January 2025: Quartzsite, the Crud, and the Big Tent
Home to Quartzsite - and the Crud
January 1 - 1st Day Of The New Year: Well, the day started off with getting up and fighting with the cold that I currently have. I have no idea where I caught it, but it is anything but fun. The nose is extremely stuffed up and terrific horrible sinus pressure. After saying good morning to everybody, Brandon got Ava ready and they went down to the gym. I took the time to get dressed and packed up all of my stuff, said my goodbyes to Cindy and Alicia before heading on down the road to Quartzsite. Arriving home at the trailer I got everything unloaded and into the house, and sat down in the chair. Decided I would run on the local power rather than our solar system so that I could watch TV and basically veg seeing as I feel so lousy. Ended up watching a lot of TV, taking a lot of elderberry gummies and drinking a lot of water. Will see if things improve tomorrow.
January 2 - Start to New Year: Rough day spent fighting the cold I have caught somehow. Cindy is at Brandon & Alicia's house and said she feels like she is coming down with the crud. Elizabeth is having her trailer moved today, which is awesome as she will have her own place now. Spent my day in my chair watching tube and drinking water, tea in an attempt to win against this crud.
January 3 - Fetching Cindy: After starting my day with coffee and medicine I received a call from Cindy asking if I could come get her today so that she wouldn't pass the crud onto Emma. So I got dressed and drove into the kids' place in Surprise and picked her up. Made the drive home and got Cindy settled then ran down to the store and grabbed some bread, milk and some lunch meat. Came back and we spent the evening in front of the tube drifting in and out of sleep, both of us fighting the crud.
January 4 - Fighting the Crud: Looks like both of us will still be dealing with the crud. Plus we are both tired so imagine we will be spending time sleeping as well. I did get the other solar panel out of the truck and placed up front, but need some wire to tie it in. With being sick I have been keeping the trailer plugged into shore power, plus running the fridge on electric rather than propane.
January 5 - Crud Fight Continues: So both Cindy and I are continuing our battle with whatever this crud is. Cindy slept till 9 AM this morning and is still not feeling better. I am a bit better but still have the thick mucus in my head and what feels like a fever. I was able to get another video started and hopefully I can finish it tomorrow. In an attempt to get feeling better I went for a walk around the block. Found the park behind the east side of this park is actually a whole lot more attractive than the one we are in. We will need to see what their rates are. Also walked down and got a couple of gallons of water. We watched some football because of not having much else to do because of the crud. Perhaps tomorrow we will find ourselves feeling better. Steps: 3,458.
January 6 - Crud Day 7: So another day has dawned in the great battle of the crud. We shall see if we make any progress against it today. I got a video this morning of the RV park and then commenced working on my next video to upload. Weather was decent today and I got the other 100 watt panel out and staked it down. Cindy seems to be feeling better today which is a good thing. I took an evening walk to the east of the trailer which took me up to the Dollar Store and then back to the trailer. Missy called while I was on my walk, she was at Chase's baseball practice and just wanted to chat. It was good to talk with her. We caught some tube and we are running off the batteries tonight. The park manager Kelly had his electrician rewire our pedestal to 50 amps. Not a big deal for us unless it gets so hot we need AC. Steps: 3,948.
January 7 - Crud on the Mend: Both Cindy and I are feeling a bit better today. I guess all the stuff that we are taking must be helping a little bit. We both had coffee this morning, but no breakfast. For lunchtime, I made myself a bologna sandwich, and I don't think Cindy made any lunch. After my coffee this morning, I hooked up the other panel to the current string of two, and tied those into the new charge controller. However, the new charge controller does not work so we will have to return it for a refund. Continued work on my video from 2023 and was able to not only finish all of my subtitles on it, but also was able to get the voice recording done and exported the completed video. I still need to upload it to YouTube and Rumble. I also need to write the opening paragraph or two for the webpage, add the page to the index and put the links for the videos on it. We ran down to the Mexican restaurant for dinner this evening. Wow, have prices gotten out of control. A simple Mexican meal for Cindy and I with a tip ran just shy of $60. So obviously we will not be doing that very often. We could've cooked for ourselves for five or six days for that price. Ended up watching a movie after we got back from the restaurant, and after Cindy went to bed, I caught up my journal here. Steps: 1,092.
