In grade school my principal sources of income were weeding in the family garden at a rate of $0.10 a row and mowing lawns. I had made a trailer for my bicycle with the wheels and part of the back frame of a tricycle we had salvaged from the dump. I got to use the family lawn mower, but I had to buy my own gasoline. My gasoline can was a two gallon oil can all painted up fire-engine red and with “Gasoline” stenciled diagonally across the two sides in bold yellow letters. The can would snap nicely into my rear cargo carrier rack on my bicycle and it was five blocks to my Spokane neighborhood gas station at the corner of Nevada and Wellesley. I just checked the satellite view on Google Maps and the station is still there.

On this particular summer day I rode over and bought two gallons of gasoline, put the change from my dollar bill back in my jeans pocket and started for home. On my way home I jumped my bicycle off the curb, (they hadn’t invented wheelchair friendly ramps yet.) I heard a crash behind me and there was my gasoline can in the middle of the road. It was a bit wrinkled on one corner but otherwise appeared to be O.K.

When I got back home I noticed there was a very slight leak at the wrinkle. I set the can in the middle of the drive way and lugged the Prest-o-lite Torch out of the basement shop and set about soldering up the leak on the wrinkled corner of the gasoline can. I had just about got’er up to temperature when a funny sound caught my attention. It was like “vvvwip, vvvwip, vvvwip.” It was then I noticed that the leaking gasoline would repeatedly catch fire, burn the available gasoline and then go out.

I turned the torch off and ran about forty feet away and watched for a few minutes for everything to cool back off. I filled up the lawn mower and stored the can on its good side until I could use the fuel up.

Mathilda at 4 weeks

Many, many years later I told the story to my Dad and he couldn’t believe I could get away with such a dumb stunt. I have thought about this a few times, particularly once when I was taking fire-fighting training in the US Coast Guard. We were fighting a simulated high pressure leaking aviation fuel fire. We all had the full aluminized fire suits and approached as a team with multiple fog nozzles and hoses. The fire was very impressive. I think I understand why I got away with my stunt. Very simply, the can was full. Also, even though I failed to anticipate the problem, I quickly recognized it when it appeared. It also helps to be just plain lucky.

Mother's Love

We are just about at the end of our stay here in Hillsboro. Mathilda is four weeks old now and Renee has a factory lined up for the diaper business. This week we have been in the middle of a construction zone here at the Hillsboro Elks Lodge. They are installing concrete pads and 50 amp service all around us. Meanwhile we are boondocking, (that is doing without electricity and for a while without water too.) The weather is turning to rain and it is time for us to seek warmer climates.

See you all down the road.

Gary and Judy

Neil and Georgia talking Barbeque

We had delightful weather in Indeo. In Blythe we survived a dust storm but by the actual festival time the weather was again delightful. In fact we were feeling just a little smug about it, because we kept hearing about how bad the weather was in the rest of the country. Just about the time the rest of the country warmed up, we have started to feel your pain. We did get a little sprinkle the last night of jamming in the Blythe camping area. We all quickly got our instruments under cover. We later resumed a limited jam inside our coach.

Tuesday started out a nice sunny day with no clouds. We pulled up stakes and drove to Quartzsite where we were to pick up our mail. We parked at the east end of town and made quick work of the one mile walk to the post office. Whoa; a few hundred people had the same idea so we stood in line for about an hour. We then crossed over I-10, again on foot, and visited the “Big RV Sales Tent.” We picked up a couple presents for Arcturus and then we noticed there were big black clouds to our west. As we hurried back to Arcturus the nearby hills grew indistinct and then disappeared before our very eyes. Soon came the spattering of a few raindrops and we redoubled our efforts to get back to the coach. We were about 200 feet away when it cut loose.

We drove about six miles out of town in a driving rain and at the designated point we bravely turned off into the desert. We joined about 50 Alpine coaches parked in a naturally gravely area of the desert.

Once again today, Wednesday, January 20^th the Sonoran Desert is sunny and warm. Alpine coaches have been streaming in all day long. The weatherman is promising us an even more spectacular rain storm for tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Heavy Rain Turns Camp Area into a Lake

Wow! With the Thursday sunrise there came the rain. The rugged hills bordering this sector of the desert have all disappeared from view and the rain marches through driven by a southwest wind. Most of the group activities have been cancelled or postponed and all of the participants are holed up in their coaches. We pulled in the big slider to keep the wind from damaging the rollout canopy and I note that several of the neighbors have done the same.

