theboondork's RV blog

chilly in quartzsite

12/27/2018

Arctic Fox Boondocking in Quartzsite Arizona

My first night back at Quartzsite.

It's kind of chilly today, the high for the day was the low 60s and most of next weeks highs are supposed to be in the 50s which is pretty chilly for this part of the country. The only good thing about it I can think of is it gives me plenty of excuses to put off all my outdoor projects.

For anyone that has Verizon and may be interested, I have four bars of service here at Dome Rock and when I put up my outdoor cell phone antenna I have full service. The Internet speeds from my MiFi with the unlimited hotspot is 14 Mb per second download, and 8 Mbps upload. What those numbers mean in the real world is I can watch HD videos on YouTube at their highest setting with no buffering, and I can upload my blog post with four or five pictures in it in a few seconds.

I only got 21 days out of the 10 gallon tank of propane I hooked up when staying at Ben Avery's gun range. It's been chilly enough in the mornings and in the late afternoon that I've been doing some heating when I wake up and before I go to bed. The good news is Quartzsite has a lot of places that sell propane and prices are normally very reasonable. I don't know what they are now but I'll be refilling my empty in a couple days and will find out.

It's really not the cost of the propane that bothers me anymore, its the difficulty of lifting that full tank back into its cubbyhole. I have to lift it almost waist high and that tank is either gaining weight or I'm becoming more geezerly by the day. I remember when I bought the Arctic Fox in 2013 changing out a propane tank was just a minor annoyance and now it's a job that I dread, but unlike most things that I can put off, running out of propane is not an option. Sunshine and propane powers my life and I would be lost without either one.

theboondork

Dome Rock boondocking Quartzsite Arizona

This is Interstate 10. It's only about a mile away from the Dome Rock boondocking area.

The town of Quartzsite from my boondocking area.

4 Comments

Barney Ward

12/27/2018 04:22:15 pm

As you likely recall, as a much older than you fellow, I had to swap to the 20# bottles over a year ago. 30# just became more than I could safely handle. The up side is that I can now carry 3 20# bottles which are easy to handle instead of 2 back breakers. Life is good.

Tom

12/27/2018 05:10:46 pm

I do remember that post, and I recall thinking that you must be making that change due to your advanced years, but I figured it would be far into the future before I reached that state of geezerlyness.

But it appears that unbeknownst to me old age is creeping up on me as I sleep because everything seems to hurt worse when I wake up in the morning. And the rapidity in which it is happening makes me think that instead of going one step down in propane tank size as you did, I will avoid the expense of buying smaller propane tanks every couple of years and simply buy the 16 ounce bottles of propane at Walmart. Changing them every day will be annoying but is more than made up for with the ease and simplicity.

Tom

12/27/2018 06:59:05 pm

I knew you would come up with a better system.

12/27/2018 08:14:12 pm

But unfortunately it took all of my brainpower and now I can't remember who I am or where I'm at. The last time that happened I thought I was a Kangaroo Rat and I chewed up the wires on my neighbors RV.

Tom

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chilly in quartzsite

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