Good By to Evie and Her Mom Rving and Hello to Evelyn RVing

Let me tell you what I've been doing in the last month.  Let me start out by saying that I'm out of practice with my blog writing so this will be a bit of a list of things

First off our house we bought last year in Yuma has sold.  Not for what we bought it for but at least it's gone and I can move on from that.  

Second the kittens and I got to spend a few days in the desert at our favorite spot.  That was the first time I'd taken the new tow car out there and I did look at the tires when I bought it and they looked ok but I was testing it by taking it out there.  From there I drove over to Lakeside in San Diego county to visit my daughter.

After unhooking the Honda decided to drive to the store.  Nope not just yet. Yes I have a flat tire.  Called road service and they changed it in a jiffy.  Next day it was off to Costco to use my year end credit to buy 4 new Michelins for the Honda.

Next it was my solar batteries.  I can't remember what Larry at Starlight Solar called this but I call it swollen battery syndrome.  It's has happened to me with my cell phones, my jetpac for wifi and now with my solar batteries. 

Batteries are on their sides with a nice black box build around them.

See how they popped the screws loose on the box and that's my inverter on top.

In all the years that Larry has been doing solar he has never seen this, yup, I'm super charged.

Then it was time for a tire problem on the rv.  I put these tires on the rear 3 years ago.  My rv had these nifty valve stem extenders that you can see in the next picture.  The extenders are very handy when airing the tires, but as the tire guy later showed me, they are notorious for leaking.  I knew I had a slow leak back there but I wasn't very good about checking my tire pressure.  And this is the result of low tire pressure.  Off to the tire store I went and the tire guy noticed that my 1 year old tires on the front were wearing unevenly, the result of the front end being out of alignment.  So moved the front Michelins to the right rear and bought new Michelins for the front.  Also did a front end alignment.  The silver lining in this was the tire guy mentioned to me that some rv clubs offer tire discounts and I said yes I belong to FMCA but they didn't list my size tire on the Michelin discount page and he said that didn't matter.  So he saved my $85 on each tire.  Wow.

Next was the tree.  No I didn't back into it, I hit it with my tail swing.  That's red tree bark you're seeing.  It pulled the back panel of the rv away from the side.  More on this in a few minutes.

What I don't have any pictures of is the rv breaking down on the side of the road.  It could have worse, I'd just gotten of a busy freeway and was on a country road with plenty of space to get off the roadway.  I'm sorry to say that my road service let me down big time.  They were unable to produce a tow truck that could do the job.  But the really bright spot is that when this happened I had called my tire guy, even though this was an engine problem, to ask him if he could recommend a place to have the rv towed to and he gave me the name and number of a young man who has a mobile engine repair business. 

Danny got to me within 20 minutes and had me back on the road in 1 hour.  So what happened?  My rv is on the Ford chassis running the Ford v10 engine.  The 4th spark plug on the drivers side backed it's self out of its hole, bless its little heart.  The spark plug was actually lying on the engine.  When he pulled the dog house off from inside he reached in and pulled it out.  When I told him on the phone what the engine was doing he made a guess that this was the problem.  This isn't the first time he's seen this.  He came prepared.  He had to tap new threads into the hole, my terms not his, and install a new plug.  And I was on my way in an hour.  I was only 1/2 a mile from the rv park I was heading to and when I got there and settled in I was done for the day although I had other things I needed to do.  The next day I called Danny back and had him come do a tune up of sorts, he came back up to my site and replaced all 10 spark plugs, and coil wires as well.  I didn't want to drive it anywhere until he had done that.  When I called him to set that up, he said he was going to mention it to me but he didn't want me to think he was trying to sell me something I didn't want or need.  He is such a nice young man, just stating out with his business.  This kid can do anything.  Which brings us back to the tree and my rear end.  When I showed him what I'd done he thought a minute and said we could just screw it back together and that's what we did.  He had some self tapping screws and I pushed the rear panel back into place and he screwed it together.

He took a selfie of us. This is his facebook page here.

There have been some bright spots in the 3 weeks I've been here.  I've helped my daughter get moved into her new home.  I spent two days cleaning the house before she moved and the day she moved I cat sat her kitty, Willie Mays.

Willie Mays

Here's Bubba and Missie making friends with a small bird.

Spring is in full swing around here.  Every time I step outside the sweet perfume of spring flowers fills the air, it's wonderful.

I got the Honda registered in California and did a little customization on the rear window.  The red solo cup decal if from a group I belong to made up of solo women who rv and the 4Ocean is an organization I donate to that cleans up plastic from the ocean.  If you'd like to learn more about them click here.

Two more things. 

I miss my mom terribly I can't even write about it,  I find myself thinking of things to tell her,  I sometimes forget that she's not here.  I'm just taking things one day at a time.

