Oh happy days! At least, I'm happy, I don't know about you but I am, happy and relieved, that President Obama got a second term!

Having inherited such a mess 4 years ago there was off course no way he could have cleaned any of it up in just 4 years! I was afraid that because the economy didn't recover soon enough he wouldn't get enough support but thank God he did!

Being from Holland and reading the dutch newspaper each morning I'd heard that if it was up to the rest of the world in general there was no doubt at all about who should win and they're just truly amazed it came so close. Obama would have won hands down, several times over, anywhere else in the world. Yep, that's America for you.....

 

Well, enough of that. Let me show you a little about our new stomping grounds. The picture above shows you our site at the entrance of the park on the far right. You can just see the truck and the RV behind those little palms. The building on the right is the office.

 

 

And here's 2 front views of said office.

 

 

 

 

 

 This is our spot, #2, next to a big eucalyptus tree.

 

 

 

 

Since the weather has been gorgeous since we got here(85F/27C) we've been mainly living outside. We brought out the awning like we always do. It does get windy here but we're anchored it down real good so hopefully it'll hold. It really gives me the feel of having an outside room when it's down.

Here we're having coffee in the morning.

 

Talking about having coffee. Who do you think shows up for coffee on our second  day here? Joe and Deanna!

They're on their way down to Yuma, stayed overnight at the casino close by and decided to come over before driving down today.

So great to see them again and being able to show them our new site!

To my surprise, and delight, I discovered these fields on one site of the campground:

 

Yes, that is cotton! I'm so happy, again..., is this a happy day or what? I've tried to get my hands on some cotton for a while to try to spin some up either on my wheel or my drop spindle and here was a whole field of it! Yahoo!

 

 

 

 

These are the huge piles of picked cotton that roll out of the machine that picks it. They're sitting by the side of the road ready to be picked up and moved to the cotton gin.

 

 

If you look closely at the first picture you can see that this field has been picked allready, in fact all of them were, but there were enough stray plants left along the sides that I could pick me a nice bag full!

 

 

 

 

It will take me a while before I can try to spin this because it needs to be cleaned, it's very dusty, the seeds need to be removed and than it needs to be carded or something like that. I have to read up on how to do this the easiest way.

Of course a cotton gin makes easy and fast work of that these days but for such a small quantity I'll have to do it the old fashion way.

It will keep me busy for a while for sure!

 

 

 

 

This is the other site of the campground, taken from the RV, looking towards the 95, Mohave Valley and the Hulapai Mountains in the distance.

 

 

 

 

At sunset the latter ones color a beautiful red.

 

 

Ray and Linda, the managers, are taking us out for dinner at the Avi Resort and Casino, about 4 miles from us. As all casinos this one stands on Indian land. In fact, the Moon River Resort is completely surrounded by the Indian Reservation of Fort Mohave.

And as in all casinos there's not only the gambling but also the food that people come for!

Different days offer different specials, this night is a 2 for 1 ($12)buffet. It's excellent, especially the roast beef and the extensive desert corner!

 

 

 

Ray and Linda help us sign up for an Avi member 'gold advantage' card (free) that'll give us all kinds of discounts in (and outside) the casino among which are reduced tickets for the in-house movie theater (8 screens). 

There's a beautiful golf course too, we'll have to check it out soon!

By the way, that bottom card is an Arizona ID card we got at DMV, which will make us elligable for all 'local' prices and discounts in Mohave County. Cool eh?

So, sofar so good. Next time I'll tell you about the work. Work? Oh, yeah, we have to work a little too, I guess.....

 

 

 

I was right about that cloud in my last post. It turned into 5 solid days of rain, we almost washed away!

Time to get out of dodge! Arizona here we come!

 

A morning drizzle turned into some good rain on our first day back on the road until about midday, just about the time we were approaching the Californian border.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sun came out and we enjoyed a nice drive through rolling farm land and hills around Ashland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We overnight-ed at the Walmart Superstore in Yreka.

In the distance we could see Mount Shasta, only the bottom half that is, since her head was in the clouds that rolled in late in the afternoon again.

 

 

 

 

 

There was a pretty nice sunset and much to our surprise we had a couple of deer walk right by us and the RV while we were sitting outside with a glass of wine watching the moon rise.

Very unexpected visitors for being in a Walmart parking lot!

 

  

 

 

 

The next morning Mt. Shasta was so nice to show us her top half this time. I guess that counts for having seen her completely!

 

 

 

 

 

 

After passing the town of Mount Shasta we drove more and more inland towards the south-east through the Cascade Range, averaging an altitude of about 4 to 5000'.

For a while we were surrounded by a forest of beautiful big pines. It reminded us a lot of Lake Arrowhead, although much less populated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming out on the other side of the forest we went down into a valley towards Susanville.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It quickly got much warmer and the scenery much more 'desert-y'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We passed Reno early in the afternoon after entering Nevada.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Followed by a whole lot of nothing-ness ....

