On the way to Quartzite

Things always tend to happen when you are preparing to leave, it’s just a given so we’ve learned to roll with it.

At first I thought Left Brain was planning some sort of romantic setting for the evening, but it was not the case.  Actually he was insulted when he thought I called him a dimwit, although I’m not sure why.  I’ve certainly called him worse than that.

What I was trying to convey was why everything seemed so dimly lit.  This is where it pays to marry a “handy” man, even if his hearing isn’t so good in these Golden Years.  He quickly ascertained the problem being with our house batteries and by the time I returned from pickleball the next day he had gone out and purchased two brand new ones.  This was a very good thing since we’d be boondocking in the desert soon.  Disaster averted…for a while.

It was hard to test the lights before leaving due to the sunshine, but as far as I could tell they were working.  Shortly into our drive Left Brain noticed we had no turn signals, which meant no flashers for when we plod slowly up those mountain roads.  This is not good

We stopped to gas up and there was some extra room on the side so he fiddled with this and that and we even resorted to (gasp!) consulting the owner’s manuals.  It could be as simple as replacing a fuse.  With fingers crossed we found a Ford dealer in Palm Springs and were headed there when he made that fateful turn out of the gas station.

There was a crash and a bang…and worst of all…a shattering sound.  I was afraid to turn and look.  It seems the door latch for the storage area over the fridge did not hold and the metal bread and cake pans decided to make a break for it.  They dinged up the floor but were otherwise undamaged.

Unfortunately their correlle  pie plate friend didn’t do as well.  The pyrex pie plate handled the fall gracefully, but the correlle one shattered into a thousand tiny little fragments.
I cleaned that up while he kept on towards the Ford dealership, which would later find would not even take a look at anything electrical.  He referred us to Benlow RV in Indio, not exactly on our path, but we were willing to do what we had to do to drive safely.

Left Brain called them while I walked back about three blocks to a Mobile station to see if I could buy a 20 amp fuse.  When I returned I found out the place in Indio couldn’t do it as their electrical guy was on a project and could not be disturbed.  He referred us to a Mobile Lube Express place, who when called was out on calls and unable to help us either.

We decided to stop at a shopping mall that had a McDonalds nearby and he would take a look at the car while I went in to find something for lunch.  I returned to a very dejected Left Brain who announced that the car battery was dead and where are the jumper cables.  It took a while, digging through the mountain of items in the back of the car, but finally found them.  He maneuvered the RV around to provide the power for a jump.  It started.  Finally somethings going our way.  Even better, the fuse seemed to do the trick…at least for a while.  It appears we have some kind of short in the system that needs more work.

We arrived in Quartzite about 4:00 and were exhausted from what should have been an easy trek.  Here's our first view of the town when we arrived.

The sunset made up for all the difficulties of the earlier day and tomorrow will be another day.


Long Live the Queen of Woes