Laundry Day & Group Dinner Surprise

Today is laundry day. So, we collected all the stuff that needs washing and freshening up and away we go to the laundromat. It'll also be a water day so we transferred the jugs, hose and filter into Vanessa, the Volvo and headed off. 

Hello Brawley Laundry!

This is a neat laundry place. I like it because the people are friendly, they've got lots of good machines and you can do double and triple loads there too, saving money. 

Last year, I sent my camp mate to do laundry and there were several loads to keep track of and one (which was mine by the way) was forgotten about. Well, by the time I noticed clothes were missing, it was several hours later and we weren't sure if they'd still be there. We got back in the evening and lo and behold, they were still in the dryer waiting patiently for our retrieval. That's why I go back to this laundromat. 

So, today wasn't too bad. Two double load washers at $2 a piece and one huge dryer that cost $1.75. It was 6 minutes per quarter and it took a bit to get everything dry. 

Here's the two washers cleaning our clothes. 

And here's the huge monster dryer working to get them dry for us. 

This is Lou waiting patiently for something. 😀

We had a couple other things to do while we were out also. 

Like get gas, milk and a couple other groceries, lunch and stop for water on the way home. 

When we got home, and started discussing what was to be for dinner tonight, we got a visit. We were invited to a group dinner at Buckshot's just in the town of Niland, which is about six miles away and have to pass through it to get anywhere. Group meals are a treat and we really missed our annual Christmas dinner with our friends, so there really was no decision to be made and got to work putting things away and getting ready. 

This is Buckshot's in Niland, just off Hwy 111. 

Buckshot's is a neat place. They've got awesome food for this small town that seems a little run down except when the snowbirds arrive and bring life to town. We went here because their special tonight was Fish N Chips. 

It was really quite good. 

It's not often that we get together as a group and go out because everyone's food preferences are all over, but we do have a couple if vegetarians in our group and this allows everyone the opportunity to get out and have dinner. 

Here is most of our little group. A few are missing, though...

There's Chili Bob, Seann, Nancy, Rich, Lou and Mountain Kimmie. I'm sitting between Lou and Nancy on the left. We're missing Mary, Aaron and David. 

It was a great meal with great people. We're glad we come down every year. Afterwards, a roaring campfire was built for us all to sit around and chat some more. A very good Slab City day. 

Coffee in the BDV

Ok, my camping fun buddy normally makes coffee for two out of the three of us that drink it. However, this year, we decided to try something different. I had got my other camping fun buddy a new coffee toy for his birthday last May and he's been enjoying it ever since and has perfected exactly the right method to get good coffee. So, now we are making the coffee for two. I actually enjoy making it. 

I don't drink the stuff and find the smell of it displeasing, so when we were trying this new system out, I figured it would be the same way. I was wrong, or at least partially wrong. The smell isn't as bad as a commercially available cup of coffee that blasts up my nose if I get too close. This stuff is at least tolerable to my nose, maybe because it's fresh? However, if I get too close... Anyways, I digress.

So, here's me making the 'perfect' cup of coffee for my camp mate Lou. I already made one before but didn't document it. It uses a simple device called the Aeropress and a little accompanying hand grinder to grind the fresh beans.

First, put the kettle on to boil. I didn't photograph that part. 😃

Then, using the provided measuring spoon, measure and grind the coffee beans. 

The little silver thing is the hand grinder. There's a top and a handle which you can see in the background. 

Next, pour the freshly ground coffee into the upside down Aeropress. We set the depth to between the numbers 1 and 2 on the device, but you can't tell that here.  

When the water has boiled, I pour it into a small measuring cup so it's easier to handle than from the kettle directly. Pour the boiling water in until a half inch from the top. 

Using the stir stick provided, give the coffee a stir for 60 circles (about 30 seconds).  This gets all the grounds wet and distributed. 

When done stirring, add more boiling water to top it off, then add the moistened filter and cap and screw down. 

Put your cup upside down on top of it and invert the whole thing like below. 

Then start pressing down on the plunger to squeeze the coffee out through the filter. When you hear some fizziness, stop. You won't be able to go any further anyways. 

