Catching up in Yuma

We are currently at at the LTVA (BLM Long Term Visitors Area) at Pilot's Knob, just over the California border, one exit south of the border crossing into Mexico and about 6 or 8 miles south of Yuma. We've always camped at the short-term area (free) just down the road, but we had some days left over on our LTVA pass from Quartzsite and Imperial Damso we thought we'd give this a try. It doesn't really have any more amenities than the free area, except a trash dumpster,but it's larger and the RVs are more spread out, and it's set back farther from the freeway, so there's less noise. Like the Imperial Dam area, it's extremely barren and rocky; almost no cactus, just a few greasewood bushes. Haven't seen a rabbit nor heard a coyote--I don't think anything lives out here! Still, it's close to civilization, and the tempperature is in the high 70's during the day and low 60's at night.

We've been having technical difficulties with our power, which has been difficult to sort out. Although our solar panels do a great job of charging the RV batteries, the batteries have been going down faster than they should. At first, we thought it was a bad battery, but we had them checked when we got to Yuma and both were fine. Now we're thinking that it's the internet routerthat Steve installed this trip.He put it in so both of us could be on our laptops and the internet at the same time, since only one person at a time can use the aircard. Bad idea. two computers "thinking" at the same time ended up blowing a fuse. Even one computer at a time seems to drain down the battery more than it used toso the router must be using up way more power than we thought it would . So we switched back to our old way of doing things--one person at a time on the computer, using the aircard for internet access. Nothing. No signal. First we thought we were just out of range, but then Steve figured out that the aircard was broken--some teeny part inside was rattling around in there instead of doing whatever it's supposed to do. Yesterday we took it to an ATT Cellular store in Yuma. They don't sell aircards there, but ATT agreeing to replace it under warranty, and will be shipping a newone to the store for us to pick up, hopefully by tomorrow. Till then, our choices are 15 minutes on the library computers or bringing our laptops to the library and hooking into their Wi-fi system. We did #1 yesterday and will try #2 probably today.I'm typing this in a Notepad program on my laptop, so may have to do some serious editing once I copy it into the blog. Turns out mylaptop came without a word-processing program. Never even occurred to me that it wouldn't have one pre-installed, until I went to use itand it wasn't there.

The photos are from our trip to the Castle Dome Ghost Town and Museum, a very interesting place. Mining was active therefrom the mid-1860's until well into this century. Initially, they mined silver, then lead for the war effort during WW I and II.The last resident left in 1979, though there are apparently still some active mine claims in the area. The ghost town has more than 30 buildings, either restored or recreated, all furnished with items donated by former residents' families or found at the bottomof the mine shafts, including a pair of Levi Strauss jeans authenticated to 1890! Very nicely done.

We'll probably be here for a few more days, waiting for our aircard, and getting dentist appointments in Algodones. Then it's on to the hot springs near Holtville,CA, about 50 miles down the road. We hope to meet up with John and Hey again there.