Hanging around Yuma…

I’d arrived in Yuma just in time to enjoy balmy weather…if you can characterize any weather in a desert area to be ‘balmy’. It was nice though. Even so, I did need to run my electric space heaters overnight and in the morning for a while to take the chill off. The snow I’d passed on my way down was enough to prove that I’d made the right choice in coming.

And I paid for 30 nights so as the month passed, it got warmer and warmer. Eventually, I was turning on my heat pump basement A/C for a couple hours per day. Which brought up a problem. It was making much more noise then I was use too. And the neighbors behind me started to complain, I told them there wasn’t much I could do. Eventually they complained to the RV park owner and she came out to complain to me. And that’s when it occurred to me that I could switch to 30 amp service so only one A/C compressor out of the two that run on 50 amp service would turn on. Which meant it would be a tad quieter. So I did that and spent the rest of my stay in Yuma on 30 amp service. Not really a big deal, expect I had to be careful and not run the MW and toaster or coffee pot at the same time for fear of popping the breaker.

But aside from that, there was some stuff to do while I was here in Yuma, one of them was to head downtown and enjoy the flea market they set up here on a regular basis. It’s intended to get people to come downtown and it works, mostly.

I’ve tried a couple of their brews in the past but they’re not very good. But the food is great.

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Hello 2019…

It was shaping up to be a great upcoming year, as in late 2018 I’d brought home a rescue cat and we were getting along fine, I’d had a hernia repaired and that seemed to go well, my RV was running well, and I was enjoying my membership in the Preferred RV Resort in Pahrump, Nevada. With all that going on or accomplished, it seemed the year would be great. And here’s a shot of my 4 yo tabby I’m calling Kwnn (short for Kat With No Name) and pronounced as Kwan. She had the name Blackie when I got her but it doesn’t suit her.

And here’s the new weather station I installed. The picture doesn’t do it justice as IRL it’s brightly colored. I can see what the temp is outside from the wireless remote which is what I got it for.

And I’ve taken up making my own fries lately. Yum.

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Visits to Historical Places around Pahrump…

If you’ve looked at a map of the area around Pahrump, you know that Pahrump is very near the historical Goldfield (covered last time on this blog), near Armagosa Valley (where that Opera house is), near the ghost town of Rhyolite, near Beatty, and Death Valley. And of course near Las Vegas.

My brother had taken geology classes in college many years ago and the geology is so interesting in this area that I invited him to bring any books he had on the geology of the area or in general and come on over to visit. He lives 90 miles north of Los Angeles so it’s only a 3 hour drive for him, heh.

It’s very interesting to me to drive through these ancient valleys and see all the exposed strata layered along the hillsides, the uplifts, and the escarpments here and there. All very interesting. And so we planned an excursion around the area for a day. Everything we visited is within a day’s travel of Pahrump.

First stop was a visit to Rhyolite. A famous ghost town that only existed for a few years after a mineral strike. It blossomed and died.

First a couple shots of the road as we head to Rhyolite. And then the glass bottle home of one of the early miners in the town. It’s being restored. There are caretakers here in Rhyolite who stay here year round I guess, but in the 3 visits I’ve made here, I’ve never seen one of them. Guess they aren’t very sociable.

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More RV Repair articles…

After many hours of work I’ve finished writing a couple more articles for the RV repair section of the blog.

My Coleman heat pump system started to make noises a few months ago and it had gotten so loud neighbors complained. That called for either repair or maintenance so I removed it from it’s basement compartment and performed maintenance on it, and then back in August ’18 I had a road accident, the side of the RV got scratched and one of the basement doors bent so the complexity of getting the damaged door changed prompted an article. So, here they are…enjoy!

  1. Coleman Mach 6535a heat pump maintenance…
  2. Body Work…Replacing damaged battery compartment door…

And thanks for visiting.

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Visiting Goldfield and beyond…

I’d paid for 3 nights here in Goldfield and that’s plenty. A longer stay wouldn’t be very interesting at this time because the town is a work in progress. There are several historical buildings that aren’t open to the public yet so all you get to see are the exteriors. I’m disappointed that the old hotel is still not open to tourists as that promises to be spectacular. What I read about it is that the woodwork: staircases, counters, bookcases, tables, etc., and nearly all the furniture in the hotel is the original stuff! Once it’s all polished, reupholstered and what not, it should be spectacular.

And here’s some shots as I drove around town. This is pretty much a destitute looking area but the few residents left in the area are trying to make it a tourist destination. I don’t think I saw a new house anywhere so it’s looking like it’ll be difficult to keep the place from eventually becoming a ghost town.

I did find this saloon at the edge of downtown where my random rambling in the car had taken me. Had a cherry coke while I watched the ancient dog try to keep himself in the shaft of sunlight coming through the dusty and distorted window pane. Meanwhile, whenever he got comfortable, he’d drool and wet himself, leaving a couple small puddles for the bartender to clean up each time.

