BACK AT CATALINA STATE PARK IN TUCSON, AZ

It seems that we forgot an important lesson while we were off the road in Loma Linda for three months: get to your campground early in the day to make sure you have a site! We were shut out of our usual stop in Gila Bend yesterday, and arrived at Catalina State Park (read our review and see photos here) today around 1 pm to find they had 6 vacant sites (out of around 100). Rigs that came in after 3 pm were out of luck.

We had planned to leave Quartzsite by 11 am on Wednesday, but were a bit delayed by our newest purchase - a Pressure Pro Tire Pressure Monitoring System. Pressure Pro TPMS is an "aftermarket" system to monitor the tire pressure on ALL of our tires: 6 RV tires and the 4 Jeep tires. Special valve stem caps relay tire pressures to a display on the dash in the motorhome, and an alarm sounds if the baseline pressure we have established for any tire falls by 12.5%.

Given that we carry everything we own, and that it is impossible when underway to tell by "feel" whether we have a low - or even blownout - tire, it is a great system to install and we have been thinking about this purchase half-heartedly for a couple of years. This year, the money faucet was still flowing from our earlier upgrades... what's another several hundred dollars??

Norma and Larry - friends we met in Mazatlan a few years ago - read our blog, saw that we were boondocking not far from them, and invited us to lunch. While we visited, I mentioned that we were about to order a Pressure Pro system. Well, guess what? They are vendors! After eating Norma's delicious hamburgers and strawberry shortcake, we drove off with our new Pressure Pro system and big smiles.

We decided to install and program the sensors before we left Quartzsite the next day and ran into a few problems - which Norma and Larry quickly solved for us by replacing two of the sensors. We headed out around 1:30 pm, so arrived in Gila Bend a bit after 4 pm. All the sites in our usual overnight stop were full! After filling our diesel tank and propane tank, we drove to the neighboring RV park, Augie's Quail Trail (read our review and see photos here), where we paid more than double the price of our usual stop. Sheesh. IT PAYS TO STOP EARLY!

At Augie's, we recovered from boondocking: dumped the tanks, did a load of laundry, eliminated a couple of pounds of dust and stored trash. This morning, we made ready to leave while we had the sheets in the wash. We were on the road at 10:30 am and arrived at Catalina State Park just in time to snag a site. We deployed the rig, tossed the wet sheets in the dryer, vacuumed, then headed out for 10,000 steps.

Catalina State Park has a great campground with spacious, level, paved sites, but the big draw for us is the hiking - many different trails, both long and short. We headed to the Canyon Loop trail, where the wash had a little water, but not so much that we couldn't manage the couple of crossings. The temperature was perfect - cool enough that it felt good to hike in the sunshine, but warm enough for short sleeves. No wind, no wind chill. What a treat!

We've paid for 5 nights, but probably will stay another couple after that. Weather like this is too good to leave.

WHAT DO YOU DO IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT?

Ah, boondocking in the desert... sunshine, wonderful temperatures, friends, plenty of leisure time, right? HA!

This photo shows but a fragment of the list of scheduled events in Boomerville (double-click the photo if you want to be able to read the activities). Some events start as early as 8:30 am, and they often go into the evening. And yes, that is a computer spreadsheet created to keep track of all of 'em!

During our first visit to "Boomerville at Q", we tried to do it all - meet everyone, go to most of the discussion groups and meetings. We wore ourselves out.

Last year, we relaxed, only attending the events/groups we were incredibly interested in... ahhhh, much better. This year, we are extremely picky about where we spend our time (like the Dopps earth-oven-pizza-party, second photo, or the "around the campfire" conga line, third photo), but as Membership Coordinators, we have business to conduct: applications to pass out and process, money to collect, Boomer decals to sell, emails to send... Odel practically fell onto the couch when we got home from happy hour this afternoon. But it is all good, and fun. We know so many of the Boomers now, and get to meet all the new ones.

One of the great things about boondocking (camping with no hookups) is the appreciation you gain for important things that we usually take completely for granted - particularly power and water. We generate our own power (we use a generator and 4 mightily powerful batteries, others use solar or even wind energy), so efficient management is a good thing... but we simply make more power when we need it.

