January 2008 Travel Log

01/31/08: Quartzsite, AZ: Oops! I let the website fall behind again. After leaving Mittry Lake, we spent a week in a RV Park near Brenda, AZ visiting friends. This is a couple we work with during the summers. We just lounged around for the week and started reading a bunch more. We then moved to our desert boondocking location outside of Quartzsite, AZ. We were joined by over a couple hundred Escapee Boomer friends for the annual winter "Boomerang. Plenty of game playing, meals together, activities, and social hours. We did go into town a few times and bought a few items.

We had an electrical plug short out in the motor home. It was nice being able to get a replacement RV electric outlet in town. When I had a shock mount on the Jeep break, Boomer friends had the tools needed to extract the broken bolt. Unfortunately, I also sheared off the extraction tool. A bad situation just got worse. A repair shop in town wanted over $700 to remove the fuel tank and cut out the broken bolt. I'll wait and try some other ideas first. So for now, we're driving the Jeep minus a shock.

Connie has gotten involved (again) with the craft of beading. She's made a few bracelets and earrings while sitting out here in the desert. This is a popular

craft among our friends and motivates her. A couple users from the Military Campgrounds website came out and camped near us for a few days. A bunch of website users got together in town for breakfast. We had fun introducing our new friends to the Boomers and this lifestyle. We played may rounds of "Pegs and Jokers", the current RV game of choice. One couple here made a oven from mud, much the ways the Native Americans did. It's his first time making this type of oven and he's created a stir among the campers here. They're all interested to see how it turns out. Yesterday, he baked bread in it. Although the oven developed some serious cracks, it works.

We're one of the last few RV's still out here. At one time, there were over 100 RV's staying here. More are pulling out today and we're down to a couple dozen of us holding out. We're trying to make it for a couple more days on our low water supply. We've lasted 14 days on 95 gallons of fresh water. I think we'll do fine and still be able to take showers in a couple days. We'll then park (store) the RV here in town and leave it for a few days. We're going on vacation again! This time, we're taking a four day cruise from San Diego, CA to Cabo San Lucas, MX. We've never been on a cruise, as Larry gets motion sick fairly easy. This is a test to see how I handle it. We're both looking forward to it and hope the weather is warm. This cruise is with many of our Boomer friends, so it'll be a floating party.

We're also getting some "media" attention. We were interviewed today by a writer for the Army/Navy/USAF Times regarding our lifestyle and military campgrounds. This afternoon, a grad student is coming to talk and take photos for a project he's working on about fulltime RVing and snowbirds.

01/10/08: Mittry Lake, AZ: We made another trip back to Algadones, Mexico yesterday. Connie had her appointment for a few fillings. However, once they got started, they discovered one tooth was pretty bad and gave her the option of a root canal or an extraction. Connie, being a previous Endodontist assistant selected the root canal option with a crown. I hadn't planned on sitting around for 5 HOURS while she was worked on. However, it was a pleasant surprise that they could do it all the same day. During this five hours, she got 5 fillings, a root canal, and preparation for a crown. They had an Endodontist (root canal dentist) come to us! The total bill for ALL dental work (including the cleaning) came to $580. In the states, this same amount of dental work would be around $2400.

Algadones is a "unique" border town. It's fairly small, with the major shopping area encompassing about 5 square blocks. However, crammed within this small space is over 300 dentist offices, 100 pharmacies, and 50 optical shops. Almost every other store is a dentist. This town is well know to fulltime RV'ers looking for affordable care and prescriptions. We did make a huge mistake though. We found out the same optical care Connie got a couple days ago in Yuma is about 50% less in Mexico. In addition, we had to wait a few days for her new glasses. In Algadones, prescription glasses are available within a few hours. About the same selection of designer frames are available.

01/08/08: Mittry Lake, AZ: HAPPY NEW YEAR! We enjoyed a FUN FILLED evening New Year's Eve with our Boomer friends. This has been a yearly tradition for a few years. We get together and have social hours, potlucks, and play many games. The HOT game we've been playing for this past year is "Pegs and Jokers". Mitry Lake has a camping limit of 10 days per calendar year. Normally, nobody checked up on us. However, this year there's a volunteer ranger keeping track and kicking people out after 10 days. When we arrived, there were over 30 RV's of friends here. Today, there's 3 of us left. Luckily, the weather has been pretty good. In years past, it got cold and windy. Lately, days are in the mid 70's and the nights in the mid 40's.

A few days ago, we spent the day in Algadones, Mexico just across the Yuma border. Connie finally got her teeth cleaned there for $40. She has an appointment for tomorrow to have some cavities filled. She also was tested and has new glasses on order, but these are from the Yuma SAM's club. It's good to catch up on some of these personal issues. We also recently had a "date" night and went to the movies and a wonderful dinner.

We also recently purchased a new Auto GPS. We've been driving in the motorhome with a laptop on a shelf by the driver running Delorme's Street Atlas. We also had a small Garmin GPS V for use in the Jeep. While this has worked well, The Garmin's maps were over 5 years old and the laptop used for the motorhome GPS is also pretty old. The laptop was getting hard to see. We purchased a Garmin Nuvi 750 and LOVE it! The screen is large and bright enough to easily see the maps. There's too many features to mention here, but it'll satisfy us for the motorhome and the Jeep. It's easy to move between the two vehicles.

I've updated our travel expense report. It's interesting to see our spending habits over the past few years, since starting to travel fulltime.