The Quartzsite Winds
January 8 - Quartzsite Winds Are Kicking Up: So, with the big tent just being around the corner, the wind has decided it is time to finally blow. This seems to be a common occurrence during the big tent season here in Quartzsite. Cindy did not get out of bed till around 10 AM, so we did not get an exceptionally fast start to our day. After a small bite of food for the morning, we ran over to the big tent area to see what models of the Brinkley trailers they had brought in. After wandering through those, we also checked out the Grand Design trailers that they had brought in, which once again just reinforced how good the quality of the Brinkleys are. We grabbed a few items from the scratch and dent grocery store as well as a couple of items from the Amazon return store. Upon leaving the big tent area, we ran over to the new dollar store grocery store and grabbed ourselves some bread. And after that ran up to Arco and grabbed some nicotine pouches for me. After getting back from our running about, we watched a bit of YouTube videos prior to lunchtime, which Cindy made ham and beans for. She fried up some potatoes as well as made cornbread to go along with the meal, which we ate around 2:30 PM. I was able to get the batteries recharged on the trailer via solar by switching ourselves over to grid power. As the title above says, the winds were gusting quite severely today, making it show that we needed to put the tent down to its lowest level. We also have the breeze screens down at their lowest height due to the wind. Overall, the solar did just fine getting the batteries back up from around 60%, by us not making use of them. Larry called during lunch, and it sounds like overall things are going well for them. He is looking to get the Ridgeline listed and sold before he has to do the major maintenance on it as well as re-license it. I agreed with him that it was a good time to get it sold, and that as far as I knew nobody on my side of the family, i.e. kids, were interested in purchasing it. By getting it sold, it will just get things one step closer to being finalized on Dad and Mom's trust that they set up. Over the evening, we watched some TV and caught up on our show Oak Island. We also watched a movie, before Cindy called it a night and headed to bed. I spent the rest of the evening listening to podcasts. Also, today I was able to get my next video, which was number three for 2023, uploaded to Rumble as well as finishing the webpage for it. Cindy texted with Peggy this morning and she said that they will be in hopefully by next Tuesday or Wednesday provided they get some of their health challenges squared away that are distracting them currently. Steps: 3,546.
January 9 - Day Number 2 of Quartzsite Winds: Our morning started off being fairly calm, wind wise, however, here at 11:30 AM they are starting to whip again. I am trying an experiment with our solar today, by trying to run the trailer off of the batteries while the batteries are trying to charge back up. I am attempting to see if I can get by without having to plug ourselves back into the grid. We will see what happens by the end of the day. Cindy grabbed a shower before running over and doing some laundry. Thus the reason that I am currently trying to catch up my journal. The wind really kicked up this afternoon so that we had to take the tent down. Switched over to grid power this afternoon so that the batteries could finish charging up. Hard to get ahead of them with the way Cindy uses power. I think both of us are starting to get over the crud but still a way to go.
January 10 - Fixing Wind Damage: Steps: 4,870 (includes yesterday's steps). So both Cindy and I are slowly getting over the crud. Elizabeth currently has the crud and is just barely into fighting it. We received a phone call from Elizabeth today that Bryan's tent got torn up in yesterday's big blow. She asked if we could go over and help him to put up the new one. We ran over to the big tent area then, and proceeded to help him to tear down the old tent. At which time he went and purchased a new one from JB Tools, actually KB Tools. Rick came by as well, and we got the new tent put up plus staked down.
January 11 - Tent Wrap Up: Went over and helped Bryan get his signs up on his booth. Afterwards he and I went over to Beer Bellies and had a couple of beers before calling it a day.
January 12 - Kicking Back: We relaxed today and watched playoff games in the NFL.
January 13 - Helping Out: We went down to Wellton today and helped Micheal out a little bit with his trailer. Came back to the house and did the first crypto class with Sean Donahue. Interesting but will be a challenge to get the process down.
Big Tent Days
January 14 - More Helping Out: We assisted Elizabeth in moving some of her stuff from storage over to her trailer. Also, Ed and Beth stopped by and we will be heading over to the big tent tomorrow around 10 AM to help them to set up for the event. After helping Elizabeth out with moving stuff, we all ended up at the VFW and did the queen of hearts drawing and drank a few drinks. Tony and Peggy made it into town today, so while I was doing my class, Cindy went and had tacos with them. Steps: 3,040.
January 15 - Big Tent 1st Day: Today is setup day for vendors. We helped Ed and Beth with their booth today.
January 16 - Gout, Dammit: Have gout in my knee so not much done today. I did get all the videos from the crypto class recorded to the computer for reference as I get the system down with paper trading.
January 17 - Cindy's Play Day: Being down with gout in my knee, I spent the day in the trailer recording the videos from the cryptocurrency class. Cindy went down to the Amazon scratch and dent tent and purchased a couple of boxes for Alicia. Then she hung out with Elizabeth all day. I went to the yacht club and ate and drank. They went to the VFW and drank. I was also able to listen to a few podcasts with the peace and quiet that I had here. After they got back from the VFW I drove Elizabeth home and came back and we watched a movie before retiring for the night.
