Barrel’s for the spring. 04-02-15

 

Okay its been a couple of days so here is what’s been going on.

We cleaned out the RV and on Tuesday we put it in storage.
Of course we forgot a lot of things and will have to go to the storage place in the next couple of days to get them; we have a list.

Spring Barrels

The barrel we used on the new water spring that we set up at the cabin last year collapsed during the winter. I think due to a bad venting system.

Yesterday I went to the salvage place and bought a couple of 55 gallon plastic barrels to replace the collapsed one and double the capacity.

The last time I bought barrels I got the white ones but this time they all smelled of vinegar. The blue ones had had soy sauce in them so I figured that it was easier to get rid of the soy taste than the vinegar taste.

One difference between the white barrels and the blue ones is; the bungs on the white ones are the same and are pre threaded for a 3/4 npt thread. On the blue ones; one of the bungs is threaded and the other isn’t.

This means that I would have to thread the bung myself. I thought I had a 1/2” pipe thread tap but I was mistaken. My largest pipe thread tap was only 3/8”.

What to do?

I got to looking around in my junk and came up with an old 1/2” pipe nipple that I had ground down for some other purpose. since I was working with plastic I thought that this would work as a tap so I clamped it in a vice.

 

Then I drilled a 3/4” hole through the center of the bung and then twisted the bung onto the pipe all the way down to the bottom of the threads.

The threads aren’t perfect but they are good enough for the input to the barrel.

The next thing to do was to to put a vent hole on the bottom of the barrel. The barrels will be lying down so the vent will end up at the top/back of the barrel.
After drilling a 3/4” hole in the barrel and used the pipe and a vice-grip to make 1/2’ pipe threads.

This should work just fine.

I have to buy a bunch of fittings and load a bunch of stuff in the van, then I will take it all up to the cabin in the next couple of days. This will be only a day trip.
I am going back to the cabin after Patti leaves to go to Oregon on the 8th of this month.
Patti will be gone until the end of the month and I will be at the cabin or most of the time.

I’ll talk to you in a couple days.

Home From Quartzsite. 03-29-15

 

Leaving Quartzsite

We left Quartzsite around 9:00 Wednesday morning. We got onto Highway 95 heading north toward Parker, AZ.

I have been told that these mountains north of Parker look like a gorilla lying on his back. What do you think?

We continued north across the Colorado River to Highway 62 and turned west toward California Highway 95 at Vidal Junction.

Once on Hwy California 95 we drove north through some open desert

and passed some interesting rocky hills.

There were a lot of Ocotillo’s blooming along the highway.

Spending the night at Bullhead City

After about three hours we got to Bullhead City, AZ where we stopped for the day at the large parking lot across the river from Laughlin, Nevada and the casino’s. We took the free boat ride across the river to the Riverside Casino where we had lunch. After lunch Patti wanted to stay and play at the casino for a while so I took the boat back across the river and hung out at the RV.

By around 5:30 I was getting hungry so I called Patti to see what was up. As it turned out she was playing Black Jack and said she was having a ball. After several hours of playing she only lost $20.
We made arrangements to meet outside the casino and go to the Mexican restaurant for dinner. The dinner was very good but not as good as we remembered from the last time we ate there about four years ago.
Of course time has a way of enhancing some memories.

Bullhead city AZ to Lost Hills, CA

Thursday morning we left Bullhead City around 9:30. We followed 95 south to Needles, CA where we got onto I-40 heading west.

As we drove across the desert we could see Mount Whitney to the south west.

 

There were lots of yellow flowers blooming along the freeway.

At Barstow we got onto Highway 58 heading for Bakersfield.

We saw a lot of windmills just as we came to the east side of the Tehachapi mountains.

 

In the same area we saw a lot of large airplanes. I think this is Edwards Air Force Base.

We continued over the Tehachapi Mountains and got to Bakersfield around 4:00. I was pretty tired from driving so we decided to stop at the River Run RV Park but they were full so we got back on the road and drove to Lost Hills where we stopped at the Lost Hills RV Park.

As we pulled off the freeway at Lost Hills, there was a small traffic jam. I was surprised to see how many trucks and cars were trying to exit here. While we were waiting to get through the traffic, a road runner ran across the road and posed for Patti to get a picture. We have seen several road runners while we were in Arizona but they never stopped long enough to get a picture.

