Tag Archives: RV

ATVing & Los Algodones, Baja Mexico (Winterhaven, CA)

2015/02/04 davidhobden@mac.com

On Tuesday morning, we jumped on the ATV to check out some of the trails behind our campsite. Stilla carried our dog, Coach along for the ride.

We ran into a lot of “dead end” trails:

At one point, we rode down through the “wash” below our camp site. You can see our Coach on the hilltop.

The Urban Escape Vehicle is 2nd from the left.

We found a lot of hidden campsites… some occupied, some not.

We even found a Pet Cemetery. We stopped to look around and pay our respects. It was rather unexpected to find this as we were riding along one of the more improved roads. Some folks put a lot of work into their pets’ final resting place.

There were even a couple gravesites marked “Unknown” that some caring folks took the time and effort to do. I thought that was nice.

One of the trails we followed ended abruptly at a cliff-edge overlooking the canal.

After backtracking a ways… we got on a trail that went as far as the border which you can see in the pictures below. The parking lot is the one we paid our $6 to park in when we visited Los Algodones last Saturday.

We had worked up an appetite, so we decided to spend the afternoon on another trip into Los Algodones, Mexico for a late lunch. We left little Coach in the big Coach with some windows and vents open for cool air circulation, and took the Silverado to the $6 dollar parking lot, which is just a couple minutes down the road from our campsite.

It wasn’t long before we were sitting in the shade at one of the restaurants in Los Algodones, Mexico.

I took pictures of the menu in case any of you “blog-readers” want to place an order for delivery… might take a while tho 🙂

I ordered a Pacifico beer with my meal expecting to get a normal size one… this guy was huge, but it was OK, Stilla helped me finish it.

Stilla ordered one of the combo plates – burrito, enchilada, and tostada.

Stilla also ordered the tortilla soup that we shared.

I had the fish tacos, they were delicious. I’m becoming a fan of these.

After, lunch we ran the gauntlet of vendors again… I couldn’t count the number of times we heard; “look here – almost free”.

I was thinking of Cheryl and my brother Steve when I saw this horse sculpture:

I was thinking of myself when I took a picture of these neat stained glass items:

When we had enough of the vendors and peddler’s, we headed back to the border crossing, which to our surprise and amazement, had a line that stretched for blocks… it wasn’t at all like this last Saturday! We walked right out as quickly as we walked in the last time we were here. We overheard some folks say that they hadn’t seen it this busy since 2008… it was like some sort of weird star alignment and everyone decided to come visit at once on this Tuesday.

Here’s a picture of the front of the line. The border crossing building is at the end of this covered walkway and to the right where there is still more covered walkway up to the checkpoint.

Here’s a picture of the middle of the line. You can see more vendors and peddlers trying to get everyone’s last dollar up to the last minute.

And here’s a picture of the end of the line… way back in the distance is the end of the line. As you can probably tell from these pictures… Stilla and I sat at the outside bar section of one of the restaurants, took pictures, and waited until the line became more reasonable. We sat there for almost two hours while we nursed a margarita. Sometimes, you just have to do, what you got to do 🙂

It was almost dusk again by the time we got back to little Coach. He was just fine again. What a good guard dog. Sadly, we missed “Happy Hour” with our neighbors today since it took so long to get back out of Mexico.

And that’s all for now… it’s late morning on Wednesday as I finish up this journal entry. We’ll probably hang around the Coach today and maybe go check out the casino at some point later this evening.

Stay tuned…

California

Moving Day Monday (Winterhaven, CA)

2015/02/03 davidhobden@mac.com 1 Comment

On Monday we decided to head over to the Quechan Casino Resort. It is located on the south side of Interstate 8, about 8 miles west of Yuma and 2 miles north of Los Algodones, Mexico. This is the place we reconnoitered last Saturday when we visited Los Algodones for the first time.

View of the Quechan Casino after exiting I-8

We settled on a boondocking spot just south of the main RV parking lot at the casino. The spots here are more open than at the casino and we backed up to a dry river bed, aka “wash”, that is about 20 feet below the back of the Coach.

I wonder if I can take the ATV down this embankment into the wash? Hmmm?