Photos of the wet desert. Click to enlarge>

Note Tent Beyond Second Coach

Judy is busy baking an apple flake and pear scones. Running the oven is helping warm the coach. The solar panels are only delivering 0.3 amps, so we are relying on the big Onan generator for power. You can see from the photos that the desert is awash. There ought to be a beautiful spring blooming around here with all of this water. The wind gusts probably reached the predicted 50 mph between 4 and 5 pm and the activities tent had to be struck. The gusts are coming broad on our side and we are just rocking and rolling.

Tent Was Struck Due to Wind

I have been practicing the fiddle this afternoon. I bought a new lesson book at the Blythe Bluegrass Festival from Jay Buckey. I am dedicating myself to learn the fiddle enough that I can debut at a jam session in one of the next festivals. Meanwhile I am still practicing in the bedroom behind closed doors. If you check out Jay’s web site you can get a bit of an idea what his program is all about. Jay Buckey.  You get to download music (.mp3) files of each lesson and that way you have something to practice against.

Meanwhile we are counting on the weatherman’s prediction of warm sunny weather after today. I am sure L.A. will breathe a sigh of relief also.

Our literature also indicated there was a campground in Afton Canyon run by the BLM just outside the Preserve. It was four miles off Interstate 15. We found exit 221 easy enough and the BLM signs gave us the confidence to start down a very dusty looking desert road. It was nice and wide and well graded. The washboard effect soon had us crawling at 10 MPH. After a couple of miles the road turned into Afton Canyon and became steep and narrow. I mean like it felt like we were 4-wheelin’ in our 34 foot motor home being pushed by three tons of trailer full of tools.

We reached the campground easily enough and I have developed confidence in Arcturus; He would have the power to pull us back up the hill out of the canyon….if he could get enough traction! We were the only campers last night. There are a total of 22 campsites and there is water and pit toilets available. We spent the night wondering how many trains would wake us up. We were right beside the Union Pacific main line to Las Vegas. Surprise! Not a single train came by in the night. However, five trains passed the campground between sunrise and ten when we left. Thank you UP.

The literature calls Afton Canyon the “Grand Canyon of the Mojave River.” We hiked in the canyon and I have placed a collection of photos on the web site at www.dinsmore-enterprises.com/20091203.html. Judy also took photos of me driving Arcturus up the big hill out of the canyon. Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning not a single car or truck came down the road to the campground. Just as I started up the big hill, here comes the UP maintenance truck. I had to back part-way down the hill to allow him to swing of onto a side road leading to the train tracks. See the photos of the UP-Arcturus Saw-By.

By the way, that is a real railroading term. It is how two trains pass when the available side track is too short for either train to get in the clear. I will leave the details to your imagination. E-mail me if you can’t get your two trains past each other.

Tonight we are in Mojave, the town, and tomorrow we will climb the Tehachapi over to Bakersfield. This is the art of moseying that I have spoken of before. We will be going under a hundred miles again.

See you all down the road somewhere, Gary and Judy

UP Freight Crossing Mojave River Tressel at Sunrise

Afton Canyon,Grand Canyon of the Mojave River

Mojave River Wetlands in Afton Canyon

Arcturus Charging the Hill in Afton Canyon

No Room to Pass - Arcturus and UP Railroad do a Saw By

Arcturus Climbs out of Afton Canyon

Our camping experience was a little strange today. We have always been richly rewarded when we stop by the Corps of Engineer Campgrounds. Not so today with Kyen Campground on Mendocino Lake on US 101, near Ukiah, California. This campground was old, small and crowded with narrow, crooked roads with posts and concrete bollards guarding every corner. We tried in vain to stuff Arcturus into two different stalls, and each time we were blocked by overhanging trees and guard posts.

We finally threw in the towel and went about 5 miles back up the road to the Coyote Valley Casino. This is an interesting place! It is housed in two huge vinyl tents. Beyond the front parking lot is a lot of stirred up ground with foundations for a nice new building. The hostess admitted that the current tents were just temporary. However, the economic downturn caught them in mid expansion and the whole project was shut down. We were invited to stay over in the parking lot. So we went back in and tried their new player special, hamburgers for $1.99. Then we attempted to donate our mandatory $20.00 to the jackpot.

Would you believe it? We actually walked out with $4.96 in cold cash. Put with that the lucky penny we found in the parking lot and wow! Not only are we warm, we are winners. As you can probably see, it doesn’t take much to keep us entertained.

Today Judy took over driving for an hour. Highway 101 in California is a series of 65 mph freeways interconnected with cow-paths that meander through the redwood groves at 35 mph. In many places the guard rails are right on the fog-line and they are bolted to big redwood trees. She took over on a freeway and I settled in for a little nap. When I woke up we were back on one of the cow-paths, and as soon as Judy could find a wide spot, she handed the driving back to me.

