QUARTZSITE

Being raised as a kid in the mining towns along the Mogollon Rim, I had been to Quartzsite Arizona before. There wasn’t much there so many years ago. He, he, times change, and Quartzsite is no exception ! This Winter we are showing trailers, 2014 models, for Oliver Travel Trailers out of Hohenwald Tennessee, at the Dessert Gardens Show Grounds here in “Q”. Here is a look down the midway.

Our show site is right on the corner and many Rver’s stop in for a look each day.

 

This was an entire family group, most of them on ATV’s. “Q” is ATV friendly and you can ride them anywhere.

This is a look at our show site in the shade of a Palo Verde Tree.

TIMES

Times were hard in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas. The old timers had a saying that was often quoted around the whittlin’ and spittin’ benches in front of the Hatfield stores. It went like this, “ you can hear nearly anything in these here mountains, except meat a’ fryin’ er’ money a jinglin’”.

For years Mountain family’s had went to work on jobs way off somewhere. Logging , pipeline, ect., were popular and my Dad was a pipeline welder, until he heard about a job out in Arizona in a Copper mine. We moved out there and discovered that it wasn’t sand dessert as we had imagined, but was high Sonoran Dessert, just below the Mogollon Rim.

The family car was a old gray ford fastback sedan that had been wrecked, repaired and re painted. It had a tendency to run hot if loaded heavy and ran very fast. Now, by fast, I mean fifty miles per hour or so. There were few paved roads between the mining town and Grandma’s house in Arkansas, so as we learned about a new one, we would re route to take advantage of it. Vacation time was a big thing and it was planned and re planned, over and over.

 

Route 66 was a marvelous thing back then ! We would leave the mining town in the cool of the evening. Then cross the San Carlos Apache reservation and go through the Salt River canyon. We would be carrying heavy canvas water bags on the bumper for when the car ran hot on the long hard climb out of the canyon. Gasoline was very inexpensive and every little wide spot in the road had gas pumps and a general store.

Arriving back in the Ouachita’s was a wonderful thing ! We would just absolutely soak in all the old familiar sights, sounds and smells. The pole yard’s rich pine scent was one in particular.

Times may have been hard in the Ouachita Mountains, but there was folks there that had compassion for each other, like no other place we knew of.

ANNUAL

At about New Year’s Eve/Day, we break out those battery’s that we have found on post CHRISTmas sale, and commence our annual ritual. It is time to replace the battery’s in our detectors as well as test each device. In addition to smoke and carbon monoxide detector’s, we have temperature read out’s for the outside, inside and basement. Here is a look at some devices that now have new battery’s.

The Atomic clock on the left, reads the inside and outside temps, and the LL Bean on the right reads the basement temperature. That is ten battery’s, 6 AA’s and 4 AAA’s, for just those things. Then there is the other safety sensor’s, they take  nine volt battery’s. Here they are.

 

Smoke and Carbon Monoxide detectors.

But wait, we aren’t quite through just yet ! There is the propane detector.

And, the other remote read out in the office slide out.

Why burn through all those battery’s, one might ask. Simply put, it is for safety. Each device is independently powered from it’s own source. Meaning that they can still function with everything else totally dead, like for instance, the solar battery bank.

That isn’t a sensor that is draped around the basement temp receiver, it is a USB LED light to make the laptop keyboard easier to see when we are off the grid.

Quite a New Years Eve party we’re having here in the 5er ! Getting down with all these serious battery change outs ! I’ll bet we don’t make it till’ midnight to see the Ball Drop ! Happy New Year every one !

GINNING

Since our release at Amazon’s SDF-1 facility in Campbellsville Kentucky, we have been ginning around a t a good clip ! We had a storm that night and then heard later on the weather channel that it been a near miss by a tornado ! It got us up out of a fatigue driven sleep when a limb hit our air conditioning cover on the roof, breaking it.

The next day we slept in a bit, then finished rounding up our plunder and leaving out for Hohenwald Tennessee. Overnighting on the Oliver Travel Trailer’s Factory Parking lot. Up early the next morning for a whirlwind tour of the plant with lots of photo opportunity’s.

Driving late that night, we pulled into the Kinfolk’s driveway in Arkansas.

The next morning it’s up early for driver’s license renewal, oil changes and just on and on.

New air conditioner cover in place. Curt’s Tire and RV had the cheapest one available. Today things slowed down enough, after a week, that I remembered, “oh geeze I didn’t Blog lately !” ! It’s time to slow down a little and get a cup of coffee with a slice of Betty’s fresh Apple pie.

Hey ! Geeze ! Is that Apple pie winking at me ?

MARK

While in Lebanon, we went by the Maker’s Mark distillery. Here are some more “ yep, they too were closed “ photos.

We should have realized we were a bit early when we took this photo.

The sun is still behind the hill.

Stacked limestone fence on the road into the distillery.

Can you see the “SEE ROCK CITY” sign on the barn in the background ?

Covered foot bridge over Whiskey Creek.

Antique fire truck decked out for CHRISTmas. How about that cool old gas pump ?

COFFEE

It is our regularly scheduled day off at Amazon’s SDF-1 facility. It is late in the peak season and everyone is beginning to look a bit tired. We slept in this morning, which is quite a luxury for us, because our normal work day begins at 0430 hrs.

As the coffee pot percolates and the news channel on the Tv is mindlessly jabbering as the “talking head” rattles on ceaselessly about the weather, we look out of the office slide window, enjoying it. It has been cold for long enough that the ground temperature is low, so the snow that is wafting down, will accumulate.

As I type, Betty sets a cup of steaming coffee in front of me.

At first sip, I note that the ground is covering quite rapidly with snow.

Vegetating in Campbellsville !

Tank

To Tank or not to tank, cold weather campers must consider ! Camping in cold weather has it’s own set of considerations and water freezing up can be a camping trip spoiler. We do it a couple of different ways.

Way #1. Our home made freeze proof water hose. It works well, but in some campgrounds it just isn’t long enough. Then when it is long enough to reach, it has it’s own set of problems, such as the campground’s side of the freeze proof faucet,  can freeze, so you have to freeze proof it also, ect, ect..

Way #2. The way we are doing it here in Kentucky at the Green River Lake State Park. Here is a look at the campground’s freeze proof faucet.

Though it is freezing outside, note the snow on the ground, this faucet automatically drains back down below ground level so it can’t freeze.

We keep the hose drained on a gradual incline, as in this photo.

To make sure the hose drains, the hose is loosened like this photo.

Note the lady bugs seeking the small warm place near the water inlet. There is a check valve out of sight inside that keeps the water from coming all the way up to the fitting where it could freeze.

The city water system is separated from the water pump and tank by another check valve, so here is how we fill the tank from our outside kitchen sink faucet.

Here is how the kitchen faucet looks before the hose is hooked up.

That short coiled fill hose is kept drained and at the ready in the outside kitchen sink.

In this photo the hose is on a incline to aid in draining and the end is off the ground so it can’t freeze to the ground.

It is about a ten minute process to hook up, fill the tank, then re stow the hose.