Fun at the Fiesta

With so much uncertainty to my travel schedule this year, I had just about written off any hope of attending my first Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque.  I’d always heard you had to book reservations months in advance, especially if wanting to stay at the park in an RV.  I also had always thought it was ridiculously expensive.

But after seeing a few posts on the Xscapers Facebook Group that suggested otherwise, and reading the Balloon Fiesta’s FAQ document that mentioned short-term, non-reservation, “Drive-In” camping as being virtually unlimited at their massive Standard RV Parking lot ($30/night boondocking), I decided to pack up the Winnie and head up to Albuquerque to give it a shot.

RESOLVED: The Sudden, Tragic Death of Windows Live Writer

UPDATE 6/7/15:  Looks like Windows Live Writer is back in business and able to publish to Blogger again!  There is a God!

After publishing my last post late Monday night, it appears Google finally turned off their old authentication system (that allowed third-party apps to store your Google login/password and log in automatically on your behalf).

As a result, the blog authoring software I've used to create this blog for the past 9 years (Windows Live Writer, or WLW for short) has now died a sudden, tragic death.  It is no longer able to publish to Google's Blogger service, because Microsoft never bothered to update it.

Back in the U.S.A.

After 2 months in Mexico, crossing back into the U.S.A. can feel like you’re suddenly living an episode of Robin Leach’s “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”

Ursula must have felt the same way as she popped open a bottle of champagne to celebrate our return to the land of excess and abundance, and our successful completion of 2,000 miles on the infamous Baja Highway 1.

Finding My “Way” in the Dark

Ever since getting a bit of “dumb luck” in shooting this photo a few winters ago at Joshua Tree National Park, I’ve been fascinated by night photography, particularly night landscapes.

Last year, I discovered the Into The Night group on Flickr (as well as its excellent companion blog by Royce Bair) which provided a never-ending source of inspiration and knowledge.  But it seemed every time I tried to plan a nighttime photo shoot, I was stymied by one thing or another—wrong camera, wrong lens, wrong exposure settings, wrong time of year, wrong moon phase, or wrong weather.  With each failed attempt, though, I learned a tiny bit more than I had known before, so “progress” none the less.

This year, I set a goal for myself to finally capture photos of the Milky Way.  It’s taken months of planning and waiting for just the right conditions, but finally (FINALLY!) two nights ago, I did it!

Celebrating the Holidays…Isla style

No snow trips over the hills and through the woods to Grandma’s house this year.  Spending the holidays on a warm, usually sunny beach in a foreign country was quite a change from the frigid, snowy holidays most of my relatives spent in Chicago and Colorado!

The first celebration occurred a week before Christmas.  My next door neighbors here at Tres Amigos, Rolf and Jackie from Alberta, hosted a big Full Moon beach bonfire get-together for all the residents of “RV1” (Tres Amigos is divided into 2 separate parks with a hotel and restaurant in between).


The next RV1 event was Movie Night on the Saturday night before Christmas.  Two of the RVs here are parked awning to awning, so they offered their large covered space as our “theater” while one of the other RVers brought over his large LCD TV and sound bar for our screening.  What better movie for a group of RVers in Mexico to watch than “We’re the Millers”, Jennifer Aniston’s raunchy but funny comedy about a low-level drug dealer who rents an RV to smuggle marijuana back to the U.S. from Mexico and pulls together a very unlikely bunch who pretend to be a “typical RVing family” on a vacation.  It was hilarious!

Christmas day was celebrated with an afternoon potluck dinner just before sunset.  Everyone in RV1 went all out to make their very best dishes so the food was across-the-board delicious.



Christmas night’s sunset wasn’t too shabby either!



The T1Nnie Winnie may not have been covered in snow, but it still felt festive to come home to…



For New Year’s Eve, RV1 decided to do a bonfire and hors d'oeuvres on the beach right after sunset.  What a spectacular sunset it was!!!  A rainstorm was approaching, so the skies were getting moody just as a big cruise ship was pulling out of the harbor headed to Puerto Vallarta.  Since it was darker than usual, the ship already had it’s lights on and the combination of brilliant skies and dotted lights on the ship were just breathtaking!

Not 5 minutes after taking these photos, the skies opened up and soaked us (and the firewood) for a good 10 minutes or so.  Fortunately, our men of RV1 are quite resourceful and found that using toilet paper as extra kindling and dousing the whole pile of wood with citronella oil got the soggy wood burning in no time!



