Friday, January 13, 2012

Wickenburg, Arizona

Of all places. We weren't planning to stop quite this soon (we've been here for three or four hours now), but my glasses disintegrated this afternoon, so we decided to look for a One Hour Two For One Optician -- no luck there. Meanwhile, R spotted a Ford dealer, and he's been wanting to get an oil change, so we stopped in there, but they don't have an appointment available until next Wednesday, and we have no intention of staying that long. And -- we noticed earlier today that when we ran the water pump, it kept pumping after we had turned the water off. Were we out of water? Surely not. R figured out that the little valve at the point where we connect the water hose to the RV to fill up the tank had broken, so every time we turned on the water pump, we were spurting water out the side of the RV. We stopped at an RV parts/repair place somewhere along the line, but they didn't have a part for us.  Oh, and we stopped at a place that sold propane, to fill up that tank, but they didn't have any propane.

However, ACE Hardware in Wickenburg had a cunning little device that R has attached to the input/output thingy, so now we don't spurt water anymore. Cool.

We have had our dinner, and the dishes are cleaned up, and I've spent the last eight hours --- okay, it just seems like eight hours --- fighting with R's computer, which has picked up a virus so bad that he can't do anything at all. Windows said the virus was in his Avast anti-virus programme, so I uninstalled and reinstalled Avast, but now Vista won't let me do anything at all (including run Avast) except buy the damned programme that Vista wants to sell me (him). I've told R to take the computer to a geek in Austin and have Windows uninstalled and reinstalled. Maybe they can sell him something besides Vista, which I swear is the spawn of Satan.

And that is how we came to be sitting in an overflow spot at the Horspitality RV Resort and Boarding Stable in Wickenburg, Arizona. (And yes, that's how it's spelled. Horspitality.) The lady at the desk warned us that we should be careful if we went for a walk after dark down in the dog walking area. "Dog poop?" I asked. She was a little offended. No, there shouldn't be any of that. People are supposed to clean up after their dogs. "Pigs," she said. "There are some pigs that wander through here."  Okay. Fine. No walk tonight.

p.s.  I forgot to mention the highlight of today's trip (Yes, there was a highlight!). I was sleepy, so I lay down for a nap while R drove. The landscape was pretty naked, not particularly photogenic. But when I woke up, we were in the middle of a Joshua forest. I felt like Dorothy!

6 comments:

Dominic Rivron said...

It was Friday 13th after all - the same day I went to teach in a school which hands out visitor badges. I got "Visitor 13". Fortunately I had no unfortunate experiences.

I did sit on and thought I'd broken my glasses. Fortunately they bent back into shape without snapping. Wandering around with lenses cobbled together with elastoplast, etc, is a pain.

And I once had a one day long nightmare sat in front of my computer trying to remove antivirus software. Some seem almost impossible to remove properly.

Linda said...

Perhaps they will sell R a Windows 7 and then he can get rid of the Spawn of Satan - Vista.

I've not heard anything good about Vista and a whole lot of bad from our programmers and from our customers. My Aunt has had nothing but trouble with it as well.

Arizona is certainly a different sort of place. While we enjoyed Monument Valley, there were some pretty unlovely looking spots around.

Good Luck with getting your glass replaced!

Rachel Fox said...

M's catchphrase for a good while was "have i told you that vista is crap?" nothing good to be said about it. and of course it's odd that a lot of your trip is, i'm sure, about the other kind of vista...

x

Sandra Leigh said...

Good morning, Dominic. Yes, I guess that for once Friday the 13th lived up to its reputation. It doesn't, usually.

Linda and Rachel, I think Windows 7 is the ticket -- or maybe cut to the chase and put Linux in. Or both.

Re the glasses: I'm functioning with my emergency glasses, which are reading glasses only, but I'll get some proper new ones as soon as I can. The distance portion of my progressives isn't all that strong - mostly for comfort -- but I know I'm going to miss the Transition lenses in this bright sunlight.

RLM Cooper said...

Lordy! When it rains, it pours!

Unknown said...

Wickenburg sounds like quite the happening spot! I've heard nothing good about Vista--sorry, that sounds really frustrating.

Blog Archive