Holidays in the desert

1 Jan, 2018; Imperial Dam LTVA, Yuma AZ

The reservoir gets filled . . . right before we leave!

For all of my stay this year, the water level in the reservoir has been really low. But, today, we notice that overnight the water level has been raised!  It’s a great sight and I understand it has brought a lot of burros out to play (of course, I didn’t see any).

After 

Before!

Sun can be brutal

I’m not here very long so I don’t worry too much, but the protection that the full-time hosts get for their rigs is an indication of how much our stuff needs protection – and how much a little shade can do to make an RV more comfortable inside!

Solar Oven gets a trial with loaded baked potatoes!

It was such a sunny day, I thought I’d try my hand at baked potatoes in the solar oven.  I put a rock under the tray to keep it all from blowing away.  The potatoes turned out great!  So far, the oven works like a slow cooker – it fairly quickly rose to 225F and stayed there pretty much until the sun started down (So 2 baked potatoes took about 6hrs).  With a summer sun, I’ll bet I could get it to 300-350F.  This unit is a SunFlair from Amazon.  Probably not as efficient as the box ones I see all over the LTVA - but it sure folds down nice and flat for easy storage!

The holidays wouldn’t be complete without the Christmas Light Parade.

Folks decorate their cars and trucks and, after dark, parade around the LTVA, hitting a different area every night for the 5 nights leading up to Christmas Eve.  On Christmas Eve, they drive the whole LTVA!  It’s really quite festive – lights, honking, shouts of Merry Christmas.

And, of course, many wonderful sunrises and sunsets.

Next, I’m off to Quartzite for an Escapees Rally, RV’ing Women Rally, and the annual Fiberglass RV Rally – about 6 weeks in total.  All while navigating the crowds in Quartzite (population swells from 7,000 to over 200,000 in January!!).  We’ll go to the Gem Show and the big RV show (more to see what the RV suppliers have to sell than to look at new RV’s).