24/7 Chat About Anything

Van Living Forum

Help Support Van Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Linda lives in Norrthern California. The legal name of the town she resides in is “Happy Camp”
IMG_1262.jpeg
 
I feel somewhat obligated to visit. Added to list of places to see.
The area where the town of Happy Camp is has a lot of natural beauty with the forest and river. I am usually driving over by the coastal route or driving down 1-10 traveling to other destinations rather than it being a destination. But I would like to camp with Travelaround one of these years 🙂
 
Roughly 12 hours of driving from where I'm at. I'll have to do that once I'm road tripping again. For the moment I need to stay closer to home.
 
Raining in the desert tonight. It has been cloudy all day. The wind direction kept shifting this afternoon. I am snug and cozy as a bug under my warm bed covers while watching videos. A good night to have soup for dinner!
 
Raining in the desert tonight. It has been cloudy all day. The wind direction kept shifting this afternoon. I am snug and cozy as a bug under my warm bed covers while watching videos. A good night to have soup for dinner!
Cold and raining here too. I have 2 new books and a cup of tea and a warm fire going, the dog is snuggled up and hubby is snoozen, okay winter go ahead and do your thing. I am ready.
 
Wind and rain yesterday taught me that my new screen room definitely needs a rainfly. I also need to reorient the tent so that zippered opening side is facing the side of my travel trailer to protect it from direct wind. There is no center hub cross bracing on that side so it needs to be facing and only a few feet distant from the long side of my travel trailer. Just enough width away for easy entry when carrying the camping table and chairs or supplies.

The day is now warm enough for comfort outside so time to get to back work on that project.
 
I'm "winterizing" too. I just returned an hour ago from purchasing a fresh bottle of propane. For anyone who thinks these 15 lb. bottles of propane are too heavy to lift into their van, this hand pulley hoist is my solution. I keep the temperature in the van set to 38F to be sure nothing freezes, but wrap myself around the chest in this 12v mini electric blanket under my thin jacket. It keeps me toasty warm while drawing only a tiny current from the house battery.

Propane Hoisting.jpg
At bottom right, you can barely see the thin but strong stranded steel cable that makes it safe to leave my pink step outside.
Also, bottom-left in the picture above, you can see the foot of my red dolley I used to haul the propane tank to the van.
dolley.jpg
Same build as this one.

And on the bottom right, you can see the thin-but strong stranded steel cable that allows me to leave my pink step outside the door without anyone able to steal it.
 
It is one of those days where you wait a few hours and check the weather again and the predictions for the next week have changed. There is now more wind and rain ahead for Quartzsite as well as some 32 and lower predawn temperatures.

I think I will take my new screen room down until I can get the modifications for better wind and rain resistance completed. I still do not have all the supplies I ordered that I need to make those modifications. But I did make some progress on it today and can do more work on it tomorrow. A few hours here and a few more hours there and eventually it will get done. There is a fair amount of hand sewing needed on the tent and that goes slowly but fortunately the longest lengths of stitching for hemming and adding long zippers on the wind panels can be machine stitched.
 
I might get snow tomorrow according to the weather app. I hope it isn't so much that I can't reach the street. This would be the first snow here this winter, which is unusual. Last year we had our first snow in November.
 
It all depends on which forecast service you are looking at. The next few days they just can’t seem to agree with each other as to temperature rain or winds in Quartzsite. Whatever it is this is January and it is definitely winter time… even in Southern Arizona. Fortunately not as nearly as cold and wet as many other places further north. This definitely beats those long, grey winters I spent way too many of in the Seattle area. On average in January Seattle typically gets only three partly cloudy days. The rest of the days are full cloud cover. IMG_1271.jpegIMG_1269.jpegIMG_1268.png
 
I always use this one for weather anywhere. I used to wonder why meteorologists still can't be more accurate with their weather predictions. Then I learned it's due to the curls and swirls of the solar winds from the sun that can't be seen before they reach the earth. The little invisible huffs and puffs influence the formation of water droplets in the atmosphere. A sneeze here, and you've got rain in California's high desert; a gasp there and suddenly tornados are crossing through Texas.
 
Snow materialized this morning but this afternoon we have sunshine. Sorry to say, more snow may be on the way. I drove to the store for ingredients for Wednesday night's potluck, should I be fortunate enough to be able to drive there.
 
Top