Catching Up

Since leaving Colorado I spent 4 nights at Abiquiu Lake where these yellow sunflowers were blooming all over the place.  From there I moved down to Cochiti Lake where I ran into some friends who were parked there with their rv's.  Roxanne, of The Good Luck Duck blog invited me over for dinner, bbq ribs, yum.  Friend Donna was also there so the three of us had a nice visit over ribs and pasta salad.

It was while I was at Cochiti that I discovered that the rv repair shop in Colorado didn't fix my air conditioner, this camping site was the first time I've been plugged into electricity and the first time I was able to turn the air conditioner on.  So called the shop in El Cajon where I already have an appointment and we added more time for them to take a look and get it fixed, I hope right this time.

Leaving Cochiti I made my way to Yuma where it is still to hot.  I had planned to stay there for 4 nights, I paid for 2 nights, stayed for one, when I checked into the rv park.  The picture below was taken a 7:30 the first night when I made a food run to the store.  As you can see the Honda now has 60,000 miles on her and it was 101º.  Ugg  The next morning I was at my storage unit by 7am, left there at 8 and went to Diesel Automotive for a visit.  They are my 'go to' mechanics for both the rv and the Honda.  My vehicles aren't diesel but that doesn't matter as they'll work on anything. 

By the time I got back to the rv it was only 10:00 and very hot.  I decided to leave and go to Alpine, CA in San Diego county, only 3 hours west, where it much cooler.  So by 10:30 I was on the road heading west.  

I knew it would be a strain on the rv to drive during the heat of the day because there's quite a mountain to climb-up out of the Imperial valley into San Diego County.  You go from below sea level to 4,00 feet in 29 miles.  Along the road are watering stations for your car and pull outs for letting engines cool down and advisory signs telling you to turn off your air conditioners to cut down on the load on your engine.  I had my eye on the temperature gage the whole way up the hill and the rv did fine.  

Until I was parked in my rv site and I noticed fluid dripping from under the engine area.  Ugg.  Ugg because my trusted mobile mechanic, Danny from Johnson Services, Mobile Mechanic, had broken his arm in early Sept. and I didn't know if he was back at work yet.  So monday morning I called him and no he's not really back working but good news is his brother is helping him out and they could be up looking at the rv in 3 hours.  They came and diagnosed the problem.  I had radiator failure.

In this picture of the old radiator, we are seeing the top, which looks like the bottom where the failure occurred.  See the lighter colored strip of aluminum, with the clip fingers holding the top to the fin area.  On the bottom those fingers stretched open allowing a separation and the antifreeze to leak out.  It could have been way worse, if had been oil from my oil pan gasket it would have meant having the engine pulled out to fix that, so I was very lucky.  Also very lucky that there wasn't complete failure while I was on the road,  I was safely tucked into an rv site before this got to bad. The good news is that I now have a brand new radiator and all new hoses as well and new thermostat and we threw in a fuel filter as well and heater hosed too.

Danny, still guarding his arm a bit.

So I'm all set to go.  I'll be in the San Diego area for about a month, house sitting for my daughter and taking care of some more business of mom's estate.  Then it's back to Yuma for a few days, where I sure hope it will be cooler.  

That's all for now.  

In my next posting I'll reveal my big next step and future plans.

Easy Rider, seen in a parking lot in California.

Some Flower and Cactus From Around our Boondocking Site in Colorado

With the rains came some fall flowers.

This cactus is small.








This is what we looked at from our camping site. You can see
up on the mountain that some of the Aspen trees are starting to turn yellow.
These are the Chalk Cliffs.  This is what Wikipedia says about Chalk Creek:
"The creek is named after the magnificent white kaolinite cliffs that stand at the entrance to the Chalk Creek valley, and are a result of hot spring deposits. These white cliffs are visible for miles in all directions, and stand in stark contrast to the otherwise wooded surrounding mountains. Stands of aspen trees and evergreens of various species surround the river for its entire length".


These next two pictures are what Bette and I came home to
 yesterday afternoon after shopping.




And this morning there was a dusting of snow
on the mountains above us.

Time to head south, back to New Mexico.

A bit warmer down here.

From tonight's campsite, I'm looking at Pedernal, 

the mountain  where Georgia O'Keeffe's ashes are scattered.

Tonight's sunset.

Still Boondocking in the Colorado Rockies

This is heaven

Bubba and the tree

Bubba and the baby

Bette and another baby

Missie and the rock

Bull snake and a pinecone

Cloud study.

I don't know what the turquoise orb is but it's in two of the cloud picts.

My original plan was to leave here Sept. 4th and slowly head to San Diego , getting there Sept 25th, where I will be house sitting for my daughter, Maggie, but it is still really hot in southern New Mexico and Arizona, so now I'm going to stay here till Sept. 17 or 18 then take the fast route to San Diego.   The weather here is just about perfect.  High 70's during the day and low 50's at night.  We're within easy driving distance to two towns, Buena Vista and Salida which makes shopping and eating out at our favorite restaurants easy.  And the laundromat in Buena Vista has showers available for campers, $5 for 10 minutes.  Being able to take showers there saves my onboard water so I've only had to go to the dump station, at the visitors center, once since I've been here.

