A Visit to the Hobby Shops

Venture Out has a number of hobby areas where folks can pursue their hobbies or interested folks can learn a new hobby. In the southwest corner of the property is the location of the Hobby Center and on Saturday, they had their Open House and Sidewalk Sale.

Carl had a Ham Radio Club meeting in the morning, and we had a line dancing review class in the afternoon, so we biked over there between our two events and took a quick look around!

They had tables set up outside the hobby shop areas...

Beautiful items for sale that had been made in the woodshop.

Very creative woodworkers...

... beautiful pieces!

Inside the woodshop

Not-for-sale items were displayed inside the woodshop.

Again, brilliant creativity!

Some more of the shop with a train on the far wall...

Closer shot of the train

Oh my!

Items for sale outside Rock and Gem Shop

Polished stones

The "Handymen" have a shop in the Hobby Center -- these are volunteers in the park who will help with repairs around the park.

"For over 40 years the Handyman Club has proudly served the VO community by providing volunteer services to both the Social and Condo Boards for VO Club/Maintenance/Capital projects. ... One only has to look around and see the numerous projects which have been completed, from the Post Office area relocation, library shelves, bulletin boards, paving stones and numerous cupboards and counters for VO Clubs including the Activity/Admin Offices, area only a few of the thousands of projects completed over the decades. The Handyman Club now takes the time to help residents with simple bicycle repairs, as this is the only other service which provides an opportunity to keep our members busy during the slow times. If you are VO Club who is thinking about, considering, or planning an improvement project, our hope is you consider the Handyman Club. Our projects show pride of ownership as we are all owners who care. Stop by the club and talk to us."

Display for Sunshine Carvers

Additional wood carving displayed inside.

Pet Association display

Silversmith items for sale

Green Committee display at the open house

Inside the rock and gem area

Inside the rock and gem area

Inside the rock and gem area

Inside the rock and gem area

We enjoyed seeing all the areas, although too briefly based on our competing activities!

Back to civilization!

We got back to our lot at Venture Out (VO) on Thursday afternoon. We had told our neighbors that they were welcome to use our lot to host a block party -- and they had had a get-together on Wednesday, the day before we returned. We were sorry to miss it, but glad that they had a lot where they could have the block party!

When we got to our lot, we were able to meet our nextdoor neighbor, Barb. She had come back to her place at VO at about the date that we left to head to get tires on our way to Quartzsite. We had not met her before, so it was nice to get to meet her!

While we were away, I had been keeping up with things going on at VO using the VO Homeowners & Friends group on Facebook. One of our neighbors had listed that she had an 8 quart InstantPot that she would like to sell. We had been thinking that we would like to have a larger InstantPot. We have a 6 quart one and often make more of whatever we're making than will fit into the pot; however, we have a second insert for the 6 quart InstantPot, so we'll just split the ingredients into two inserts and cook one and then cook the other. I didn't want to ask our neighbor to wait until we returned to get rid of her InstantPot, but after a week or so, no one had indicated interest, so I asked if she would be willing to hold it for me until we got back from Quartzsite, and she was willing!

We got the 8 quart InstantPot on Friday, and almost immediately put it to work as I had zucchini, yellow squash, carrots and onions that I wanted to make into a soup - I first tried it in our 6 quart and it was going to be too full -- so I moved it to the 8 quart and it fit fine!

Before cooking...

... after! We then used a stick blender and add rotisserie chicken when serving to make a nice soup!

We came back from Quartzsite partly because we had tickets for the Friday night dance. As we were heading into the ballroom, we met up with a friend, Lesa, and enjoyed sitting with her and her friend, Karen, for the evening.

We got out on the floor for some line dancing...

The band was "Cowboy Up" - playing mostly Country Western music.

We enjoyed it -- we're getting back into the swing of things at the park!

Our last day at Quartzfest

We had decided that we'd had as much fun in the desert as we wanted, so planned to return to Mesa on Thursday. Quartzfest did not end until Saturday, but we were wanting to return to Venture Out for the Friday evening dance and to get back to the luxury of having full hookups! (We like boondocking, but after a few weeks, it is nice to not have to continually consider your water and electric usage!)

At the happy hour each evening, they hand out chances to win a raffle for that evening ---

My ticket was drawn and I won two coasters!

They had been hand-made by another participant in Quartzfest and were really nice, on a piece of slate, with an etched picture of a small trailer and solar panels and ham radio antennas.

We decided that having the slate coasters in our rig was not a good idea as they could get dropped and broken, but we wanted to make sure that someone attending Quartzfest 2024 got them. We had a fire in our propane fire pit in the evening with friends from the SunLife Radio Club and asked if any of them would want them -- and one of the ladies recommended that we re-donate them to be given away in a raffle on another evening. Since we were to leave on Thursday morning, she graciously offered to "donate" them for us.

Sunrise on our last morning in Quartzsite. We definitely will miss the beautiful sunrises and sunsets as we don't have a very clear view to the east or the west from our lot in Mesa.

We drove back to Mesa, filling with diesel fuel on the way. We figured we used about a quarter of a tank of diesel fuel (25 gallons) with running the generator and powering the furnace during our 20 days of boondocking in the desert. We had higher usage of the generator both because there were several days that solar gain was marginal (due to clouds) and we were cooking dishes for pot lucks (our coach is all-electric, no propane stove or oven). We had filled up in Tonopah on our way west when coming to Quartzsite, and filled up there again on our way back east toward Mesa.

