More Rain

This is where I moved to last week.
 You can see to the left of me a small water run off creek,
in the desert we call those washes.

When it started to rain the other day the ground was getting a bit mushy
 near our wash. Do you see the lighter areas of sand/gravel?
  Those are the ways the rain water follows
on its way to the washes.  The washes are easy
to find as there's more plants growing along them.
You can see that I was parked in the one by the car.

So I started up the rv and very slowly backed up
to a bit of ground that was higher. 
It was easy to see when I was doing it as
 there was water all around
 except here where I'm parked now. 
I just left the car there until the next day.


You can see that my leveling jacks were
sinking into the gravel.


But, I'm a puddle walking kind of gal so I've been having fun.
Unlike Northern California, the water here is warm,
about 68º if I had to guess.

Everybody benefits from the rain.

You might notice that my friend, Kyra has left.  

She has moved on down the road.  

I plan to be here a couple more weeks

unless it gets to hot and then I'll move

 on down the road myself.

Winter Storm and a New Front Yard

Rain behind Kyra's RV, it soon was over us.

It doesn't take much to bring the flowers out.

Bubba practicing his tree climbing skills.

And his napping skills too.

Out and about in the desert you come across fire rings, most of this rings

stones have been taken away.  It's always a good idea to drive way around them

because many people burn wooden pallets, which have nails in them.

Last evening at about 5:30, two 5th wheels came in and parked pretty close to me.  I mean, come on people we have the whole desert and you have to park within less than 50 yards of me.  Of course Bubba thought they were here for him to go visit and I had to go call him back home.  When Missie came in for dinner I moved the RV to the other side of Kyra, it's ok if they go to her house.  So here we are looking back at Kyra and our old spot.

Our new front yard.

Missie thinks this is a good spot.

It's been warming up out here, most campers have left, not only our friends but all the other boondockers as well.  The snakes are out, although I haven't seen any I can tell that the kitties have.  Cats tend to get a little jumpy when there are snakes around.  They are always on-guard, but even more so when snakes are out and about. Pretty soon I'll be heading back over to San Diego county area where it will be cooler.

 

Missie rolling around and being cute.

Winterhaven, California

Still having fun in the California desert.

We have beautiful sunsets.

And beautiful moon risings.

Storm clouds.

And the kitties are still running free.

Going into Yuma today to meet up with friends at the Yuma ELKS lodge for lunch.  My friend Nick, who sponsored me to become an ELK, is transferring his membership from the Gila Bend ELKs to the Yuma ELKs.  So it's another excuse for lunch out.  My home lodge was in Long Beach, Washington but I've recently moved my membership to the El Cajon California lodge.  Being an ELKs member allows you to park your rv at their many lodges around the country, often for free or very inexpensive.  Here's a link to the ELKs.  They're a wonderful service organization.  ELKs

See you later.

Keeping Busy in the Desert

I'm still here in the California desert.  The Escapee boondockers have come and gone and now that's it's the middle of January many of the other boondockers have gone up to Quartzite for the big RV tent event.  

We go for walks so the kitties can get to know the neighborhood.  

We're now parked by my mom's tree.

This is where we would park every year.  Mom and I would walk around with her 'walker' and pick up pretty rocks and bring them back to put around the tree.  I'm still doing that and in the next picture you can see what I've done.

Bubba meditating the shade.

I made a heart and put some treasures inside.

Wow!!!  

It was so clear the other morning that I could see for 93 miles.

The Imperial sand dunes are in the foreground

and the mountains in the background are 

in San Diego county, 93 miles away.

That's one of my Escapee boondocker friend, Kyra, parked over there.

When all the Escapee boondockers were here I was parked over by her and when my summer traveling friend, Diane, came through town after Christmas she parked with us too.  And because that's our old neighborhood, Bubba goes over to visit her.  She and I get together a few times a week to do errands and go out to eat.

I had my rv seats recovered.  Out with the old funky ones.

Missie checking things out.

That's my leveling system control box sitting next to the driver's seat.

In with the newly recovered old seats.

Bubba's favorite napping spot, but not while we're driving.

That's all for now, see you later.

Happy Holidays

Windy

So, to refresh your memory of where I am,  I'm in Alpine, California.  I'm parked near this beautiful old oak tree.  I have 2 neighbors, both small trailers,  and they have their own old oak trees.

Monday morning the wind started to blow, not to much, just a bit windy.  I spent most of monday running errands around El Cajon and Santee area and the weather down there was beautiful with no wind.  I didn't really think about it.  My daughter and I went out for Thai food for dinner.  Here are two pictures of our appetizers, I forgot to take pictures of our maid dishes.

Yummy spring rolls

Yummy satay chicken

When I got home the wind was really blowing.  By the time I went to bed it was gusting to 71 mph and the rv was really moving around.  At 2am I got up and put the kitties in their carriers and got some blankets and we moved into the car.  I positioned the car so it was heading into the wind.  The rv was also headed into the wind.  Needless to say none of us got a wink of sleep.  Every time I started to drift off to sleep we'd get hit with another huge gust of wind and I'd open my eyes to make sure we were still upright.  It was awful, blowing dust and tumbleweeds, little sticks and small stones.  I was hoping we wouldn't end up with a broken window.  At daybreak I was feeling optimistic and moved us back into the rv, just long enough for me to fix myself a cup of coffee and the kitties to have breakfast and a drink.  The rv was still really moving around and the noise.....  I packed us back up and back into the car we went.