Before we headed over here in the early afternoon, I spent a little time getting some more waxing done on the Coach, which as I mentioned before, is a multi-day chore. It’s best to tackle a little at a time until I get it done… and then when I’m finally finished… it’s probably time to start again, right?

We said our goodbyes to our friends from the Alpine Coach group. They are going to stay at the Cocopah Casino for a while longer. And then we followed their advice, and found the Union 76 service station that allowed us to dump and take on water.

When we arrived here and picked out a spot, we had just backed in and started to put down the pads to keep the jacks from sinking into the sand, when the neighbor came over and introduced himself and his wife. They invited us to come over for “Happy Hour” – they (and other’s) were grilling up some shrimp and had made some jalapeño poppers stuffed with smoked salmon to share.

It’s amazing the number of nice people you meet out here RVing 🙂 After we extended the jacks, put the slides out, and staked down the patio mat, we pulled our chairs over and enjoyed an hour or two with our new “neighbors”.

After “Happy Hour” we fell back into our usual routine – Stilla had made a stew earlier, so we had dinner and then watched TV. And also, as usual when boondocking, we ran the generator for an hour or so to top off the batteries for the night.

Stay tuned… I wonder what we’ll do tomorrow?

BTW – Have I ever mentioned that Monday is my new “favorite” day of the week now? Since I retired – when I wake up on a Monday morning and realize I don’t have to go in to work – I feel good. Life is good 🙂

Arizona

Super Bowl Sunday, Cocopah Casino (Yuma, AZ)

2015/02/02 davidhobden@mac.com

On Super Bowl Sunday, we just hung around the Coach until game time at the Cocopah Casino. I used the morning to get a little waxing done on the Urban Escape Vehicle. Stilla took a picture for your amusement:

I called the Military Fam-Camp at Yuma Proving Grounds to tell them we wouldn’t make it in today as previously planned. Naturally, no one was in the RV park office, so I had to leave a message. It’s a little over 30 miles to the North on I-95 from here and we’re going North anyway eventually, so why not stay down here in the Yuma area for a while longer we thought… there’s so much to see and do right here. I’ll call again to be sure we can get in later this week.

We think we’ll follow through on our idea to go over to the other casino in the area that we checked out on Saturday. It’s called the Quechan Casino Resort. And it’s closer to the Imperial Sand Dunes that I hope to check out with the ATV. A link to the Wikipedia site for the sand dunes is here, or click here for images.

But first, we have to fill the water tank and dump. I didn’t want to travel with a full water tank (100 gallons) when we left the Fortuna De Oro Resort, so I only put in a half-tank. We’re already on a quarter-tank now. So if we’re going to do some more boondocking, then I better fill it up. Our Alpine friends gave us the scoop on a service station near us here, that allows RV’ers to take on water and dump. We’ll plan on doing that enroute.

At super bowl time we took advantage of the Cocopah Casino Super Bowl Party that they held in one of their conference rooms with big screen projection TVs. Our Alpine friends decided to hang around their Coach(s) to watch the game because of the crowd. We were pleasantly surprised.. it wasn’t entirely too crowded, they had free food, (hot dogs, wings, chips/salsa, little burgers, veggies/dip, etc.,), and they had door prizes. Unfortunately, we did’t win anything… we just enjoyed the game and company around us. They also had $2 beers and $3.50 margaritas.

Stilla took a break during the game to give little Coach (our dog) a pottie-break. She took this nice picture of the evening sunset and the casino’s lighted palm trees.

That’s all for now. Until next time…

Arizona, Mexico

Los Algodones, Baja Mexico (Yuma, AZ)

2015/02/02 davidhobden@mac.com 2 Comments

After enjoying some time at the casino and its’ buffet on Friday, we woke up Saturday to a parking lot full of cars and activity. There was a marathon going on and the Casino was the Start/Finish line. Runners were doing a 26 mile route. Here’s a picture of the main entrance from the day before. Today, it was cordoned off and full of EZ-Up tents and tables, banners, grandstands, etc.,

We watched some of the activities and then wandered over to talk with our Alpine Coach friends. We got the scoop on visiting Los Algodones Baja Mexico from them. They had visited several times. Be sure to click on the name above for some interesting information on this place from Wikipedia.