Tomorrow we will tackle the San Francisco Bay area traffic. It is one of our least favorite routes that we travel regularly. Perhaps I can get Judy to drive I-680 tomorrow.

Well greetings and goodnight to all from Mendocino county.

Gary and Judy

Coyote Valley Casino in a Tent

Construction Site at Coyote Valley Casino

We now have 75,000 miles on Arcturus, our Alpine motor home. I was having them check things like brakes and shocks. The reason I was suspicious was last winter as we were driving through Laredo, Texas we had to stop at five or six lights in a row on a stretch of 50 mph highway. Judy looked out her side of the coach and declared we had a rear tire smoking! I pulled into a parking lot and surveyed the scene and it was just hot brakes. Still it was something to check out.

Today we have the diagnosis: The rear axle seal on one side of the coach is weeping oil onto the disk brakes and the other side is just starting to ooze a little. So… tonight we are camped under the breezeway at Pacific Power. It will be $500 for the night’s camping and tomorrow they will replace the seals for free! Such a deal!

Another seal story? O.K. You remember we were headed down river with Regal Jug, our 23 foot sailboat? We were preparing the boat for launch and I started to move the outboard motor to place it on the transom. An ounce or so of dark oil drained from the lower unit onto the cabin sole. I assumed the worst case situation and decided the seals in the lower unit had been damaged. I was unwilling to take a seventy mile trip with a sick outboard, so we abandoned the trip and stored the boat for winter. Later I was trying to locate some parts to repair the motor and the service manager listened to my diagnosis. He assured me that I had misdiagnosed the problem. These Honda outboards are famous for loosing crankcase oil through the exhaust pipe when laid on their sides. It doesn’t hurt them, it just makes a mess. The seals almost never give trouble. If I had taken the chance and gone anyway we would have been fine. However, I would have stewed over the perhaps imminent failure of the outboard all the way to Astoria and back. I don’t regret taking the safe course.

If you want to review my earlier seal story look up the story of the new born seal pup in my July 14th blog.

We will see some of you at the camp-out this weekend.

Gary and Judy

New: We are still in what we tend to call the “Wanderlust” phase of our retirement. After a full week in one place we get this irresistible urge to move on. Some stretches of the route between the Desert Southwest and the Pacific Northwest are getting more challenging to find places where we haven’t stayed before.

Suitable: When your rig is 53 feet long this is something you have to be sensitive to. Of course the big resorts are always “big rig friendly,” and they have all of the amenities; water, electricity, sewers, swimming pools, cable tv, wi-fi, Laundromat and club house. They have row upon row of long pull through spaces that are packed in as tight as they can arrange. We seem to thrive best in “barely suitable” camp sites; Sites that are about a foot too short and are a real challenge to get backed into.

This weekend is a perfect example. We are camped in Joshua Tree National Park. This is the second time we have stopped here, but we found a new corner of the park to explore. The campground is called Jumbo Rocks. The campground is packed into the relatively level spaces between jumbo rocks along a ¾ mile roadway that ends in a barely navigable loop. We are parked in a wide spot that is barely wide enough and long enough to get out of the travel lane. It actually turned out to be a pretty good spot. In fact we had reached the loop and the end of the road without finding anything suitable. Just then a motor home the same size as Arcturus started leaving their site. We slid neatly into their spot. They made their way around the loop and stopped for a chat. They were indeed leaving and assured us that it was a wonderful spot.

Joshua Tree National Park is in the southeast corner of California. It is sandwiched in between Twenty Nine Palms Marine Base to the north and the Salton Sea to the south. To the East are Rice Air Base and eventually the Colorado River and to the west is San Bernardino and Palm Springs. The area is rather mountainous varying from about 2,000 feet to over 5,000 feet. Jumbo Rocks Camp is at 4,400 feet, so the furnace was running a lot last night.

The park is rather large, nearly 800,000 acres, and it encompasses portions of the two great desert areas of Southwest California, the Mohave Desert and the Colorado Desert. It is interesting to watch the transition from the Creosote Bush dominated Colorado Desert to the Joshua Trees and Yucca as we climb to the higher Mohave Desert of the north western portion of the park.

We were out riding and hiking yesterday afternoon and it was scary trying to ride in winds that I estimate were twenty miles per hour and gusting to perhaps thirty five. Fortunately we were riding with the wind, but the road was curvy and we were riding cross wind much of the time. The hiking was really nice. The temperature was in the seventies and everything was blooming.

