Still trying to get caught up with the posts. Let me bring you a little closer up to date. But first, I forgot to mention in my previous post about the Yuma Territorial Prison that our neighbors’s (Don, Kevin, and others) invited me to tag along with them to the races Saturday evening at the Cocopah Speedway back in Yuma. I’m not sure why I forgot to put it in the post for Saturday… guess I better start keeping notes if I get behind. Anyway, what a blast! The speedway was well laid out, not a bad seat in the bleachers. Thanks for taking me along Don! Stilla opted to stay in the Coach with the dog and catch up on TV shows… her loss.
Here’s a couple pics:
We even had a beautiful Arizona sunset as the races got started.
Anyway, back to Monday… in the morning we folded up the chairs and patio mat, pulled in the slides, and raised the jacks to go to the nearby campground just this side of the Los Algodones (Mexico) border crossing. I don’t think it was more than a mile away. We just needed to dump and take on water. This campground charges $50 for a night. I’m assuming most folks that stay here are getting dental work done across the border but they probably pay the more reasonable weekly rate. We paid the $10 fee to dump our tanks and take on water. Then we stopped back at our campsite to say goodbye to our good neighbors from the last several days.
After saying our farewells, we hit Interstate 8 towards Yuma and then turned north on 95. There was a Barons gas station that Don gave me a tip about – easy in – easy out, and diesel was around $2.54 a gallon which was a pleasant change.
Since we didn’t have to be in Lake Havasu for the Fireworks Rally until the 11th, we decided to pull in to another boondocking spot (BLM land) located right next to the highway (95) and behind a VFW post. We still wanted to visit the museum at Yuma Proving Grounds since we didn’t stay at the Fam Camp there as previously planned.
Here’s the VFW post. The entrance to the BLM boondocking land is right behind the building. The post has a band playing almost daily from 2 or 3 until 5 PM. We stopped in for a refreshment after we got parked and settled. Unfortunately, the post didn’t have a kitchen… no snacks at all except for chips and pretzels behind the bar.
This tank is on display out front of the post.
Here’s a view of our boondocking spot. No hookups here.
Most of the rigs spaced themselves out pretty well from each other. We found what we thought was a quiet corner.
Here’s our spot.
Now, after spending the night here, all I can say is – avoid this spot at all costs if you want any peace and quiet. There was a plane, maybe a crop-duster, that continuously zoomed in and out around the area until late into the night. And the train tracks across the highway must be one of the busiest railways I’ve ever seen (or heard) to date. We had to keep hitting the pause button on the TV every time another train went by or the plane made another run, it was so loud. I can’t understand why anyone would stay here for more than one night when there are so many other opportunities to boondock along 95. We won’t make this mistake twice.
The next morning (Tuesday) we visited Yuma Proving Grounds and toured the BLM spots around the Imperial Dam area for future reference. I’ll put that in my next post.. until then, have a nice and quiet night 🙂
I’m still behind on my posts, trying to catch up… here’s what we did on Friday:
While boondocking just south of the Quechan Casino, our nearest neighbors, (Don and Peg), organized a day trip for many of the folks camped on our little hill-top overlooking the wash.
Don & Peg hail from Ohio and are no strangers to the area – they stay here during the winter months, and have done so many times in the past. A couple neat things about Don is that he painted his own Coach. A ’95 American Dream. It looks really nice. He is also an avid wood-carver. He showed us some of his work, ranging from walking sticks, wood stump bowls, wall hangings, and even intricate thread spool carvings. Yes, I said carvings made from old wooden thread spools. I haven’t seen that before – pretty cool Don.
There were six vehicles that took Don up on his offer of 4-wheel drive adventure. We followed Don’s Toyota through many a dry wash with the Silverado as Don took one shortcut after another. I was worried about the front plastic spoiler that dug in to the dirt a few times, but it survived alright. So did the hard plastic mud flaps, I was sure they were going to break off a time or two as the side-bars/steps scraped the ground. But we made it relatively unscathed. Now I have another excuse to detail the truck 🙂
Here’s a few pics of our trip to get there… as usual, the pictures don’t do justice to the scale of the holes, dips, twists and hills:
At one point, Don got out his saw to clear some of the brush that would have otherwise scratched the sides of our vehicles.
