Daily Archives: Friday April 19th, 2013

Lets see if I can get this post done tonight…..lol

Right now, sitting by the fire, stars are out, we are at Gunsite Wash BLM just south of Why, AZ, the nearest fellow RVers are a couple 100 yds away, so totally private feeling.

It has been an interesting few days on experience, I can tell you that.

The experiences….well, hubby learned what not to do when needing to turn around. I’ll let you read his post on that and what was going on with his way of thinking.

But we got Ackbar stuck in about 8″ and 4′ wide sandbar, with Kermit being towed behind him and getting him stuck in a few feet of loose sand. With Kermit being the reason why Ackbar got stuck. We really should’ve taken pictures of it….BUT we are like, holy crap! How are we going to get out this? So emotions won’t have allowed that.

We unhooked Kermit, got him out easily, next was trying to Ackbar out. ToRn tried rocking him, we tried putting the leveling pads under the wheels, in the end, Torn shovel out some of the sand, put some old mats under the wheels, we put Kermit in front with the tow strap, in low 4wheel and slowly got Ackbar out.

I have NEVER done that in my life. I’ve never had my wheels, keep going and going in one spot and things shaking….I thought I was messing up the Jeep. But we did it and Kermit and Ackbar are fine.

The good thing is that my dad got me a tow strap with my first car in ’90 that we have never used and still had. I’m very proud I still had this…..sometimes being paranoid about being prepared for the worst helps out big time. I got that from living in Alaska….you carry chains, jumper cable, tow straps, food, water, blankets, first aid, tools…..if I really did what I was taught to do, the back of our Jeep would be packed.

Then when we thought we were in the free and clear, the even-brake monitor gave us “pull cable not operational” (rolling eyes). Just what we needed. Long story short after messing around with that, we unhooked and ToRn drove Ackbar and I drove Kermit for the last 80miles.

I since then I have called even-brake and they say the braking system will still work (then one when you brake on the RV, the tow will brake) even with that error. So we will tow our last leg of the trip. Then support gave me instructions for resetting (he called it “relearn”) the monitor. If that doesn’t work, we’ll deal with it once we get to Patagonia….right now, it is just nice to know that it is safe to tow.

On our first BLM experience outside of Joshua Tree, our house batteries seemed to run down pretty fast. And that was just after stopping, so they were charged and full desert sun on the solar panels, not good. Ended up running the generator and then they didn’t seem to run down that fast. But I think we found what the problem was, the ‘fridge didn’t switch to LP and stayed on AC….so that put a drain on the batteries. Which brings me to the ‘fridge……

ToRn did a post on this, but the ‘fridge is not working on LP. The freezer seems to be, but not the ‘fridge part. It runs fine on shore/generator. Which made us not go to more BLM/boondocking sites after Joshua Tree.  But since then I’ve learned that when the generator is not charging the house batteries and sending power to the plugs, to check the circuit breaker on the generator itself.  Those things are everywhere….lol

We decided to head to a RV park in Quartzsite, AZ…not realizing that many of them close on Apr 15 since their season is over….lol I did find us 88 Shades RV Park. It was reasonability priced, $29.67 with GoodSam/AAA discount, including tax. It had several pull throughs for big rigs with tows, 50amp/water/sewer hookups, leveled gravel lots, only issue with the lots was ToRn keep finding 3inch nails from fencing, not good for tires, otherwise it was maintained, just showing some of the age, a lot of permanent residents, didn’t use the laundry/shower/restroom area, couldn’t figure out their internet step up, got decent 3g verizon most of the time, but they had a very nice desert garden. Would stay there again if in the area.

Used the time there to get the ‘fridge down on temp, make more ice, do laundry, clean and chill out.

I’ll do more on Quartzsite and Gunsite Wash in the next few days. This post is getting pretty long and my battery is getting low. =)~

I made a bad decision when my gut feeling was telling me not to do it. But I did it. Well, I at least TRIED to do it. The idea itself was the stupid thing to do once you sit back and realize how stupid you are.

We was on the road by 8am, drove from Quartzsite, AZ to East of Yuma when I needed to take a break from driving and since we are in BFE I decided to just pull off the next exit, park along the side of the exit and take a 15 min or so break.

