Making Lists

It's good to do a self-check every so often.  I found this image on the Internet this week and it made me think.

I think I am pretty much on track. Things that make me happy include spending time with Bob, seeing new things, being creative, weaving, reading, and traveling. Other things like spending time with my children and grandchildren are on the list as well, but because our childrens' lives are so busy, when we lived nearby we only got together every once a month or so. A friend once said to me that I could have whatever I wanted in life, I just couldn't have everything at the same time. It has proven to be true. We are really looking forward to be able to spend time with the family on our extended visit home this summer.

Speaking of that, we have tentatively decided on our course home (which is always subject to change!)

Our trip will also include some side trips along the way that are not on the map, but this should be the general route. Every so often I check the total amount of time it would take if we were to just rush home and at this point we are one day and 7 hours away from NJ. Hard to believe we could be home that fast if we absolutely had to be.

Thursday we moved from Desert Diamond Distillery in Kingman, AZ to Holbrook, AZ.  K.C. handled the 4 hour trip well without wearing the Thunder Shirt, so that is an improvement. He seems much more relaxed with his new carrier.

The topography kept changing as we moved across the state.  It went from rolling desert hills to forest with tall Ponderosa Pines to prairie where we are now.  We look out our window and it looks like Oklahoma to us (not that we have seen OK yet!)

Today we are visiting the Petrified Forest and I am really looking forward to it. We plan on three days in this campground before moving on.

Desert Diamond Distillery

Boy, was it a Windy Wednesday! Fortunately our trip to Kingman, AZ was short, only about 80 miles. Bob has also been battling a cold and was not feeling too well, so it was a good thing that our next stop was not too far away. We took our time getting there, stopping first at Walmart for a little shopping and lunch in the RV, then a quick refueling to top off the tank. Our diesel tank holds 100 gallons and we like to top it off when we get down below half full.

We arrived in Kingman at the Desert Diamond Distillery about 2:15 in the afternoon, and met our hosts. DDD is a host member of the Harvest Hosts organization, and this is our first experience making use of our membership.  It actually was our very first time boondocking, so we weren't sure how deprived we would feel, without any hookups. Turns out we needn't have worried because we were quite comfortable.
We had the whole parking lot to ourselves, and as soon as we got our slides out we went inside for a tour.

It was fascinating! Alcohol, we learned, starts with sugar in some form (in this case, molasses.)  It is heated with water, grain, and yeast, in these tanks. The mixture must be kept warm but below 115 degrees, for the yeast to grow and ferment, producing alcohol.

Next it goes into a still.  The mixture is heated to above 170 and below 212 degrees, to distill the water and the alcohol.  The alcohol is distilled 4 times for rum, 17 times for vodka.  This still  (below) was specially made in Germany and can make rum, whisky, or vodka. 

DDD makes mostly rum and vodka. 

After distillation the vodka is ready to drink but the rum goes into these barrels for aging.

I'm simplifying the process, but that is basically how it is done. It was really interesting!  We had a tasting afterwards, and purchased a bottle of Agave Spiced Rum and some mustard pretzels to go with it. Yummy! 

The wind was really blowing all night so we "turtled-up" and brought in one of our slides for the night. This helped us keep warm, along with our furnace (which hardly even needed to turn on, despite it being 37 degrees.)

We enjoyed our first night as guests of Harvest Hosts and I'm sure we will use our membership again soon.

Data Diet And Cacti

I have been concerned with the amount of data we go through daily, so I called Verizon to discuss it. We use a MiFi Jetpack and have 20 GB per month, in addition to the 10 GB we share with our daughter and son-in-law.  Last month we used all 20 GB and most of the 10 GB, so we have been watching it closely.  I learned a lot from the call to Verizon.  Some ways to limit data drain include turning off Auto-play of videos on Facebook, turning off iCloud photo backups, closing tabs on the phone and iPad when not using them, turning off Windows automatic backups on the computer, and turning off WiFi and cellular data when we are not using the Internet. I'm sure this will help! We will still be able to make and receive phone calls with the data off. We also put our phones on "airplane mode" when we go to bed. Our Verizon tech was able to give us a $10 a month decrease in our monthly bill for the MiFi Jetpack, so I was happy about that. And he gave us a heads-up that Verizon usually offers promotional plans around Mothers Day and Fathers Day, so we will watch for those. 

