Thursday, March 7, 2019

Boondocking near Yuma and Generator Fix

Richard & Dianna and Dale are boondocking near Imperial Dam just north of Yuma, and I drove my Minnie out to camp with them last week. I've boondocked in the desert LTVA before, and I admit it is not my favorite. It's usually flat desert land with lots of wind and dust and not much to do. But the LTVA near Yuma was surprisingly pleasant. The landscape is much more hilly than Quartzsite, and much prettier than Thousand Trails near Cottonwood, and the spot where the brothers are camped was in a bit of a valley where it's more protected from the wind. So I have to state, I rather enjoyed it! 😊 Hanna and I walked every day, either up the road past some businesses and other rigs, or to a bridge over Mission Wash. We got plenty of exercise and it was a beautiful spring week with temps in the mid 70s to low 80s, and sunshine nearly every day.

A few sightseeing highlights included a day trip to Los Algodones, having lunch at the Yuma Proving Grounds, and four wheel driving around the area, stopping at the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge.
The crowd coming back into the U.S. from Mexico was huge!
The main reason I decided to go out there to camp (even though I had not expected to like the area) was to see if Richard and Dale could get my generator going. After having it serviced last spring, it quit running and I haven't been able to use it on my last few camping trips. If they couldn't trouble shoot it and fix it, I would have to take it to a repair shop. They first eliminated the fuel pump as being the culprit, and deduced it was the carburetor.
Pondering the situation
Richard found a great price on a new one on Amazon and we ordered it. Dale removed the old one and installed the new one, and with a few more tinkers from both the mechanics, it finally started running and stayed running. Richard has advised me to start it up and run it once a month whenever it is parked long term in my side yard, and I have put a reminder on my phone to do that along with checking the water level in my batteries.

I made my way home on Saturday in time to attend Nathan's Eagle Scout ceremony that evening.