Dec 28th 2010 - from the Bouse Library:
When last heard from, I was enjoying proximity to the city of Lake Havasu (+/- 70,000?) at Lake Havasu State Park Campground on the shores of the Colorado River Reservoir of the same name.
My neighbour at Lake Havasu State Park was a sailboat (O’Day 26’). Its owner, Mark Boscetti, trailered the boat from Wyoming to Havasu on the grounds that Lake Havasu has no winter ice and offered facilities for moorage etc. He had little experience sailing or rigging such a vessel, so the presence of Hugh and Christine Richards was a real bonus for him. Together, with assistance from an extension ladder, we stepped the mast, tightened everything down (battened the hatches), launched at the boat ramp and motored off into the sunrise (there being no wind at the time). He had made arrangements with Lake Havasu Marina to store his “ship” and allow him to live aboard. His hope was to achieve familiarity with the functions of the boat before his wife came to join in the adventure two weeks hence. There were no problems getting to the marina and berthing the boat, after which we parted ways, I to camp in the desert near Bouse, he to continue his education on board.
Plomosa Road Camp M/M 16.6/1.67mi (Cattle Guard)
(N33 53.191 W114 03.172 - El: 1157’)
My camp is 1½ hours south of Havasu, ½ hour from Parker and 10 minutes from Bouse, the latter a small town with very little to its credit, though some of the nearby desert was utilized by General Patton to train his tank brigades during WW 2. Parker boasts both a Walmart and a Safeway and is the preferred shopping destination. Hugh and Christine Richards were expected to join me on Sat, Dec 11th, so I went out to pursue leads on local firewood sources, gather rocks for a fire pit and enjoy the warm weather (mid 70s by day, mid 40s by night).
One day, I drove over to Quartzsite (25 min) and visited various flea market vendors to pick up “essential” supplies for the winter. Included, was a small inverter (400 watts) and a “Kill-a-Watt” at Discount Solar. The former was a failed attempt to deal with a low-voltage signal that occurs when using my computer in the truck; the latter a testing device that shows watt-usage of various appliances. The problem with many outlets, such as cigarette plugs in a truck, is that their power supplies usually arrive through quite small wires that therefore limit the current that these receptacles can deliver. Anyway, not a huge problem since I usually charge the computer on my big inverter in the trailer.
After a couple of weeks with no sign of “the heat” (ranger) to encourage onward movement, Hugh and Christine Richards arrived with dogs (3), and took up position nearby. Prior to their arrival, I went on a major wood gathering expedition with truck, generator and electric chain saw, this to feed the daily campfires that have actually suffered a few cancellations of late due to strong winds. The saw was acting up a bit (seizing when hot), so I took everything apart, to discover that the oiler for the chain had separated from its pump reservoir and was lubing open space or inappropriate parts of the saw. After replacing this and the cover with no surplus nuts and bolts, I shall hope for the best. We made a trip to Quartzsite, ostensibly to look for beads for Christine but actually a general mission to inspect the market, look in tool tents, check out solar equipment etc. This year’s prices for solar panels and batteries have dropped. If anyone out there wants a Kyocera 135 watt solar panel, they can be had for US $450 – this compared with $715 when I bought one two years ago.
Back at Plomosa, several bike rides have been undertaken, including a significant 8.5 miler around the Four Peaks Thumb with Katy the dog wearing her pack, and Christine trundling along, employing a mixture of riding and hiking skills, depending on trail roughness and steepness etc. Given that the terrain was quite challenging in places, both did quite well.
Here on Plomosa Road, we have experienced almost a week of cloudy weather and strong winds from the South – even a day of heavy rain, all presumably left over from substantial California storms. After reading that Mammoth Mountain had received upwards of 13 feet of fresh snow during the latest system, it occurred to me that all those ski-lifts with operator huts that crank up to 15 or 20 feet above the ground might have some value in times like these. While uncommon at Lake Louise, just the thought of a 13’ snowfall conjures up images of creative snow reports and neck-deep powder.
