At the Casino, Winterhaven, CA

Here we are in the parking lot of casino of the Quechen Indians, on the edge of Yuma. Sandy told me this afternoon that we're no longer “boondocking it”, we're “dry camping” per one of her newsletters. Boondocking is when you're out in the wilds, dry camping is when we're in the parking lot of some location!.

There are two casinos here in the Yuma area, both on tribal lands. We stopped at the first one coming in this morning just to see what it was like. It is very nice, but the gravel lot for RV use is sloped, currently 50 rigs parked. We had lunch there and then came on into this casino. Tonight there are 80 rigs parked in their RV parking lot!

After we settled in and had a break, we went out for some serious shopping at SAM's club, about 2 miles away. Our trusty Garmin GPS tried to lose us by taking us to an old SAM's location. But I remembered enough about the online map so we drove along the main highway and found it.

What we were especially looking for was a modern LCD TV that works on 12 volts. Okay, they had two models, one 19 inches and one 23 inches. The 23 inch model is just a shade too small for the size of the opening where our current TV is. The problem is that the current TV still works, it just uses too much power to have on too much at night. Tonight we measured and it is consuming 120 watts, while the new LCD TV only uses about 40 watts. But I hate to spend money when I don't have to. If we buy the 23 inch unit, it will be the final TV, just a trifle small. We'll probably complain, but never spend the dollars to get a slightly bigger one. And if we buy the 19 inch unit, it also would. probably end up being our final unit. Again, I'd probably complain, but again too tight to ever replace it!

Our other item we wanted was a wireless backup tv system. (The old one in the motorhome died.) They didn't have any of the specific type we wanted, so we passed on that opportunity also. (Tonight back at the rig, online, we found the one we want via ebay and will order it tomorrow when we can figure out how UPS can find us in 10 days.)

So in the end, we came home without either, deciding to measure the opening again and think about it some more. (I just hate spending money on non-essentials!) Supposedly, we'll go spend our money in the morning. Do we buy the small one with the idea that we'll get a larger one sometime, or do we get the larger one and hope that someday we can get it integrated into the spot where the current TV is. Decisions, decisions.

Gene