Hippie Hole-It was a BEAUTIFUL drive going south of Lake Havasu City toward Quartzsite, Arizona. Just breathtaking. So many colors! We stopped in Quartzsite at the RV Pitstop to fill up on propane and water and dump tanks. What a great place!
They have sewer hoses set up at the dump sites and hoses at the water fill area. There is a lot of staff. Folks can get in and out really easily. It was the cheapest we had paid for propane at 2.59/gallon. Dumping is $15 and very convenient and we filled our 66 gallon water tank and 2 portable 2.5 gallon bottles for $5.00 total. They do not sell fuel and the stations here were high priced here so we headed on down the road and found fuel a few miles down on I10 for 40 cents a gallon cheaper-woohoo!
The drive was easy and we used google maps from the gps location listed on Campendium.com to get to Hippie Hole. It was a very flat not long after Lake Havasu City and then freeway and highway after that. I saw my first ever cotton fields on the way here. I didn’t even know it was grown out west! When I took the dogs for a walk our first morning here, I had to sneak over to a field and pick a fresh piece that had been left behind after harvest. It was just like the stuff in the stores, so soft, with a few seeds and pieces of stalk mixed in. I can now say I’ve picked cotton…ssshh…I was trespassing, just a little!
We crossed back into California on the drive here. Hippie Hole is just across the river. You can use your CA fishing license here as the river IS the border. That’s a nice bonus! Mike was able to get his 2019 California license at the bait shop near our campsite. My cell phone was constantly switching as I walked back and forth between states.
There is just a small section of gravel road on the drive to Hippie Hole that really needs to be bladed-quite a washboard but it’s only about a half mile. The rest of the route is paved and quite nice. It’s a very easy drive for any size rig. The sites are AMAZING for BLM! The sites are very large, easy to level with a very nice metal picnic table with a metal roof and a trash can. There are vault toilets in this campground. We had no use for them but they were very clean.
The campground sits right on the Colorado River. It would be very easy to kayak with a standard paddle kayak. There is a large sandbar to get around for the pedal kayak and Mike is still feeling a bit sore in his shoulder so we’ll see how that goes.
We got here and got set up pretty easily. Mike was cooking dinner-a couple ribeyes for New Year’s eve, steamed broccoli, and then we were just going to reheat some homemade mashed potatoes and gravy I had made a couple nights ago when we had fried chicken.
We flipped on the generator since we were going to run the microwave and then started the microwave. Within seconds the television, microwave, and refrigerator all shut off. WTF? We waited a couple minutes thinking the generator needed to bring the batteries up a couple notches and the refrigerator would click on, no problem. This is how things had gone done a couple times before. Nope, nothing.
We checked GFCI plugs. Tripped and would not reset. Checked breakers in the closet. Nothing flipped. Invertor panel showed low battery and “fault” was lit up. Uh oh! My first thought was crap I have A LOT of frozen food and it’s going to be cold tonight. It’s unnverving when something goes wrong and you’re not sure what to do next, but it comes with learning this life.
We ate a quick dinner and then I did some FB Tiffin site research. There wasn’t anything really specific to our ordeal but a few posts mentioned they had started their rigs and that kind of reset things. So we started Reva up and hey the refrigerator came back on! Yeah! All better….NOT! We turned the generator back on and let it run thinking all was good. Purred like a kitten for over an hour then suddenly the television shut off and so did my refrigerator. OMG!
We started talking it out…okay the generator is running well-we had just checked coolant and oil this morning, all great. Yes, we have older batteries but they’ve been doing pretty good and we’ve been boondocking for 6 days already. The batteries responded to the coach being started and they charged up the few minutes we had it on while we were “resetting” before dinner. We don’t have breakers tripped. It really must be something simple.
Mike remembered that there was a breaker on the generator. I grabbed our manuals and confirmed it’s location and that yep, the damn thing will run even if the breaker is tripped but won’t charge anything. Please, please let that be it. Mike bundled up, grabbed a flashlight and BINGO! The generator breaker was tripped. He reset it and the panel immediately showed batteries were charging and invertor was on. Whew! I don’t know if I will ever understand this whole battery thing and inverting and converting and omg. We never had a generator with the pick up camper so this is all very new to both of us. It was quite the feeling of accomplishment when we figured it out let me tell you. Happy dance! And I thought I wouldn’t dance on New Years’ Eve lol!
Batteries, setting the generator, and understanding watts and volts is probably THE most confusing thing about this lifestyle so far. I learned today that no matter how well -meaning people giving advice can be, it’s always good, just like in nursing, to find it in writing! Started a discussion on FB groups today asking about what battery level to set the automatic generator start….lots of opinions, some even with graphs. However, while one level (12.1-12.2) was the opinion of the majority, it was incorrect according to the manual. Only one man had an alternate suggestion at a lower level for setting the ags system. He also mentioned I could find a manual online that provided some more information than what I had in my possession.
