julietookoff

5/14/13 Finally, it was getting warm enough in Vegas that Corny was ready to leave. We drove to Tonopah on a windy day and were both tired when we got there. We ended up at an RV “park” surrounded by junkyards and broken down trailers full of vermin. The homeowner across the street had six full-grown (vocal) german shepherds. Poco wasn’t the least bit afraid of them, but Dolly hid behind me.

We just stayed there one night, visited the grocery store and drove 20 miles east to a very nice rest area just five miles to the nearest geocaches. We had awesome sirloins on the grill the first night. We had a view of the highway disappearing into the mountains, an operating windmill, and tons of cottontail and jackrabbits. (But our rockers wouldn’t rock in the pea-gravel).

We loved it there and stayed six nights, until I ran out of gas for the Yaris with about 280 caches to go. Plus we only had a day or so of water left. Corny stayed in the RV with the dogs while I geocached solo (takes twice as long). The first day I got 289 caches, then took a day off to recover. Next day I got 327 (my record), then 81, then 140 when I explored an old mining area.

Here are my successive Geocaching.com logs:

5/16 What a beautiful drive! I only passed five vehicles all day - one was another GXer, one stopped to check that I was okay. It kept getting prettier and prettier. I ended my day with the 12/00 cache - it was late when I got there, and the climb just wiped me out. Thanx for the famous caches! and re: the oldest cache in NV: Found this after 6pm when most old people are already tired - after over 280 caches! I managed to climb up without killing myself. Found a nice pathtag and left a few nice goodies. It had me reminiscing about the old days of caching, before “paperless”. Thanx for keeping this oldie running! (someone later eMailed me that she had seen this log and ended up reading my entire lengthy profile page about the best times i’ve had while caching)

5/18 RV camping at the Rest Area about 20 miles east of Tonopah. Day 2: Beauty upon beauty for scenery! Only passed one other car. I saw a couple pronghorn sheep, many wild horses, horny toads, long-tail lizards, and a special rattler at #1701 (sorry, the pix has a lot of grass in front of the snake). By far, the most entertainment today came from the cows. I had to replace many of the caches between about 1000-1050 - there were a lot of “disturbed” caches. Rocks had been kicked around and caches were either missing or kicked a couple feet to a couple yards away from GZ. There were no tracks around except young calf hoof prints. All caches left in good shape, until the next ornery cow comes along…Thanx for the placements! and: Found more than a cache here! I climbed up the little hill. Standing at the edge of the bushes, about six feet east I heard a buzzing. I found the cache about six feet to the south, did my stuff and grabbed the camera out of the car. By then the snake had stopped buzzing and I could count his rattles - about six - although he was still in striking position but his tongue wasn’t flicking like crazy. He was kind enough to let me get a few pictures, although there wasn’t much I could do about the greenery in front of the little shrub he was resting under. I wasn’t scared by this guy because he gave plenty of warning; that doesn’t mean every snake will. Take care!

5/19 Had such a pretty drive today, I kept passing the caches. I had to back up umpteen times. I even made a couple short videos to share with my partner back at the RV. Didn’t go out till afternoon - big day yesterday, and we’re camped only 5 miles away. Beauty run. TFTCs

5/20

This was by far the toughest drive with the little Yaris. Also found the most disturbed/missing caches. I ran out of replacements and had to use zippy bags with a log. The missing caches were along the dirt road as well as along the two-track. I was also surprised to already see my signature on so many logs - these film cans sure do move along the highway! I only saw three other cars all day and spent a good hour at the end just exploring and kicking rusty cans around the old mine site. I enjoyed my day very much, but the gas light started blinking as I pulled into the driveway, so its back to Tonopah for a few days’ rest & resupply. TFTCs everyone!

When we came back to town, we stayed at the little hook-up area in the parking lot behind the Station casino - nothing fancy. Walk to an expensive grocery store and a reasonable Family Dollar store, though. The only fast food in town is a Burger King and a Subway. I fixed Awesome Frickin’ Chicken the second day and we walked over to the free Central NV Museum - a whole lot of rusty old mining stuff and shacks out in the yard, and lots of old pictures and very nice displays inside. I’m so jealous of the people who found all kinds of arrowheads around here.

Oh, and I found out the pretty rock I found near Rachel, NV while doing the “alien head” geoart is called NV Wonderstone. Life is Godd.

We signed up for two weeks at King’s Row and added to our buffet list: 13) “M” casino Studio “B” buffet. This was one of Corny’s favorites although we had to wait an hour to get in. Fancy desserts. 14) Arizona Charlie’s Decatur Rd. location - who would’ve thought it would be sooo much better than “our” Boulder Rd. location. I had the best chicken nuggets ever - very light breading. All good, except you had to ask for the chocolate cake. 15) The Cannery east - somebody has to come in last. 16) The Palms - lots of meat, everything good, small dessert section. It was also loud from the casino noise.

So we ate good in Vegas again. I had a little Del Taco chicken taco thang going on for awhile - where I ate them day after day.

We took a two hour drive over to Lake Mead - I’m not sure what for. I’ll be glad when Corny can drive himself. We’re convinced we’re going to get a Jeep within the next year - sooner if we can sell the Yaris to someone who needs a tow vehicle. We’re missing out on a lot of sights because we can’t get to them. Corny has already picked out the Sport S model.

I proceeded with my losing overnight bingo games while in Vegas. I was so frustrated I was thinking of ways to kill the people who keep winning instead of me. When the powerball was $350 million I drove to the California/Nevada line to Primm (about 40 miles away) to get 10 tickets. Like at bingo, I won nada. However, I did find a $25 MGM chip in AZ Charlie’s parking lot when I loaned a drunk guy my flashlight to look for his “keys and wallet” at a 5am bingo session.

We went to a fun Geocaching “Flash Mob” at a park with a fountain only a few miles from the RV. The fountain had brass statues of people playing in the water. We had to “freeze frame” on a busy traffic corner about eight different poses. It was short and sweet, and I scored a WWFM X (world wide flash mob ten) pathtag. I did a few little caches while there, but as I was telling Corny, finding urban micros in a strange town makes you feel like you are an intruder.

This time we were parked next to a hoarder in a 25 or so foot trailer. Another RVer a few spaces down was having a yard sale, so I put out a table full of junk. I ended up selling the whole table-full to the hoarder. It was kinda a dirty trick!