January 18 - First Day Big Tent: The big tent started today and we went over and spelled Ed and Beth so they could take a break for lunch and take care of their dogs. Ed is letting us use their side-by-side to get to the tent. We are able to park it in their trailer space so no fight to find parking, and Beth uses it to go take care of the dogs. Got to see Tony today and meet Todd Hansen from Tech Tips Tuesday.
January 19 - Day 2 Big Tent: So we did our second day of helping Ed and Beth. We followed that up with visiting Elizabeth at Bryan's tent. Getting a corn dog for our lunch. Going by Dawnielle and Rick's trailer to pick up the grocery items that they grabbed for us. Chatted a bit then came home. I finished up my paper trades for the day then we watched a movie till bedtime.
January 20 - Big Tent Day Three: Cindy and I helped Ed and Beth with the booth around lunchtime, so they could both take a break as well as Beth could come back to their trailer and take care of the dogs.
January 21 - Big Tent Day Four: Once again, Cindy and I went over to the big tent around 11:30 AM and spelled Ed and Beth so that they could have some lunch to eat as well as get back to the trailer and take care of their pups.
January 22 - Big Tent Day Five: Once again, Cindy and myself ran over to the big tent around lunchtime to spell Ed and Beth so they could have lunch as well as take care of their pups. Cindy did a bit of shopping around the big tent, but I don't recall anything that she decided we needed.
January 23 - Big Tent Day Six: Here we are on our sixth day of the big tent and spelling Ed and Beth at the booth so that they could have some lunch as well as get home and take care of the pups. Tony and Peggy have been in town running the seminar tent. I was able to see them when I went over and watched Todd Hansen's seminar on the Big Beard batteries.
January 24 - Big Tent Day Seven: Cindy and I both went over to the big tent around 11:30 AM. We spent our time covering the booth while Ed and Beth took time for lunch and taking care of their pups back at the trailer. Cindy did more shopping with Elizabeth around the tent and because Ed was sick, he went home early. I helped Beth to cover the booth till around 4:30, at which time I met up with Cindy, Bryan and Elizabeth over at Beer Bellies. After Beer Bellies, we went out for Mexican before calling it a night at the house.
Gout and the Roadrunner Podcast
January 25 - Big Tent Day Eight: Elizabeth picked up Cindy around 8 AM and took her back to Surprise, Arizona to see Brandon and Alicia and help them with taking care of the babies. I ended up over at the big tent helping Beth with the booth. We started rolling things up and taking all the extra stuff out to the trailer today so that there will be less stuff to move tomorrow. When I got home, my foot had gout in it so bad that I got no sleep over the night.
January 26 - Gout Strikes Again: I was scheduled to go over and help Beth with taking down the booth and getting it loaded into the trailer, however, the gout decided to settle into my left foot and ankle making it impossible to do that. So I ended up staying here at the trailer and watching the football games and not doing much of anything else as the foot would not allow it.
January 27 - Tony and Peggy Get-Together on the Desert at Roadrunner: So I ran out to the BLM Roadrunner campground area, and met up with Tony and Peggy and the rest of the group as they were preparing to record their podcast for the week. They had all of us get up and share our RV story. I came back into town around lunchtime and picked up some chips and dip for the potluck this evening. Went back out to the campground area around 4 PM and enjoyed time with everyone before coming back to the trailer and calling it a day. I switched our power over on the trailer to our batteries so that electric will be a little bit cheaper as the sun makes it for us when it charges those batteries. Doesn't seem to me to make any sense to not use our own power as much as possible. With Cindy being gone, I can keep the thermostat lower and not have to run the fireplace on electric so that should save us money over the long haul.
January 28 - Hanging at House with Gout: My left foot hurts like heck with the gout that settled into it. So spent the day at the trailer with the foot up watching TV and not doing much else. I was able to recharge the batteries on both of my cameras and download the pictures and videos that were on them.
January 29 - Still Housebound: I am continuing to be housebound because of the gout in my left leg. I am so looking forward to getting this one taken care of.
January 30 - The Gout Continues: The gout continues. Because of that, I have been working on getting a couple of videos put together, as I am unable to do much of anything else.
January 31 - Time to Get Serious: I must admit that I am getting seriously tired of being crippled up with this gout flareup that I have going on right now. I truly need to get my head back on straight and start treating my body properly with diet, so that I do not have to put up with a flareup like this ever again.