Life At Rancho Acosta

We have slipped into stillness and that means nothing much happens at Rancho Acosta from day to day. We get up late and listen to the ranch hands doing their chores, gathering hay bales, moving hoses, servicing the water pumps. 

The ranch is a dust bowl and every day I look skywards to see what the prospects are. A few wispy clouds have put in an appearance over the inland hills, the promise of the beginning of the rainy season. The owner of the place told us, and he speaks fluent English as needed, it’s been a drought situation for the past twenty years. Normal rainfall amounts are good for that year’s needs  but enough water never falls to restore reservoir levels of decades ago. He looked mournful and told us it’s the new normal, “no matter the cause of climate change…” the old water levels aren’t coming back. 

It’s dusty and dry as we wait for rain. Most days the afternoon high is over 100 degrees and we have GANNET2 buttoned up, with the window shades in place and the 15 amp shore power plug connected to the van. It’s a cool cave inside and it’s lucky we like our 70 square foot space as we don’t find it claustrophobic. 

Overnight it cools down to seventy degrees so mornings are very pleasant sitting out on our cement pad listening to the mourning doves while we drink caffeine (Yorkshire Gold tea for me and coffee for Layne).

The mornings we spend with the doors open and I start the active part of the day taking the time to walk Rusty. He gets out of the van as soon as one of us wakes to the sound of his insistent yawns and as soon as we slide the side door open he goes out and checks the scene. I follow as soon as I am properly awake. Layne makes hot drinks and gets the morning exercise video ready. 

If the water is on we can take showers but the bathroom block doesn’t have a water tank so on alternating days the water is off to help stretch the drought situation. Most people have storage tanks on their roof so the municipal water being turned off hurts the very poor. Some days Layne cooks in the cool of the morning. 

We’ve had good luck ordering food by delivery (Spanish required!) including an excellent Mexican pizza with refried beans(!) that gave it an oddly pleasant creamy consistency. 

We got some really good bacon cheeseburgers delivered. Sometimes a taste of home is pleasant and watching a downloaded movie while eating a burger in air conditioning takes you off the road quite nicely for an evening. Then we had classic Mexican fish, Layne’s was grilled and mine was fried. 

I have to remind myself we’ve been here more than a week already and thus are quite domesticated. Indeed we’ve never stopped this long in one place. We have plenty of time before our absolute last permitted date in Mexico, June 27th but this pause is a chance to rest. We’ve driven ten thousand miles or more this winter and when we get back to the US we are going to be on the road going places. Here we pay $15 a night and have all facilities and all to ourselves. It’s a privileged spot to rest and enjoy reminiscing about all we have seen this winter. 

After lunch when the day heats up we retreat to “our” shaded loungers by the pool with earbuds  where the WiFi signal lets us listen to music or watch videos between dips. The van is buttoned up after lunch with the rooftop a/c keeping the interior bearable for when we return. I also scored a major victory on the shore power front when I fixed a battery overcharging problem.  

I discovered after much thought and consulting with my engineer friend Bruce in his RV in Arizona that the float setting of the battery charger was set too high. Lithium batteries don’t use the float setting so before I reduced it the shore power was driving the voltage too high for the batteries and shutting down the 110 volt system.

Our shore power plug doesn’t operate anything, it simply uses the 110 volts to charge the 600 amp battery bank. The inverter runs the 110 volt appliances and the 12 volt system inside the van.  Repair work underway in Florida: 

The new electrician at Custom Coach in  DeLand added a muffin fan and moved the 3000 watt inverter for improved ventilation when we were in Florida but the overcharging glitch remained after a few hours plugged in. I’m rather proud of my  self for figuring out the problem and changing the settings by  myself (with Bruce cheering me on) and reducing charging pressure on the batteries. So now we can plug in anytime we need to stop for more than one night in any overly hot place. For one night we can run the air off the batteries but then we have to drive to recharge them as the solar panels can’t keep up with the power draw of overnight air  conditioning. 

As you can see it’s not exciting stuff living in a campground. Two hours this morning bring a house cleaner vacuuming, sweeping and scrubbing the floor with a water and vinegar mixture. I brushed Rusty as he enjoyed getting his rug thinned out in this heat. I gave him and the campground dog a cookie and as it’s a water day I took a cold shower. It’s just too hot to use the hot water…

Last weekend a group of youngsters showed up and we shared an evening in the pool talking about Mexico their lives in distant Tepic and our travels. While there a young man showed up to meet his cousin from out of town. Imagine our surprise when we knew him! 

On our January visit young Nestor saw us lost in his city and showed us the way to the park above the city where we took Rusty for a walk. And here he was at the pool after he spent a very hot day showing his cousin and her friends around the hills on quad bikes. It was a bit odd being in Álamos and knowing someone…a small world. 

No doubt this weekend we don’t be alone at Rancho Acosta and as treaty one Suburban with four youngsters onboard have arrived at the hotel and doubtless there will be more. 

Layne has met them already and says they are very nice. I’m sure she’s right but really, what a disgraceful intrusion on our privacy! We will soldier on of course and plan to leave on Tuesday so we have a few more days to mooch around the place. Some swimming some reading some chores and early to bed for a solid eight hours.  A tropical storm toying with the Keys, a hundred days of war in Ukraine and Covid persisting across the United States.  Boring Rancho Acosta seems a very nice place right now.  

Soon we will have to move, back to familiar places but the exploration phase of this journey is done. Sitting still is actually quite pleasant when you have some accomplishments to look back on.