Some of the road was through a very sandy dry wash.
And there was even some sections that could be considered “super-highway”.
Here’s a view of the surrounding mountains in the area.
And finally, we made it! Here we are enjoying lunch that everyone had brought along.
Here are some samples of the “rock art”. They were everywhere for miles around us. After lunch we all drove around on our own to view the names from different roads which wound in and around the area. Again, the couple pics here don’t do it justice… it was very hilly in most areas… you had to be careful traversing the hilltops.
One gentleman, sorry – I forgot his name, had developed a home-made rack for his pickup complete with swinging lounge-chair. I had to put this picture in the journal. We all got to try out the unique chair – very comfortable 🙂
On our return trip, we stopped for a “Date Shake” at the Imperial Date Gardens. The shake was good. We also bought some cactus candy.
Here’s some members of our group enjoying their date shakes outside the retail store.
After our 4-wheel drive adventure, we peeled off and hit the local WalMart to stock up on a few things. We made it back in time for “Happy Hour” and later on the group had another campfire.
Stay tuned for the next post about our visit to the Yuma Territorial Prison on Saturday. And no, they didn’t keep us there 🙂
I have some catching up to do… Here it is Monday – and I haven’t posted since Wednesday! I think I’ll break it up into a few separate posts for easier reading.
Therefore, for this first post I’ll tell you about Wednesday and Thursday. I last posted on Wednesday morning and predicted that we’d just hang around the campsite, which is exactly what we ended up doing. At one point during the day, we did a nice hike around the area and then we joined our neighbors here at our boondocking spot around 4 PM for “Happy Hour”. This has clearly become a daily tradition with the six or seven rigs that are parked near us. Everyone brings their own beverage of choice along with a small snack to share. We took cheese cubes and pretzels.
After happy hour, our little dog, “Coach” had another “episode”. This is the second or third time he has had this “seizure” of sorts… he seemed disoriented and was wobbly on his feet and would just plop down on the ground… probably out of necessity, because he’d fall over if he walked any distance. All we could do was put him in his bed and make him comfortable. We tried to have him drink water when he could hold his head up steady enough. I watched him until about 3 AM, when he just jumped up and started to walk around again. Although, unsteady at first, he seemed to quickly regain his balance, so I walked him around the campsite while keeping a watchful eye out for coyotes. He drank lots of water and seemed pretty much fine again. Sure wish we knew what causes this… internet searches point to several causes, and we can’t afford seizure medication. One source says that if you start anti-seizure medication, you have to administer it for life – you can’t stop or it will actually trigger seizures and make them worse. We remember that he was chewing on some peanut shells during “Happy Hour” – maybe he’s allergic?!?
The first time he had this “episode” was while we were in Redmond Oregon at the FMCA Rally back in August. But that time, he threw up first, so we thought for sure he’d eaten something while we weren’t looking. He was fine in the morning after we watched him all night. The second time, was a couple months ago, when he seemed to have to throw up, but couldn’t produce anything other than foamy spittle… he just fell over and laid there until we picked him up. He was over that in minutes, which made us believe he had lost his breath coughing/throwing up and just got light-headed. He’s always had a strange cough, kind of reminds me of the kennel-cough that our previous dog “Elvis” had at times. For those that don’t know, we lost Elvis to a coyote in our back yard just before New Year in 2013-14 🙁 He was 8 years old. Little Coach is 2 years old now.
Little “Coach” walking his squeaky toy.Little “Coach” at his favorite spot on the back of the couch by the big window.
With little “Coach” back up and running around like his usual self – on Thursday morning, Stilla jumped in the shower after turning on the diesel switch for the Aqua-Hot and quickly reported that there wasn’t any hot water. Huh?!? I went outside and confirmed that the Aqua-Hot exhaust pipe was cold. Yup, not working! I opened up the bay compartment to check the light panel.
