The Radio Girl

Hope You Like Cactus

'Cause Southern Arizona is our new backyard for the next few months...

Most of these pics were taken from within fifty feet of our rig, JohnnyDisco.  

Money stats about this RV resort:  

The primo spots are $520 USD per month and there's a 5% discount for booking more than 3 months*.  Price includes 50 amp electric, sewer, water, onsite laundry and pretty reliable wifi.  The sites are huge, landscaped and more spacious/private than any RV resort we've ever been to.  And the resort backs onto the Arizona desert.  You can barely hear your neighbours, never mind vehicle traffic.  The loudest night time noise so far has been coyotes.  LOTS of coyotes.

*Our winter budget for monthly RV park rental was $500 plus an extra $100 for hydro, internet, cable, etc.  We are $80/month under budget and will save $400 total if we stay here the entire five months.   

Lotsa Hairs Cut

My Fella got his head shaved today in the toasty Arizona sun.

We just yanked a patio chair out onto the gravelly part of our RV site, plugged the clippers into the RV's outside outlet and buzzed away the gray.  (He's not that gray, but we thought it would be better if he hung onto his salt and pepper hair at least until we could get into this RV park, which is a 45+ resort  :)

They didn't actually ask us for i.d. here at the resort, but  I was asked for my drivers license WHEN I TRIED TO BUY BEER AT WALMART!  WHOO HOO!!!  I was so happy to get carded that I grabbed the cashiers phone to announce what just happened over the intercom!  Not really, but I wanted to.  

Anyway... My Fellas Wahl hair clipper set is getting a little dull and ratty so we'll probably pick new clippers here in Arizona.  They retail around $32 at Target, compared to $50+ tax that we paid in Canada four years ago.  

Or maybe we'll get them from Walmart so I can buy more beer and get ID'd again.

Our pup Shelbert got a trim recently too when we were traveling through Oregon.

Of course the second we left the groomer, we got rid of those silly pink bows.  Ick.  No offense meant if you do this to your dog, but we're not really pink bow people.

Shelberts cut was $35 USD ($40 with tip), including a nail trim, deep ear cleaning and a bath.  

My Fella gets a much better deal cause he doesn't actually have to pay me for his haircuts.  But then I don't clean his ears or gave him a bath.  

You get what you pay for  :) 

Arizona Road Signs We Don't See At Home

That's probably not the best sign to relax in front of, Shelbert.

Quick Tour of CactusLand

Everywhere we look in southern Arizona we see cacti.

It's a pretty spectacular change of scenery and we are planning to take different desert hikes at least two or three times a week.  Today's hike was very short since Shelbert was with us but it was a good chance to take a few pics.

My fave cactus has always been the majestic Saguaro - I love the silhouette.

My Fella likes the teddy bear cactus which sounds a lot more cuddly than it looks.

Shelbert doesn't have a favourite cactus but she does like her little treks into the desert.  We usually end up carrying her, even on the desert trails, because of the snakes.

We've already seen three baby diamondback rattlesnakes so the only time we let Shelby down to walk by herself is when she has to pee.  Then we all keep our eyeballs on the ground.  Safety first.

A regular at the RV resort we're at told us that diamondback rattlesnakes start hibernating in late October.  Apparently the snakes follow packrats down into their little burrowed holes in the ground and after they eat the rats, they make themselves at home and hibernate all winter. 

Seems a little harsh.

Speaking of rodents, I've recently heard stories about local desert mice gnawing and clawing their way into wooden sheds and old trailers and then moving right in.

Must have been thinking about that before bed last night 'cause around two o'clock this morning I swear I heard a packrat making its way up through the bedroom floor of our RV. 

"Scratch... scraaaaaatch...chomp chomp chomp...scritchety scratch"...  After lying in bed, listening to this for about an hour I knew I had to get up and search for the rat.  But I was too scared to step out of bed in case I squished it with my bare foot. 

Instead, I elbowed My Fella in the ribs to wake him up.  Mumbling and probably still half asleep, my brave guy stumbled out of bed to catch the dirty rat. 

Or at the very least, close the office window and stop the wind from blowing our scratchy laminated phone list against my bulletin board.

Oops.

Road Trip: Part II

Let's start with the photo tour:

We left off yesterday at day #4 of our week long road trip when My Fella and I hit central California.  This year we crossed Cali via the Mojave desert.  The first part of the day was spent driving through a spooky desert dream:  mist hanging in the air, skeletal Hallowe'en-like trees, big rocks and dry yellow shrubs covering the brown landscape. 

