Sierra Vista

Friday night

I'm exhausted. It's 9:59 p.m. Arizona time (which would be Mountain Time, except that Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Saving Time, so at this time of year it's the same as Pacific time)...in any case, it's after midnight by my body's time, and I've been up since 5:00 a.m. I can hardly think straight.

My flights out here (three hops) were uneventful, and I passed the time by reading "Blind Man's Bluff," a truly fascinating book about the amazing exploits of US submariners who spied on the Soviets all through the cold war. I arrived in Tucson on schedule at 2:00, walked out the terminal door just as Judie and Gary pulled up, and we headed back to Sierra Vista, an hour and a half southeast.

Unpacking

I've made more progress unpacking than I had any right to expect for this first half-day in Arizona. We loaded all 16 cartons of stuff that I'd shipped out here into Gertie, who was parked next to Gary and Judie's trailer Tessie, and then moved Gertie to a spot in the front (transient) portion of the Thunderbird RV park where they live. Gary gave me some instruction in starting Gertie up (she has an automatic choke problem that his mechanic can't seem to resolve, so needs to be warmed up for a few minutes before going anywhere), parking and leveling. Then we had a light dinner of leftover "spasagna" (a lasagna-like concoction made with spaghetti) and I set to work unpacking.

I was still at it later in the afternoon when Judie stopped in to announce breathlessly that their neighbor Allen, whom I had met on my last visit here, had just had a heart attack and that she and Gary were going to follow him to the hospital (he had gone in an ambulance). Later Judie returned to say that Allen seemed to be in pretty good shape after a v-fib/tachycardia episode, but the hospital was going to keep him overnight.

I continued unpacking, stowing kitchen goods that I know will have to be rearranged later to prevent them from clattering against each other when I drive. My main objective was just to get them out of the boxes and stowed somehow, so that I can move around and get at the things I need.

In the evening I took a break and went shopping with Judie at Fry's, a huge local supermarket. I ended up with $235 worth of stuff—more groceries than I ever bought at one time in my life! (In fact, Judie was able to trade my register tape for two free tickets to the movie "Shrek" under a promotion the store was running.) Much of the cost was due to buying a fairly complete complement of spices; those are always expensive.

By the time we were finished I was really feeling exhausted, but I managed to get through checkout, load and unload the car (with help from Judie) and even put away most of the groceries. After a glass of pink grapefruit/strawberry juice I sat down to type up this account before I forget it all. And now my headache seems to be coming back, and I think I had better go to bed!

Saturday

I slept pretty well (though not long enough) in my cozy sleeping bag, and awoke a little after seven. It's so dry here that I actually got up in the middle of the night to put lotion on my hands, because I could feel my fingertips starting to crack! After breakfast and some tidying up, I spent the morning with Gary getting lessons on everything from checking the engine fluids to driving. Yes, I drove Gertie for the first time today! I didn't do too badly—only drove over one curb. Compared to my Honda Accord wagon, Gertie handles like both her namesakes (the cow and the dinosaur): ponderously. But she's not hard to drive, thanks to plenty of power steering assist. You just need to anticipate...and turn wide. I'm already in the habit of doing the former, so I mainly need to learn the latter.

Learning to drive

Gary is a very good driving instructor, especially considering that I'm driving his beloved Gertie. In fact, I feel a little as if I'm marrying his only daughter: I'm in love with her, of course, but I can imagine how it pains the old man to part with her, and I want to reassure him that I'll treat her like the jewel she is. ;-) Gary and Judie are both being very good about this, but it must be very hard for them to part with Gertie after ten years. Well, at least they have the Darnabys' rig to look forward to at the end of this month: the 40-foot former "Rolling Birdcage," soon to be rechristened "Francine," will be their new home. (Judie told me the story that goes with that name, but it's too obscure for me to remember.) Having Francine to look forward to will help keep them from brooding too much about Gertie's departure, I hope.

We took Gertie to "Oil Can Henry's," a quick-lube establishment (does anybody remember Oil Can Harry, the villain of one of the early silent movie serials?) for an oil change, then filled up the propane tank. Gary says the 40-pound capacity tank should last for about a week, but of course that depends on how cold it is, how much cooking you do and how much hot water you use. In that regard, I pride myself on only running the water heater for twenty minutes or so in the morning before showering. Then I shut it off, and the water stays warm enough for dishwashing and hand washing all the rest of the day with no further propane use.

The filled propane tank weighs over 70 pounds, making it a real backbreaker to lift into place. This whole idea that you have to remove a 70-pound tank to get it filled strikes me as bad design. I don't mean on Lazy Daze's part; I mean the whole standard propane delivery system. Can you imagine being asked to lift out a seventy pound gas tank every time you stopped your car to fill up? Why not leave the propane tank in place and have a filler pipe for propane, just as your car has a filler pipe for gasoline? I hear that newer RVs do this...

Gary and I went to the local Wal-Mart to try to get some of the remaining items on my shopping list, but didn't fare very well, as neither of us knew the store layout. We ended up spending nearly an hour there and finding only about half a dozen items. Returning to Gary's trailer around 3:00 p.m., we found that Judie and our mutual friend Bev Parks, whom we were supposed to meet at 2:00, had already left for the local Cinquo de Maya festival (who could blame them?). So Gary and I ate a late lunch and then I headed back to Gertie to do some more organizing while he went to the hospital to look in on Allen, who is still in the ICU.