Carefully remove the Aeropress and gently shake the remaining drops into your cup and set aside for a moment. 

Top off your coffee cup with more boiled water if you want normal strength coffee or if you want really strong cappuccino type coffee, just leave it as it is. 

Now, it's ready to enjoy. 

Cleanup is a breeze. I didn't think you'd appreciate a picture of my garbage contents, but here's what you do. 

Unscrew the filter housing from the Aeropress and set in the sink. The filter will stick to the grinds and that's expected. Take the whole thing over to the garbage and finish pressing the plunger down. You'll hear a plop and the coffee grinds will pop out in a little puck. It can be messy with drips and such, so be careful not to drop coffee everywhere. 

Wipe off the remaining grinds from the plunger. I like to give it a quick rinse, but it's not necessary. Rinse or wipe the filter holder and stir stick and other tools you used. 

Now, that's how I make a cup of freshly ground and brewed coffee in the BDV. ☕️

Loose Ends

Ok, so I promised I'd add some oh ore details to some posts I didn't quite get everything on at once or needed to follow up on. Here's some photos to tie up some loose ends that I left hanging:

A picture of our camp at sunset a few nights back. Just tilt your head. It was the only way I could get everything in as my back was up against our neighbours trailer. :-)

Little Christmas gifts:

Lou got the Shredded Wheat and the dark chocolate. I got the insulated snack container with spoon and a dancing solar flower, which I named Daisy.

I think that's it. If I left anything out or you want to see something in particular, let me know in the comments section and I'll see what I can do. 

Propane Home Delivery

Out here on the desert, a lot of people tend to not drive their rigs away, but prefer instead to have services brought to them, like water and propane. Every Wednesday, there's a couple of guys that come out and make their rounds delivering propane to the residents that need it. A sign is obtained and placed in the window so they can look for the sign and stop. If you don't have a sign, it's no big deal, all you have to do is flag him down and let him know to come over. It's also a good idea to have all the tanks ready to fill when they arrive.

It is $3.40/gallon with no minimum amount. It's a bit more expensive (30¢) than in town, but you get home delivery and don't have to break camp. I knew I'd be filling up on propane before I left here anyways since its much cheaper down here than at home, so it was only a matter of time.

We had a few BBQ tanks to fill up or top off and I got my tank topped off too. You can see them all in the photo below. People come to hang out and chat and find out how much per gallon in case they wanted some in the future. Also, it was on the shady side of the rig, so it was nice and cool from the blazing hot sun.

My gauges have been reading high it seems, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise that my tank took 7.6 gallons. I didn't expect it was down that much. My tank is a 12 gallon tank which can be filled to 80%, so the maximum that can go in is 9.6 gallons. It lasts me many months.

The other thing we had to do today was finish up that chicken. Our food that we bought was put on hold to eat the 6 leg/thigh quarters delivered to us the other day. Today we had to finish them. I suggested we just do shake and bake and put them in the oven. So, that's what we did and they turned out marvellous. Added some fresh veggies and mashed potatoes and we had an awesome meal from our campmate. 

As this is our campmate's new to her trailer and stove, we don't have a wide array of choices for oven dishes, so we used the cast iron skillet and hoped everything fit in. They all fit in fine. Here are some pictures of the process:

The chicken was nestled all snug in their pan...

The chicken after baking. It looks really good. 

And our meal. I got some pan scrapings, which is the black-looking stuff.

A very good meal to finish off the chicken and the day.

Dump & Fill Day with a little shopping for good measure

Note: this was started yesterday, but didn't get finished until today, so it pertains to yesterday.

I knew I'd have to do a dump and fill run any day now, but hadn't expected it to be today. One of the most talked about topics on RV lists is the black tank. How long does it last, how do you empty it, toilet paper down or not, valve open or closed, etc, etc. I'm not going to get into all that here as the answer to all of it is "it depends". Suffice it to say, it was full and on top of that, while preparing to do the dishes, my pump started sucking air as if it was getting no water. What?? I just checked the gauge a moment ago. I checked it again and suddenly I discovered my gauge had been lying to me.