Hopefully these measures will help to keep our data usage in check.

Here in Cattail Cove State Park we have fewer services than we have grown accustomed to.  Full hookups for our sized motorhome would be a 50 amp electrical hookup, plus water and sewer. Like most state parks we have seen, this one has no sewer hookups.  No problem! We have gone 8 days without dumping, and could actually go longer if needed. The electrical hookup here is only 30 amps, which means that we can only run two out of three of our air conditioners. Even with the temperatures in the 90's, as they have been this week, two ACs have been fine. 

Wednesday we head for Kingman, AZ, to visit a distillery and dry camp. This will be our first experience dry camping, also called "boondocking." I'm sure we will do fine. Kingman is at a higher elevation and temps have been ranging from highs in the 70's to lows in the upper 30's. Our furnace runs on propane, so we will have heat. 

I have been enjoying the gardens here at the State Park. Someone has lovingly labeled many of the cacti in the gardens, and here are some of my favorites.

Here is an Octopus Agave.

A Peruvian Apple Cactus

An Englemann Hedgehog

And a Teddy Bear Cholla. No cuddling up with this guy! Ouch!

London Bridge

Driving through Lake Havasu City yesterday we spied a Petsmart, so Monday morning we drove over there to find a new pet carrier for K.C. He loves his new traveling digs!

We also visited London Bridge. Some of you, dear blog readers, may recall that in 1968 the London Bridge was sold to Americans who brought it to Arizona and reassembled it. Like the nursery rhyme, London Bridge was, indeed, falling down, and was replaced by a new and improved bridge in England. So now Lake Havasu City proudly uses the Bridge as a way for cars and pedestrians to cross the Colorado River. It looks quite at home here, and The view from the bridge is spectacular.

At the entrance to the Visitors Center was an old British phone booth that Bob just has to try out.

 

                                        

No phone in the booth sp Bob had to use his own!.

Through the Mojave Desert

We left Hesperia, CA Sunday morning at about 10:00 am, heading for Arizona. I am sorry to report that our kitty, K.C., who has been such a trooper all across the U.S., has not been handling the traveling well lately. It started on the winding road to Jojoba Hills. K.C. became ill, vomiting and defecating in his carrier. This was repeated within the first half hour of driving from Jojoba Hills to Anaheim. Surely it was just the winding road?

Unfortunately, though the road was straight and fairly smooth, he was carsick again when we drove to Hesperia. I was very concerned, imagining a pattern that would repeat itself over and over for the next 3000 miles. Not to mention poor K.C.'s discomfort! I then remembered Auggie's Thunder Shirt, a stretchy knit shirt that velcros tightly to the body and provides a hugging sensation that is soothing to the animal. Auggie had needed it early in our travels to alleviate anxiety when left alone for a couple of hours, but had not worn it in a while. In desperation, I put the Thunder Shirt on K.C. before we left Sunday morning, and lo and behold, it worked! No messing in the carrier, which I am sure was as much a relief to the cat as to me (to whom falls the chore of cleaning the carrier and bathing the cat.) I may try using Valerian as well, having read about it on the Internet.

We will be purchasing a new carrier on Monday, as this one (soft sided) is now rather shot and difficult to clean. And with the Thunder Shirt, hopefully K.C. will be more comfortable when we are on the move.

So Sunday's drive was through the Mojave. It was different from what I expected; there was more brush and little bare sand, but the scenery was starkly beautiful with mountains rising majestically in the distance.

We drove for about 4 1/2 hours, stopping once for fuel and once for a sandwich prepared in our kitchen. We never stop for fast food--it is so convenient to have access to a fridge and table with a place to sit!  Before too long we were into Arizona and the rock formations changed.

We reached Lake Havasu City  and continued on south to our campground at Cattail Cove State Park, which is a very nice little place to stay. We are next to Lake Havasu which is actually a wide section of the Colorado River. We are across from a really lovely landscaped sitting area, surrounded by flowering bushes and mountains.

Not far is also a boat launch, so if it is not too breezy we may get a chance to put our kayaks in the water. We will have to see.

We Turn Eastward

On Saturday Bob and I headed to Simi Valley to visit Ronald Reagon's Presidential Library.  I called beforehand and was told there was RV parking. Unfortunately, after 2 1/2 hours of LA traffic, we arrived to find no parking available at all. The lots were all full and cars were being parked along the narrow winding road that leads up to the Library. Not a safe place to leave a motorhome. We were VERY disappointed, but will return another year to see it and the Nixon library as well.

