A change in programming.......

7:29 am - Saturday - March 7th - Wittmann, AZ - 51° F, 59% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the northeast......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 78° F.

Tom and Darlene, our hosts, own a cabin in northern Arizona just south of Flagstaff at an elevation of just over 7,000' elevation.  On Friday they invited TLE and I to drive up with them to inspect some work that is being done at the cabin by a contractor, and to help them load some tree trimmings onto a trailer to haul to the local dump, or 'slash pit'.  It's about a 2.5 hour drive each way so it appeared to us to be an all day adventure, and we accepted.  We departed 'Newell House' just before 9 am, and after a nice drive including a stop for a snack in Camp Verde we arrived just before 12 pm.

The last time we visited their cabin was back in August of 2009 on our way home from Creede, CO where we had attended a Newell Gurus rally with Tom and Darlene.  At that time the cabin was in the process of being remodeled, but things had kind of stalled.  Fast forward to 2020, and the cabin remodel is almost done now.....just a new deck remains to be finished.  The kitchen (below) has been completely gutted, and redone......

.....and looks so modern!  At any rate, after taking a tour of the new cabin interior......

One of the remodeled bedrooms

......we headed outside to begin loading three piles of oak tree branches onto a trailer Tom had borrowed from a neighbor.  We then hauled the debris to the local dump, unloaded it by hand, and then returned the trailer to the neighbor before heading back home a little after 5 pm.  It was a long day, but we enjoyed seeing the results of the cabin remodel, and helping our friends clear their yard of the oak tree branches.  

I managed to get a few pictures of sunset as it was happening a little north of the Sunset Point Rest Area.......

......we arrived home just after 7:30 pm tired, but full of good memories from a good day spent with good friends.

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The setup.......

7:15 am - Friday - March 6th - Wittmann, AZ - 56° F, 36% humidity, wind 10 mph out of the east by northeast.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 82° F.  The view this morning......↴

Another nice Wittmann sunrise

I spent most of Thursday setting up for our one month stay here in Wittmann, AZ......

....first up was to remove the Beetle from the trailer, drag out our artificial turf lawn, then set up our sun screen, and add a couple of chairs.....once again we have our 'lido deck'.  The next thing on my setup list was to separate the trailer from the Newell via the 'Trailer Valet' so there is no need to step over the tongue of the trailer every time I wish to get to the other side.....I almost always nick myself, or get grease on my pants.  I pulled out a hose and sprayed all the dirt, and dust off the rear of the Newell, and off the entire trailer from our 1 mile drive into our friend's property on the dirt road.....

.....then there was the need to move the stuff from the front of the trailer in front of the bikes, and remove the bikes from under the workbench followed closely by the setting up of a work table to prepare for the installation of our new Girard Tankless water heater.....

.....I worked a little on creating a frame for the tankless water heater, and began to pull out my tools.  I did all this over many hours with the appropriate breaks here and there.  Just as I was finishing with the setup tasks the sun began to dip below the western horizon one more time.....

....thanks for stopping by!

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State lines......

7:23 am - Thursday - March 5th - Wittmann, AZ - 48° F, 84% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the north by northwest.......partly cloudy skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  The view this morning........↴

 Wittmann, AZ 2020

I was up by 7 am Wednesday morning, turned on the Kohler 7.4 kw generator, and then the block heater.  Our goal was to be on the road headed for Wittmann, AZ by 8 am, and I only had to put away our entry step so not a lot of preparation involved prior to rolling our wheels.  While I composed my daily missive the engine was being warmed by our 10 amp block heater, so when I finished it was just a matter of lighting the fires in the big DD 6v92.  We were rolling eastward on I-8 by 8:10 am, so not too bad, and by 8:15 we had crossed a state border for the first time in almost a year.....hello Arizona!

