Out of Quartzite -changing our view without an escrow

7:00 am - PST - Monday - 47º F, humidity 48%, wind 6 mph out of NNE......high, wispy clouds and lots and lots of 'contrails'.  First morning at Crossroads BLM Campground.....yes, we got in!  Went to bed without turning off the inverter as we wanted to record Elementary at 10 pm, and didn't wake up to turn it off until after 2:30 am, so the batteries were down to 83% when I woke up this morning.  On a very positive note it only got down to 60º F in the bedroom last night.....big, big improvement!

We were up by 6:45 am Sunday in anticipation of changing our view for the first time in 10 days.  By the time I finished writing and publishing my daily missive it was after 7:30 am, and time to put the last things away (flag pole, a few solar lights, etc.) and then breath life into the Detroit 6v92 once again.  We were on our way over to the dump stations on Kuehn a little after 8 am arriving at the facility around 8:20 am.....there were no long lines......there was no line at all........we paid our $15 for the dump, and $5 for fresh water then proceeded over to the dump station.  Once that was done we made a circle driving back to where the propane station was to get our propane tank topped off.......we took on 36 gallons (filled up 2.5 months ago) at $2.14/gallon.

We found ourselves "slipping the surly bonds" of the Quartzite vortex a little after 9 am Mountain Time.....it was then I remembered our goal was Crossroads BLM Campground on the California side of the Colorado River.....so it was really just after 8 am at our destination location.  After a short 40 minute drive we arrived at our initial destination......the Blue Water Casino in Parker.....since Crossroads is a first come first served campground we did not want to drive the Newell the additional 10 miles there only to find out there were no sites available.  We hadn't put the VW in the trailer since it was only 36 miles to Parker.  Once we had the Newell parked we jumped in the VW and headed over to the California side of the CR and Crossroads BLM Campground.......as soon as we turned off the road we could see there were at least 4 spots available on the large pad just above the river.....all the sites along the river were taken as one might imagine......nonetheless, we were ecstatic!  I spoke with the on site camphost (Donna) who said I could register for one of the available sites (#22 in this case) leave a couple of chairs and then go get the Newell, so that is what we did.  Our cost with the Senior discount (Golden Age Passport card) is $2.50/day!  Our cost for 5 nights is $12.50.....you can't beat that with a stick!  We have a defined site with a picnic table, and there is a very nice pit toilet, and, of course, a nice view of the Colorado River.......

 Enjoying the CR ambiance

 Getting set up for 5 days

 Nice view looking from the river westward

On our way back to pick up the Newell we stopped off at the local Safeway supermarket to replenish our food stores, and then picked up the Newell and headed back to Crossroads.....by the time we arrived and were set up it was sometime after noon.  We are not able to orient the coach to face either the east, or west based on this campground's configuration.....we are facing roughly northwest.  As you can see in the picture below we have our panels facing southeast, which is not ideal, but one bonus is our batteries began charging at 7 am this morning instead of closer to 9 am, so we'll see how they progress during the day.

I took my time throughout the afternoon getting our new awning mats down, new chairs out, tilting the solar panels, getting out the Sea-B-Que to grill some filets later, getting out the portable firepit for a future fire, or two, etc.  Since we are just back over the California border and are in PST (Pacific Standard Time) the sun goes down one hour earlier, and rises one hour earlier than on the Arizona side.......we caught a nice view of the crescent moon just after sundown Sunday.......

Crescent moon

To bring a little perspective to our winter experience here in the Arizona/California deserts here is a picture of Melba Drive a little south of the TVC (Tahoe Valley Campground) entrance taken just a day, or two ago by a friend......looks like snowfall is back to normal in the Tahoe Basin......

Melba Drive south of the TVC entrance....WOW!

......as I have oft written.....it is wonderful to be able to change our view without going through escrow!

We watched a couple of episodes of Sherlock on Netflix (yes the Verizon broadband is very good here) and were in bed before 10 pm.......thanks for stopping by!