Where I am, but when the wind started blowing I moved the rv forward a bit

 to get away from the tree, in case it fell.

Weather update

My closest neighbor.  The front of his trailer fell off it's front leg 

and the two stabilizer jacks at the front corners splayed out, 

he wasn't home at the time.

After getting back into the car we went down the road to McDonalds for a bite of breakfast.  When we got back about 30 minutes later this is what we saw.

By now the wind was gusting at 90mph.  Holy wind batman!!!

The neighbor on the other side of the upside down trailer.

Their beautiful old oak tree split apart.

But luckily it didn't hit their trailer.

It's now 1pm and the winds have died down a bit and once again we are inside the rv.  You know, we probably would have been alright staying in the rv but I've seen many pictures of rv's blown over by wind and I say that if anything makes you feel uncomfortable than don't do it.  Living on the road I've learned to trust my gut so I might be a wimp but that's ok.  Yes, that little trailer was parked cross wind and trailers aren't fast and easy to hook up and move like my rv is.  And my rv probably weighs more and I was headed into the wind.  I do what make me feel comfortable.

So hopefully this wind event is passing and tomorrow I can head east to my favorite boondocking spot near Yuma and see all my boondocking friends for Christmas.

Until next time.

North of the Border

I left Baja Seasons RV Park at 6:45 am saturday morning heading for the border.  It was an easy drive, even though I missed a turn and had to make a returno (u turn) to get going in the right direction.  I had reviewed the route and drive last night but still managed to miss a turn, and I can't blame it on Miss Google either because she said to turn I just didn't believe her.  

The app BWT, Border Wait Times, said the wait at the Tecate border crossing was 25 minutes but after sitting still for 10 minutes I decided the app was wrong.  Yup took an hour to get through the Tecate border crossing.  All in all not too bad.  Yes, I forgot to through away my eggs so left those with the inspector kid.

Look at all these stickers on a pole, with the border fence behind it, on the Mexico side.

Look closely at the picture of the man.  That's President Kennedy.

I'm back in the states for about a month to have a few things repaired on the rv.  Since March the gas gage hasn't worked in the rv and before I do much more driving around Baja I need to get that fixed.  Also the bathroom sink has a leak that needs fixing. Just a few little things.  

I'll be meeting up with friends around the Yuma area but right now I'm in San Diego county visiting my daughter for a few days.  Then I'll be heading east to the desert.

Hotspot Follow Up

I need to do a short follow up on the Tep hotspot.  It didn't work for me.  I thought I had read all the information about this device and plans they offered, but I missed the super fine print about only 1gb a day, which is not enough to watch tv or surf the internet.  Live and learn.

Closing this post with a picture of the stormy ocean out the window of the restaurant where I had breakfast Friday morning.  It's been raining and windy and last night we had thunder and lightning.  Very exciting.  And it's cold, good thing I have a heater.

Let's Talk Internet While Traveling

Part 1, WIFI

Since arriving in Mexico, in August, I've been using my iPhone for my internet needs.  But I didn't have enough data to watch the one tv show I like to watch or some other things as well.  So I started looking around for a solution.  When in the states I have a Verizon jetpack that gives me that extra boost in data every month but I can't use it down here. You might wonder why I didn't get a hotspot here in Mexico, the reason is I'm not a permanent resident and it gets a bit complicated getting a hotspot and setting up billing for the thing.  So researching I went.  I found that there are several companies that offer world wide WIFI hotspots for travelers and after reading much fine print on several websites I settled on this one.  I had it sent to a friend in California and she dropped it off yesterday on her way south to Baja Sur, southern baja.

After a bit of chatting with the Tep teckies we got it working this morning.

This is what I bought.

It comes in this nice little case.

What's in the case?  A black world wide electrical plug that

will adapt to any countries electrical system. 

 Instruction booklet, and little straps.

Also in this picture is my homemade paper clip tool used for another project.

And this is Teppy.

It seems to be working fine and I will try it out tonight while watching some tv.  

Since I've been here I haven't been able to use my indoor security camera or my temperature monitoring system because both those things need a stationary wifi hotspot.  Now both those things are up and running.  I can spy on the kitties while I"m not here and see how warm it is in the rv.  To review, this is the camera I use SENS8 and this is the temperature sensor unit I use SensorPush

Part 2 VPN

Some of you, well maybe most of you won't know what a VPN is?  I'll let Wikipedia tell you.

Virtual private network

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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VPN connectivity overview

A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network, and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. Applications running on a computing device, e.g., a laptop, desktop, smartphone, across a VPN may therefore benefit from the functionality, security, and management of the private network. Encryption is a common, though not an inherent, part of a VPN connection.^[1]

So let me put this into Evelyn speak.  A VPN will protect me and my electronic devices from unseen bad guys on the internet.  It will mask where I am, so that the websites I go to will think I'm in the US not in Mexico.  No more having to deal with sites coming up in spanish.  And now Microsoft won't have to worry that my email is being hacked from Mexico.  I have no idea how secure the networks are in Mexico but now I don't need to worry.  I went with the VPN that is popular in Mexico, Express VPN.  And after chatting with their teckie today we got that dialed in as well.  It's been a technical kind of day.

I'd been putting both of these things off and it was time to get them taken care of.

Now for a weather report.  It rained here last week.  I've seen reports from locals in the area that we got 2.5 inches.  And as I"m writing this it is starting to rain again and the reports are that it will be a big storm.  I'm safe here in the rv park ad it will be fun to watch the waves on the beach.

Be back soon.