It was a little less than 20 miles from the casino where we’re parked. Of course, we took the Silverado with the ATV still loaded on the back. Here’s a picture of the border crossing into Los Algodones, taken just before we saw the signs that said “No Pictures”:

And here’s a picture I swiped from the Wikipedia website of the border crossing.

It’s been many years since we visited Mexico. The last time was in Laredo Texas where we crossed into Nuevo Laredo, back in the early ’90s.

We parked the Silverado in the huge parking lot before the crossing and paid our $6 parking fee. Then we simply walked through the fence and around the entrance building into Mexico. Voila! Here we are… didn’t have to show anything or talk to anyone. Makes you wonder how many people forget their passports and then can’t get back in, eh?

We wandered through the crowded sidewalks while trying to avoid most of the vendors attempts to get us to look at their “stuff”. It almost became annoying at times… you couldn’t just look at anything without getting pressured to buy it… and every “no thanks, just looking” was followed up with a lower price offer or the item was pressed into your hands.

We hadn’t eaten lunch yet, so we followed the tip we got from our fellow Alpine Coach friends, and found one of the Taco restaurants.

The tacos were delicious. I tried one of each; a shrimp, a fish, and a beef taco. Stilla had the Chili Relleno. And the margarita was great. So were the prices 🙂

After lunch, I couldn’t say no to a $2 shoe-shine. Especially since the guy followed us for a block.

Here’s Stilla checking out some wares. Notice the vendors in the background waiting along the sidewalk to “pounce” on you as you pass by. Just kidding, of course. All the vendors were very friendly, but persistent. One guy called his store the “Mexican WalMart”.

We even broke down and bought some of the cute kid’s little bobble-head toys. Many of the children there were selling trinkets of some sort or another. They’ve got their marketing technique down. We couldn’t resist.

Now where are we going to put these in the Coach? Oh well, maybe we can gift them…

Here’s a few more pictures of some of the items for sale along the sidewalks and alleyways of Los Algodones:

We made it out of there with a few shirts, a new hat for Stilla, some sleepwear, and I couldn’t say no to a $20 silver & turquoise Harley-Davidson belt buckle. And, oh yeah – a shoe-shine.

We found another open-air restaurant/bar of sorts, complete with tiki hut and palm trees, to enjoy some more refreshments.

We walked back through the border crossing without incident, luckily Stilla remembered her “green card” 🙂

On the way back to the Cocopah Casino where we parked the Coach, we stopped to check out the Quechan Casino that is located at the Interstate 8 exit to Los Algodones. It’s just a few miles up the road from the border. We noticed a huge amount of RV’s either parked in their lot or surrounding area(s). And it looked like there were lots of ATV trails in and around the parking area(s). We drove through the Casino RV parking area to check it out. We were flagged down by a group of people sitting outside their RVs enjoying adult beverages. They noticed our Colorado license plate. They were also from Colorado and invited us to come park near them if we decided to bring the Coach over. Hmmm, we might just have to do that…

We had tentatively reserved a spot at the Military Fam-Camp in Yuma Proving Grounds for a week beginning on 1 February, but that still left us an open week before we go back North to Lake Havasu for the Fireworks Rally on the 11th. So we might just revise our near-term plan and stay South for a while longer. Stay tuned…

Arizona

Cocopah Casino (Yuma, AZ)

2015/02/01 davidhobden@mac.com

After our trip out to the Yuma Proving Grounds and Castle Dome City Ghost Town on Wednesday, we got back to the Fortuna De Oro RV Resort just in time for steak dinner.

The Resort has a restaurant that was having T-bone night and we had made plans earlier to meet our friends from the Alpine Coach group that got here a day or two ahead of us. We met our friends on the extensive deck area of the resort’s restaurant/bar. Included in our arrival packet was a $5 dollar “cactus cash” coupon and a couple free drink coupons, so dinner was very reasonably priced (after using the coupons). We lit the propane heaters on the deck and enjoyed our friend’s company for a while and then retired to the Coach.

Thursday was a stay-at-home day while we caught up on laundry. The Splendide washer/dryer combo in the Coach takes longer than traditional washers and dryers. We also took advantage of one of the local RV mobile wash businesses. The prices were relatively good compared to what I’ve experienced at other parks. Probably due to the large amount of competition. I saw several different company logos on trucks and vans cruising around the park and washing and/or waxing rigs.