And then we saw the windmills. 

My pics do NOT capture the beauty or power of these monsters.  They were amazing, especially when we first saw them on the hillside, rising out of the fog.

Just past the windmills, the morning mist cleared and we were surrounded by tan desert landscape and Joshua trees.

and rocks...

And finally the California palm trees swaying in the wind... as seen here through our filthy windshield  :)

On day #6 of the road trip we made it to Arizona and by day #7 JohnnyDisco was parked at our winter home.  This pic was taken on our first night, just past sunset. 

There are no streetlights out here in the wild west. 

For Shelberts last pee walk of the night we've been bringing out a portable lantern - no one wants to step on a diamondback snake by accident. 

The sky is so black that the only the light you can see is from the orangy-red western sky ... reflected here on the side of our RV.

Quick money stats: 

Originally we set aside $900 for RV park campsites for the travel portion of our road trip - $450 each way.  After buying the lifetime Passport America membership we knocked that down by 50% or $450 ($225 each way).  The trip out here only cost us $125 (USD) so we saved $100 to spend elsewhere.

RV gas - our budget was $1200 each way but we spent only $1016 to get here - under budget with RV gas as well. As you can probably tell, I tend to overbudget.  I hate money surprises.

More details on our winter budget (safely stored in my neon yellow budget holder) plus more Arizona desert pics coming up in the next few days.

Sunny Arizona

We've finally arrived.

Actually My Fella and I have been in Arizona for the past few days but my laptop totally died the day after we left Canada, so I've been without a computer since then.  I replaced it with a brand new Toshiba laptop last week in Oregon.  AND THE WIRELESS DIDN'T WORK.  

We just exchanged it here at the Office Depot in Arizona and the wireless fired up right away, so for now, all is well again in Traveling LaptopLand.

It took us roughly one week to RV from the BC interior to southern Arizona, and we took our time this trip.  Stops included:

• Chilliwack, BC
• Vancouver, Washington
• Myrtle Creek, Oregon
• Corning, California
• Bakersfield, California
• Desert Hot Springs, California
• Maricopa, Arizona 

We are now parked at an RV resort just outside Tucson and we love it.  Haven't established a daily routine yet, but here's an example of how we spend our time:

• I wake up at 6am to make coffee and read the biz news online
• hang around the computer for the market open at 6:30 (still on pacific time here)
• 8-ish My Fella and Shelbert get up
• 9am - after breakfast I sweep the floors and make the bed
• 9:30am - we fill up a couple water bottles for a 2 hour desert hike
• get back to Johnnydisco and eat lunch around noon
• 12:30 to 1pm - I'm at the computer for the market close
• 2pm - My Fella washes RV windows - I take out the garbage, walk Shelby 
• 3pm - play a game of catch with the baseball and gloves
• 4pm - My Fella vacumns the RV and cleans the bathroom, I do dishes
• relax with our computers for a couple hours (stream BNN or hockey games online)
• 6:30 suppertime, unless we had a big lunch
• play a few games of Yahtzee or Scrabble
• 9pm - bedtime... I'm not joking - we're snoring faster than the RV park seniors

So far we both love this desert RV park... not to mention the fact that we get to spend the entire winter in sunny southern Arizona.  More about that in the next few days but first I need to get all our road trip pics off my camera (and onto the blog).

Road Trip 2010/2011 - The adventure starts here:

Traveling through the BC interior, heading south in Johnnydisco towards the USA border...

Quick note about the US border crossing (our very first one in the new RV) ... It was a breeze!  Took us about fifteen minutes from the moment we drove up.

• first, a few questions from the customs guy in the booth
• more quick questions about fruit/alcohol/firearms from agent #2 inside
• and a two minute walk thru inspection of Johnnydisco from agent #3
• easy peezy lemon squeezy

And we all lived happily ever after as we drove off into foggy Washington state.

And the crowded freeway heading into Seattle... holy moly  :(

Three hours later we crossed the big green bridge from Vancouver, Washington into Portland, Oregon.

And then we hit outlet mall #2 on our "Outlet Malls of America 2010/11 Tour".  The first mall we stopped at was Tulalip in Marysville where we grabbed a few good deals. 

But this mall in Woodburn, Oregon is one of our faves because there is no sales tax in the state of Oregon.  And this mall has a huge RV only parking lot right across the street.  You never realize how important parking is until you're driving something 50 feet long (motorhome + hitch + car).

