow morning say at 9:45?”  Okay.  

We arrived at 9:30 sat in the RV and watched.  People kept showing up with their dogs...way too many dogs.  Bean wanted out to harass the dogs.  I went in and told the lady we’d be outside in a motorhome and she said that was fine.  “I’ll come get you.”  Fifty minutes later it was our turn.  

Really, I think they overbook their appointments.

Okay Dad, there is way too many smells in here!

Notice fluffed out tail.  High alert!

What the kind of place have you brought me to?  Notice wide open eyes.

The doctor was okay.  I liked the doctor I had for Sinbad back home better.  I think this guy just takes on too much.  Still he was good and said that Beans lungs and breathing sound good.  This was a relief.  

“Just continue the hairball pate once a week.  People usually stop and then problems develop.”

She did well through the whole experience.  I was more traumatized than her.

By the time we got back I was worn out, mostly from worry for the past 24 hours.

I ate lunch and took a nap.

Hopefully now we can stay put in the desert and quit going into town across the Colorado River into the California side.  It is a rough road for about two miles which takes about twenty minutes just crawling along before hitting the pavement.  

Water and UPS

Out in front of the laundromat and mini store in Ehrenberg I knew there was a source for water and dumping tanks also.  So I was disappointed to see it was now locked up.  I asked why and learned that too many people were helping themselves without paying.  Notice signs.  Well this was not good.  We arrived here with a half a tank.  I should have filled it back in Pioche in that little RV park we stayed in.  Now I was looking at having to drive to Quartzsite twenty miles away to fill.  

We would be okay for a few weeks but having a full tank would be peace of mind.

 I had placed an Amazon order two weeks ago and timed it to arrive at the post office here in Ehrenberg about the same time we would arrive.  Well there was a screw up.  Amazon sent it UPS and UPS had a delivery problem.  So after only a couple days being settled I had to break camp and drive back into Blythe, California.  UPS customer service is for one hour, 9-10am.  Anyway, it got sorted out and they had both packages going back out to the post office that same day.

The trip to town was not for nothing.

 

Meanwhile, while waiting for UPS to open (they never do, you have to pound on the door to get their attention; yeah, its weird) I drove around to city parks and other places looking for a water faucet.  Believe me, they are hard to find.  Just look around the next time you are out driving about.  If you find one usually there is no handle.  Well I lucked out.  I found one behind an abandoned Radio Shack with no handle.  I turned it on with pliers and water flowed!  Not always a sure thing for the water could be shut off even if you do find a faucet.  So now we have a full tank and will be good for six weeks or so.

I have found a number of these rock art pieces since being here.

I plan to add one with each post.