 

 

 

 

 

...until we reached Walker Lake, where we spent the night (for free) at a beautiful, but very primitive,  BLM Rec. Area called  '20 mile Beach'.

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, we were the only ones there. It was a gorgeous evening with a beautiful sunset.

So quiet........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sunset the next morning was arguably even more awesome!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We continued our journey south through Nevada, passing numerous mountain ranges left and right like the Monte Cristo range, the Silver Peak Range, The White Mountains and the Yucca Mountains of the Amargosa Desert and in the afternoon we even drove for a while alongside Death Valley National Park on our right hand side.

 

The road climbs and descends here constantly, not very good for your gas mileage!

Overall, we stayed pretty high in elevation (4000') being on one of those plateaus they call 'the high desert'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around 3pm we arrived at the outskirts of Las Vegas and although we had thought initially to camp for one more night before driving to Mohave Valley, our end destination, we decided to keep on going since it was only about a 2 hour drive from here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since we'd been to Vegas all ready 3 times before and we didn't feel like gambling our (little) money away we tried to stay as far away from the busy center and freeways as we could. Unfortunately that meant I couldn't get a decent shot of any of them.

 

Oh well, probably for the best!

 

Instead of driving all the way down to Needles and than backtracking a little to Mohave Valley we decided to take what we thought was a 'shortcut' to Laughlin and than cross the Colorado river into Bullhead City and drive the last 25/30 miles down from there.

 

 

 

 

 

Ha! Not our smartest move of the day!

 

First of all we had to climb up and over some mountains and a pass of the Eldorado Mountains  (nice roller coaster again!)  and than we had to make our way through about 300 traffic lights (none in-sinc and all red) through the biggest 'urban sprawl' I've ever seen, all the way to Mohave Valley!

 

 

What goes up,.....

 

 

Must come down,.....

 

 

 

Laughlin, Nevada

 

 

 

 

 

After crossing the river Laughlin seamlessly becomes Bullhead City which brought us finally into Arizona!

 

 

 

 

 

Those %#@$&!* traffic lights slowed us down so much that it costed us an extra 45 minutes to reach our destination but finally we arrive at our Campground for the winter, Moon River RV Resort!

 

 

 

 

 

We're warmly welcomed by Ray, the manager, who didn't expect us until tomorrow off course, but is happy we made it today. He shows us our site, a very nice one indeed, and after some deliberation of how and where is the best way to park we set up camp.

Since it is about 6pm we decide to only hook up electric and do the rest tomorrow. The sun sets early here and it will be dark by 7pm or so!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So here we are.

 

As you can see the moon rises behind us to justify this campground's name (I guess :-).

 

(the black right corner is caused by the shutter of my camera getting stuck every now and than).

 

 

 

 

 

Time to bring out the wine and cheese and call it a day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boy, oh boy, were we in for a treat these last 3 weeks! We finally experienced some real summer weather!

Nothing special for Oregon this year but special for us after not much of anything in Alaska.

 

Clear blue skies, abundant sunshine, temperatures around 90F, oh boy, it doesn't get much better than this!

 

 

 

 

I tried to get a little suntan. Much needed I'll tell you. I'm so white I'm blinding! See the little shimmer around me in this pic?

I actually didn't think it was safe to enlarge it :-)

 

 

 

This little sparrow tried to cool off by taking a bath. I think. 

  

 

 

 

 No, he didn't drown but it looks like it was close...

 

James, on the other hand, was working. In Doug's yard again. But he worked on a little water feature, rather 'cool' too...

 

 

 

 

 Even mother nature was still up for summer.....

  

 

  

 

On one such sunny afternoon we got together with Joe and Deanna, our workamping friends from when we volunteered at the Stage Coach campground in Vallecito, CA, which was our very first workamping experience.

 

We hadn't seen each other for 1.5 years but it was like no time had passed, we immediately started talking and barely stopped to eat our lunch and scrumptious ice cream deserts at DQ in Woodburn.

Three hours flew by like nothing and we might still be sitting there if James didn't need to go back to take care of some business.

They're going to be in Yuma for the winter so we'll probably meet again somewhere soon when they're visiting 'our' area around Mohave Valley.

 

 

 

 

 

Close by here in Dundee is the tasting room for 'Wine by Joe' , it's pretty good Joe! :-) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other than that I haven't done much more than working on this blog which was quite a job!

Glad I'm up to speed again.

 

It's not going to last long though since soon, probably Thursday or Friday, we're going to hit the road again!

We're going to take about 5 or 6 days to drive down to Arizona where we'll have to report for duty somewhere around the 22nd. Cutting it a little close there but we'll make it work.

 

I'm so looking forward to the dessert again!

 

 

 

In the meantime, I don't think these clouds are looking too good?!






PS.  For everybody who tried to post a comment and is not succeeding: try to hit the 'preview' button first, even if you don't need too, and from there hit the submit or post button.

For some odd reason this seems to work (most of the time). Looking forward to hear from you!