 

Once we got settled at the RV park we went to dinner at Denny’s; not one of my favorite places to eat but it was convenient.

Friday; Lost Hills to home.

In the morning we filled up the tank on Plan B at the Pilot Station and were on the road by 9:30.

The ride up I-5 was pretty boring as usual. We stopped at a rest stop near where I-580 goes of toward San Francisco. After lunch we continued on I-5 north toward Lodi where we turned west on Highway 12. We followed 12 to I–80 where we turned south and drove for about 3 miles where we got back on 12 heading for Sonoma County.

 

The closer we got to Santa Rosa the greener the country becomes.

 

It was refreshing driving through the vineyards even though they are just starting to leaf out.

The California poppies are also starting to come out.

We got home around 3:00 and began unloading the RV. Around 6:00 Joanne and Dave came by. They were in town to help Elisa and Matt get ready for Riley’s first Birthday party.

Riley’s First birthday party.

Saturday morning we continued taking stuff out of the RV.
Around 1:00 we drove over to Elisa and Matt’s to attend the birthday party.

Here are some pictures.

Riley the Birthday Girl.

Playing with her Grandpa;

Mom Elisa, Uncle Ryan, Dad Matt, Uncle Mike and Cousin Logan.

More of the group.

It was fun catching up with relatives after being gone for several months.

Okay that was our trip home. We will be unloading the RV for the next couple of days as we want to put it back in storage.

Leaving Quartzsite. 03-24-15

 

The Palo Verdi’s are blooming and I am having an allergic reaction to them so it is time to leave Quartzsite for the season.

 

We are giving up our spot here in the Holiday Palms RV Park. The last thing I had to do was to move our shed. We tried to sell it this spring but had no takers so our friend, Dick, said that he would take it to his place and try to sell it for us.

This morning Dick, Robert and Dennis K came over and we loaded the shed onto Dicks trailer.

The following pictures show the loading sequence

First, Dick backed his trailer up close to the shed.

 

Then we lifted one end of the shed up so Dick could back the trailer up a little more and we set one end on the trailer.

Once we got one end on the trailer

we were able to just shove the shed the rest of the way.

Once on the trailer we followed Dick to his place and unloaded the shed in his front yard.
He will sell it and I’ll get some money from the sale next fall.

Now that the shed is gone we can leave here tomorrow morning.

Minnie Grand Canyon or Painted Desert, it’s your choice. 03-22-15

 

Dennis M met us at the fire station north of town around 9:00 and we followed him to the intersection of 95 and 72 where we turned left and met up with his friend, Ron.
From there we drove about two miles toward Parker where we turned left on a dirt road heading toward some mountains and sand hills.

We stopped at a large parking area just outside the Colorado River Indian Reservation that ATV’ers use as a staging area. We left Ron’s truck here and he got into Dennis’s jeep. We drove north through a wash to a trail that climbs up onto the sandy hills.

We climbed a soft sandy trail to the top of the hills. From here we could see highway 72/95 to the east.

To the west we could see the trail winding around the low hills.

 

We followed this trail for a while.

 

Enjoying the views to the west where we could see the farmland between the hills and the Colorado River.

We followed this narrow trail to a fantastic view of a hidden canyon with spectacular colors and formations. It was like a small version of the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert all in one.

 

We spent some time here looking into the wash below us and taking it all in.

I really didn’t expect to see something like this behind these otherwise drab sandy hills.
Time and water some times does some amazing things in the desert even though this place is usually dry; the only water coming with infrequent winter rains and the summer monsoons.

The time scale here is some times hard to grasp.

We drove to a couple of other overlooks where we could see into this wash and more colorful canyon walls.

Eventually we worked our way into the wash and viewed the walls of the canyons from a different perspective.

We continued driving near the cliffs into a smaller canyon.

We stopped at a place where the jeeps could go no further.

From here we had to walk into a narrow steep sided gorge.

The gorge got narrower as we continued walking.

In some places it looked like a tunnel going into the mountain but it was still open to the sky.

I took a side canyon for a little ways but came back to the main one and joined the others.

Here is Patti exploring the canyon with us.

Eventually we came to a place where the way became very steep with lots of boulders we would have had to climb over to continue. We turned around here but the canyon continued.

We arrived back at the jeeps and drove out of the painted canyon and eventually got back to the highway and headed for home. There is more to explore here but it will have to wait for another time.