Parker- Bullcity

We’ve had a boring day and some exploring days.

In Parker, we set up at the Walmart for most of the Sunday, mainly talking to fellow homeless that seemed very nice. We got a couple of dollars, but some oranges for the kids and smokes for me. So not really a whole lot, but I’m grateful for the road mama I met and the handful of travelers.

Late in the afternoon, the kids and I decided together to head to Bullcity. The sun came out just in time for the drive. We made it up to Mojave junction, somehow missing Needles. We slept in the Walmart lot that night.

After a nice and slow wake up, we headed for the rotary park. I noticed the toilet was leaking heavy, grateful for the absorbent mat catching it all and then being fairly “easy” to rinse, after emptying the toilet. As soon as we pulled up and I had the toilet pulled out, this lovely lady with two young boys and a baby on her hips, blonde hair and dark sunglasses, came up and was pretty excited about the bus and our lifestyle! She donated basically on the spot and was then shy to come look. It lifts the spirit when someone is supportive of your lifestyle, regardless if it’s in person or online or however…

Well, I did everything I could for the toilet and the rug while the boys played on the park. Before I was close to done, Atreyu started hounding me to go to the skatepark. He NEEDED his strider bike down, which ended up not really being used for very long. They ran around so hard for a good long time and only came out when I beckoned them with beach time. Boom. Bikes up, and down we went to the water. We wrote in the sand and skipped rocks on the water.

Next was laundry time, just a mile up the road; A laundromat in a very downtrodden neighborhood. First I though I should maybe go to another, but then I thought about washing the rinsed mat here, and I felt alot better. The boys had me plug in the DVD player and sit in the laundromat, they could’ve just as easily sat in the bus, but I didn’t get to make that decision. The laundry process itself was very smooth but depleted my quarter stash to bare bones. Super grateful for the lady in Havasu that donated a handful of quarters from her laundry fund to mine. There were a couple sketchy looking people coming in, note to anyone interested, when planning heavy drug use, light make up instead of heavy helps to not look so frenzied and distraught….?

Clean and folded, we headed for the library. That building is huge and fancy compared to the also wonderful Havasu library. We had limited time there with most of the day gone, but the kids enjoyed the books we read and then playing the games they long to play so much. It didn’t take them very long to get bored with it though, astoundingly and they pulled apart the puzzle section, too. Galixy tried to make me read so many more books at departure time.

We stayed in the Walmart parking lot again and got a handful of dollars into our mailbox! Simple dinners, a movie and a strong reading session and two very tired kids made sleep easy.

Today, we woke fairly early. I had looked up the museum of the city and we headed for it when it was supposed to open. It was lucky that it was surrounded by the city park, because the museum was closed for renovations and additions. So we just played a good while.

Right as we were trying to leave, Joy and her Art car Lucky Joy Ride pulled up. She’s from Oregon and has planned on relocating to Arizona. She’s had some health issues especially coming down from the cold, but even her pneumonia is starting to clear up. She also runs her car on donations and crochets hats.

We headed for the Laughlin Labyrinth. A place in the desert off the road, someone has set up stone mazes to walk. It’s really a super area. The kids enjoyed going around and around or just watching me walk it.

After playing there in some sand we cruised by the colorado belle casino. It’s kinda silly, and even has a moat, but we didn’t go in because kids are generally not welcome in Casinos and some people look at us funny just walking around and going to the river front.

So we headed to Safeway back in Bullcity, those two are really only separarted by the river and the imaginary stateline of nevada and Arizona. That spot didn’t yield anything and we headed to Del Taco after a very small and quick shop.

The kids played awesomely and ate fairly ok at Del Taco, but Galixy peed his pants, so we had to leave. The guy on the table next to me gave us a gift card to Del Taco! Atreyu listened very well even when I said things that he didn’t like. Chikkie escaped out of the bus, just as we got back and took 15 minutes to return. By which time I’d decided we’d go stay at the Lowes just up a block,on a direct path to get to Oatman tomorrow. Maybe I’ll be able to be more accessible for donations tomorrow morning before heading there.

The kids movie just ended. It’s 7:30, and it’s time to brush teeth and read books. After the kids go to bed, I’ll make time to add pictures to this and then write a Di-inspired thing that I probably should’ve worked on multiple times over in the last three years. Or maybe I’ll get to it tomorrow…

Anyway. loving you! Stay grateful.