Our first stop of the day was at a Walmart Super Center on the east side of Yuma so TLE could pick up a few items.  While she shopped I ate breakfast, and cleaned the front windshield, which had picked up a few bug splatters on our way into Winterhaven.  By the time I finished she had returned, and after putting away the groceries we were once again on our way eastward.  The terrain between Winterhaven, CA and Wittmann, AZ seems mostly flat with a couple of 1 mile climbs, but we gained almost 1,400' elevation over the distance.  At any rate, the drive was easy, and uneventful.  In Gila Bend we transitioned from I-8 to Highway 85 which connects I-8 with I-10.  We made one stop at a rest stop about 10 miles from Gila Bend.  We arrived at our Tom and Darlene's home around 12:45 pm, were quickly parked in our usual spot, and once again connected to utilities after a month of boondocking.....

 The umbilical cord is once again connected

 Newell House

Ready for month of  projects

......we are now just one month away from being joined by Glenn and Laureen, plus their 1984 Newell Classic, and beginning our epic, summer long Alaska journey.  I have a water heater to replace, a dump valve to replace/repair, I want to get our tachometer working again, as well as the gray and fresh water gauges working again, which tell us how much fluid we have in each.  A lot to do, but the perfect place in which to accomplish it all.

Thanks for stopping by!

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La Dentista........

7:30 am - Wednesday - March 4th - Winterhaven, CA - 52° F, 83% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the north by northeast.  Clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 77° F, which we will not see as we roll our wheels in 30 minutes!

Usually when we have dentist appointments in Los Algodones we drive the Beetle down to the border parking lot (operated by the Quechan Casino), pay $6 to park, and then walk to Dr. Ureña's office, which is about 4 blocks.  This time TLE thought to ask the nice lady at the front desk if they had a shuttle bus making runs from the Casino to the border, and she said "Yes!".  My appointment was for 11 am Arizona time, so we picked up the 9:45 am shuttle (arrived to pick us up around 10:05 am) for $1/person.  TLE wanted to order some prescription, polarized sunglasses at Best Optical, and we were there by 10:15 am after a brisk two block walk.  Once she had placed her order, she asked how soon we would have them, and the cashier said by 2 pm.  We arrived at Dr. Ureña's office by 10:30 am......

....one of the things I appreciate about her dental office is that you are usually called into the back room within a few minutes of your actual appointment time, and they get right to work.  I was done with my 'DEEP cleaning' by 12 pm, paid the tab, and we were on our way down to the Rancho Cafe, which is about 1/2 block from Best Optical to get a Mocha Frappuccino (for moi), and a Cappuccino Frapé for TLE.  They have free WiFi, and that is the code at the bottom of their cash register sign......

....Rancho Cafe is in a courtyard off the street, and is a very nice place to hang out while you are waiting for that which you may find yourself waiting.  We sat there for an hour before TLE decided to walk over to Best Optical and see if they had gotten her glasses in early.....they had not, so we waited another half hour before walking back, and this time they had the glasses 1/2 hour early!  By the time we got to the border crossing to reenter the USA the line was all the way back to the pond.....about 1/16th of a mile long.  Fortunately the computers were running fast this day and we were showing our US Passports and back in the USA 30 minutes later....not too bad!

By the time we exited the border crossing we knew we had missed the shuttle back to the Quechan Casino by 30 minutes so we decided on the spot to just walk the 1.7 miles back to the Newell....it took us exactly 30 minutes, and we needed the walk anyway.

I spent the rest of the afternoon recuperating from my deep cleaning.  By the time we arrived home (3 pm) the novacaine had worn off and I was beginning to feel the effects of the DEEP cleaning, so I took some Tylenol, and then took a nap.

I did not tilt up the solar panels for our brief two night stay at the Quechan Casino, but our batteries got back to 96% from a low of 82% in the morning anyway.  Right now as I write our Kohler 7.5 kw generator is running the block heater, and our battery charger.  In about 10 minutes we turn over the big Detroit Diesel 6v92 and begin our eastward run to Wittmann, AZ.

