Green camping

I'll bet you saw today's title and thought I was going to go 'environmental' on you, but that is where we are currently residing (Camp Verde), 'Verde' means 'green' in Spanish.  Actually, though, this life style tends to be easier on the environment.  We use way less water than we used to.....I wrote a week, or two ago how we averaged about 2.5 gallons of water consumption a day per person in our coach while boon docking (probably closer to 5 when our hose is attached to 'city' water), while those who live in 'sticks and bricks' homes average about 70-80 gallons of water consumption per day.  That, in itself, is about as green as you can get.  Since we consume less water per day we also generate less effluent per day.  Over all we consume less electricity even when we are attached to 'shore power', but when we dry camp, or 'boondock' we use the sun for our electricity.  We burn far less fuel each year than when we were in our workaday lives.....back then we each routinely drove over 20,000 miles per year (20,000 X 2 = 40,000).  Now, combined, we drive less than 15,000 miles per year (coach and VW together).

We've been in Camp Verde for just over 3 days now, so it was time on Real Saturday to drive into Camp Verde proper to see what was what.....TLE had made a run to the supermarket the day before, but this day we decided to do a proper exploring while paying a visit to the local Ace Hardware store to pick up a few items for projects I will be completing in the coming week.  I love shopping at Ace Hardware stores, because they remind me of the old neighborhood hardware stores I used to frequent when I was young, and without exception the staff in these stores is quite helpful, and easy to find.....unlike the 'big box' stores.

You can drive from one end of downtown Camp Verde in about 5 minutes if you hit the signals right.  Our first stop was the aforementioned Ace Hardware, then it was over to the weekly 'flea market' on the far end of town where I found and purchased an extra 'channel lock' wrench for $2!

Next it was time for lunch so we headed for the Verde Cafe on the other end of town to have 'breakfast for lunch'.  Yelp gives this eatery 4 stars on 16 reviews and we would have to agree.  I had the Western Scramble (scrambled eggs with an assortment of bell peppers, onions, etc, biscuits and gravy) and TLE stuck with her old favorite.....2 eggs over easy with hashbrowns and toast.

From there it was back to the other end of town to Basha's where there was a local youth car wash in progress.....they were raising money for summer camp.  I don't normally avail myself of these car washing opportunities, but the VW had a lot of mud on the tires, and wheel wells from our brief foray into the NFS land last Wednesday so since TLE needed to run into Basha's to get one item I had these kids wash the VW.  They did a fine job in 15 minutes and were finished just as TLE was in the checkout line.....excellent!

By the time we returned home my new trailer tail lights I ordered from Amazon on Thursday afternoon had arrived and I set about to install one of them to replace the now defunct right tail/brake light.  It took less than 15 minutes, and it worked the first try.

 It works!

Once that was done I took it easy the rest of the afternoon watching a couple of college basketball games while straightening up the trailer a tad, then about 6 pm it was time to fire up the Sea-B-Que one more time to grill some carne asada for taco Saturday.  In another 10 days, or so it will be time for 'March Madness' once again (the Annual NCAA college basketball tournament).

Sunday I will get back to replacing the rubber trim on the driver's side, and a few other small projects.

Thanks for stopping by!