The Coach hasn’t been washed for at least a couple months, probably three. So I bit-the-bullet and shelled out $40 for a power wash. It was $45 after tip. Now I can get bad to waxing the Urban Escape Vehicle… one section at a time. It will take me several (or more) wax sessions before I can get it all to my satisfaction.

We also checked on the rates to stay another day or so at this nice resort, but they don’t offer the Passport America 50% discount until after March. So, at $40 dollars a day, we decided to move on. Our Alpine Coach friends that we’ve been following since Quartzsite told us about the Cocopah Casino located just South of Yuma. They left to go there on Thursday. Therefore, on Friday we followed them again, albeit a day later…

On Friday, after pulling in the slides, raising the jacks, and hooking up the Silverado, we made the short drive to the Cocopah Casino and RV Park. When we arrived, we saw our Alpine friends again but the RV park was full. We decided to join a few other rigs in the adjacent parking lot. Actually, all the parking here is “dry”, meaning no electrical or water hook-ups, so it wasn’t any different in the parking lot as opposed to the designated RV lot. And we actually came out better for it because we parked right next to the open grass area between the two parking lots. Little Coach likes that 🙂

This Casino offers three nights for $10 at the RV parking lot, but it clearly isn’t following up on this very closely. Many rigs in the parking lot didn’t have the tags in the windshields and after talking to some folks, they’ve been there for a week or more. We checked inside and were told not to worry… just park in the lot and come inside to spend money. And Stilla did just that…

Tomorrow, (Saturday), we plan on going across the border to visit Los Algodones. Stay tuned…

Arizona

Fortuna De Oro & Castle Dome City (Yuma, AZ)

2015/01/31 davidhobden@mac.com 3 Comments

[(Warning! – lots of pics) Go to the website for easier viewing.]

On one of our visits to the “big tent” in Quartzsite we got a promotional coupon from one of the vendors, Fortuna De Oro RV Resort. They were offering a free 4 day, 3 night stay at their resort in Yuma.

Their website claims; “A place to call home! Discover Fortuna De Oro under an open sky. With over 1,200 sites, a 9-hole golf course, full-size softball field, brand new sports complex featuring tennis, pickleball, bocce ball, shuffleboard, and horseshoes, two pools with spas, and an on-site restaurant, you will love what this 5-Star resort has to offer.”

Several other Alpine Coach Owners expressed interest in taking advantage of this offer, so we decided to head South to join them. They departed on Monday. We left our desert campsite on Tuesday morning after it dried out. It had been raining a little overnight, just enough to make it muddy in spots.

We passed the Quartzsite “big tent” on our way through town. The show was over on Sunday. It sure looks different already with all the RVs and outside vendors gone.

The Quartzsite “big tent” after the show.

We got to the RV Park without any trouble, thanks to the Rand-McNally GPS. We checked in, presented our coupon for the 3 free nights, and were directed to a site. There was someone in that site. So we disconnected the truck and drove back to the office to get another site. Our new site was much better. It was near the end of the row instead of the middle and closer to the dog park. This park has some long streets, er, rows.

Here’s our spot. It sure was nice to plug in for a change and not worry about draining the batteries too much with the Keurig coffee maker or microwave, etc., We also performed a much-needed sewer dump after our > weeklong boondocking stay in the desert.

The resort is really nice. But at $40 a night, a little too pricey for us if we want to stay on budget. Thank goodness for the free promo. The weekly or monthly rate is a little more palatable, maybe sometime in the future.

On Thursday, we jumped in the Silverado and drove back up I-95 for 20-30 miles to visit the Yuma Proving Grounds that we passed on the way down here. The Military Fam Camp there has an opening on the 1st of February, their weekly rate was reasonable, so we checked it out and reserved a spot. After gassing up the truck on base and visiting the tank display near the entrance gate, we decided to head over to Castle Dome City that was nearby.

This place had a $10 per person entrance fee. It was a nice way to spend the day. Check out the different links here, or here. The youtube video is really well done. Enjoy the pics:

Here was a room full of handwritten messages in the “veteran building”.

I added my “2-cents” to a blank spot on the wall.

Here’s another room that was full of business cards.

We added our card to the wall here as well.

Stepping up to the bar.