Once the fire got going, it was time to fill up our plates (by flashlight!) with all sorts of yummy finger food--



Unfortunately, our bonfire celebration was short-lived.  More rain came through about an hour later to quickly disband our festivities, but it was sure fun while it lasted!


I
n between Christmas and New Year’s, my fellow View-owner friend (and full-time RVer), Suzanne of TakeToTheHighway came to visit for a few days between her 2 mini vacations of the Copper Canyon train ride and celebrating the New Year in Oaxaca with her brother.  We managed to get her a great deal at the Maria Coral hotel next door to the RV park, and the view from her 3rd floor room was quite something!



The hotel even had a nice view of the “RV2” side of Tres Amigos.



We enjoyed sampling a variety of Isla restaurants, from the fancier beach-side seafood restaurant, to a couple of the in-town “mom and pop” cucinas. One provided a great birds-eye view of the main intersection in town on a hoppin’ Friday night…



Contessa hosted a happy hour and dinner at her place on Saturday for all 6 bloggers on the Isla and called it our first International Bloggers Conference (click the link for Colin & Contessa’s great pics and links to each of the blogs)



Suzanne was thrilled to finally see the Isla and meet Contessa!



On our final morning, Suzanne and I rented kayaks and headed to the “bird island” for some exploration. 




We both have rather goofy personalities and have often joked that we are a bit like “Lucy & Ethel” when ever we happen to meet up.  I took my GoPro camera along just in case our kayaking adventure happened to include a capsize or shark attack, but thankfully Lucy & Ethel encountered no such calamities this time around and only shared goofy fun and lots of laughs.

Here’s a little video of our trip!


On to 2014!

September Visitors

Since I’ve been buried in house projects this summer with no time to get out and travel as of yet, I was absolutely overjoyed to have two visits from RVing friends this month to help fulfill (and re-energize) my vagabonding wanderlust. 

(Unfortunately, I was so engulfed in conversation that I neglected to get photos of either visit, so I hope my friends don’t mind if I re-post a few of their blog photos here…)

Last month, Jack and Trisha from HappyTimesTwo, were up in northern Wisconsin and I assumed they’d simply be continuing eastward across to the Michigan U.P on their grand circle tour of the U.S. this year.   But to my delight, they emailed saying they planned to dip down to Chicago to visit a bunch of friends and wanted to meet me for dinner one night.  What a thrill to finally meet this dynamic duo!  If my giddy excitement felt a bit like Santa & Mrs. Claus were coming to town, well, it’s because…they were!

Jack’s fluffy white beard often gets the attention of both big and little kids alike, so to clear up any of their confusion, he’s often wears a red shirt with a cute red hat that says “Santa on Vacation”—and that’s no lie!  Jack and Trisha need to be back in northern Georgia by early November so that Santa Jack can resume his official Santa duties for the holiday season!

Upon Trisha’s retirement from the ministry early this year, they made a couple of major decisions.  One was to spend most of this year traveling around the entire U.S. in their new motorhome (their Winnie View is the same year/model as mine, so I got to see first-hand Jack’s fabulous mods…some that I hope to be copying very soon!). 

Their second big change was to radically alter their daily eating habits and embrace the near-vegan Eat to Live diet.  Now, while I’ve managed to only lose about 30 lbs so far on this diet, Jack and Trisha have incredibly lost over 100 pounds in the past 6 months!!!  How have they done it?

Well, they’ve loved discovering local vegan cafés and farmers markets around the country.  But, likely more key, is that they’ve embraced an abundantly active lifestyle….

They’ve hiked across deserts and up mountaintops--

kayaked through Great Lakes sea caves--

and biked through countless quant little towns, prairies, and forests--


Trisha and Jack are truly a delightful couple whose enthusiasm for life is simply contagious!  Thanks for the wonderful dinner and your ongoing inspiration to show how bountiful each day can become if one simply reaches out to embrace it!

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My second September visitor was full-time RVer, Kamper Bob – a bona fide Recreation Engineer!  We met briefly in Arizona a few winters ago and have followed each others blogs ever since.  Bob has a passion for life-long learning and great skills for renovating fiberglass “egg”-style trailers (among many, many other things!).  He seems to quickly master just about any electrical, mechanical, carpentry, plumbing system he ever meets.  

We met up for a morning-long breakfast and gabfest as he was passing through Chicago on his was from the fine Northeast to the great Southwest. It was great to get his first-hand observations and insights on full-timer life, compare notes on our various projects and travels, and also wrassle a few of life’s great philosophical questions for good measure!