Corny’s doctor wanted him to get a bunch of lab tests in order to refill his Crestor. We went all the way across town to a Quest lab, who said they don’t do BC/BS in AZ or NV. I told him just to take nicotinic acid (a B vitamin) and eMailed him a link to an article. If that drug is so bad it may harm your liver, I’d rather take a vitamin and have my cholesterol run a little high.

We went back to the Zombie Apocolypse store and I got batman knives for both me and G. I also went to the “biggest gift store in Vegas”, the Bonanza and spent over $100 (gasp). I shipped G’s, now gotta ship Aurie a box, as soon as I can find one big enough.

I didn’t really care who won Survivor this season because I didn’t like any of the last 6-7 people left. I was glad when Brenda cried on her way out. I think it was the most disappointing Survivor ever. I keep wanting Malcolm to win.

On May 14 we left Vegas for Tonopah - I’ll cut here, to shorten the boring “city” stuff…

Mojave Desert National Preserve

Corny tells me the difference between a National Park and a National Preserve is that hunting is allowed in a Preserve.

To our Vegas buffet list, we added 8) Terrible’s, cozy and adequate. 9) The Riviera where I had the best chicken fajita salad I ever had, in large part due to a huge wheel of parmesan cheese that I dug several tasty chunks out of. 10) Silverton on Polynesian night. A whole roast piglet and chocolate fountain with strawberries. 11) The Paris - this was a return “must” visit from years ago. Everything was of course “wow” good. The crepes are made to order. I got berry/chocolate and Corny got apple/walnut. 12) Golden Nugget - this was a surprise - my favorite buffet this year. It was light and airy and everything was so colorful and gorgeous, I got a cold plate. Four kinds of chicken, couscous, all good. We’ll be back here.

At 10) the Silverton casino, I was making my usual rounds silver mining when I absentmindedly hit the cash-out button on a game where someone had left over $38. There were two people sitting at machines right behind me; maybe they were supposed to be watching it? Maybe it had been there for hours? I dunno. I redeemed it quickly in a ticket machine and wondered if security would be coming for me at the buffet. Once I found $10 on a machine at Sam’s, and $20 at Desert Diamond in Tucson (then left quickly).

One day Corny donated blood at Sam’s Town for two free buffets.

We both had colds and emptied a huge box of Puffs. We stayed home a couple days on the excuse that it was windy.

I played bingo at Charlie’s until I was sick of seeing the same old people there.

One day I dumped Corny at the strip so he could see a couple museums. He got two hamburgers at Johnny Rocket’s and said they were so bad, he threw away the second one!

We got our mail and Corny got a shiny new Ally debit card but I didn’t. I called them and found out I was too late updating my address to Crestview so the card had been returned from Oldsmar. It takes seven to ten days for a new card; in the mean time they had shut off my current card so I’ve had no access to my money. They don’t care if you starve to death.

I found an awesome banana cookie recipe - LMK if you want it.

The day before we were to leave here, Corny fixed the RV step. I’m glad the new refurbished motor worked.

4/25 We drove to Mojave, in California, for the purpose of finding the 800+ geocaches along Route 66 just to the south. The northern part of the park has Joshua trees out the wazoo - more concentrated than in Joshua Tree NP to the south. We stayed in a dispersed camping area at the end of the Kelso Dunes parking lot. It was a terrible washboard road over 3 miles long. We loved our lonely site and stayed there four quiet nights, having hamburgers and chicken on the grill. We watched the full moon rise over the mountains and stargazed every night. Not much wildlife except some long-tailed lizards and some bugs from the yellow flowering bushes that grow every couple yards. The flowers turn into little fuzzy balls but I haven’t figgered out what they’re called yet. The dogs were soooo quiet, with nothing to bark at. When the chihuahuas are done sniffing around, we put them in their playpen to sit with us. Our rockers don’t rock in sand, but life is still Godd!

I got a little over 300 geocaches before deciding it was too hot to stay any longer. Corny stayed in the RV with the dogs, so it took a lot longer to rack up the numbers. I was expecting the old Route 66 to be a broken-up old grass in the cracks road, but it is a normal two-lane highway with quite a bit of weekend traffic. There is rock grafitti, old trees with shoes hung all over them, and packs upon packs of motorcycles. The “ghost town” roadside areas are cool, too.

April 29 we decided to move the RV to Amboy Crater to be closer to the caches. We picked a 100-degree day and didn’t like the black parking lot in the middle of black lava because it felt like an oven. I was afraid the tires would melt. We had the generator and A/C on until after midnight. When we finally ventured out around 7pm there was a breeze, but the wind was hot! When we walked behind a 15’ high outcropping of lava, we felt cooler because we were out of the wind! We listened to the weather radio and found out there were record-setting temps all over the area that day, and it would be 102 degrees the next day. We almost bolted for Vegas and it’s 80s, but decided to wait till morning.

The next morning I headed out around 6:30am to grab another 100+ caches. That’s when I found the sidewinder. Here’s my geocaching.com log:

Whew, I found more than a cache here! Followed the geotrail to the cache. Upon return, I stepped up the berm and as I stepped down on the other side, WHOA! A sidewinder was curled up like a honeybun under my foot! I gasped and made a larger-than-expected step down and ~luckily~ felt no pain! I ran the rest of the way to the car. Of course I wasn’t there long before grabbing the camera, as the honeybun hadn’t moved a muscle. When I returned I saw the honeybun just below the footprints on the geotrail - I must’ve stepped within centimeters of him on the way to the cache. As I approached this time, the snake had had enough of my nonsense and took a swing at me though I was well out of range. He then side-winded away, his 3-4 rattles buzzing and his black tongue flicking like crazy. He never took his eyes off me as he backed up into the bush next to the bush the cache was behind. I sure worried about the next geocachers. Now with 20/20 hindsight, I should’ve constructed a makeshift warning sign out of my Pringles can. Anyways, after the terror had passed and I was carefully geocaching away, I felt very special to have seen this little treasure up close and personal…and very thankful to God that I spotted the honeybun before stepping on it.

This was my favorite day geocaching on Route 66. Not only did I find the snake; I found a geocache on top of a little mountain of lava I climbed and a big ammo can hidden in a lava crevice covered by chunks of lava that had a cool “survey marker” geocoin in it. It was right off the parking lot at Amboy Crater. I left a geocoin there that I had gotten from the owner in Ocala last November and logged in all the states we’ve been to across the south.

