Tucson Winter Trip - (Day 21) - Back Home

1/7/13 (Monday)

I cleaned up the litter cat box and then went to Walmart McDonald for breakfast.  I brought it back to the trailer and eat with Tom. (1 Bac Egg CH Mcgriddle $3.19; 1 Sausage Egg Mcmuffin $3.09 and 2 Hash Brown for $2). After that I went back to Walmart and bought some items for myself. Then we started cleaning up our trailer and ready to go again.

 We went to Valero at the East Main Street, which gas cost very high. It is $3.69 for cash price and $3.79 for credit card price. We ended up paying $58.15 for 15.72 gallon of gas. I told Tom that why don’t we go to find a cheaper gas station? But Tom insist of filling up the gas tank here, he didn’t want to drive around with the trailer and looking for gas. We have a small fight, because of that. Tom felt sleepy at the Edward Air Fore Space near the exit of the highway. While Tom was sleeping I was playing with the cats. When Tom woke up, I made pork chop dinner before we drove again. Next Tom felt sleepy again at the Bakersfield, Tom parked on a the church parking and went back to the trailer and sleep. While I was sitting on the truck reading my Chinese books. When Tom done sleeping he drove to Costco for gas.  We kept on driving to next town Lost Hills Pilot for gas and ate at the Pilot Wendy’s. Our last gas fill up was at the Chevron Firebaugh for $3.69 per gallon. Then we were back to San Jose around 11:00 p.m.

Tucson Winter Trip - (Day 20) - Quartzsite to Barstow Walmart

1/6/13 (Sunday)

We got up in the morning and decided not to leave our trailer on the 14 days camp. So we could leave Quartzite when we finished shopping. We bought several items such as hedger $9 plus 10% tax; fence for the shelf fridge $6.50; hanging wind charm (big and small charm $25);  2 Peal ring for only $10 (one ring will be $5.99, but buy two will be $10). After shopping we went to nearby McDonald for lunch, we order McRib combo for $5.99 just add $1 for another McRib.

 

 

We started our trip driving north passing city like Parker and Lake Havasu.

 
 We filled our gas tank at the intersection 40/95 Love gas station. Tom saw the Hot Dog which were rolling at the machine. It looked tasty to Tom, so he asked me to go buy ($2.22 for two hot dog). We drove to Barstow and slept in the Walmart Parking again. Even though this Walmart is not 24 hours (not super Walmart) they never bothered us to stay over night. I was too tired to cook dinner, so Tom ate snack for dinner. Then we both went to sleep, we did not make bed. Tom slept on the floor and I slept on the converted bed.

Winter Tucson Trip - (Day 19) - Going Home

1/5/13 (Saturday)

We are going home today. We got up in the morning, ate the left over soup for breakfast. When we were almost time to leave, our next door neighbor Alma's son name Sam (he is 51 year old, he told us his older brother shoot his leg because he does not like him) came over talking to us. Along with Sam was a white guy whose I forgot his name, he looked kind of young, but he is already over 30 year old.  Telling us about the lady (Beverly, she is younger than Alma, she was only 65 year old) who used to live here. He told us Beverly had lung cancer. But she did not die from that, she died because she fell off from her own mobile home.

One day she left her dog out, but she forgot about it. Next day when she woke up she remembered her dog and started looking for it. She found her dog laying dead on the road. Sam said that Beverly ask her to come over and buried the dog for her. Sam told us he was not sure the dog was killed by a car (which was the guy who lived next door, with 3 locks in the gate) or by a Coyote.

Sam told us he can help us with our land, he has a friend name Jerry who own bobcat and cement mixer. I asked Sam his and his friend phone number. He wrote it to me and I told him  when we are back we will give him a call. We said good bye to Sam and we drove off from our land.

 
We stop by Eloy, AZ and ate Arbys 5 items for $5.98. I ordered two Arbys Melt; 1 Lg Fries; one Apple Turnover and 1 small drink. I also buy one regular ice cream cone for $2.39. Then we keep on driving, we were only 50 miles from Phoenix and 100 miles to Quartzite. Tom just remembered today is 1/5/13 the Quartzite will have big tent set up for RVer to shop. So we decided to stay over in the 14 days camping area. We got here around 9:00 p.m., We have sushi and left over Chinese food from China Bay for dinner. After I finished cleaning up my dishes I started writing this journal.