Following these clouds, the last few days have been beautiful and sunny with temps up to 70 again. Best of all, the solar panels are doing their job and charging batteries, something that they were unable to do for the better part of a week – in fact, the clouds were so dark that daytime charging dropped to nil at times. In order to charge up the computer, write a few notes and enter the latest photos, I fired up the generator. Even with the TV and computer on, I maintain a charging current between 13 -15 amps through the trailer’s converter. For quite a while the generator pulsed up and down, though steadied when I turned off the converter. After about an hour, it settled and ran smoothly (any thoughts on this, anyone – ground is level and I believe that the oil pan is full?). Most areas along the upper part of our trail are now full, though open spaces lower down have plenty of room.
The other day, we went to the Bouse Library to check e-mails. The satellite or router, no-one seemed sure which, was hors de combat, so Christine and I used library computers. Then, the power went off multiple times, causing any work done to get erased – nothing critical in my case but Christine had to redo some group e-mails. She was in the midst of advising friends and other caring individuals that Hugh’s book about their sailing trip around the world - “Reflections on Three Oceans” by Hugh Richards, was now up for sale at Amazon.com. Any of you who have read it could consider submitting a book review (mine was the first) on-line. Those that haven’t read it but have some interest in the do’s and don’ts of trans-oceanic voyages might be interested.
Down the trail, about a mile below our camp, I encountered a man walking out in the desert – shouting! At what, who knows, but he was obviously quite upset, perhaps calling a missing dog or reliving a dubious conversation with the wife. One day, the shouting was accompanied by gunshots – I did subsequently hear barking so, presumably, a well thought out decision was made. Hopefully, his Christmas stress won’t involve us, the nearest neighbours, who happen to have plenty of dogs to spare but few wives.
Gleaned from the pages of USA Today this last week:
The first thing that caught my eye was a statement that Vail/Beaver Creek Ski Resorts had imposed a special holiday single-day lift ticket price of $108 – this down from the regular season rate of only $102. Seems a little pricey to me but, having been away from snow for so long, I feel quite thrifty camping in the Arizona desert for nothing - both holiday and regular seasons. Also in the news was the factoid that, following a recent cull, the number of alligators in the State of Georgia has been reduced to 220,000. In my mind, that’s still a lot of alligatorsI It brings to mind elk culls in Banff National Park and the controversy that they used to spawn within the Conservationist lobby. It would be my guess that alligator culls are publicly more acceptable (certainly with golfers) than the execution of elk.
The Bouse Library has been suffering maintenance issues with its wi-fi of late – with the result that only the actual hard-wired library computers were up and running over the past week or more. Because there have been a few power outages caused by the storm, I reckoned that the problem, logically, could be as simple as a re-set button. The volunteer librarians had been told not to meddle with the equipment and that only the County Technician was qualified to perform this task. As a customer, I, of course, didn’t have a chance. Anyway, this message, my Christmas Special, got delayed as a result.
Christmas Day featured the Queen’s ten minute message on TV– she seems to be in pretty good shape or uses Botox, I’m not sure which?
Christmas dinner was pressed turkey (a bit like chipboard, only tastier) with all the trimmings in company with Hugh and Christine at their trailer which is camped nearby. Christmas presents for the Richards featured an insect-zapping tennis racquet, with pigs’ ears for the dogs.
What with all the wind and 24 hours of rain, it has been a little tough to sit down at tour afternoon campfires, let alone light them. To this end, my tiger torch has proven to be useful for ignition of damp wood. The trailer batteries are now 5 years old and, because I have not been reaching “full charge” according to the Tri-Metric battery monitor for a while, I have reset input values to read “full” charge at greater than14.1V and less than 5 amps, a number that it reached with ease the other day in the sun. I guess that I will continue tweaking the system until I have it right. This last may only be of interest to those who monitor battery performance (or, possibly, no one) with something similar to my Tri-Metric 2000, so just ignore this bit of useless information unless you happen to live under solar panels in the Arizona desert.
Just passed a La Paz County pick-up truck with snowplow attached on my way in to Bouse to send this e-mail. Hope that this is not an omen!
JW
