Saturday, November 23, 2013 (Midland LTVA, Blythe, California)

We woke to another cloudy cool day. According to the US Weather Service, it is supposed to be sunny starting tomorrow with temperatures gradually rising. By Tuesday temps are expected to hit 70F...YAY! I hope they are right!!

We had a very leisurely start to the day and then did our dreaded "resistance exercises"...something we didn't do while at Valley of Fire because we figured we were out getting lots of exercise hiking. After showers and breakfast, we carried on with our leisurely morning until noon when we decided we should walk down to the host site and pay for our Bureau of Land Management (BLM) camping permit. This year we purchased the season permit (September 15, 2013 to April 15, 2014) for $180...good at any BLM long term visitor areas (LTVAs) throughout the USA.  After a week here, we plan on moving over to La Posa South LTVA at Quartzsite and will be there...well...at least until the end of January.  No firm plans in place but as we mentioned, after a busy summer travelling to Alaska, we plan on slowing down and plunking our butts down in Quartzsite with our ATV friends sounds like a grand idea!

After our walk, Steve stayed out and took pictures of our new location that overlooks the wash and mountains...



Wolf and Marge's place in the distance...

Our neighbors...Dennis and Charlene, are in the motorhome up there....



Rather than run the furnace so much, Steve has set up the small catalytic heater inside connected to the propane tank. With the local propane dealer being closed tomorrow (Sunday) and closing today at 2:00, he headed into Blythe to get the tank filled. While he was gone, I sat in my recliner, listening to the wind outside (not quite as bad as it had been yesterday) and continued working on our travel blog. I will be caught up today and should be able to remain up-to-date as our Verizon MiFi has good service here and in Quartzsite (from what I remember from last year).

At 4:00 we walked up to Charlene and Dennis' place for happy hour. It is so good seeing them again and catching up! After a wonderful visit, we headed home so that we would be available for a Skype call from back home.

Steve's brother, Dave, is visiting from Thompson, Manitoba along with his lovely lady, Kerry and daughter, Robyn. There is a big family gathering at Nadine and Mike's (Steve's sister and bro-in-law) and we are joining them via Skype. They had quite a house full...about 19, I believe, including Steve's Dad, Chris and Angela, who traveled over to the island from Burnaby, some very close family friends...and, of course, Rob, Angie and Conner.

They also had an early celebration of Dad's and Kerry's birthday...







Dad and Kerry blowing out the candles...with a little help from Conner...

Nadine sent us this great picture of her 3 nephews...Chris, Rob and Conner...(thanks, Nadine!)





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