When we were in Spokane this past summer, we went by the DMV to get our fifth wheel licensed, since the South Dakota license had expired in May.  We found out that, because the fifth wheel is less than 7 years old, we'd have to pay the difference between the taxes we paid in South Dakota (3%) and what Washington State charges (well over 8%), albeit on a reduced value...which would have ended up costing us over $4,000!!!  Since the fifth wheel wasn't on the road, we decided to forget about registering it in Washington and register it in Arizona, instead (where it's been parked since early 2010).  Arizona has expensive auto registration fees, but the $400+ it cost us to register it here is certainly a far cry from what we'd have paid in Washington!  We'll wait two more years and then register the fifth wheel in Washington, which, at that time, should cost us only around $50, perhaps less.

Bill and Janet Adams came out on the 22nd to install the Winegard Trav'ler satellite TV dish on the roof of our fifth wheel.  I had no idea how long it would take them, but figured they'd be here most of the day.  Well, they arrived at around 10 AM, had the dome off and the Trav'ler installed and up and running by lunch time!  Janet was the one who did all the installation work...Bill acted as the "gofer" getting supplies up to Janet.  Me?  You wouldn't find me anywhere near the roof, let alone on top of it walking around!

The truck box I'd ordered came and Earl installed it.  We then went through all the stuff in the shed deciding what to throw away, what to keep, and what to take with us.  Earl got the two Honda generators that had been sitting in the shed for two summers started and we'll take one with us.  We have decided to pay for one more year here and will probably put the shed up for sale when we return.

It's been a long time since I've make any posts to this blog...guess I should do so!

Nothing really exciting has been happening...mostly just the usual of shopping, visiting friends, taking the dogs for a walk, and working on genealogy.  In fact, genealogy seems to have taken up much of my time!

As I mentioned in my previous post, we're going to have a Winegard Trav'ler satellite TV dish installed on our fifth wheel.  While we do have a dish on a tripod sitting beside the rig (one that Satellite Advantage in Quartzsite set up last year), we don't want to fool with having to manually tune in all three satellites for Dish Network...too much of a hassle when we're moving every day or two. 

We went by Satellite Advantage to find out how much they'd charge for coming out and installing the dish...they wanted $1,700+, but would waive the sales tax (around 10%) if we paid cash.  So we opened up a savings account at the bank in Quartzsite so we'd have the cash handy to pay them.  In the meantime, I contacted a fellow Escapee who installs both satellite TV and satellite Internet dishes to see if he was going to be in Quartzsite sometime during the winter and, if so, how much he charged.  Turns out he was a couple hundred dollars less expensive...and we'll have the added benefit of giving the work to an Escapee.  He'll be in Quartzsite during the Sports, Vacation, and RV Show which starts next Saturday, the 21st, so we should have our new dish installed sometime within the next couple of weeks.

Blaze had his first birthday on December 23.  Here's a recent picture of him:

And one of Gracie:

We had a quiet Thanksgiving and Christmas...turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, ham for Christmas dinner.  We don't buy presents any more for each other at Christmas...there's nothing we really need, and there's really no place to shop for stuff around here without going 100+ miles into Phoenix, or almost the same distance into Yuma.

Ed and Jan, the Escapees who purchased our camper back in early November shortly after we'd put it up for sale (see the previous November 10, 2011 post), arrived on January 3 to pick up the camper.  They arrived after dark, so we just quickly went over a few systems, had a drink with them, and let them unload what they'd need for the night and the next morning.

On Wednesday morning, we went through all the systems with them, took the camper off our truck and loaded it onto theirs.  They spent the rest of the day loading all the stuff they'd brought with them into the camper, taking a break for lunch at Dos Amigos where we all had their Wednesday special of fish tacos...yum!  We signed over the Title to them, had Happy Hour, and then they took off to boondock somewhere out in the desert.  We'll miss having the camper...it made it really handy for a quick overnight trip into Phoenix for a Costco run and for getting into all those little places that we won't be able to get into with the larger fifth wheel...but, as I mentioned previously, we'll have much more room for the dogs (and us) traveling in the fifth wheel.

My birthday was the fifth of this month so Earl and I went to Silly Al's in Quartzsite to celebrate.  Silly Al's probably has some of the best pizza we've ever had...while we've run into some great pizza, I don't think any has been any better than Silly Al's pizza!

Earl put the fifth wheel hitch back in the truck.  Since the tail gate and the bed cover are in Spokane, we ordered a box to put in the bed and a "V" shaped tail gate...we found one for something like $50 on the Internet (compared to several hundred dollars for the louvered metal ones).  The tail gate came, Earl put it together and installed it on the truck.  I wasn't sure what it would look like, but we figured if we didn't like it, we weren't out much money, but I must say it looks pretty good on the truck!

The bed box hasn't come yet, but we're going to go through the stuff in the shed deciding what we can get rid of and what we want to take along with us.  After that exercise, we'll decide whether or not we want to sign up for another year here, or just pay by the month until we leave.  If we decide not to sign up for another year, we'll put the shed up for sale. 

I'd like to leave sometime in March, if possible, since we'd like to take a trip down to Big Bend, stopping in Tucson to visit Blaze's breeder.  Earl says he wants to travel through Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska on the way north, but that's right during tornado season, so I'm not sure I want to be in that area during that time of year!

Here are some pictures of the area around the RV park where we stay:

An old, gnarly tree we pass on our morning walks with the dogs.

View from our RV site

Another view from our RV site early in the morning just as the sun came up.

Full moon setting over the mountains early in the morning.