Now, that's always been the case for the black tank gauge, but never the grey or fresh. Well, nevertheless, I needed an emergency dump and fill run. With no fresh water in the tank, that meant no dishes, no potty, no hand washing, nothing that uses water. It wasn't supposed to be like this, but it was. 

Once one is planted in one place and has set up camp, things tend to get moved, left out on the counter, on the front seat so the rest of the place is livable. So, it was time to put things in their stowed position and clear the drivers seat so I could drive off. That was just inside. Outside I still had the shade tarp, lights, awning to put away and one of my solar panels to put down. I had just got all that set up again after the windstorm a couple days back, but here we go again. At least this time it wasn't in a mad rush at 3am!

So, anyways, I got all that done and off I go. The dump station, which I previously posted about has two nice water filling facilities and two nice dump stations. They are clean and well maintained and the water quality is quite good. It's often not busy at all and it wasn't when I got there today. However, by the time I was done, there were four rigs lined up at the dump stations, two using and two waiting in line for their turn. I was thankful for good timing, otherwise it could have taken much, much longer than it did. The best part of it is it's free. So, after I was done there, I headed back to camp as we had other things to do and places to go and this dump and fill trip was not part of the plan today...

Our main goal today was actually shopping. We had several places to go and some were quick and others we knew would be lengthy. 

We stopped at a really neat drug store in Brawley called White Cross. It's a Good Neighbour pharmacy so they don't look like your chain store drug stores. The shelves seem empty, but they are full of good things and unique things which we cannot get at the large chain stores in our home area. I was able to find Vick's cough drops for a change, after I requested a special delivery from Canada via one of my snow birding Canadians that we meet up with every year. So, now thanks to him, I have a good stockpile of cough drops, which I certainly needed as I got sick on the way down here. I might just stock up on more, but we do have an independent pharmacy near home, so we can talk to the owner of that and see if he can get them in since they are available. 

Anyways, here's a picture of the inside of their store. You can see what I mean. They have everything, but the shelves are not crowded. Also, my camp mates requested a couple of obscure items which they were gladly able to order in and they will be in tomorrow, which is now today. 

They also had an awesome Christmas tree, which is the first thing I spotted when I got down the aisle. It has an upside down umbrella type dish on the bottom and an air pump pumps snow pellets up the tree trunk and shoots them out the top so it is snowing around and on the tree. The dish collects them, funnels them down to the bottom and the process repeats. It is so cool! I really like that tree. Here it is but it's hard to see the snow, so look carefully for the white lines of the snow falling. It's quick.

After the drugstore, we figured it's time to get something to eat before they close, so off to Brownie's we went. It was pretty dark when we got there, so the picture is kind of dark, but that's what it looks like as you pull up.

It's a nice interesting down home type restaurant with autographed sports memorabilia all over the walls, local school team pictures and you can get pretty much anything there from your classic American food to Mexican of course and they serve breakfast through dinner. 

Here's a picture of the inside of the restaurant to give you an idea:

Next it was shopping to Walmart. The threat of laundry came up, and I needed a new pair of pants since the spare pair I brought with me were a little tight and not real comfortable, but they'd do for a backup. So, we needed clothes, camp mates needed housewares and various other little items which we can easily pick up at Walmart, which is now only open till midnight. It used to be open 24hrs as it is a super Walmart, but they've cut back the hours this year. So, we finished off our day with an evening of shopping and various errands that needed to be done anyways and everyone went home happy and tired.

Which by the way, is why this post is today instead of last night. I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer so it needed to wait.

Little Christmas

So, after taking down the awning and shade screen I had set up for us and the van the other day because of the wind, we roasted yesterday with no protection. It was windy enough all day that I couldn't put things back snd also, we  were gone most of the day to El Centro. It's never a good idea to leave an awning up while away from camp for an extended time as you never know when a strong breeze is going to kick up that can wrap the awning around the roof. So anyways, today was the day to get it all set up again so we could stay cool in the hot sun.

I also decided to finally nail down the ground tarp, which should have been done on day one but wasn't. So, after all that exercise, it was time to get to work making goodies for our Little Christmas celebration.

