RV Trip Day 12: Agave House (Silver City, NM)

The mechanic came first thing in the morning, and immediately got the RV running by injecting fuel directly into the carburator to bypass the thing that was blocking it. He said now that it was running we should bring it into his shop so he could address the underlying problem. He immediately seemed like he knew what he was talking about way more than any of the other mechanics we had talked to, so we decided we should go for it and have him fix anything he could. He figured out that the fuel filter had gotten clogged so he replaced it. He said we also might need to get the fuel pump replaced, but that would take all day and we could get by without it for a while, and he knew we were eager to be on our way, so he recommended we just get it done next time we were stopped. He also figured out the cause of the problem that was making the car not start, which all the other mechanics had incorrectly diagnosed: there is a problem with our ignition safety switch, where it incorrectly thinks we are in drive when we are in park, so it refuses to start the car. He said that's an easy replacement, but he would have to order the part and it would take a while, so he recommended that Michael order the part and replace it himself, and taught him how to start the car without a screwdriver in the meantime. He also gave us great advice about our generator (which he thinks is now fine due to the fuel stabilizer) and our noisy heater, let us use his wifi so the kids could do online school while he worked on the car, and let us fill up our water tanks, which were so close to empty we had let our dirty dishes pile up and stopped flushing the toilet. And he charged us way too little. The mechanic was Mexican, and justified my feeling that it's always better to hire women and people of color when possible because they have to be better than white men to succeed, so they're probably pretty good at what they do. If you're ever in Eloy, Arizona in need of a mechanic, I can definitely recommend a good one!

We left around 1pm, behind schedule, but still early enough to make it to my dad's tonight. We grabbed takeout lunch at a wonderful little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant in Eloy, and started heading East again. While we were driving, I ordered the part he said we needed to be delivered to my dad's, and found a mechanic in Silver City who could replace the fuel pump (although later Michael decided we probably didn't need it, as the problem that was supposed to solve had worked itself out). 

We do two types of camping in the RV: camping at a site with hookups for electricity, water, and sewer, which is really nice but expensive, and dry camping, where we just camp on the side of the road and use our tanks and our generator. We can pretty easily do one night of dry camping between hookups, and we can do two if we are extra careful with water and skip showers. Last night was our third night of dry camping, and we made it, but the water situation was definitely getting tight, and I was pretty desperate for a shower today. After we filled up the water at the mechanic's, I could finally wash the dishes!

We stopped at the Texas Canyon rest stop, where we always stop when we drive through Tucson because there are awesome rocks that the kids like to climb:

I took a few pictures of our RV, which we named Sea Lion. It looks huge compared to a person or a car, but it looks tiny next to commercial trucks:

Then we stopped at The Thing, a bizarre roadside attraction that is advertised with giant billboards for hundreds of miles and that I really can't describe, except to say it fit with our dinosaur theme. The only picture we took there is of this weird wine holder in the gift shop:

And then we headed into New Mexico! We'll be spending the next several days visiting my dad near Silver City, New Mexico. He has two houses in the woods outside of town that he uses for vacation rentals. Normally we all stay in the same house, but due to covid, we'll be staying in one house and my dad and his partner will stay in the other house. We are pretty excited to have a bit more space for a while, and are ordering supplies and scheduling work to be done on the RV while we are stopped for a bit.

We finally made it to my dad's driveway around 8:15, but it took another hour to figure out how to get it up the steep rocky driveway (we had to take the bike rack off), and haul all our stuff in. My dad had left dinner for us, and we had a delightful dinner and even more delightful shower, and finally made it to bed not in the RV.

Our route for today:

RV Trip Day 11: Tucson

We got up early and went for a walk to the edge of Joshua Tree National Park before school. It was prettier at night when you could just see the shapes of things. During the day it just seemed like a desert with a lot of dry brown poky things. I know some people love the desert, but I don't understand the appeal.

Today online schooling begins for Lucy and Sonya, so we have a lot less flexibility in our schedule. After our walk, we turned on the generator to charge all the computers, and the kids called in to their morning classes:

We had some technical difficulties with signal going in and out, and spent a lot of time toggling hot spots, but they mostly managed to successfully attend class today. I thought maybe I would be able to do a little work while the kids were in school, but I have no ability to focus on work while hurtling down the freeway with everything shaking, so I spend my time while the kids are in school troubleshooting their internet problems, planning where to stop next, blogging, checking Facebook, and searching the internet for ideas about how to organize the chaos that is all of our crap exploding all over this tiny house.

We tried to stop at some hot springs, but apparently we were supposed to make reservations two weeks in advance, which we didn't, so that didn't work out.

