Tucson, heading East

Hi our dear friends

I was not sure how to title this one, but it works.

Actually we started east from Yuma, AZ, but lets not quible.

I was very proud of myself for making the new bolt for the jacks, but I knew it would not last. I am way too forgetful. When we left the BLM land west of Tucson, I forgot to remove the bolt.
So,by the time we got to the resort it showed up missing, lost somewhere down the highway.
So now what!

I crawled under the rv and tried to remove the pin holding the coupler that held the new bolt, but, alas, with no luck. After much knashing of teeth, and hmmmmm what am I going to do now, I took down the rear jacks and put them on the tailgate of the truck. I removed the pins holding the coupler, went to Ace hardware and bought a new bolt and new pins and put it back together.

While doing that I had to drill a new hole in the coupling and new bolt with an 1/8 bit. I was pressing way to hard and broke the bit, and that little bit of the bit that was left went into my left index finger!!!

Ouch!!! I yelled out and Linda said are you all right!!

Hell no!!!!
I just put a hole in my finger, and it is bleeding like mad, and it hurts!!!! damn it!!!

After repairing my finger, I finished fixing the jacks and with Linda's help got them back in, and down....so now we are both happy, but my finger still hurts!!!! damn it!!!

Sunday morning I got up to make coffee like I have been doing for ten years. I have a carafe that I put water in, pour that into a pot to boil, and than put my plastic Melitta adaptor in the carafe and add the Melitta filter and coffee. I have done it a few thousand times.
When the water boils, I remove it from the stove and start pouring it into the filter.

Well...Because of my ouchie I must not have gotten in the right spot and as I was pouring the boiling water into the filter it started to fall over........natural reaction would be to catch it, but I missed and the boiling water went onto my left hand (with the ouchie) and the stove, counter top, cabinet doors, and the floor and I yelled like HELL!!!!

Linda, who was in bed yet, called out "are you all right"

Duhhhhhh

I burned my hand, spilled the coffee grounds all over.....hell no I am not all right!!!!!!

We got that cleaned ok and I make another pot of coffee with no problems, as I have a few thousand times.
That was number three (3)

Today we left Tucson, heading for Deming, NM.
We were about 40 miles south of Tucson and were cruising about 62-65mph. I was coming up on a semi and saw a truck in the left lane coming up to pass me, so I slowed down to let it pass and than pulled out behind it. About the time the front of our trailer was even with the cab of the semi, we saw something come off of the trailer in front of us. It hit the ground and threw a lot of sparks and bounced into the air about 4-5 foot above the ground!!!!!

Have you ever read about someones experience where they said it was like in slow motion......well baby, that is the way it happened.
This piece of metal was about 1 1/2-2 foot long and about 3 inches in diameter at the small end, and looked kind of like a trumpet. It hit the ground and bounced straight down the road...I saw it in the mirror bouncing again between us and the semi and than lost it....looking in my driver side mirror I saw it hit again on the inside shoulder and than hit the median with a big cloud of dust!!!!! I thought it may have hit the trailer, but could not stop as the semi was right next to me, but he was slowing down.

If it had bounced sideways a little bit, it would have come thru the windshield and possibly killed either Linda or I, or if it had missed us caused us to have a major accident with the semi.....in either case we would have both been ready to push up daisies.

The good Lord was on our side again today!!!

Luckily there was an exit about two miles down the road and we pulled off, and let our hearts return to normal.
Other than that, it was an uneventfull trip, as are most of them, except for the scenery.
I hope that we do not have one of these trips again, altho, I can say in over 30 years of travel this is the first major event that we have had.
Thank God, again.
Linda took pictures with our new little camera, so here are some of them

Beaudry rv resort

Hi

Just a short update. This is the first rv resort we have stayed at. We got two free nights when we bought the trailer from Beaudry. This is certainly an upgrade from our "boondocking" for the last three (3) months!!!!!!

This place has two pools, a jacuzzi, workout room with lots of equipment, restaurant, nice lounge area and lots and lots of empty sites. the rate is $35 a night, which back in the midwest, east is normal for a campground. Heck, Illinois charges $30 at state parks with only electric.

All sites have a paved patio with table and 4 chairs, a nice bush, and a citrus tree, ours is a lemon tree.

Tomorrow we move on to Demming, NM for a week or so.

See ya

Jim and Linda

Daytrip to Phoenix

Yesterday we took a day trip with Jim and Bobbie to the Phoenix area….Mesa marketplace which is a huge under roof marketplace at is 1 1/4 miles long in 4 main buildings and two ends.

this is taken from one end, you can’t even see the other end!!

We of course spent some money…Jim and Bobbie were looking for a couple of new rugs here they are making the final decision, with their advisor Linda.

From there on to lunch at 5 Guys restaurant, home of the best burgers and fries anywhere….a little pricy, but worth it

After lunch we header for the “Hall of Flame”, which is supposed to be one of the best and biggest firefighting museum in the country. Jim is an ex firefigher and really wanted to see this museum…..we all enjoyed it and saw lots of cool stuff…..

