Arizona at last… 11/27/21

We’ve been in Arizona the past few days, but today was the first warm and beautiful day! We are in the outskirts of Phoenix, and it feels almost like a beach town… palm trees, sand, and all!!

Yesterday we navigated 30some miles out of the desert on barely paved roads and entered a small town. Literally as soon as we started driving down the main street, we started to smell coolant. We pulled over down a small side street that paralleled some train tracks and a cotton farm and saw we had blown another line, this time where the fill area of the radiator pours into the engine block. It was only a section about 6 inches long, but it had a 2-inch gash in it. After walking to an ACE hardware store for a metal bucket (We figured our plastic ones might melt if the coolant was the 160 degrees that the thermometer was registering) Jeff called an auto parts store to see if they had the right size heater hose. They did, but they were 1.2 miles away. We packed a backpack with a jug of water and some snacks and Jeff started his walk. It took him about an hour and a half, but the hose worked and we were on our way before it got too dark! We decided that what we really needed was a small, portable vehicle to give us the piece of mind that if the bus broke down 10 miles from a town, we could still get there in a reasonable fashion. So we went to a bike shop and picked up an electric scooter. It has a range of almost 40 miles and can do up to 24 MPH! It’s pretty sweet! Will post some pictures and link to it in a future blog post.

Jeff got some really great pictures while we drove into Phoenix today!

We took this fine and mild 75° day to get some much-needed tasks completed. We did some laundry, washed up all the dishes (we’ve been trying to use disposable items while we are doing intense driving all day, but we still need dishes to cook!), cooked some delicious food (scratch green bean casserole soup, FTW!), explored a gig opportunity, and purchased the scooter. We met a guy who hitch-hiked all across the US the last four years who said he was picked up by mostly skoolie-dwellers. He was excited for us, but said he’d never build a bus because they cost too much in fuel and are too big to go anywhere! We are beginning to understand why people build out vans I stead of busses! There are so many places you can’t park, visit, and stay when you’re in a 40-foot vehicle. Maybe one day we will downsize again!

We have more tasks lined up for tomorrow while we wait out the weekend for places to be open Monday for interviews and places to park the bus. There are so many RV parks, but a lot of them are 55+ or <10-year-old vehicle communities only. We shall see how it goes. For tonight we are at a Walmart with more van-life neighbors!