We enjoyed our time and will enjoy returning, probably next January!

"Red Cross Ready"

After we got back from our off-road adventure on Wednesday, we went over to the presentation area to hear a presentation on being "Red Cross Ready". A fellow from the Red Cross chapter talked about several subjects, including compression-only CPR (https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/hands-only-cpr.html, https://www.uscpronline.com/blog/chest-only-cpr-saves-more-lives) and the importance of having working smoke detectors.

Presentation from American Red Cross

The Red Cross will provide smoke detectors for no-charge but they have to come to install them. If I understood correctly, the smoke detectors are donated, and the donor requirement is that the Red Cross ensures that they are correctly installed. 

Since we've done research on smoke detectors in the past, and know that only certain units are certified for used in RVs, and that we specifically would want a photoelectric smoke detector or combination photoelectric-ionization smoke detector (which are more expensive units and probably not what was donated and what the Red Cross would install), we elected *not* to take advantage of the free smoke detectors but to take the opportunity to check our existing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

We found that one had a battery that was almost 2 years old - so we replaced the battery (and put 9V batteries on our shopping list as that was the last one we had in our spares box).

One of our units indicates that it is a 10-year smoke and carbon monoxide alarm...

The information on the back indicates that it is a photoelectric smoke/CO alarm, but the date on it indicates May 19, 2013 -- so it is past its 10 year lifespan and should be replaced. Something to order from Amazon when we get back to Mesa!

It is good for us to go to these types of presentations because otherwise we can easily just neglect to check on these types of items on a regular basis. Have *you* checked your smoke alarms recently?

Wednesday Off Road Trip - part 2

Continuation of our off-road adventure...

After our stop at Cone's cabin, the route got a bit rockier...

Narrow with high center -- we had some scraping of the desert plants against the side of the Jeep -- "Desert pin-striping" it is called!

There were "outriders" (other more-experienced participants on the trip) who stopped at a couple of the more concerning ditches to make sure everyone made it through.

Here's a video of one of the ditches (you might hear some of our spoken-out-loud thoughts as we traversed it!):

At the next ditch, a few cars ahead of us, the line of vehicles came to a stop -- there was a car stuck in the bottom...

The helper-guy backed his Jeep up and pulled the stuck vehicle --

...it turns out that the length of the vehicle and its tow bar were issues:

Thankfully the Jeep is not long and we don't have a hitch ball attached to the back!

We stopped at another abandoned homestead -- I think they were having an "open house" and it appeared to be an "open concept" floorplan!

Our final stop was at an abandoned tungsten mine.

We stopped to eat lunch and explore around...

... we decided to hike up "Q" mountain (the hill that has the "Q" on it signifying "Quartzsite").

Tungsten mine across from us as we were hiking up Q mountain

Many of our group parked down there.

Top of the hill - one of the others in our group took our picture with the flag at the top.

Looking out toward the big tent.

Looking south past the tungsten mine and toward where we are camped in the Roadrunner area south of town.

Looking west -- we thought that this path down looked a little safer than the one we came up (the one we ascended had quite a lot of loose rock - hard to hike down for us).

Coming down the "safer" route -- it still required careful steps.

Carl ahead of me on the trail. This looks really flat, but it isn't - we still had to really watch our steps!

We enjoyed our off-road adventure, but think that once is probably enough for us! Our Jeep does not have very high clearance, and we don't want to risk damaging the property that God has given us stewardship over!

Wednesday - Off Road Trip - part 1

On Wednesday, one of the Hams, Frank, was leading an off-road trip to historic areas near us here in the desert. We asked if our "on road" Jeep would be capable of making the trip, and he assured us that this was one of the "easier" trips, so we headed out to join the lineup of vehicles...

Frank had encouraged participants to reduce the PSI in our tires for better traction and softer ride, so Carl and I worked on that while others were still lining up.

Part of the line-up - there ended up being 59 vehicles on the trip!

Excited to head out!

We started out along a route that follows the buried gas pipeline -- getting there traversed a wash that we had crossed the day before. The lower air pressure in the tires definitely provided a softer ride!

Frank had told us to make sure, whenever we came to a fork in the road, to make sure that the vehicle behind us could see us so they didn't get lost. Usually we were right near the vehicle in front of us, but, at least once, this recommendation ensured that we knew the right way to go!

There were a few places on the trip where we split into two groups -- the more conservative group (which we joined) and the more intrepid group, which would take a more challenging route!

Approaching Tyson's Wash (on the more conservative route)

First stop at Tyson's Well -- the two groups rejoined at this point

Frank sharing with us about Tyson's Water Hole

Everyone brought their portable ham radios so we could be around the area and hear what Frank was saying -- watch the video to hear:

 So Tyson had the first "Big Tent" in this area servicing folks traveling in their homes on wheels!

The hill above the water hole.

We climbed up on that big rock - this is the view of all our vehicles parked in the wash.

Carefully climbing down the rock.

Some petroglyphs on the rock

After leaving Tyson's Water Hole, the more adventurous souls could go up the hills that were along our route...

... while the rest of us stayed on more flatland.

Our next stop was at the ruins of the home and workshop of Joseph Cone, a woodworker of ironwood. (http://wikimapia.org/31908327/Joseph-Cone-Cabin)

More of our trip in a later post!