Filling the Desert Days, Shopping in Blythe, Family Time

Location: Still at La Posa South, Quartzsite, Az

Monday to Wednesday, Dec. 12, 13, 14^th

Days here in the Arizona desert offer as much to do or as little to do as we want. Bill and I like both instances, usually a busy half day constitutes for a full day of rest. Sounds good to me! I admit that Bill is busier than I am on a more regular basis and that works. He likes to be puttering while I opt to pick up my book, play solitaire or do cross stitch. Puttering by my own definition.

Monday was a hot day (surprise!) and after doing some of our favourite things around home, we drove over to find the candy cane indicating the road where my sister and her husband set up camp. They are back further from the main road and have found a nice spot closer to friends of theirs from Alberta.

Gayle and Karen in the sunlight

Bill, John and Matt in the shade

We had only intended a short visit but time does fly so we stayed for their first Happy Hour this year, after meeting Matt and Karen. You sure want to get home before dark out here, the boonies all look the same. We were back home in good time for Bill to cook our burgers and to catch the sunset in the west and the spooky moon in the southeast.

                                                                                                                       

The nights have really been great for sleeping, around mid to high 50’s. Not being ‘cold’ sleepers like others we know, we call these perfect nights.

Tuesday, we welcomed Brian from gotsolarinstalled.blogspot.com at 1:30 and he set to work on our roof, installing the tilt brackets and moving our 3 panels. This should improve our solar reception by 60%. Brian is a very nice man and a hard worker, he worked steadily under Bill’s learning eye and the heat of the 80F day.

By 3:30 he was packing up and soon after on his way. Our panels look great and would soon be pulling in free power. Yay! 

Still room for one or two more.....next year

We skipped H.H. today since we were later but there is no obligation for those anyway. That is what I like about them. We had a text from Suzie asking about meeting up on Wednesday before dinner and we offered to host Happy hour. Both George and Suzie and us will be moving on Friday to destinations further south so it was a departure drink of sorts.

We would see them again in Winterhaven next week. The forecast for Saturday is looking to drop from a high of 75 – 80F to the mid 50’s, good reason to move on. At least that hour and a half difference will make 10 degrees difference and that will be better. We will head to Holtsville, Ca for a few nights.

Wednesday morning, we were up and off to Blythe, Ca, first time for us.

Temperature was up at 10:30 am

Welcome to Cal-i-for-nia!

Beautiful drive

Nice to see the mountains so close again after
the flat desert land of the last few week

Crossing the Colorado River again

Entering Blythe, Ca

We needed a few groceries. Both Smart & Final and Albertson’s were recommended to us but I thought Smart & Final sounded more to our liking, like Costco purchases. Hmm, I wasn’t as impressed as I thought I would be. It seemed a bit disorganized and we were up and down aisles more often than I like looking for those one or two items. They didn’t have any half and half cream in the cooler and by the time we were ready to leave, we both forgot to ask if they had more in back. With all the staff, as consumers we shouldn't have to do that. Just sayin'.

What's that you say? Grass? Ha, yup we're in California

Anyway, the prices were pretty good for what we found and needed but next time I’ll go to Albertson’s instead. To be fair to the vendor, it is always hard to find things in any new grocery store that we are not used to. It is just more difficult for us Canadians because we aren’t even sure IF the store carries it at all. I came home minus couple of things on my list and will have to pick them up in Quartzsite tomorrow when we go in to do our laundry.

When we got home around 1:30 we were saddened to find out that our panels were not charging our batteries and we had to turn on the Genny yet again. Bill couldn’t understand what was wrong so managed to find Brian down the road to see if he could spare a few minutes to help.

Of course, he was obliging and soon discovered that there was a conflict with how the American and Canadian connections matched up. Positive and negative, male and female……. well, Bill can explain that better but Brian left soon after, our panels were charging and he learned something today!

I had planned to put some pork ribs on the Weber Q for supper using George’s recipe. He has some helpful tips and recipes on his blog Our Awesome Travels  and I refer to them often. 

Suzie, George, Gerry, Melinda (with their new hats)

Happy Hour commenced with George, Suzie, Gerry, Melinda, John and Gayle around 3:30 and split up by 5. 

It was a good day with another beautiful sunset.

With the news from my sister back home in Hanover, Ont. that everything is closed down, winter storms are blasting and temperatures are hovering around  -11, we all resound with how wonderful it is to be here in the desert. 

We love where we are and are grateful for any and all circumstances that got us here.

May clouds only appear overnight in your world and the bright sun of day warm your bones and your heart wherever you are!

Thank you for reading along and feel free to comment.