Merry Christmas Everyone!

 Last night just at midnight I heard a pitter patter on my rooftop.  I was sure it was the sound of hoofs, but no it was little rain drops.  This morning when I awoke, there were no presents, only dirty water spots on my Jeep.  But I'm sure there are lots of little boys and girls out there that had presents under their tree.  After all Christmas is for them.

This morning was sunny and warm and that is my present for the day.  It was so nice, Yuma and I took breakfast outside and enjoyed the warm sunshine and ate our breakfast.  Dolly texted to tell me it was 10 degrees out!  Brr.  It was a balmy 61 here already and climbing to 70 this afternoon.  Thank you Santa!

Had to move along because I have a Christmas Dinner date this afternoon. 

Heading over to Tom and Deb's (Celebrating the Dance) place at 2 o'clock their time (Arizona) and 1 o'clock my time (California).  I'm so glad I live in the middle of Central time back home and don't have to go through this complication of living on the edge of two time zones.  

Put on my best clothes and headed out.  On the way I decided to play chicken with this train.

Actually it was stopped on the track 😀

We arrived around 1:30 since they only live about 20 minutes away.   Deb was already busy preparing the ham for Tom to cook on the grill.

As dinner cooked, we sat and talked about everything that is going on in the world and just glad we are tucked away in the desert this Christmas Day.

The dinner was delicious.  I ate two helpings of everything and they were super generous to Yuma.  He could not get enough of that delicious ham.

After dinner we let our food digest and then had cheesecake with whip cream for dessert.  Yummy!  Not going to be testing blood sugar tomorrow morning!  Thank you Deb and Tom for sharing your delicious Christmas dinner with Yuma and me.  It was special.

Made it back home by 7 o'clock and now finishing my post.  Yuma is already in bed waiting, so I'm calling it a night.  Hope everyone got their Christmas wish today.

See you later.

Cloudy Day

 Woke up at my normal time of 7 o'clock and felt rested.  However, we laid in bed for another hour catching up on the world and my blog friends.  Dolly wrote to tell me it was 14 degrees back home.  Brr!

Looking out the window I could tell it was going to be a partly cloudy to mostly cloudy day and they call for 60 degrees for a high and it is 55 now.  The wind was still coming out of the northeast at a 14 mph clip.  Not the best day in "Sunny Yuma".

We had breakfast and I went the full Monty with bacon and eggs.  Love bacon and eggs!  It was about noon by the time I finished all three courses of my breakfast.

Yuma wanted to take a walk, so I walked and he ran around the desert.   For some reason he loves to run through the sand at top speed.  Didn't take my camera.  Darn!

At two, I decided it was time to pull out my local boosted TV antenna and see if it would pick up more than the channels from Mexico.

The clouds looked weird as if it may rain today.  My antenna is on the left and the RV antenna is on the right.  Not too much difference in height.  It took me awhile to figure out where to plug the cables and after calling my professional wiring guy, and also my son Jim, I got it working.  To my surprise I not only got the Mexican channels, but ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox out of Yuma.  Now we're talking.  

As evening came on I could hear a little pitter patter on the roof.  Mind you, there was not much, but it did sprinkle for a minute or two.  That's big news around Yuma and they talked about it on the weather at CBS news time.

I just had to take some pictures of the clouds.

Here comes our great rain fall!

See the Wall crossing the sand dune?

Power towers heading for the sand dunes.

Clouds and wind make for beautiful sunset!

Time now to finish up this post and have my dessert before Yuma and I head off to bed.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

Trump Wall and the Wind

 First off I quit!  I thought I could just play like I'm in Arizona time and it would just happen, but it didn't.  My body now thinks it's in California time so let's just give in and go with it.

This morning I woke up at 7:30 and just felt so comfortable I laid in bed for an hour and so did Yuma.  Read my comments and answered those and even sent comments to some friends.  I really do like these comfortable low temperatures in the Yuma area.  Don't need the heater to kill the chill.

I watched a few hours of TV last night just to test the batteries.  I even tried to get local channels but only got 7 channels, all Mexican.  I don't know how they do it, but the main channels can sure hide their signals.  I was using the wind-up antenna on the roof.  Tomorrow I'll put up the local booster antenna and try it.

I think the batteries did well.  Got down to 12.3 volts / 58 amps before the sun came up.

I was very slow with breakfast.  I laid out in the lounger until all of a sudden the wind came up out of the north.  It was also a little overcast but the sun still kept it warm.  Finally finished up at noon.

Finally, Yuma couldn't stand it anymore and wanted to go somewhere.  Had two choices for the day.  Drive over to the sand dunes or go down  and see how the wall is coming along.  Due to the windy conditions, I decided the wall was my choice.

Yuma gets excited when it's time to go.

The afternoon temps are expected to hit 66 which is fine even with the wind.  Plus, the wall and Mexico is only a few miles south as the crow flies.  I see lots of  lights in Mexico at night.  I can't fly so we took the road just along the west border of Pilot Knob Mountain and it made the trip about 4 miles.  Drove by the backside of Pilot Knob RV Park where I stayed earlier this year with my Canadian friends.  Looks empty this year.

Southwest side of Pilot Knob Mountain.

Driving south along the mountain, it wasn't long before we were at the canal with the wall on the other side.  

Looks almost done along here.  One last section to go.

Yuma led the way as we went to higher ground to look around.  Looking back wondering why it takes me so long👀

You can see better from up here!