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New RV repair post…

Those who follow my blog for the RV repair advice can find my newest repair at this link: https://chaos.goblinbox.com/rv-repair-section-2/rv-repair-section-2004-winnebago-journey-dl/c-engine-2/broken-serpentine-belt/

Thanks for reading!

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Hangin’ Around Hines…

I have come to appreciate the Burns-Hines area quite a bit. The town does have a lot of empty stores or they are less modern then you might expect, but the town could be making a comeback. At least I think it might.

Most of the businesses are on this main Burns street. Go a couple miles towards Hines and there’s a group of big box stores where I do my shopping. The area right between Burns and Hines seems to be where all the business activity is now. In downtown though, there are a couple healthy businesses.

After doing my shopping, it’s back to the RV park in Hines. I like sitting in the shade like an old dude, conversing with my peers, enjoying the weather.

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After Soap Lake…

After the nice 3 days and nights at soap lake, it was time to continue on down into Oregon. Some of you might remember that I have a ‘home base’ in Burns Oregon regarding my VA medical care. I’m required to show up at least once per year for a check up which is basically to ascertain whether or not the meds I’m taking are still appropriate.

Last year they started doing a video visit with a new doctor instead of an in person visit with a PA (physician’s assistant). The doctor I don’t care for. She prescribed a nasty drug that according to the side effects promotes prostate cancer in men my age with my prostate condition. The drug gave me burning urine and exacerbated my condition as soon as I started taking it so I stopped after 5 days as the symptoms were getting much worse. WTF was she thinking!!?? So I’ll be asking for a different physician my next check up.

Anyway, back to travel. Here’s a look at eastern Washington south of Dry Falls. It’s mostly sagebrush in this area north of Pasco. I grew up in Kennewick, right across the Columbia River from Pasco. After passing through Kennewick, the freeway heads straight for Umatilla Oregon where I again cross over the Columbia. After an hour of driving through dry and rolling hills I entered the Umatilla National Forest. Where you can see some fire damage.

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Marblemount and beyond…

Marblemount is tiny with the last census listing just 203 population as of 2010. It’s pretty obvious while touring the town that it’s income is derived mainly from people passing through or staying at the two nearby RV parks. Nearly always in the spring summer and fall.

It’s funny that there’s so many overpriced restaurants there in town. While James was with me, there was a Seahawks game on and we ran into town and had dinner at one of them while watching the game. Nice big flat screen. I think is was a 55″. Big anyway. We lost.

After the game, headed back to the RV park and lounged around. Moved the RV 5 spaces closer to the office building as the tree directly south of our first spot just trashed the satellite signal. After moving, got a good DTV, and the Wifi improved slightly. Even though I could see the external antenna, and pointed my high gain antenna at it, the Wifi still sucked.

Here’s a look at the park. This is the main road in. You can just make out my RV with the DTV antenna up there in the distance. This was the 3rd spot I moved to to get both DTV and a better Wifi signal.

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On to Marblemount, WA

After the visit to the Big Bottom Festival, James and I decided to just head north.

I had already been in contact with the insurance adjuster guy via email and he wasn’t too enthused about driving from Tacoma clear over to Randle so he and I came up with a plan. Since I wanted to head up north anyway, to escape the heat, (it is August in this timeline), I did some searching online and decided that heading west from Randle over to I-5, stopping in Tacoma to meet with the insurance guy, and then heading up through Seattle, turning east off the freeway would make for an interesting trip. And the best part was we could do this in one day. My goal was to escape the heat by heading north and staying in the Cascades and either I had to backtrack the way I’d come, or find a new destination. And I found googleing a few RV parks in the forested Cascades north of Tacoma and Seattle that would be cooler and should be nice places to stay. Here’s a link to a map showing both Randle and Marblemount which I decided was going to be my destination. Oh, and Tacoma and Seattle are on it too. Map of Randle to Marblemount…

Only a 4 hour drive from where I was to Marblemount which should give plenty of wiggle room for traffic and meeting the insurance guy. I also did a search and found a couple three RV parks along the freeway on the route where we could stay if it took us too long. But those looked embedded in urban areas, I wanted to be in more rural areas. Less population density. Hopefully I’d be able to bypass those freeway parks.

But first, we wanted to take a night or two after the festival, rest, shower, shave at a RV park with services, and decided to backtrack a few miles from the Big Bottom festival area to Packwood, Washington. There’s a big ol’ RV park near there with all the amenities so we could take showers and go out. Ended up staying there for 2 nights.

All set up in Packwood.

Quite a bit of room and nice long spaces for us modern Class A’s towing a car. Had all the services like 50 amp. Wifi wasn’t great, but worked. Packwood is just a mile from the park and we found another older park right in the downtown area. Might be more interesting place to say if staying longer in the area ‘cus you could walk to downtown or ride your bike around town (one of my favorite things to do).

The park we stayed at was Packwood RV Park. Their web page say they’re in Downtown Packwood but that’s simply not true. They’re around a mile maybe two away. Here’s a few more pictures of the park.



Riding my bike around this large park, found that they have a store too. Not exactly well stocked but, has some stuff.

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