Sidewinder/American Girl Mine Roads (CA) & a Mexican dentist - Yuma

Well, I’m behind with this blog again — too much vegging & visiting to open my laptop to upload photos & blog writing. I live on my smart phone so I don’t open my laptop often anymore except to upload photos from cameras, tweak & crop with Picasa, upload selected photos to Picasa Albums (online), then select linked photos to put in blog in Live Writer, & finally publish it. Everything else is done with my Android.

After reluctantly leaving Ajo, we stopped for gas & Walmart in Yuma, then ventured west on I-8 to the Ogiliby Road exit, then right just past the RR tracks onto American Girl Mine Road, to eventually find a level spot up next to the mountains to boondock. We passed RVSue’s trailer along the road. She’s not hard to pick out with that “mast” flying high.

Unfortunately, while backing up to get situated, we drug the (second) double step on some rocks along the edge of the little road & bent it slightly sideways so it wouldn’t fold down. Bad words & dirty names! The mine was also working on the section of road in front of us too, so every day had lots of big, loud truck traffic near us. We should have moved farther away from that road. . .but didn’t. And after the gorgeous green diversity of plant life at Ajo, this was really, really desolate. Plus. . .our batteries just weren’t holding a charge so the inverter died every night. We don’t carry a generator, so Jeff runs the pickup to recharge the batteries when needed. They needed it about every day lately!

So ultimately, I WAS NOT A HAPPY CAMPER for the first time in over two years of living small — on the road. Why is it when humans hit a canyon wall of difficulties, we suddenly question absolutely every single choice we’ve ever made. . .not just the specific issues at the time. And then we feel like a total failure as a mature, intelligent human being?

I’m hoping my bummed mood could really be the dread of going to a dentist tho — a NEW dentist — & in another country at that (our reason for coming to Yuma). I read Nina’s Wheeling It blog, & she totally recommends Dr. Eva Urena in Los Algodones, Mexico. I had called (she has a US phone number) & set up an appointment for Wednesday, & since we got our passport cards last summer in Colorado, going to Mexico was really going to happen. However, we were both nervous about not only going into Mexico (another country) but more importantly about being able to get back.

The day before my first appointment tho, we explored the area a little & stopped by RVSue’s trailer. It was good to meet up with her again after last winter’s meet at Ajo. During our conversation, she volunteered to dog sit Kira while we went to Mexico for my first appointment. It was really a good thing too cause it was 86º that day & we were gone for six hours. Kira does well in the trailer alone for hours (it’s her home), but I always worry about too much heat building up. We’ve been cozy warm at 3° overnight, but once the trailer gets over heated, it’s hard to cool it down.

I hadn’t been to a dentist in five years. . .since I lost my job & my insurance, except for one expensive trip in Branson to have a jaw tooth pulled that I’d been babying for years. But. . .all went very well as I got my teeth cleaned that first day. Since I had a 1pm appointment tho, we crossed the border back into the US mid-afternoon — the same time it seemed as most of the rest of the US visitors that day. It took an hour & a half of standing in line to get thru Customs, although someone standing near us said it took them three hours one visit. I went back Friday then for a deep cleaning on my upper teeth ($80 per quadrant). Other than the six deadening shots around my top teeth first, it went very well. My very numb upper lip felt like it was the size of a Volkswagen tho for hours afterward. The dentist also gave me some pain pills but happily I didn’t need many. Other than the tenderness from the shots for a few days, there was no discomfort from the procedure at all. And we only had five people in front of us to cross the border before noon that second visit. Since it was cloudy & much cooler that morning, Kira stayed in the trailer alone this time while we were gone.

We also bought three big bunches of fresh asparagus for $5 on the way out of town that were positively the best, sweetest I’ve had since my parents stopped having a garden. Although they were about a foot long, only 1-2” were tough at the bottom (unlike most store asparagus). No asparagus has ever been any where close to my mom’s fresh-from-the-garden asparagus until now.

After my first appointment, we drove back into Yuma to stop at an Interstate Battery dealer to check out the problems with the four 6v batteries we got last winter in St George UT at Camping World which now didn’t seem to be holding a charge for very long. Plus, four batteries were just too much weight to carry in the cargo tub on the back of the trailer, so two of them lived in the back of the pickup most of the time. And we were getting tired of carrying those suckers out to use with the solar panels, or NOT dragging them out & using only two 6v batteries which ran down overnight. Bottom line was, we traded those four batteries in for two AGM 12v batteries which can now live (& work happily) permanently in the cargo box. And since we thought we’d have to replace the double step once again, we had nothing to loose by trying to fix it. So, we used a hammer to bang it back into place & it works again. Yeah!! However, we realized (duh!) that if we’re going to drag our egg over washes, ruts, & piles of rocks (YES we do), we really, really need to get the 15” tires/wheels that we’d planned on nearly two years ago. Unfortunately back then we didn’t have time to wait for wheels to be ordered when we realized we needed new tires, so had to replace the 14” with more 14” tires.

We did have one amazingly fiery sunrise tho.

Have I mentioned how glad I am NOT to have a house to maintain? Well, this little house is still more maintenance than I want occasionally. But then. . .it’s still way less expense & time consuming to maintain than a S&B home, so I think I can handle this. Just wish there was a comprehensive operating manual (with pictures as well as good explanations) for all the various configurations (full hookups, boondocking, driveway docking, quick overnight stops, etc) so we stop making expensive mistakes in the learning process. [Oh, that’s called a learning curve, you say.]

So with the dentist, the bent step, & new batteries (but less weight) taken care of, we ventured northward toward Quartzsite to check out Palm Canyon in the Kofa Mountains before the Fiberglass Gathering at Dome Rock.