Yuma raced down the hill to the Jeep.

He's always waiting on me.

We turned left to the east at the canal and followed it.  The wall goes on forever.

Unfortunately the road ends here.

As the river started turning north, the beauty of the Colorado River came back to life.

One last look before we head back.

To our left we see the desolate east side of Pilot Knob Mountain.

Looking across the border to the town of Los Algodones.

We took the canal road to the west but soon came to a fence so that ended that ride.

All done in about two hours.  Heading back home through the tall power towers towards the dunes.

With the wind blowing, Yuma and I laid down on the bed to rest and before I knew it, it was going on 4 o'clock.

It's now dark and the wind is still blowing outside.  I started my blog early before dinner, so I'd better finish up and get dinner going.  It's already 6 o'clock.

See you later.

Gas Run to Yuma

This morning I tried not to think about Pacific Time and got up at my 8 o'clock Mountain Time.  It was partly cloudy but calling for clear skies later with a high of 75.

Not sure what I was expecting but my batteries were at 12.3 volts and 70% full.  This was just lights, inverter and fridge.  No TV last night.  We'll see as time goes on how it works out.

Last evening I had the door open and Yuma saw something out the front window and bolted out the door after it.  Scared me!  Don't like him running off after dark.  He barked a little and I called for him.  Just a short time later he came back no worse for wear.  From now on the door is closed after dark.

This morning while making coffee and crackers, Yuma started barking and I looked where he was looking and could see one lone coyote way off in the desert.  That's probably who he saw last night.  Probably an old single coyote scavenging for food around the RVs.

Had a leisurely breakfast with no real plans except to go into Yuma for Jeep gas so I can run around the area soon.  Reason to drive ten miles into Yuma for gas is because gas just up the road here is $4 a gallon and $2.20 in Yuma.  Worth the 8 mile drive.

At 1:30 Arizona time Yuma and I unhooked the Jeep and drove into the west side of Yuma just across the bridge over the Colorado River.

Wasn't sure where I was going so took the first exit and ended up in Historic Downtown Yuma.  Decided to park and just take a short walk with Yuma around the area.

Looked like they were ready for Christmas.  After that we stopped for gas and then headed home.

Was going to drive up Sidewinder Road but long train changed my mind.

Church on the Hill in Felicity

Only cactus I saw today in this sandy desert

Returned to the White Lion at 3 o'clock Arizona time and didn't do anything else except take short walks into the sandy desert close to home.  I did manage to setup the Dish just in case I want to watch something on TV.

Pretty much my day. See you later.

Batteries in and Running

 No one came knocking last night while at the parking area of the RV Connection.  Didn't have a good night sleep though, because around 5 in the morning, the traffic outside was busy and loud.  Busy street here in Yuma.

The store opened at 8:30 and I went in and Tom, the owner, was in his office.  We talked for a bit and he said he would start as soon as the chill was out of the air.  He asked that I move the White Lion close to the door so he wouldn't have far to go with the six heavy batteries and I did that.
At about 9:30, Tom was hard at work.  First he removed the four old house batteries on the passenger side and replaced them with four Weise 100 amp batteries.

Tom hard at work replacing the original four

In and hooking them up

All done with this side

The two dusty ones to the left are the starting batteries and were put in when I bought the motorhome last year.

Because I wanted six batteries for storage instead of four, Tom placed the last two in the bay on the other side of the motorhome.

Last two going in

All hooked up

I now have an additional two new batteries for storing the solar power that is in abundance here in the southwest. 😃

Me and Yuma waiting as Tom works 😛

It was exactly 1 o'clock when Tom had everything buttoned up and I was ready to pay and go on my way.

While waiting, I finally made up my mind where to live for the next couple of weeks.  Hard making these decisions.  I decided I wanted to be in the flat desert so I could clearly view the Christmas Star this evening.

Be aware, a lot of the following pictures were taken with a lot of zoom.  Also, I lost an hour so my times got confusing.  

Yuma checking the area out and Pilot Knob Mountain

Algodones sand dunes in the distance

Looks like snow in this picture

Resting before dinner and Yuma is on guard

Pilot Knob Mountains as the sun sets and fog setting in.

The sun setting over the dunes and the mountains beyond

In the above picture, there was a fire with smoke off to the North causing the reddish haze.

Getting close to dark

Trying to stay on Arizona time, so my times will reflect that time.  

It was warm here today with no wind.  I decided today would be a great day to fire up the water heater and Yuma and I would both get showers with all this water I have.  Yuma was a happy camper to get the smell of the desert sand off him.  And me too😛  

After dinner, I waited for the sun to set in the West so I could get a clear picture of the Christmas Star.  As you know it is the glow of two planets close together (Saturn and Jupiter).

The Christmas Star

I took a lot of pictures but I'm just not equipped to take stills.  When I push the camera button there is a motion and with full zoom you can see it in the picture.  This was the best of the lot.

I think those of you familiar with this area know I'm parked behind the Pilot Knob RV Park and to the West in BLM land.  As I drove behind the park, it was nearly empty.  Not the crowd like last March when I stayed there.  The BLM out here is also empty with lots of space.  I did manage over 7200 steps today walking the desert.

I like it here and think I will be staying for the next couple of weeks.  Less than 10 miles to the nearest Walmart which is a plus.  Plus the weather is supposed to be fabulous.

See you later.