December 30th, snow could be seen on the +2000’ hills west of Parker, winds gusted from the North at 30 mph and nighttime temperatures dropped below freezing at Plomosa Camp. Water jugs in the back of the truck had a layer of ice to reinforce the impression that winter wasn’t too far distant. This was short-lived, however, as more typical weather returned a day or two later. The Richards (Hugh and Christine) are now long gone but at some stage they became the proud owners of a water transfer pump, the ultimate in back-pain-relief-technology. Heavy jugs no longer have to be manhandled between truck and trailer. And a spare pump with intubes, outtubes, and a switch, does the rest. We went off to Parker to get all the bits and pieces, assembled it all the next day and had a successful demonstration forthwith.
Breakfast by bicycle to Bouse (5 miles one-way) was a highlight of the penultimate Richard’s day at Plomosa. Hugh and I rode down. Christine and I rode back, doing a desert loop en-route to inspect Handy Bob’s camp area, 1.5 miles to the North on a different desert trail. On Dec 31st, I rode west to the Pass overlooking Highway 95. Up from our camp some NRA types were shooting rifles and I’m sure that they were aiming to miss my blue helmet by only a small margin. Tempted as I was to ride at them in a full frontal assault, age and numbers appeared to be on their side, so I kept on with my tour. On the bike, I went for a 19 mile ride to The Four Peak’s Thumb, then back over some steep hills to what I call the South-West Plomosa Pass. Continuing on, I went to visit Handy Bob (Bob Shearer) at his site. He came back with me on his bike, chatted with Ted and returned home. Once again, he seems to be in the installation business for solar equipment and even had a box full of Tri-Metric Monitors on hand. He said that he didn’t really want people coming to his campsite but, with reference from someone he knew, would be willing to visit them. Preferably, potential clients would see him at his summer property at Roundup, Montana. I always suggest that anyone with interest in solar, get a monitor (Tri-Metric) first, since it gives all the information needed to know about the power and battery requirements of their RV. Bob seemed, if anything, to have hardened his assessment toward commercial solar dealers in general and the Quartzsite ones in particular. In fact, he managed an almost continuous rant all the way from his trailer to mine during the bike ride.
Bob can be a little testy (to put it mildly) but his information is good. I had been experiencing lower than normal amperages from my solar system, along with heating near an in-line fuse connecting the positive cable from the solar controller to the battery. Bob told me to change out the fuse holder because they can develop a resistance that makes the controller think that the batteries are charged long before they actually reach that state, thus telling them to slow down the charge. Anyway, I changed the holder and immediately gained about 3 amps – very satisfying!
Jan 5th 2011 Bouse Library
Saga of the Bouse Library Wi-Fi Router
It would seem that the Bouse Library has become a hotbed of political intrigue this winter, at least as far as its Guest Services Department is concerned. In my last E-mail, I mentioned that the Internet Router for Wi-fi had been on the fritz for the better part of 10 days. Power failures, California storms, staff competency and other issues all received the pointed finger. At some stage, the technician arrived, pressed a reset button and voila – the signal returned. This was greatly appreciated by the assembled desert dwellers, people like me who only come to town on occasion and look forward to their exchanges with the outside world. One day in early January, however, and just minutes before I crossed the threshold of the library, the system crashed again. Four volunteer ladies clucked and bustled around but none had the nerve to enter the inner sanctum in which the router was shelved. On this occasion, however, I took advantage of my carefully fostered relationship with this clutch of pleasant but unskilled assistants, and was invited in to take a look. When in doubt, turn things off and turn them on again. I unplugged, then replugged and lo, the system hummed to life. Applause was muted but I expect a goat will be sacrificed somewhere.