Well, after fleeing the heat in Mojave, we went right back to King’s Row trailer park and paid for a week. We plan to hit a few more buffets before FINALLY returning to Area 51 to complete the E.T. Highway series. I hope it’s not 100 degrees. Life is Godd!

Geocaching along a Vegas canal

Here’s a two-week update.

Our time in Rachel went by so fast. Then suddenly we were back in the fast lane. There was a parade of hookers along Boulder Highway just outside our campground. We used a coupon for two nights at Arizona Charlie’s Casino/Campground. They put us in one of the Priceline sites near the entrance. The spot was so short I couldn’t park the entire Yaris off the road. With slide-outs out, there was maybe 3 1/2 feet between the RVs on each side of us. No way could we have put out our rocking chairs or a table to use the grill. Worst campground site yet. I’m glad it was only for two nights. Plus our steps stopped working, so we had to climb the 2 1/2 feet in and out every time. Poor overly-sensitive Bubbles would scream every time we lifted her up into the RV.

On the plus side, within walking distance, Arizona Charlie’s had around-the-clock bingo, every odd hour. The cards were only $10, but you couldn’t hardly win unless you paid $50+ for a machine. I tried that a couple times, and won, but machines aren’t much fun. I was up at all hours going back and forth to bingo (and doing tons of laundry from Rachel). I also found a Game King poker machine that had an audible timer. When I won 5 points, it ticked for a few seconds. When I won 45 points it ticked for almost a minute. I didn’t gamble while it was ticking, and I came out ahead again and again. The trick is to cash out the first time you’re ahead, even if it’s only a dollar or two. I silver mined quite a bit, too, as they seem to have more exit doors than most casinos (maybe it just seemed that way because its smaller?) where people just give up and leave, gifting their final nickels to me.

We took one day to check out several campgrounds in the area and really liked an old one with sites four times as big as Arizona Charlie’s, plus trees. We parked at King’s Row on the weekly plan. There’s fewer hookers this close to the Interstate, and we’re very close to a bike trail “Flamingo Arroyo” and “Cedar Drainage” trail a couple miles north.

We sampled the buffets at Arizona Charlie’s, Sam’s Town, The Orleans, The Rio, Terrible’s, and Boulder Station. Sam’s Town is Corny’s favorite. We had The Orleans for Easter brunch, so it was a lot fancier than the rest of course. It was my favorite. We’ll do further research.

Boulder Station did us dirty, twice. First, Corny bought a $50 gift card while we lived in Florida. We took too long to use it, because they started charging a $10/month (that is not a typo) “service fee” and ate it up. I didn’t even want to go into the place, but Corny wanted to try the buffet. So we went in to sign up for a card and ended up arguing with the clerk/supervisor over some newbie coupons. Unbelievable. That’s how they treat new customers. It was our first and last visit there - on the way out, I threw away the card, wiped my feet and shook off my hands.

4/3 I hit the bike trails and found 27 geocaches, most of them lamp post micros (not very challenging). I had fallen behind on caching because of all the bingo’ing I had been doing. I was hot ALL day; I never cooled off from riding. Maybe (hopefully) its just menopause.

Oh, speaking of menopause, another “I hate people” incident involving the Sam’s Town buffet ESL (English as second language) dessert lady. I’ll try to be brief since I really overdid the “retard at In & Out” incident. Corny had been at the dessert counter when another customer asked the ESL lady for some special chocolate cream cake. The dessert lady said they keep the good stuff in the refrigerator so you have to ask for it. Corny got some too, and made the mistake of going to the bathroom before he ate it. I ate all but one tiny little piece while he was gone…I felt it was expected of me and I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. So after he got back and cried and I laughed at him, I went up to get him a replacement. The ESL lady lied to me, saying they didn’t have any more cream cake, not even in the refrigerator. Corny went up and effortlessly got another piece.

I think my problem is that I’m 47 years old, I’m sick of taking crap, and I expect to be treated a little better than an 18 year old. Why do people insist on picking on me? Because I’m blond? I wear T-shirts and capris? I don’t know why… but I’m not taking it any more. It did occur to me several days later that I am fat again.

Anyways I left my gun with Corny and went up to ask ESL lady why she had lied to me. She started blabbering and stuttering about chocolate cake and what I asked her for and blah blah blah…I made a big gesture to see her name tag and said “Thank you Martha”. The best part was that there was another employee standing right there to hear her squirm. Then Corny told our waitress about it. I was satisfied that the gossip would be flying among the employees and I had made Martha nervous for the day. That’s enough about that.

My shenanigans with ESL lady were NOTHING compared to Corny’s dealings with two different unfortunate Fed Ex phone clerks. We had been expecting a long-range outdoor wi-fi antenna to be delivered - via two-day Express - on Saturday the 30th. We hung around the house all day waiting. Sunday was Easter, so we didn’t expect it. Monday we hung around the house all day AGAIN and finally Corny called them, loudly, around 5:30pm. OMG. Turns out on Saturday around 6:45pm the driver logged that he couldn’t find us. There are one-foot high numbers painted on the curb in front of our site. By then the office was closed so he couldn’t drop it there. Sunday and Monday nothing was done with the two-day Express package (???). The phone clerks said it would be delivered Tuesday. Corny demanded it be at the office by 10am. We had to go out that morning to return a new step motor that didn’t work, so we left a note on the RV door for Fed Ex “just in case”. He left us a note in return, but thankfully had dropped the package at the office. Somebody might’ve called the cops if Corny would’ve had to make another phone call to Fed Ex Tuesday evening. Yikes.

We ordered 4-5 different step motors from three different auto parts stores and found out they are power window motors for 1992 Ford Tauruses. There are several kinds which vary slightly and all Corny could get was refurbished (beat up) ones. We had a cement block propped under the steps for a long time.

We finally got out to the strip 4/5 and Corny helped me collect a big stack of booby cards. My collection is in storage in Ohio. We found an awesome T-shirt that said (cover your ears) “Fuck you, you fucking fuck”. We talked and laughed about it for days before deciding to go back and get a couple of them (Christmas is coming!). I was thinking of all the places I would like to wear it. The guy wanted $20 each for them. We quickly changed our minds.

While on the strip we went to the old Aladdin/new Planet Hollywood Spice Market buffet. It is still good, if you don’t mind a 1/2 mile walk between the salad and the salmon. The only disappointment (besides the price) is that instead of pretty, daintly little pastries for dessert, now they have a dozen different flavors of cupcakes. Maybe they bring out the good desserts at dinner.