Organizing really is a big task. Although Gertie is exceptionally well supplied with storage space—true to my estimates, I have filled less than half of the available space—not all of it is convenient. For example, there's a huge space under each couch, but to get at it you have to lift up the cushion. So my objective once all the boxes were unpacked was to stow the most frequently used items as close to eye level as possible so that they would be readily accessible without me getting down on my knees, lifting up cushions, etc. I still have a long way to go, but it's getting better. (I just wish I had one more drawer to put the stationery supplies in. I haven't quite figured out yet what to do with them.) I'm sure I'll be refining the organization throughout this trip and beyond.

I also finished replacing all the ornate fake-bronze knobs and handles with plain white ones. I have mixed feelings about the results—the knobs I bought are significantly larger than the old ones were, so they look somewhat outsize—an effect which is amplified by the white color, which stands out against the honey-colored wood in a way that the old hardware did not. Still, I like these better, and I'm sure I will quickly get used to the slightly larger size. Their rounded, mushroom-like shape feels much better in my hand, too.

I had a late dinner with Gary and Judie at 8:00 p.m., and afterward I showed them the 1914 Winsor McKay "Gertie the Dinosaur" cartoon on videotape—the first animated film to feature a real character with a personality (and an endearing one at that!). They both enjoyed it, and I think they approve of my new choice of namesake for their beloved Gertie, who was originally named for a variety of cow (Santa Gertrudis). Well, an apatosaurus is a herbivore just as a cow is, so why not? ;-)

Time for bed. It's after eleven, but the Cinquo de Mayo festival across the road is still thumping away with unbelievably loud amplified music. Thank god I have plenty of earplugs! I'm going to turn in.

Sunday

Woke up earlier than I really wanted to (around 6:30 a.m.), but after a shower I felt fine. The water heater, which had been misbehaving, worked fine this morning. Either the air bubble that Gary hypothesized was responsible has cleared the system, or the oil in the propane tank that I suspect was at fault has been well enough mixed that it is no longer causing problems. Gary says that the water heater occasionally gets balky, but that it worked fine all day every day all last week (and it worked fine for the two weeks I was here last year), so I'm not too worried about it.

Judie and I went shopping and did much better than Gary and I had yesterday. I was able to pretty quickly find a whole roster of things on my list, including a powerful Craftsman air compressor, a butane-fired soldering iron from Radio Shack and various odds and ends that I didn't get yesterday. We stopped at the supermarket and Judie collected the makings of a picnic lunch for today while I grabbed four cases (16 bottles) of Sioux City sarsaparilla, a great favorite of mine (better than any root beer) that my local supermarket has stopped carrying, to my great dismay. I stashed them in the storage locker behind the couch I'm sitting on as I type this. Now I just need enough self-control to not drink them all up before I get home!

The shopping trip added up quickly, taking another bite out of my cash on hand. I've burned through a great deal of money in the past couple of days. I knew I'd be buying a number of items that were on my "last minute" list, but it's amazing how quickly $750 in cash has evaporated! (Of course, the groceries alone accounted for a third of that.) But it was all necessary stuff.

Up into the hills

After we got back and I unpacked all my purchases, Bev picked us up in her new Montero SUV and we headed up into the mountainous part of Fort Huachuca, where she works. The road got rockier and rockier, and we had to ford several washes.

Finally Bev stopped the car and spent several minutes reading the instructions for four-wheel drive use (occasioning chuckles from the rest of us) before proceeding up the bumpiest path I have every traversed in a car. It was kind of fun, though the bouncing was a little hard on my stomach—almost like being in one of those stupid car ads, only we were traveling at a slow walk instead of blasting through the wilderness at 40 MPH the way you see on TV. Finally we reached a remote area where the road (such as it was, and it wasn't much) petered out. We stopped and ate a tasty lunch provided by Judie, then hiked further up into the hills, taking pictures as we went. Bev had her Olympus E-10, a deluxe high-resolution digital SLR, while Judie used her Nikon 990 and I had my trusty Nikon 950. All in all it was a tiring but very pleasant afternoon.

I decided to skip having dinner with Gary and Judie...it would have been another late one, and I'm getting fatigued from staying up too late every night—just like when I visited here last year. Besides, I had to bring the photos I'd taken into the computer, type up this journal, make an attempt at typing up all the stuff Gary told me yesterday, try to get the files and owner's manuals organized...remember, this is my last full day here!

Tomorrow I will head north, and from then on I'll really be on my own...it'll be very different from sitting here in familiar Sierra Vista in a familiar RV park with the familiar faces of my friends. So although I'd love to stay longer and socialize more, the past two and a half days have of necessity been a whirl of preparations for my departure...there's so much to do!

I relaxed with a sarsaparilla float (absolutely delicious, especially after that long, thirsty hike this afternoon) and did as much organizing as I could manage. Tomorrow we'll get Gertie's title transferred, I'll buy some last-minute items (butane for the soldering iron, a tire gauge that fits the inward-facing stems of Gertie's outer rear tires, and a set of safety triangles), get last-minute instructions from Gary on how to operate the awning...and then I'll head up to Picacho Canyon, which Judie and Gary have suggested as a good first stop. It's a little north of Tucson—only 115 miles from Sierra Vista, so even if I leave at lunchtime I will be able to get there in the late afternoon (after stopping at Camping World in Tucson for a few more last-minute items!). It's hard to believe that in my original plan I was going to drive all the way to the Grand Canyon on the first day! That would have been insanely tiring. As it is, it's 10:00 p.m. already—time to turn in and try for a good night's sleep. At least the carnival is over...no more music blasting at me from across the street!