At 4pm, Michael was surprised that we were only an hour from our destination, and said, "Wait, I thought today was supposed to be a long driving day." I pointed out that we'd been driving since 9:30 and hadn't really stopped all day. I think he jinxed us by saying the day seemed too easy.

Shortly after that we stopped to get gas, and soon after we pulled away from the gas station, the engine gave out, along with the power steering, and Michael had to maneuver quickly to get us to the side of the road. After that the car wouldn't start, even with our now-standard screwdriver trick. A woman stopped and asked if we needed help, gave us a bunch of advice, and then came back with her truck and towed us into a hotel parking lot so we were safely out of traffic. I made sure to point out to the kids how this awesome woman was helping us and knew way more about cars than Michael. She recommended a mechanic, and we called the mechanic and he said he could come out tomorrow morning. I googled for mobile mechanics and called 6 of them, but none of them answered their phones or returned my calls. I thought about getting the RV towed, since I now know our insurance will do that, but it seemed unlikely that we could get it towed anywhere that could look at it before the mechanic who had already said he could come out in the morning. Michael did more internet research, bought some oil and poured into "probably the right place", and when that didn't work he decided that this was beyond his ability to fix and we settled in for the night. I had really been looking forward to a night at a place with hookups and a shower after 2 nights of dry camping, and we were almost out of water, but we had enough. Since we had just gotten gas we had plenty available to run the generator, which was still working fine. Arizona is hot, so we tried running the AC for the first time, and it worked great. I guess I should have checked that it worked before we left, but it didn't occur to me that we would need it in February. I made dinner and we played computer games.

Michael and I are lamenting that we are falling into traditional gender roles on this trip, with him fixing the car and me cooking, but also I have no interest in trying to fix the car. We try to break those roles as much as possible by him washing dishes and me fixing stuff on the inside of the RV.

Our planned route for today:

Our actual route:

RV Trip Day 10: Chiriaco Summit

The alpaca tour was at 8am, which is way earlier than any of us like to wake up, so we bribed the kids with pastries and got coffee all set up the night before. It was definitely worth waking up for:

The "alpaca farm" is just this couple's house, where we parked in their front yard, and they have a big property where they do airbnb, hipcamp, and harvest hosts, and a couple years ago they decided to get 4 alpacas because they thought it would be a fun attraction to draw people in. It totally worked on us. Our host said that airbnb traffic has decreased with covid, but camping and especially RV camping are way up, because camping at the state parks is closed so people are looking for alternatives, and everybody's getting an RV and touring the country with online school. She told us most of their guests are people who just bought an RV and are taking it out for the first time and don't know how to drive it. I said, "That's us!" Apparently we are just jumping on the bandwagon and everybody's doing it!

After the alpaca tour, we had a long day of driving planned, so we hit the road quickly and drove most of the day, eating lunch on the road.

Our big excitement for the day was when another driver on the freeway kept signaling that we needed to pull over, and we looked out the back window and one of our bikes was hanging off the back and dragging down the road. I forgot to take a picture of the bike dragging, but here's a picture of the aftermath... about an inch of the handlebar got worn off, but otherwise the bike seems ok. After that we stopped and bought some better ratchet straps.

In the evening we decided to keep with our dinosaur theme and stopped at Cabazon Dinosaurs, where they have a bunch of giant dinosaurs and surprisingly good wafflesaurus ice cream.

Then we settled in for the night at Chiriaco Summit, where there is a free campsite nestled in between a General Patton museum on the side of the highway and the south side of Joshua Tree National Park. Lucy and I went for a nighttime walk and it was pretty amazing out there. I'm pretty sure we walked right up to the edge of the national park. We won't make it inside the park this time (other than Lucy slipping inside the fence just because she could), but it's probably as beautiful on this side of the fence as on the other side.

Today's Route:

RV Trip Day 9: Alpaca Farm

Near our campsite Sonya found the friendliest horse I've ever met. As soon as it saw us by the fence, it walked over to us, and then let us pet it:

After visiting the horse and packing up our stuff, we went to town and met up with Anita and her family for takeout lunch in the park. The kids and Michael played basketball while Anita and I caught up. Then the kids and Michael went to get pastries while I went back to Anita's house and sat on her back porch and had tea and cake. I had never been to her new place before, so it was cool to see her amazing view and tame hummingbirds. I think I've only ever been to Mariposa in the summer, when the heat kills off the grass and everything is brown. In February it is beautiful and green, and I don't think I've ever realized before how beautiful it is here.

Then we headed off to an alpaca farm an hour south where we are staying tonight. Today's route: