5C's Que Pasa

Wednesday April 6th

I woke up in the middle of the night smelling smoke and went back to sleep wondering who was having a campfire.

Turns out that we were between 2 fires, one was a controlled burn in Parker.  You can barely see across the river.

The other was a fire near Topok, Arizona  that jumped the Colorado River into California.  The smoke was very bad.  My eyes were watering and my nose was going crazy.  As the day progressed two RV Parks  were evacuated.  The news about the fire was even on our Kelowna online news along with a photo.  If you care to check it out here is the link  http://www.castanet.net/news/World/162627/RVers-flee-wildfire  Sadly two RV Parks were evacuated.

The Pirate Cove Resort along with another park were evacuated to the Needles area.  We were somewhat concerned as Fender’s Resort was out next stop on Thursday.  Not only was it smoky because of the fire there was a strong wind blowing.

Wednesday was supposed to be a quiet day for us but it was not to be.

First off we had arranged for a window chip repair guy to show up at 8:30AM  He arrived by 9AM and promptly set to work filling our five chips.  One of them happened this last winter when we were returning from our hurricane evacuation.  We had had the others for a while but just never got around to getting them repaired.  He did a great job for $70.00 and you can only see one of them a little bit.  Now we don’t have to worry about a cracked windshield.

Next on the list was getting our grey and black holding tanks cleaned.  Again we had prearranged this the day before while still in Yuma.  The company is All Pro Water Flow and they have many dealers all over the USA.  We dealt with Scott and Sherry who work the Lake Havasu area, 928 208 1543.  We were to start at 8:30AM but did not arrive until closer to 9AM.  As they set up they asked where the sewer was.  We only have electric and water hookups at the LHC State Park 😥   There must have been some misunderstanding during the booking procedure.  The only way to do this was with a sewer connection as they put about 6 times our tanks water thru in a pressure system at about 4000 PSI.   Scott said that we could do it at the Park sani dump.  Only problem is that it can take up to 90 minutes.  So he called the office and they agreed that we could tie up one of the two dumps.  In the end there were only 3 other RV’s that came by to dump.  However we had to wait for the chip repair dude to finish first.  Meanwhile we had to pack everything up in order to move the RV 👿   Remember this was to be our quiet day.  Not.

So we moved to the dump station and they set up.  It is a hydro jet cleaning system.

First the black tank then the grey.  In the end both of our monitors were reading empty.  The grey has never been an issue, usually reading empty but the black never went below 3/4.

Scott complimented Colin on the great condition of our tanks.  Every time he dumps he does flush for a full 30 minutes.  We were impressed with the service and in another 15 years will do it again 😕

These are struvites, not from our RV but from a 2006 RV they had done yesterday.  Struvites are created by a reaction between most tank chemicals and the ammonia from the urine mixing with the gas from the decomposing other sewage.  These crystals are what causes sensor failures as well as other problems.  The hole on the struvite on the left at the bottom was covering a sensor on the other RV.

As we had only begun just before 10AM I had to call my friend to come visit a tad later as we had to finish off with the tanks, move back to our site and relevel, not an easy task on this most uneven site and then set up once again.  However I also had a mishap and tripped on a moving sewer hose.  If you look at the photo of the 2 RV’s three photos up you will see the tangle of hoses.  I was fine and then suddenly my foot got caught by a moving hose and next thing I knew I was down flat on my back.  I had a moment to twist so I did not land on my hip but I did hit my shoulders, back and butt very very hard as well as the back of my head not so hard.  I was dazed and could not move for several moments.  Finally I got up and went inside where I stayed and ingested 800mg of ibuprofen.  I was most upset as I had just spent two weeks with a chiropractor in Mazatlan who had really made a difference, all out of whack now.

The tank cleaning cost $175.00US and was well worth every penny. Of  course we asked as to the best chemical to use in the future and the answer is an all natural probiotic tank treatment.  For 39.99 you get 67 tank treatments, a great deal.  The product is called Tank Techs RX .  It works like a pacman, eating up everything in your tank.  The microbes keep multiplying  and munching until you empty the tank.  Pretty neat.

Finally we got settled back in our site just as my longtime friend Libby came to visit.  After a few hours she headed off and then we headed off to complete our last task of the day.  I was looking for a special pair of flip flops with a high arch support.  Found the store alright but they no longer carried those particular shoes.  Grrrr.  In the end they sold me something that I did like but certainly not the price, $65.00USD 😳  I would never ever spend that much for flip flops but these are special and I can actually wear them.  Considering I spend $200.00 for my everyday sandals, the price wasn’t too bad and I will have them for years and years to come.

Later in the day the smoke seemed to dissipate.

So glad we caught the sunset the day before. This one is nice but the one I posted yesterday was special.

My plan was to write about  the last two days but this post is long enough.  Tomorrow I promise to catch you up to our current situation.  Meanwhile don’t fret as my body is doing well enough.

Instead of driving our usual many miles we only drove 166 miles yesterday.  We did start out shopping, in fact that went from 9:30AM till 1:00PM, much longer than planned but then there were sooooo many bargains to choose from  😀  In fact I was too worn our to check out the second store we stopped at but Colin did.  He doesn’t shop like I do though  😳   It wasn’t long before we were headed North to Lake Havasu City.

First thing that caught my eye as we entered the city.  Good play on words and what human doesn’t need coffee beans?

Finally settled into site #39 at the LHC State Park. Expensive @ $35.00 per night but necessary with the higher temperatures at this time of year..  Sadly about 10 miles south of Quartzite oil was being sprayed on the highway.  Colin is washing off the oil on the RV, yes we went slowly but still got some on the RV.   Thank goodness for the great wax job he did before we left the Isla, it made the removal easier.

We arrived just before sunset and this is the view from inside our RV window.

We were lucky as this was one of three sites available, when I booked it 4 weeks ago,lucky us.

Brat that I am….showing off some of my new duds.  I got 17 new items for an average of $18.00 each.  Even with the Canadian exchange I did very very well.

George asked why not shop further North where it is cooler….answer is…that here in the heat is where they sell the clothes I want to buy.  FYI the shirt says  ‘ I need vitamin SEA 🙂  That is me for certain, only reason I bought it 🙂

Both David and Peter commented on how low to the ground our RV sits. We have air bags that raise us up much higher when we travel so there is no danger in hitting the underside on a tope nor in getting in and out of fuel stations. The air bags also give us a much smoother ride.

Such a prefect end to the day.

With 3% humidity we are at the broken nail and nosebleed part of our assimilation.  Even Carmeh keeps sneezing and rubbing her nose.  Fortunately it is so hot that we have been living in constant A/C which helps a bit.  Yesterday was spent in Yuma with a high of 91F, it was supposed to be higher 🙄  Where we are headed today we will be dealing with highs around 96F.  Thank goodness all of our A/C systems are functioning.  I remember arriving in Yuma two years ago and nothing was working and we were sweltering.

On our way here from Ajo we stopped in Gila Bend for what was likely the cheapest price we will pay for diesel this entire trip.  We were about fifteen miles away when the red light went on indicating we were running at the very end of our tank.  Talk about cutting it fine.  We were ecstatic to fill up at a mere 2.149 per gallon.  Last winter we paid as high as 3.759/gallon, quite the difference.

The next break was is Yuma where our first stop was Walmart.  I can’t believe that I spent 2.5 hours in the store.  Colin came in with me and he ended up being caught up.  There are things that we need like a new bedroom RV fan and a desk fan at home and there are so many choices here at such low prices that it makes sense to pick things up even with the difference in the CAD/USD dollar.  We had already decided to redo our patio area on the Isla by painting the concrete yellow and using area carpets rather than having the entire area covered in the indoor/outdoor carpeting we have used for the last five seasons.  We had been inside Walmart for about 2 minutes when this splendid large outdoor carpet caught our eye.  Lovely colors and designs along the Mexican theme for only $100.00.  Such a deal.  Too bad we have to carry it all the way back to Canada and then back to Mexico.

Most of my time was spent in replenishing our fruit and veggies.  My favorite apples, Pink Crisps, were being sold at $3.47USD/4.54CAD per pound.  Can you imagine paying that price for an apple?  It was bad enough that navel oranges were .57USD each.  Avocados were 99 cents each.  Guess we won’t be eating anymore of those until November.

Finally checked into our RV park for the night where we kept running both A/C’s.  While we were in Walmart we had the generator going with both A/C’s on to keep the girls cool.  Too hot for them to be outside walking other than to do their business.

Today is yet another full day involving both shopping and traveling.  Sorry but I never got around to taking photos yesterday so these last minute ones will have to do.

Here we are at the Arizona Sands RV Resort, a Passport America Park for $18.00.

Seems like love is in the air.

Sunset walk along the canal.

Not sure how much I have left in me tonight to write a post.  It was only a 395 mile drive Sunday but it took close to 11.5 hours and we are pretty tired 😐

The most amazing thing is that in just 18 hours the humidity went from 85% to 30% and now Sunday night we sit at 2%.  Our poor noses are going loco with the dryness and I swear I see alligator skin growing on my legs.

The girls have been handling the long days well although today/Sunday it was obvious that Carmeh was depressed and annoyed with us.  She loves the beach and we go through this transition every year but this year she is most upset.

We got through the major military check at Benjamin Hill by simply saying that we were coming from San Carlos ( not a lie as that is where we spent the last night ) and that we were on our way to Canada.  Second year in a row that we have not had to endure the secondary inspection.

Lots of heavy agriculture traffic on the road.

Miles of vineyards in Sonora. Nice to see different crops.

Did you know that on the longer drives buses require two drivers and this is where one of them rests while the other drives?  There is no way that I could be locked in the belly of a bus in a tiny luggage compartment. Doesn’t matter that there is a mattress and a pillow and a blanket.

The roads are under repair North of San Carlos which is a shame as they were redone not long ago.  The same holds true for most of the road between Santa Ana and Lukeville.  We experienced the agony of the roads being redone not many years ago.  Why do they fall apart so quickly?

We were doing well with our timing most of the day.  Even the stop to turn in our paperwork for the car deposit went quickly.  We also turned in our 10 year permit on the RV.  Hard to believe that we were one of the first to buy the 10 year sticker way back when they first came out.  Now you have no option but to buy that ten year permit.  Glad we went with is as it saved us several pesos in those first years before it became mandatory to purchase the ten year package.

It was a huge shock to us to arrive at the US border only to find an unending line up.  First is was a Sunday, then it was the end of the two week Easter vacation as well as spring break and of course Puerto Penasco is a favorite destination.

I suspected we might have a problem but nowhere near this bad.  Of course the original plan had us crossing Saturday but then that was yesterdays news 🙄

We were well entertained during our one hour wait by a variety of vendors.

We were officially at the end of the hassle free zone only to be harassed by a variety of vendors as well as the border agents themselves 🙂

Almost out of Mexico. Our arrival in the US was easy with just a few agricultural questions.

Finally we were on that lovely ribbon of highway……heading North…..

…when we were in yet another line up….30 minutes for the border patrol.  Rather strange considering we were just checked over at the US border a mere 13 miles south.

Finally we arrived in Ajo, stopped for ten minutes to pick up fruit and a few veggies before heading to our Passport America RV Park.  The Shadow Ridge RV Park is only $12.00 per nite including a full 50 AMP service which is perfect in this hot climate.  However my thoughts went back to last year at this time when we had a rendez vous with Suzanne for a most perfect evening in the the BLM area just a few miles south of here.  The sunset tonight was not existent making the one we shared a year ago even more outstanding.

Taken April 5th 2015 about 10 miles south of here.

So our last day in Mexico with the cross into the US was only 395 miles but with the various waits took us a very long 11.5 hours.  Tomorrow promises to be a shorter drive but a very full day.  We are trying to make up for the extra day we lost due to the RV repairs.  We did spend a good deal of time discussing time today.  We so look forward to not being ruled by the clock, hopefully within in a few years we won’t have to work so hard.  However it is remarkable that we are able to live the life we are with so much time off each winter.  No complaints from us, just a few wishes

[This is being posted on Contessa’s behalf mid-Sunday morning]

It was surprisingly cool at 5:00AM, guess we aren’t usually up at that time of day.  We were able to get it together and were driving out the gates of Tres Amigos RV Park at 5:35 AM, a mere 5 minutes late.  Had one quick stop for a noise I thought was unusual, Colin got out and checked but all appeared well.

It is not often that we get to enjoy a sunrise.

It was an easy day with stops here and there and a few extra stops as requested by the girls 😉

Such a beautiful drive. This is on the toll road just after Culiacan. We never tire of the drive.

Many crops in Sinaloa, mostly corn and tomatoes as in this shot.

So many who have traveled this route before us this year have complained about the horrific state of the roads.  Personally we believe the roads to be the best they have been in many many years.  Colin says that out of our entire 12 hour drive today that the roads were 92% great.  Yes it was a 12 hour drive today, we drove 512 miles but interestingly we were not exhausted.  That is due in part to the great roads.  If just under an hour of that twelve hour drive was rough than we call that a great day, especially here in Mexico.  The majority of you don’t really care where the bad areas where so if you really want to know send me an email, I did make extensive notes.  Overall it was a great drive and I can see that next November is going to be an even better drive south due to the extensive amount of paving being done.

An unscheduled stop as called by the girls. A new Pemex with lots of grass and an easy stop with lots of parking. Some of the staff came to greet the girls which of course interfered with them getting their business done.

Sadly we passed a bad accident just North of Los Mochis. The semi not only flipped and dumped its load but was burned rather thoroughly.

The biggest surprise of the day was that we needed more fuel that we had anticipated and that we ran out of pesos to pay for the diesel.  On reflection we realized that we had fueled up about an hour further North that we usually do as we headed to Mazatlan last November.  You might recall that we stayed at a new Pemex where we fueled up, that also offered WiFi and it was a much quieter stop that our usual Pemex at the start of the Culiacan/Mazatlan autopista.  Then there was that unexpected trip to the first toll both on the Durango Highway during the hurricane last November.  That pretty much explains why our tank was empty about three hours early.  So we put in 4000 pesos but knew we needed more.  There just happened to be an ATM at this particular gas station.  Twice my ATM request went through to the final stage and then was cancelled.  Most frustrating.  A few hours later we did stop at our usual fuel stop ( we only have the one  stop as we head North as we have a large tank ) and put in 500 pesos ( I only had 700 total ).  That brought the fill line back up to full so we are certain that we will be able to get back into the US with no issues.  Last year we only took on 70 gallons once we entered the US and our tank holds 100 gallons so we are no longer worried.  I however am concerned that my ATM card was denied when I needed it most.

How would you like to follow this oversize hulk for several miles?

The only other outstanding evet of the day was a first of us.  We were stopped by police chasing after us, flashing lites and all.  Seems that at the toll booth between Navajoa and C Obregon we were charged and paid a toll of 110 pesos.  Turns out that that was the cost of the RV but we were never charged for the car we were towing.  Not sure if that set off an alarm or what but not more than 4 minutes later we were pulled over.  Seems we short changed that toll booth 65 pesos for the car.  Well not our fault, we pay what we are asked.  So what to do, they wanted us to take the car back to pay the toll….right 🙄   If you have an RV you know how impossible that is.  In the end the two officers just let us move on.  Funny thing is that at the very next two toll booths they did the same thing and we had to ask them to charge us more….please!  We didn’t have time to keep getting pulled over by the police.  It was humorous at the time.

So we arrived at our planned destination 12 hours later as expected, in fact it was within 2 minutes.  We were tired but not exhausted.  Colin took the girls to the beach while I dusted ( not sure why so very dusty this time ) and returned things to a semblance of order.  Chores done by both of us then we had a wonderful dinner.  Colin has done the dishes 🙂  while I worked on this post.  Showers and bed next.

Sadly it is Saturday night in San Carlos and it is the last weekend of the two week Semena Santa holiday.  The room rentals here at Totonaka RV Park are full of Mexicans heading back North.  Two ATV’s are racing each other up and down the RV rows.  Very loud banda music is coming from one of the overnite rooms.  Some RVers are having quite the happy hour and the disco is just tuning up……..hopefully we will sleep well.  Hmm there also seems to just be a lot of noise…..you know, young folks drinking just a tad…well maybe a lot….could it still be spring break 😯

Thanks for checking in, have a great Sunday.