December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas, everyone!! I didn't plan on waiting so long between pictures, but, when we finally left Fontana to head for the desert, we had such lousy reception on our aircard at Sidewinder, that I just didn't post anything. We are now at Lake Mittry, in Yuma, and believe it or not, for those who have been here in years past, we have an excellent cell signal and we are getting broadband on our aircards! So, now I can post pictures and tell you what we've been up to. We did get our windows tinted before leaving Fontana and the bus looks really good! Right now, Ron has been doing some wiring, (boring inside stuff), so unless he does something that is good for pictures, I won't be posting pics for awhile. Ron did wire up the lights in the bathroom and the living room, though. We have activated the composting toilet and except for a few glitches, it seems to be working fine. We did find out that the one bank of solar panels that we had tilted was putting out far fewer amps than we thought they were and that is due to the shadows cast by the two swamp coolers up there. So, now, Ron has to figure out what he's going to do about that. I suggested that maybe he just has to hoist the offending panels up higher to clear the obstructions, hey, it sounds simple to me! Also, Ron plans on making the facings for the cabinet shells he's already built at the wood shop at the Army base, since it's so close to us. We hope to be able to stay here at the lake until January 10th, but, we'll see. Technically, we can stay here only 10 days per calendar year, so that should mean 10 days in 2007 and 10 days in 2008, right? So, if we can stay, we will, then, we may head up to Eherenberg with the Boondockers for a few days until the bus rally starts in Quartzsite. Hope to see many of you in Q!