Second boondocking site

I have moved from the Thousand Trails Campground to BLM land close by.  Ground is kind of soft from the rain we had earlier but not bad. Here is what my site looks like. 

I had my awning up for a while in the early afternoon because the sun was hot and I wanted to shade my refrigerator.  

The solar panels will have a rough time charging the batteries I think. The sun is low on the horizon and goes behind some hills around 4:30 or so. I am only going to be here for a couple of days so I shouldn't have any problem. I could tilt the panels, but I don't think it is worth the effort of getting on the roof. I just won't be running my crock pot this time. I cooked up a pot yesterday and I have a couple of meals left from that and lots of soup so I'm good. 

Life is good. 

Snow and an early Christmas gift

After finally venturing out after all the rain we had, I saw this on a nearby hill. 

SNOW!  Yuk, time to leave.  Monday I will be leaving this area and heading south.  Filled up my propane tank so I can keep warm in the days to come. I will be sad to leave this Thousand Trails campground because they have everything I need right here. After this I will need to find things like propane, water, dump stations and garbage disposal. Should be exciting though. 

I received something like an early Christmas present today. I have read all the books by Lee Child except for his latest release.  Never Go Back was priced at $10.99 as a Kindle book. I won't pay that much for a book so I put it on eReaderIQ way back when it first came out.  eReaderIQ.com is a service that keeps an eye on Amazon prices and will send an email when the book price drops to whatever you set as an acceptable price.  So the price went all the way down to $3.49!  I don't know if this is just a short time thing or not, but I jumped on it right away.  Can't wait to start reading it but I have to finish the one I am on first. Should be done tomorrow sometime. Guess I won't be getting much else done for a while. 

Life is good. 

Rain, rain and more rain

It has been raining almost constantly for about three days.  Yesterday it started clearing up for the first time in a long time.

Sure is nice to see some blue sky again. I have been spoiled since I came to Arizona since this is the first time there has been any amount of rain. 

My afternoon walks were done in the rain and I felt like I was back in Oregon again. In Oregon, I would have to wait until July to see the end of the rain whereas here the weather should clear up this week. 

Not much else happening here, I have been doing inside cleanup and rearranging things. I have been involved in a spirited email thread going with my family about the weather. The Wisconsin group bragging about their ability to withstand bitter cold and calling the southwest group wimps while the southwest group claims superior intelligence for moving where the weather is better.  All in fun of course. 

I can well remember the snowstorm we had in Oregon in the winter of 2008-2009 when my poor Born Free was covered in snow for almost a week. Fortunately I was able to keep nice and warm inside.

Here is a picture of that. 

I hope I won't have to live in my RV in that kind of winter again.  This was when I was still working and couldn't follow warmer weather. Usually it just rained all winter. 

Just checked the weather.  Today the high was listed as 41, tomorrow it should be 63. Nice!

Life is good.

Dinner is done

Dinner in my new Thermos Nissan Thermal Cooker turned out great. Very similar to cooking it in my crock pot but using less energy. 

Here are the two units after I pulled the inner pot out of the thermos.  The inner pot can be used with an induction cooktop. 

What the end result looks like. It tasted much better than it looks here. 

Here is my portion for tonight. It made 4 generous meals for me. 

It is definitely a keeper.  Anyone want a small crock pot?

Life is good. 

Cabin pictures and thermal cooking

Here are the pictures of the cabin I am staying in this week. 

I am getting spoiled living in this luxury!  At the same time I am looking forward to getting back in my RV on Friday because I miss it. It is always good to get back home. 

I ordered a Nissan Thermal Cooker and it came today so I had to cook my dinner for today in it to see how well it works. Here it is cooking my dinner.

No electricity needed. I put what I normally put in my crock pot in the inner pot and put it on the range to bring it to a boil. After it boiled for a couple of minutes, I put the inner pot into the outer thermos and will let it set for 3 or 4 hours.  At that point it should be ready to eat. So I only need energy to get it to the boiling point and then I put it in the thermos to continue the cooking. If it works, I will not need to have my crock pot using electricity for 3 to 4 hours. This type of cooking has been used in Japan for quite a while so I know it works, I just need to figure out the optimal procedure for what I usually cook. Tonight's dinner is barley, black beans, corn, tomatoes, green beans, celery and a few spices. 

I will try to remember to take photos of the final result and post them later tonight. 

Life is good. 

Cabin life

Moved into a cabin last night. I get a free week a year with my Thousand Trails membership and figured I better take advantage of it before the end of the year when I would lose this years week. The cabin is nice in some ways because I have a comfortable recliner and a working microwave for popcorn. The bed was more comfortable than I expected. However, the furnace is right next to the bed and it sounds like a jet taking off right next to me. Needless to say, I turned the heat way down for the night. 

I have some pictures but they are on my phone and are not loading on my iPad very fast. Since I am back down in a valley again, my internet is slow. I will post the pictures when I can. 

Life is good. 

Meeting bloggers I follow

There are several blogs I follow religiously and I have been able to meet up with the owners of two of those blogs this year.

I met Sue of rvsueandcrew when I was in Montana. A wonderful lady and a joy to visit with.

This week I met with Bob Wells of cheaprvliving.com at his campsite near me. It was great visiting with him as I have followed his blog for a long time and picked up lots of info from the blog on outfitting a van for camping and how to prepare for boondocking.

Also at Bob's campsite were Forrest and Beth who own Alpine Tour Company in Ridgway, Colorado and had taken Bob on a Jeep tour.  They are a young couple enjoying life while they still can and you can follow their adventures at 3upadventures.com   Their company website is alpinetourco.com

It is really neat to meet up with people you feel you know after following their blogs for so long.