410 Miles

Valmay, Nevada

All along the long drive across the state of Nevada, 

this is pretty much all you are going to see for the entire 410 miles.

We are in no hurry and are doing the drive in small stages.  I stopped early at a nice big rest stop near Valmay for the remainder of the day and spend the night.  Only later I discovered it is supposed to get down to freezing at night!  Not good!

The next day rain was scheduled to start at 8am.  Not thrilled about that either.

Well, the Little House on the Highway could use a good bath.

Must press on to Utah to find better weather and warmer temperatures. 

Next Camp, Better View

Imlay, Nevada

We are slowly making our way eastward to Utah.

Home is Where You Park It.

It was a long day of driving (I really need to stop that sort of behavior) and when we arrived at a known overnight parking location (Walmart) conditions had changed since I was there last.  It is now posted No Overnight Parking.  In most all cases where overnight parking is banned at Walmarts is by city ordinance, not the Walmart store itself.  Sam Walton when he began the Walmart empire made it a policy for all of his stores to always allow overnight parking for his traveling shoppers and truckers too.  Unfortunately there are those among us who abuse this courtesy.  People in large RVs pop out all their slides, set up camp chairs and bar-b-ques and treat the parking lot as their own private campground. I've even seen astro-turf carpets spread out. They stay for days. This has been a very common problem in Florida with all the east coasters and Canadians (I'm sorry my Canadian followers, but it is a fact) that now virtually all Walmarts in Florida are off limits to RVs overnighting.  The other abuser is the "homeless" on wheels who are squatters and stay for weeks on end, sometimes even erecting tents.  I have personally seen this myself. 

I stopped over at Lowes (off to the right in the background) to buy four clamps for my new bike rack to keep the bike from sliding off.  Sometimes I have overnighted in Home Depot or Lowes parking lots.  I asked the manager lady and she said security would ask me to leave eventually. "But you can park on the street next to us."  Thank you.  Well, better than the street was this lone dirt pull-out.  

No room for anyone else to park near us.

On the street the truckers are beginning to stage for their overnight sleep.  See why I picked what I did?  Nothing worse than listening to a diesel truck idle for hours when you're trying to sleep.

You get wise and learn where and to where not park after a few years of traveling on the roads.

Beans Belated Birthday Banana

I set the day I adopted Beans, April 9, as her birthday.  Well now that we are back traveling I was able to stop at Petco and get her some quality food and a birthday present.  

She loves these catnip-filled bananas.

Look at that tongue licking her banana.

The catnip has kicked in and its now full-on attack mode.

One of these days I expect a banana to break open leaving catnip all over the place.  I think catnip smells somewhat like marijuana.  Boy, will I ever have some explaining to do if one rips open.

After six months of eating crap cat food I was able to buy her thirty cans of grain free can food and

and two bags of grain free dry food which set me back close to $85.  Yeah, she eats better than I.

This brand is hard to find so I bought two which will last us months.

Now to watch her turn her nose up at this and look up at me wondering where her Friskies is.

Road Food

It is great to be on the road once again, on the move, and sampling the wonderful cuisine available along our nation's highway.  I rarely go to Jack in the Box but being one was right where I stopped to do some shopping I thought why not?  Be adventurous.  As I approached the eatery there was a sign in the window advertising a patty melt.  Sounds good.  Well the patty melt was so-so, the fries which I didn't really want but the "combo meal" was cheaper than buying the sandwich and drink separately (figure that one out and get back to me) and the small chocolate shake was tasty.

People!

Just who does this guy think he is parking like that?

Cool Looking Beetle

Looks like an Easter egg.

Happy Easter!

Eggs in a Nest

At our camp there is this bush by the front end of the RV.

The next day I noticed a nest inside the bush.

That seems like a lot of eggs for a little bird.  The eggs were so small I first thought it was a hummingbird but I recall their eggs a bit smaller than these were.  I never saw a bird and feared us being so close had spooked it.  I moved camp, but a whole evening had past by then and I worried the bird had abandoned the nest.