Since the Richards’ departure, much has happened on Plomosa Road. Mainly, I am still here - I guess that is not actually a “happening”. This is as nice a place as any to spend time and the ranger has not been to visit or to issue eviction notices. Also, the trailer has been standing, like a heron, on a single front leg minus a set of bevel gears in the port-side front landing leg. These are the gears, attached to an electric motor, that enable the trailer to go up and down when levelling or to position it on the truck hitch when readying for travel. A skipping/grinding sound over the last year or so has turned out to be a case of extremely worn bevel gears inside the landing assembly. Luckily, a camping neighbour here on Plomosa, Walt from Prince George, happens to be a mechanic who rebuilds, amongst other things, antique VW Bugs, race cars and anything else that moves, including, apparently, fifth-wheel landing legs. He volunteered for the project and whipped out the old gears in very short time. He is a small, wiry guy of Swiss descent, who can fit in the forward compartment of the trailer while twisting his wrenches. I will have to work on my Rum and Diet-Cokeless diet a little longer before I fit into anything smaller than the back of my truck.
Ted Webber (friend from Las Cruces NM) has been here for a couple of weeks in his Motorhome. He and I went golfing one day at Emerald Canyon, north of Parker. This is, in my view, an exceptionally scenic, but tricky course with lush green fairways and greens winding their way through narrow rock canyons – quite challenging for those of us who lack golf ball guidance systems. Ted has his computer hooked to the Internet via a Verizon Mi-Fi gizmo that gives him a slow connection most of the time but is still quite usable and affordable, unlike my own system with Telus.
As the Quartzsite RV show dates approached, there was a noticeable change in the desert. Previously unoccupied tracts of land became campsites for thousands of RVs, often arranged in groups according to type and model or club, as in Escapees etc. Our end of Plomosa Road is still lightly populated with most RVers choosing to camp nearer to Q.
My parts for the landing gear did arrive and Walt managed to put it back together without any leftover nuts and bolts (an accomplishment in itself). We had to remove the leg assembly and mechanism from underneath, so I had an opportunity to use my second-hand-store pick and shovel to dig a pit in the appropriate spot to make room for the extraction. At one stage, I had been a little worried that the parts would be delayed, Walt would move on to greener pastures and I would be stranded in the desert on one leg (literally). Now, the heron again stands comfortably on two legs; I can hitch up to the truck at will and make a move when the time comes.
I have changed my phone plan from the Telus North America rate, at $75/month for 250 minutes, to the Telus Voice Pass which costs $20 per month, plus $0.25 per minute, still excessive in my view but more appropriate to my limited long-distance conversations. This plan has to be renewed by phone or Internet each month on the 25th. I have also changed the Internet plan to one that costs $10 per month on top of my regular Canadian plan but then only costs $1 per roaming minute, still potentially dangerous if there are heavy data downloads, but better than the $3 per minute plan that I had before. This plan has to be updated each month on the 6th. I have learned how to go into Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Services and disable most of the sites that are likely to create large data downloads. However, nothing seems to prevent Hotmail from accumulating several Mbs of data, each costing a dollar, even while doing short e-mail checks. I am thinking of getting a Verizon “Stick” like my Telus “stick” and enabling it only for the months that I am in the US. If anyone has a reasonable alternative on this topic, please let me know.
We have been to check out the vendors and RV dealers a couple of times in Quartzsite. Massive crowds make this an enterprise only to be undertaken by resilient shoppers who enjoy dodging dogs in baby strollers pushed by obese people in larger strollers, ever-present cigarette smoke and line-ups at all the popular booths which happened to include most in which I had an interest. .Chowing down on colossal, 1 Kg plates of curly shoestring fries (more than any two, possibly three, people can eat) at the burger place where we lunched, may have been the challenge of the week. We met up with Gerry and Heather Percy for our lunch stop – they are camped near Q at the Scadden Wash area, a shorter drive or bike ride into town but too crowded for my liking. My purchases included a few LED light bulbs to replace the regular incandescents located in the chandelier above the table. These are incredible, casting about the same amount of light but using only a small fraction of the power. For those of us attempting to save the world by living under solar, these lights are quite a revelation.
I think my time at Plomosa is drawing nigh. Ted plans to move out soon, possibly to visit the Vulture Mountain camp area on his way home to Las Cruces. I may or may not go, depending on whether an expedition to camp over near the Chiricahua Mountains with Darch Oborne, sister Kathy, and possibly others, is mounted.
JW
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