Sunday August 20th

In the morning I lay in wait for someone to come out the gate, to see if I could get the code to get in. Someone did end up letting me in, though not giving me the code. I had found an email overnight that I’d missed earlier, telling me what site I was in, right at the back of the park, and I drove in and parked there. But once I was in, even the toilets had codes!

I was finally able to get through on the phone to someone thank the Lord, and the person gave me all the codes, and I was able to settle in. It looked as though I may have been the only van there, and it was dwarfed by all the large caravans and mobile homes parked there. I had a shower and cleaned up a bit.

Everything was pretty disorganised in the van, and I spent a lot of time just trying to find things over and over again, dripping with the heat in the meantime. Little by little I did get more organised so I knew where everything was. I’d bought a good supply of instant oatmeal packets, where I could just boil water and add it, and get porridge. They all had flavourings too, one main one was maple syrup, and others had bits of dried fruit in them that rehydrated when the water was added – strawberry, blueberry, peach. They were very nice. A a couple of packets of this in a bowl, and a cup of tea were my breakfast pretty much every day while I was in the van, and it worked well.

To avoid having milk go off, I bought a large supply of UHT milk cartons, each about the size of a fruit box, quite small. I’d decant one into a bottle and put it in the fridge, then use it for about three days, then rinse out the bottle and start with the next one. My supply held out well.

Kierstyn and her husband Jacob picked me up at the RV park, as we weren't sure about restrictions on where the van could park, and we drove to Emma's church (she was the other person in the Zoetic band). It was quite a large church, with a band out the front, and fairly modern. I enjoyed the service and it was a good message.

The pastor opened by saying it seemed a shame to be inside on such a nice day. 36 and humid didn't seem like a nice day to me, but I guess it was great compared to 45! We went back to Kierstyn and Jacob's house, which is also where their studio is, and Kierstyn showed me a pre release of their latest song – it was nice to get an early peek! – and we had a good chat.

Around 1.30 or so we met up with Emma at a local restaurant for lunch. It had water misting continually all along the edge of the roof outside, apparently to make it bearable for people to sit outside!

After we'd finished, the waitress came around with an EFTPOS machine for each of us. I had been a bit nervous about the whole tipping thing, the rules seemed complicated and people could get very offended if you didn’t tip properly. But it wasn't bad with card payments. After you tapped your card, instead of that being the end of it, the person turned it around back to you and you chose a tip, from a range of choices, then gave it back. This worked well at most places. I tried to pay by card when I could, and if the machine asked for a tip then it was expected, but if not, then I didn't need to tip. We parted, and Jacob dropped me back at the RV park.

I the late afternoon I drove up a hill not far away, just past the outskirts of Phoenix, and at 5.30pm had some prayer with the group I do Bible study with over Facebook video chat, while running the engine and keeping the aircon going. It was hot and humid outside, and also inside unless the engine was running for the air conditioning. Usually the studies were on Mondays my time, but it was Sunday afternoon or evening, depending on the time zone, over there. We didn’t do a full Bible study that day, someone suggested just to have prayer, since I’d had such a rough time of it, and was probably tired.

The sun was starting to get low when we finished, and I had a little look around the area where I’d parked, which had some low shrubs and grass, with a few large cacti around. I was treated to a beautiful double rainbow and one of the best sunsets I had the whole time I was there.

Driving back after sunset, there was someone behind me who was weaving back and forth, I wasn’t sure why. But I discovered later that the lights on the van were not set to automatically turn on – there was a setting for that, but it was turned off. I was used to lights going on automatically, and it was a fairly modern van, so I’d kind of assumed that they would just come on. So I had been driving with only the running lights at the front, and probably nothing at the back, so the person behind may have been trying to get my attention!

I went back and cooked some dinner. There was no furniture in my spot, so I set up the portable fold-up table I'd hired, which was a curious contraption with slats, that rolled up to the size of a folded-up chair, and took a little setting up, but it worked ok. I think it was the only time I used it. All the rest of the RV parks and campgrounds had some kind of picnic table setup, or I’d use the rear bumper of the van as a table while sitting in the folding chair, which also worked pretty well.

I'd bought a large number of tinned meals, which provided my dinner most nights, along with some bread and cheese. There was a lot of variety in the tins at Walmart – even clam chowder – so I didn’t get bored with them. They also sold bottles of peanut butter and jelly, which was pretty tasty, and I had that on bread for dessert sometimes.

I had a little trouble getting the gas bottle connected for the stove, it required quite a bit of force to screw on. Whenever I used the stove, I needed to screw in a little gas pipe to the stove, then screw the gas bottle onto that. I’d bought about four or five of the small gas bottles. I wasn’t sure how long they would last, and from what I’d read, I thought I might need more than this, but they lasted surprisingly well, and I used only something like three in the end. I found out that it got easier to screw the bottles on as they got emptier.

The two-burner stove pulled out from the back of the van on a little sliding shelf, which was where I usually used it, but it could also be taken out and put onto a table, which I did now and then when it was more convenient. It had to be done outside though, because of the gasses.

Another hot and humid night followed. I had a powered site, so I was able to get everything charged. There was no way to get power into the van, except passing the cord through a window, so when I was at a powered site I just charged my devices in the morning or evening while I was out of the van. I could charge my phone from one of the 12V sockets in the van while I was driving, so I didn’t really need a powered site, it was just more convenient. I had bought a large container for storing water in if I needed it, and filled that up at the tap in the site. The water was a bit fizzy looking, I guess from mineral content or the warm temperature, but it was good enough for my purposes.

I had some 1L water bottles too, which I kept filled up each morning and night, which got me through each day. I didn’t end up needing the big container except at one campsite where there was no potable water.