'Pre-flight' check list

One last thing.....many of you know I keep a 'white board' on my steering wheel with 'pre-flight' stuff I need to do before rolling our wheels each time, or before we dry camp.  The left side under 'Travel' is what I do before we roll our wheels.  The right side under 'Dry Camp' is what I do to set up after we park in a dry camping, or boondock site.  It's been a while since I wiped it clean and updated it, but I finally did a few days ago.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Until next time, part two

7:45 am - Tuesday - March 3rd - Winterhaven, CA - 51° F, 42% humidity, wind 9 mph out of the north.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 80° F.  The view this morning......↴

Our Jello plan for Monday morning was to haul anchor by 11 am at the latest, and be rolling south to Winterhaven, CA for my dental appointment in Los Algodones, Mexico Tuesday morning.  While I wrote my latest missive, and stowed away the rest of our 'stuff' TLE drove into Borrego Springs to do one more wash.....we didn't have a lot to wash, but she had a lot of tokens left over, which would have no value to us anywhere else.  By the time she returned at 8:30 am I had stowed the solar panels, put away the portable fireplace, and turned on the big Kohler 7.5 kilowatt genset to run the block heater for 30 minutes.  We haven't used her in a while, but will be on our trip to and from Alaska, so it seemed like time to give her some exercise.  As always, she purred like a kitten, and did her job.

By 9:15 we had dropped the trailer upon our 13,000 lb. hitch, pulled forward 45' to bring the rear of the trailer even with our artificial turf which we had folded the night prior.  Within minutes we had both the turf, and VW inserted, and were saying our 'until next times' to Tom and Martha Ann.  They are now the sole possessors of our Anza Borrego oasis.

Our first stop was 20 miles down S-22 to the ARCO Travel Center where we dumped our rather amply loaded waste tanks, took on 120 gallons of fresh water, dump 10 days worth of trash, and finally took on 24.2 gallons of propane at $2.44/gallon.  All of that took the better part of an hour, so when we finally merged onto Highway 86 southbound it was just 10:55 am.

The remainder of the 120 miles into Winterhaven was idyllic and, very importantly, uneventful.  We arrived at the 'Q' (Quechan Casino) at 1:15 pm California time, but we are so close to Arizona our phones immediately changed over to Arizona time, 2:15 pm, meaning we have essentially already gone through DST one week in advance.  By next Sunday Arizona and California will be on the same time once again......

The 'Q'

.....we quickly found a parking spot in the large RV lot behind the casino, and then walked into the Casino to pay for two nights.  The first time we were here 4 years ago we paid $3 for three days.  The last time we were here they were not charging anything.  It is now $10/night, or $25 for three nights.  Predictably this fee increase has thinned out the dry camping herd, and there is much more room to maneuver around in the parking lot.   You have to have a member, or player card before you can pay, which I already had from our first visit here.  Once we paid for our stay we walked over to the food court to get a snack....neither of us had eaten breakfast!  By the time we began our walk back to the Newell we saw this coming fast on the horizon.....

.....looks ominous, right?  Well it was, and it became a good old fashioned 'toad strangler' within minutes.......

.....there was lightning, thunder, and torrential rain for about 30 minutes when it settled into a nice downpour for another hour......

.....within 10 minutes of the rain stopping the ground seemed totally dry once again, and we were treated to a nice sunset.......

.....TLE made one of my favorite meals, Chicken Alfredo, for dinner while we settled into our new view for the next two days. So, we have successfully repositioned ourselves to Winterhaven for a couple of days, then on to Wittmann, AZ for a month with our friends Tom and Darlene, and a lot of Newell projects to accomplish!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Until next time....

7:00 am - Monday - March 2nd - Borrego Springs, CA - 45° F, 65% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the north by northwest.......forecast high today is 67° F.  The view this morning, and also the last morning view in the Anza Borrego Desert this time around......↴

We slowly drifted into a conscious state Sunday morning as the curtains in the bedroom began to take on that all too familiar orange glow as the rising sun sent its warm rays westward.  The forecast for Sunday had high winds beginning around 10 am, so Nick and Kate were busy getting ready to roll their wheels back to their workaday lives in order to beat the wind prediction.  A little after 8 am we had our 'until next time' hugs and wished them safe travels home......