Just behind the strip we found a cool Zombie Apocalypse store.  There was a real live (dead?) zombie out front waving to cars.  They had things like Batman knives, cell-phone stun guns, MREs, mess kits, first aid kits, targets and ammo.  We got some nice gift items there.

We got the oil Yaris changed at Wally’s - it has a little over 50K miles. I’m so glad we didn’t get a fifth-wheel, and have to do all the running around in a big noisy diesel duely pickup. While we were waiting I picked out five old-lady shirts that aren’t T-shirts. Maybe people won’t try to crap on me if I dress my age???

I’m ready for Tonopah and the second half of the E.T. power trail. Corny is considering coming back to Vegas for another month after Tonopah. I would kinda like to sign up for boot camp, but don’t want to go alone in a strange town and Corny won’t go with me. He’s been mean about it because I won’t go to the Atomic Bomb museum or Mob museum or Railroad museum with him. Oh well, beats working…

Life is Godd!

We were going to stay at a place in east Las Vegas, but when Corny got there and merged into the traffic (I was asleep) he decided he didn’t want Vegas just yet. Instead, we headed five hours up to Rachel, NV and parked at the Little Ale’Inn. It was about 7pm when we FINALLY arrived. The three electric hookups were just two homemade household outlets in official-looking metal electrical boxes. The waitress insisted they were 30amps, but Corny said they weren’t and the “electrician” had used plumbing PVC instead of grey electrical pipe. We stayed for free the first two nights figuring 20amps weren’t going to do us much good anyways. Then we needed it for heat. The first night we had open-face beef sandwiches, like turkey Manhattan, at the Inn. It was good, but when I got to the last little piece of meat with no gravy covering it, it was rainbowed. Eeeew.

The first day in Rachel Corny spent his birthday driving me along the E.T. Highway in the Yaris. He stayed in first gear most of the time, and it was smelling hot. We had the dogs in their cages in back with a big 12V fan attached to Bubbles’ cage. She threw up after 185 caches, so we headed home.

They are super nice here - when we told them Bubbles was constipated, they gave us some bacon and bacon grease for her. She smelled like shit, so Corny inspected her bunghole and discovered the reason it took her so long to poop was because there was a shit-trap door covering her anus. He pulled off a bunch of it and she stunk to high heaven. We made her sleep up front. Now she’s pooping freely and back to her usual bubbly self. Thank God - I thought she must’ve eaten foil or a sock or something and we needed to take her in for x-ray$.

The second day I solo hiked the 7-mile Alien Head geo-art. It has 51 caches placed to show up on the map as an alien head with big eyes. I found a nice agate (?) rock. I was soooo tired, and my feet were killing me when I got home. Corny sat onhisass all day and expected me to cook dinner. Hahaha! He’s so funny.

The third day Corny said he took Bubbles out at 1am and hadn’t slept since because his nose was running and he was sneezing. I didn’t really want him driving us around on no sleep, so we got breakfast at the Ale’Inn and paid for electric ($15). He had pancakes, I had an omelet. I went out solo and got 215 caches - my new record. I didn’t feel good all day, headachey and stomachey, but I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I never had the sandwich I had packed for lunch and I didn’t drink much water - about 1/4 gallon. It was cold and windy and when a light, although very cold, sprinkle started around 5pm, I turned tail and headed home.

When I got home Corny was in his bathrobe with liquid diarrhea and vomiting. Oh carap. That’s why I didn’t feel good. I laid right down on the sofa in my hoodie, covered up with a blanket and didn’t move for hours - I was afraid I would start barfing too. Corny continued about half the night. Fortunately I just had a little touch of the squirts. Since we used up so much water and filled the toilet tank with the diarrhea and such, I was afraid we weren’t going to be able to stay as long as I had hoped. We’d have to go back to Vegas for a week or a month or whatever then come back up to Area 51 to complete the 2000-cache E.T. Highway. They have water and electric but no dump here. Corny won’t move the RV so we can fill the fresh water, so when its gone, its gone.

I found the book “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy under my bed. I don’t remember buying it. Anyways I tore right through it. At first I was a bit offended that the writer left the apostrophes out of wont and couldnt. Then I thought, what an outdated grammar rule. We shouldnt need apostrophes. Even after seeing the movie recently, I LOVED this book. He really captured the stark, relentless struggle of life as a survivor. I’ve read a lot of post-apocalyptic novels, but this is absolutely the best. Highly recommended.  I put the rest of his books on my book list.

We took a day off to not do anything after we were sick. The next late afternoon we felt good enough to go three miles down the road and start the UFO geo-art. It has 50 caches, and we were able to do a little over half of them until the Everest hurricane winds kickedourasses. Really, it was miserably windy. My eyeballs are still sore from all the grit pelting them. I did find a nice piece of obsidian (?) though. We went back to the restaurant to eat and Corny told them we had been sick. I figgered we had immunities now, so I got some good chili-cheese fries. Corny got the beef Manhattan again.

Next day we were up early. We left the dogs at home (somebody pooped in their cage during the day) and did about 230 caches. We saw wild horses and a lone coyote, drove to Tonopah’s Burger King, and climbed a little mountain. I went down first to get the camera to take a picture of Corny and kept saying “OMG, did we really do that?” He looked so small up there.

We liked Tonopah a lot - a little mining town with two museums, 1 1/2 casinos, several RV camping options, a McD, BK and Subway, and a Family Dollar store. We are going to stay there after a week/month in Vegas. I have about 1100 more caches to get! They are all about 40 miles east of Tonopah. Anyways we drove about 200 miles total that day.

We were pretty beat after our big day. Corny asked me the next day around 11am if I was ready to go finish the UFO because it wasn’t windy at all. I was too tired. I took a nap and woke up at 3pm! We went and finished the UFO. It was much more pleasant this time and I found a big military-size shell casing.

Our eighth day in Rachel (I couldn’t believe we were there for so long!) we drove east to Alamo and had breakfast. We got caches #0001-0316 which ended right in front of the Inn where we had started on day one. I didn’t think we would actually get them all. We did have a nice little stretch where Corny didn’t even have to get out of the car to retrieve the caches. I would nearly run over them; he would open the door, bend over and retrieve them from their little rock cairns. He was shocked to see Rachel appear in the distance so soon.

