Exploring

Thank you for the comments and suggestions for making our boondocking life easier and more efficient. There are some excellent ideas in the comments we received, and we appreciate them!

This afternoon we all jumped into the Saturn for a trip to Quartzsite.  First was a stop at the transfer station to dump our trash.  Then we stopped at a local cafe for a light lunch. 

After lunch, we took a drive south on Highway 95 to see if there might be a spot near the Kofa Mountains that would be another option for boondocking.

This is one of the views from the area we found:

 

The pictures don’t really capture the dramatic scenery of these mountains!

We did find a nice level, large area where Janna and Mike’s coach, plus ours, would have plenty of space around it.  I got a little teasing when I mentioned that I can hear a little highway noise from there, after being uncertain about the whole desert camping idea.  I just smiled and said that I’m a fast learner!  We may move down there next week to go exploring at some places nearby.

After our exploration of the area, we started back towards our little desert home near Bouse.  We made a couple more stops in Quartzsite, one for gas for Janna & Mike’s generator, and another to fill up our water jugs.  Mike has a system rigged where he can pump water from five gallon jugs into his onboard water tank.  They loaned us a couple of their jugs, and we have 2 of our own, so we were able to get 20 gallons of water, plus a couple of gallons of reverse osmosis water for drinking.  When we got back home, Mike set up his pump and hoses at our coach and pumped 20 gallons into our fresh water tank.  That will give us about 2 or more additional days before we’ll have to dump and take on more water. 

One of the comments we received was that typical RV level gauges are often not accurate.  We found that was the case on our coach before we had “See-Level” gauges installed last year.  The level sensors are located on the outside of the tanks on the opposite side of the coach from the fill and dump valves.  The read-outs are in percentages on our inside control panel.  We have a lot of confidence in the accuracy of the readings, but of course, we still pay close attention.

With all of that accomplished, next on the agenda was happy hour and relaxing.  Some other friends of Janna and Mike’s arrived at a Bouse campground yesterday, and today, they were planning to come for happy hour and dinner.  Unfortunately, Beryl was not feeling well enough to join us, so her husband, Ainslie, came for a little while for happy hour, and then went back to his place.  We hope Beryl will feel well enough to join us tomorrow.