01-01-11

Happy new year!!

We haven’t been doing much the last week.

The weather has not been conducive to going out into the desert to play. We got the southern end of the latest storm that crashed into the west coast. The storm was supposed to drop an inch of rain on us but we got about half that. Not enough to really find out if the roof repair worked but there was no detectable moisture around the shower or on the ceiling so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Tuesday we went to Parker to pick up our meds. Patti needed a casino fix so I dropped her off at the Blue Water Casino and I went to Wall Mart to do some grocery shopping and get the prescriptions. Of course I couldn’t find everything we needed so I had to go to a couple other stores. It took me a couple of hours to finish the shopping . When I pulled into the casino parking lot Patti was waiting out side. I figured that she had probably spent all her money. When she got in the jeep I asked her if she had busted out. She smiled at me and said “ I won!!”. She had come away with over $200.00 in winnings. Not bad!!

Thursday was windy and very cold. We had to go back to Parker because one of Patti’s meds was not ready on Tuesday. I didn’t want to just drive back up the highway to Parker so we cut through the Plomosa Mountains to Bouse where we connected with Hwy 72 and went on into Parker. It took us about 4 hours but at least we got to do a little offroading.

We have been having issues with the RV’s water heater. I decided that the problem was with the control board so Friday I went to a place (The Gamblers) here in Quartzsite that sells RV parts at discount prices. They had a control board for $115.00. I bought it and went home to install it. The new controller was mounted a little differently that the original. In stead of the screws going through the controller which is about an inch thick the new one had a couple of tabs that were about 1/2” thick. There were no screws with the new one so I used the original screws. They turned out to be too long. By the time I realized this I had poked a hole in the tank. The Tank must be very thin because I put the screws in by hand not with a drill driver. The top screw went in just fine but the lower screw stopped turning with a 1/2 inch left to go. I put a little more pressure on it and that is when I heard the hissing sound of water spraying from a pin hole in the tank.

I took the controller back to “The Gamblers” and they refunded me the $115.00 + the 10.2 % sales tax. I bought a new water heater for $385.00, took it home and with a lot of help from Roy, got it installed. Thanks Roy!!

Later in the day I realized that I may have been had. I remembered that the guy who sold me the controller had removed the screws from the zip lock bag that the controller was in when he removed the controller to connect a plug adapter to it. I can’t prove he did it on purpose but since there were no screws with the controller, I assumed that the originals would work.

All I can do is to let people know to be very careful when doing business with “The Gambler” and I will shop else where for RV parts No matter the price. Any way, we now have a new water heater so I won’t have to worry about that for a while.

We didn’t do anything special for New Years Eve. We were invited to a campfire gathering in the park but it was so bloody cold out that we decided to stay home.

While I was working on the water heater Patti and Debbie went back to Parker to go to the casino again. Patti got home around 4:30 and was $38.00 ahead. She paid for dinner at “The Mountain Quail”. We had the special “Deep Fried Catfish” Yummmm.

Today we are going out to the “French Quarter” for a weenie roast. I am going to take the old water heater with us and after the crowd thins out I am going to ventilate the tank with my .45. At least I will get some fun out of it.