We're Still in Cottonwood

It's a beautiful day here in central Arizona.  The nights get chilly, but the days have been sunny and mild.  In my last entry I forgot to mention what happened on the way up here.  We stopped in Quartzsite to get the generator serviced before leaving there.  After getting finished, we hooked the car up for towing and set up the towing brake in the car.  When we stopped at a rest area for a quick break, a man came over to tell us we were dragging something.  On investigation, we discovered that electric cable that connects the car to the RV had come unconnected from the car.  I have no idea how long it had been dragging, but the end piece was completely destroyed!!!!  The day after we got here, we went to French's RV service.  He had a replacement cable, but the end that was to connect to the RV was not the same as we had before.  He could not find the one we needed in any of his catalogs, so I inquired if there was any reason he could not take our connector at the RV end (which was not damaged at all) and connect it to the new cable.  He looked at me as if he felt foolish for not thinking of that himself, but agreed to do so.  It took only a few minutes and he only charged us $5.00 for the labor, plus the cost of the new cable.  YAY!!!  Problem solved.  Jim also discovered  that they carried a tank treatment product we had been looking for, so we purchased that too.  For any RVers who are not completely satisfied with the tank treatment you are using, the name of this product is Tank Tech.  It seems to be working very nicely.
 
This area is really quite spectacular to see, and this sunset is an example of how amazing the high desert is. 

This campground is off AZ 260 about one mile in a rural area.  Imagine our surprise when we found that cows wander around on both sides of this road!  

The land on both sides of the road is BLM land and we have seen many RVs parked in open areas "dry camping" for extended periods of time.  This amazes me since there are many campgrounds that offer all kinds of amenities, for a fee of course, in this area.  


 This is a picture Jim took this morning on the way to the post office.  It's in front of an antique store.  


 
On the way back, we saw this "vehicle" on the road next to us.  It has the word Slingshot on the rear fender.  It has two wheels in front and one in back.  It was quite an unusual sight.  

Last but not least, I will post a picture of the new curtains we got for our dining room.  We are very pleased with them.
They are a light beige with navy blue and white lighthouses  along the bottom.  They give us privacy at night, but we can open them in the daytime, for light and visibility.  


In conclusion, today I need to discuss the experience we had at Staples last week.  Have you heard the term "upsell"?  I had never heard of it until this week while watching Jeopardy.  It was defined as the act of a sales person to manipulate a customer to purchase something more than he or she actually needs.  Obviously, to do this a sales person has to be able to seem kindly and helpful.  This seems to be what happened to me last week at Staples.  I went there to look into the possibility of buying a refurbished computer with Windows 7.  Joe convinced me that I would regret such a purchase.  He lead me to the Dell that I later bought.  He assured me that it would do everything that my old computer does.  I have been disappointed in many ways with this new computer.  I am unable to create the same email format  I had before.  It takes me much longer to download pictures to my blog posts.  They said they had downloaded my email address book.  However, they had put it, not into my email access, but in my documents list.  I tried to get help from the available tech support, which is free for 30 days, in hopes I will pay for it after that.  One person I was dealing with hung up on me, and I had NOT been rude to him in any way.  I called back and spoke to a second person.  He was also not able to resolve any of the problems, but thought he had helped by putting a short cut to my address book on the desk top.  As it was, I could click into the address book and select ONLY one contact to send an email to, and I would NOT be able to ever forward anything someone else sent to me.  On my own later I figured out a better method.  When I said this tech support had not helped much he said to me "well this IS free tech support" so I told him that if he couldn't help me now, I surely would not be inclined to PAY for his help later on.  I am not pleased with the sales or support service from Staples, and I would NOT recommend them to anyone else.

I probably won't be posting another blog from here in Cottonwood, but look forward to writing about our adventures at the Good Sam Super Show in Avondale next week.  Take care, stay warm and dry, and safe.  Best wishes and blessings to all of you.