Life goes On

We pulled out of Ogilby Road and headed north to Blythe, California on Wednesday the 8th, and pointed our rig towards a gathering of Grand Design Coaches south of Quartzsite, Arizona. This was the fourth annual Grand Design Quartzsite Rally, our first, but probably not our last. It was a good time, great food and well organised. There were some great presentations from Bluestar and Battle Born Batteries as well as a Q&A session conducted by a couple of Grand Design roving techs.

Chris and Mike were really informative and Grand Design had sent them along with a couple of other guys, complete with their service trucks and trailers to make sure folks were looked after here. They caught up any recalls that were outstanding and then jumped in and fixed a lot of little things that folks had pointed out. In our case they replaced a couple of problematic wall plugs, and I know they changed furnaces, adjusted slides, etc for the folks around us. Customer service is a core value at Grand Design and this was the proof of the pudding. Thanks a lot guys.

Eventually there were 170 rigs in attendance. The red line is us.

 Those who know our habits know that crowded places are not our natural habitat, but this was a special occasion and well worth the crowd. Still had more space than most campgrounds we have visited.

And off to the East we had this view of the Kofa Mountains

Sun-up

As I said we arrived Wednesday and I left on Monday morning but before I left, Sunday night was a little bonfire. It must have been a hundred feet long and probably 3 feet tall. Almost brought a tear to my eye watching all that carbon being released to the atmosphere and not a carbon tax assessor in sight.

Now that's a bonfire!

Monday morning I went about packing up the rig and headed north to a little spot up near Bouse that we have been to many times in the past.

Attentive readers will notice that "we" arrived in Quartzsite and "I" left on Monday, well I didn't leave Brenda behind to tend that fire, early on Sunday morning I ran her over to Palm Springs and she flew home to get a broken ankle tended to. Although we carry all kinds of insurance to deal with those kind of emergencies here in the USA it seemed as if she would receive better and more timely care back north of the Medicine Line and that is proving to be true. She is hanging out with her sister, Cheryl, and things are progressing swimmingly on that front. Canadian Health Care Rocks.

I found our regular spot here unoccupied and got Dogpound Anywhere set up here to await the results of Brenda's treatment. If she is able to come back we will resume our adventures in the desert, if not the mutts and I might just have to make our way back to the Northern Ranges by ourselves, only time will tell.

Good thing we got here Monday and set up, Tuesday it rained cats and dogs and the washes here were running. We don't have to many neighbours in these parts but one of them is that legendary Wandering Willy and I do believe Tuesday morning I saw him out dipping a line in the crick flowing by our rigs looking for a Sonoran Salmon for dinner.

Today the weather has smartened up and I am enjoying the sound of the local hummingbird population buzzing my feeders and the fresh smell of a desert rainfall.

Sunrise this morning

Peripatetic

Our time by Matagorda Bay is coming to an end, the weather is looking like it is cooling off for the next few days so we came to a command decision and decided we needed to get the wheels rolling again. We have a spent a great week here at Magnolia Bay, seen a lot of things swimming or floating by us here in the Bay but the desert is calling. We don't expect it to be a whole lot warmer out west but there is more room for Max and Maya to roam and we have a few favorite spots to visit and enjoy. Texas has been great but when it comes to cool weather we rather prefer a drier cool than we are likely to get here along the Gulf of Mexico.

The title, oh yah, that's a twelve dollar word that means either:

1. 1.

   a person who travels from place to place.
2. 
   
3. or
4. 2.

   an Aristotelian philosopher.

Your choice.

A Look Around

I promised you a look around Picket Post so here it is. Tonight we are Las Cruces, New Mexico after a great drive down through Safford, Arizona to Lordsburg before joining the rat race on I-10 across south New Mexico. We managed to slip downtown here to La Posta, a favourite spot in Old Mesilla, for an early dinner. This old building is the last stopping place along the Butterfield Overland Stage Route still working and although the floors are a little crooked the grub is great.

Good Grub here

Fly along with me here.

Ready to Roll

Thursday was Brenda's last Scrambler Therapy appointment, for these treatments Dr. Wade has been hooking up a LED Light Therapy boot on her as well, he says it does something to promote healing in damaged tissues. She has had a couple of toes on her bad leg that have been numb for years but this light thingy has got the feeling back in them. Don't ask me how it works or if it is just in the mind, regardless the feeling is back and that is good.

We followed up our Therapy date with a run through the local Walmart and Bed, Bath and Beyond to pick up a few more necessaries and then it was over to the Kona Grill to meet Mickey and Jeff for lunch and some laughs. It is always a good time spending time with those two. After unloading all our Amazon stuff from their car we were off to our rig. Max and Maya were glad to see us back after a long day lounging on the the couches.

Friday we both had appointments in Gold Canyon to get adjusted, that is a fancy word to describe having Dr. Cassie, a slight little woman, take out her aggression on our spines. Regardless though I know I feel better and I am sure Brenda is the same. My Granddad used to say his Chiropractor could knock a cold out of him, well I didn't have a cold when I went in but if I had of I am sure it would have been gone.

Once that was done we ran back out to the rig to pick up our laundry, we had planned to run into the laundromat listed in Superior until we realized that it was really in Globe, so we changed plans and headed into the Superstition Express Laundry in Apache Junction. Lots of machines there, clean, but not coin operated. You have to get a card and work from that, and the system needs a little work and better instructions. We ran into Vic Almond from up Ponoka way in there doing the same thing, trying to do laundry and cursing at the machines.

Once we got everything clean and folded we headed back home to our rig and our mutts.

I had a chance to unpack the drone and do a little fly over of our place so hopefully I can mash together some footage to show you the neighbourhood but until then this will have to do.