Isn’t this the title to a movie?

There was even an old service station with lots of cool memorabilia.

They even had golf carts back in the day.

There was a separate portion of the tour across the main dirt road from the city “museum” proper. Here’s the entrance sign.

And this is the result if you don’t pay the entrance fee at the museum 🙂

Another fun day!

Stay tuned… we head over to the Cocopah Casino & RV Park after our stay here at the Fortuna De Oro .

Arizona

More Desert Fun – Vendors and ATVs (Quartzsite, AZ)

2015/01/30 davidhobden@mac.com

As mentioned in my last post, my brother Steve and his longtime girlfriend Cheryl as well as my Mom and Stepdad Jim arrived Friday evening from Casa Grande to camp out with us for the weekend.

On Saturday, we drove into Quartzsite to check out all the vendors. This was their first time here. We literally spent all day walking through the “big tent” and adjoining vendor areas. I didn’t take many pics – so, if a couple of the following look familiar, it’s because I reutilized the same ones from the last time we were here. Trust me – it didn’t change much… just as crowded as ever 🙂

Quartzsite vendor area near the “big tent”

Vendor area near the “big tent” in Quartzsite. Notice the Beer Belly Adult Day Care bar area 🙂

We found a vendor that sold the same dog pack that Stilla and I purchased when we were in Oregon. It’s really handy for those times when it’s crowded and you can’t use a leash. So my brother and mom each purchased one of the packs called; “Outward Hound“. Too bad we didn’t see the cheaper price on Amazon.com. Oh well, someone has to support those local vendors or else we wouldn’t have any shows to go to, right?

I also found a decent deal on an ATV flag which I am carrying in the picture above. I guess I felt that I was missing something because the last time we rode with a group, because everyone had one of these flags except me. I understand it is a requirement if we go to the sand dunes near here.

After we completed our Saturday shopping day, on Sunday we took the ATVs into the hills just East of our campsite. Cheryl didn’t feel up to it so she stayed at the campsite and watched the dogs.

We primarily stuck to the major trails and found a few abandoned mine shafts that we briefly explored.

After a while we came across one of the many dry river beds, aka “washes” and followed it until we lost any evidence of a trail. We ended up using the GPS to “bushwhack” cross country to get back to a road. Good times… loads of fun!

Brother Steve only knows one speed – Fast!

Here we are taking a snack and refreshment break.

And all good things have to come to an end 🙁

Here they are packed up again and ready to roll back to Casa Grande on Monday.

It was great that they were able to come out here for the weekend. This was the first time in ages that they got out on the ATVs. They just get too busy at the “dirt farm”. I wish they could have stayed longer. We’re not sure when we’ll get back to Casa Grande. We signed up for the Fireworks show in Lake Havasu starting February 11th. So we plan on just killing time in the Yuma area until then… maybe we’ll head back to Casa Grande after the fireworks.

For my next post, we headed on down to Yuma because; 1) we’ve never been, and 2) we got 3 free nights at the Fortuna de Oro RV Resort. A few of our fellow Alpiner’s are already down there taking advantage of that, so stay tuned…

Arizona

Eating Some Dust, ATVing (Quartzsite, AZ)

2015/01/30 davidhobden@mac.com 3 Comments

On Thursday we got a call from fellow Alpine Coach Association member (Tom Polk). He had left the Rally Site the previous day to join some other friends at a RV Resort in the town of Quartzsite. He invited us to go on an ATV ride with himself and some other friends that were at the resort. So, on Friday, we got an early start around 8:30, and rode the ATV into town to meet the group.

For those of you that haven’t spent any time in the desert before, trust me – It can get really cold at night and in the early morning! We rode the ATV about 10 miles to the designated start point, and it felt like our fingers had frozen, even with our gloves on! Of course, we were doing about 45 mph or faster at times in order to get there on time.

Once we were in town, I noticed that one of my front tires was really low on air. I could feel it wallowing around when we took corners on the asphalt streets. It wasn’t so noticeable when we were still on the dirt and rock trails. Luckily, one of the riding group members had an air compressor in his casita/garage. The mini-compressor that I have been carrying around in the back of the ATV all these years didn’t work when I plugged it into the cigarette lighter-type outlet on the dash of the Can-Am ATV. 🙂 Good thing I found out it didn’t work while we were still in civilization – instead of when we were out in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, we hit the trails with the group without further delay. Stilla was able to take some pics while we were riding throughout the day:

This portion of our trail was like a super-highway… not entirely typical of the trails that we rode that day.

