It feels really good to be living on the road again!  Yay — now this feels like freedom!

I was ready to leave Alaska, even though we had a beautiful fall, and by November there was still no snow! When Cheyenne and I got to Arizona, I was surprised that after seven months in uncovered outside storage in a very hot climate with many dust storms, my wonderful Lazy Daze motor home was just fine. The paint on my car is worse for the wear, but the motor home looks good. I was delighted when both started right up after the batteries got connected, but I had to check everything out so I went to the Escapee RV park for a few days to clean up and get everything sorted, visit friends (especially Toni and Charlie Velardi, and Pam and Steve Ritchie), rest and recuperate. After that I traveled 180 miles to Mittry Lake north of Yuma. I’m in the mountains overlooking the lake, it’s very nice. There’s no AT&T cellphone service, but I do get Verizon internet, so I’m good. I can’t get PBS television, but do receive over the air network stations for news.

I’ve come here to meet with some of the Boomer group for Thanksgiving. They sent me exact GPS coordinates, so I had no trouble finding the place where it’s free dry camping for 10 days.  A few other motor homes are parked not far away. There always seems to be one that runs a generator, probably to watch television, I guess they don’t know about solar power or even realize their gen noise is so annoying – or else don’t care. My batteries recharge to 100% every day and I have never yet ran out of power, so I can be quiet and enjoy being in nature. Sitting outside at night, I can see the lights across the lake and a million stars, it’s just lovely.

I’m so excited! I have hummingbirds!! Right after I got this motor home, I bought a tiny window-mount hummingbird feeder at the dollar store, but this is the first time I’ve filled it. As I write this, there are several hummingbirds not even two feet away from my hands! I knew they were here because while I was outside a little darling came to hover right in front of me, as if to see if I was interesting. I adore them!! In Mexico, people hang huge quart bottle feeders and have to re-fill them every day. This is better than a movie, I think I won’t miss the chickadees and nuthatches at home.  I also saw a little bunny rabbit this morning.

But there are lots of flies! I found a tip online that seems to help… a ziplock bag half-filled with water and a couple pennies hung outside the door. It is said that the flies hate it and don’t come in!. I read that Pine Sol works too, but I can’t find the bottle I thought I had, perhaps it was in Alaska. So I tried shooting a perimeter with insect spray around my chair and table on the ground outside, will see if that works for sitting outdoors. Fingers crossed.  Every day is a learning experience, that and this quiet life are what I love best about RVing.

Just before I left Alaska, my son Peter had his kids call me from Germany, so I got to visit with all three of them for more than an hour. Then my first week in Arizona, my older son Grey called too, so it was great that I feel connected again to family.  I can’t spend bandwidth browsing Facebook, but that’s what I’d have to do to check in on my daughter and her family.

I love these warm sunny days! It’s hard to believe this is winter. We had some wind over the weekend, but it’s just perfect today. It was a relief for me to have some peaceful solitude time, but more Boomers are coming today so I’m sure we’ll enjoy afternoon happy hours together, and sit around my gas firepit at night. I even have marshmallows and roasting sticks. What a great life!

It’ll be good to hear from friends, so let me know if you see this update! Hugs to all!
Kristin

p.s. Here are a couple pics of my last visitor in Alaska.  This cutie came to the house every day of my last week at home…