We pull off a exit where we see nothing but sand, the exit offramp was too narrow to park there so I was heading for the off ramp when I see there is a huge area just off the road to the right of the exit, so I start to pull into it and making sure I didn’t get into loose sand or anything. It turns out a semi exited right behind us so I wasn’t able to take my time and plot my course into the open area and once I realized I was “off course” I decided the best thing to do was a U Turn across the road where it looks like others have used it for the same purpose.

At this point the idea of “Stop. Disconnect the Jeep, do a U Turn from the point you area, hook up the Jeep and go.” came into my mind.

But who has 15 minutes of their life that they can just throw away on a whim?

So I drive across the st, and turn Right and start making the the U Turn when I realized I didn’t have the room to make a U turn and that it would in fact be a wider U turn into what looked like loose and deep sand, I better gun it and gun it NOW…

Missed it… By that much.

Many things go into one’s mind when they hit a sand bar. The first thing is usually “Was the captain drunk?” And the second is “Gee, if I just disconnected the Jeep.” for two reason’s. Reason one being the best reason, had I disconnected the Jeep I could easily have turned around on the paved road. And the second reason being, that if I did find myself in the same situation without the weight of the Jeep slowing me down like it did in the soft sand, I would have made it. A third thing is “Jeep’s are heavy”. And of course the fourth thing is “Really? Did you really just do that? What a dumbass.”

We first dissconnect the Jeep and easily drive it off the sand dune that stopped it. But Ackbar was in sand that looked harder then it was, not too deep, but deep enough and after trying to get it rocking I realized I brought that shovel for a reason. I dug out the sand in front of both back tire’s and put some old mats we have in front of both, Pauline put the Jeep into Low 4Wheel and we strapped the Jeep to the front of Ackbar with the hope she can give me just enough momentum we can get Ackbar out.

Lucky for us, She did and we did get out. Total time stuck, 10-15 minutes I would estimate. We once again hook the Jeep back onto Ackbar and start heading toward the highway. As I slow down to take the onramp, the breaking system told me the Jeep’s breaks were still on and I was getting a “break away” error. Ok.

We have had this before, I just need to unplug and reset etc. We are now on the other side of the highway where we have a wide paved road, so we rest everything and test and once again start heading toward the East bound exit. Breaking system error as soon as I was making my turn and now, I was exactly where we just escaped so we decided to fallow the GPS and drive 4 miles for a u Turn.

The GPS lied, there is no road but there was a wide enough area to turn around and we finally disconnect the Jeep and Pauline drive the Jeep the final 80 miles to our current destination just out side Why, AZ.

We are currently sitting by the camp fire and looking at stars and listening to the night life.

I Love Vodka.

I learned a few thing’s in the last few days. One is stop half assing my hikes. I have been going out in flip-flops, no hat, no water, no light etc. I have all the gear, I paid for it, USE IT.

Another is to listen to my brain more and my ball’s less when it comes to driving Ackbar. I mean really??? You really drove a 32′ foot RV towing a 3,000 lb Jeep into a 8″ sand drift 4′ wide while doing a U turn? And you thought this was a good idea? Wow. Ok.

We arrived about 1 hour later then we wanted to, but it was still the perfect time. We met a friendly guy from Nebraska, he had some gold old fashioned humor, we was discussing about talking to them tomorrow or so.

Today we went into Organ Pipe National Monument and it was really cool, we strongly suggest it. It’s a huge “forest” of cactus’s, just keep in mind the speed limit of I85 is 65mph and not the 55mph you thought and people down here like to drive FAST. Drive with your lights on at all times. It really helps being seen in the desert.

We stopped at the visitors center and got our typical shirt, magnet, sticker etc. And drove around looking at the campsite they have and it was really nice. At this time of year, you would be pretty isolated for $12 a night. No hookups but there is a dump and water station and limited generator usage hours. But I would be willing to stay there.

We tried to drive to Lukeville, AZ but there was a line of car’s at the “Crossing point 1 mile” sign so we turned around, besides we also didn’t bring our passports.

Tomorrow we will drive the 21 mile one way loop into the desert. It’s $8 per car, but our National Park’s Interagency pass covers that. We was already too  hungry and we did not bring food or enough water or hiking boot’s or… everything we should have with us. So again, I need to stop half ass’ing this stuff.

I will post pictures and videos as we can, most likely next week when we are in Patagonia until August.

Night.

I Love Vodka.