.....their visit was such a brief interlude it seemed we had barely gotten started, but that is the life of a vagabond......always saying 'until next time'.

The winds did come as prophesied by the weather prognosticators, and with some force.  For the first time since we arrived February 4th the wind blew our turf around quite a bit.  I spent time before the winds arrived cleaning all of the passenger side windows, and doing some more organizing in the trailer in advance of VW insertion Monday morning, and by 10 am was satisfied with my progress....not much left to do Monday morning.

TLE and I spent the bulk of our day reading while the Newell was buffeted about by the winds out of the west.   Our current neighbors, Tom and Martha Ann, invited us over around 5 pm for cocktails, and snacks.  We had wanted to have one last parting sunset fire, but the winds precluded that, so we retired inside their travel trailer.  They are from Colorado near the 
Telluride area, and as often happens, have invited us to visit them in our travels.  I always tell people who extend invitations that we will show up some day, so be prepared.  We talked endlessly for almost 2 hours before the wonderful gin and tonics served by Martha Ann took their toll......

....and we headed back to the Newell.  They are both around our age, have visited many of the same places in the southwest we love, so meeting them has been a blessing.  We look forward to connecting with them again down the road.

After a short nap I read until after 9 pm before calling it a day....our final day in the Anza Borrego this time around.....thanks for stopping by!

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Family is everything.......

7:08 am - Sunday - March 1st - Borrego Springs, CA - 60° F, 44% humidity, wind 11 mph out of the north by northwest......actually, right here it is CALM.....no wind whatsoever, so go figure.....I'm not complaining....it was very windy all last night until about 3 am this morning when it just stopped.  Forecast high for today is 67° F.

It was a little breezy first thing Saturday morning, however, the winds stayed away until late morning, but they did come.  We began our day around 9 am driving down to Calcite Road to hike the slot canyon with our kids and grand kids.  We've made this hike several times over the past few years, but it never gets old, especially when you are taking someone there for the first time.......

 At the entrance

 Getting narrower

 Nick and Charlie clowning around

 Getting very narrow

 Back at the entrance

....of course with any first time visit to Borrego Springs one must be introduced to Galleta Meadows, and the metal sculptures.......

.....and for sure you must see the 'Sand Serpent'.....

 Everyone says I have a big head.....finally found someone with a bigger one

 Selfie shenanigans in the car

.....after Galleta Meadows we ventured into town to Big Horn Fudge for some ice cream....by this time it was after 1 pm, and the winds had arrived in full force, so no alfresco dining this day.  The ice cream was the perfect interlude before heading home to get out of the wind, and take a nap.

We had planned to get 'take out' in town and bring it home for dinner outdoors, but the winds put a kibosh on those plans.  Instead we drove into town around 4:15 pm for an early dinner at Kesling's Kitchen (Yelp gives them 4 stars on over 200 reviews) for some flatbread pizza, which is their specialty, and is it ever special....wish I had taken a picture of mine!  The also have numerous beers on tap, which is always a bonus.

They have an ample selection of draft and bottled brews

We were home just before 6 pm, and caught a little bit of sunset magic.....not much, but just enough.......

.....the winds were even more ferocious when we returned so we all retired to our individual 'homes' for the evening.  The wind continued to howl until around 3 am this morning, but as I write it is dead CALM.

We didn't get to do everything I wanted to do, but I think it was just enough for Nick, Kate, Charlie and Jolene.  Now they have been introduced to the magic that is the Anza Borrego Desert, and I hope they will return many times to continue exploring every nook and cranny of this amazing place.  We so loved having them visit for the weekend, and even though weather conditions were not optimal, we all had a wonderful time together.....family is everything!

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!