Our dry camp spot....on solar baby!

7am - Monday, February 6th - Last morning in Indio

Nothing like sunrises in the desert! In a few hours we will pull up anchor again and merge on to I-10 going southeast into Arizona. It has been a week since we departed Rancho Jurupa, and somehow we have not managed to escape the vortex of Southern California, but today, barring an act of God, we should breach the Arizona border before Noon.

We had a wonderful 18 mile trike ride yesterday over to Palm Desert to a small Mexican restaurant for breakfast. The weather was perfect.....light breeze and 74 degrees. Was really great to get out on the trikes and do some distance!

Need to make some small alterations to the trailer interior storage before we put the 'Bird back in position to travel. Will post more later today after we are on the road!

10:30pm - Monday, February 6th

At last we pulled up anchor at around 11am and headed down to the local ARCO to put $200 of diesel in the tank to get us into Arizona where everything is less expensive. We got on I-10 about Noon and set our sights on the Arizona border. We just don't feel like we have "left" anywhere yet because until today we have been within an hour of our home. Our goal today was Mesa, AZ...about 265 miles southeast. Around 2:54pm we approached the Colorado River which is the dividing line between California and Arizona, and wondered if we could break free of the Southern California vortex and bust through the force field that thus far had kept us from really being on the road. Now that we have crossed that border we "feel" like we are finally underway.

Of course Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time....thank God, but escaping the nutty State of California means you have to give up something....that something was one hour of time....it was suddenly 3:54pm, not 2:54pm! As darkness approached I noticed the running lights on the trailer were not coming on, so we pulled off the interstate at exit 94 and checked to see what could be wrong. It turns out that the "fix" I did to get the brake lights on the trailer working nullifies the running lights when they are turned on, so I had to cut that splice in order to have the running lights come on. There appear to be several other issues that have developed today with our exterior lights that will have to be resolved tomorrow before we can haul anchor again.

A positive today was that since I replaced the air filter (you remember, that big behemoth!) I have regained power that had been slowly disappearing over the last year....apparently the old air filter was more clogged up than it appeared. Now that the Detroit Diesel is breathing better she is running like a thoroughbred again!

We will be here at our good friend's, Tom and Darlene, home in Mesa, AZ for about 5 days while we install the new refer, and diagnose the wiring issues that have developed in the last week, or so. With Tom's expertise I am sure we will figure it out quickly!

Thanks for stopping by!