We turned the Magic Bus eastward for the first time in six months, officially heading back to NJ. We should arrive in about six weeks. I have mixed feelings about heading East. Of course, I am looking forward to seeing our family and friends again. And we will be traveling a different way back than the route we took coming out here, so there will be many new sights. Still, I don't really enjoy NJ summers. They are so humid. But we will deal with it!

Our destination today became Desert Willow RV Resort in Hesperia, CA. This park is mainly for long term residents but does have some pull through sites for short term RVers. It is clean and quiet, with a pool and hot tub. The pool, however, was not heated. I did not see any icebergs... but sensed they were out there. That water was COLD! Being a sissy about such things, I decided to skip the pool and go right to the hot tub, and Bob was right behind me. Ahhhhh, bliss!

We made reservations in Lake Havasu, AZ, and will spend three nights there starting tomorrow before moving on.

Our Day at Disneyland

My apologies, dear blog reader, for not posting yesterday. We have had a very busy couple of days! On Thursday we left Jojoba Hills for Anaheim Resort RV Park in Anaheim, CA. We had a two day reservation only, because this place is expensive (as are all parks near Disneyland.) The park was adequate if you don't consider WiFi. For a campground to advertise free WiFi and then only have it work in the office is like advertising full hookups except you have to bring your coffee maker into the office to plug it in. Sites are tight with a large rig but we had room to open our slides. The area is noisy, and we heard lots of city noise plus a three minute fireworks display from Disneyland each night after 9:00 pm. And our neighbors in the rig next to us left their two barking dogs all day so we were not able to use our picnic table located under one of their open windows. Ah well... We weren't there much anyway. The grounds were clean and well kept.

On Thursday night our daughter's in-laws, Leslie and Lyle, invited us to dinner with the family. We had a lovely evening with fabulous food. Bob and I got to spend some time with our daughter, Catherine, and her husband, Michael, plus our adorable grandchildren Alex and Jillian. It was so good to hug them all after not seeing them for six months!

On Friday morning we got up and drove 20 minutes across town to meet Nora Coyle, who runs Tails a Wag Inn, a Bed and Breakfast for dogs. We had been concerned about leaving Auggie in the motorhome all day alone. Disneyland offers a kennel but it apparently consists of crates only, and the owner has to return every couple of hours to water and walk their own dog. I can only imagine the terror that a rescued dog like Auggie would feel when placed in a kennel like that for a day.  We have worked so hard on his separation anxiety over the years and did not want to have it resurface.

Nora was great. She had three other dogs there and was able to give our guy a lot of attention and love during the day. Auggie warmed up to her (it can take a while with a new person) and he had lots of fun romping with the other dogs. Nora emailed me during the day with an update on how he was doing, which was really great. So we were able to enjoy our day at Disneyland without worrying about Auggie. He was relaxed last night after we picked him up, with no "You left me!" attitude so he must not have been too worried while we were gone. We would definitely recommend Nora for Disneyland daycare or for any other time!

This RV park is on the shuttle route that Disneyland has set up to transport guests from local hotels and RV campgrounds to the Park. We paid $5 each for an all-day pass for the shuttle, and we were taken to the gates. Bob and I met up with our eldest daughter, Kristen, her husband Jason, and our grandchildren Rob, Adam, and Ben in New Orleans Square.  It was so good to see them!  We rode The Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion before heading over to Star Tours (which was my favorite.) I was pleased to see that, since daughter Emily and I had visited the Park 15 years ago, It's a Small World has been updated. We managed to see a band on Main Street and a few characters in costume, but no Mickey.

Lines were long all day and got longer as the day progressed. We met up with Catherine and family mid-day (they had spent the morning at Disneyland Adventure) and we managed to squeeze in Space Mountain and Indiana Jones. That was enough Disney for Bob and me. We decided to grab the shuttle back to the motorhome and drive back to pick up Auggie. It was easier to say goodbye to everyone knowing that we will see them in just six weeks.

By 5:00 we were back at Nora's and we made it home though a bit of traffic by 5:35. Not bad--we had heard such horror stories about LA traffic! Bob and I had a glass of wine with our dinner and we finally relaxed for the first time all day.