Tucson Winter Trip - (Day 18) - Clearing Cactus for fence

1/4/13 ( Friday)

We woke up and cook shrimp noodle for breakfast. We started clearing up the cactus. It was hard work; we both got stink from removing the cactus. Tom was still sick; he needs to drink a lot of water. While we working, I saw the City of Tucson truck drove by and asked me are we going to put fence? I told him yes we are. Tom saw the guy and went over to talk to him. He asked him a lot of question related to water, electric and gas service. He think he found out from the man where our water meter is.

 When they were talking to each other, I was continued to clear up the place. Since we didn’t have the right tools to do the work, it took us almost 6 hours before we cleared out the cactus. We both were very tired and we went to RV Park and took a shower (the time was 6:00 p.m.) Then we went back to the trailer and changed to clean clothes, before we went out to eat.

 We decided to have Chinese food, Tom drove to Mandarin Dragon,  but I told Tom this place was bad per review. Then Tom told me there was another place name China Bay. So we went and we found out the place were not too clean. When the food comes, it was only little portion on the plate. It cost us $29.40 for 3 dishes ( guy lane $7.98, Montone Beef $8.95, Sweet and Sour Pork $7.98….rice is $.70/ea) We both said this place is expensive, how can people afford to eat here. Next we went to Food City (outside to fill up our drinking water $.15/per gallon).  Then we drove back to our trailer.

Tucson Winter Trip - (Day 17) - Fence Contract

1/3/13 (Thursday)

I got up around 9:00 today. Tom having multi-symptoms today, we decided to get some Tylenol for Cold.  I made French toast for breakfast while waiting for the Alex (Biff Baker Fence). After we finish the breakfast we went outside and we saw our neighbor. We walked over and talked to her (name: Alma 78 year old), she seem pretty nice.

 We found out she was working on a nursing home and she live with her son (which was over 50 year old and grandson who was over 30 year old). She bought this mobile home and living here since 1999. At 11:00 Alma told us she had to go to work, so we walked back to our trailer.

 Tom took the tool (wire, pliers, pry bar and the stool) to the end of our fence, because some of the fences were loses. Then we received a phone call from Alex and he was running a little late, he should be here anytime. Alex did not got here until 12:15 p.m., I was so hungry and I started eating my sandwich while Tom was talking to him. Alex using the measure wheel to measure the fence line, we told him what we wanted. He went back to his Gray Hyundai car and wrote up a contract. He came back with the amount approx. $3200. Tom tried to get a better price and told him we were not in hurry to get this fence put in, he can take his time. Alex told Tom that they would like to finish the job within 3 to 4 days, they do not like to wait. He would like us to pay credit card. Tom told him that we could pay him cash or check, if we paid him credit card, the card company will charge you 5% or more for service fee. While we were talking Alex received a phone call form his boss (which he told us his boss is his best friend). He come and told us per his boss if we pay him cash he can cut down the sale tax, we only need to pay $2950.  He wanted us to pay 50% down and paid the other half when the job done. Tom agreed with this amount and we all went to Chase Bank to get the cash.  After he left, then I remembered that we did not give him the lock and chain, so he can lock the gate after they finished the fence.So we had to drive back to out trailer and got all the stuff and went to his company.  Alex showed me the factory warehouse, while we walked around he told me his friend would like to rent our land. I asked him for the name and phone number, he wrote it for me.

 Received pictures of finished fence after we were back home

 It was around 4:00 p.m. Tom wanted to go downtown to City office of Tucson, we thought they closed at 5pm. We were losing our direction on the way to there, because we did not remember the building. We finally found the place and parked our truck on a city street. We went inside and we both needed to use the bathroom very bad. When I came out from the bathroom, Tom was still standing outside the office. He told me the office closed at 4:00 p.m. not 5:00 p.m. While we were driving back to our trailer, Alex called us and reminds us to clean out the cactus. We went back to our trailer and I started my dinner. We have pork chop and New York Steak for dinner. Since Tom was sick we went to bed early.