We had four ATVs in our group for the day.

We had to keep a little distance between vehicles to keep from eating too much dust.

Here we are traveling through a scenic wash. We did that several times throughout the day. Good thing it wasn’t raining, eh?

We even did a little boulder hopping.

Here are our ATV’s in a circle, during one of our breaks throughout the day.

The town of Quartzsite is in the background behind that hill in the middle.

Everyone had a side-by-side ATV except for us. It seems that most folks are trending towards these type of off road vehicles (OHVs) nowadays. I still like to have the ability to “jump off” the ATV when you get into big trouble… you can’t do that with a side-by-side. Those side-by-sides are sure cool though… almost makes you wonder why anyone would buy a Jeep anymore. I said “almost”.

One of our “breaks” during the day was at a lonesome “cabin” in the middle of nowhere. It even had a name – I believe I was told it’s called “Moe’s Cabin”. We took time to eat the lunch we had packed with us. There was even a picnic table and a couple lounge chairs outside the cabin. Fellow Alpine Coach driver “Steve” is on the left and “Tom Polk” is on the right.

Undergarments hanging on the porch at “Moe’s Cabin”

This cabin had all sort of bric-a-brac and memorabilia inside. It seems that folks leave odd items all the time. Someone said that there used to be a couple mannequins there, but they probably got swiped. I added one of our non-business “business cards” to the collection on one of the walls.

Strange and unique items left inside “Moe’s Cabin”

The cabin even had a satellite dish 🙂

We ate a lot of dust but had a lot of fun… what a fun day! Thanks for inviting us along Tom Polk!

We made it back to the starting point in town by 3 PM. It was about a 45 mile trail ride, but when we add the distance traveled to and from our campsite out in the desert North of town – we had put on 65 miles for the day!

After we said our goodbyes to the group, we headed back out to our campsite in the desert. We made it back by 4 PM and let our little dog “Coach” out of the Coach. Boy was he happy to see us! He did just fine during the day.

By 4:30 or 5 PM, we heard from my brother Steve, his long-time girlfriend Cheryl, along with my Mom and Stepdad, Jim… they were enroute to join us for the weekend! They had left Casa Grande earlier in the afternoon with their pickup camper towing a trailer full of ATV’s. They found us without much trouble and we had a happy reunion.

We all piled into my pickup after I emptied the back seat and drove to the Grubstake Restaurant in Quartzsite for dinner. Almost a big mistake… it was great food, especially the fish dinner. But it was so crowded that we had to sit outside in the chilly evening air and we waited about 2 hours to get our meals! We didn’t even get the meals at the same time, they brought them out piece-meal. Oh well, it was still great to have them join us here in the desert 🙂

We made plans to visit the “big vendor tent” in the morning (Saturday) and decided to save an ATV ride for Sunday… but I’ll put that in my next post. Stay tuned for more desert fun…

Arizona

More Desert Rat Rally XIV (Quartzsite, AZ)

2015/01/27 davidhobden@mac.com

We’ve been so busy having fun that I haven’t posted in a while. So, I’m forcing myself to get caught up a little bit this morning. Here we go…

In my last post, I mentioned that we had some work done on the coach while sitting here in the desert. On Monday, fellow Alpine SoCal member (Mike Fleming), aka “Engineer Mike” installed my steering gearbox bracket stiffener. I purchased this bracket almost three years ago, but have been carrying it around in the “basement” since then – waiting for the opportunity to install. Some Alpine Coaches have experienced stress cracks on the OEM steering gear bracket after a lot of miles, or for whatever reason… Although the Urban Escape Vehicle didn’t show any evidence of needing this upgrade, I still decided to “insure” against this happening in the future by getting it done. “Engineer Mike” personally designed and had this kit fabricated – so who better to install it. Here’s a couple pics of the work:

Engineer Mike in his all-to-familiar pose during Rallies.

The OEM Hauck bolts had to be grinded off.

David and Engineer Mike. Getting the Steering Bracket Upgrade completed.

