Home Archives Links Français

January February March April May June July August September October November December

1 to 15 December 2018 16 to 31 December 2018

Saturday December 1, 2018

Another bike ride and geocaching this morning.

One of the caches was a little trickier to get. The cache is in the black pipe and the black pipe is in the rusted pipe and held with nuts. Pretty cool for a cache.

I found three caches and the forth one was up this hill.

This hill is the highest point in the city of Yuma. Looking east where our next RV Park is located. We will be closer to the mountains.

Looking west.

I could not find the fourth cache. It was in a very rocky area and I am not good with rocky areas.

We ended the afternoon with a trip to the hot tub, followed by a nice Chicken Mac & Cheese. Being Saturday evening, it was bingo night. Michele won $30 on the first bingo of the night.

Sunday December 2, 2018

No bike ride for me today. A day of rest.
Michele made us a very good brunch this morning.

Another large expense for the MH, $5.
A vinyl rain gutter. Why a rain gutter?

The answer further down.
So, I cut the rain gutter into three sections. One of five feet, one of three feet and one of two feet.

Here is the answer.
It is simply to keep the sewer hose from jumping off the support. My brother-in-law Patrice gave me this idea back in 2013.

We spend the evening watching TV.

Monday December 3, 2018

I felt lazy today, no bike ride for me today. It took a while to warm-up today.
We went looking for some geocaches in downtown old Yuma this afternoon.

One of the caches was at the Yuma Armed Forces Park.

Like many cities downtown area, this one is trying to revive itself.

So far, we found four out of five caches. The next caches were in one of the Yuma cemeteries.

It is kind of weird to see a cemetery with sand compare to grass.
They sure do remember their dead.

This plant was sparkling in the sun and it was not from water, just from the fussiness that cover it.

Another cache was in this tree. The key to open the lock was in the fake camera above it.

Another cache was in a shotgun shell in this post.

We also went near the Yuma Territorial Prison for more caches.

We did good at Geocaching today. We found 10 caches and only one not found.

Tuesday December 4, 2018

Brrr, cool and cloudy today.

Today at the Yuma Civic Center, they were hosting a "Welcome Back Winter Visitors" event. This is a chance to see what is offered in this city, for us people from the north. Many boots were local hospitals, dentists, funeral homes and a few RV Resorts.

When we got back home, we mostly read. In the evening, we did go to the hot tub for about 45 minutes.

Wednesday December 5, 2018

We have some friends who are spending the winter in a nearby desert in California. We decided to check out if they have arrived.

Shortly after we enter California, we had to stop at the agricultural inspection station to make sure we did not bring any fruits back in California. It is illegal to bring any fruits in California. They are serious about protecting their crop from infestation.

We also drive thru the "Imperial Sans Dunes Recreation Area" which is part of the larger "Dunes Algodones".

After driving about 45 minutes, we arrive at the Hot Spring LVTA. This is a place like Quartzsite where you can park in the desert without any services. How much to stay in here? $40 for 14 days or $180 for six months.

Obviously with a name like Hot Spring, you have to have a hot spring nearby. This hot spring is not commercial, and it is a very basic set-up. This is the not developed area.

And this is the developed area. As you can see, it is very basic, but it works.

Our friends have not arrived yet. We are still happy to have come to visit this place.

We kept going west to the next little town of Holtville, about seven miles from Hot Spring LVTA.

WOW! Gasoline is $0.85 more expensive in California than Arizona.

Some Date Palm farm.

On our way back home, we stopped at the rest area located in the dunes.
We had lunch and watched two dune-buggies going up the sand dune. This guy is waiting on his friend.

Here he is trying to get next to his buddy. He made it.

From the Interstate we can see part of the wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

We made a little detour to see the Old Wood Plank Road.

Those planks are the original planks from the old plank road.

This is beautiful.

We also drove by the big city of Felicity, population 2. This is where the center of the world is located.

Back in Yuma, we decided to go for a visit of another RV park nearby.
Michele is always impressed by the look of the tree by the road. So square and neat looking.

What a nice painting on the side of this building.

This is the Cocopah golf and RV Resort. Nice looking.

A Roadrunner taking a pose for us.

We see a lot of those irrigation canals around this part of town.

I am always impressed to see a big truck on rails.

This was a very good day even if we did not get to see our friends.

Thursday December 6, 2018

Happy Birthday to my love, Michele.

To spoil her a little, I took her to the very nice Chinese Buffet at Lin's.

Like all the Lin's we have been to, this one is just as good as the other.

Last night, we had some rain and it continued in the afternoon.

This is the warmest we had today, 13.5° C.

Michele wanted a cake split in four quarters with each quarter from four different types of cakes.

And as usual, we had the traditional shooter of Tequila for our youngest son, Benoit.
All is in place, the salt, the citrus and the Tequila.

First you lick the salt.

Next, you drink the Tequila.

You finish it off with a bite into the citrus.

Done! After three tries.

Again, Happy Birthday Michele.

Friday December 7, 2018

Between yesterday and today, we received more than two inches of rain. This is exceptional for Yuma.

In one of the newsletters I receive, they mentioned a quick way to bring back your plastic headlight on the car.
Wipe them with some WD40. This is the before.

And this is the after with a good wipe with WD 40. Now, this is not a permanent solution. I probably will need to do it again in a week or so.

When I said it rained, this picture was taken before the rain.

And this is this morning. The little pond has gone up two inches overnight.

