The Week of Firsts

It seems as if we have been full timing for months, not weeks, living this lifestyle.  Probably because we are actually having life experiences, and not doing the everyday grind that we are so accustomed to. We are now able to find stuff without having to search through the whole house, and things are starting to slow down.  Our week in Mojave, CA was full of first time experiences, good family time and the unexpected.

It began with our first week of laundry, lesson learned; don’t pour fabric softener directly onto clothes at the beginning of a wash. We are so used to having a fabric softener spot in the washing machine we were just winging it.  One of Mitch’s favorite shirts now has splotches on the back. Also, from what we heard the prices to do laundry there was pretty good.  It cost $1.25 for wash and .75 cents to dry.

We also decided to try and take the dogs for a run while riding our bikes, which we had never done, and it went really well until Milo needed to take care of business right in the middle of the road.  Talk about stopping on a dime. I now have a poop bag dispenser that clips onto the leash that I got from the dollar store!  One of my best dollars spent I would have to say. Oh, do I love the dollar store.  Everything’s a dollar!  Speaking of dogs, I am now a member of marked territory.  Mitch and I usually take turns taking the dogs out in the morning, while the other one gets the coffee together.  It was my morning, nothing unusual, Milo had already laid claim to a couple trees, while Charlie, who pees like a girl hadn’t done his business.  Finally, he found his spot and Milo wanted to interrupt, I pulled him back to give Charlie some space. As I stand there waiting, I didn’t see Milo roaming about and thought how odd, then realized he was right next to me, but why is he standing so close?..  Oh my Gosh! He peed on me! Yep. Another first.

I did some research and found that he is confused about who is the Alpha and was trying to establish dominance.  Since then we have done some work to ensure he knows that he isn’t in charge.

I had mentioned that we needed ball joints in our last post; unfortunately we didn’t get them from Les Schwab in Battleground, WA.  Had we, it would have been a couple hundred dollars cheaper and a lot less work trying to find a business we felt comfortable with.  Thankfully, Angela, Mitch’s sister who works for Service Master by Master and Sons, was able to talk with her boss who has a guy he uses in Canyon Country, called Tommy’s Auto.

They did a great job, we were able to get us in on Saturday October 12, on the day we called, and they had to stay open late,  just to get it finished. (They were BAD!) Unfortunately, due to the lack of time they weren’t able to look into the weird humming sound that we were having when Mitch would let off the accelerator at around 60 mph.  We were hoping that it would have gone away after they fixed the ball joints, but that wasn’t the case.  Arg, what was it? Well darn we said, guess we’ll need to get that checked out on Monday.  After 5 hours, and a super yummy burger at Brother’s Burgers in Santa Clarita and lots of waiting we had new ball joints and later, a dinner date with family.  We all met up at Jason’s house, Mitch’s nephew. We had a great visit over some pizza and soda, just catching up.  One of our conversations was about metal detecting.  I had tried to do some metal detecting with Dad at the RV Park we were staying at, and it was hard dirt, so hard you would need a pick to break it up.  I had mentioned to Dad about wanting to metal detect on the beach, and how easy the sand would be to dig.  What do you know, Jason wanted to try metal detecting too!  What a great opportunity to go to the beach and do just that.  It was only an hour and a half away, and we were all really excited about our first real outing! Plus we get to go to the beach!  Yahoo!  Sunday morning Mitch, Papa and I loaded up the truck with the dogs at 6 am to meet Jason and Angela at his house at 7. We were on time and things were going smoothly, in less than two hours we were going to be at Ventura Beach!  Jason, and his mom Angela drove in his car and we followed going down a beautiful and windy road called bouquet canyon.  Until we hear a weird whup whup sound when we went right on corners. We pull over, looking to see if a tire was rubbing, no, that wasn’t it.  Maybe it needs power steering fluid. We read the manual, it says to use ATF + 4 for power steering? Were we reading that right? Transmission fluid for power steering? Yep, that’s what we are supposed to use.  How odd we thought but ok.

After two more stops, we go to back up out of a parking lot and we heard a loud pop. We thought that we had hit something, I get out to check and there is nothing.  Oh, boy, so we stopped into Mikes Tires, the place that did our alignment the day before (the mechanic we used contracts the alignments out).  They were able to take it for a test drive and determine within minutes that it was our bearings.  Miguel, at Mike’s Tires said that our bearings were the worst he had even seen, and when he heard the noise during the test drive he was about to jump out of the truck! What a blessing that the tire didn’t come off!  Once again, a close call and we listened to the warning signs! All those prayers for safe travels aren’t falling on deaf ears.

After 3 hours, another delicious meal at Brothers Burgers and new bearings, it was Beach or Bust!  Finally we make it to the beach, after finding a parking spot and getting out of our cars we see “no dogs allowed on beach” sign. Oh, no way!  Seriously! What are we going to do? Thankfully, a guy that legitimately looked like a surfer dude told us there was a place just down the road that allowed dogs. Back into the vehicles and down the road we went, it was still Beach or Bust! We had made it!  Piling out, everyone’s hands were full of metal detectors, chairs, dog leashes, drinks and lunch, finally we trudged towards our destination. It turned out to be a great day at the beach.

Jason found the most money, enough to buy a candy bar.  Mitch came in with a quarter, a dime and a penny, and pops and me showed up with a bottle cap, an elastic bandage clip and soda pop top! But it was easy digging!  Guess we’ll find that diamond ring and treasure chest another day. Charlie and Milo had their first ocean experiences. Charlie loved swimming in the ocean with Mitch.  Milo wanted out the minute he got in it and ran away from the waves that came ashore.  Mitch and I took our first walk on the beach with the dogs.

It was also my first time at the beach ever with my Dad!

Angela and I mainly just soaked up the sun, and the experience! It was all that we had hoped for, aaaahh.  As our week came to an end at Sierra Trails RV Park it was time for us to truly venture off into the unknown.

Leaving the loving comfort of family and tackling the new adventure of boondocking was on our agenda.   Our Next destination is Craggy Wash in Lake Havasu City, AZ.