Tucson Winter Trip - (Day 16) - Staying on our future land

1/2/13 (Wednesday)

We finished the soup from last night for breakfast, and then we went outside and measured the land again to get a better idea.  Tom comes back and drew a autocad drawing of the land to see what we were going to do.

 Tom felt sick, I gave him a Tylenol. We went to Chickenuevo on Valencia Road (their chicken just like Elpollo Loco, but better taste) again for lunch, Tom received phone call from Yetive and letting us know that the bank has accepted our offer. So now we are finally own this land. Tom started calling the fence contractors to help us put fence around our land. Tom called the J & J fence company, but they did not answer the phone. Tom just left them a message, but they did not call us back. Then Tom called Henderson handyman service, he told Tom to call contractor name Biff Baker fence. So Tom called and the guy who name Alex answered the phone. Tom told him we need 300 feet long and 5 feet high with two gates, one for the car and the other for walk in. Alex told Tom to wait for a minute and told Tom would cost $3,654. He will meet us at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow to look at our land. Then we went to Wells Fargo Bank and Chase Bank for money. Next we went to Lowe’s to get 2 steel locks; some wire for repairing the existing fence; a pliers and 5 feet chain to lock our fence. We went to the RV Park and took a shower before we went back to the trailer. Tom still felt sick, so I made him some Chinese tea and then we had soup for dinner.  

Tucson Winter Trip - (Day 15) - Aldon Road

1/1/2013 (Tuesday)

Tom had set his cell phone alarm to 9:30 a.m. to meet with the real estate agent. But we did not got up until 9:45 a.m. At first we want to cook noodle for breakfast, but we did not have time. We re-heat yesterday pizza for breakfast. Tom was in such a hurry, he forgot to wash his face and comb his hair. While we were driving, we received massage from Yetive telling us that the Coldwell Banker building needed paint today. We needed to go to the back door, so Tom parked his truck in the back and walked to the back door. Yetive opened the door then we went inside the office.  She had us sign the change for  some of the terms we requested the bank to work on the land. The bank just found out there was no septic tank; if we want one we need to put one in ourselves.

We left the office and went to Safeway and bought donuts 2 for $1. Like always I eat the donut before we went back to our trailer. We went to Trader Joes’s location on N. Campbell Ave and Limber Lost. But they close for the New Year date, next we tried to visit our tenant Steven, we saw his BMW car park inside the car port. We rang the bell, but no one answered the door. So we left the house and went to Fry’s Food and Dollars Tree on Grant Road. We walked around both stores but did not find anything to buy.
 
 Tom drove from Grant Rd. to Gate Pass Rd. to Tucson Mountain Park.

 

 

 
 Then we used Kinney Rd to go home, but before we went home we saw two other property. One is a land and one is a house.We met an 80 years old guy walked next to the land we were seeing. He said this land was vacant for more than 10 years, no one want to buy it. He told us he wanted to buy this land 20 years ago, and told us the bank was asking too much money from him. We all walked inside the land we find two creeks on the back side of the land. The old man told us there were a lot of nice mobile homes on the Tucson Estate near Donald Rd. We drove by the area and saw a lot of sale sign, most of them in good condition. At the end of Aldon Rd. there was a $10,000 land sold last year. The land have many cactus and no flat land. I don’t like this land. On the way back we saw some fence that were four feet and five feet high. We think the five feet high will be better for us. We also see the gate with the solar power to open the gate, Tom took some pictures. When we came back to our trailer, Tom started measures the land to see if it the same as the county measurement. We measures 234 feet, and the county measures 238 feet on the length. On the width we measures 161 feet, and the county measures 174.81 feet. Which it 13.81 feet difference, which was unknown to us. We lost the use of two sides of our land as road for the neighbors.  After I done help Tom, I went back inside the trailer and started cooking dinner for tonight. We have another cold night; again we need to turn on our heater over night.