The winds continued blowing ferociously even into the night. We were nicely sheltered by the jumbo rocks that surround us and are a good 100 feet higher than the coach.
Actually we have it pretty good. We are roughing it, comfortably. It is spring break in California and around us we see young people sleeping for example in sleeping bags in the open bed of a pickup. We layered up about three layers deep and brought a blanket with us to attend a Ranger Talk at the Amphitheater. It was cancelled for the wind. As we walked back we saw one campsite with a big tent that looked like it was demon possessed. The wind would alternately flatten the tent and then let it spring up and shake its rain fly like a parasail in the wind.

There are places to visit and things to see. It is time to end this and start moving along. Today we will probably hike the mile long Skull Rock trail amid all of these Jumbo Rocks.

We send our love to all, Gary and Judy.

P.S. Check out our web-site for a photo of our camp and some desert wild flowers blooming.

Arcturus Nestled Among the Jumbo Rocks

It's a Tight Fit

Cactus In Bloom

These Tiny Flowers are About Quarter of an Inch Across

During the days we rode the bicycle, hiked and canoed the lake. Mittry is a small reed enclosed lake with meandering channels and lots of wildlife. We saw Egrets, Herons, Coots, Ducks, Hawks, Osprey and a few thousand swallows. In the canoe we would drift through an opening in the reeds and watch the birds up-close and undisturbed.

Yesterday we joined friends Tom and Margie at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma for an Air Show. There were the usual collection of aerobatic flying acts plus we got to witness a B-1 Lancer over-flight and a re-enactment of the Zeros and torpedo planes attacking Pearl Harbor. There were only six AT-6′s and BT-13′s flying in the re-enactment. The pilots, however, did an excellent job of creating the feeling of the confusion of a real battle, and the pyrotechnics team added to the realism. I found myself all choked up at the end.

Today we traveled back to the relative civilization of Quartzsite, AZ. We how have cell phone and internet. We will still be “boon-docking,” that is no water or electric. Our Solar panels keep up with the power demand just fine. Tonight we will be hanging out with a group of Bluegrass people doing our picking and grinning. This is the simple life, and it suites us just fine.

Hugs to all from the Arizona Desert

Gary and Judy

Egrets on Mittry Lake, Yuma AZ

We just finished up a week of work-camping with our friends at Lutherhill, a Lutheran Youth Camp in the summer season. Our friends, Arnie and Mem, care for the grounds during the winter season. We did a few handyman tasks to justify our stay, but mostly we hung out with friends and went to the Opry in La Grange. (See our blog for Feb 20, 2007,(Under construction, link to come) for our last visit to the Opry)

The really nifty part of this location is that we dodged the latest freeze cycle a little further north of here. We woke up to 61 degrees this morning. We rushed out to get in a bicycle ride this morning before the predicted noontime rain. The rain squall caught us about five miles away in Indianola, Texas, a couple hours before predicted. Oh well, We won’t complain, Texas is a couple buckets short for the last two years.

Another advantage for this area is the abundance of birds. We have been logging gulls and terns, shore birds and Sandhill Cranes. We have spotted egrets, herons, pelicans, kingfishers and hawks.

Finally the camping here is free. Now you would think that the place would be overrun, but quite the contrary, it is only sparsely populated. We are “dry camping.” That means no electricity, no water, no wi-fi or cable T.V. There are a few fishermen and also a few full time travelers like us here too. We just met a couple from the Netherlands. They shipped their little European compatible camper over on a ship and they are touring our country for a full year. Just a couple weeks ago we met a family from New Zealand who were doing the same thing.

Meeting interesting new people is one of the rewards of our nomadic style of life. In fact as I sit here humming a few bars of Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville,” I find it hard to even remember what it was like “Workin’ nine to five,” with Dolly.

So Long from South Texas…now where did I put that salt shaker?

Gary and Judy

We have been schmoozing around the west side of the mountains; Portland, Chimicum and Sequim; and it has been cold, wet, rainy, misty, drizzling and 20 degrees below the seasonal averages. If that were not bad enough we voluntarily chose a dry-camp site at the Coho Park at Chimicum while we were visiting our friends, Judy and Henry. Bad decision! After a nice evening and dinner with Judy and Henry we returned to our bone cold motor home and nudged the thermostat. The fan roared to life but the flame fizzled. It was well after generator hours in the park so we had to hop in our bed and snuggle for dear life.

Next morning we warmed the kitchen with the cook stove and eventually were able to run the generator and the electric heater. From there we went on to visit Judy’s sister, Genaveve, and her family in Sequim Washington. We snuggled Arcturus into their front yard and hooked an electrical cord into their garage. We kept popping their circuit breaker until we found a better circuit in the back yard.