A Scary Day For Dad

One day I took Beans out for a walk.  She immediately chased off after a lizard.  The lizard went for this green bush and Beans dove in.  Notice the sharp three inch long branches.  Beans gave up on the lizard and backed out of the bush and began rubbing her eye with her paw.  Oh no!  I took her inside and checked the eye.  The eyeball looked okay but she obviously got hurt as she kept licking her paw and rubbing her eye.  She wouldn't open her eye.  I was sick with worry.  She settled down for a nap, still not opening that eye.  Later in the day she got up, jumped down and looked at me with both eyes wide open.  I was so relieved.  I think she took it better than I did.  She needs goggles for when she goes hunting from now on.  I'll check on Amazon for Cat Googles.

  

A Bargain Deal

I continued on up the canyon from where I found the beavertail in bloom and was surprised to see this van and trailer up there.  The road in was rocky, somewhat of a climb and little room to turn around.  So I planned on congratulating them on dragging this trailer up here.  I was surprised to find that the owner was a lone woman with her little blind dog.  I met Kat.  She was in her 40's I'd guess. I learned that she had just bought the van and trailer only three weeks earlier from two different private parties in California through Craiglist.  She paid $400 for the van and $100 for the trailer.  Yeah, she checked beforehand to make sure neither one was stolen.  The van runs fine and got her here to Arizona with no problems. The trailer is a bit "rough" on the inside but she's making it work and fixing things as she goes along.  She admits she's not all the mechanically inclined but she's not afraid in trying.
 I admire women like her.

Beavertail Cactus Blossoms

On a little walkabout up from camp I came across some beavertail cactus just beginning to flower.

Just like all beavertail blossoms I have ever tried to photograph the color is so brilliant that camera sensors cannot cope with it and detail within the flower is lost. 

 Now if I were a professional photographer...

Good-bye Jo

The time came where our trails went two different directions. 

 Jo was heading east to Colorado then Wyoming for a camp host job there for the summer.

Beans and I?  We don't know where we are going just yet.

Lone Tree BLM Camp

We left Quartzsite and traveled north for two hours stopping at this free camp area a few miles north of Lake Havasu City near the Colorado River which makes up the border of Arizona and California.

This will do for a short while.

Our Last Sunset

It is time we moved on from our home in Quartzsite.  I had been here since October 10.  Jo was here a couple weeks before that.  It is warming up and we have places to go, things to do, lots to see.

.

Hedgehog Cactus

This is the only hedgehog cactus I have seen in this area.  Being that it is at the junction of two dirt roads in the larger camp area south of us leads me to believe someone planted a small piece there long ago and it thrives to this day.

This was taken later in the day and the blossoms have closed up some.  They will reopen in the morning.  They are not one-day-wonders as are some cactus blossoms.

Isn't that a lovely color?

Stinky Pete's is No More

It had been a few weeks since I was last by Stinky Pete's place. 

 The clean-up was well in progress.

There was so much junk here that the Standard Station could not be seen from this vantage point.

This was the last of it to be loaded up into a container.

It would have been interesting to know just how many container-fulls it took to clean up the site.

Rest assured, there was nothing of any value that went to the landfill.

Next winter when I return it will be interesting to see what new business will be standing here.

These shots were taken from the parking lot of the small grocery store in town.  I'm sure they must be happy to see this junkyard gone.  Pete wasn't really his name.  I believe it was Gordon.  

Stinky Gordon just didn't sound right.

Laundry Day

It was laundry day for Jo.

She does her laundry by hand.

She's looking for an old wash board to do a better job.

Too much work for me.

I just keep wearing the same clothes.

Not an Aprils Fool's Joke - Brownies From Cake Mix

Another cooking experiment.  This one went much better.

We were gifted several boxes of Devil' Food cake mix.

I thought making brownies from it would be more practical for us out in the desert.

This first try was okay but could be improved upon.

This second batch was denser and more brownie-like.

Yep, this was much better.