Saturday we did a whole lot of nothing, well not really I guess, we installed a grate on the screen door so that Max and maybe Maya won't be pushing the screen out, a water alarm under the pump watching for leaks, and changed the water filter out. But other than that and some book reading we did nothing, but tomorrow we are set to head off to points east. Stay tuned.

Speaking of Flying Time

Holy Smokes, our last post was way back in early March and we were still hanging just north of Las Vegas. As I mentioned then we were heading north the next day and that is exactly what we did, the first night we stayed in an old favourite spot enjoying the hospitality of the Shoshone Bannock folks near Fort Hall, Idaho. The next day we stopped for groceries in Helena and then headed for the border and stayed at the little campground just on the south side of Milk River, Alberta. The border crossing was uneventful and we just cruised right through it.

The next day we headed for Dogpound North early, so that we arrived home on the frost. That probably helped a little but there was a pile of snow and we had a tough day of it getting our big rig off the road and parked. We were stuck a couple of times and luckily our old dually was behind us so we were able to get ourselves extracted from the snow banks. Lots of snow here this spring.

We had a little snow around these parts

But it does make for pretty pictures

 As I said before the old John Deere was not doing well so I had a neighbour who has a small contracting firm come up and move enough snow around to enable us to get the rig hooked back up and taken in to get some warranty work done on it near the end of March. The snow lasted well into April so we just hunkered down and stayed warm. Well, that and I resumed swimming, a few days a week.

May came and went, Brenda and her girls headed to Vegas on the long weekend for a little girl time and then towards the end of the month we ran up to Alliance to an old friends daughters graduation. It was a great time, although hard to believe that Jessika is all grown up now.

A few of the folks who were there to celebrate Jessika's Grad.

The snow eventually left and summer came.

June came and went in a flash, only one thing of note I guess. Those of you who have seen us over the last year or so know that we were pulling a Road Warrior toyhauler and after we sold our Dogpound South spot it became our winter home. Brenda found it an uncomfortable rig for her and I won't bore you with its shortcomings so we started looking at another camper for this upcoming winter. Late in June we closed a deal on a Grand Design 384GK so we now have a new home to move south when the time comes.

New Rig Grand Design Solitude 384GK

We have had a busy July, beginning with the long weekend when Brenda's Sister/Friend Cheryl and one of her daughters came and camped at Dogpound North for the weekend. That was followed by a visit from some of our Arizona riding friends who had been touring the Rockies, riding and camping. There were four living quarters trailers with 3 mules, 5 horses, a miniature donkey, a mini horse, 7 dogs, 3 cats and 7 folks. We enjoyed visiting with them and took the opportunity to show them a little bit of our part of Alberta, both Peyto Lake and Lake Louise, must sees for first time visitors to Canada and Dogpound North. Then we had the Bryden kids campout, an annual gathering of Becky and Lacey's cousins and a few others. That had, I think 7 campers, with 14 adults and 10 or so kids, so our population here at Dogpound North has consistently been higher than downtown Dogpound itself.

Brenda has been troubled with a spinal issue that flares up her CRPS and her doctor sent her for Cortisone shots hoping to get some relief. Not successful.

We decided we needed to get our new rig out and give it a little shakedown so we headed west to Preachers Point to try it out. It was pretty busy out there, busier than I have ever seen it before, but I guess it is mid-summer and the week before a long weekend to boot so probably no surprise to others.

Just a little down the road from Preachers Point

For August I spent a couple of days helping get our hay put up but that is all the excitement we have had so far.

Time is flying by, here it is mid September and I thought I should get this entry up to date, our new rig is in the shop, getting a few things fixed. That is pretty common with new outfits, whatever the brand, it seems like you need to spend the first year ironing out all the bugs. This time it is getting a few things that were identified on the walk through completed. And one that we found on our shakedown cruise. With about 500 kilometers on it I noticed the braking action was not what it should be. Normally on our truck, trailer brakes run at around 7.0 to 7.5 on the controller, that gives us as much braking effect as we can get without locking up the wheels on the pavement. On our return from Preachers Point I had to crank it up to 10.5 or 11.0 to get any braking at all, and even then it was nowhere near where I like it to be. This is not an uncommon issue on these rigs it appears that the seals occasionally let grease through and it coats the brake drums and shoes. Kind of defeats the purpose of applying the brakes. Grand Design is looking after it for us, but strangely they are sending the shoes and backing plates all the way from Indiana, guess they think that here in Alberta we are a remote and lonely place. I never like having the rig in the shop for extended visits but we aren't using it, nor were we planning to so this is a good time. I am sure they are working on it diligently though, as they know I am not a patient customer.

It has been a pretty smokey summer here at DPN what with most of British Columbia being on fire and us being downwind. It seems like we have not seen much blue sky around these parts although until a week or two ago it was warm enough. We could sure use a little moisture though, our hay is all in but it would sure help next year.

Early on in this many month long journal entry I mentioned that our old John Deere was feeling poorly, well, the diagnosis is she is dead, needs basically a new engine and John Deere tells me they are obsolete. Hard to believe that they don't stock 50-60 year old engines. That led us on a search for a new engine here and we found that down the road in the form of an International 1086. It is a much bigger tractor than the old 4020 much more horsepower although I am not sure we needed anymore. It does have a cab and I am sure Matt will find that and it's accompanying heater a bonus on his road clearing and horse feeding chores this winter. It is a little taller though and doesn't fit in our barn, but so far we have been keeping it in the Quonset Hut and hopefully with a little rearranging we will still be able to fit everything under cover.

Our new Cornbinder