I proceeded to extract the furnace from underneath the refrigerator, and carefully traced every circuit and verified every switch and interlock. I was able to isolate the problem to either the circuit board or the gas valve or both. We did some calling in Sequim and Port Angeles and were unable to find any replacements. Next we plotted our route for Monday morning and started calling parts places along the way. We found a replacement for the circuit board called a Dinosaur board. (Our RV friends should take note, this is a good replacement option for the Suburban furnace.)

When we picked up the board at Camping World in Fife Washington it was pouring rain. I was going to make the replacement in their parking lot in case I needed the valve also. I extracted the furnace from under the refrigerator again and was ready to pop in the circuit board when I came across a sheet of instructions for how to rewire everything for different makes and models of furnaces. Our furnace wasn’t listed. I carefully inserted the instructions back in the box. Slid the furnace back in the locker without installing it and we headed for Wenatchee.

The rain stopped when we reached the top of Snoqualmie Pass and by the time we reached Wenatchee Washington the sun was out, the temperature was in the 70′s and I was much calmer. We set up camp and then I looked over the Dinosaur board again. There were pins and plugs for every wire on the old board. They were indexed so you couldn’t put them on the wrong pin. I hunched over so that guy Murphy couldn’t see what I was doing and I swapped pin for pin, plug for plug and kicked ‘er on. The fan rev’ed up, the light winked and at the exact moment it was supposed to, the solenoid snapped the gas valve open. Glory Be!

Oh yes it took both Judy and I another 45 minutes to squeeze it back into it’s hidey hole under the refrigerator and hook the gas pipe back up, but we have heat now. Life is good! Check out the photos below.

We will continue to cruise about eastern Washington on our way to a family reunion in Colville WA. We will get to see many of our relatives over the next few weeks.

Bye now and may your furnace always come on when you nudge the thermostat.

Gary and Judy

Gary Installs the Furnace

Sunshine at Last in Confluence State Park, Wenatchee

To refresh your memory; there are many people who attend Bluegrass Festivals that play an instrument. When a scramble band is hosted by the festival these folks are encouraged to place their names in boxes labeled with the instrument they play. That is guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, dobro or bass. The committee pulls names from the boxes randomly to make up several bands. Each of these new bands gets together and they choose a name for themselves and find two or three songs they can all play. They get maybe as much as an hour to practice and then they go on-stage and perform for the full audience.

Our band today was made up of three guitars, myself, George and Ralph; two mandolins, Carrol and Jay; a banjo, Vera; a fiddle, Kay and a bass, Tom. First we spent fifteen minutes thrashing around looking for three songs we could all play and sing. Our first song was to be an instrumental, “Soldiers Joy,” a lively fiddle tune. Our second song was a slow sad song called “Who Will Sing for Me.” Finally we wanted to end on an upbeat song. I volunteered to do “Orphan Train,” which is about getting WW I orphans adopted out to farmers families in the Midwest. Then we made up a name. We called ourselves the “‘Q’ Mountain Orphans.” Well “Q” Mountain is a little pimple of a hill out south of town. It has a great big white quartz “Q” for Quartzsite on its side and a flag on top. It is visible from the stage area and is just a short walk from camp.

We were the second band to perform on stage, so we had to wait behind the stage and fight the jitters until our turn came. Now, it’s our turn, and we march on stage. The sound engineer sets each us up with a mic. Finally we are announced and we charge into “Soldiers Joy.” I am just playing along and looking out at the audience, trying to remember how to smile and play a “D” chord all at the same time when I spot a gal in the second row doing tatting. I had this brief but almost irresistible urge to point and call out, “Judy, she’s tatting.” About then I had to grab a “G” chord and then remember to smile again, so the moment passed and the butterflies all got back in formation again. George and Ralph teamed up and produced good harmonies for “Who Will Sing For Me.” Then it was time for “Orphan Train.” I had George and Vera on either side of me singing good harmony on the choruses. I was so busy making sure I remembered the next verse to sing that the song was over and I couldn’t remember if I had remembered to smile.

It was a good band, we all had fun and afterwards we had many nice complements on our performance. If there is some wisdom to gain from this perhaps it is to have fun and smile a lot. Then it will be easier to remember the G chord and not have to worry if you are smiling.

By now we are in La Paz County Park, near Parker Arizona camped in the middle of a bunch of new Bluegrass friends. I am looking for a hot spot so I can send this out. If you don’t get it you will know I haven’t found one yet.

Love to all from sunny Arizona.
Gary and Judy

Q-Mountain Orphans;L-R Gary, Jay, Kay, Tom, George, Ralph, Vera and Carrol

Gary belts out the Q-Mountain Orphans

"Q" Mountain, Quartzsite Arizona