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| Parked in Quartzsite |
But, we do have a few good technologies that are making life easier. I would be forever lost without my GPS, for instance-- and there it is, right on my phone, with me everywhere I go.
When we started this traveling lifestyle, I decided to track our travels in a paper atlas, faithfully marking our route with a highlighter to give us a record of our journeys. I have three of them stashed in my cupboard. This year we decided to do something different. We discovered a wonderful planning tool called RV Trip Wizard that we've been using now for about a year. I've talked about it before, but it recently came to my attention that this program will allow us to print out a map of our routes, essentially making the road atlas method obsolete. Yay for technology!
Our new year began in California, where we spent the early part of the winter. Our first two weeks were in Acton and Palm Desert, and then we headed to Quartzsite, Arizona, for our Alfa Roadrunner Club rally. We boondocked in the desert for a week, enjoying the good company of our Roadrunner friends and getting to know some of them better. Mark benefitted from a few tech talks, I enjoyed a craft or two with the ladies, and we both enjoyed many good conversations during the rally's daily social hour. It was windy and cold much of the time, but we had our winter coats and layered up as needed.
This week we're in Mesa, Arizona, at an Encore park called Mesa Spirit RV Resort. It's a beautiful park and really does earn the right to call itself a "resort." We have some good friends here in Mesa-- Jenny and Troy Hallstrom. I met Jenny while we were still in Minnesota, and shortly after we hit the road, they moved to the Phoenix area. It's always great to see them when we pass through. We spent the afternoon at their house on Sunday, ate bison burgers, and caught up on each others' news.
There always seems to be some misadventure to talk about, and this time is no different. About an hour into our drive from Quartzsite to Mesa, I happened to glance up and see that the window on our door had come loose again and was threatening to go crashing to the ground. "The window's falling out! The window's falling out!" I yelled to Mark. Very carefully, he pulled over to the shoulder and we taped it back into place with packing tape. We're thanking the good Lord that it didn't crash to the ground and break. Can you believe he didn't have any duct tape??? What man lets himself run out of duct tape?! (LOL...teasing of course.) But the packing tape held, and we have an appointment first thing Friday morning (the day we leave) with Auto Glass Boss here in Mesa to reinstall the glass for us.
The Itinerary page is sorely in need of an update. I'll be working on it over the next few days. Mark and I are having a bit of a disagreement about our travel plans as we head east again, but we'll square it away soon and put up at least an outline if we don't have all the details hammered out quite yet.
That's all I have for now. We wish you all a happy, healthy year to come.
Safe travels & God bless!
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| Beautiful Palm Desert, California |
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| A crash involving at least two trucks (one an Amazon truck whose load ended up scattered over the road) caused this traffic backup that stretched nearly ten miles. This was I-10 between Quartzsite and Phoenix. |
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| Making card holders with the ladies |
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| My card holder. Pretty good hand, right? |
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| This lovely lady (Kathleen) was teaching us origami |
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| This is my pathetic excuse for a crane. Behind is a star, a butterfly, and a lotus flower. Ha! I'll stick to crocheting. |
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| Somewhere between 40 and 50 motorhomes, mostly Alfas attended the rally this year. |
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| The social gathering place |
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| Hanging by a thread |
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| I did this the day we landed in Mesa. After spending $35 on a haircut not a month ago, I decided to cut it all off. Thought I'd better warn everybody before I see them. (To lessen the shock factor.) |