After a couple nights in Myrtle Creek, Oregon we continued south, finally making it to northern California where we ran into more fog...

And vineyards. 

Acres and acres of vineyards.

Up to this point My Fella figures we were getting 7.7 miles per gallon in JohnnyDisco, towing our little car. 

Regular gas cost $3.06 to $3.19 (USD) through Washington and Orgeon and we filled up the tank twice before we hit California.  

More exciting road trip stats and our Cali/Arizona road pics coming up tomorrow  :) 

The Road Trip Begins

We're ready to go.

Everything has been checked off our "To Do" list from earlier today, including wrapping the newly planted cedars at the RV lot.

As you can see from this pic* the cedars were a little wary when I strolled over with a sharp pair of scissors, duct tape and a roll of heavy duty burlap.  Wouldn't you be? 

*As you can also see from this pic, I don't wear any make-up and could probably use some botox and a facelift.  Holy eyeball wrinkles, Batman!

As a cedar wrapping amateur, I wasn't sure how the project would turn out but it ended up okay.  The duct tape wasn't pretty but it did the job.

Duct tape is quite versatile, isn't it? 

So many uses...

"What's that honey?  I can't hear you... you're kinda muffled."

Please note - NO Daves were harmed in the creation of this blog post. 

All lame Friday night fun and games aside... JohnnyDisco has been scrubbed and dusted and everything we own has been picked thru and packed up or tossed/recycled.   All we have to do in the morning is pull in the slides, yank up the jacks and we're off.

My Fella and are leaving around 6am, heading south.  We're unsure what campsite we'll end up at or what time we'll be there so I may not have a chance to post. 

But there's not much left to say - except this...

Road Trip Eve

It's a big and busy Friday out here in the BC wilderness.

Not only is it trust payday today (my fave day of the month) BUT... only one more sleep until we pull up the jacks on JohnnyDisco and head south for the winter. 

We've been prepping for the past couple of weeks but My Fella and I still have a few things to do before take-off.

Him:

• blow out debris from the slides before we pull them in
• store Shelbys mutt hut (dog cage) in one of the outdoor bins
• dump the tanks
• run the engine, a/c, heat vents and get rid of the stinkbugs
• clean out the car

Me:

• sweep off JohnnyDiscos roof
• wrap the newly planted cedars in burlap to ward off munching deer
• take out all the garbages/recycling
• store any loose items from the kitchen counter
• pack up my mini-office (printer, laptop speakers, pictures)
• clean out fridge and freezer and secure everything for travel
• tuck away extra summer shoes (flip flops, golf cleats)
• store loose shower stuff (shampoo, body wash) in a plastic bin
• round up our foreign currency (American dollars and Mexican pesos)

There's probably more to do but I can't think of it right now.  Instead I may whip out the tamborine and get in the mood for warmer weather...

*More proof that I should have been born in the 60's instead of the 70's.

Loonie Update

FYI:  If you're a Canuck heading south anytime soon, the loonie just hit 0.99 (USD). 
Parity by the end of the day?

You can keep track of it here.

Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming...

Shelbert and I took a long stroll around our rural BC neighbourhood yesterday.

Here's my buddy Shelbert patiently posing on the rocks by the river.

Gotta admit I was a little distracted, trying to focus the camera AND plug my nose at the same time.  Smells a little fishy down by the river because of the salmon run.

I recently read an excellent write-up explaining the massive sockeye salmon run that's hitting our little part of the country:

"A couple of months ago somewhere between 20 and 30 million sockeye salmon massed at the mouth of the Fraser River near Vancouver to begin their one-way trip to their spawning grounds in the interior of B.C. The number of fish caught everyone by surprise, from local fishermen to government officials. It is the largest salmon run in nearly a century and nobody knows why it happened."

That was swiped directly from columnist Mike Drew from The Sun newspaper chain, who covered the story in a very easy-to-understand style.  You can read the whole article here.

And now, the stars of the show: 

The bright red salmon are still alive and kicking, slowly swimming upstream.  They run the entire length of the river and seem to be anywhere from 10 to 30 fish across, depending how wide the river is.

At the edge of the riverbank, the dead salmon (in white) bob along the shore or get wedged between the rocks. 

But the bright red salmon keep swimming by as they complete their mission.

Or as Dory says in Finding Nemo - "just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."