During the day we saw some F-14s flying very low, very close to us and damm fast. The lowest one tipped his wings at us. There are signs along the road that say “Low flying aircraft”. I always pictured cropdusters, not superfast fighters only a couple hundred feet up. We stopped for a break at the famous white mailbox that marks the dirt road leading to Area 51. We followed an “Adventure Tours” SUV carrying four Norwegian kids six miles back to the official “Deadly force authorized” signs.

It was a big long hot day and the RV was out of water so we couldn’t shower. Albeit, we went back to the restaurant and had our favs, chili cheese fries and beef Manhattan. We had put the bike seat off of Corny’s new bike into the big ammo can cache inside on our first day there. I peeked in and saw that only two cachers had signed in after us, and the bike seat was still there. I was thinking of turning it into a travel bug for Corny (someone would take it then), but it’s kinda sad when they all eventually go missing. Several years ago I received a very special geocoin from my cache Reviewer in Florida after I completed the Florida county challenge cache. I placed it in a new cache in Bimini under a raised building. A couple people after me couldn’t find the cache, and finally one said the building had been razed. Gone forever…

We got things tucked away the night before and made a quick getaway in the morning.  I was surprised the nine days went so fast.

Adventures with Garmin…the GPS always sends us on an exciting route. I don’t think it likes straight lines or major roads. Our drive to Laughlin, NV was a rollercoaster ride, so much so that Bubbles threw up in her cage. It was windy, too, so there was some side-to-side action going on also. I think something is wrong with Bubbles - she’s been hesitating at the steps, like she might’ve hurt a paw on a sharp stone at Quartzsite. She’s just not been acting herself, and we can’t find anything visibly wrong with her paws. She’s not limping. We’ve been thinking she doesn’t like the new canned dogfood, but maybe she just doesn’t feel good…

That day continued to be bad. We didn’t have breakfast because we were counting on having a big Sunday buffet at one of the casinos. We arrived at Harrah’s at 1pm and the buffet was shut down! They had just finished with brunch and wouldn’t open for dinner till 4pm. I get very ugly if I don’t eat all day, and there was no way I could wait till 4pm. Corny was pretty depressed. We ate at In-and-Out, C’s favorite burger place, and I got in a fight with a retard.

The front end staff at In-and-Outs, in my opinion, are all a little “off”. Like drama club, kinda socially awkward, sing-singy. But they enjoy being “different” and In-and-Out thinks they are perfect to make a 3-item restaurant “special”.

So we go up to the counter where a couple is placing their order. A pimple-face hard of hearing girl with Bell’s palsy comes up to a second register and asks us for our order. I said loudly, since I was standing behind the first couple, “Number one”. Retarded cashier says “A What? You can come up here” motioning to the 12 inches between first couple and the wall, where retarded cashier’s register is. I stood where I was and motioned “one” with my finger and yelled even louder “Number one”. I wasn’t playing her game, so she started playing with Corny. “I can’t hear her, does she want onions on that?” You can’t hear my finger pointing “number one”?

So we sit down at a table that is still wet from being wiped by the retard and I wipe it down with a Lysol wipe. I don’t know where all that nasty rag has been - for all I know she wiped down the thank you box with it, three days ago. She was watching me out of the corner of her eye and came over to the table and said (to Corny) “I just wiped these tables” and proceeded to wipe the nasty rag over it again! I got up, said “Oh Jesus” and moved to the next table. She had the gall to say “Is there a problem?” to me. Good guess. Why do people think they can pick on me? I said “No, go away” and she stormed off. I took out another Lysol wipe and wiped our germy table again. We ate, but I didn’t eat any fries because Corny insists we share them. I don’t know why, I just want my own fries. When he asked why I wasn’t eating any I said “I’m ready to getthehell outta here”.

So we had an uneventful trip to SafeWay grocery store. However the bad day continued. When we got home the “neighbor” had left a hate note on our door, with four pieces of tape, that our dogs were barking and to “take care of the problem”. I forget what all it said, it was long-winded, and said something about the other neighbor will confirm. The other neighbors were big-mouths. When we came home they were talking loudly and yukking it up with someone who had parked their class-C on the street in front of the big-mouths trailer. That’s why the dogs were barking.

So the whole week at Don Laughlin’s Riverside Casino campground the hate-note Nazi couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t speak to him. Whatthehell did he expect??? Corny chatted with him now and then and told me he was a Veterinarian (!), they had been there all winter, and ours was the fourth hate-note he had left for his neighbors. Another game-player. I heard him say to Corny “Your wife must think I hate her”. Good guess. What I learned from this tard was that leaving notes is a gutless passive-aggressive cop-out. I’ve always left notes (not necessarily hate notes) because I’m a better writer than a talker.

Riverside had seven bingo games per day; I went to one that first night. It only cost $5! I was used to spending $50 at the Indian casinos. I went every day, all week, sometimes twice a day. I silver mined between games.  I won $60 one day and $160 on the last day. We tried four different buffets while at Laughlin. I don’t think I took a picture all week.

The rest of our time in Mesa involved a few little bike rides here & there and a restaurant every other day or so. We think the Panda Express noodles are thinner down south and P.F. Chang’s doesn’t give you enough to eat. We went to a real good Mexican restaurant twice - Mi Amigo’s. There are three of them in the Phoenix area. Everything was so good - the chips, salsa, and everything on the big $15 sampler plate. I got tamales the second visit - they were sooo perfectly gooood… We went to two good casino buffets in the area.

Corny got a new T.V. for the bedroom because the old one kept flaking out - I think it had been rattled around to death. The first thing I did on it was watch “The Road”. I had seen it in the theater but was about 10 minutes late, so didn’t know what had caused the whole situation.

Just a few weeks after we got new tires for the Yaris, we picked up a screw. They told us at Wally’s that it hadn’t punctured, but the annoying “tire” light keeps going on. Corny adds air every week or so.

I drove the bike up to Scottsdale to do a geo-powertrail. I was blown away by how good the caches were! Most powertrail caches are all alike and hidden in the same way - “unchallenging”. This one had caches you had to fish out of PVC pipes, retrieve from trees with a ten-foot pole, hook out of traffic barriers - it was just an awesome run. The fake bolts were the hardest. I gave out a bunch of favorite points that day.

When our month was up we were so sick of listening to rushing traffic we headed straight back to Quartzsite and parked in the middle of nowhere. We ended up next to a tree where “Duke” was buried. We stayed a week until we started running out of food. The freezer was nearly bare and we were down to mac n’ cheese. I read a 500-page book “Legends of the American Desert” by Alex Shoumatoff. I found it at the Mesa GoodWill the day we were leaving. It was about half Indian-related tales; I was glad when it finally got around to the Exploreres and Pioneers. It got whiney in the end - “We’re losing our land…The mining company is using up all our water.” (after selling their rights).

