Follow the Daze: February 2017

After staying at the RTR meet for 9 days we moved west, on the other side of Route 95 to settle in with a large contingent of Lazy Daze owners.

At any one time, there were between 15 - 20 Lazy Dazes all parked together. It was like an LD neighborhood with nightly campfires, fellowshipping and of course, food. Barbara and I made several morning trips back over to the RTR Meet, just to catch a few more of the seminars but for the most part hung around with our fellow LDers.

On a couple of occasions someone within the group would light a paper bag balloon and send it up into the night sky. These things are literally just big paper sacks on a light wire frame with a fuel source underneath the opening. The concept is similar to an actual hot air balloon. It was pretty cool to see them lift off and where they fell (once the fuel burned out) was anyone’s guess. Barbara and I did find one on our way back to our home one evening and scrunched it up for the trash.

We managed to get several things accomplished during our stay here. First and foremost was to get a Camco Wave 6 Catalytic Heater installed into our rig for those chilly desert nights. The Camco Dealer had a booth at “The Big Tent Event” and were purported to have a handful of factory reconditioned units at discounted prices, but those usually sold out really fast. So, bright and early… as in E-A-R-L-Y… we were standing at the tent entrance waiting for them to open. Long story short; we were the first ones to the Camco booth and bought the very first heater. Good deal! (Yawn) Later on, we found an RV Service guy who travels with the various events and had him install a propane quick-connect for us to plug the heater into. We’ve used it a few times and it seems to be working just fine. Probably won’t need it again until late next fall as the weather right now is warming up quite nicely.

We also stopped into a place to see about new batteries and adding another solar panel to the rig. Bottom line to that was; Our batteries are still holding out just fine and we have a control panel that would allow us to add on another solar panel, which saves us some serious cash. We’re still thinking about the new panel and I’ll let ya know when that happens, if it does.

I also got in some quality time with David, a fellow LD owner and artist. He and I spent the day tooling around town looking for a new camp chair for him. We had a nice pizza lunch and got to know each other just a bit better. Pleasant time!

Another cool thing that we did was to hook up with Bob Wells of www.CheapRvLiving.com who was hosting the RTR Meet and go over into Mexico for the first time. Bob didn’t actually go over, he just took us to the parking lot, told us what to expect and went on his way. He did film it for a You Tube piece and Barbara and I are in it! We went on over but didn’t stay too long. Bought some prescription meds saving us about $125, looked around a bit and came back across. We’re going back over later on to check out eyeglasses, food, etc. It was fun!

Festive place for being noon time. Mariachi music going on.

As usual, the desert sunsets were spectacular and were (and still are) a real treat for us all!

After our 2 weeks with the LD Group at La Posa South we fired La Casita up and hit the road on westward to California. Our stop was the Joshua Tree National Park and a date with our friends Will and Karen who were on their way to the California coast.

Upon arriving at Joshua Tree, ahead of Will and Karen, Barbara and I drove up into the park to find a couple of suitable campsites. Uh yeah… no way Jose.

All the sites were small, narrow and crowded and if our rig wouldn’t fit, no way was Will and Karen’s going to either. So, we opted to camp just outside of the park entrance which meant lots of elbow room and…. as David the artist would say… it’s FREE! Will and Karen showed up not long after us and we both settled in.

The next day the four of us jumped into our car and did a little sightseeing through the park. Even though the park is named after the Joshua Tree (which isn’t really a tree… more akin to the Yuccas) it’s the huge boulders and rocks that seem to be the main attraction. Not only can you camp amongst them, if your rig will fit, but you can also climb all over them, if YOU’RE fit. Take a look at the photos below. Sometimes it can be difficult to spy the rock climber!

Do you see the rock climber?

How about now?

We opted not to climb and instead found a spot for a picnic lunch. It was all very nice and pleasant. The next day Barbara and I had to make a run into town, Indio, to do some shopping and when we came back we had a nice dinner thanks to our friends. Will fixed his excellent Mexican Spaghetti and we devoured it like we’d not eaten in a week. Yummy! About the time I was forcing myself to not have a second helping, we caught site of David pulling in to camp near us. I went out, invited him over and Will and Karen gladly fed him the last helping of spaghetti. We all sat around for quite some time sharing traveling adventures and the one point that kept coming us was.. “It’s FREE!”. LOL Thanks David, I’ll always hear your voice whenever I camp at a free spot from this point on!

Speaking of “free”, you really can do this lifestyle on a very lean budget. For the month of January, Barbara and I spent $160 on camping fees. That’s pretty cheap rent my friends. And so far this month (February) we’ve not spent one dime on camping fees. You’d be amazed how much free camping there is out here in Arizona and New Mexico!

One morning we woke up to what we thought was a cool foggy day here in the desert but that wasn’t quite making sense to us. Later on, we found out that the “fog” was actually “Smog” that was being blown eastward from L.A.. Gross!

California Smog rolling in. Sad.

Friday morning we saw our friends off after making plans to hook up again later on in February.

Barbara and I spent the next few days exploring the park, taking photos and enjoying a couple of hikes.

One of the more exhausting hikes was up at the north side of the park, near 29 Palms, CA. It’s called “Fortynine Palms Oasis” and is an intermediate to strenuous hike back into the mountains to an actual oasis of palm trees. It was a pleasant day to make the hike and it was quite amazing to crest the ridge and see tops of palm trees off into the distance. We hung around there for awhile just relaxing and taking in the solitude. For the most part, the ones who made the hike seemed pretty respectful of the area and kept noise down to a minimum. Well, that or they were just out of breath from the hike. Hard to say.

Okay, but I'm still going!

We enjoyed our stay at the Joshua Tree National Park and enjoyed every aspect of it. There were several things that we wanted to do but just didn’t make the time to do so. I guess that just means a return trip is in order on down the road. Yep, life is real hard out here on the road…… but we’re adjusting to it just fine.

Hope you continue to tune in and see where we’re headed to next. I’d go ahead and tell you, but in this lifestyle we often aren’t sure ourselves until we get there!