I’ve always been one for needing things in writing. Working in a SNF we have a lot of rules and a lot of surveyors try to interpret these regulations many different ways. Living this life and dealing with these surveyors for all of these years has ingrained my “show me in writing before I will believe you” mentality. It’s paying off in this adventure as well. Sure enough, I found my answer, written in pretty easy to understand language, in the manual and the sole gentleman was correct. I, being the good Samaritan I am, copied and pasted the manual excerpts to my feed so I could share the correct concrete answer with all who had, kindly albeit incorrectly, answered my question. Crickets….oh, well.
Hippie Hole is right next to one of the borders of the Cibola Natural Wild Refugee. The entrance is a short 3.5 mile drive through a tiny town called Cibola. The first time we went we saw a lot of different varieties of ducks, geese, and cranes which was wonderful but no other animals.
I did some online reading and found the best time to go was either early morning or just before sunset. So Mike and I set out around 4:30 one afternoon and it really was spectacular. We saw so many large deer. The pond was full of ducks and geese.
There were fields full of white geese and gray sandhill cranes. We saw flocks coming in for the night. It was beautiful. From what I read online, there are times that fishing and hunting is allowed on the refuge. The area surrounding the refuge is farm land-cotton as I mentioned earlier, hay, and alfalfa so these animals eat well on and off the refuge. They were good looking animals. From the signs posted in Cibola-“Hunters Welcome”, etc. it’s quite busy whenever these seasons open. It’s definitely worth at least one trip if you’re in the area.
Today I met Donald and Judy from BC. They aren’t full timers. They are snow birds. They come down to Arizona for the winter months every year. We met as I was taking Louie and Kiya on our morning walk. We crossed the bridge back into California-just so I could say I walked from Arizona to California and back several times during our stay at Hippie Hole lol.
As our conversation went on, the topic of health care came up. Both said they really liked the Canadian Health care system and had no complaints and no wait times. Their monthly cost was $75.00 for both of them. Judy even saw her MD last minute the day before coming to the states for a cortisone injection-on his day off-no waiting. I shared our monthly insurance costs with them-$1300 with a $3650 deductible. They were quite floored to hear we had just spent $2100 for my husband’s outpatient rotator cuff surgery. Neither could even fathom paying those costs. They did say they had higher taxes and their “sin” taxes are quite high (cigarettes, alcohol, etc.) And yes, their dollar is worth about 30% less than ours right now. But there is no one dying in Canada because they can’t afford to buy insulin. There is no nurse paying a $200 copay for her inhaler so she can work her shift at the hospital caring for others. I don’t mean to get political in this blog. I have friends on both sides of the aisle and I agree there is good and bad on both sides. Generally, I prefer to just not discuss political issues when in the company of mixed opinions. Universal healthcare is my line in the sand, I guess. A for-profit healthcare system fails our citizens. Healthcare should be a right, not a privilege in my humble opinion. “Obamacare” was not perfect, but it was a start. We, as citizens of the richest country in the world, ALL deserve quality, affordable health care.
Johnathon and Nancy pulled in on our 3rd night at Hippie Hole. They had a small Toyota truck and an even small trailer. They were probably mid sixties and were quick to start a conversation. Originally from Kentucky, they had been traveling all over the United States in this trailer that Johnathon had made himself. He had created a private toilet area and had a heat system so that he could pump water from the river, heat it, and have a warm shower. He had a Tommy gun stashed inside by the television-“an antique just like Bonnie and Clyde used to use” They had picked up some large tubs at the hardware store and Johnathon was pumping water through his heat system into the tubs so they could have a soak in the hot tub on the river bank while they watched the sunset with an adult beverage. They were so lovely.
The next day Mike and I were out front zip tying some wires on the generator. They had been hanging in a way that they could pinch when closing the unit and he wanted to take care of that. Johnathon was immediately over to see if we needed any help at all. He was so kind.
I had made homemade bread -2 large loaves-earlier in the day so I wrapped up half a loaf to share with them as they strolled past hand in hand enjoying the river that evening. We had so much more than they did and I felt compelled to give. They graciously accepted my gift and then insisted we share lunch with them the next day. Johnathon would make homemade BLT’s. Sure enough, he came knocking the next day with two big sandwiches-they were delicious. They were such an inspiration to me. So happy and content with their life. I think they gave me much more than I them. I’m glad I took the time to visit with them.
After 8 days just chilling by the river, going for long walks with the dogs, and reading up on our rig maintenance needs, we decided to take off and head to Quartzsite, Arizona. There is a giant RV and supply show opening on the 19th. Quartzsite is kind of famous among Rv’ers for acres and acres of BLM land-more free camping! Maybe we can get some of the work we want done completed ahead of the rush. Next stop Tyson Wash, Quartzsite, Arizona.