I was horizontal about 80% of the time at Quartzsite and let myself nap any ole time of the day. I stayed in my pajamas most of the time. One day I didn’t get up until 3pm! We went out to look at the stars at night. After five or six days there I dreamed about Glenn all night, in several different dreams and decided I wanted to get back to civilization, with phones and Skype. It’s a little rough when your kid rides a motorcycle.

We called ahead to a few RV parks in Phoenix for a monthly reservation. Many were booked solid through the winter with snowbirds. We were lucky to call one in Mesa that had just found out that morning someone had died and the family was coming to tow away the trailer (and the wife) that evening. It was one of the least expensive, too. Although I’m pretty sure Corny ran a red light on the way there - he was changing lanes and it was red as we went under it, so I’m sure they snapped a picture of the Yaris on the way through. He’s prolly going to flip out and blame me when he gets the ticket in a few weeks. Then I’ll have to get the calendar out and show him that the only driving I did that day was to hook the Yaris to the RV that morning. Eeek.

Anyways, we’re in Mesa, on the east side of Phoenix at “Tiffany” RV park and apartments. Our spot is right up front where there used to be a building, so we’re not squeezed in between two other sardines. We’re right next to the dog-walk area, but it is not completely closed in. You still have to have a leash around your dogs’ neck. Again, like in Holiday, we are just yards away from the community dumpster. Also here, we’re just yards away from a busy, noisy six-lane street.

The park owner seemed nervous that the dogs might bark, so we blocked the front cab off with tables and stuff to keep them down off the dashboard, their prime barking location. It has been a lot quieter! Later we went out and got an official wire dog cage with eight 2’ sections to use across the front. I had the tables and stuff down for about 15 seconds before Poco jumped up on the dashboard and started barking.

The first day here we went to a DDD - Joe’s Farm Grill in Gilbert. My hamburger was raw. I couldn’t eat it. I took it back up to the ordering area and asked the cashier if she could throw it back on the grill for a couple minutes. Her response was “All of our hamburgers are cooked medium-well.” I looked down at the pink burger and waited for her to say something relevant, but nothing. I asked her again if she would please put it back on the grill a few minutes…one of the cooks with some actual human-service skills intervened and said he would make me another. I came away resentful that someone would second-guess that my hamburger was obviously pink and made me feel like something was wrong with ME because I don’t eat raw hamburger. Corny said they could get into big trouble with the board of health for not cooking hamburger thoroughly. Anyway I don’t have any urge to return there although it was a pretty neat place.

The next day I biked along a nearby canal on the way to a power trail and an EarthCache. I was out pedalling for eight hours. I came home red-faced, sweaty and exhausted. I sat down with a drink for less than five minutes and Corny was nasty about needing his ass hauled to Home Depot and Redbox. I dropped him at the door both places then parked a little farther away than necessary. It was kinda fun for a day thinking we weren’t going to be nice to each other any more.

Although my legs hurt for days afterward, we went for a hike in McDowell Mountain Regional Park, due north of Mesa. I had noticed a power trail there, too, and wondered if I should camp there a couple nights. Corny came with me to check the place out and talk about how depressed he was due to how many Christmas cards he got/didn’t get from his relatives last Christmas. We hiked around getting 30 caches, the most he has ever witnessed. He said they weren’t very challenging.  I put his initials on the logs although he doesn’t bother bringing his GPS or a pen. He wouldn’t even bend over to pick up a container - he’d just stand over it and point, waiting for me to come and fetch it. I’ll be tent-camping at the park over Valentine’s Day to get the rest of the geocaches by myself. It’s an interesting saguaro desert with nice hike/bike trails, full of hummingbirds, lizards, ravens and coyotes.

The next day we went to a second DDD in Phoenix: Matt’s Big Breakfast. We waited over an hour for a table then had to perch at the “bar”. The stools were so slippery I stood while eating so I wouldn’t fall off. I got a nice egg/bacon sandwich and Corny got food poisoning. I mean pancakes and homefries. That night he was up all night with diarrhea and dry heaves. This DDD stuff isn’t going as well as I had expected.

I did go back to Ft. McDowell Mountain with my 8x8 tent for two nights and cached myassoff. It was all biking. I had to walk and push/pull the bike and myfatass up/down some rocky/steep sections. The last day was the BEST. I saved the big 16-mile loop for last. It was a pretty steep/rocky trail going up, but the whole 8 miles back, I don’t think I ever pedalled. It was nice and smooth and a very gradual grade. I’m in love.

Holy Carap, was I sore when I got back home. I could hardly climb the RV steps. I think the pain was from all the jarring over the rocks. While in Ft. McDowell I went to the casino and signed up for a card to get $10 in freeplay. I won $9.40 in real money.

I watched the new Survivor on the computer late at night since I only get two bars of Internet here. I’ve been having “text” chats with Glennyrd - I’m glad he types fast. Ever chat with a hunt & peck typist? Dang, its boring.

Running out of things to say… Yesterday we went to a little local Italian restaurant the RV park owner suggested - Red White & Brew. I had an awesome chicken gyro pizza. Corny had tortellini and he wants to go back too. Then we came home and went for a short bike ride along the canal. I brought Poco along in what I call his “Snuggie”. It is a little pouch that I strap on like a halter and plop the chihuahua into. Then I zipped him inside my hoodie. He didn’t move a muscle (except for his ears).

I guess we haven’t been acting much like tourists here, since we’re here for so long. There is a museum downtown Corny wants to see, but that would have to be on a weekend.

Okay, outta things to say. Got another week and a half here, so I’ll update again in a couple weeks. Life is good!

Corny wanted to return to Tucson to do some tourist things. Our last brief, cold stay didn’t allow for much sightseeing. The first two nights were a freebie from LazyDays of Tucson, coupons we signed up for at the RV show. It was a pretty, clean, homey place filled with little lemon and orange trees. Instead of an unwieldy birdpoop picnic table, each site had real patio furniture, like you would have at home. There were lots of people sitting outside enjoying it using their laptops, etc. You don’t see that at the picnic-table-RV-parks. It rained our first full day there and Corny had to drag me to the little restaurant 300 feet away for a free lunch. Otherwise I did nothing but walk the dogs and do laundry.