The “Diesel-Burner Status” light and the “Pump # 3” light were on but the “Heating Status” light was not. I broke out my service manual which I had printed out from the resources available on the Alpine Coach Association technical library website. I keep this in a plastic document protector inside a plastic envelope stashed in the bay next to the Aqua-Hot system. I pulled off the Aqua-Hot cover and began troubleshooting with my multimeter. I did the voltage checks for the “control module” because it seemed like a good place to start. It checked out good on all the inputs and outputs except for one test that indicated replacement of the control module. But, the fact that the “Heating Status” light wasn’t on still bothered me, so I kept flipping through the manual and found the obscure note that indicated the tests I had just done, were only valid after ensuring that both the “Diesel-Burner Status” and “Heating Status” lights are on.
Aqua-Hot system innards. Cover removed.
Since I already confirmed that 12 volts was present at wires 22 and 23 on the electronic controller, the book led me to the coolant sensor.
Electronic Controller with panel cover removed. Located on left side wall of bay.
While troubleshooting, I had to “fool” the switch into thinking the cover was in place by using the tool below.
And here’s the culprit. The boiler fluid “coolant” sensor wasn’t working. There was zero resistance between tabs on the sensor and when I jumped the two wires… the Aqua-Hot fired right up!
I remembered seeing an RV in the lower parking lot back at the casino that had a banner advertising RV Service/Repairs. I jumped in the pickup with manual in hand to see if he could help me locate a new sensor.
After playing twenty questions… the nice gentleman at the service rig concluded that my troubleshooting was sound and he gave me the number of an Aqua-Hot Service representative that was in nearby Yuma. I called him and quickly made an appointment to meet a couple miles down the highway at Arizona exit 2.
I met Lloyd De Gerald, a factory authorized service representative – He sold me the sensor for the low-low price of only $63. 🙁 He not only had the part on hand, but for an additional $50 deposit, he also had the special tool needed for installation since the new part had wires “pigtails” already on it, so you had to use a home-made special cut-out socket to install. After paying for the part and leaving a deposit, I went back to the Coach and drained a couple gallons of the boiler antifreeze into a bucket. I installed the part with no problem, Lloyd even teflon wrapped and pipe-doped the sensor for me. But then, I ran into the next problem. My Aqua-Hot doesn’t have the radiator cap on it like most(?) models. It only has a recovery tank… and well, you can’t fill it back up with the fluid I saved in a bucket through the recovery tank. I called Lloyd, who had another special tool for filling these type Aqua-Hot systems. So, I made another trip to meet Lloyd, luckily it was only a few miles away in Yuma (we’re right on the CA/AZ border by Winterhaven), and I exchanged the first special tool for the second, which is an RV water pump with quick-disconnects for easy hook up to my drain valve along with the battery clips to power it up.
While talking with Lloyd, I found out he and his wife, planned on visiting the Yuma Territorial Prison in a couple days on Saturday. As did we… so we made plans to meet up and tour it together… I could return his special tool to him then and get my deposit back.
Once back at the Coach, (and just before dusk – we missed today’s happy hour, I might add), I used the pump to put the boiler fluid back into the Aqua-Hot system without incident and it fired right up. Yeah! We can shower again!
Here’s a pic of the Aqua-Hot all back together again. This is both our hot water and heating system for the Coach. Although we haven’t needed the heater since we left Colorado, we still need our showers 🙂
We closed out our Thursday evening with a trip over to the casino for a bite to eat and to support the local Quechan Indian Tribe by leaving some money in the slot machines 🙂
Stay tuned for my next post… the neighbor’s invited us to tag along on a 4-wheel drive trip to the Valley of the Names on Friday. And then we visited the Yuma Territorial Prison on Saturday… Imperial Sand Dunes on Sunday… lots of pics…
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…
[(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 .