Second, because, when I started this blog it was about mom and my adventures, it doesn't seem right to just keep going with this one, and just changing the name of this blog will change it back from the beginning, so on that note I'm starting another blog that will be about my adventures,  from now on. 

So as the sunsets on this chapter of my life the sun is rising on the next chapter. 

I hope to see you over at,

Evelyn RVing

Evie, Bubba and Missie

Mom, 1927 - 2018

My mom passed away last week.  She had been very sick since last Oct.  She's had health problems for several years and she just continued to get worse.  We didn't want to blog about it but that's why my blogging has sort of trickled down in the last few months.  I was taking care of her here in the motorhome.  She spent some time in the Mayo Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, from there they moved her to a hospice unit but once she got there she got better so we moved her to an assisted living home for a few weeks.  But we wanted her home so we moved her back to the rv.  She passed in the rv under the care of hospice, in the Phoenix area.  

Mom loved to travel, she would read maps and atlases and chose our routes.  She was game for anything and willing to go anywhere.  She was the navigator and I was the driver.  I treasure every minute of these last few years we had together on the road.  We had a blast and I'll miss her very much.

1927 - 2018

What's next for me you ask?  I'm going to continue to rv but will take a break from blogging.

See you down the road.

Evie, Bubba and Missie

The Desert Museum, Tucson, Arizona

We have started moving in an eastward direction.  First stop, back to Gilbert Ray, campground outside of Tucson.  The other day my friend Michelle, who lives here in Tucson, took me to the Desert Museum.  As you can see the desert is starting to bloom.  I'm just going to show you some of the pictures I took.

Those are tall Totem Poles

Claret Cups

That's enough for now.

Evie and Joy

Life is hard.

A New Family Member

For the last two months I've been thinking about and researching new tow cars.  Our Honda still has a lot of life left in her but the seats were hurting our backs so I started looking at what cars were towable with all 4 wheels down and had the potential to be more comfortable.  I stopped by Just For Towing, in Yuma and talked to the owner, Melinda, and she gave me some suggestions on other small to midsize suv's that are good tow cars, here's the short list she gave me: Chevy's Equinox and the Traverse, GMC Terrain and Acadia, and the Buick Enclave or Ford Edge.  After looking at all those cars and comparing their cargo space and shape and weight  I decided to stay with Honda.  Yes all those cars are wonderful and have lots of space and comfort but you pay the price in tow weight. For instance, I loved the 2012 Buick Enclave but it weighs between 4,780 to 4,980 depending on what options you get, a 2012 Honda EXL, with all the bells and whistles, weighs 3,529. That's quite a difference and I liked my old CR-V.  So a newer Honda CR-V was on my radar.  I was looking all across southern California and Arizona and found a 2012 in the Phoenix area.  

Our new 2012 Honda CR-V EXL.  Sadly there is no place to put 

our roof top tote so we will just carry less stuff.

What to do with the old 2003 Honda?  Sell it to a friend of mine in southern California, that's what.  So we towed the red Honda to my friends house and drove back to Phoenix with nothing behind me.  Let me tell you, the motorhome goes way faster with a tailwind and without towing a car.  Coming home we spent the night outside Joshua Tree park.  A really easy place to boondock for the night right off interstate 10.  And you just never know what you'll find.

Look, it's an arrow sticking out of that rock.

I wonder why

It's a National Geodetic Survey marker. 

 To read about this marker click here and here.

Kittens getting some outside time after a long day of driving.

Look, no tow car.

One happy friend.

Now that's taken care of we'll head back to Yuma for a few weeks before starting our eastward journey to New Mexico for the summer.

Evie and Joy

Pic from my boondocking spot, looking west.

See my neighbors, not to close, just the way we like it.

Let's See Some More Cactus

We have low growing ruffely ones.  For those of you that aren't familiar with cactus, you see those brownish bumps, those are thousands of tiny stickers.  I can't call them thorns because they don't stick out, but if you brush up against them with your skin they get into your skin and they are very hard to remove, because you can't see them.  One way to remove them if they're in you fingers is to run your fingers through your hair and that helps, sometimes.

More highly visible invisible stickers.

Some grow tall.

With hair.

This one has very few spines.

This one has tons of spines.

And a dead flower from last year.

This one twists as it grows.

This one doesn't twist.

Here we have a whole family.

Two friends growing together.

Cactus love rocks.

And there are trees as well.

Close-up of trunk.

Mother with children.

Then we have the cactus that, like me, do their own thing.

Birds use cactus as a safe place to build nests.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

Evelyn and Joy + two kittens

Sometimes it's a good idea to look to the sky, you never know what you'll see.