After LazyDays we went back to Whispering Palms. With the Passport America discount it was just a little over $100 for the week. The first day we visited San Xavier del Bac, an elaborately decorated Spanish mission established in the 1600s for the Papagos Indians. It is very photogenic - a gem in the desert. We spent at least a couple hours there. It was Sunday and very busy. There was a wood likeness of a reclining San Francisco on display and the locals come to lift it’s head and pin little stamped metal trinkets to it’s covering. There is a pretty good museum with a 25 minute loop of a PBS documentary about the resoration. A nearby hill provides good views of the mission, and has a little grotto which one of the Jesuits or Franciscan Friars dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. In the parking lot out front, locals sell frybread and friendly stray(?) dogs beg for food.

After visiting the gift shop, I fired up the GPS and found out there was a Virtual cache here (not a cache container with a log to sign, but take a photo to prove you were there). I set the self-timer on my camera (I had gotten separated from Corny in the museum) and snapped a quick picture of myself and my GPS at the entrance. It looked a little overexposed on the postage-stamp sized display screen, but I could tell it was me so it was proof enough for the virtual cache. After logging the cache online and posting the photo, I started getting goosebumps looking at the picture. You couldn’t see my facial features, a strange person in a red shirt was standing behind me and I appeared to be holding a vellum scroll in my right hand. I wondered what symbologists would say. After I doctored the brightness, contrast and shadows, I felt a little better that you could ~kinda~ make out my face. The strange person in red was actually the church mantelpiece and altar, and the scroll was a yellow shopping bag from the gift shop with a book in it! I’m still a little wiry about the picture. What do you think???

After a couple nights at Whispering Palms, the weather got seriously summer-like. It was so nice to finally put on shorts and feel the air and sun on my legs again. Any time we went anywhere, I would say how gorgeous the mountains are and how much I love it here - usually followed by “…but I realize it’s January.” I’ve seen some awesome sunsets and the stars seem brighter at night. I used to be highly skeptical of people who claimed the desert was pretty. Now I get it.

We visited the Arizona Desert Museum, which I insist is a zoo. I was blown away by the views on the drive there, through Tucson Mountain Park. We got out at a trailhead and did a little scenic hike for an hour or so. I bushwacked up a little hill and discovered “jumping chollas”. I noticed while hiking there was a little egg-sized cactus stuck to my right shoe. I thought it was cute and decided to leave it there to show C. when I got back down. By that time it had jumped to my left shoe!

Anyways, the AZ Desert “Museum” was mostly outdoors with excellent displays. I especially enjoyed the coyote enclosure (because I was the only one who could spot the coyote), bobcats, panthers, javelinas (much bigger than at Big Bend), a big adorable, engaging bear, and of course rattlesnakes. We also spotted a bigass lizard with a horny tail perched on a rock, not in any enclosure. I think he just wandered in on his own. It was an awesome day and we followed up with a lovely buffet at Casino del Sol.

The next day I went out for a little bit to get a couple caches but couldn’t stand the crazy traffic. That night I heard on the news that a big Gem & Mineral show was starting this weekend. The day after that, we went a bit more south of town and I dropped C. at the Titan Missile Museum, a National Historic Landmark. I did some geocaching and shopping, putting together a care package to send to G. We stopped at Desert Diamond casino to sample their buffet - it was perfectly good - better than Golden Corral and cheaper than Del Sol. I silver-mined over $20.

Rockas. Rockas. Rockas. A visit to the local Mexican-flavored Food City resulted in a six-pack of these little brown mounds of goodness for $1.75. They are NOT flat piedras with icing. They are of a heavy cake-donut consistency and sprinkled with sugar after baking. We went back for two more packs during the week. I would’ve loved to send G. some Rockas, but they are so delicate they would’ve been Sandas by the time they reached Florida. I guess Rockas will join the list of reasons to go out west, with Julio’s chips and Buc-ees beaver nuggets…and the little love affair I have with Jack in the Box sirloin cheeseburgers. We did try In & Out burgers one day and Corny set a speed record for inhaling a burger, but I’m still addicted to Jack’s combo #1 with regular fries. They are so crispy!

Saturday I was planning to drop C. at the Old Tucson Movie set while I geocached, then see Saguaro National Park together. So the night before I was looking at the geo-maps and getting all excited. There was a powertrail of nearly 200 caches near the National Park that didn’t require a 4x4 or an AZ State Land permit. I also noted an old cache, placed in January of 2001, that I wanted to get. Well, in the morning C. dilly-dallied and had to make a bunch of phone calls because when we got our mail the day before he found out he had missed making the payment on the RV insurance by a week or so. He told me to go ahead without him. I happily complied. I got 66 caches including the old one. I stopped in to Saguaro NP to use the bathroom, and at Jack’s on the way home.

Superbowl Sunday we had lunch at Outback. C was talking about taxes and marriage and crap. I asked him why he would want to get married and from what I was able to pry out of him, it is so he can feel wanted. He was sulky and depressed the rest of the day and gave me the silent treatment (!) for several hours. I dropped him at the movie set and found 84 caches on the “power trail” nearby! My best day ever was 140 finds, so this was really good for just a few hours. I used my new “tallglenn :0)” self-inking rubber stamp and the stop & drop method: have a stamped cache ready to go so when I find the next one, I just quickly swap them out. Then back in the car I stamp the new one and switch it out with the next cache, etc. No standing at the side of the road signing the log. Although I do have little black “t” and “ta” and “tall”s on my left pantleg. I’ll have to wear black shorts when I do the ET Highway in Nevada.

Well, we are off to Phoenix and some DDDs now. Hope to find a nice place to stay for a month. Life is good!

While in Big Bend the weather continued to be too cold for comfort. Somehow we just didn’t feel like going out and exploring when the temperature was in the 40s - 50s. Driving along in a heated vehicle I would look out and think “Oh, I want to hike out there”. However after opening the car door I would quickly change my mind. We based the final few days of our stay on the Weather Channel. We left 1/10/13. The truck stops in El Paso were overflowing with trucks. Pilot, Love’s, and even RV-friendly Flying J were packed with bigrigs and there were no pull-through areas at all for RVs with towed’s that can’t back in. We couldn’t have even parked just to go inside, let alone stay the night. Instead we drove forever (I went in back to lie down) and stayed just inside the New Mexico state line at the quiet Visitor’s Center.

