From Plomosa Road Camp 16.6/1.7 Dec 12th 2012

PS:

Meanwhile, back at the Canadian/US border, I remembered that the US Vegetable Guard lady and I were engaged in conversation about camping in the desert. She asked me if I was a “Boondoggler”, this defined as a breed of people who occupy themselves with insignificant activities being of little use to anyone. Guess that’s not too far off the mark for me, though I prefer being a“Boondocker”.

Also, as a postscript to my stop in Twin Falls, I had no sooner finished with my wire repair and turned the corner when, in the mirror, I spotted my little folding plastic foot-step flying out of the truck box, landing on the highway and being pulverized by a large SUV. Recovery was out of the question but I did replace it with a mini step made of metal and, presumably, less likely to fly, at a Home Depot in Havasu.

Dec 12th - Plomosa Road 16.6/1.7 (N33 53.206 W114 03.169)

Morning back at Pahranagat – not a cloud, so it was almost time to put on shorts for the rest of the winter. A lot of quacking and honking went on at night; the lake was full of many varieties of waterfowl, plus raptors (who weren’t actually in the lake, rather perched in trees searching for prey). This is a great camp spot (free), maintained by the US Fish and Wildlife Department as a bird sanctuary.

This year, I only spent one night at Lake Pahranagat as I didn’t have a lot of “resting” to do – also, with the bicycle in its protective bag on the back of the trailer, it would have taken me a few extra minutes to extricate everything just to go for a short ride.

From Pahranagat, it was 64 miles down to I-15 and then another 18 miles into North Las Vegas and the Blue Beacon/Speedco Truck Wash (N36 12.786 W115 07.725). $42 gets one the full treatment, including steam cleaning of the engine. I didn’t realize how much shiny metal existed below the accumulated dirt and grime of the truck’s 12 year lifespan.

From Vegas, it is a short hop to “Terribles” at Searchlight for fuel. On the way, one passes by a giant solar array generating station. I don’t know the wattage but, if that were all on top of my trailer I could light up the whole desert. Aptly named, Terribles may be the worst “service” station encountered anywhere in my travels. Even though the pumps are well situated for trucks and RVs, one has to walk to the cashier indoors, slowly creep forward at the back of a long line of fat children buying Krispy Kream donuts, predict a minimum amount of fuel that one wishes to put on one’s credit card, go out and pump, then return to join the back of another line of equally hefty mothers belonging to the aforementioned children and who must have followed the doughnut truck down from Vegas. The first credit card bill gets ripped up and another is produced to reflect the correct amount. At the pump, there is an option to enter one’s zip code and Canadians, being zip-code deficient, scratch their heads while they attempt to invent a number by exchanging letters and numbers in their Postal code into some American hybrid. That never works for me, so if anyone out there has experienced consistent luck in this matter, please let me know.

From Searchlight, it is mostly downhill on Hwy 95 to the I-40, west of Needles, Ca. In California, cars are allowed to travel at 70 mph, while trucks and trailers, including me, drive at the more sedate pace of 55 mph. What this creates is an accident waiting to happen, particularly on narrow roads with lots of curves and dips because frustrated drivers find themselves blocked by people like me, attempt to pass in an unsafe place once they get exasperated enough and smack into someone doing the same thing from the opposite direction.

Cattail Cove is a pleasant State Park south of Lake Havasu City. There, I found the Richards, Hugh and Christine, plus Lewises (Dave and Gail), along with Ian and Gillian Wright, enjoying the civilized comforts of close-knit camping with power and water. I overnighted with them, heard the tale of woe from H & C who had lost a window to high winds, suffered a water leak in their trailer and, top of the list, lost their Bell satellite TV signal because Bell, without warning, has cancelled all service south of the 49th parallel. If any of you are contemplating travelling with satellite, use Shaw (Star Choice). They seem to have no problems providing service all the way into Mexico.

At Cattail, I was approached by a waddle of ducks (25-30) who came to the trailer to eat stale buns out of my hand. I never realized that ducks are very hostile to each other, particularly when competing for pieces of two-week-old bun. At one stage, two mallards had a drake down on her back and were twisting her neck with their beaks. Feathers flew but, in the end, the poor lady-duck did recover. After that, I favoured the drakes and threw bits to them which they were able to catch in mid-air, jumping up like dogs.

One night of civilization being plenty for me, I moved south about an hour to Bouse with a Parker Safeway stop en route. All preferred sites up my favoured trail had occupants so I moved to another area abut 6 miles away. Here, however, the cell signal was very intermittent. Fortunately, friends Walt and Susan Brugger from Prince George, keeping my best interests at heart, spotted someone moving out of the original site, came to let me know, then moved their VW Beetle onto the spot to claim it for me. The phone seems to work from here and I have a fairly weak Internet signal from the MiFi as well.

So, now, I’m happy; camp is set up; solar panels raised to obtain optimum photons from the sun and the nearest neighbours (Walt and Susan) are 200 metres away.

I shall stay at Plomosa 16.6/1.7 for a while, the length of time could depend on whether the US Department of the Interior still employs rangers to monitor BLM 14-day maximum stay regulations. It has been rumoured that many of these folk have disappeared along with other government employees as part of the Federal Government austerity agenda so perhaps I shall be safe.

I have sent one or two separate e-mails with pictures, so my apologies to the few who got those as there may be repeats. A new Canon camera bought this summer generates photos that are far too large to be e-mailed efficiently with slow Internet connections. Therefore, I will be using the Microsoft “Resize” tool to reduce photos to something under 100 KBs. If anyone out there feels the need to send me a photo, please do the same.

As I have stopped travelling for a while, you will be pleased to know that blog output will grind to a slower pace. Not much happens in the desert so there isn’t much to write about, though when pressed, the challenge of writing about nothing can be somewhat interesting.