Water is another story. We can carry 100 gallons of fresh water, and can store 100 gallons of "used" water. If we want to stay here a week, well, you do the math. It isn't very much water that we can use each day, is it? Over the years we have done this, we've learned lots of tricks for saving water - AND, equally important, our threshold of what we are willing to do to save water has lowered considerably.

This year, along with all the usual conservation measures - simple or pre-cooked meals, brush your teeth (we haven't given THAT up!) using water in a cup, wash the dishes just once a day, "navy" showers no more often than every other day (Odel and I can shower in a combined total of 5 gallons) - we have two new approaches to try.

I cut the tops off two one-gallon plastic water bottles. One is in the shower, and we used it to catch the 1/4 gallon of water that is otherwise wasted down the drain while we wait for the shower water to warm up. This perfectly clean, captured water can be used for cooking, tooth-brushing, or face-washing, so sits on the counter awaiting its fate.

The other container is in the kitchen sink. Whenever we rinse a cup or utensil, we capture the little bit of "dirty" water. Hand-washing water is captured in the same jug. This becomes toilet flushing water... after we use the toilet, we "flush" with water from the jug.

I found Odel's current limit on how far we can go with this when I poured the remains of my tea into the bathroom jug, turning the water a muddy brown. He couldn't take it - it looked too, too gross sitting in the toilet. What a lightweight. :)

The American Water Works Association estimates that American households use between 45 and 70 gallons of water PER PERSON PER DAY - 45 gallons being the number that can be reached with conservation measures. I'm here to tell ya' - those households haven't even begun to scratch the surface of true water conservation!

So boondocking makes me grateful... that I don't have to haul my water from a (possibly contaminated) well, pond or river, that I can heat my water with the flick of a switch or on a gas stove (rather than using fuel I carried from 3 miles away). I have light at night, again with the flick of a switch. These things would be magical to so many citizens of our world - boondocking reminds me of the magic.

WE HAVE A NEW ADDRESS. YAY!

This may not be the most lovely scenery, but it's something DIFFERENT! We'll take it!

Almost all of Odel's prior 44 radiation treatments were in the late afternoon or evening but, at his request, treatment 45 - the LAST ONE - was scheduled for 7:00 this morning. We were both awake before 6 am, and he was out the door at 6:30, on his way to LLUMC for the last time.

All the pre-departure work was finished yesterday, both medical and otherwise. While Odel played a last round of golf with the Wednesday proton golfing group, I visited Costco, Trader Joe's, Clarke's Nutrition (where I got the multi-colored carrots), and Von's. After golf, we had the final visit with Dr. Grover (where Odel got his "graduation" certificate and gold pin), and Odel had taken cookies and muffins to his Wednesday afternoon treatment as a "thank you." for his tech group.

Early to bed, early to rise. Treatment at 7 am, then a final trip to the gym and one last-minute stop at the grocery store for Odel. I did a bit of last minute food prep (while I still had unlimited water), hooped, and did my pushups (I haven't told you about the 100 Pushup routine yet, have I?). Vacuum, pack everything up, corral Luna and - finally - we brought the slides in, started the engine, and headed out. Two short blocks to Interstate 10, turn east, and stay on the freeway for 200 miles.

A side effect of the proton beam therapy is that Odel now has to take a bathroom break almost as often as I do, so it was easy to talk him into a rest stop. Scoopy looked so shiny, so lovely, so ready to travel.

To me, it felt almost as exciting as our first day of travel, April 1, 2003 - but without the apprehension. Scoopy looks almost brand new, and we have nothing standing in the way of traveling. We know SO MUCH more than we did on that first day, and now have so many full-timing friends... and were on our way to see them.

We settled in our site in the desert - Boomerville - 10 minutes before happy hour began at 4 pm. We leveled, put out the slides, grabbed the fresh pineapple I had peeled and chunked yesterday, poured a couple glasses of vino and treked across the stony ground to the campfire/happy hour circle. If you double click this photo to enlage it, you will recognize Scoopy in the center of the picture, behind the relaxing Boomers.

We were greeted with shouted hellos and lots of hugs. It feels so good to be out in the open space again, with our tribe - and healthy. :)