After Engineer Mike finished up with the bracket, Thanks Engineer Mike!! I then utilized the expert services of another Alpine SoCal member, (Orman Claxton). Orman is a factory trained and certified Aqua-Hot technician. It’s important to have the unit serviced each year to keep it running well. And, we used the heck out of it back in Colorado during all the recent cold winter weather. This is the type of service that I would normally do myself, but I decided to have the “expert” do it for me while I had the chance so I could watch and learn. Orman replaced the diesel filter and nozzle. He also adjusted the ignitor and replaced a worn housing gasket while I got training on cleaning the combustion chamber 🙂 Thanks Orman!!

Orman Claxton performing Aqua-Hot service on the Urban Escape Vehicle.

Whenever there’s work going on, a crowd always gathers. It’s mandatory for guys… just like when a hood goes up on a cool car.

After a full day of getting stuff done on the Coach. We went straight to the tent for another catered dinner. Great BBQ ribs and chicken was had by all. Sorry, no new pics of that – you have to take my word for it – very tasty! And they packaged up leftovers for anyone who wanted them 🙂

After our dinner, we joined others from our group at one of the community campfires. We did this almost every night. Here’s a pic in front of the fire of our nearest neighbors that we joined most evenings. See you next time Jim and Sally, Greg, Igor, et al., …

On Wednesday, or was it Tuesday(?) Hmmmm, it’s all a blur now, we finally left our group campsite out in the desert and went into Quartzsite to see the “Big Tent”. We spent most of the day wandering through all the vendor stalls.

I forgot to take a picture of the “Big Tent”, you’ll just have to take my word for it – it’s huge… you could easily spend all day in there. Although, I couldn’t help but notice that there seemed to be much more non-RV-related vendors than in years past. A little unfortunate in my opinion, but the female-types seemed to like that.

When we returned to our desert group site, we were invited to join many of the Alpine Coach group members for a dinner in town at Silly Al’s Pizza.

It was crowded in Silly Al’s but we amused ourselves with the good company and some Karaoke (performed by others of course), while we waited for our Pizza.

The Pizza was awesome… worth the wait. Or could it have been the long wait that made it so good? Naw, it was really good! We’ll come back here.

By Wednesday morning, most Alpine Coaches had already left… I remember hearing that we had 73 Coaches in attendance. Too bad we arrived so late to the Rally, but it couldn’t be helped with all we had to do at the house and the bad weather we experienced back in Colorado.

That’s all the update for now… I’ll catch you up on the rest of the week next time. We had my Mom, Stepdad, Brother Steve & Cheryl come by with their ATV’s for the weekend and we also went ATV’ing with some Alpine Coach group members before that. I’ll post about it next time – Good times!

Arizona

Desert Rat Rally XIV (Quartzsite, AZ)

2015/01/22 davidhobden@mac.com

Well, we made it! Here we are at our premier spot in the desert, just North of Quartzsite, AZ.

We got here just in time on Sunday to partake in the Margherita Mixer Hour and then the catered Mexican dinner from Taco Mio. Good times! But, first let me bring you up to speed on our trip here.

As mentioned in my last post, we got the Harley downloaded from the truck and uploaded the ATV at my brother’s “dirt farm” in Casa Grande.

After making sure everything was properly stowed again after our one night stay at the “dirt farm”, we headed out for the ~3 hour road trip to meet up with the Alpine Coach group at the rally that was already in full swing since the 14th of January. We got here mid-afternoon and had just enough time to set up “camp” before we went into the giant tent that our group had rented.

It was great catching up with all the people from past rallies. Many wondered where we had been. The camp co-host, Ann Fleming, even provided Stilla with extra tickets for Margherita’s since we won the “award” for being last 🙂

Here’s a few pics from the inside of our huge dinner tent. I took more pics, but unfortunately many were blurry, just a few came out alright:

On Monday, Stilla and I, both took pictures around our boondocking site throughout the day:

Our Alpine Coach Association, Desert Rat Rally XIV, community tent.

Also, on Monday – I had some work done on the coach, but I’ll save that for my next post… the sun has been out for a while now, and I have to get on with the day. So much to see and do…

I will post again tomorrow to bring you up to speed on activities since Monday… until then 🙂

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Tag Archives: RV

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