That's it for now.  Soon I'll be revealing some BIG news, but for now the kitties and I are taking it easy and enjoying the rest of our summer.

We're in The Colorado Rockies

The kitties and I have been hanging out in the mountains at about 8,550 feet elevation.  Perfect weather, low 80º's during the day and  low 50º's at night.  The kitties can run around all they want and it's been wonderful.

Where we are, in the Gunnison National Forest, is open range.  That means that local ranchers can have their cattle running around eating the grass.  This helps to keep the fire danger down.  So we have cattle walking around us most of the time.

This is what Missy looks like when the cattle come a callin'.

And this is what Bubba does.

Tonight when the cattle came Bubba saw a young calf nearby and he went walking right out to see him.  The calf was watching Bubba come towards him and Bubba got to within about 4 feet or so, when he stopped.  There they were two animals just standing there looking at each other.  It was a kodak moment except I didn't have my kodak with me.  Bubba then turned around and walked away and the calf bounded after him.  That was enough for Bubba, he ran back towards me.  

Hmm, cattle have been here.

So one of the reasons we left Santa Fe was because it's warm there and I was using my air conditioner everyday, but it started leaking water into the rv which, in this case meant that it needed a new gasket between the air conditioner and the rv.  The rv repair place in Santa Fe was booked up for 3 weeks in advance and it was too hot to hang around so I came north to the mountains where it's cooler.  There's a rv repair place just down the road in Poncha Springs and they were able to install a new gasket for me and also figure out what was wrong with the refrigerator and water heater.  The refrigerator was having problems running on propane, I was getting an error message saying there was no propane, and also the same thing on the water heater.  So Holiday RV blew out the propane lines for me while they were doing the gasket and they also caulked the roof while they were up on top.

On top is the working side of the refrigerator and 

lower is the water heater.  I had taken a can of compressed air and

 blew out what I could but that wasn't good enough.

My friend, Bette, has been with us for two weeks but she has moved on down the road. 

It was nice having a neighbor.  There are other boondocking rvers nearby though, 

they come and go.

We'll be here till after Labor Day weekend then head back to New Mexico to visit family.  

I'd like to apologize for not responding to the comments on the blog.  For some reason I'm not getting notifications of your comments.  I'm working on that, I spent about 15 minutes tonight trying to figure out why but I'm not sure I got it.  So be patient, I'll see those comments eventually.

Be back soon.

Finished Painting Job, part 2

Ok, on to the bedroom makeover.  It took me 11 days to get the bedroom fixed up and painted.  The platform that the bed sits on needed some repairs so the first thing I had to do was get the mattress up and out of there.  I lived 11 days with that mattress standing in the kitchen, ugg.  But I glued and screwed the box and platform back together.

Bed platform up.  See the little 'gas shock absorber', on the left side, 

there are two, one on each side of the platform.

You can see my extra 25 gallon water tank, the other tank 

is between that little wall and the rear of the rv.

I replaced the shocks with stronger ones.  They assist 

with the raising of the platform and with the holding up job too.

You can see the old ones were bent. I bought stronger ones and they work

so much better, by the time you get a mattress and bedding 

on the platform, it's very heavy.

This is what I lived with for 11 days.

Stuff piled everywhere.

Aah but it was worth every minute of chaos.  New mattress too.

Basket beside bed with 12 volt fan, charging cords and kleenex.

Also, see that I removed two light fixtures, one above the bed and one

on the wall, and installed 12 volt plugs.

All my electronics can be charged using 12 volt plugs.

Hooks on board from Walmart holding towels and shawls. 

See on wall at bottom right, two more 12 volt plugs, these two are

each on their own circuit.  I charge my computer using one of these.

I takes two 12 volt extension cords to reach around to the other side of the bed.

Nightstand big baskets and small basket.

You may have noticed in one of the above pictures that showed the ceiling, that I have a Maxxair fan in the bedroom and one in the bathroom as well.  They are well worth the price.  And if you get them be sure to get the ones with the remote control.  The first one I bought wasn't a remote control type, that one is now at the front of the rv over the bunk.  Don't waste you money on the cheaper ones go for the gold.

Replaced the towel rods with white ones.  

Also took out the magazine rack that was

below the drawer and now use that space for tp storage

 and put a piece of plexiglass over opening to keep

 the kitties out.  Plexiglass held in place with Command velcro.

There you have it.  Two months of work, two coats of primer and two coats of paint.  Good thing I was doing this in Santa Fe, New Mexico where it's a 'dry heat'.  

Evelyn, Bubba and Missy

Going for a walk.