I was very envious to hear that he is on his way back to Death Valley National Park where he will volunteer again this winter.  What an amazing place to be…one of my all-time favorite national parks!

Bob full-times in a 5th-wheel Skamp trailer, and then uses his small Yamaha motorcycle (affectionately called “Half-Pint”) to run errands and take off-road and overnight excursions away from basecamp.

One trip he did last winter was up to Death Valley’s famous (and rather remote) “Racetrack”  -- what an amazing place to pitch a tent for the night!

Thanks again, Bob, for stopping by to take me to breakfast.  Can’t wait to read your posts from Death Valley this winter (and see you down the road again one day soon!).

Weekend in Quartzsite

When I thought I’d be spending the winter in Chicago, one of my biggest regrets was not being able to attend the annual View-Navion Rally at Quartzsite.  It was a fun rally last year in a really unique place (the town of Quartzsite becomes the third largest city in Arizona during the month of January each year due to all the RVs that converge there for rallies and the RV show & flea markets).

So, when I learned I’d be working in Tucson, a weekend trip to Quartzsite was a must!  But first, I had to make a pit stop to the Mercedes dealer in Tucson to get the View’s oil changed.  Incredible place—not only free wifi, free beverages and snacks, and comfy chairs in the waiting room but large picture windows overlooking the shop which, itself, featured spotless white floors.

I seriously wondered if the mechanics there ever got grease on their hands!  With all these amenities, I thought for sure I’d be “paying” for it with the repair bill, but surprisingly, the cost here was $75 less than my Dodge dealer had been charging me in Chicago!  Wow!

We arrived to Quartzsite after dark and, thankfully, saw the same rally signs as last year pointing our way to the gathering of View and Navions.  The next morning revealed a spectacular Quartzsite sky:

And our View parked on a nice level spot in the desert with about 30 other Views and Navions!

My blogging friend Evelyn and her husband Steve (of Travels with Evelyn and Steve)  arrived and parked their View, Tulip, next to us

I took them out for a quick little offroad drive in the Tracker to Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, a few miles south of Quartzsite.  They live in Colorado and are considering getting a Tracker of their own.

In the evening, we had a nice impromptu wine and cheese party around the campfire and enjoyed yet another gorgeous sky at sunset:

The next day, Evelyn, Steve and I walked up to the RV show and flea markets to check out the latest infomercial and RVing gadgetry. The only thing I ended up buying was a $3 Coke (yikes!), but Evelyn and Steve found a few good deals on RV items they were needing.

By afternoon, winds began to blow the slow dust into a heavy-duty dust storm, so the evening campfire had to be cancelled as everyone rode out the winds inside their rigs.

I took advantage of the calm and sunny weather the next morning to head back to Kofa NWR to drive the Queen Canyon 4WD trail and look for big horn sheep.  This trail was about 15 miles south of Quartzsite and a nice easy ride with gorgeous views (but, unfortunately, no big horn sheep were spotted).

Back at the rally, I got a parting shot of Evelyn, Steve, and their dog Molly in front of Tulip.  Note on the side all the country flags of where they’ve been with their View!  Tulip was certainly the “most traveled” motorhome there!

It was great fun finally getting to spend time with them in-person!

I also enjoyed meeting a few other WinnieViews blog readers including Ed from California, and Steve from Tucson.  The weekend was over far too quickly and I really had wished I could have stayed a few more weeks.  Guess there’s always next year!   Thanks to Byron for putting together such a fun rally!

Wow, 2012 is off to a flying start!

I got an email earlier this week from my fellow View-owner friend Evelyn (of Travels with Evelyn and Steve) that both of our blogs managed to make it onto HitchItch.com (an excellent collection of notable and notorious RV travel blogs…guess WinnieViews falls into the latter!).

Well, what a thrill and an honor!  thank you very much HitchItch, and welcome to the new friends who are now finding us!

And, speaking of hitch itch…

After settling in for what I thought was going to be a long, cold quiet winter of “hitch envy” blog-reading here in Chicago, I may now be headed to the Southwest this winter after all (a work assignment that might lend itself perfectly to a snowbirding opportunity)!  Should know more tomorrow, but I may now be needing to get the View packed and ready to roll very quickly (within the next few days)!

Ever feel like someone just strapped a jetpack on your back and flipped the switch?!!   Hangin’ on tight for 2012’s ride!