We were up relatively early to drive to an RV park in Las Cruces, the Coachlight. We did tons of laundry and I wore myself out sorting the “storage” food from the basement and making a big grocery list after being in Big Bend for nine days with no resupply. We spent over $100 at Wally’s - we were out of everything. We also had the automotive kids check the right rear passenger tire which has had a slow leak for about a week. With the extensive cracking on all four tires we decided to get some estimates on a new set. I thought tiny little Yaris tires would be cheaper than $300, but some places wanted over $400. We replaced them in the next town, Tucson.

We were in a bit of a hurry to get out of Las Cruces and away from C’s family. We did take Emily her heirlooms and had late lunch/early dinner with them at Si Senor’s steak/burger place. C’s niece is a delight - I can relate to her more now that she’s becoming an adult. We left Coachlight with a 1/3 full water tank because their pipes had frozen and burst. Now we top off the tank the night before. We went the short distance to Tucson’s Whispering Palms campground for two nights.

During the drive I mentioned how this trip hasn’t been exactly as I pictured. I thought we would park in one area until I found all the geocaches then we’d move on to another. Instead I’ve only gotten 100 or so caches since we left Gulf Shores, AL. I’ve also decided that driving for hours is the part I like least about RVing, mostly because of the cooped-up dogs. I was so glad to hear C say that since our “have to’s” are done now, we can slow down. For the cost of driving one day, we could pay to stay for a month at a nice RV park with electric, water, sewer and Internet. Now we’re thinking after the Quartzsite RV show, we’ll come back to Phoenix/Tucson for a month, then up to Las Vegas/Laughlin for a month. Yay! By then it’ll be spring and we can make our way up to Alaska, if we feel like it. Sounds a little ambitious right now.

The first morning at Whispering Palms there was a bit of commotion as the pipes had frozen and burst one site over. C has been complaining a lot and got a little snippy with me because of the cold weather. He had me get the weather report for Tucson and Quartzsite for the next few days and added another day to our stay at Tucson after seeing it. Lord Willing it will be warmer in two days.

C was cheered up a bit when we went to Casino Del Sol and discovered we each got $10 in freeplay and a FREE BUFFET ($15) when we signed up for their club-card. It was a class-A buffet, too, with several roast meats, a pasta station, fresh berries and fancy little desserts; everything was top-notch. Corny calls it the $3 buffet because he left a $5 tip and won $2 with his freeplay. ~Coincidentally~ I won $2 with my freeplay.

The next day we went to Trader Joe’s just for fun. I tried some crumpets - they are really good - like a mix between english muffins and really thick pancakes. I had Corny try Jack in the Box - I had been to one in Houston and loved the sirloin burger. He liked the burgers but was turned off by the price.

Thank God, it finally warmed up! We drove to Quartzsite and pulled into the first free camping area we found and grilled burgers. There were campers of all sorts parked all willy-nilly. We found a spot next to a little wash, so set up knowing we wouldn’t have neighbors on one side and had a good place for the dogs to sniff around. The campground is called Hi Jolly. Before the Civil War, Jefferson Davis brought a herd of camels from Syria to Quartzite as an experiment. He wanted to use them for freight and communication in the southwest. When the war started the experiment was abandoned, but the camel driver, Hadji Ali (Hi Jolly), stayed until his death in 1902. The camels hung around for several years too.

We are at the edge of the campground and I go out almost every afternoon to explore the desert. There are rocks of every color here, along with big chunks of white quartz. I follow the little washes looking for 12 pound nuggets of gold, veins of silver, and arrowheads. After a week here I’ve found squat. The only wildlife I’ve seen (besides a few birds) are lizards and one cottontail.

We went to a disappointing Geo-Event. We had arrived about 10 minutes late because we went to the wrong building first. We signed in at the front table and moved some chairs around to have somewhere to sit. They were packed in like sardines on one side of the room; the other side was empty. We missed getting a prize ticket so twiddled our thumbs while prizes were given out. Suddenly it was announced to “rotate” and the sardines all got up to shuffle seats. We didn’t know what to do or where to go, so we gathered up the snack we had brought and hit the door. When I logged in online later that evening, I saw that someone else wrote that he had arrived late and his seat and ticket were given away to someone who hadn’t “registered”. There were assigned seats?! That was the most uptight, over-organized geo-event I’ve ever heard of… Someone eMailed me and said that people had been arriving at noon for the 1pm meeting. I’ve got to get used to this hanging out with old people thing…

Otherwise I’m finding TONS of signature items for my collection in the local caches. One day I dropped Corny at the RV show/flea market and did a little series of caches along Old Yuma Road, a gravel road. I noticed every time I opened the door I got shocked a couple times, like up north during winter after scooting along the carpet then touching metal. When I got “home” I couldn’t believe the thick coating of dust caked onto the Yaris. It was thicker than when driving around ONF for an two weeks. Point is, it’s REALLY dusty and dry here. It is dirt bike and ATV heaven, though! I’ve sure missed my Dual-Sport this week.

Anyways I really like it here - there are no enforced rules, yet noone is trashing up the place or being loud or obnoxious. We are among self-sufficient, independent people. I hear coyotes partying almost every night. Seems someone is always running a generator all night, but I understand they need their CPAP machines, concentrators, nebulizers and such. Maybe they can’t afford the $20 for a CG with electricity.

On the flip side, this little town with a population of 200 swells to 150,000 during the RV show. It is ridiculous. Traffic is horrendous. The shelves at Dollar General are picked clean. There are lines for everything. I love the camping, but God forbid you need to go into town. After a week it didn’t seem like enough people were going away, so I was ready to leave. I was sick of having the same neighbors. I’d love to come back and stay longer, but not during the RV show.

It was a good experience to find out how long the water lasts when we’re conserving. We already know the black tank takes a couple weeks to fill when we’re NOT conserving. We’ve each had two quick showers this week and we still have half a tank of fresh water (30+ gallons) left. (Don’t worry, we wash daily.) We have to run the generator each morning and evening to charge up the batteries. We need them to run the controller on the propane refrigerator, the water pump, and furnace if necessary. Corny has been looking into solar panels.

We were surprised to pay $23 for a pizza at the lone pizza place in Quartzsite and $25 for a turkey leg and brisket sandwich at the RV show. It’s like Disney prices in the desert. One day we drove about 20 miles to California so I could finish my I-10 Challenge. Gas prices there were shocking. Cool caches, though.

We packed up and headed to Tucson January 23.