I started out with my Desert Peppermint Squares which needed to be refrigerated for at least an hour before enjoying. They were in the fridge most of the day, so good and chilled by the time dinner and dessert came along,

While doing this, one of our friends, Chili Bob brought over to our camp 6 leg quarters of chicken which is part of a program called "commodity distribution" down here for people who can't afford enough food. These were surplus and there seemed to be enough to go around. So, we'll be having chicken tonight for our dinner.  Sometimes surprises just land on the doorstep and we just need to deal with them. This was a most pleasant one.

I sent one of our camp mates on a grocery run while I was re-setting up our front shade. We needed ice, too, so it was a most beneficial outing.

I was in charge of desserts, so I made my traditional Five Minute Fudge and Marshmallow Fruit Salad, both of which are big hits at pot luck parties this time of year. My original plan was to make the marshmallow stuff for the next potluck here, but it turns out there isn't any coming up, so it was a good time to make it now and just share it. I made up seven bowls and brought them over to the campfire for everyone to enjoy. A bowl of the salad and a piece of fresh warm fudge for everyone. Ooh's and Ahh's of thank you's from the recipients meant it was much appreciated and well liked.

We got the leftovers and there was plenty enough for us what with all we had to eat. Our camp mate Mountain Kimmie was in charge of the chicken and did a wonderful job as you can see (and as usual).

After our Little Christmas dinner, we had the marshmallow salad and the peppermint squares shown above for a bit of dessert before presents.

Here is the setup for our Little Chrismas display with the presents waiting underneath.

We opened the presents and all got something we could enjoy and some more sweets for the occasion. I had a mound of dirty dishes from making desserts earlier, and I needed to free up space to go to bed. I didn't get a picture of our stuff, so I'll do that tomorrow and post a pic.

A very nice Little Christmas was had by all. Good food, good friends and good fun.

Now, to all a good night. :-)

Windy Little Christmas Eve

As some may know, the 6th of January is known as Little Christmas. I've learned that this is also the day in which the Three Wise Men came bearing gifts to the baby Jesus. Not to mention, the Twelfth Day of Christmas from the song of the same name.

However, it's not Little Christmas - yet. This is the story of our Little Christmas Eve...

The people were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of something I'm sure were dancing in their heads. When about three in the morning what should my tired ears hear, but a whomp, whomp and the van was a rockin'. Oh no! Get up! Get dressed! And outside we flew. For the awning was flapping and about to give way in a new found wind storm that had come up in the night.

Quick! Get the lights and the shade tarp off the hooks! Get the arms unhooked off the side of the van and put in their place. Start cranking I cried as I held onto the now unsupported awning. I had visions of it being whipped around the roof of the van like I've read so many stories about. But we got it in and everything put away out of harms way quick as a wink (ok, about 15 minutes). We tried to be good, we tried to be quiet. But the neighbours awoke as they tend to sleep light. 

So, back to bed we all went knowing everything was now safe from the wind and all was alright. 

So, with the day starting off like that, it was bound to be interesting. But I'm still sick and suffering from this cold and cough and my body worn out, I actually managed to sleep in and get some well needed rest.

Once everyone was up and about and had a bit of breakfast, we decided we needed a few supplies and a trip to Costco was wanted. But that was in El Centro, about an hour away. So we got ready to go and we needed a trip to the garbage bin also, so rolled it all into one.

We dropped by Costco, Target and a 99¢ Store for various supplies and last minute Little Christmas gifts for tomorrow. This was a good little 99¢ store with lots of useful stuff - even a real grocery section in the back.

You see, we didn't all get to spend Christmas together, with one of us down at the Slabs before the rest of us were due New Years Eve, so we decided we'd postpone Christmas until later when we're all together. So, I suggested we have it on Little Christmas, the 6th of January. So, that's what we're doing. I hope it will be a nice day. It's been hot during the day and the awning was sorely missed today as the hot sun beat on the side of the van. But it was too windy. Tomorrow hopefully it'll come back out.

A nice quiet evening at the campfire, which had been put to sleep before we got back, but we worked hard to revive it in time for some relaxing before bedtime.

So, Merry Little Christmas Eve! It'll be a busy day tomorrow. Goodnight!