I finally received my replacement battery for the laptop. The bottom one is the old one.

The new one has more volts and more mAh. I got it from Amazon.com and it was only $22 while at Staples it was $94.

The sun is back and it is warming up nicely.

Saturday December 8, 2018

The sun is out and the sky is blue.
After lunch, we went to the outlet store for some sandals for Michele and me.

We came out of there with a new pair of shoes and sandals for me and nothing for Michele.

On the way back, we stopped at Walmart and Michele found this gift box of Jim Bean for only $15.

Michele cooked us a super meal for supper, some Donairs.

It is bingo night at the club house tonight. We did not win this time.

After bingo I tried the first day of Christmas, Vanilla Jim Beam. Not bad.

Sunday December 9, 2018

Today, we went to the Arizona Market Place for a walk. It is all new stuff.

We bought a Twist on waste valve (Gate Valve). Why? You will see tomorrow.

We had a great week.

Monday December 10, 2018

Why another gate valve?

Here is the why.
When we boondock, we have to manage our fresh and used water. Usually, the gray water (shower) tank fills up more quickly than the black (toilet) water tank. By adding an extra valve after both gray and black water tank valves, I will be able to "balance" our used water tanks. The new valve will be where the yellow arrow points.

The left arrow is the black water tank valve and on the right, the gray water tank valve. To balance the tanks, all I will have to do is close the new valve, located after the two valves, open the gray water valve than I will open the black water valve. This will allow gray water to migrate to the black water tank until the water levels in both tanks are equal. This will give us more "room" in the gray water tanks.

A different way to look at this.

I will try it a few times here in the campground just to see the results. This way we will know what to expect when we will be boondocking in Quartzsite.

Tuesday December 11, 2018

I went out for a bike ride and look for some caches at the same time.

Here are some of them.
Usually when a cache is located in rocks, I have a hard time finding them, not this time.

The next cache is one of my favorite. It was easy, but it was special. It was located under the hood.

No log book? Just an old VHS tape!!!

The cache owner replaced the tape by the logbook, pretty smart.

A few days ago, we booked a tour of a date farm.
It is happening today.

We are about 20 peoples on this tour. We meet two couples from Quebec. Really nice people.

The date palms. The dates are the Medjool variety.

This is a family farm and it is one of the son's who is giving us the tour.

We have learned that a date palm requires 150 gallons of water a day to stay healthy. We also learned that date palms have two genders, male and female. Both are required to produce dates, but only the female date palm will bear dates. The off shoot we see coming from a date palm only happens to female palms. They can cut the baby from the mother and it will grow on its own.

A few dates fell from the palm and embedded themselves on the spikes.

This date farm is certified totally organic.
Our guide was very interesting.

Before they can harvest the dates, they place a white cotton bag over the pod of baby dates to protect them from birds.

Other pods are covered with black cotton bags to slow down the speed to maturity. I know, you would think black would speed up the maturing, but with dates it is the opposite. This way, not all the dates, are ready to harvest at the same time.

We stopped to look at the view of the valley and all the fields full of produces.

This is the nursery where the use the off shoot to grow the next date palm they will be replacing the old one with.

Everything is done by hand on the date palm. Here we ca see how they get to the top of the palm tree to do some stuff to the palm tree.

The currently have 8,000 date palms on the farm. They do everything from the moment the palm tree is born to packing the harvested dates and selling them.

After the tour, we stooped at the little store they have. We had a good date milkshake.

We recommend this tour if you are in the Yuma area and for only $10, it is worth it.

Tonight I am trying the second mini bottle of Jim Bean. This one is strait bourbon.

I am not a fan of bourbon, but it was OK.

Wednesday December 12, 2018

We were looking for geocaches today.
Michele is with me to help me find some caches I could not find earlier.
I'll be darned! She found it in less than 3 minutes. The worst part is that I have seen this type of caches before...
I must be blind. Good for you Michele.

We also looked for some new caches. Another nice cache.

Ah, the things we see when we travel. A robot made out of old tractor wheels.

They don't just grow produces here. They also grow hay.

We found 8 caches today.

When we got back home, we went to the hot tub before supper. Life is good!

Thursday December 13, 2018

I went out on the bike this morning and looked for two specific caches.
I only found one...

Michele prepared us a nice snack during the evening.

A nice and easy day.

Friday December 14, 2018

We want to change our sofa in the MH. A store is having a big sale right now.
The problem is that we have to get a sofa that will fit through the door. The back of the sofa has to be able to come off to get it through the door.

We saw a few interesting sofas.

We also stopped by Team Yuma Pest to buy some strip of "Bird-B-Gone" to prevent birds from landing on our satellite dish and poop all over the MH. They gave us two small strips and did not charge us anything. Pretty good of them.

These are the Bird-B-Gone strips I am talking about.

I will install them tomorrow.

It was on the cool side with only 17°C for a maximum today.

Saturday December 15, 2018

Michele went shopping and I installed the two strips. I had to get on the roof to install them.

The view from our roof top.

The satellite dish without the spikes.

And the Bird-B-Gone spikes installed.

We can hardly see them from the ground.

Hummm! I may need one or two more strips. I will see over the next few weeks.

It is Saturday evening and it's bingo night!
Michele was hot tonight. She won $82.50. Me? Nothing!

I may not have won at bingo, but I won a Christmas gift. A set of Christmas small micro-fiber towels.

Back from bingo, I decided to try the next little bottle of Jim Bean.

It was very good.

Until next time.

Life is good...