The dessert is in bloom and we are amazed at all the greenery….very soon the cactii will be blooming and we hope we see it before leaving here.  Here are a couple of shots of the suaro cautus and the green desert

 

Today we moved about 12 miles to a RV resort in Tucson, where we had a two day free pass. We all have a case of “hitch itch” (lets hitch up and go!) so we are moving on to Deming NM on Monday. We will meet up with Jim and Bobbie somewhere down the road to Deming and spend a week or so there

 

Jim and lInda

Lots of love to all of you

B-24

Howdy

Yesterday we helped Jim and Bobbie move into their new home. We got a late start, but everyone worked hard and we got it done. Here are the happy new home owners

While we were admiring the new trailer, we heard this strange noise from the sky....looking up it was a B-24 WWII bomber flying overhead!!! How cool is that. I was amazed that it was not a lot louder than it was. I have seen lots of them in movies and documentarys but never one in person. It was only about 3-4000 foot up.

Click on the pictures and they should get bigger

Off to the baseball game today. And people wonder what we do sitting out in the dessert....hmmmm

Love to all of you'se guys and gals

Jim and Linda

Snyder Hill (near Tucson, AZ)

We left Gila Bend on Sunday and headed towards Tucson, AZ, taking the long way around thru the towns of Ajo and Why.

We had stayed in Ajo many years ago with our new at the time friends Bob and BJ. We had a wonderful time with them

and driving thru Ajo brought back wonderful memories of our time there.

this is a picture of the town square in Ajo

Ajo was a big time copper mining area, but closed down many years ago.

these are some of the tailings from the mine.

Here are some additional pictures of the trip

http://picasaweb.google.com/rufnitII/20100317GilaBendToTucsonViaAjo#

We are staying out on BLM land again at a new place to us, called Snyder hill. It is on the southwest side of Tucson, about 8 miles from town

Today, Friday, are waiting for Jim and Bobbie to call us. They bought a new to them 5th wheel and went into town to sign the final papers. We will meet them at the rv dealer and help them move everything from old to new rig. Tomorrow we are going to see the Colorado Rockies play baseball and meet up with old friends Sam and Eula who have a son hoping to make the team this year.

take care

love to you all

Jim and Linda

Gypsy Journal rally in Yuma, AZ

Hi everyone
The rally ended Yesterday morning. It was interesting and they had lots of seminars on lots of things, but when you have been living this lifestyle for 10 years there is not much that is new. I think for most of the 221 rigs in attendance it was mostly camaraderie that brought us here.
One thing that we had promised ourselves to do was get the rig weighed. There is a company that does that using individual wheel scales. I was very concerned that we were over weight, especially since we have added the 4 golf cart batteries, a large inverter, generator, air compressor, and my toolbox.

I know this does not mean anything to you but I am listing it here so that I have a permanent record of things. We are good on the trailer weight, good on the gross combined weight, and 350 pounds over on the rear axle weight of the truck tires.
truck tires 3415 lbs @ 80psi
trailer tires 3750 lbs @ 110psi
ss=street side
cs=curb side
truck only
full tank of fuel
jim in driver seat
ssf 2125 csf 1950
ssr 1600 csr 1800
truck with trailer
ssf 2400 csf 2075 = 4475 (1355 under)
ssr 3550 csr 3625 = 7175 (345 over)
trailer
ssf 3700 csf 3000 = 6700 (1355 under)
ssr 2850 csr 2850 = 5700 (2355 under)

gross combined (truck with trailer) 23000
actual gross combined 22450 which includes:
80 gallons of water (640lbs) distributed over 4 tanks
full tank of fuel
both propane tanks full
Jim, Linda, Indy, Walker in the truck

We are now in Gila Bend AZ at a full hookup campground where we have gotten the rig washed, clothes washed, and us washed using lots of water!!! yea.

We leave here tomorrow to go to BLM land south of Tucson for about two weeks, and hope to meet up with friends from Tennessee who have a son hoping to make the Colorado Rocky's baseball team. He has been playing triple A for a couple of years and we are all rooting for him to make the big time.

Jim and Linda
See ya down the road

Sidewinder to Gypsy Journal rally

Hi everyone
I am sorry that I do not have any pictures to show you, but when the stress level is high, about the last thing you think of is pictures to show.

We went to bed last night knowing that it might rain before we left Sidewinder road for the Gypsy Journal rally in Yuma...and,while it is only about 15 miles away it did turn into a stressful situation.

It started raining about 5 am this morning and rained hard and steady until late morning. There are seven rigs here waiting to go to the rally and we checked on and off to see what the road looked like....our flat level gravel clay parking area this is at least 10 acres was all covered in water when I got up about 7:30. The road looked like a major creek, or is that crick????.....

we keep checking until about noon when our friends in one of the other rigs out there told us there was another road about a mile and a half north ...so we chimb in the truck to check it out, and it it in pretty good shape except for one wash where it was pretty squishy. We waited another hour or so and all decided to leave via that road which was that mile and a half across the desert. Three fifth wheel and 4 40 to 45 foot motorhomes with toads(cars being towed....get it?).

But we did make it out back to the paved road after some tense monents going over the washes. We had to proceed with caution over the paved road, as there were many spots where the road runs thru washes and there was much dirt, rock and various debrie on the road.
We finally got to the rally, only to find out that all of the electric sites had been taken, so we are boondocking it here at the rally....it was only 20amp electric, but still, it was electric!!
The rally starts tomorrow and runs thru Friday morning. We will keep you updated.

Lots of love to you all
Jim and Linda